All Germany Talking of It

the woods to the west of the city. They were invited there by the Kaiser's sister, Princess Charlotte, and the idea was that they would all go and have an ice skating party before treating to the lodge for warm drinks and general merriment. The party was a triumph, and when the skating was over, the group congregated before the

fireplace at Gruenwald. Red nosed and frost bitten. They removed their wet clothing and left them out to dry, and then the attendants of the skating party found that they could come up with a few fun ways of getting warm. The day after they all arrived back at their homes, every attendee of the skating trip to Gruenwald received a letter in the mail. It had no return address and no signature. The handwriting was strange. Someone writing in all block letters to disguise their script or to make it

appear as though someone else was writing it. Each letter contained terrible accusations about the person's conduct that evening at Gruenwald, lurid sexual accusations, complete with detailed illustrations and pasted pornographic photographs. The letters contained specific details and nicknames that only inner members of the Kaiser circle could possibly know, and, to make matters worse, the accusations were all true. It had to have been someone who attended that scape party at Gruenwald,

but nobody knew who the letters were from. So began a scandal that spanned four years, arrests but no finite answers. It's a scandal that proves that pettiness and anonymous gossip have been along far longer than tabloids and social media. The story, which came to be known as the Kudzay Affair after the man who was eventually arrested for the letters, is a real life version, albeit an x rated one of a Mrs Whistledown from Bridgton or the eponymous blog

from gossip Girl. These letters are our one and only source into the lives of the Prussian elite, but the consequences leveled in the letters and around the letters themselves would eventually be deadly. I'm Danis Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. As with any mystery, the first step is to introduce the characters involved, or, depending on how you

look at it, at the suspects. There were fifteen people, nine men and six women, who participated in by what most accounts referred to as an orgy in which multiple people were involved in a number of both hetero and homosexual entanglements. But we'll get to those details a little bit later. For now, let's just start with one of the evening's attendees, Duke Ernst Gunther of Schleswig Holstein. Duke Ernest Gunther had a bit of a reputation, to say

the least. He was nicknamed the Ram for his sexual appetite like a ram in spring, and there's even a story about the Duke losing one of his elite military medals, the one that designated him as a Knight of the Black Eagle, in the bed of a Berlin prostitute, who, to her credit, took it to the police. Duke Ernst's sister, Augusta, was married to Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, which made him

the Emperor's brother in law. Duke Ernst was married himself to a highly connected princess, but that didn't stop the Duke from his philandering ways. In fact, his high marriage and the even higher marriage of his sister made the Duke feel almost bulletproof. There seemed to be no act of misbehavior that his money and power couldn't get him out of. And a brief aside here for some noble

blood family tree connectivity. Duke Ernst Gunther's wife, Princess Dorothea, was the daughter of Prince Philip of Saxe, Coburg and Gotha, who had been one of the close friends of the crown Prince Rudolph among the group who discovered his body at Marylan and Princess Dorothea was also the granddaughter of Leopold the second of Belgium, when we spoke about in

connection with his bloody genocidal practices in the Congo. But back to the actual attendees of this notorious ice skating party, there were of course present the Count and Countess von Hohen. How the Count Friedrich von Hohen now was notorious for his same sex dalliances but if anything, his wife was even more notorious in Prussian society. The Countess, nicknamed Lutka,

was taller than her husband by at least ahead. She was also his senior by four years, and in addition to being taller than her husband, she was also sportier, better at riding horses, and better at finding male lovers. The Countess would count among her paramours the future Reich's Chancellor, Max von Baden and Herbert von Bis, a social secretary in the Foreign Ministry and one of the Countess's former lovers,

was also in attendance at the skating party. Friedrich Carl von Hessen, whose affair with the Countess Hahn now ended when he married the Emperor's younger sister, Marguerite, which made Friedrich Carl von Hessen another of the Kaiser's brothers in law, but the opposite way, which there should be a different word for him being married to one of the Kaiser's sisters, and not because the Kaiser was married to one of his.

All of this is to say it was an incredibly intimate, connected and intertwined group of nobles who were at Grunwald. But it wasn't just nobles at the party. There were also a handful of prominent court bureaucrats, including lebre von Kotze, the Chamberlain and Master of Ceremonies for the German Imperial Court.

