THE KAISER'S SECRETS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 90, 9 January 1918, Page 5

THE KAISER'S SECRETS

SOME INTERESTING DISCLOSURES

FROM HIS LAWYERS' OFFICE

An American who for ten years was manager to the Dernburgs, the Kaiser's . solicitors in Berlin, supplies "Peari. son's Weekly" witli the lollowing revelations :— The Dernburgs, though by.no means the largest-firm of solicitors in Berlin, have, certainly the most distinguished clientele. The Dernburgs do no commercial businoss—all'their-clients are wealthy people of high position. Among . them pre the Kaiser and most German royalties. ; I entered the employ of tho Dernburgs twenty-three years ago. I .. had previously acted as private secretary to a Baron Eisner, who had engaged me in that capacity when he was in tiew York. 1 was then only just 20. The Baron was a client of the Dernburgs, and on his death, two years after I had come to Germany, 1 got ■ the offer of a clerkship in the Dernburgs' Ten years later I, became their managing olerk, a position I held until I left Germany in 1915. Baron Fredrichs, one of the most intimate friends of tho Kaiser (they were at Bonn University together) was a client of ours. ■ The Kaiser's Letters. The Baron went to live in England in 1907. and stayed there until 1913, when he went to Athens. Before going to Athens he deposited with us a number of his papers,, wliich' included several letters the Kaiser had written to him whilst he was .in England. . These letters were of the most iintiniato kiud and some passages in them were rather amusing.

The Kaiser referred to some lady of the Court that Prince Eitel (tho Emperor's second son) was supposed to be in love with. "I do not attach any importance to this affair of, Eitel's," wrote the Kaiser. "Augusta Kerserlingk is too thin for Eitel; I know his taste. Like myself, his admiration is all for plump ladies." In another letter the Kaiser mado a rather funny confession about a box of cigars. "Zeppelin made me a present of 600 cigars the other day," ha wrote. "I guessed they were a lot that the Count had picked up cheap. I tried a couple to mako suro and then sent the lot to Tino—he does not know what, a good cigar is." Writing to tho Baron, tho Kaiser made a statement' about Von Tirpitz that got the Emperor into trouble. This was in 1908. ; The letter referred to some Admiralty contracts, about which there had been a good deal uf talk in' official contracts. "Ho is rather hard iip, as wo know. However, !t ll the trouble and talk has arisen because Tirpitz won't allow anybody under him to follow his example. That is au advantage. One Yogue takes loss than half a dozen."

A friend of the German Admiral saw this letter and told Von Tirpitz cf it. The latter promptly placed lis resignation in'the hands of the Emperor, and at the same time he announced his intention of petitioning the Reichstag to allow him to bring an action for libel against .the Kaiser. Tha <' Kaiser had to write I, k letter to Von' Tiipitz, unreservedly withdrawing the charge he had mado against' him in the leticr to Fredfichs. •■■-•.

.. Speaking of the inoident.to Albert LVnburg, the chief of too Dernburgs, the Kaiser said :—

"I don't blame Tirpitz. He. is a rogue, of course, but he has done splendid work, and ho must keep up to his reputation'for incorruptibility. Iblanio that fool Fredrichs tor allowing anyone to see my letter." The Kaiser refused to see or write to his friend for about six months,' when he apparently began corresponding again with him.

His Bills. From time 'to time we used to get bills "to pay; on behalf of tho Kaiser and various other members of tho Hohenzollern family. It is the custom among most German royalties to allow a vast quantity of personal debts to* accumulate and then hand them over tp their solicitors to discharge. Among one sheaf of bills handed to us to pay for the Kaiser wero the following:—£l 7s. 6d. for a Persian cat, £1 lis. 3d. to. a palmist, and £2 for a punching ball. We paid a bill of £15 15s. for the _ account of the Crown Prince tea juggler for lessons in juggling. A bill we discharged from tinta to time for the Kaiser was one to a balrber for "ointments, hair'cuttihg, and moustache dressing." One barber patronised by the Kaiser lost the Imperial custom for dressing the Emperor's, moustache too roughly. Captain von Karl Fellodeken, one of the Kaiser.'s private secretaries, wrote on the barber's bill: "Your roughness ■ lately in.dressing the Emperor's moustaohe has greatly. annoyed His Majesty. You will not be employed any further by His Majesty." We frequently paid bills to an English Press cutting, agency, from whom the Kaiser obtained cuttings of references to him self and other people in whom he was interested in the English Press. Tho Kaiser received from this agency a large number .of cuttings about himself published during tho period he was in England ■at tho tima of King. Edward's funeral. Among them were several photographs of tho Kaiser riding next to King George. One of these pleased' the Kaiser particularly, and he subsequently purchased one hundred copies of the photograph and gave a number of them away to his personal friends. He had one framed and hung np in his personal smoking-room 'at the Neues

