1
00:00:01,160 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

2
00:00:04,559 --> 00:00:08,840
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.

3
00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:16,840
Speaker 1: In January of eighteen ninety one, a group of fifteen

4
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,000
Speaker 1: prominent nobles and Prussian court elites left for Lynn by

5
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: sleigh ride for a weekend jaunt to Gruenwald castle in

6
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:27,680
Speaker 1: the woods to the west of the city. They were

7
00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:31,840
Speaker 1: invited there by the Kaiser's sister, Princess Charlotte, and the

8
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:33,960
Speaker 1: idea was that they would all go and have an

9
00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,640
Speaker 1: ice skating party before treating to the lodge for warm

10
00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:42,559
Speaker 1: drinks and general merriment. The party was a triumph, and

11
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:45,760
Speaker 1: when the skating was over, the group congregated before the

12
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:50,960
Speaker 1: fireplace at Gruenwald. Red nosed and frost bitten. They removed

13
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 1: their wet clothing and left them out to dry, and

14
00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:58,040
Speaker 1: then the attendants of the skating party found that they

15
00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:03,160
Speaker 1: could come up with a few fun ways of getting warm.

16
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,360
Speaker 1: The day after they all arrived back at their homes,

17
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:10,319
Speaker 1: every attendee of the skating trip to Gruenwald received a

18
00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:14,400
Speaker 1: letter in the mail. It had no return address and

19
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:19,720
Speaker 1: no signature. The handwriting was strange. Someone writing in all

20
00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:23,320
Speaker 1: block letters to disguise their script or to make it

21
00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:27,160
Speaker 1: appear as though someone else was writing it. Each letter

22
00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:33,400
Speaker 1: contained terrible accusations about the person's conduct that evening at Gruenwald,

23
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:41,840
Speaker 1: lurid sexual accusations, complete with detailed illustrations and pasted pornographic photographs.

24
00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:47,680
Speaker 1: The letters contained specific details and nicknames that only inner

25
00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:52,040
Speaker 1: members of the Kaiser circle could possibly know, and, to

26
00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:57,600
Speaker 1: make matters worse, the accusations were all true. It had

27
00:01:57,640 --> 00:02:01,320
Speaker 1: to have been someone who attended that scape party at Gruenwald,

28
00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:06,400
Speaker 1: but nobody knew who the letters were from. So began

29
00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:12,440
Speaker 1: a scandal that spanned four years, arrests but no finite answers.

30
00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:17,200
Speaker 1: It's a scandal that proves that pettiness and anonymous gossip

31
00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:21,360
Speaker 1: have been along far longer than tabloids and social media.

32
00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:24,959
Speaker 1: The story, which came to be known as the Kudzay

33
00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:28,600
Speaker 1: Affair after the man who was eventually arrested for the letters,

34
00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:32,280
Speaker 1: is a real life version, albeit an x rated one

35
00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:37,200
Speaker 1: of a Mrs Whistledown from Bridgton or the eponymous blog

36
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:41,480
Speaker 1: from gossip Girl. These letters are our one and only

37
00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,880
Speaker 1: source into the lives of the Prussian elite, but the

38
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:51,120
Speaker 1: consequences leveled in the letters and around the letters themselves

39
00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:57,080
Speaker 1: would eventually be deadly. I'm Danis Schwartz and this is

40
00:02:57,120 --> 00:03:08,040
Speaker 1: Noble Blood. As with any mystery, the first step is

41
00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:12,200
Speaker 1: to introduce the characters involved, or, depending on how you

42
00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:16,720
Speaker 1: look at it, at the suspects. There were fifteen people,

43
00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,080
Speaker 1: nine men and six women, who participated in by what

44
00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:25,560
Speaker 1: most accounts referred to as an orgy in which multiple

45
00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:29,280
Speaker 1: people were involved in a number of both hetero and

46
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:33,920
Speaker 1: homosexual entanglements. But we'll get to those details a little

47
00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:36,800
Speaker 1: bit later. For now, let's just start with one of

