When Queen Victoria's second son Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh visited Australia in 1867 as the captain of HMS Galatea, he carried a Letter of Introduction to German immigrants Louis Dettmann and his wife Agnes (nee Kroll), then living in Sydney. Originally from Berlin, the Dettmanns had been married in London in December 1848 and left for Australia 10 days later, arriving in Sydney in 1849. Louis Dettmann had become a naturalised British citizen in 1860. The Letter of Introduction had been written by Wilhelm I, King of Prussia (later Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany), whose son Frederick was married to Alfred's sister, Princess Victoria of Great Britain. It seems remarkable that a Royal Prince should carry a Letter of Introduction to the Steward of the NSW Parliament (as Louis Dettmann then was) as Letters of Introduction in those days carried stringent social obligations and were usually carried between person of similar social standing.
Prince Alfred met the Dettmann family in Sydney and formed a firm friendship with their eldest son Louis Dettmann. Although Louis was only 17 years old Alfred was only 23, so there wasn't that much difference in their ages. The Dettmanns had been planning to send young Louis back to Berlin, to be taught the rudiments of the restaurant trade by his Kroll relatives, and Prince Alfred offered to help. He appointed young Louis an Honorary Aide-de-Camp and gave him passage back to Europe on the Galatea.
The possible explanation for Prince Alfred's actions is that Agnes Kroll was the illegitimate daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm I, or Prinz Wilhelm of Prussia as he was at her birth, and that she had been given into the care of Josef Kroll and his wife as a foster child to raise as Kroll's own daughter. If this was true, Prince Alfred's brother-in-law, Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, would have been the half-brother of Agnes Kroll, Mrs Dettmann, and that could explain the Emperor's Letter of Introduction, and Alfred's friendship with young Louis Dettmann.
Agnes's daughter Jane Dettmann (1866-1953) maintained throughout her life that her mother was a Princess, daughter of the Emperor, and the claim was investigated in 2008 in an Australian episode of the TV program "Who Do You Think You Are?" featuring Australian-born international rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, QC, who is Jane Dettmann's great grandson.
The results were suggestive, but not conclusive. There is no doubt that Agnes was raised as the daughter of Joseph Kroll, owner and operator of the Kroll Etablissement in Berlin, better known as the Kroll Oper, or Kroll Opera House, and that her husband Louis Dettmann had been pastry chef at the Kroll Etablissement. However no records could be found of Agnes Kroll's birth, her father Joseph Kroll's marriage or the identity of his wife (although he is known to have had 5 children, and his wife and children were mentioned in newspaper reports of the day in Berlin) nor is there a record of his will or of his wife's death. The only evidence that researchers could find in the Berlin Archives were the record of his death, and marriage records for two of his daughters, plus a letter written by Prinz Wilhelm to his brother King Frederick Wilhelm IV, requesting that the King should grant favours to Joseph Kroll. The King apparently accceded to this request, as he granted a piece of prime Berlin real estate on the Koenigsplatz to Joseph Kroll in 1841, on which Joseph proceeded to build the Kroll Opera House. Geoffrey Robertson's conclusion was "Whited Out. Joseph Kroll's wife was whited out of the records. They didn't want any of this revealed."
This is a brief resume of an extraordinary story. I would be interested to know if there's anyone out there who can throw light on the matter.
