A True Story/Washington, Caracas, Zurich/1965
The Hitz
Inheritance
The Crown meets Fargo. Real, and darker.
A seventeen-year-old heiress vanished from Washington twenty-six days before she would inherit a ten-million-dollar fortune, roughly $150 million in today's money. She turned up in Caracas: married, a mother, and surrounded by people with claims on the estate. Her family spent the next sixty years trying to learn what really happened. No one ever collected the money.
The story is being told for the first time. Get the opening chapter, and follow the investigation as it unfolds.
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The Case, In Brief
The Fortune
A $10 million estate in 1965, roughly $150 million today. The family never saw it.
The Disappearance
Gone from her Washington home 26 days before the inheritance. An international search across two continents.
The Turn
Found in Caracas: married to a man her mother had never met, holding a three-week-old daughter.
Have married. Birth certificate shows I am 18. Stop this ridiculous persecution. I am happy now.
Signed “Annely,” by cable to her mother
What The Papers Saw, In Order
Nov 26, 1965
Washington
Nov 26, 1965
Washington
Nov 1965
West Germany
Dec 16, 1965
Zurich
Jan 11, 1966
Caracas
Feb 14, 1966
Caracas
Six of 144 documents · Enter the archive
Two Women, Two Continents
The heiress in Venezuela, and her mother in Washington, working the telephones to find her. The story was passed down through the women in my family. I grew up inside it, and I have the letters, the court records, and the archive the newspapers never saw.
The Photograph
In January 1966, a Venezuelan photojournalist named Mora photographed my grandmother outside the Judicial Technical Police headquarters in Caracas. She was nineteen, in a tailored shift dress and dark glasses, her infant daughter, my mother, in her arms. Beside her stood my grandfather, in a pressed suit. They looked like movie stars who belonged on a magazine cover, not a police report.
They had come to file a claim for thirty million bolivars, roughly ten million dollars, that she believed she had inherited from her father. As the picture was taken, a beggar asked what the interest could be. Told the young woman was about to inherit a fortune, he said only, “And to think that I only have one coin.”
The Swiss papers already had a name for her: the Goldspatz, the golden sparrow in the golden cage. The real irony took sixty years to uncover. The beggar and my grandmother were in the same position. The millions existed only in the headlines.
The Millionaires and the Beggar. THEY: 30 million. HE: One coin.
The photograph that made the fortune look real
The Reporter
A Washington Post journalist came back to the family after the headlines faded and asked to turn the story into a book. The family's records name him: Carl Bernstein. Six years later he was breaking Watergate.
The book he asked to write never happened. This one did.
The Archive
144 documents · 4 languages · 3 continents
The family kept everything since 1965: the clippings the wire services ran, the ones they never saw, the court papers, the letters, the photographs. Ten documents are public. The rest stay sealed until the story is told.
The Case File
- November 1965 · Washington
Anna Maria Hitz, seventeen, heiress to the $10 million estate of her father Othmar John Hitz, vanishes from her Washington home. An international search begins across two continents.
- November 1965 · Caracas
She is found in Caracas: married, holding a three-week-old daughter. By cable to her mother: “Stop this ridiculous persecution. I am happy now.”
- December 1965 · Zurich
BLICK reports “Goldspatz versöhnt” — the golden sparrow, reconciled. Her mother visits her in Caracas.
- January 1966 · Caracas
Photographed with her husband and infant daughter outside police headquarters, filing a claim for thirty million bolivars, roughly ten million dollars. The fortune exists mostly in the headlines.
- February 1966 · Caracas
El Mundo covers the Hitz-Spring estate scandal and the lawyer at the center of it. The court battle over the inheritance grinds on.
- 2014 · New York
At NYU, her granddaughter finds the box of clippings and begins the investigation that becomes this book.
- Today
The memoir and a limited-series adaptation, built from the archive the family kept for sixty years.
From The Opening Pages
It began with a cardboard box.
The box was heavier than I expected. I pulled it out and set it on my mother’s bed, and the dust that came off it made me sneeze. … My grandmother. Anna Maria.
But here, in this box, she was someone else entirely. She was young and unflinching, on the front page of an international scandal. She was famous. And she was furious.
By Elisabeth Bierschenk Hitz · the full opening chapter goes to the email list first
What This Is
The Hitz Inheritance is a true story I have been investigating since 2014, starting at NYU. It is now a book and a six-to-eight-episode limited series, built from the real archive: Swiss and Venezuelan court files, period press across two continents, and my family's own papers.
This page is where the telling begins.
Questions
Is The Hitz Inheritance a true story?
Yes. It is built from the real archive: Swiss and Venezuelan court files, period press across two continents including The Washington Post, The Evening Star, El Mundo of Caracas, BLICK and BILD, and the family’s own papers, letters, and photographs.
Who was Anna Maria Hitz?
A seventeen-year-old Swiss-Venezuelan heiress to the $10 million coffee and industrial estate of her father, Othmar John Hitz. In November 1965 she vanished from her Washington home, setting off an international search, and was found in Caracas: married, and holding a three-week-old daughter. The Swiss press called her the Goldspatz, the golden sparrow in the golden cage.
What is it being developed as?
A memoir written by Anna Maria’s granddaughter, and a six-to-eight-episode limited series. Both are built from the primary archive the family has kept since 1965.
How big is the archive?
About 144 original documents kept since 1965: press clippings in four languages from three continents, plus court papers, letters, and photographs. Ten are public, six of them on this page. The rest stay sealed until the story is told. See the archive.
How much would the fortune be worth today?
The estate was reported at $10 million in 1965, counted at 30 to 50 million bolivars in the Venezuelan press. In today's money that is roughly $150 million. No one in the family ever collected it.
Rights, press, or adaptation inquiries?
Elisabeth Hitz, the author and rights holder: thehitzinheritance@gmail.com
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