Anna Anderson: Exposed!

There is at this time only one known available picture of Franziska. Though Anderson supporters always say there are no retouched pictures, there are both retouched and unretouched, though the latter are faded or blurry due to age. On the left is the copy of the original, middle, a drawn imitation which changes the face, far right, better quality retouch done to emphasize features in blurry picture for Pierre Gilliard's book "Les Fausse Anastasie"

Anderson supporters won't dare put a picture of her next to the ones on the left or right, afraid you'll see just how much Anderson resembles Franziska. But this is exactly what I am going to do, so have a look for yourself.

Below left: This is a faded, yellowed version of the entire body shot Franziska's picture. Below right: Franziska as a child, 1902

Now for the comparisons. Sites all over the web will try to show you comparisons of Anderson supposedly looking like Anastasia. I'm doing the opposite, showing how much she looks like Franziska, because she was Franziska! In comparison, on the left is the best quality version of the Franzkisa picture I could find, on the right is Anna Anderson in 1929:

Let's examine the faces. Both are about the same shape. Anderson, unlike Anastasia, had a short, flat chin, full, thick lips, a large, sharp rounded nose, and large eyes. I have never seen a better match than these two photos here. It's very clear they are the same person. Even the part in the hair and the way the eyebrows tilt and fade at the arch is identical. The features and bone structure are the same.

When you cut the pictures of the faces in half and place the halves side by side, the matches in the face shape and features are evident! Left side of AA's face, right side of FS's face:

Right side of AA's face, left side of FS's:

Now compare Anderson in the center with Franziska on the right and the real Anastasia on the left. Who does she look more like? She's a real dead ringer for Franziska, not Anastasia.

Here is a larger version of the Franziska picture (left) as compared with Anderson's mugshot from 1920 (right)

Again, you can clearly see the similarities, especially the distinctive thick, shapeless lips and the same chin shape.

The mugshot was taken before Anderson began her claim as "Anastasia" so she had not yet started posing in ways to try to imitate the Grand Duchess. If you look at the comparisons posted by Anderson supporters, you will see a lot of cleverly posed pictures, purposely aimed at matching up with an old Anastasia photo, pose or expression, often using lighting, angles and shadows to take advantage of hiding the differences, so that at first glance, she'd pass as resembling Anastasia. The most notable thing Anderson did in her attempt to emulate Anastasia was biting her lips. In most pictures of Anderson where she's trying to present herself as "Anastasia" you can see her squeezing in and/or biting down on her much larger, thicker lips. This is because she knew this was the feature that was least like Anastasia, and she was trying to hide it. She was also known to cover the lower half of her face with a handkerchief when visited by those who came to scrutinize her as being or not being Anastasia. (This when she didn't hide her entire body under the sheets!)

In this comparison, you can still see the unmistakable matching head and face shape.

It's my conclusion from comparing these pictures that it's plainly obvious Anna Anderson was Franziska Schanzkowska, even without the DNA!

One of the most often quoted statements in Anna Anderson stories and articles is her amazing likeness to Grand Duchess Anastasia. Even some who didn't even believe her claim suggested she must have gotten plastic surgery to look like her. Allegedly one 'expert' claimed that if they weren't the same person, they were identical twins. But did she really look like Anastasia, or was she only packaged and presented that way? When you look closely, and Anderson is not posing to imitate Anastasia, you can examine the two faces and see for yourself they really don't look much alike at all. There are differences in all the features, as well as facial shape and bone structure.

Anastasia is in the two pictures on the left, Anderson on right

Anastasia's lips were much smaller and more shapely than Anderson's. Anastasia's chin was more elongated and rounded than Anderson's shorter, flatter chin shape. Anastasia's entire face is longer. Her eyes and nose are smaller and shaped differently than Anderson's. The eyebrows are not even the same. In almost every picture of Anderson, you see her hair in a side part, just like Franziska's. Anastasia's hair never went that way, she always had bangs of some type. According to some, the reason for this is because as a child she fell on the royal yacht and got an awful scar across her forehead. Anastasia wore bangs even when the other sisters wore their hair the the trendy "Gibson Girl" style of the early 20th century, combed back and high over the top of head with nothing on the forehead. There does seem to be a reason why Anastasia was the only girl with bangs. Anderson had a seemingly built in natural side part Anastasia never had, and Anderson never wore bangs until she was an older woman.

Here you can see that the shape of the head and the face in this picture of Anderson (r), which matched well with Franziska, is off for Anastasia, whose face was more long and narrow:

This is a collage made to illustrate differences in the lower faces of Anastasia (left) and Anderson (right) Anastasia's small mouth and thin lips and long, curved chin, AA's short, squared, chin, large mouth with very thick, shapeless lips. No wonder she often hid this part of her face with her hand, a handkerchief, or boa feathers.

