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No castle for kaiser’s family

BERLIN (AP) — A descendant of the last German kaiser has lost a court bid for the return of a castle overlooking the Rhine valley, part of which has been turned into a hotel.

Rheinfels Castle, high above the Rhine and once a property of the Hohenzollern family, has been owned by the town of St. Goar since 1924. A condition set at the time was that the town not sell the castle, failing which the crown estate reserved the right to revoke St. Goar’s ownership.

Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia, the great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, argued that a 1998 agreement under which St. Goar granted the hotel next to the ruins a 99-year leasehold amounted to a sale. But the Koblenz state court today rejected his case for the site’s return.

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