48
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:42,640
Speaker 1: the evening's attendees, Duke Ernst Gunther of Schleswig Holstein. Duke

49
00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:45,800
Speaker 1: Ernest Gunther had a bit of a reputation, to say

50
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:50,160
Speaker 1: the least. He was nicknamed the Ram for his sexual

51
00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:54,160
Speaker 1: appetite like a ram in spring, and there's even a

52
00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:58,600
Speaker 1: story about the Duke losing one of his elite military medals,

53
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:01,160
Speaker 1: the one that designated him as a Knight of the

54
00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:06,120
Speaker 1: Black Eagle, in the bed of a Berlin prostitute, who,

55
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:11,480
Speaker 1: to her credit, took it to the police. Duke Ernst's sister, Augusta,

56
00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:15,240
Speaker 1: was married to Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, which made him

57
00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:19,320
Speaker 1: the Emperor's brother in law. Duke Ernst was married himself

58
00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:22,680
Speaker 1: to a highly connected princess, but that didn't stop the

59
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:27,120
Speaker 1: Duke from his philandering ways. In fact, his high marriage

60
00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:30,160
Speaker 1: and the even higher marriage of his sister made the

61
00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:34,559
Speaker 1: Duke feel almost bulletproof. There seemed to be no act

62
00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:38,360
Speaker 1: of misbehavior that his money and power couldn't get him

63
00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:42,120
Speaker 1: out of. And a brief aside here for some noble

64
00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:47,599
Speaker 1: blood family tree connectivity. Duke Ernst Gunther's wife, Princess Dorothea,

65
00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:51,080
Speaker 1: was the daughter of Prince Philip of Saxe, Coburg and Gotha,

66
00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:54,120
Speaker 1: who had been one of the close friends of the

67
00:04:54,120 --> 00:04:58,279
Speaker 1: crown Prince Rudolph among the group who discovered his body

68
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:03,240
Speaker 1: at Marylan and Princess Dorothea was also the granddaughter of

69
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,800
Speaker 1: Leopold the second of Belgium, when we spoke about in

70
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:11,600
Speaker 1: connection with his bloody genocidal practices in the Congo. But

71
00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:16,240
Speaker 1: back to the actual attendees of this notorious ice skating party,

72
00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:20,839
Speaker 1: there were of course present the Count and Countess von Hohen.

73
00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:25,800
Speaker 1: How the Count Friedrich von Hohen now was notorious for

74
00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:30,039
Speaker 1: his same sex dalliances but if anything, his wife was

75
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:36,040
Speaker 1: even more notorious in Prussian society. The Countess, nicknamed Lutka,

76
00:05:36,320 --> 00:05:40,240
Speaker 1: was taller than her husband by at least ahead. She

77
00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,920
Speaker 1: was also his senior by four years, and in addition

78
00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:47,640
Speaker 1: to being taller than her husband, she was also sportier,

79
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,400
Speaker 1: better at riding horses, and better at finding male lovers.

80
00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:57,440
Speaker 1: The Countess would count among her paramours the future Reich's Chancellor,

81
00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:01,400
Speaker 1: Max von Baden and Herbert von Bis, a social secretary

82
00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:05,719
Speaker 1: in the Foreign Ministry and one of the Countess's former lovers,

83
00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:10,160
Speaker 1: was also in attendance at the skating party. Friedrich Carl

84
00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:14,040
Speaker 1: von Hessen, whose affair with the Countess Hahn now ended

85
00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:18,720
Speaker 1: when he married the Emperor's younger sister, Marguerite, which made

86
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:22,800
Speaker 1: Friedrich Carl von Hessen another of the Kaiser's brothers in law,

87
00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:26,080
Speaker 1: but the opposite way, which there should be a different

88
00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:29,799
Speaker 1: word for him being married to one of the Kaiser's sisters,

89
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:32,960
Speaker 1: and not because the Kaiser was married to one of his.

90
00:06:37,279 --> 00:06:40,760
Speaker 1: All of this is to say it was an incredibly intimate,

91
00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:46,200
Speaker 1: connected and intertwined group of nobles who were at Grunwald.

