Pod Insights Hot History Where’d the money go? About this episode Hello guys! Today we're talking about what exactly happened to the 'stuff' of queens, emperors, dictators and criminals after it all comes crushing down!
From Marie Antoinette's jewels to the Romanov family's Faberge Eggs and the Kaiser's palaces and art post exile, we look at what happened to the collections of these royal dynasty's when it all comes crashing down!
PLUS we're looking at Hitlers personal will and the royalties from his book, before ending with the fate of Jeffrey Epstein's million dollar property portfolio!
If you're wanting more Hot History content you can follow along on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hothistoryclub/?hl=en, TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@hot.history?lang=en and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@hot.history and of course, right here!
Til next week, Ainslie x
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0:44 Speaker 01 Hi guys and welcome back to Hot History, the podcast covering all the things in history that you probably should know, but don't. I'm Ainslie Harvey, your hot historian, ready to cover a super exciting topic for today, guys, because we are looking at what happens when it all comes crashing down. And I don't mean regime change or like the drawing of lines on a map. I mean what happens to stuff, assets, vehicles and cash after dynasties, empires and industry titans fall. So, we're gonna have a couple of time jumps today, starting back in 1789, looking at
1:27 Speaker 01 what happened to Marie Antoinette's personal items and Versailles itself during the French Revolution. From there, we will jump up to the Russian Revolution, looking at what happened to the Romanoff family's fortune, including their Faberge eggs and the mystery of the Swiss bank account. We'll then switch from Russia to Germany at the end of World War I, looking at what happened to the German Kaiser and his family during exile. Then we will go from World War I to World War II, looking at Adolf Hitler's estate, primarily his heirs and the royalties earned from Mie and Kampf. And finally, up to 2019, where we'll chat about the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, from
2:10 Speaker 01 houses to trusts and everything in between. So guys, it is a jam-packed episode and I can't wait to dive in. So let's get straight into it, rewinding it all the way back to October 6th, 1789, to the Palace of Versailles.
2:28 Speaker 01 So just to set the scene for you guys here, France is in chaos. The revolution had already begun with the Bastille falling in July. Bread prices were sky high after poor harvests, Paris was starving. And all the while, the king Louis XVI and his court was sitting comfortably at Versailles, about 20 kilometres outside of Paris. Now, to Parisians, and let's be real, even still to us today, Versailles symbolised everything wrong with the old regime. It was a place of luxury and indifference. And when the bread prices spiked to their highest point in early October,
3:09 Speaker 01 the women of the Paris markets, the people who like actually had to go and purchase and buy the bread, were fed up. So they decide to do something about it.
3:23 Speaker 01 So around 8 to 10,000 people, mainly women like I said, but also some National Guardsmen, marched the 20 kilometres through the rain to their king at Versailles to make their demands. Now, when they arrive, they surround the palace, trapping the royal family inside. And a select few delegates are picked to enter the palace and go to speak to the king. And he actually does agree to a number of reforms which on paper sound fucking amazing, but ultimately, no one trusted him. So they demanded that he return to Paris with them to see these promises fulfilled. He, of course, refuses.
4:08 Speaker 01 And so the crowd remained cold, hungry and angry. And just before dawn, chaos erupted. So a group of protesters found an unguarded entrance and forced their way into the palace. They were killing royal guardsmen along the way, putting their heads on spikes, before making their way directly towards the queen's apartments. Now guys, while the king was their object for reform and lawmaking, the queen was the source of their fury.
4:41 Speaker 01 And so the mob passed through the glistening halls down to her bedroom with the noise stirring Marie Antoinette, who only managed to escape by a connecting door to the king's chambers. Unguarded, in her nightdress, she was seconds away from facing this angry mob entirely alone. So, running through the king's apartments into the safety of the royal guards, Marie, Louis and their children eventually appeared on a balcony before the angry mob, before anyone could reach them inside. First, the king came out, then the queen, and there genuinely was a moment where it
5:19 Speaker 01 seemed like Marie Antoinette would be shot right there in front of her husband and children. However, surprisingly, cries of vive la reine began, or live long, the monarchy. The immediate violence cooled after this, but the message was incredibly clear. You were coming with us. And so Marie, Louis and their children were taken to Paris, where they were held under house arrest, tried to escape, held under guard again, this time in various prisons, before being tried and publicly executed for treason by the new republican government via the guillotine. Louis was first. Marie, the object of their fury and the symbol of aristocratic opulence, was reduced
6:04 Speaker 01 to a common prisoner next. She was dragged before the people of Paris with her now grey hair shaven in a simple cloth dress, the guillotine awaiting, and her head eventually paraded around for the crowd who were there. But what happened to her body and her possessions after this? So fine and decadent they were thought to be, right? Madame Deficit, like we covered in our last, last episode. Well, as for her body, it was thrown into a simple coffin, covered with quick lime to speed decomposition and ultimately buried in an unmarked grave. But not before one woman immortalised her face forever.
6:49 Speaker 01 Madame Tussaud.
6:52 Speaker 01 Now, she was born Marie Groscholz and she was a young Swiss woman trained in wax modelling, who was invited to Versailles years earlier to teach her skills to Madame Elizabeth the King's sister. So, not a woman of aristocratic birth, not a woman of, you know, fame or fortune, and very, very humble upbringings, but at this point in time, when the revolution broke out, her proximity to the royal court was incredibly dangerous and she was actually imprisoned and only saved because of her talents in making these death masks. Basically, a wax mould used of the dead person's face, taken in the first few hours post-mortem.