His name Quotz, has the unfortunate distinction of translating into the adjective form of the word puke in English, which means that, if you, like me, are unable to speak German and are forced to rely on Google Translate for a number of primary sources, you will find that his name liberal pon Kotze translates in English to write from vomit. In the years prior to the notorious get together at

Gruenwald quotes his life was improving rapidly. He had married a woman from an old Brandenburg noble family, and he continued to excel in his position as Master of Ceremonies. He had the close personal confidence of the Kaiser, and even though he wasn't a born noble himself, he inadvertently found himself closer to the inner circle of the court than many men with more prominent births, including another of Chamberlain and Master of Ceremony who also was attending the party,

a man named Carl von Schrader. Schrader, who had attended with his wife, wasn't alone in his jealousy of Kotze, but there was very little he could do other than wait and hope that eventually quotes might fall out of the Kaiser's favor. And then we round out our cast of characters with the party's host, Princess Charlotte of Prussia,

the Kaiser's sister. By the end of the nineteenth century, you probably would have been right if you guessed out of thin air that any random European prince or princess chosen at random was a descendant of Queen Victoria. Princess Charlotte of Prussia was the oldest daughter of Queen Victoria's oldest daughter, known as Vicky. From the time of the Charlotte was born, she was a troublesome child, labeled over and over as difficult. She was underweight, with a troublesome digestion,

and prone to screaming fits. Her mother, Vicki, wrote in her diary that Charlotte's quote little mind seems almost too active for her body. She is so nervous and sensitive and so quick. Her sleep is not so sound as it should be, and she is so very thin. Charlotte also frequently tantrummed and bit her fingers. A letter to Vicky from Queen Victoria read quote tell Charlotte, I was appalled to hear of her biting things. Grandmama does not like naughty little girls. Vicky did not go easy on

her daughter. Being difficult is one of the cardinal sins of being a princess, and Charlotte suffered from another sin. She was plain. Her thinness was just one of a number of health is she she suffered from, including headaches and insomnia. Charlotte was a mediocre student, without the ability to focus on tasks for any extended period of time, and by the time she was a teenager, her mother just seemed to have had no idea of what to

do with her. What was there to do with this moody, sullen daughter whose behavior would cycle wildly between depression and extraversion. It's not a new phenomenon a distant relationship between a teenage daughter and her mother, but it's not an easy one either, and the two simply didn't get along. When Charlotte socialized, she was flirtatious and a notorious gossip, causing trouble. Just to see what she could get away with her mother.

Vickie wrote that Charlotte was quote a wheedling little kitten who can be so loving whenever she wants something. As soon as Charlee It turned sixteen, she became engaged to the air of the Duchy of sax Mine Engine. The quickness of the marriage reveals just how eager Charlotte was to get out of her family's shadow, to be independent and to play grown up, and most importantly, to escape

the constant needling of her critical mother. In adulthood, her more salacious gossipy ways calmed down, but Charlotte was still a bon vivant, a drinker and heavy smoker who seemed to devote more attention to our parties than to her only daughter. She was the perfect person to host a simple winter weekend in the country that would inevitably lead to debauchery. After the orgy at Grunwald, the letters started

to arrive. The letters were sent to everyone, addressing everyone who had attended at the party in the cruelest and most pornographic terms. Allied von Schrader, the wife of one of the masters of ceremony. They said that she enjoyed lesbian affairs and Prince Albert von Humpt He was a sodomite. Even Prussian nobles who hadn't attended the gathering started to

get mentioned in the letters. Prince Alexander of Prussia seventy four years old was accused of quote the most disgraceful practices which are said to be the result of a weak and perverted mind. The letters included detailed drawings of genitalia and pornographic photos, which were pasted over with pictures

of nobles heads on the bodies of the actors. Princess Charlotte was accused of numerous indiscretions, but by far the letters harshest target was the Countess Lute and how The descriptors of her were owen right nasty, the stuff of schoolyard taunts. Everyone got the letters, but for her they

seemed personal. The letters said that the Countess how and now quote feels a tickle that cannot be controlled when it is a matter of stealing a young wife's newlywed husband, and that she was quote known citywide for the fact that she throws herself on the neck of every prince and lifts up her skirt without being asked. These letters continued tormenting and taunting the elites of Prussian society for

four years. Over four hundred anonymous letters were written, and they probably would have continued as a bafflement, a peculiarity, and embarrassment had they not eventually invoked the Emperor. The letters never mentioned the Kaiser explicitly, but they began to dance around him as a figure obliquely, with certain letters writing that he was tempted by the Countess Vonhaven, how and that the count had forced his wife to act coldly towards the Emperor as to not encourage his affections.

