Playboy prince battles with his siblings for share of €1 billion inheritance: ‘Greed and jealousy on the level of Dante’ unfolds as ‘Germany’s laziest MP’ wages war with his family

A playboy prince from Germany’s historic Bismarck family is suing his two siblings for a share of their inheritance said to be worth up to €1 billion (£840 million), in the latest escalation in a decades-long feud .

Carl-Eduard, Prince of Bismarck, a great-grandson of the ‘Iron Chancellor’ Otto von Bismarck, demands a piece of the €83 million pie from his younger brother Gregor and sister Vanessa after he was disinherited in 2002 by their father, Ferdinand von Bismarck, for his excessive party lifestyle.

The prince, nicknamed ‘Calle’, has long been ridiculed for his drunken antics, and has been described as ‘Germany’s laziest parliamentarian’ for consistently failing to attend during his term in the country’s federal parliament between 2005 and 2007 showing up at meetings and votes.

He has been battling his siblings for decades in a feud described by his fourth wife as stemming from a “dysfunctional environment, unspoken truths, personal dramas, Dante-level greed and jealousy.”

In a particularly shocking incident at their baroque estate near Hamburg in 2010, police were reportedly forced to handcuff him after he tried to evict his own mother from his room.

He told Bild at the time: ‘The police arrived and suddenly I was handcuffed on the ground with my face in the sand.

“And my brother was yelling at the officers to test me for drugs and alcohol. They did so, and when the results came back negative, he told them, “Get better equipment.”

His mother, he added, had withdrawn a legal complaint against him for bodily harm and filed an affidavit that he had never threatened her with a hunting weapon.

Carl-Eduard von Bismarck and Alessandra von Bismarck attend the 46th edition of The Bests Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel on December 11, 2023 in Paris, France

Princess Elisabeth Von Bismarck (R) and Gregor Graf Von Bismarck (L) attend an opening ceremony of the German Historical Museum in Berlin in April 2015

Princess Elisabeth Von Bismarck (R) and Gregor Graf Von Bismarck (L) attend an opening ceremony of the German Historical Museum in Berlin in April 2015

That incident stemmed from Carl-Edmund’s claim that his mother, Princess Elisabeth, was a raging alcoholic and anti-Semite who would often insult his third wife, Nathalie Bariman, a Jewish woman from whom he has since divorced.

The prince has previously admitted to being arrested for drink-driving and visited by bailiffs over unpaid debts.

The siblings met this week at a court in the northern German city of Lübeck the Times report that they didn’t look at each other once and let their lawyers talk.

No ruling was made in the case, presided over by Judge Stephen Schlöpke, who requested more documents to understand the full extent of the family’s wealth.

Gregor, the youngest son, claimed that his brother received a loan from their father before his death in 2019, which, if confirmed, could mean the playboy prince will receive an even smaller share of the inheritance.

Although Schlöpke has suggested that the parties would settle the case out of court, observers believe it is unlikely that the dysfunctional family, once at the height of power in Germany, will ever do so.

Carl-Edmund is far from the only Bismarck to disgrace the once great name.

His younger brother, Count Gottfried von Bismarck, tragically died of a cocaine and heroin overdose in his Chelsea penthouse, with the pathologist claiming at the time of his death that his body contained the largest amount of cocaine he had ever seen.

The prince claimed his mother was a raging alcoholic and anti-Semite who often insulted his third wife, Nathalie Bariman (pictured, left)

The prince claimed his mother was a raging alcoholic and anti-Semite who often insulted his third wife, Nathalie Bariman (pictured, left)

Ferdinand Prins von Bismarck-Schoenhausen with his granddaughter Vanessa in Malaga, Spain, 1985

Ferdinand Prins von Bismarck-Schoenhausen with his granddaughter Vanessa in Malaga, Spain, 1985

Gottfried was also involved in several other fatal accidents in Britain.

In 1986, Olivia Channon, the 22-year-old daughter of former Trade and Industry Minister Paul Channon, choked to death on her own vomit after falling asleep while high on heroin at one of Gottfried’s parties at Oxford University.

And in 2006, the year before his own death, Anthony Casey fell 60 feet from the roof of Gottfried’s Chelsea flat after ingesting a potentially fatal amount of cocaine following a gay orgy.

Even Otto von Bismarck, the man who cemented the family legacy, has declined in popularity in recent years.

In 2022, the German Foreign Ministry had his name removed from a hall and his portrait removed from the building after his ties to German colonialism were brought to the forefront of public debate.

Bismarck Hall was renamed the ‘Hall of German Unity’ by Annalena Baerbock, the Secretary of State.