92
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,000
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just nobles at the party. There were

93
00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:55,520
Speaker 1: also a handful of prominent court bureaucrats, including lebre von Kotze,

94
00:06:55,880 --> 00:06:59,920
Speaker 1: the Chamberlain and Master of Ceremonies for the German Imperial Court.

95
00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:06,080
Speaker 1: His name Quotz, has the unfortunate distinction of translating into

96
00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:10,320
Speaker 1: the adjective form of the word puke in English, which

97
00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:13,520
Speaker 1: means that, if you, like me, are unable to speak

98
00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:16,680
Speaker 1: German and are forced to rely on Google Translate for

99
00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:20,040
Speaker 1: a number of primary sources, you will find that his

100
00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:25,760
Speaker 1: name liberal pon Kotze translates in English to write from vomit.

101
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 1: In the years prior to the notorious get together at

102
00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:36,520
Speaker 1: Gruenwald quotes his life was improving rapidly. He had married

103
00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 1: a woman from an old Brandenburg noble family, and he

104
00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:44,040
Speaker 1: continued to excel in his position as Master of Ceremonies.

105
00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:48,040
Speaker 1: He had the close personal confidence of the Kaiser, and

106
00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:51,960
Speaker 1: even though he wasn't a born noble himself, he inadvertently

107
00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:55,119
Speaker 1: found himself closer to the inner circle of the court

108
00:07:55,720 --> 00:08:00,080
Speaker 1: than many men with more prominent births, including another of

109
00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:04,560
Speaker 1: Chamberlain and Master of Ceremony who also was attending the party,

110
00:08:05,080 --> 00:08:09,600
Speaker 1: a man named Carl von Schrader. Schrader, who had attended

111
00:08:09,640 --> 00:08:13,520
Speaker 1: with his wife, wasn't alone in his jealousy of Kotze,

112
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:16,800
Speaker 1: but there was very little he could do other than

113
00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:21,080
Speaker 1: wait and hope that eventually quotes might fall out of

114
00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:31,080
Speaker 1: the Kaiser's favor. And then we round out our cast

115
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:35,880
Speaker 1: of characters with the party's host, Princess Charlotte of Prussia,

116
00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:40,720
Speaker 1: the Kaiser's sister. By the end of the nineteenth century,

117
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:43,199
Speaker 1: you probably would have been right if you guessed out

118
00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:46,280
Speaker 1: of thin air that any random European prince or princess

119
00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:51,080
Speaker 1: chosen at random was a descendant of Queen Victoria. Princess

120
00:08:51,160 --> 00:08:55,239
Speaker 1: Charlotte of Prussia was the oldest daughter of Queen Victoria's

121
00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:58,880
Speaker 1: oldest daughter, known as Vicky. From the time of the

122
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:03,040
Speaker 1: Charlotte was born, she was a troublesome child, labeled over

123
00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 1: and over as difficult. She was underweight, with a troublesome digestion,

124
00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 1: and prone to screaming fits. Her mother, Vicki, wrote in

125
00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:17,360
Speaker 1: her diary that Charlotte's quote little mind seems almost too

126
00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:21,120
Speaker 1: active for her body. She is so nervous and sensitive

127
00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:24,280
Speaker 1: and so quick. Her sleep is not so sound as

128
00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:28,160
Speaker 1: it should be, and she is so very thin. Charlotte

129
00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:33,200
Speaker 1: also frequently tantrummed and bit her fingers. A letter to

130
00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:37,880
Speaker 1: Vicky from Queen Victoria read quote tell Charlotte, I was

131
00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:41,680
Speaker 1: appalled to hear of her biting things. Grandmama does not

132
00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:47,440
Speaker 1: like naughty little girls. Vicky did not go easy on

133
00:09:47,559 --> 00:09:51,560
Speaker 1: her daughter. Being difficult is one of the cardinal sins

134
00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:54,840
Speaker 1: of being a princess, and Charlotte suffered from another sin.