7:33 Speaker 01 So she's released to make death masks of enemies of the revolution, including Marie Antoinette. Now, she is said to have obtained the head of the Queen at the cemetery, where she made the mould quickly before the grave diggers closed the coffin. And we actually still have that mask today. I'll put some pics up on the socials for you guys. But Marie Antoinette's death mask was the crown jewel of Madame Tussaud, who opened her Waxworks museum in London after the revolution.
8:02 Speaker 01 So Marie's body is thrown in an unmarked grave with her head, and later exhumed by Louis XVI's younger brother, who became King Louis XVII after Napoleon's defeat. So you have the French Revolution, the, um, the government, you then have Napoleon as emperor. He's defeated, King Louis XVII then follows. And he arranged for his brother and sister-in-law's remains to be buried with full royal honours at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, the traditional burial site for French kings and queens. They remain there today. You can go and see them. But the big question, what happened to Marie's stuff, right? She's like the OG material girl. We spoke all about it in last week's episode. Well, when the royal family was forced to Paris by the Women's March in October 1789.
8:48 Speaker 01 No one had time to pack their bags. With most of the court and their attendants cleared out, Marie wasn't packing trunks of gowns and shoes. She had the clothes on her back in a small trunk filled with a variety of both her and her children's clothes, which meant that most of her wardrobe and pretty much all of her furniture remained at Versailles, which thankfully, and unlike so many other palaces and buildings of fallen regimes, was not destroyed. In the days after the king and queen left, so too did guards, chefs and attendants.
9:27 Speaker 01 And the once vast bustling palace of the French court was silent and almost entirely abandoned. It's pretty insane to think, like, if you've been to Versailles, you've stood in the Hall of Mirrors with the thousands of other people who go every single day to imagine it totally empty. And not just empty, guys. The Palace of Versailles was being used for storage. Yeah, the great palace, built by Louis XIV, the son king, host to Benjamin Franklin, Mozart, Peter the Great and the epicentre of aristocratic life, was now a glorified storage container.
10:13 Speaker 01 And it stayed that way for about three years until 1792, when the monarchy was officially abolished. And when this happened, the great stripping began, where everything was either inventoried, confiscated, stored, or in the vast majority of cases, sold off for cash, with nearly every single piece removed in a series of vast auctions and private sales. Whether it was to private collectors, foreign royalty or wealthy individuals, furniture, beds, clocks, chandeliers and even door fittings were pulled out and sold off. I actually have a set of doorknobs, not from Versailles,
10:56 Speaker 01 but from a chateau that was raided during the French Revolution. It belonged to this aristocratic family. I bought it in the Paris flea markets. I'm yet to put it on. I feel like I need my own, like, chateau to do it, but, right, everything's cluttered during this period, including the personal effects of Marie Antoinette. So, that vast wardrobe that I said she left behind was either sold, or far more likely, actually repurposed. You see, her silk gowns were incredible. They came from all over the world and they were cut apart and sold for materials, while her furniture was sold, again, like I said, to foreign courts or wealthy individuals. This included her hideaway at Versailles, the Petit Trionon, and her faux rural village, the Queen's Hamlet, which were also gutted and
11:41 Speaker 01 sold off. Now, we do still have some of her furniture, but we have very few pieces of her actual wardrobe, some of which, guys, if you're in the UK, UK listeners, is on display in the V and A Museum. If you haven't been to that exhibition, go and see it. It is meant to be fucking incredible. Of those items that are surviving, we have a silk shoe belonging to Marie Antoinette, undergarments and a chemise. We have fragments of a court dress, not a full one, and several of her gloves. The rest, liquidate for cash. As for Versailles, post the great stripping, again, like I said, it was used for storage, and largely the only reason it is intact
12:24 Speaker 01 today, thank God, is because it was just too big and too expensive to pull apart and try to sell for pieces. So it really just became this extra set of buildings, right? Used for all matter of administrative reasons, including government office space initially, then became military quarters, um, it was transformed into the Museum of the History of France, and in the modern era today, well, not today, but in the last kind of 200 years, it's been widely used for military purposes. Firstly, it was the place where the German Empire was proclaimed after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian Wars in 1871. Then, of course, we have the Treaty of
13:06 Speaker 01 Versailles in 1919 after the end of World War I, breaking up that German Empire. And then it was held again under Nazi occupation in World War II, where German soldiers would repeatedly urinate in the corner where the armistice was signed. Of course, now, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with majority of the original furniture or very good replicas, returned to the palace, placing it back in the period of Marie Antoinette and her husband.
13:36 Speaker 01 But the big sexy question, right? The one thing that if you asked anyone on earth, what item of Marie Antoinette's you would want to have? It's her jewels. So what the fuck happened to them? Well firstly, there are two different types of jewels where Marie Antoinette, and most royal families to be honest, are concerned. The first is the French Crown Jewels, which are state property. And the second is Marie Antoinette's personal jewelry, her private collection. So starting with the Crown Jewels. They were actually stolen in a crazy heist in seventeen ninety-two. So after the King and Queen left Versailles, the Crown Jewels were taken to Gare de Melb in Paris.
14:20 Speaker 01 They included everything from huge diamonds and sapphires and rubies to crowns and all matter of historic regalia. Pieces, which vanished overnight after the monarchy's abolition. It remains to this day the biggest jewel heist in European history and eerily similar to that of the twenty twenty-five Louvre heist, which was like the new French Crown Jewels, because these ones were stolen.
14:50 Speaker 01 But what about Marie's personal jewelry collection? They also had a pretty daring escape. So in seventeen ninety-one, the year before the abolition of the monarchy, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI began to sense real danger. And as such, they hatch a plan for escape. To prepare for this, Marie Antoinette quietly packed her private jewels into a wooden chest, including everything from diamond earrings to multi-strand pearl necklaces and her very famous pearl and diamond pendant. Understanding rightfully so, that this would pay their way
15:33 Speaker 01 in a world outside of France post-revolution. So she elected not to travel with the chest during their escape, instead entrusting it to a loyal ally who transported it on her behalf to Brussels, a part of the Austrian Empire at the time. Again, Marie Antoinette was Austrian.
