Hans Hermann Weyer

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Hans Hermann Weyer is a a former window dresser who became an honorary consul of Bolivia in Luxembourg^[1] and who became known in the 1960s for selling certificates of nobility, doctoral degrees from invented colleges and universities, and other decorations in Germany.^[2][3] Jailed several times on fraud charges and described in 1982 by John Vinocur of The New York Times as "a Munich rogue who sold phony titles" to "used-car dealers hungry for respectability", Weyer is given credit for Lichtenberg's adoption in the latter's biographical profile in the cast list of the 2005 German reality-television program "Die Burg".^[4][5] According to the newspaper Rhein-Zeitung, Weyer was adopted as an adult, in 1996, by a Countess of Yorck of Wartenberg (Gräfin von Yorck von Wartenberg), a 78-year-old German noblewoman, and now uses the name Consul Weyer Gräf von Yorck.^[6][7]

[edit] References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ New York Times article mentioning Weyer's career, 1982
3. ^ John Vinocur, "For German Who 'Awarded' Titles, First Gold, Then Bars", The New York Times, 16 March 1978, page A2
4. ^ Cast List for "Die Burg"
5. ^ John Vinocur, "A Republic of Fear: Thirty Years of General Stroessner's Paraguay", The New York Times Magazine, 23 September 1984, page 20
6. ^ Consul Weyer Gräf von Yorck's website
7. ^ Abstract of Rhein-Zeitung article about Weyer's adoption