135
00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:58,720
Speaker 1: She was plain. Her thinness was just one of a

136
00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:02,640
Speaker 1: number of health is she she suffered from, including headaches

137
00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:07,360
Speaker 1: and insomnia. Charlotte was a mediocre student, without the ability

138
00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:10,839
Speaker 1: to focus on tasks for any extended period of time,

139
00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:14,120
Speaker 1: and by the time she was a teenager, her mother

140
00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:17,160
Speaker 1: just seemed to have had no idea of what to

141
00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:20,760
Speaker 1: do with her. What was there to do with this moody,

142
00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:27,200
Speaker 1: sullen daughter whose behavior would cycle wildly between depression and extraversion.

143
00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:31,880
Speaker 1: It's not a new phenomenon a distant relationship between a

144
00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:35,240
Speaker 1: teenage daughter and her mother, but it's not an easy

145
00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:39,480
Speaker 1: one either, and the two simply didn't get along. When

146
00:10:39,559 --> 00:10:46,199
Speaker 1: Charlotte socialized, she was flirtatious and a notorious gossip, causing trouble.

147
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:49,560
Speaker 1: Just to see what she could get away with her mother.

148
00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:54,280
Speaker 1: Vickie wrote that Charlotte was quote a wheedling little kitten

149
00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:59,160
Speaker 1: who can be so loving whenever she wants something. As

150
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:02,599
Speaker 1: soon as Charlee It turned sixteen, she became engaged to

151
00:11:02,800 --> 00:11:06,560
Speaker 1: the air of the Duchy of sax Mine Engine. The

152
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:10,720
Speaker 1: quickness of the marriage reveals just how eager Charlotte was

153
00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:14,360
Speaker 1: to get out of her family's shadow, to be independent

154
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:18,280
Speaker 1: and to play grown up, and most importantly, to escape

155
00:11:18,280 --> 00:11:23,120
Speaker 1: the constant needling of her critical mother. In adulthood, her

156
00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:27,520
Speaker 1: more salacious gossipy ways calmed down, but Charlotte was still

157
00:11:27,559 --> 00:11:31,160
Speaker 1: a bon vivant, a drinker and heavy smoker who seemed

158
00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:34,199
Speaker 1: to devote more attention to our parties than to her

159
00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:38,600
Speaker 1: only daughter. She was the perfect person to host a

160
00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:43,520
Speaker 1: simple winter weekend in the country that would inevitably lead

161
00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:53,640
Speaker 1: to debauchery. After the orgy at Grunwald, the letters started

162
00:11:53,679 --> 00:11:59,200
Speaker 1: to arrive. The letters were sent to everyone, addressing everyone

163
00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:02,280
Speaker 1: who had attended at the party in the cruelest and

164
00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:06,920
Speaker 1: most pornographic terms. Allied von Schrader, the wife of one

165
00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:10,000
Speaker 1: of the masters of ceremony. They said that she enjoyed

166
00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:14,800
Speaker 1: lesbian affairs and Prince Albert von Humpt He was a sodomite.

167
00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:19,280
Speaker 1: Even Prussian nobles who hadn't attended the gathering started to

168
00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:23,680
Speaker 1: get mentioned in the letters. Prince Alexander of Prussia seventy

169
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:28,120
Speaker 1: four years old was accused of quote the most disgraceful

170
00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,400
Speaker 1: practices which are said to be the result of a

171
00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:36,839
Speaker 1: weak and perverted mind. The letters included detailed drawings of

172
00:12:36,920 --> 00:12:42,840
Speaker 1: genitalia and pornographic photos, which were pasted over with pictures

173
00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:47,760
Speaker 1: of nobles heads on the bodies of the actors. Princess

174
00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:52,720
Speaker 1: Charlotte was accused of numerous indiscretions, but by far the

175
00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:58,120
Speaker 1: letters harshest target was the Countess Lute and how The

176
00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:02,120
Speaker 1: descriptors of her were owen right nasty, the stuff of

177
00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:06,600
Speaker 1: schoolyard taunts. Everyone got the letters, but for her they