15:52 Speaker 01 And the timing matters here because the chest went off months before their failed escape, in which the royal family are captured, were back to Paris, imprisoned, and the monarchy abolished the following year. So her jewels, long gone and in Austrian custody before her execution in seventeen ninety-three. So what happened to them? Well, her only surviving child, the seventeen-year-old Marie-Thérèse, aka Madame Royal, was eventually released from prison in seventeen ninety-five, so two years after her mother is executed, is her daughter released, in a prisoner exchange with Austria, where she claimed the chest.
16:33 Speaker 01 However, she rarely ever wore its contents, herself witnessing firsthand her mother's excess and the danger it inspired. Now, she went on to marry her cousin on the Bourbon side, like the French side, dangerous, and his name was Louis-Antoine, and they lived in exile during the Napoleonic years before eventually returning to Paris and even becoming king and queen for twenty minutes, before abdicating from the stress. Cannot say I blame them, the daughter of Marie Antoinette then becoming queen of France, like, no.
17:07 Speaker 01 Through all of this, she held on to her mother's jewels, though, leaving them to her own children, who passed them down through the family for over two hundred years. But in twenty eighteen, Sotheby's auctioned several jewels directly traceable to that seventeen ninety-one chest of Marie Antoinette, including the large diamond and pearl pendant, which sold for over thirty million US dollars. So all in all, Marie's clothing and furniture broken up and sold for bits, her lavish palace and its grounds used for storage, and her jewels survived by their daring escape, as did her only daughter.
17:47 Speaker 01 So from the French Revolution, guys, let's skip forward to probably why most of you are here, to the Russian Revolution on March 15th, 1917. So Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia from 1894 to 1917. But the Romanov dynasty's rule predates that by almost 300 years. They were as authoritarian as it comes, pure autocrats. Ruling Russia with an iron fist as the aristocracy got richer and the rest of Russia got poorer. And it all comes to a head in a series of revolts leading up to February 1917, as Russia fails to modernise and the pressures of World War I bore down.
18:32 Speaker 01 The Tsar insists on, you know, going and leading the troops himself. Then there's the issue of Rasputin, the mad monk employed to mystically heal the heir Alexei. Like, it's literally a movie, right? All in all, the people are angry, the Tsar sucks, and he is forced to abdicate his throne on March 15th, 1917, joining his family who were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Zasko Selov. Key thing to note here, guys, the Romanovs were the richest royal family in European history. They had immense wealth with palaces, gold mines, jewels, Faberge eggs, land and art,
19:12 Speaker 01 all making up their approximately 300 billion US dollar fortune in today's figures.
19:21 Speaker 01 So what happened to all that wealth? Well, officially, it went to the provisional government, which was soon taken over by the Bolshevik party under Vladimir Lenin. But some of it is a little more ambiguous. So let's start with the palaces, guys, the big ticket items, including the Grand Winter Palace in St Petersburg, the official home of the Tsar. It had epic ballrooms and sweeping staircases. It is really the very symbol of Romanov grandeur. Now, following February 1917, it briefly housed the Provisional Government, but the Bolsheviks took the palace by force in October of that same year, pillaging what remained.
20:05 Speaker 01 Key to remember here, guys, this was the family's official home, and many of their personal items, including clothing, letters, documents and art, were all left behind and looted by the Bolsheviks in this process. Now, I will post some photos to the socials of the aftermath of, like, basically their raid, because it is pretty brutal destruction of property. Now, after the Bolsheviks took the palace, they turned it into the State Heritage Museum, which remains today as one of the world's largest art museums in the world. And as for the Romanovs' other palaces, there was the Catherine and Alexander Palaces, both located in Zarskoye Selo, the latter of which, like I said, the Romanov family were held under house arrest.
20:49 Speaker 01 And interestingly, or more so, like, probably morbidly, they too were nationalised after the Bolsheviks took power and opened as museums in 1918. So only after a year were members of the public able to, like, waltz through the final home of the Romanov family. Meanwhile, they're being killed out in Siberia. Like, it's pretty wild. Other palaces include the Vladimir Palace, which was converted into the House of Scientists. Others were occupied by government offices, and many minor palaces, such as the Babolov Palace, were abandoned. So, that's them. Again, similar to Versailles, right? Some of them are just too big to dismantle and try and sell off.
21:33 Speaker 01 But the Romanovs' personal items, the clothing, the books, the toys, the human everyday items, they are small enough. And what happened to them? Well, the family were allowed to take some personal possessions while being held under house arrest, but as they moved from location to location, they did leave some things behind, and most of these survive today in various museums around Russia. But the one possession that you wanna have, if you're an aristocrat or ruler or royal, and you need to start a new life,
22:09 Speaker 01 is jewels. Again, exactly what Marie Antoinette thought. And the Romanovs had, I think, anyway, the most impressive collection of jewels in royal history.