The Emperor could not believe how presumptuous the Count would have been to tell his wife to act differently towards him. At a military review, he transferred the Count to hanover all but exiling him and the coquettish countess from court. At this point, the Emperor decided that these letters had gone on long enough. It was an embarrassing scandal that he wanted to keep under wraps, but more than that,

he wanted it to end. Investigators were posted all over Berlin, monitoring post boxes and waiting to see who would be depositing tell tale letters and then in June, the police made a shocking arrest the Emperor's own personal chamberlain, the Master of Ceremonies, Liebritt von Kotze. Sure he had been on the receiving end of some of the letters, but so had every single suspect. Baron Schrader, the rival chamberlain, was the one who assisted authorities with the evidence against Kotze.

This was the smoking gun. At a fashionable club where officers suspected that the anonymous letters were being written, they found that the pattern on the ink bladder was similar to the traces on the ink bladder in Kotze's Master of Ceremonies office. It was flimsy evidence, but it was evidence.

Kotze had traveled to Berlin on Saturday morning from his home in Schreitzbershaw in order to be at the ceremony for the laying of the corner stone at a new cathedral at Lustgarten the next day, but could say never made it to the ceremony. As soon as he arrived in Berlin, he was taken into custody. It was also sudden and so secret that even the prison officials didn't know they would be hosting such an exalted guest until a royal carriage arrived at the prison door of linden Strauss.

The New York Times wrote at the time, even if the government were inclined to let the scandal drop, the time for such action is passed. The documents produced by the witnesses so far contain a great mass of disgusting and libeliss letters, which certainly suggests the insanity of the writer. Coultzy must be tried and must be acquitted as mentally unsound or innocent of the charges, or he must be punished as the foulest of slanderers. The arrest sent shock

waves throughout Prussian court and the world. It was written about not only in the New York Times, but newspapers across Europe. Coats his wife desperately tried to intercede on her husband's behalf by appealing unsuccessfully directly to the Kaiser. Coatsy's friends argued that he didn't have the drawing skills that would have been necessary to produce the fairly impressive pornographic doodles on the letters. Some of Coatsi's friends said

that maybe he was insane. Coats himself maintained that he was innocent. The New York Times covered the scandal at every step. In one article, under the headline all Germany is talking of it, the Times wrote, quote many think that Kotze is merely a crank. They based their judgment of him on the fact that a few of his ancestors have gone crazy and that he often behaved eccentrically

in his younger days. But fairly quickly after Coates's arrest, most people came to the realization that he wasn't the anonymous writer. One cabinet member visited him in prison and said speaking with Coatzi made him more doubtful than ever of Kotz's guilt. The ink water evidence was thin at best, and most of the letters didn't even look like they

could have come from Kotz's hand. In prison, Kotze was hosted in the best rooms of linden Strauss, and the general who had arrested him had special orders for high quality meals to be delivered specially to him daily. And then came the ultimate evidence of Kotz's innocence. While he was in prison, the letters continued. The New York Times wrote, since his arrest, several foul missives have been delivered to the Emperor's circle. They charged wives with unfaithfulness and husbands

with deb auchery. As a quick aside, the letters being explicit and well just gossipy mean that most historians and no newspapers at the time actually published their contents. The letters are mostly just described in euphemistic terms. The first and only source that I could find that was brave enough to actually share some of the dirty details was a German book written only by Wolfgang Whipperman, which, if you care to read, was at least for me, a

fun adventure in pornographic auto translate. The case against Cosa was collapsing. A handwriting expert was brought in, who determined that Coacha was not in fact the author, and that the letters may even have been written by a woman. By now, word of the scandal was occupying every single

club and living room. On April tenth, The New York Times reported that the Emperor confirmed the exoneration of Kotze after he was acquitted by court martial, but the real guilty party still wasn't found, and KOTZEI it was furious at those who had destroyed his reputation with their slander. For Kotze the scandal was not over. As soon as he was free, Kotze challenged the hof Marshal von Reichtak to a duel at dawn near the Hallandsea train station. The terms of the duel had each man shoot as