178
00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:11,160
Speaker 1: seemed personal. The letters said that the Countess how and

179
00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:15,240
Speaker 1: now quote feels a tickle that cannot be controlled when

180
00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:19,320
Speaker 1: it is a matter of stealing a young wife's newlywed husband,

181
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:23,600
Speaker 1: and that she was quote known citywide for the fact

182
00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:26,920
Speaker 1: that she throws herself on the neck of every prince

183
00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:32,160
Speaker 1: and lifts up her skirt without being asked. These letters

184
00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:37,000
Speaker 1: continued tormenting and taunting the elites of Prussian society for

185
00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:41,880
Speaker 1: four years. Over four hundred anonymous letters were written, and

186
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:46,080
Speaker 1: they probably would have continued as a bafflement, a peculiarity,

187
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:51,320
Speaker 1: and embarrassment had they not eventually invoked the Emperor. The

188
00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:55,200
Speaker 1: letters never mentioned the Kaiser explicitly, but they began to

189
00:13:55,320 --> 00:13:59,160
Speaker 1: dance around him as a figure obliquely, with certain letters

190
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:02,679
Speaker 1: writing that he was tempted by the Countess Vonhaven, how

191
00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:06,040
Speaker 1: and that the count had forced his wife to act

192
00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:10,600
Speaker 1: coldly towards the Emperor as to not encourage his affections.

193
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:15,240
Speaker 1: The Emperor could not believe how presumptuous the Count would

194
00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:18,560
Speaker 1: have been to tell his wife to act differently towards him.

195
00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:22,640
Speaker 1: At a military review, he transferred the Count to hanover

196
00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:27,480
Speaker 1: all but exiling him and the coquettish countess from court.

197
00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:37,040
Speaker 1: At this point, the Emperor decided that these letters had

198
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:41,600
Speaker 1: gone on long enough. It was an embarrassing scandal that

199
00:14:41,640 --> 00:14:45,000
Speaker 1: he wanted to keep under wraps, but more than that,

200
00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:50,200
Speaker 1: he wanted it to end. Investigators were posted all over Berlin,

201
00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:54,480
Speaker 1: monitoring post boxes and waiting to see who would be

202
00:14:54,520 --> 00:15:02,200
Speaker 1: depositing tell tale letters and then in June, the police

203
00:15:02,480 --> 00:15:07,640
Speaker 1: made a shocking arrest the Emperor's own personal chamberlain, the

204
00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:12,960
Speaker 1: Master of Ceremonies, Liebritt von Kotze. Sure he had been

205
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:15,920
Speaker 1: on the receiving end of some of the letters, but

206
00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:21,000
Speaker 1: so had every single suspect. Baron Schrader, the rival chamberlain,

207
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:25,520
Speaker 1: was the one who assisted authorities with the evidence against Kotze.

208
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,840
Speaker 1: This was the smoking gun. At a fashionable club where

209
00:15:29,880 --> 00:15:33,880
Speaker 1: officers suspected that the anonymous letters were being written, they

210
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:37,320
Speaker 1: found that the pattern on the ink bladder was similar

211
00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:40,320
Speaker 1: to the traces on the ink bladder in Kotze's Master

212
00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:46,160
Speaker 1: of Ceremonies office. It was flimsy evidence, but it was evidence.

213
00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:50,560
Speaker 1: Kotze had traveled to Berlin on Saturday morning from his

214
00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:53,880
Speaker 1: home in Schreitzbershaw in order to be at the ceremony

215
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:56,680
Speaker 1: for the laying of the corner stone at a new

216
00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:01,000
Speaker 1: cathedral at Lustgarten the next day, but could say never

217
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:04,040
Speaker 1: made it to the ceremony. As soon as he arrived

218
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:11,360
Speaker 1: in Berlin, he was taken into custody. It was also

219
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,120
Speaker 1: sudden and so secret that even the prison officials didn't

220
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:18,640
Speaker 1: know they would be hosting such an exalted guest until

221
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:23,280
Speaker 1: a royal carriage arrived at the prison door of linden Strauss.