Here are two pictures of Anastasia with Anderson in the middle. Just look at the drastic differences in the structure of the face, especially the chin and jawline! The lips and mouth are not even remotely similar. The nose too large and the wrong shape, the eyes too big and wide set.

Anderson supporters  know better than to compare the center picture with any of Anastasia because they know it's an obvious difference. In desperation, they try to compare it to Dowager Empress Marie F.! But why?  Some imagined 'family' resemblance? She wasn't claiming to be Marie F., and Anastasia did not even favor Marie F.!

Tatiana favored Marie F. and since AA more resembled Tatiana, she sometimes got the comment that she looked like the Dowager Empress. But here you can see Marie F. did not look at all like Anastasia. L-R: Dowager Empress Marie, (grandmother of OTMA), Tatiana, Anastasia, Anna Anderson

Speaking of family resemblance, let's put her beside the Schanzkowskas! Here is Anderson next to Felix Schanzkowska, brother of Franziska

Here's AA old (left) Franziska's sister Maria Juliana (center) and AA young (right)

Below:  L-R: Anderson, Franziska's  niece, Anderson, Franziska's  brother Felix (father of niece)

My goodness, now we see where those distinctive lips came from, and it certainly wasn't the Romanovs!

In old age, her lips sucked in naturally as her face withered and wrinkled, showing just how much she favored Franziska's sister Gertrude!
Anderson, Franziska's sister Gertrude (center), Anderson, both in old age

She sure takes after the Schazkowskas, and the DNA proved they were made of the same stuff!

Speaking of DNA, here's Carl Maucher getting his blood taken for the DNA test (center) compared to old and young AA.

These two pictures illustrate in perfect detail just how very different the faces and features of Anastasia (left) and Anna Anderson (right) really are.  The mouths and chins, and even the noses, are completely different shapes and sizes!

When you look at the picture of Anastasia bald (no, she didn't do a Britney, it was because of a fever) you can really see just how much longer and thinner her nose was than Anderson's. The faces are not even similar.


Profiles

Here'a another thing most people might not think of. This pictures in the center were taken in Feb. 1920. The real Anastasia would have been eighteen and a half years old. Look at that face! Is that the face of a teenage girl? Franziska would have been 23. The face still looks old for that age, but not as much as for 18! There is a quote where someone in the asylum asked her how old she was, and she asked them to guess. They guessed 30, and she seemed offended, saying, "not so very old." Her face was careworn and her hard times did show on her face, but this is not the skin of an 18 year old girl. Besides that, the features look nothing like Anastasia's. The picture on the right is a closeup of the one below, Anastasia's profile at age 16. The nose in profile is another glaring difference. The picture on the left is of Anastasia right after she turned 16. Again, the profile is very different than that of Anderson's.

The real Anastasia at 16:

These are the last two pictures ever taken of the real Anastasia. The top one in Tobolsk, the lower one on the Rus, spring 1918. A person just doesn't change that much in so short a time. Some of her supporters claim Anderson's face was different because she was hit with a rifle butt. If that were true, it would look like a disfigured version of Anastasia's face, not a totally different person's face, as Franziska's does. They don't look alike because they weren't the same person.

This is what "Miss Unknown" aka "Anna Anderson" looked like when she was fished out of the canal in 1920.


This is what she looked like several years later during the height of her popularity. Compare with the mugshot.

Doesn't even look like the same person, does it? Why the difference? Easy. In the mugs, she was herself. She hadn't yet began pretending to be or posing as "Anastasia." In the other picture, she is acting. She's been coached, posed, and given an extreme makeover for her new role. She was truly a "My Fair Lady" story. The same people who were helping her out by telling her 'memories' must have also told her to suck in her lips and bite them hard because the real Anastasia had thin lips. Notice the lip biting in many of the Anderson pics!


Left: Anderson clearly biting/sucking in her lips. Center (second and third photos): what her lips REALLY looked like! So, what happened to them? She bit them! Why? She and her supporters must have realized just how different her lips were than Anastasia's and tried hard to disguise them. Even sucked in, they still don't resemble the real Anastasia's lips(far right)



Here is the ORIGINAL photo of Anna Tchaikowsky, sent out to the worlds newspapers in 1935 to publish with the story of her filing her legal claim.  It shows something interesting. Take a close look, it isn't even a PHOTOGRAPH, its a photo of a drawing. TOTALLY useless  for any possible claimant comparison. This image must be discredited for anything other than a possible general "likeness" of Ms. Tchaik./Anna Anderson. It doesn't really even resemble Anderson, or Anastasia, yet that photograph has been used for decades to 'prove' the 'resemblance' between Anna Anderson and Anastasia. Clearly, this was what those people around Anastasia Tchaikowsky WANTED to be used for the world press. The less available to compare in actual detail, the better? (That photo came from the Hearst Newspapers Photo "Morgue" which is now being sold off.)

