On the night of February 17, 1920, less than two years after the murders in Ipatiev House, a woman jumped off a bridge in Berlin. She was rescued and taken to a hospital. She had no ID and refused to give her identity. She was sent to a mental asylum. There someone recognized her as Grand Duchess Tatiana. She didn't deny this right away, but eventually said, "I never said I was Tatiana." When she was given a list of the tsar's daughters' names, she crossed out all except Anastasia.When one of Alexandra's ladies-in-waiting visited her, the woman hid beneath a blanket. The lady-in-waiting called her an imposter and stormed off. But there were some who believed the woman's tale, and after her release in 1922 she lived on the charity of various sympathizers.
Eventually she explained her escape from the imperial family's assassins. She had been bayoneted, she said, but survived because the soldiers' weapons were blunt. After the murders a soldier named Tschaikovsky saw that she was still moving. During the chaos of that night he rescued her. Anderson said Tschaikovsky took her to Romania. Her story was confused, but it seems that at some point she may have married Tschaikovsky. After he was killed in a street fight she gave birth to his son, who was placed in an orphanage.
The woman walked to Berlin to seek out "her" aunt, Princess Irene. (Scoffers asked why she hadn't sought out her parents' cousin, Queen Marie, while she was in Romania.) She reached the palace where Irene lived, but, fearing no one would recognize her, didn't try to enter. Instead she decided to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge.
Princess Irene did meet the woman eventually and denied that she resembled Anastasia. Yet Irene later cried about the meeting and admitted, "She is similar, she is similar." Irene's son Prince Sigismund, a childhood friend of Anastasia, sent the woman a list of questions. Her answers convinced him that she was Anastasia.
The woman, who began calling herself Anna Anderson in the 1920s, attracted many supporters and many deniers. Crown Princess Cecilie, the daughter-in-law of the former kaiser and a relative of Anastasia, came to believe that Anderson was the lost grand duchess. Cecilie's son Prince Louis Ferdinand and his wife, Princess Kyra, did not believe. One of Anastasia's aunts, Grand Duchess Olga, met Anderson several times. Her opinion wavered, but finally she declared Anderson was not Anastasia.
Anastasia's tutor, Pierre Gilliard, also met Anderson and thought she might be Anastasia. Later he changed his mind and called her "a first rate actress." Former ballerina Mathilde Kschessinka, who had been Nicholas's mistress before his marriage, and who later married Nicholas's cousin, Grand Duke Andrew, believed Anderson was Anastasia. She said Anderson had Nicholas's eyes, and looked at her with "the emperor's look."
After spending two days with Anderson, Nicholas II's cousin Grand Duke Alexander exclaimed, "I have seen Nicky's daughter! I have seen Nicky's daughter!" Other staunch supporters included Anastasia's cousin Princess Xenia, and Gleb and Tatiana Botkin, whose father was murdered with the imperial family. Gleb's childhood drawings of animals in court dress had delighted Anastasia. When he first met Anderson she asked about his "funny animals," convincing Gleb that she was Anastasia.
Anderson also claimed to have startling knowledge about Anastasia's uncle, Grand Duke Ernst of Hesse. She said he had visited Russia in 1916, when his country and Russia were at war. Ernst angrily denied making the visit, but the kaiser's stepson testified in court in 1966 that he had been told Ernst did secretly made the trip. If this was true, how did Anna Anderson know about it?
Determined to prove that Anderson was an imposter, Ernst backed an investigation that suggested Anderson was a Polish factory worker, Franziska Schanzkowska, who disappeared right before Anna Anderson surfaced. Some believe the investigation was tainted because the woman who identified Anderson as Schanzkowska was paid for her testimony.
Although she depended on the good-will of her supporters, Anna Anderson was haughty and demanding, often arguing with her hosts. At times she attacked people or ran around naked. Her supporters pointed out it was not surprising Anastasia would have mental problems after watching her family die and being nearly murdered herself.
Her detractors pointed out that she never spoke Russian. However, when she was addressed in Russian she understood and answered in other languages. She said she wouldn't speak Russian because it was the language spoken by those who had killed her family. She spoke good English, German and French - unusual for a Polish factory worker. She had scars that she said came from being shot and bayoneted. Her detractors said that the scars came from dropping a grenade when she worked in a munitions factory.
Anderson and Anastasia had other physical similarities. Anderson had a foot deformity like Anastasia's. Anthropologists who studied their photographs found their faces to be very similar. One famous anthropologist, Dr. Otto Reche, testified in court that Anastasia and Anna Anderson had to be either the same person or identical twins.
Anderson brought suit in a German court in 1938 to prove her identity and claim part of an inheritance. The case dragged on until 1970. Reche's testimony, made after examining photographs of Anastasia and Anna Anderson, came in 1964. A handwriting expert, who was not paid for her testimony, also swore that Anderson was Anastasia. Anderson even tried to obtain samples of Anastasia's fingerprints for comparison, although this proved impossible. Finally the court ruled, not that Anderson wasn't Anastasia, but that she hadn't proved it. But experts continued to take Anderson's side. In 1977 a prominent forensic expert, Dr. Moritz Furtmayr, identified Anderson as Anastasia.
For the last 15 years of her life Anderson was married to wealthy American John Manahan. She died of pneumonia in 1984 and was cremated at her own request. Her husband carried out her wishes and saw to it that her ashes were scattered in the cemetery at Castle Seeon in Germany, which was owned by distant relatives of the Romanov family. Recent DNA analysis of hair and tissue samples from Anderson seemed to prove that she was not Anastasia, but Franziska Schanzkowska. But some of Anderson's supporters cling to hope, saying that the tissue tested was not really Anderson's. They believe Anna Anderson - Anastasia - was swindled out of her true name and inheritance.