The fight has thrown a new spotlight on Germany's aristocratic families, who are now usually best-known through glossy celebrity gossip magazines, and specifically the House of Hohenzollern.
The descendants of the last German emperor and king of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, have embarked on a struggle to get back properties and treasures that were confiscated by the Soviets in 1945 .
The Tudor-style mansion, which boasts 176 rooms, six courtyards and 55 fireplaces, was the last Prussian palace built by the Hohenzollerns.
The Hohenzollerns, whose history has been linked with Germany's for almost a millennium, were kings of Prussia from 1701 and then ruled the German Empire from 1871 until Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate in 1918 and went into exile after Germany's defeat in World War I.
The controversy comes as Germany builds a replica of the Berlin Palace, the principal residence of the Hohenzollern kings of Prussia, which was heavily bombed in World War II and then leveled by the communist East German regime in 1950 .
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