222
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:27,960
Speaker 1: The New York Times wrote at the time, even if

223
00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 1: the government were inclined to let the scandal drop, the

224
00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:35,760
Speaker 1: time for such action is passed. The documents produced by

225
00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:39,760
Speaker 1: the witnesses so far contain a great mass of disgusting

226
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 1: and libeliss letters, which certainly suggests the insanity of the writer.

227
00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:48,880
Speaker 1: Coultzy must be tried and must be acquitted as mentally

228
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,600
Speaker 1: unsound or innocent of the charges, or he must be

229
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:58,560
Speaker 1: punished as the foulest of slanderers. The arrest sent shock

230
00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:02,800
Speaker 1: waves throughout Prussian court and the world. It was written

231
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 1: about not only in the New York Times, but newspapers

232
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:10,840
Speaker 1: across Europe. Coats his wife desperately tried to intercede on

233
00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:15,760
Speaker 1: her husband's behalf by appealing unsuccessfully directly to the Kaiser.

234
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:19,760
Speaker 1: Coatsy's friends argued that he didn't have the drawing skills

235
00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,280
Speaker 1: that would have been necessary to produce the fairly impressive

236
00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:27,560
Speaker 1: pornographic doodles on the letters. Some of Coatsi's friends said

237
00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:31,679
Speaker 1: that maybe he was insane. Coats himself maintained that he

238
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:35,680
Speaker 1: was innocent. The New York Times covered the scandal at

239
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:40,400
Speaker 1: every step. In one article, under the headline all Germany

240
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:44,560
Speaker 1: is talking of it, the Times wrote, quote many think

241
00:17:44,840 --> 00:17:48,560
Speaker 1: that Kotze is merely a crank. They based their judgment

242
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:51,240
Speaker 1: of him on the fact that a few of his

243
00:17:51,359 --> 00:17:55,520
Speaker 1: ancestors have gone crazy and that he often behaved eccentrically

244
00:17:55,720 --> 00:18:03,199
Speaker 1: in his younger days. But fairly quickly after Coates's arrest,

245
00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:06,879
Speaker 1: most people came to the realization that he wasn't the

246
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:11,280
Speaker 1: anonymous writer. One cabinet member visited him in prison and

247
00:18:11,359 --> 00:18:15,080
Speaker 1: said speaking with Coatzi made him more doubtful than ever

248
00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:19,960
Speaker 1: of Kotz's guilt. The ink water evidence was thin at best,

249
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:23,240
Speaker 1: and most of the letters didn't even look like they

250
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:27,240
Speaker 1: could have come from Kotz's hand. In prison, Kotze was

251
00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:31,040
Speaker 1: hosted in the best rooms of linden Strauss, and the

252
00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:35,000
Speaker 1: general who had arrested him had special orders for high

253
00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:39,600
Speaker 1: quality meals to be delivered specially to him daily. And

254
00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:44,239
Speaker 1: then came the ultimate evidence of Kotz's innocence. While he

255
00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:49,320
Speaker 1: was in prison, the letters continued. The New York Times wrote,

256
00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:54,080
Speaker 1: since his arrest, several foul missives have been delivered to

257
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:59,359
Speaker 1: the Emperor's circle. They charged wives with unfaithfulness and husbands

258
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:03,560
Speaker 1: with deb auchery. As a quick aside, the letters being

259
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 1: explicit and well just gossipy mean that most historians and

260
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:12,679
Speaker 1: no newspapers at the time actually published their contents. The

261
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:17,919
Speaker 1: letters are mostly just described in euphemistic terms. The first

262
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:21,120
Speaker 1: and only source that I could find that was brave

263
00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:25,280
Speaker 1: enough to actually share some of the dirty details was

264
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:30,400
Speaker 1: a German book written only by Wolfgang Whipperman, which, if

265
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:33,159
Speaker 1: you care to read, was at least for me, a

266
00:19:33,320 --> 00:19:39,199
Speaker 1: fun adventure in pornographic auto translate. The case against Cosa

267
00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:43,960
Speaker 1: was collapsing. A handwriting expert was brought in, who determined

268
00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:47,119
Speaker 1: that Coacha was not in fact the author, and that

269
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:49,679
Speaker 1: the letters may even have been written by a woman.

