Hugo W. Koehler

Hugo William Koehler (July 19, 1886 – June 17, 1941) (pronounced [ˈkøːlɐ]) was a United States Navy commander, secret agent and socialite. Following the First World War, he served as an Office of Naval Intelligence and State Department operative in Russia during its civil war, and later as naval attaché to Poland. He was rumored to be the illegitimate son of the Crown Prince of Austria and to have assisted the Romanovs in fleeing Russia following the revolution of 1917. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his service during World War I and was the step-father of United States Senator Claiborne Pell (1918–2009).

Hugo W. Koehler was born on July 19, 1886, in St. Louis, Missouri, and named after a paternal uncle. His father, Oscar C. Koehler (1857–1902), was a first-generation German-American and second-generation St. Louis and Davenport, Iowa brewer and entrepreneur. Although it was privately rumored for much of his life that Hugo was the illegitimate son of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, who is generally believed to have died with his teenage mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera, in a murder-suicide pact in January 1889 (the "Mayerling incident"), no corroborating evidence of this ancestry has been established. The speculation was fueled by a few factors: 1) Koehler, who was reputed to be the "wealthiest officer" in the American navy in the 1920s, was apparently the beneficiary of a substantial trust fund. It was further speculated that this trust had been established by the Habsburgs with approval of the Holy See when Hugo Koehler was a child, to provide for his support and maintenance; 2) As a child, Hugo made several European visits with his paternal grandfather, Heinrich (Henry) Koehler Sr. (1828–1909), where he was introduced to aristocracy and elites; and 3) Koehler had the distinctive Habsburg chin.

Ironically, in 1945, The New York Times published a story that a German lithographer by the name of "Hugo Koehler", following his death at the age of 93, was revealed to be Archduke Johann Salvator of Austria, son of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and a member of the Imperial Austrian Habsburg family. Johann had been a witness to the tragic events at Mayerling in 1889. Rudolf, unsatisfied in his marriage to Stephanie, daughter of Leopold II of Belgium had found romance with Mary, the younger daughter of a Hungarian earl. Taking her along on a party to his hunting lodge at Mayerling, the young woman soon became excessively animated and sought to interject herself into court politics and intrigue. Rudolf snubbed her for this, and in a fit of rage, the 17-year old baroness smashed a bottle of champagne over Rudolf's head, killing him. Hearing the fracas and then a gunshot, Johann and other revelers on a nearby balcony, rushed into the salon to discover that Rudolf's valet had avenged his master's death with a single, fatal gunshot to Mary Vetsera. The event was immediately covered-up, and the story of a murder-suicide was fabricated. Enemies of both Rudolf and Johann, began spreading innuendo that Johann was implicated in Rudolf's death. When Emperor Franz Joseph questioned the young archduke about these rumors in 1889, Johan became furious and broke his sword over his knee. Tearing the epaulets and military decorations off his uniform, Johann threw them at the feet of the emperor, and renounced his right to the throne until such time as he might be cleared of the false accusations. The Emperor, indignant at Johan's actions, sentenced him to lose his princely rights and succession for twenty years. Johan then left the country and assumed his new life and the name "John Orth". Orth and his wife, an actress, were believed lost at sea in a shipwreck off Cape Horn in 1890 and were declared dead in absentia in 1911. The 1945 story of Johan's (Orth's) survival has not been established as true.

Koehler's grandfather, Heinrich, was born in the state of Hesse in Germany. A master-brewer trained at Mainz, he had immigrated to America at the age of twenty-one, quickly making his way to St. Louis, where German-Americans accounted for nearly one-third the population of 78,000 in 1850. Working his way up to foreman at the Lemp brewery, by 1851 Koehler had saved enough capital to start his own brewery, and moved 225 miles upriver on the Mississippi to Fort Madison, Iowa, where he purchased a small, but established brewery and introduced lager beer to the surrounding area. Around 1863, Heinrich, who now went by "Henry", leased his brewery to his father-in-law, and moved back to St. Louis where he bought a partnership interest in the Excelsior Brewery from his younger brother, Casper (1835–1910). By then the city's population had swelled to more than 300,000 and the brothers aimed to increase beer production and sell to the thousands of Federal troops stationed in the city environs. While the brewery flourished, the brothers' relationship did not. In 1871, Henry sold his interest to Casper and moved his family upriver to Davenport, Iowa. Davenport was then part of the Tri-cities metropolitan area, including the neighboring riverfront cities of Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. A year later, he bought the established Arsenal Brewery with his brother-in-law, Rudolph Lange. The business was also known as Koehler and Lange, after its owners. With a growing, largely Germanic immigrant population that regarded beer as a staple, Davenport had cheaper operating costs than St. Louis, including river and rail transportation with caves along the river where the beer could be stored. The area proved ideal to expand the business. Weathering obstacles, including the rising Temperance Movement, in 1884 the partners were industry forerunners when they introduced a non-alcoholic beer, called Mumm, derived from a German word meaning disguise or mask.

