Laurence Dollimore
A JUDGE has ordered for the exhumation of a German expat more than 50 years after his death in a bid to solve an inheritance case.
It comes after a 50-year-old woman from Cadiz claimed she is his granddaughter and therefore in line to receive a €2 million inheritance.
A paternity test will now be carried out to prove she is a descendant and eligible to receive some of the fortune he left behind.
The claimant’s grandmother, Pilar, from the humble fishing village of Barbate, had an affair with the German man while he was living in Cadiz with his family between 1912 and 1914.
Out of that affair came four children, one of them Lucia, the mother of the current claimant.
“Pilar was a young woman from Barbate, she worked in Cadiz in the house of the German family and lived in it. In this house lived the biological grandfather of the claimant, who was married, and he lived between Germany and Cadiz,” explained the lawyer on the case Fernando Osuna.
“The entire German family and their friends were aware of this relationship, since they did not hide it and went through life as a couple in society.
“When the children were growing up, the biological grandfather made the decision to go to Germany, specifically to Hamburg, to initially take his youngest son.
“This happened in 1953. Since that year the family of the grandfather residing in Germany disapproved and refused to recognise his daughter born out of an extramarital affair, that is, the mother of the current plaintiff from Cadiz.”
From that moment on the man stayed in Germany but would return to Cadiz three of four times per year to spend some weeks with his Spanish family.
“By 1961 and for health reasons, he could no longer return to Cadiz, communicating with his daughter Lucia by letter,” explained Osuna.
In the summer of 1964, the grandfather wanted to recognise both his daughter and his granddaughter, by changing their surnames and making them German subjects, however he died before completing the task.
The exhumation of the body will take place ‘soon’, the court said.
