Dr. Maria Schmidt, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Veronica Mendel and a member of the family company, said that Father Clemens had recently changed his mind about the ownership of the manuscript after the head of the Augustinians in southern Germany and Austria, Father Dominic of Vienna, demanded that the manuscript be given to the order.

“There was tremendous pressure on Clemens,” Dr. Schmidt said. “They said they would kick him out of the cloister. My father’s cousin is 77 and has no property. He would have lost his car and apartment.”

Father Dominic said in an interview that the manuscript had been given to Father Clemens so that “he should take care of it as an Augustinian  it has nothing to do with the Mendel family.” The manuscript did not belong to the Brünn Natural History Society, he said, but rather would have been returned to Mendel by the printer along with the first proof, as was then customary, and has been the property of the Augustinians ever since.

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Father Clemens began to change his story about the ownership of the manuscript, suggesting it really belonged to the Augustinians, said William Taeusch, Dr. Schmidt’s husband. “He started to say to the family, ‘Aren’t they the rightful owners?’ The family says, ‘What’s going on, for God’s sake? If you were given it and were told it was the Augustinians’ property, why did you keep it for yourself for 11 years and then sign a bogus contract giving it to the family?’ ”

At a small meeting of the family company on May 9, which several members including Dr. Schmidt could not attend, three members decided to take pity on Father Clemens’s predicament. They took the manuscript from the safe and drove it to Father Clemens in Stuttgart. Father Clemens told Father Dominic that he could fly in from Vienna and collect it on May 11.

Mr. Taeusch said that he called the German cultural authorities to warn them the manuscript was about to be taken out of the country. He said that the Augustinians then deposited the manuscript with their lawyers, the firm Wahlert in Stuttgart, where it is to remain while ownership is determined. Marion Jung, a press officer at the Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, confirmed that the ministry was looking into the case and would decide if the manuscript was authentic and if it should be put on a list of cultural treasures that are not allowed to leave the state.