Confessions of a Prince

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over a period of four years before his death in December 2004, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the consort and husband of former Queen Juliana, gave a series of secret interviews to two Dutch journalists, on condition that nothing was published until after his funeral. In his conversations with the reporters, the German-born Prince sought to justify a string of extra-marital affairs and a million dollar bribe he had received in the 1970s from the American aircraft manufacturer Lockheed. Prince Bernhard also revealed for the first time the existence of an illegitimate daughter born as a result of an affair in the United States. The publication of the Prince's confessions by De Volkskrantran newspaper shocked the Dutch public, but were met with silence by the Palace. Mike Lanchin spoke to Jan Tromp, one of the journalists who spent hours interviewing the controversial Dutch royalty.

Photo: Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard on the day of their wedding, January 1937 (Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast from the BBC World Service
0:46.0	with me Mike Lanchin real life stories told by the people who were there.
0:50.4	Today the explosive confessions of a European prince about his
0:55.5	extramarital affairs, his illegitimate children and a multi-million dollar bribe.
1:00.5	The prince is dot the prince sprecht. The Prince Sprecht. The Prince that the Prince speaks. That was the
1:09.3	headline in the newspaper.
1:11.4	It was on December 14th 2004 that the scoop was splashed across the front pages of the left-wing daily Dutch newspaper,
1:20.0	D folksgrand. And it was sold out immediately. We had to reprint copies of the newspaper during the day.
1:28.0	The prince in question was Prince Bernard of the Netherlands, husband and consort of the former Dutch Queen
1:34.2	Julianna, and father of the then reigning Queen Beatrix. Prince Bernard had died
1:39.6	just a few weeks earlier, but in the years leading up to his death, he'd given hours and hours of intimate
1:45.4	interviews to two of the Folksgren's top journalists.
1:49.8	My name is Jan Trump, no instead of a you please, and in those days I was part of the editing
1:58.2	staff of the folks grants.
2:01.4	He was back in the late 1990s that Jan and his colleague on the paper,
2:05.2	Peter Broaches, came up with their ambitious idea
2:08.8	to get an exclusive interview with a top personality who rarely spoke to the press.
	...

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