22:22 Speaker 01 With over 300 years of rule, their collection held everything from the Grand Crown of Catherine the Great to huge rubies, emeralds, diodes, tiaras, and all matter of other glistening goodness. And this was called the Diamond Fund, which since the time of Peter the Great in 1719 was state property. So even before the revolution, guys, these items worn by the Romanovs belonged to the Russian state, not them personally. And you bet your bottom dollar, when the provisional government and later the Bolsheviks took power, this was the first thing they secured. Now, there's some incredible pictures, again, I'll post them on socials,
23:07 Speaker 01 of the entire Diamond Fund assembled on a huge table for cataloguing and inspection. And it is genuinely unbelievable just how much there is. Like, it is worth billions in today's figures. And as I said before, jewels are easy to transport and liquidate. So large parts of the Diamond Fund were sold off in the 1920s to fund the USSR. The largest of these Romanov jewellery sales was the 1927 auction at Christie's, which saw 596 of the total 773 pieces of the Diamond Fund sold to various buyers, from European royals to art dealers to American businessmen,
23:52 Speaker 01 all of whom wanted a piece of the former imperial family's collection. The funds then went on to establish and pay for the USSR. But not all the Romanov jewels were a part of the Diamond Funds. They, like many of the royal families of Europe, Marie Antoinette as well, had personal jewellery, which the Empress and her daughters had managed to keep secret while under house arrest by sewing them into their underwear. You see, being ready to flee at any moment was essential for the family, who knew these jewels would buy them a brand new life. So the girls wore the same underwear under their night clothes, sewing with all these jewels. Which is why, on the night of July 17, 1918, when the family were taken down to the basement of Empatiyev House,
24:37 Speaker 01 they did not die when shot at like their parents and brother. The jewels hidden in the underwear formed this, like, bulletproof vest, and the soldiers present were forced to use bayonets on the four young girls. Afterwards, they were stripped of their clothing, which is when the officers found the jewels, some of which were given to the Bolshevik government and make up part of the Diamond Fund today. But a lot of it was largely taken by those present. There is some surviving Romanov jewellery, though, namely, the Vladimir Tiarah, which belonged to the Tsar's aunt and was smuggled out of Russia by a friend in a toolbox, later purchased by Queen Mary of the UK and was actually a favourite of Queen Elizabeth II's. And most of the Tsarina's personal collection,
25:22 Speaker 01 which, like Marie Antoinette, she managed to smuggle out by loyal friends.
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26:29 Speaker 01 Tens, but how?
26:32 Speaker 01 Well, the story goes that during the Romanov family's imprisonment in Tobolsk, one of the other kind of regions that they were held, Emperor's Alexandra managed to have many of the family's most valuable jewels smuggled out by the family valet, who gave them to the Mother Superior of the Tobolsk Ivanovsky monastery. The Mother Superior held on to them for her whole life, giving them to her assistant, the nun Mafah Yusunetsva, on her deathbed, who then hid them in the convent somewhere. In the mid 1920s though, Tenams were evicted from the convent, so Marfa gave the jewels to a trusted acquaintance who then hid them. Thirteen years later, in October 1933, Marfa confessed under interrogation to the Tbilisi authorities
27:18 Speaker 01 and revealed the name of the acquaintance she gave the jewels to after a tip came in that she was the one who had the Zaryin's jewels, right? The Soviets aren't gonna let potentially millions of dollars worth of Romanov jewels just be out there somewhere. So the Soviets then interrogated her friend, who handed the jewels over, all of which FYI kept top secret in the Russian counterintelligence files until they were declassified in 1996 after the fall of the USSR. With these jewels largely being sold off in secret in the years following their discovery.
27:53 Speaker 01 But the Romanovs didn't just like jewellery you could wear, they liked jewellery you could play with. And for that, they had their famed Faberge eggs. A tradition started as Easter presents, but instead of chocolate eggs, they were solid gold. So while the Russian people literally could barely afford actual eggs, the Romanov family got golden bejeweled ones. And these were all seized by the Bolsheviks after the revolution, with some pieces remaining in the Kremlin, but most of them being sold off around the world. Now, some, I believe it was three actually, were purchased by the British royal family as part of their personal collection by Queen Mary. And no one sees these guys. These are locked up, like, in the British royal family's vaults. They are not for public display.
28:39 Speaker 01 Those remaining were sold to Americans facilitated by wealthy American businessman Armand Hammer. And if that name sounds familiar to you guys, it is because he is the grandfather of Armie Hammer, disgraced former actor accused of cannibalism and all manner of other, like, terrible fucked up things. So Arm and Hammer sold a lot of these on behalf of the Soviets to Malcolm Forbes, founder of Forbes magazine, who had nine that were eventually sold to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekelsberg. Now, the most famous of these eggs, the Imperial Winter Egg, was purchased by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It was the most expensive Faberge piece ever sold and sold by
29:24 Speaker 01 Christie's on his behalf in December 2025, just a few months ago. And guys, I was actually invited by Christie's to view the egg in London the day before the sale. It was insane. I also got to try on like some incredible pieces of jewellery, played with Faberge's stationery sets and bell presses. Like, it was amazing. But the egg was the standout, guys. Holy shit. It was insane. So much so, it sold for 30 million US dollars in the end. So like, incredible. Now, these Romanov Faberge eggs are held in private collections. I believe there's seven.
30:05 Speaker 01 Um, like I said, made by British royals and Russian billionaires, um, alongside those that exist in the Kremlin and in the Faberge Museum. But before we move on from the Romanovs, guys, we have to talk about the secret Swiss bank account. So, after the failed but pretty scary first Russian revolution in 1905, so like well before the actual revolution that toppled them, the Romanovs are said to have secretly transferred several million in foreign currencies to a private account in Germany. However, with World War One on the horizon, the Tsar took these funds back to Russia, investing them back into the war effort. But the other side of the story is that the Tsar
30:48 Speaker 01 actually took the funds and placed them in a Swiss bank account where they still remain today, waiting for the Romanov heir to present themselves and be claimed. Now, the Romanov family has several heirs today, albeit distant, and many of its closest linked relatives, including the Tsar's sister and aunt and mother, right? All survived the revolution and tried to access various funds after, but failed, leading many to question what happened to the Tsar's cash after it was taken out of Germany. Was it spent on the war? Seized by the government, taken by the Brits? Or is it still sitting in Credit Suisse, waiting for the air to arrive? The truth is, we don't know.