 













Common tricks used to make Anderson appear more like Anastasia

Here's one Anderson supporters love to use! They say she looks just like Anastasia! Oh sure, when they're both so shadowy and blurry, the angle is just right, and when Anastasia's nose is a blob of glare, you can maybe be fooled at first glance by the similar expressions. And they hope that will be good enough. But is it? Look closer. Once again, Anderson is biting in her much thicker, wider lips. You can even see her bottom teeth bulging out through her skin she's sucking them in so hard!  This is one of the pictures that seems to have been posed perhaps specifically to imitate and bring to mind a beloved pic of Anastasia. Sorry, Franziska, we know what you really look like!

closeups of her lips being sucked in (left), and her actual lips

As you can see by the pic to the left, even in old age, Anderson and her supporters never shrank from posing her in certain head tilts and expressions to mock famous pics of Anastasia. Note again the tightly bitten top lip of the elderly Anderson, and how the nose is far too big and the facial shape all wrong. She's hoping to sell you with the pose and general expression. The poser may fool some at first glance, but a closer look reveals the truth: this is just old Franziska trying to look like little Anastasia.



Now, check this out! Look at the picture on the far right. It's one of the famous 'boa' pictures, where she was all done up like going to "Glamor Shots." The feather boa is most often used in these shots to cleverly conceal the lower part of Anderson's face, but in this view, she's letting you see her mouth- but pulling in and biting those lips again! Her top lip is turned almost completely under. Would you have noticed that if I didn't point it out? Anderson supporters were hoping you wouldn't. Posing specifically to mimic Anastasia is a pattern in so many photos of Anderson taken during her claim. This is a deliberate attempt to make her mouth appear more Anastasia-like. Was it her, or a supporter who came up with this idea? It fooled some of the people some of the time, but if you know what Anderson's mouth really looked like, you know how hard she's faking it!


Looking closely to this view from the photoshoot, (below left) you can see she's actually having to bite her top and bottom lips in and under until her mouth is almost a frown! Then with the head tilted just so and the boa to disguise the very different chin shape, someone was trying very hard to make her look like Anastasia, most likely the center photo above. Now compare the picture below left, heavily made up and posed Anderson, with her real face(below center), and yet another famous lip biting Anderson photo utilized by supporters (far right)


Over the years many tricks have been used to make Franziska appear Anastasia-like at first glance in the same way a movie star's body double may momentarily pass for her. But if you really examine the ones the Anderson supporters show you and compare other pictures on your own, you can see it was all 'done with mirrors', creative posing and convenient props and shadows. So the next time you see the pictures Anderson supporters are still putting out there, remember to look for these tricks and clues and don't be fooled.

Here is a very good comparison showing differences in the shape and size of the features of Anderson (left) and Anastasia (right)


These faces just don't match up at all. Chin, mouth, nose, even eyes. Two different people.




Profile- Franziska's lips and nose are nothing like Anastasia's. Look at the ears. Did somebody say they matched? Where? See Anderson's log  nose compared to Anastasia's shorter, rounded one. Also compare Anderson's rugged  profile to this one of Anastasa at 16:



Franziska...Anna Anderson....Anastasia...that distinct chin and mouth of Franziska's really give it away, especially in comparison to Anastasia's


Anastasia and Anna Anderson- compare each of the features










Franziska and Anna Anderson






Someone on another site made this, credit to them.

Geoffrey Oxlee is a British expert in imagery analysis and human identification. His work has been used in court cases where he has been called as an expert witness, and he was awarded for his work with British Military Intelligence.

http://www.kalagate.co.uk/staffgeoff.htm

In 1994, Oxlee used the picture of Franziska and a picture of Anna Anderson and fused them together using his proven successful computer techniques. Oxlee's experiment was shown in real time video on the PBS NOVA episode "Anastasia: Dead or Alive." His results, much more efficient and high tech than any facial comparisons done in the past, showed  everything in both faces he was looking for matched exactly and that Franziska and Anderson were one in the same. Here are the pictures he used to compare:

And here is his experiment and its results:

Oxlee explaining his conclusions about the perfect matches between the size of features, shape of face, and identical amount of space between the eyes, and other features. He was convinced Anderson was Schanzkowska.

Anastasia  and Anna Anderson

Franziska Schanzkowksa and Anna Anderson