No Sign of Spat as Charles, Di Visit Germany

Prince Charles and Princess Diana arrived here today, a day after the heir to the British throne publicly complimented his wife as “one of the more glamorous colonels in the British army” when they landed in West Berlin amid London press speculation their marriage is in trouble.

Their weeklong tour of West Germany will be the longest time they have spent together in more than two months. Besides Bonn, they will visit Munich, Hamburg and Cologne.

The couple have barely seen each other in recent weeks.

British Sunday newspapers said Diana, 27, had “snubbed” the 38-year-old Charles by failing to join him and the rest of the Royal Family Saturday at the society wedding of an old flame of Charles, Lady Amanda Knatchbull.

‘Spectacularly Absent’

“No one, to be sure, has been quite so spectacularly absent from a wedding as Princess Diana,” the Observer said.

Britain’s mass-circulation News of the World said Diana had stormed from a recent midnight meeting at Buckingham Palace where Queen Elizabeth II tried to patch up what it described as the couple’s wrecked marriage.

But when the royal couple arrived at West Berlin’s City Hall on Sunday, there were no visible signs of strain. Diana looked slightly flushed and nervous, but exchanged quick smiles and glances with Charles.

In a reply speech to West Berlin’s Mayor Eberhard Diepgen, the prince recalled he had visited the city several times before.

“But my wife came here for the first time in 1985 when she visited one of the British regiments stationed here in her capacity as one of the more glamorous colonels in the British army,” he quipped, referring to Diana’s honorary role as colonel-in-chief of the army’s Royal Hampshire Regiment.

Diana grinned broadly.

Charles’ remark was not in the original distributed text and British officials said he had rewritten the speech.