In the decade since The Netherlands' Crown Princess Beatrix, 27, attained nubility, Dutch reporters have trailed dozens of potential candidates for her hand. They traipsed along as usual when Beatrix flew off to ski at Gstaad in February. After all, a highly eligible bachelor, Rhenish Prince Richard zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, 30, was going to be there too. With him was a minor German diplomat, Claus von Amsberg, 38. "I do not understand," one puzzled newsman soon wired Amsterdam. "This Richard always skis alone, while Beatrix goes out and drinks in nightclubs with this fellow Claus Watsisname." Cabled his impatient editor: "Leave that fellow Claus. He is unimportant, he is a commoner, he is no match for her."
Claus Watsisname, as it happens, will soon become Prince Nicolaas of The Netherlands. This week, despite stormy protests from their subjects, Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard will introduce him on television as the next royal consort for the 400-year-old House of Orange-Nassau. What ires
Dutchmen is not Von Amsberg's pedigree but his war record: at 17 he served for several months in Italy as an enlisted man in Hitler's Wehrmacht—and nowhere in Europe do memories of the Nazis stir deeper resentment and outrage than in Holland.
"Claus 'raus!" Asked Rotterdam's good grey Nieuwe Courant. "Can a German put flowers at our memorials for heroes he fought against?" Amsterdam's Het Parool objected that the future queen's husband "cannot be a man whom a large part of the Dutch people meets with reluctance." The Calvinist daily Trouw, which came out in favor of the match, was barraged with angry letters; though published letters against the marriage averaged 55% in most papers, editors conceded privately that the actual mail was nearer 70% against. A few orange swastikas appeared on street walls in The Hague with the slogan "Claus 'raus!" (Claus get out!).
At any rate, the outcry was notably less vehement than last year's storm over Queen Juliana's second daughter, Irene, 25. When Irene became engaged to Catholic Prince Hugo Carlos de Borbón y Parma, a dark horse pretender to the throne of hated Spain, Irene was forced by Parliament to renounce her claim to the Protestant Dutch monarchy. Last week the literary monthly De Gids suggested that Beatrix should do the same if she marries Von Amsberg, passing the succession to her next sister, Margriet, 22, who is engaged to a Dutch commoner.