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The Other Prince. Thrifty Dutchmen also noted disapprovingly that Beatrix, the richest heiress on the Continent,* picked a fiance with no private fortune. Son of an impoverished Prussian Junker, Von Amsberg worked his way through the University of Hamburg and up through the German Foreign Service to an administrative post in Bonn. Known to fellow diplomats as a Streber (go-getter), he is fond of fast cars—though an aging Porsche is all he can afford on a $400-a-month government salary. Thus, in many ways he resembles the penniless German princeling and junior executive who married Juliana in 1937 and became Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands. Besides, as Bernhard himself said last week, "you know, my daughter Beatrix is terribly in love with this man. What can you do? The days of the marriage de raison are over."
Prime Minister Joseph Cals and most Parliamentary leaders tentatively agreed to approve the marriage, expected next winter or spring. After all, reasoned Labor Party Leader Gerard Neder-horst, "we also have to think in political terms. There may even be a united Europe some day."
* Beatrix inherited $4,000,000 from her maternal grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina, receives $83,000 a year in state salary (it will be doubled when she marries), will eventually inherit the rest of Wilhelmina's wealth, estimated at well over $100 million.