 Accompanied by his wife, and without waiting to be summoned, Oskar Schlitter departed for Bonn on Sunday 2 January 1955, leaving the embassy not in an embassy car but driven to the station by their daughter in her small black car, and taking a late night channel crossing on the Belgian ferry "Prince Baudouin".Schlitter insisted to reporters that his sudden departure had nothing to do with his wife's speech ten days earlier.Their children, Marion (then aged 21) and Alexander (then aged 12), remained in London