Page "Anna Anderson" Paragraph 17

Most impostors were dismissed ; however, Anna Anderson's claim persisted.

Books and pamphlets supporting her claims included Harriet von Rathlef-Keilmann's book Anastasia, ein Frauenschicksal als Spiegel der Weltkatastrophe ( Anastasia, A Woman's Fate as a Mirror of the World Catastrophe ), which was published in Germany and Switzerland in 1928, though it was serialized by the tabloid newspaper Berliner Nachtausgabe in 1927.

It was countered by works such as La Fausse Anastasie ( The False Anastasia ) by Pierre Gilliard and Constantin Savitch, published by Payot of Paris in 1929.

Conflicting testimonies and physical evidence, such as comparisons of facial characteristics, which alternately supported and contradicted Anderson's claim, were used to either bolster or counter the belief that she was Anastasia.

In the absence of any direct documentary proof or solid physical evidence, the question of whether Anderson was Anastasia was for many a matter of personal belief.

As Anderson herself said in her own idiomatic English, " You either believe it or you don't believe it.

It doesn't matter.

In no anyway whatsoever.

" The German courts were unable to decide her claim one way or another, and eventually, after 40 years of deliberation, ruled that her claim was " neither established nor refuted ".

Dr. Günter von Berenberg-Gossler, attorney for Anderson's opponents in the later years of the legal case, said that during the German trials " the press were always more interested in reporting her side of the story than the opposing bench's less glamorous perspective ; editors often pulled journalists after reporting testimony delivered by her side and ignored the rebuttal, resulting in the public seldom getting a complete picture.