31:31 Speaker 01 But the legend has prompted many an impersonator claiming to be one of the five surviving Romanov children in the years that have passed. So, speaking of World War I, let's put a pin in the Romanovs in Russia and jump over to Germany with the defeat and abdication of the Kaiser. So, a bit of history here. Prior to the formation of the German Empire, Germany was made up of a number of smaller states, the biggest of which was called Prussia. Now, the royal family of Prussia was the House of, wait for their pronunciation, Hohenzollern, who ruled Prussia for over 900 years, nearly a thousand years, pretty wild. And, given their size, power, and like I said, that dynastic history there,
32:16 Speaker 01 they were selected as the new ruler or Kaiser of the new empire called Germany in 1871. And it was the House of Hohenzollern that Queen Victoria's eldest daughter married into, and her son Wilhelm II would go on to become the Kaiser, who lost the war, abdicated the throne, and lived the rest of his life in the Netherlands in exile. But what happened to the House of Hohenzollern? And what was life like for an exiled Kaiser, right? At this point, we've only dealt with revolutions in which the rulers lose their heads. So, the Hohenzollerns held a vast, mostly entailed fortune, estimated at around 152 million US dollars in the early 1920s.
32:59 Speaker 01 And this included extensive land, palaces, art collections. And the Kaiser himself was the richest German of them all, right? Holding 1.5 million acres of this land personally, worth about 120 million US dollars. So, in 1918, following defeat in World War I, the country became a republic, the Weimar Republic, and a democracy with the monarchy put it to the curb. But unlike the Bolsheviks, like I said, who stripped and murdered their royals, the Germans allowed the then-Kaiser and his family to not only live, but keep a substantial part of their fortune, including the family's ancestral seat, Hohenzollern Castle.
33:42 Speaker 01 So we already see here the big difference between an exile, which is largely pushed for by external governments, and a revolution within a nation. Which, like I said, saw the Romanovs and the Bobons killed and stripped of everything. So what was life like for a very much still alive but exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II? So as I said, he was banned from ever returning to Germany, fleeing across the border into the neutral Netherlands and being granted political asylum by the Dutch government. At first, he lived at Ammerongen Castle, the home of a Dutch nobleman, but he found his life there was humiliating compared with the former imperial grandeur he was raised in.
34:26 Speaker 01 Here, he spent time reflecting on the war, writing memoirs, reading newspapers, and even picking up a kind of random hobby in woodchopping. In 1920, though, with the fortune he was allowed to keep, Wilhelm purchased House Dorn, a modest manor in the Dutch countryside, and this is where he spent the remaining two decades of his life. Although far from the scale of his former palaces in Berlin, Wilhelm attempted to recreate a miniature version of imperial life by filling the house with furniture, art, and personal possessions all shipped from Germany in dozens of railway wagons by friends and family. To the extent, guys, that the walls of this, like, Dutch manor house
35:11 Speaker 01 were filled with portraits of Prussian kings and German emperors. And the reason he could do all of this is because the Hans-Holmes family was still very, very wealthy. And they actually got even wealthier after a 1926 court case against the New German Republic saw the family receive nearly 38 million gold marks in assets which were returned to them from state possession. So these guys are living it up still, and despite losing the throne, Wilhelm maintained a strict daily routine, expecting people to address him as "Your Majesty". He also stayed abreast of all political development in his former empire
35:54 Speaker 01 and communicated extensively with royalists in the nation, including members of the Nazi Party.
36:03 Speaker 01 Hating the democratic government which deposed him, Wilhelm was cautiously optimistic that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis' rise to power would, you know, eventually breed this really strong nationalist government that would restore Germany's prestige by placing him, the former monarch, back on the throne as a figurehead, just like his cousins, the British, were. In fact, guys, Herman Göring made several visits to the former Kaiser in the Netherlands, and his son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, became a member of the Nazi Party himself, serving in a ceremonial capacity within the German army. He did not, however, gain any power or authority, let alone his crown back, and lived quietly
36:45 Speaker 01 on family estates with little political relevance for the rest of his life. But still, the stain of the Hohenzollern's Nazism plagued the family, who received further blows after much of their properties, lands and contents landed on the eastern side of Germany, which were occupied by the USSR after World War II. Under communist control, many of the family's items were taken, and the family today, headed up by Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia—yes, that's literally his last name—is fighting to be compensated. But there's a catch. Under German law, no person or company involved with the Nazis during World War II will
37:28 Speaker 01 receive a single penny, and the involvement of Crown Prince Wilhelm, despite his lack of power or authority with the Nazis, makes them ineligible for this compensation.
37:41 Speaker 01 According to Prince Georg, the thousands of items on the line range from a simple coffee spoon to centuries-old works of art. His family is also seeking cash compensation of 1.2 million euros, which represents the value of their land at the time it was seized, but according to the prince's spokesperson, it is safe to assume that the current value of the family's private property taken by the communists is several hundred times higher, but you know, they're happy to just settle for the price at the time. These guys are like so arrogant. Georg is...
