An Eclipse of Princes

When Britain's Prince Philip and his daughter. Princess Anne, 12, clambered out of their raspberry-pink royal plane at Frankfurt last week, there were no top hatted officials to welcome them or respectful crowds cheering "Es lebe hock!" After greeting their waiting cousins, Prince Ludwig and Princess Margaret von Hessen, Philip and Anne got quickly into the rakish Alvis sports coupe, which had been flown ahead of the royal party from London. Then they headed down the Autobahn to Darmstadt, where they stayed at the Von null palatial 18th century Schloss Wolfsgarten.

The British visitors' four-day stay made little stir in West Germany as a whole, but their presence worked like champagne on the aristocracy's battered morale. In a society where most bluebloods feel that they are displaced personages (there hasn't been a Kaiser since 1918), the Romantik of a royal visit is rare indeed.

Thanks to the nation's miraculous eco nomic boom. West Germans today are more concerned with paychecks than with princely comings and goings. But the country's economic and social transformation has failed notably to produce a unified, national Fuhrungsschicht (leadership layer) in place of the old aristocratic ruling caste. The result is a confused and confusing society in which, says Sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, there is not one class of Prominenz but "a multitude of competing groups." The "pyramids of power" include the church, the military, local government and such venerable universities as Tubingen, Gottingen and Heidelberg, where a Herr Professor commands undiminished respect from the community at large.

Salon from Ford? By far the most powerful--and conspicuous--elite in present-day Germany is, of course, the Geld-aristokratie, the new industrial plutocracy whose yellow Mercedeses and Chris-Craft cruisers have largely replaced the Iron Cross and the dueling scar as status symbols. The new upper crust is personified by such tycoons as Rudolf August Oetker, who parlayed a baking powder business into a 100-company empire; Hans Giinther Sohl, who as boss of Thyssen since war's end has turned a family ironworks into West Germany's biggest steelmaker; and Munich's Rudolf Miinemann, one of the nation's biggest and boldest financiers. Yet, for all its wealth, says Sociologist Dahrendorf, the Geldaristokratie "is searching above itself in the social hierarchy for its behavioral standards. But the space above it is empty." This, he suggests, accounts for the joyless, frantic materialism that characterizes much of postwar German life--"the medieval choir stall in the dining room, the conspicuous consumption, the complete lack of taste in art and literature." Complains one sophisticated young princess: "If the Ford Foundation really wants to do something for Germany, it should endow a salon in Bonn. Just a little salon. The old society is dead now."

Vons in Volkswagens. Like the last great auks waddling across the tundra, a few ancient families still survive in the feudal splendor they enjoyed when Germany was a patchwork of petty principalities. In Franconia, convivial Count Franz Erbach presides over three family castles (one is kept for hunting parties); at dinner, his liveried chief huntsman stations himself behind the count's chair to summon a footman whenever his mas ter's wineglass is empty. Prince Emich zu Leiningen, 36, whose escutcheon is at least 880 years old, is a globe-trotting big-game hunter who honed his marksmanship as a youth by taking potshots at family portraits in his handsome baroque palace at Amorbach.

Many old Bavarian families stubbornly resisted the Nazis and were singled out for persecution by Hitler; after the war, they were able to reclaim their confiscated holdings intact, and ever since have managed to keep the boar from the door with conspicuous success. One of their liveliest members is handsome Prince "Alfie" Auersperg, who was down to his last Schloss a few years ago; today he boasts a priceless collection of French paintings and a U.S. heiress for a wife. Because the Bavarian aristocrats have traditionally been less exclusive than Prussia's patricians, Munich today is one city in which the rival elites come together. Munich's jet set, composed of the nouveau riche and the ancient upper crust, shuttles between St. Moritz and Egypt's resort of Helwan. Its reigning beauty is the statuesque blonde daughter of Banker Miine-mann, "Antschi," who hurtles around town in an eggshell-colored Ferrari; however, many families with "von" in their names still prefer to drive Volkswagens. "Everything," sighs a jet-set princess, "is so mixed up these days."

Top Ten Thousand. Scores of young bluebloods have gone to work--and often belie the aristocracy's traditional reputation for stupidity. The boards of big industrial companies are liberally studded with noble names. The names are particularly in demand as public relations men. "I do like snobs," exclaims one princely P.R. man. "They are all so kind to one!" Two of West Germany's ablest journalists are titled: Countess Marion Donhoff, political editor of Hamburg's weekly Die Zeit, and Count Hans Werner Finck von Finckenstein, a correspondent for Die Welt. Says one corporate count: "All you need to get ahead in industry is reasonably good looks, self-assurance and organizational talent. This the nobility had, and now the young ones are all fat people in their firms."

Germany's nobility was largely to blame for its own decline. Holding themselves aloof from politics, business and the intellectual world, Dieoberen Zehntausend (the Top Ten Thousand), as Bismarck called the elite, devoted their lives either to hunting or to the army; when Hindenburg joined the cadet corps in 1859, 2,000 of 2,900 Prussian officers were of noble birth. However, in its emphasis on a "citizens' army," West Germany's government has even closed off this time-honored avenue for "aristocratic service."

As far back as 1826, the year that Cannon King Friedrich Krupp died, Goethe bewailed a new "century of able men," protesting: "It is riches and speed that the world admires and strives for." The first Krupp and the other new tycoons were essential to the Kaisers' dreams of empire; the aristocratic clans that accepted them won new wealth and a new lease on life. Finally decimated by two world wars, denigrated by Hitler's Funk-tiondrsgesellschaft (society of functionaries), their eclipse was sealed by the postwar partition of Germany. Worst hit of all were the wealthy Junkers, the Brahmins of Teutonic society, who lost their vast tracts of land in the eastern territories and in most cases came to West Germany as penniless refugees.

Company Cousins. Even today many older aristocrats regard a business career as not quite salonfdhig (socially desirable). At a dinner party in Bonn last week, a bespectacled count drew sympathetic clucks when he declared: "All my young cousins are in industry now. Incredible!" Another aristocrat harrumphed recently: "The great problem in Germany today is that there are no gentlemen in the government." It is to West Germany's credit nonetheless that nowadays talents are apt to count far more than titles. "How do you get ahead today?" asks a grey-templed industrialist. "It's easy--proficiency and elbows."

This new, assertive sense of self-confidence has penetrated to every level of German society. Instead of accepting the old class divisions as preordained, says Sociologist Helmut Schelsky, German workers today believe almost religiously in the slogan: "Ich kann das auch werden [I can get to be what he is]." Thus, despite the laments of the aristocracy, argues Schelsky, the end of the old order may prove to be a blessing after all. "If you want democracy," says he, "you can't complain about the leveling and atomization of society. I'm pretty optimistic about the future."

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