Palais. Captain Velterraan, an equerryj told me that once the Kaiser, after looking attentively at this photoerapli, turned and said to him suddenly: "Volterman, some day I may be riding through London like that, but not as a guest." Then he stopped, and, after a pause, added, "As a conqueror." . Velterman told me that when any prominent English people stayed in Germany, whether as guests at the German Court or not, tho Kaiser always had cuttings from the English' Press about them sent to him after they returned.

/ When Mr. Winston Churchill wont .. .hack from the German Army manoeuvres some years before the war, tho ' Kaiser received'and read carefully over 3200 Enelish cuttings referring to Mr. Churchill's visit. A Juggling Performance. . We had the settling of a number of : claims against the Kaiser, the Grown , Prince, and other members of the Hohenzollern family, by various people, in addition to the ordinary creditors. An officer in the Prussian Guards, a Captain Frankerst, made a rather remarkable claim against tho Crown Prince a few months before tho war. The Prince was a guost at a small dinner party given by Captain Frankerst at the latter's handsome flat in Berlin. There wore some half-doswn other guests, and they all seem to have followed the Prince's example, and drank rather too much wine. After dinner : ' the Crown Prince, who prides himself . on being a clevor juggler, took up a couple of vases from a table in liia host's.drawing-room, and said he would juggle with them. According to the captain's own statement, ho said to the Prince: "Don't forgot, sir, that you will be juggling with a couple of thousand nonnds' worth."

The Prince laughed and said

"The bigger the monoy, the bigger the risk and fun." Then he bogan juggling with the vases and dropped one of them almost at once. The vaso was smashed to pieces.

The captain subsequently demanded £2000 from the Prince, for he declared that was the value put on the vases as a pair by an expert. The breakage of one of the pair destroyed the value of the two.

Tho Prince, in reply to this demand, wrote a bantering letter to the Captain, saying that though it ought to be woll worth the Captain's'while to lose £2000 for the privilege of getting the Crown Prince to juggle before liim and his guests, ho would consent to pay bim £100 for the broken vase. *

Ultimately tho Prince agreed to pay £1000', which the Captain accepted. Freidrich Dernburg went to see the Prince on the ' matter. The Prince treated the whole affair as a joke, and even when he finallywas compelled to consent to paying the Captain £1000, he said to Dernburg: "You should have seen the face of the Captain's wife when I took up the vases. I never saw anyone | look so horrified in my life. I was nearly choked witb laughter, and that is whv I dropped the vase."

A Man Who Knew Something.

Prince Eitel, by the way, brought us a client, who just now is a very conspicuous figure in Germany. This was von Klein, tho man who is organising the air raids on England and who led the second raid on London.

Von Klein promises to become quite as popular a personage in Germany.as was Count Zeppelin. He knows London very well—ho staved there frequently and appeared to be very familiar with those smart night and supper clubs that were springing up in London just before the war. Ho told me that at ono of the best known of these olubs they had as'manager a man who was in the German Secret Service, who wore on the inside, of his waistcoat some decoration the Kaiser had conferred on him!

Von Klein, by the way, instructed us early in 1914 to sell a small estate he had on the Rhino. Ho told me he was doing this because ho regarded a European war as inevitable, and then when it broke out property near' the German frontier would slump badly. As a matter of fact, all the big owners of estates on the Rhino frontier later oil tried to sell their estates, but buyers after May, 1914, were not to bo found. The Crown Prince, Prince Leopold of Prussia. Princo Augusto Wilhelm, and Princo Henry of Prussia, who were the members of the Hohensollern family who had estates on the Rhino, frontier, all sold them in 1918.