Harry Domela

Harry Domela (1905 – 4 October 1979) was a Russian Empire-born impostor who pretended to be a deposed German crown prince.

Domela later resurfaced as a teacher in Venezuela and contacted Jef Last in 1965. After last being seen in 1978 according to research by Weimar-based scholar Jens Kirsten, Domela died in 1979 in Maracaibo.

Domela left Germany for the Netherlands in 1933 and lived with false papers as "Victor Zsajka". He befriended Dutch author Jef Last who acquainted him with André Gide. Domela served with Last in the Spanish Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. Afterwards he stayed in Belgium until he moved to France where he was interned by the Vichy France regime. Gide helped him to leave for Mexico.

For the next seven months he was in prison in Cologne, waiting for his trial. He used this time to write the narrative of his experiences, A Sham Prince: The Life and Adventures of Harry Domela as Written by Himself in Prison at Cologne, January to June 1927. In the trial, the court ruled that his imposture had been harmless and he was acquitted of the charges.

Domela's book sold well, and soon he had sold the movie rights to it. There were two plays about his life; in one he played himself (he sued the actor who played him in the other one, but lost the lawsuit). In 1927 he starred in a film The False Prince, based on his own experiences. However, by 1930 he had disappeared from the public life.

Harry Domela was born to German parents in 1905 in Kurland, Russian Empire. At the age of fifteen he fought in the first Freikorps against Baltic rebels. He moved to Germany after World War I. His brothers and his father had died in the war.