270
00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 1: By now, word of the scandal was occupying every single

271
00:19:54,960 --> 00:20:00,920
Speaker 1: club and living room. On April tenth, The New York

272
00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:05,200
Speaker 1: Times reported that the Emperor confirmed the exoneration of Kotze

273
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:09,359
Speaker 1: after he was acquitted by court martial, but the real

274
00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:13,760
Speaker 1: guilty party still wasn't found, and KOTZEI it was furious

275
00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:17,919
Speaker 1: at those who had destroyed his reputation with their slander.

276
00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:28,360
Speaker 1: For Kotze the scandal was not over. As soon as

277
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:32,199
Speaker 1: he was free, Kotze challenged the hof Marshal von Reichtak

278
00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:36,240
Speaker 1: to a duel at dawn near the Hallandsea train station.

279
00:20:37,119 --> 00:20:40,200
Speaker 1: The terms of the duel had each man shoot as

280
00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:45,199
Speaker 1: many times as necessary. It took eight gunshots, but eventually

281
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,880
Speaker 1: von Reichschach hit Kotze with a bullet in the thigh.

282
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:53,440
Speaker 1: Emperor Wilhelm the second sent an ornate Easter egg to

283
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:57,280
Speaker 1: Kotza's sick bed while he recovered. For him, that was

284
00:20:57,320 --> 00:20:59,639
Speaker 1: the end of this, but it wasn't the end for

285
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:03,679
Speaker 1: pa On the advice of his lawyer, Coates, A sued

286
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 1: Baron Schrader for libel for what he believed was the

287
00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:11,439
Speaker 1: fabrication of evidence that led to his arrest. But the

288
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:16,120
Speaker 1: case was dismissed from court, and coat Say demanded satisfaction,

289
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 1: even though he had already been shot in the thigh.

290
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 1: Coutes demanded another duel, this time with Baron Schrader. They

291
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 1: would stand ten paces apart and keep shooting approaching the

292
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: other until one of them was disabled. On Good Friday, Kotze,

293
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,840
Speaker 1: who had already been found innocent of the letter writing scandal,

294
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 1: shot Trader in the abdomen and killed him. Only months

295
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:49,880
Speaker 1: released from his first imprisonment, Cotes was sentenced to another

296
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 1: two years in prison for the death of Baron Schrader.

297
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:57,480
Speaker 1: The German government passed a harsh law against dueling, but

298
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:00,960
Speaker 1: three months later the Emperor pardoned le Brick phone coach.

299
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:09,160
Speaker 1: We still don't know who wrote the anonymous letters. It's

300
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:12,959
Speaker 1: possible that if they were given a more comprehensive examination today,

301
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:16,919
Speaker 1: a scientific analysis could give us the answer. But the

302
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,000
Speaker 1: Kaiser and his family had tried for decades to keep

303
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: the scandal as secret as possible. Alleging debaucheries was one thing,

304
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:29,159
Speaker 1: it was a far worse thing if common people realized

305
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:34,400
Speaker 1: that nobles were actually committing them. Kotsai challenging his accusers

306
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:39,159
Speaker 1: to duels was tragic, but maybe for the Kaiser secretly

307
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:44,080
Speaker 1: a blessing. High society became so absorbed in the scandal

308
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:48,240
Speaker 1: of the duels that they forgot the scandal that preceded it.

309
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: The problem with a kingdom trying to maintain nobility emerges

310
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 1: when it becomes apparent that those people who were born

311
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 1: into privilege are no fundamentally better than the rest of us.

