Marie José of Belgium Claretta Petacci, claimed in her diary that in 1937 the then princess and wife of the heir to the throne tried and failed to seduce the dictator at a beach resort near Rome. However, Mussolini's son, Romano, claims that the princess and dictator entered into a sexual relationship. In 1943, the Crown Princess involved herself in vain attempts to arrange a separate peace treaty between Italy and the United States; her interlocutor from the Vatican was Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, a senior diplomat who later became Pope Paul VI. Her attempts were not sponsored by the king and Umberto was
Clara Katharina Pollaczek regular touch with his ex-wife and Lili, his daughter. Clara Katharina Pollaczek frequently complained that she was not sufficiently seen out with Schnitzler "in society", and was not identified as his "official mistress". Their relationship became defined, increasingly. by conflict, for instance when Clara Pollaczek announced that she was anti-semitic. As Schnitzler recorded the exchange in his diary, this gave rise to a lengthy argument. Pollaczek had done nothing to conceal her Jewish provenance while Schnitzler had plenty of opportunity to observe the uglier face of antisemitism in Vienna during the 1920s and early 30s. Despite the arguments, neither partner