German Prince Denies Nazi Tilt HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- Prince Ernst August of Hanover, recently married to Princess Caroline of Monaco, will take ``all appropriate legal action'' against Germany's Bild newspaper over allegations his family had links to the Nazi regime, his office said. In a report Monday, Bild alleged that the prince's grandfather, Duke Ernst August of Braunschweig and Lueneburg, may have profited from the forced sale of a Jewish-owned bank in Munich to non-Jews and the expropriation of a Viennese building company in 1938. A Nazi-era document it cited authorized the family to procure shares in the Austrian company, PORR AG, from Jewish ownership and re-classify it as ``Aryan.'' A statement from the prince's office issued late Monday called the allegations false and said the Duke was ``well known as being anti-Nazi.'' In addition, the prince's father and three younger brothers were expelled from the Wehrmacht, Hitler's army, during World War II, the statement said. His father was imprisoned by the Gestapo in Berlin in November 1944. A call to his office Tuesday seeking more details was not immediately returned. Bild Editor in Chief Udo Roebel noted the prince's statement did not directly address the charges in the article, and said the newspaper was not worried about a possible lawsuit. It was one of several controversies surrounding the prince. Earlier, Bild reported he had requested the return of property from the former East German state of Saxony-Anhalt, including a castle, hundreds of paintings and antiques once owned by his family. Social Democrat Gunter Weissgerber, a member of Germany's lower house of parliament from the state, was quoted as saying the prince should consider if his request would help the process of inter-German reconciliation. In December, a court ordered the prince to pay $9,000 to a photographer he hit with an umbrella for trying to snap pictures of him with Princess Caroline.
