File:Bernstorff's Son in Social Scandal in the Sacramento Union of Sacramento, California on 6 April 1918.png

Bernstorff's Son in Social Scandal. American Wife of Young Junker Storm Center of Row Which Stirs Berlin. Amsterdam, April 5, 1918. Berlin society is much stirred by a suit for libel against Count Christian Gunther von Bernstorff, son of the former German ambassador to the United States, by Baron Walter von Radeck, a member of an old Prussian military family who lived for many years in Holland. Count Gunther’s wife, who was Mrs. Marguerite Vivian Burton Thomason of Burlington, New Jersey, and a number of others, including the wife of one of the generals commanding an army on the western front, are also defendants in the suit. Baron von Padeck and his wife, according to the Rhenische Westfaelische Zeitung, were divorced in October 1917, and she subsequently married Count von Bernstorff. The result was a physical encounter between the two men in which von Radek tore the epaulettes from von Bernstorff's uniform. Thereupon von declared that von Radeck was not capable of giving satisfaction as a gentleman and he charged von Radeck with spying for England, This resulted in Aon Padeck leaving the army and von Bernstorff being diminished by a military court. The baron now charges that von Bernstorff with 14 others caused his divorce and dismissal from the army by circulating untruthful reports. Count Christian Gunther von Bernstorff and Mrs. Thomason were married last December 8. He is 26 years old. He entered the German diplomatic service shortly after the outbreak of the war. Countess von Bernstorff is about 30 years old. Her first husband was an American, from whom she was divorced, after which she married Baron von Padeck. She was born in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, of English parents and was adopted by E. J. Thomason, of Burlington, New Jersey. After her first marriage she met Baron von Padeck in New York and they were married in London in 1911. Two years later she filed suit for divorce of the grounds of cruelty and the case dragged on until last October. Four years ago the countess fell heir to an estate of $l00,000 from her foster mother. Baron von Padeck was formerly an attache of the German embassy in London. His father was a general in the German army.

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