Claus von Bülow

Claus von Bülow (born Claus Cecil Borberg; 11 August 1926) is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow (born Martha Sharp Crawford, 1931–2008) by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 which left her in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of her life, but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty at his second trial.

Background

Beginning life as Claus Cecil Borberg, Bülow was the son of Danish playwright Svend Borberg (1888–1947), who was regarded as a Nazi collaborator for his activities during the Second World War in the German occupation of Denmark. As a result, he chose to be known by his maternal surname instead of his father's. His mother, Jonna von Bülow af Plüskow (1900–1959), was daughter of Frits Bülow af Plüskow, Danish Minister of Justice from 1910 to 1913 and President of the upper Chamber of the Danish Parliament from 1920 to 1922, a member of the old Danish-German noble Bülow family, originally from Mecklenburg.