312
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,640
Speaker 1: Why do some people get to be dukes and duchesses,

313
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: princes and kaisers, and how do they get to hold

314
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: onto that power after the people below them find out

315
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 1: that the nobles are just spending their time indulging in

316
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 1: their basest human impulses. The power of a monarchy exists

317
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 1: only as long as people buy into the belief that

318
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:25,679
Speaker 1: either the king and his family were chosen by God, or,

319
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 1: if it's not that overt that they embody certain noble

320
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: ideals that make them worthy of leadership, that may be

321
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: because they have access to education and money and pedigree.

322
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: They're somehow finer than the rest of us in ways

323
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 1: that are maybe even too subtle to articulate. But then

324
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 1: fifteen of them get drunk and get naked, and then

325
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 1: one of them spend the next four years taunting all

326
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 1: of them with petty adolescent gossip, and one realizes that

327
00:23:55,880 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: maybe the wealthy and elite are just board common people,

328
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: trapped in a gilded cage with their own making, Devoid

329
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,480
Speaker 1: of purpose and devoid of the satisfaction that can only

330
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: be gleaned from a hard day's work. The nobles are

331
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,359
Speaker 1: forced to invent these petty rivalries to fight duels in

332
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 1: order to convince themselves that their lives serve the purpose

333
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: of honor and well dignity. That's the story of the

334
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: Codes affair. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break

335
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: to hear a bit about the modern theories about who

336
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 1: was behind the anonymous letters. So who wasn't Who was

337
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,119
Speaker 1: the one who wrote those scandalous letters to the depressional

338
00:24:56,119 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 1: elite accusing them of all sorts of terrible things. The

339
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,439
Speaker 1: most prominent theory is that it was Duke Ernst Gunther,

340
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:07,119
Speaker 1: the scandalous brother in law of Wilhelm the Second. He

341
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: was the type of person who was almost entirely capable

342
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: of stirring up trouble, and he and the Kaiser did

343
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: have a falling out that eventually led him to being

344
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: banned from the palaces in Berlin and Potsdam. The ostensible

345
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: reason was losing that black eagle metal in the bed

346
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: of a prostitute, But who knows. He could have been

347
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: guilty of, or at least suspected of other crimes. There's

348
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: another dark horse theory about the anonymous letter writer, but

349
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: it seems very unlikely. It is I will say so

350
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: fundamentally appealing that I'm inclined to believe it, even without

351
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: actual evidence. It's that the man behind these letters wasn't

352
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: a man at all, but the Kaiser's sister, Princess Charlotte.

353
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: Some even suggest that she only invited the fifteen nobles

354
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: to the ice skating party come orgy as a trap.

355
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: She was famously prickly, a lifelong chain smoker and lover

356
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 1: of scandal. The personality seems to fit, but there is

357
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: also some evidence to the contrary. Charlotte was a dear

358
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: friend of Coats's wife, Elizabeth, and after Coats it was

359
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: wounded in his first duel, Charlotte wrote in a letter,

360
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: Coats at last pronounced free, but since yesterday badly wounded,

361
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: his wife is so courageous and behaves admirably. The long

362
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:36,360
Speaker 1: ten months train must soon tell on her nerves, dear thing,

363
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: how I longed to help and comfort her. Now. It's

364
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: not a letter that Charlotte would have ever imagined would

365
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: go on to the public record, so it doesn't read

366
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: like she's trying to throw us off the scent. But

367
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe it was guilt speaking, or maybe the

368
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: letters were written in fits of mania, and when she

369
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: calmed down, she was filled with contrition for the man

370
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: who stepped in to take all of the literal and

371
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: metaphorical fire. Princess Charlotte spent the twilight years of her

372
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: life in treatment for psychosis in the spot town of

373
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: baden Baden. Though as you know, I am remissed to

374
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:20,880
Speaker 1: diagnose anyone with anything posthumously, historians do believe that her

375
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: symptoms resembled porphyria, the same disorder suffered by her great

376
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 1: great grandfather, the Mad King George the Third. Noble Blood

377
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and

378
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted

379
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 1: by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick,

380
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social

381
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 1: media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more

382
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: about the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com.

383
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I

384
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: Heart a Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

385
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. H