The son of the 90-year-old "Frankfurt beer king" has accused his 28-year-old stepmother, a Belgian model, of killing his father in order to pocket the family fortune.
Bruno H. Schubert, who sold the family's famous Henninger brewery more than thirty years ago, shocked Frankfurt high society when he married Meharit Kifle, an attractive woman of Ethiopian origin, who was then 64 years his junior in August 2009.
His poodle, Sissy, was an official witness at a garish marriage that attracted tabloid headlines and which took place just five months after the death of Ingeborg, his first wife of 68 years.
The second marriage to Ms Kifle, who had a four-year-old son by another relationship, came to an abrupt end when Mr Schubert, who was known nationally as an environmental philanthropist, died on October 17 last year of apparent old age.
But following a legal dispute over Mr Schubert's will, Hanns Peter Nerger, his illegitimate son from an extramarital affair in the 1940s, has accused his young widow of withholding liquids from his father, causing his death by dehydration.
"If my suspicions prove to be wrong, I can live with it. Should I be right, I hope that the culprits get their punishment," he told the Frankfurter Neue Presse newspaper.
Frankfurt's prosecutors are investigating the claims and hospital staff have been interviewed. Also under investigation is an accusation that Meharit was "seen dancing a few days after her husband died in a disco".
"We are carrying out a death investigation process," said, Hubert Harth, Frankfurt's Chief Public Prosecutor.
Meharit Schubert, and her lawyer Mr Kestler, have strenuously denied the accusations.
Ms Kifle is said to have met Mr Schuburt in a restaurant five years ago at a gala lunch he hosted at a time when he had a reputation as a "beer baron" playboy who hosted lavish champagne parties at his villa in the Bavarian Alpine Berchtesgaden.
Describing her as "an exceptional woman", Mr Schubert fell in love and after his first wife proposed to Ms Kifle, quickly changing his will to leave his undisclosed "six figure" fortune to her.
"I am so in love, she is a wonderful person. It is a real love match," he said on their wedding day. "It's a shame I'm so old."
Mr Nerger, 64, has mounted a legal challenge to the changes to his father's will that switched his inheritance away from an environmental foundation that bore his name to his new young wife.
Questioning his father's sanity, he has pointed to his growing isolation, the sacking of family retainers and the appointment of Ms Kifle and Hubert Kestler, his newly engaged lawyer, to the board of the Bruno H. Schubert Foundation.
The family property in Berchtesgaden, which should have gone to the foundation after his death, was sold to Thailand, reportedly for £8.6 million, but Mr Nerger has claimed there is "no trace of the money".
"After their marriage, Bruno suddenly became less accessible. He invited friends less often. He also changed his will," he said.
"He made sure that Meharit, his new wife would inherit everything. I think at the end of his life my dad was manipulated by Meharit."
Manfred Niekisch, the director of the Frankfurt Zoo and the chairman of the trustees of the Schubert foundation, has also raised concerns. "He was systematically isolated," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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