38:17 Speaker 01 Such a wanker. Anyway, there's an exile for you guys, right? Which I think is a pretty good deal when you look at the Popolins and especially the Romanovs. Key to note, 1918, Romanovs were losing their head while Wilhelm's like building, you know, his pleasure palaces and chopping down wood. But let's ditch the royals, guys, and come forward to the menace of tyranny that was Adolf Hitler. So after the exile of the Kaiser, like we said, the establishment of the Weimar Republic occurred. And after that came Nazism, bred by economic hardship, a lack of nationalism, embarrassment at the loss of World War I, and largely out of the charisma and promise
39:00 Speaker 01 of the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, who unceremoniously lost the war, married his mistress, blew his brains out in the Berlin bunker, and really is just like history's biggest fucking loser. And while he came from very, very humble origins, guys, these guys, he had no money. He gained large amounts of wealth, property, possessions, and power. So what happened to all of this after his death? Well, unlike the royals we've covered, Hitler left behind relatively little personal property, as much of what he owned, including all of his cash, was closely tied to the Nazi state. And after its defeat, the Allies worked very quickly to seize, scatter, destroy,
39:45 Speaker 01 or absorb anything left behind. In terms of property, that included his eight-room Munich apartment, where Lee Miller took her famous photo in his bathtub after the liberation of Dachau. Although not technically his property, he did actually reside in the Reich. The, I can never say it. The Reich Chancellery, the German government headquarters, with much of his personal belongings remaining there. And of course, guys, famously, his Bavarian estate, the Berghof on the Ober Slausburg near Berchtesgaden in southern Germany.
40:23 Speaker 01 This Alpine mansion had huge panoramic windows overlooking the Alps. It was fitted out with terraces and gardens and guest rooms. He also had a small tea house built as a private retreat for walks. Um, and of course, the Eagles Nest, a mountaintop building given to him by the Nazi Party for his 50th birthday. So what happened to it all? Well, when American forces captured Munich in April 1945, they discovered the apartment in Munich. Almost exactly as Hitler had left it, literally like he'd gotten up that morning, walked out the door. It was perfect. There was furniture, there was artwork, there was personal belongings and letters, right? That was still in place.
41:07 Speaker 01 And the building was taken over by the US Army before being then passed over into the control of the Bavarian state government. And it actually still stands today as police headquarters with Hitler's former bedroom now a storage closet.
41:23 Speaker 01 The Reich Chancellery, however, I got it, was almost completely destroyed by shelling and explosions. And after Berlin fell, Soviet troops occupied the site and just pretty much decided to tear down what was left. Then there is the Berghof, which was hit repeatedly by the British Royal Air Force in a series of bombings. After which the SS Guards who remained reportedly set fire to parts of the Berghof to destroy remaining evidence. But when American troops reached the site, it was still largely in place. Um, or the remains anyway, and they looted a lot of it. Furniture, artworks, books, dishes, right? Anything they could really handle. Um, and it was eventually handed back over to the Bavarian government.
42:07 Speaker 01 And once they got a hold of it, concerns over the ruins becoming a symbolic gathering place for neo-Nazis or Hitler sympathizers really increased. So they ordered the remaining ruins destroyed. I think it was Himmler's estate or like a school set up by Himmler. Um, which still remained in place and went back to Bavarian government. They tried to sell it and a bunch of neo-Nazis approached them. So now there's like a whole bunch of rules around property, you know, associated with the Nazis. But what about Hitler's extensive art collection? Stolen art collection. It was moved from residences and buildings into storage facilities, such as the salt mines, tunnels and castles uncovered by the US monuments men. These guys were a team of specialists, like museum curators, historians, artists,
42:52 Speaker 01 whose job it was to locate hidden Nazi repositories and recover these large numbers of artworks with the goal of restitution, right? Returning them back to their prior owners. They did a pretty good job. But the Russians were also looking for art along the way, and they had no plans of returning it. Taking it with them back to Russia as compensation for their devastating losses. As for Hitler's smaller personal items such as uniforms and books, many soldiers, especially the Americans, entered Nazi buildings and took them as souvenirs. Some were handed over to historians and museums. Others were sent to Nuremberg as evidence for the trial, after which they were then kept in archives and some went to libraries. In fact, guys, this is a super interesting fact.
43:38 Speaker 01 The Library of Congress in Washington DC holds a huge portion of Hitler's 16,000 personal books that were captured by American troops.
43:48 Speaker 01 So that's what actually happened to his assets after World War II. But how did Hitler himself want these assets divided after his death? Well, for that, guys, we don't need to guess. Because Hitler wrote his last will and testament on the 29th of April, 1945, a few days before his death, which included a personal will, the contents of which declared that his belongings should go primarily to the Nazi party. He wrote that his art collection should go to the planned museum in Linz, Austria. His personal possessions should be given to the party or close associates, and anything of value should be used for the benefit of the German state. In this, I believe he was thinking the Berghoff and other properties.
44:32 Speaker 01 He also carved out small portions for several individuals in his personal will, instructing his valet, Martin Bormann, to provide for his siblings, Eva Braun's mother and staff, what he defined as enough to maintain a modest, simple life. Now, this never happened, as we've already covered exactly what happened, but Hitler's sister, Paula. Tried to get what she believed was her rightful inheritance as a result of this will. She was unsuccessful as courts found Hitler's will was legally void and so she lived the rest of her days in Berkesgaden, surviving on donations from former SS officers, dying in 1960.
45:15 Speaker 01 But not all of Hitler's assets were tied up with the state and there was a pretty big pocket of money linked to Hitler that was unclaimed and no one really knew what to do with. The royalties from Ian Kempf.
45:30 Speaker 01 Selling over 12 million copies between 1925 and 1945, Hitler earned over 1.2 million Reichsmarks, equivalent to over 5.5 million euros today. But after the war, the royalties of sales were still around, estimated at approximately 92,000 US dollars at the time, and there have been calls for these royalties to go to the heirs of Hitler. So who are they? Well, all of Adolf Hitler's living descendants were born to his older half siblings and it was these half nieces and half nephews who initially carried on the family bloodline. Both Alois Hitler Jr. and William Patrick Hitler were sons of Hitler's half brother.
