Just Daisy

Being a baroness was never enough to satisfy ambitious Daisy von Freyberg. At the age of 18 she took on a stage name, Daisy D'Ora, and became one of the more curvesome ornaments of Germany's silver screen. The international film Almanac of 1931 listed her as a "young lover" type, and that same year blonde Baroness Daisy earned still another title: Miss Germany. Sought after by the great and powerful in the twin worlds of Art and Fashion, Daisy in 1932 gave up her own career to marry a wealthy and successful young diplomat named Oskar Schlitter.

Schlitter was one of the ablest of Germany's young career foreign officers; his wife Daisy had all the charm, intelligence and breeding necessary to grace an embassy table. There was only one trouble: she talked too much. Daisy's outspoken comments and uninhibited ways often got her husband into trouble. After the war, Schlitter was serving at the German embassy in Madrid when the ex-Kaiser's grandson, Prince Louis Ferdinand, dropped in for a call. The visit was supposed to be heavy with old-fashioned protocol, with everybody bowing low. Carefree Daisy, lined up with the rest of the staffers' wives, took one look at her old friend the prince, and with a whoop and a holler greeted him with a lusty "Hi there, Lulu!" Shortly thereafter, Oskar Schlitter was transferred to London.

There, a month ago, Schlitter, as acting ambassador in the absence of his boss, gave a Christmas party for the staff and some friends, mostly German. Before the party was properly under way, Oskar, a busy man, had to leave for a reception at the British Foreign Office, so it fell to Daisy to make the welcoming speech to their guests. In her usual freewheeling style, she spoke of home and the necessity for Germans overseas to hang together in "enemy foreign territory." Somebody told a reporter, and the remark was banner-lined in London newspapers. In Bonn Konrad Adenauer learned of it, and Daisy and Oskar were whisked back to Germany to face an outraged Chancellor.

Last week, as her husband cooled his heels in Bonn awaiting official action, Daisy took to a sanatorium to rest herself. Germany's Foreign Office issued an official apology for the "extremely regrettable" incident, putting it down to Daisy's "nervousness and inexperience." For the most part, Britons, after thinking it over, were inclined to forgive Daisy. "Nobody who has met Frau Schlitter," wrote the Manchester Guardian, "doubts her enjoyment of the London scene and her affection for the English. It would be a pity if a slip of the tongue were to disturb -it could surely not damage -the career of her husband, who has created a wholly favorable impression here."

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