with Robert Laccy
The fourth of six films on the noble families of Europe. Prince Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein
The tiny country of Liechtenstein is squeezed between Austria and Switzerland and has been ruled by Prince Franz Josef II since 1938. In that year he met Hitler and prevented the Nazis taking over his country.
The Prince and his wife, Princess Gina, have the most valuable collection of paintings still in private hands in the world. But they dislike talking about money -' you can't eat a painting and you can't make clothes out of a castle, I mean what is rich? '
ROBERT LACEY finds how the family lost 22 castles and 100,000 ancestral acres to the Russians in 1945 but kept Liechtenstein, and transformed it into Europe's richest community.
The noble house of Liechtenstein can claim to be the world's most successful aristocrats, for they have risen from landowners to rulers of a fully fledged, if pocket-sized, sovereign state.
Assistant producer ANNE MORRISON Photography NIGEL WALTERS Film editor JIM LATHAM
Executive producer ADAM CLAPHAM ProducerJOHN BIRD
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