46:16 Speaker 01 Now Alois died fighting for the Nazis, having little to do with his uncle, while William Patrick moved to the US fighting against the Nazis, changing his surname to Stuart Houston and living on Long Island, New York. He then went on to have four sons, none of whom ever had children, reportedly vowing to one another to end their family line, which was linked to so much evil, never disputing despite probably their right to. The royalties of Ian Kempf. So we've had a bit of everything, guys. An old revolution, a new revolution, an exile, a dictator.
46:56 Speaker 01 But I want to talk lastly about Jeffrey Epstein. Now, I do want to preface, right now, we will be talking about sexual assault, the violation of minors, and topics of suicide and self-harm, so if you'd like to skip ahead to the very end of this episode, please feel free to do so. Now Epstein, who is he? What did he do? How did he fall? I want to do a really, really quick summary before we get into what the deal is with his massive fortune. Because he seems to be this, you know, big kind of aloof, mythical almost figure, like, but who actually is he? So Jeffrey Epstein was raised in New York and taught maths and physics in the city in the mid 1970s,
47:40 Speaker 01 despite never graduating with a degree. A father of one of his students was so impressed with his knowledge and skill that he put Epstein in touch with a senior partner at the Wall Street investment bank, Bestens, where he worked for four years, after which he created his own firm, J Epstein and Co. Now, the company managed assets of clients worth more than $1 billion and was an instant success, although much of this money was obtained in the 475 million Towers Financial Corporation Ponzi scheme, which Jeffrey Epstein was heavily implicated in during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
48:22 Speaker 01 So this guy's got a fuck ton of money, like a fuck ton of money. And as it increased, Epstein began purchasing a fuck ton of properties, including a mansion in Florida, a ranch in New Mexico, the private islands in Little St. James and Greater St. James, and the largest private home in New York City. And with this money came very close proximity to celebrities, artists and politicians, who he began socializing with. Now, it is alleged that in the late 90s and early 2000s is the time at his Miami home that he began procuring young girls from lower to middle-class schools
49:02 Speaker 01 just outside of Palm Beach to give him massages in exchange for $200. Soon, these massages turned sexual and he created a sex trafficking, basically pyramid scheme, where these girls would procure other girls in exchange for another $200, and so on and so forth. In 2005, the parents of one of these girls, a 14-year-old, told police in Florida that Epstein had molested their daughter. A police surge of the property found photos of girls throughout the house with the evidence all pointing towards Epstein as a sex offender. Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Ralter told the press, "This was not a he-said, she-said situation.
49:46 Speaker 01 This was a 50-something she's and one he, and the she's all basically told the same story." So despite this really solid case against Epstein, prosecutors forged a deal with him in 2008 in which he avoided federal charges and instead received an 18-month prison sentence during which he was able to go on work release to his office for 12 hours a day, six days a week. He was then released on probation after 13 months, the papers describing this as "The Deal of the Century." Since then, Epstein was listed as a Level 3 on the New York Sex Offenders Registry, meaning he was considered to be at a high risk of re-offending.
50:30 Speaker 01 But still, in all of this, Epstein maintained his properties and his assets after his conviction, and many celebrities and political figures remaining close to the sex offender after this time, including former Prince Andrew, which garnered more media attention, prompting the Miami Herald to launch an investigation into that 2008 plea deal, which sounds too fucking good to be true, because it was, and prompted new federal prosecutors to pursue charges of Jeffrey Epstein in 2018, which led to his 2019 arrest on the 6th of July in New York. On this day, he denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the charges against
51:14 Speaker 01 him, then dying in his New York prison cell a month later as he awaited, without the chance of bail, a real trial on sex trafficking charges.
51:25 Speaker 01 So that's Epstein, right? A horrific spawn of Satan, whose money and no doubt blackmail information on other wealthy and famous individuals wrapped him up in cotton wool despite the evil of his crimes. So with Epstein dead, what happened to this massive fortune he's said to have, which at the time of his death was estimated at approximately 600 million US dollars, 117 million of which was apparently in real estate? So two days before his death, Epstein signed a document that gave away much of his once vast estate to his girlfriend at the time, who was not Ghislaine Maxwell, the two of them separating in the early 2000s.
52:07 Speaker 01 Instead, his last partner was a 36-year-old Belarusian woman by the name of Karina Shulik, who was deemed an essential figure in his inner circle. Mentioned over 40,000 times in the Epstein files, Shulik met Epstein in 2009 when she was a 20-year-old student of dental medicine at Minsk University. She started corresponding with the billionaire who paid her tuition and they began dating with Epstein funding her lifestyle, bringing her family to the US, securing her citizenship, and folding her into his organisation. In his will, written two days before his death, Epstein noted he had contemplated marrying
52:48 Speaker 01 Karina and wanted to give her a 33-carat diamond ring, along with 100 million dollars of his estate, granting her endless access to all of his properties. The other two main beneficiaries listed in his trust are his lifetime lawyer Darren Indike, I believe is how you say it, and his in-house accountant, Richard Khan, who was set to receive 50 million and 25 million US dollars respectively. They have both been accused of complicity with Epstein's crimes and have recently settled a 35 million US dollar lawsuit with victims who have accused the two of aiding and abetting his sex trafficking. So all in all, guys, nefarious people being granted the proceeds of this nefarious operation.