In 1875, seventeen-year old Oscar Koehler, the oldest of Henry's seven children, obtained a passport to study in Germany. After completing studies at the Academy of Brewing in Worms, he entered the University of Leipzig where he obtained a doctorate in chemistry four years later. Returning to America, he was exceptionally trained for the brewing industry. After a brief stint at his father's brewery in Davenport, Oscar moved to St. Louis where he became secretary of the Henry Koehler Brewing Assoc., a business his father established in 1880. The following year, Oscar was joined by his younger brother, Henry Jr. (1863–1912), and by 1883 the business was sold to the St. Louis Brewing Assoc. As that business was winding down, the Koehler brothers were setting up their successor business, "The Sect Wine Company", which Oscar and his father had started preparing for in 1880 on a stock offering of $135,000 ($3.4 mil. in 2010). With the stated purpose "to deal in nothing but strictly pure wines, recognizing that he who appreciates a fair article will willingly pay a fair price to obtain it", the business occupied a two-story distillery and winery of 80,000 square feet at 2814-24 South Seventh Street in St. Louis. Production of the company's signature champagne "Koehler's Sect" and its still wines was overseen by experienced winemakers from Rheims, France, and marketed by a staff of travelling salesmen.

The Koehlers' expansion into the winemaking business, particularly the popular "Koehler's Sect", enhanced both their wealth and prestige in the St. Louis business community. Their marriages and social activities further solidified their elite standing. In 1885, Oscar married Mathilda Lange (1866–1947), daughter of William Lange, president of the National Bank of St. Louis. In 1888, two years after his marriage to Mathilda, Oscar joined the Germania Club, an exclusive club open only to St. Louis residents who had graduated from German universities. Oscar was one of only sixty-one members. In 1897, Henry Jr. married the California actress Margaret Craven in a San Francisco society wedding that was publicized in the New Yorkand Los Angeles Times, the former writing that Craven had married "Henry Koehler, a rich brewer of St. Louis" and the latter reporting that "Miss Craven is a professional actress and is noted for her beauty. The groom is 35 years old and a millionaire." Oscar and Henry Koehler Jr., remained in the wine business until 1890. In 1887, they were joined by their younger brother, Hugo (1868–1939), who had originally moved to the city to attend St. Louis Medical College. In January 1890, the brothers began their most successful venture in the series of business ventures that ultimately amassed them millions of dollars, when they organized the American Brewing Company (A.B.C.) with $300,000 ($7.42 million in 2010) in capital. Constructed on the site of the Sect Wine Company and other Koehler businesses on South Seventh Street in St. Louis, the huge plant was praised for its architectural design and function, employing the latest in brewing technology including the largest copper brew kettles ever made. As with their champagne and wines, the Koehler's mission statement was "to produce beers of the highest class only, and to obtain patronage by furnishing only such an article." Before long, the Koehlers' beer, particularly their A.B.C. Bohemian was available through wholesale distributors (typically German-Americans) in locations as far away as Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Birmingham, Alabama. Ultimately, the brewery expanded into foreign distribution, including Egypt, the Philippines and Japan, before closing in 1940, never recovering from the negative business impact caused by Prohibition.

In 1894, Oscar left the American Brewing Company and St. Louis, to move back to Davenport, where he took over his father's interest in the Arsenal Brewery (Koehler and Lange). The change was prompted by Henry's decision to take an extended trip to Europe, where he stayed for two years. In 1895, Oscar commissioned the architect Friedrich Clausen to construct a 5-bedroom, 3,700 sq. ft. Queen Anne residence at 817 W. 7th Street, overlooking the bluffs of the Mississippi River on Davenport's Gold Coast. Young Hugo lived his childhood and adolescence with wealth and privilege. The oldest of six children (Elise (1887–1971), Herbert (1888–1945), Otillie (1894- 1975), Eda (1900–1958), and Hildegarde (1901–1926)), his childhood memories were of preferential treatment over his brother and sisters. Never being disciplined and having the best pony and cart, engendered the notion in Hugo that he was "different". A prankster in his youth, he delighted in trying the limits of his grandfather's patience. A wine collector, Henry would organize wine-tasting dinners for his friends, who were asked to identify the wine and vintage after trying it. Once, Hugo decided to substitute inferior wines, believing his grandfather and his friends could not tell the difference. Hiding behind the curtains, Hugo was surprised to see his grandfather's reaction on sampling the wine, as he rose to apologize to his guests that there "must have been some mistake". When the boy confessed to the deceit later, his grandfather was more hurt than angry. For him, there were certain lines that no gentleman would cross. Hugo journeyed to England with his grandfather, where he was introduced to the physiologist John Scott Haldane, statesman-naturalist Lord Grey of Fallodon and Empress Elisabeth. In Austria, the boy was introduced to the court of Emperor Franz Josef. As Koehler put it years later, "After all that, water pistols were not very interesting."

On one European summer vacation, Henry asked the youth what he might do with his life. Hugo responded that he would like to be a philosopher, or a Jesuit or a naval officer. His grandfather responded that the boy was already somewhat of a philosopher and observed that for his grandson, the Roman Catholic priesthood would involve "more disadvantages than advantages." He concluded, "if you want to be a naval officer, you will have to get some education first, for the Naval Academy gives you only a training."