The cursed inheritance of the 'red duchess' who disowned her children and left them without a palace and without a euro

• Courts Two farms in Tarifa and other triumphs of the children of the 'red duchess' in the inheritance trial

• Medina Sidonia case The executor of the "red duchess": "She did not want to remarry even dead"

• Controversy The judge recognizes the husband of the 'red duchess' as the father of Rosario Bermudo, daughter of the servant

Remembered even 15 years after she died as the

of the aristocracy, Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo y Maura crossed all the limits of what in her time was considered

in a woman of her lineage, holder of the very important duchy of Medina-Sidonia, which dates back to the 13th century and had around twenty titles and various grandeurs.

Based in the Palacio de los Guzmanes in Sanlúcar (Cádiz), it houses the most important private archive in Europe, 6,317 documents valued at more than 28 million euros.

Her lineage did not prevent her from becoming the "red duchess", whose anti-Franco activism landed her in jail and exile, getting married pregnant, abandoning her three children who were raised by her great-grandmother and, as the final touch, marrying in articulo mortis

with her lover, Lilian Dhalman, to whom she gave all power in the foundation she created to disinherit her offspring, leading to a bitter lawsuit.

"She was a very angry woman, if you contradicted her, she would have a tremendous temper and even rudeness. Her worst facet was

, probably because they were a living mirror of a female sexuality that she hated so much, that they say she wore underpants as underwear They were so marked that Gabriel, the youngest, remembers his mother as the reincarnation of Lucifer," a nobleman close to the family assures LOC.

EIGHT MONTHS IN JAIL

Born in 1936 in Estoril, where her parents, Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Medina Sidonia, and her mother Carmen Maura, granddaughter of the Duke of Maura, went into exile during the civil war.

Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo y Maura lost her mother when she was ten years old.

She was educated according to her lineage by her grandmother, the Countess de la Mortera, who presented her in society

.

But she would soon stand out, when she married in 1955, at the age of 19 and three months pregnant, with José Leoncio González de Gregorio, son of the counts of Puebla, an expert horseman and also in the arts of love, since she left two children out of wedlock:

, recognized by the courts and Rosario Bermudo, also recognized after exhuming the paternal remains.

In 1956 the eldest son of the couple, Leoncio Alonso, was born, and Pilar and Gabriel were born a year apart, after which the already Duchess of Medina Sidonia considered her "dynastic work" accomplished: she left her children in the care of her great-grandmother and separated of her husband to live her life with rebellion as her flag.

So much so that he spent eight months in the Alcalá prison in 1969 when he led a protest over the Palomares nuclear accident and, when he got out, he published his novel The

denouncing the situation of Andalusian day laborers, as well as numerous articles against the dictatorship in

.

On the right, Leoncio and Gabriel, sons of Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, at their mother's funeral.CORDON PRESS

Faced with the new sentence that was planned for her, she went into exile in Paris, where she lived in a tiny attic, related to the

and

, returning to Spain after Franco died thanks to the amnesty law.

In those years she had her first judicial clash with her children, who denounced her for "failing to comply with the inheritance left by her great-grandmother, causing her repudiation," she assured.

The panorama worsened after meeting in 1983 at the wedding of his son Leoncio, his great love, the German Liliane Dahlman, who he would present as his secretary from now on, for which he abandoned a lady from Sanlúcar whose family wanted to burn down the

.

To prevent his estate from disintegrating, and incidentally to take revenge on his children, depriving them of his inheritance, he created the Casa Medina Sidonia Foundation in 1990, which Liliane would preside over in the future.

There he diverted his assets, being declared the palace and its complex, file included, Assets of Cultural Interest, impossible to alienate.

CONFLICTING HERITAGE

Suffering from lung cancer, her latest scandal was marrying behind her children's back four hours before she died with Liliane, who remained as mistress of her legacy.

Something that originated one of the most bitter lawsuits of the nobility, since the new duke, Leoncio and his brothers, also confronted with each other over family titles, resorted to the courts, considering that the legitimate part of

inheritance had been harmed by the donation of 56 million euros that his mother made to the foundation.

The courts agreed with them, forcing them to cut said amount and pay the part of it to the heirs in cash, but later, to avoid breaking up the legacy, it replaced it with ownership fees.

Liliane Dahlman, widow and heiress of the "red duchess"EFE

In addition, the sale of two plots in the Atlanterra urbanization that the Duchess made to her lover was annulled, considering it simulated.

Today in the Sanlúcar palace where Luisa Isabel died 15 years ago on March 7, 2008 and her ashes were scattered, her widow Liliane and her eldest son Leoncio live in tense coexistence, with unresolved fringes from their legal battle.

As revealed to LOC Javier Thimermans, Gabriel's lawyer, "the three brothers have yet to execute their inheritance quota and the property is officially theirs. It also remains to be determined how the value of the Atlanterra farms will affect their quotas in the foundation It

regarding the inheritance".

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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