53:32 Speaker 01 However, whether any of them will see a penny of that is still a matter of contention. Daniel Weiner, a lawyer for Epstein's estate, said no beneficiaries will receive any money from that estate unless and until all creditors and claims on the estate have first been satisfied in full, including claims for compensation made by women who suffered abuse at Mr Epstein's. Hands. Now, following Epstein's 2019 arrest, the government froze all of his assets, with the estate being granted powers for the payment of debts and claims to be made. As part of this process, executives sold off Epstein's properties for roughly 160 million,
54:15 Speaker 01 50 million of which the estate appears to have kept in profit, with the rest being paid out to the Epstein Victims Compensation Programme, which was set up after his death, repaying of loans and a settlement with the US Virgin Islands. Yet, thanks to a 112 million tax refund from the IRS last year, the estate still has 131 million in assets as of its latest filing on March 31. Yep, there's families on food stamps all over the US. So what happened to each of Epstein's multimillion dollar properties, largely the scene of many of his crimes?
54:56 Speaker 01 Let's start with his New York home, although really, New York mansion is more appropriate. It is a seven-storey, 40-room neoclassical mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Forty rooms. My house has two rooms. Like, that is insane. It was purchased for 13 million US dollars in 1989 by retail tycoon Leslie Wexner, who was one of Epstein's main clients and business partners. In 2011, Wexner transferred the property to Maple Inc., a US Virgin Islands-based company that was controlled by Epstein. Epstein's executives valued the home at 56 million US dollars after his death in August 2019,
55:39 Speaker 01 and put it up for sale for 88 million. It ultimately sold for 51 million in March 2021 to Michael Duffy, a former Goldman Sachs executive. Why the fuck you'd buy this house, I have no idea. A lawyer for Epstein's estate told Forbes at the time that just under 51 million from the estate was transferred to the estate, um, to be paid out to these victims' compensation funds. In Palm Beach, Miami, the main scene of many of his early crimes, we have the 14,000 square foot, six-bedroom mansion, where, like I said, the majority of Epstein's early trafficking did take place. Epstein bought the home in 1990 for 2.5 million, just down the road from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago,
56:23 Speaker 01 with Epstein's estate valuing the home at 12.4 million in 2019, following his death. It was almost immediately then listed for 22 million. I don't know why they list them for so much. Who the fuck wants to buy these? It sat untouched for a year, until it did finally sell for 18.5 million to local developer Todd Michael Glasser, who tore down the house, changed the address, and flipped the empty lot for 26 million eight months later. The proceeds of this sale reportedly went to the victim's compensation fund in its entirety. Now, for the infamous Epstein Island, aka Little St. James, in the US Virgin Islands. So Epstein bought the 70-acre Little St. James Island
57:08 Speaker 01 for nearly 8 million US dollars in 1998, and the larger, neighboring 160-acre Great St. James Island in 2016 for 22.5 million. It was here that Epstein allegedly brought underage girls and young women, forcing them to engage in sexual acts and forced labour. After his death, the islands were valued at a collective 31 million, but were listed for an asking price of 125 million. In May 2023, you can't even say this with a straight face. In May 2023, the islands finally sold to private equity billionaire Steven Dekoff, who plans to turn them into a resort. A fucking resort.
57:50 Speaker 01 Who is going to stay at a resort on Epstein's former islands? It's fucked. Under the settlement, half of that amount went to the US Virgin Island Government to be placed in a trust set up to provide counselling programmes and other services for victims of sexual abuse and human trafficking. Next is Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. The 10,000 acre ranch acquired by Epstein in 1993 for 12 million US dollars. According to the Department of Justice's indictment of Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020, sorry, Epstein's former girlfriend. Maxwell and Epstein groomed a minor victim at the ranch in 1996,
58:31 Speaker 01 a case which was allegedly pivotal in convicting Ghislaine Maxwell to 20 years in prison in 2022. After Epstein's death, the ranch was valued at 17.2 million dollars and listed in 2021 for 27.5 million, before the price dropped to 18 million US dollars. It was ultimately sold in August 2023 for an undisclosed amount to a company that renamed it San Rafael Ranch, with the proceeds used for, in quotes, "estate administration, including payments of creditors," end quote. And lastly, is Epstein's Paris apartment. Right me the art triumph.
59:14 Speaker 01 The 7,400 square foot apartment was searched by police along with a modeling agency tied to Epstein in 2019, with the agency's founder Jean-Luc Brunel being arrested in December 2020 and detained on charges of rape, sexual assault of minors, and human trafficking. He too was found dead in his Paris prison cell in February 2022. As for the flat, well, it was estimated at approximately 8.7 million US dollars in 2019 and later listed for about 12.5 million. It sold in June 2022 for roughly 10 million to Georgi Tuchev,
59:55 Speaker 01 a Bulgarian businessman with part of the proceedings paid out to Epstein's victims. The remainder of the estate, which, as I said, was listed at 131 million in assets as of March 31, 2025, is still held up and, according to Epstein's lawyers, will not be paid out to the beneficiaries listed, given the claims still open against the estate.
1:00:21 Speaker 01 So there we have it, guys. From palaces to gowns, jewels to Swiss bank accounts, castles and titles to royal payments and private islands. The assets of the fallen few whose lives were once grand, rich, powerful and well beyond the one percent end up like they do. Reduced, divided up, lost and ultimately becoming symbols of just how far one can fall. And that brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History, guys. Thank you so much for following along with me on this episode and make sure to tune in
1:01:02 Speaker 01 next week because I will be back in your ears talking about the real Peaky fucking Blinders. Because it is a fortuitous turn of events that the new film will be dropping on Netflix that exact same day, I believe in the evening. So I'm gonna give you the historical tea on exactly who the real Peaky Blinders were, including a look at the Birmingham street gangs of the time and the impact of both World War One and World War Two on the UK's criminal underworld that morning. As always, guys, if you are looking for some more hot history, then you can follow us on Instagram at Hot History Club and on TikTok at Hot dot history, where I post
1:01:46 Speaker 01 all of those callouts that I say I will throughout the images and videos on these pubs. It has been a pleasure, as always, getting down and dirty in time with you and I will speak to you all next Friday. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.
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