many times as necessary. It took eight gunshots, but eventually von Reichschach hit Kotze with a bullet in the thigh. Emperor Wilhelm the second sent an ornate Easter egg to Kotza's sick bed while he recovered. For him, that was the end of this, but it wasn't the end for pa On the advice of his lawyer, Coates, A sued Baron Schrader for libel for what he believed was the

fabrication of evidence that led to his arrest. But the case was dismissed from court, and coat Say demanded satisfaction, even though he had already been shot in the thigh. Coutes demanded another duel, this time with Baron Schrader. They would stand ten paces apart and keep shooting approaching the other until one of them was disabled. On Good Friday, Kotze, who had already been found innocent of the letter writing scandal,

shot Trader in the abdomen and killed him. Only months released from his first imprisonment, Cotes was sentenced to another two years in prison for the death of Baron Schrader. The German government passed a harsh law against dueling, but three months later the Emperor pardoned le Brick phone coach. We still don't know who wrote the anonymous letters. It's possible that if they were given a more comprehensive examination today,

a scientific analysis could give us the answer. But the Kaiser and his family had tried for decades to keep the scandal as secret as possible. Alleging debaucheries was one thing, it was a far worse thing if common people realized that nobles were actually committing them. Kotsai challenging his accusers to duels was tragic, but maybe for the Kaiser secretly a blessing. High society became so absorbed in the scandal of the duels that they forgot the scandal that preceded it.

The problem with a kingdom trying to maintain nobility emerges when it becomes apparent that those people who were born into privilege are no fundamentally better than the rest of us. Why do some people get to be dukes and duchesses, princes and kaisers, and how do they get to hold onto that power after the people below them find out that the nobles are just spending their time indulging in

their basest human impulses. The power of a monarchy exists only as long as people buy into the belief that either the king and his family were chosen by God, or, if it's not that overt that they embody certain noble ideals that make them worthy of leadership, that may be because they have access to education and money and pedigree. They're somehow finer than the rest of us in ways

that are maybe even too subtle to articulate. But then fifteen of them get drunk and get naked, and then one of them spend the next four years taunting all of them with petty adolescent gossip, and one realizes that maybe the wealthy and elite are just board common people, trapped in a gilded cage with their own making, Devoid of purpose and devoid of the satisfaction that can only

be gleaned from a hard day's work. The nobles are forced to invent these petty rivalries to fight duels in order to convince themselves that their lives serve the purpose of honor and well dignity. That's the story of the Codes affair. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a bit about the modern theories about who was behind the anonymous letters. So who wasn't Who was the one who wrote those scandalous letters to the depressional

elite accusing them of all sorts of terrible things. The most prominent theory is that it was Duke Ernst Gunther, the scandalous brother in law of Wilhelm the Second. He was the type of person who was almost entirely capable of stirring up trouble, and he and the Kaiser did have a falling out that eventually led him to being banned from the palaces in Berlin and Potsdam. The ostensible reason was losing that black eagle metal in the bed of a prostitute, But who knows. He could have been

guilty of, or at least suspected of other crimes. There's another dark horse theory about the anonymous letter writer, but it seems very unlikely. It is I will say so fundamentally appealing that I'm inclined to believe it, even without actual evidence. It's that the man behind these letters wasn't a man at all, but the Kaiser's sister, Princess Charlotte. Some even suggest that she only invited the fifteen nobles to the ice skating party come orgy as a trap.

She was famously prickly, a lifelong chain smoker and lover of scandal. The personality seems to fit, but there is also some evidence to the contrary. Charlotte was a dear friend of Coats's wife, Elizabeth, and after Coats it was wounded in his first duel, Charlotte wrote in a letter, Coats at last pronounced free, but since yesterday badly wounded, his wife is so courageous and behaves admirably. The long ten months train must soon tell on her nerves, dear thing,

how I longed to help and comfort her. Now. It's not a letter that Charlotte would have ever imagined would go on to the public record, so it doesn't read like she's trying to throw us off the scent. But who knows. Maybe it was guilt speaking, or maybe the letters were written in fits of mania, and when she calmed down, she was filled with contrition for the man who stepped in to take all of the literal and

metaphorical fire. Princess Charlotte spent the twilight years of her life in treatment for psychosis in the spot town of baden Baden. Though as you know, I am remissed to diagnose anyone with anything posthumously, historians do believe that her symptoms resembled porphyria, the same disorder suffered by her great great grandfather, the Mad King George the Third. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and

Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart a Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H