What's this about the kinky kaiser

�

�

Q. This is the bad guy of the First World War

A.� Indeed. One biography coming right up. Wilhelm II was crowned Emperor of Germany in 1888 on succeeding his father Frederick III. He was born in 1859 with a withered arm and some impressive relatives. His grandmother was Queen Victoria; and his cousin the Tsar Nicholas II. Another cousin was George V, with whom he would go to war.

�

Q.� Why the bad guy

A.� He was building up the German empire. He wanted more territory - but there wasn't much left to go round, most having been snapped up by Britain and France. Nevertheless, the kaiser built up the German military machine and a naval fleet to rival Britain's. His sabre-rattling got him and his country into a lot of trouble.

�

Q.� What about the kinky habits

A.� He loved his numerous uniforms and surrounding himself with the German military elite. In 1885, while Crown Prince of Prussia, he met Emilie Klopp in Alsace and they became lovers. He called her 'Miss Love'. She tied him up with her silk stockings and thrashed him. But this was not an act of love: Emilie was a whore and charged him 100 marks (�1,000 today) a session.

�

Q.� And how was all this revealed

A.� Wilhelm liked writing about the sadomasochistic sessions. In one, he said: 'I particularly like it when you bind my arms together.' Naturally, Emilie kept the letters and turned to blackmail after he dumped her. She threatened to publish the letters in France, Wilhelm's bitter enemy.

�

Q.� What was her demand

A.� 25,000 Reichsmarks, about �300,000 in modern terms. She discretely disguised her demands as complaints about unpaid 'expenses'. He turned to Count Wilhelm von Bismarck (whose father Otto was the German chancellor) to pay her off.

�

Q.� What happened to the letters

A.� The six documents were returned, stored in a safe in an envelope labelled 'Love Affair' and left undiscovered for more than a century. The letters were discovered among the former chancellor's private papers at the Friedrichsruher Bismarck Archive.

�

Q.� Any other indiscretions

A.� Historian John Rohl, in The Kaiser and His Court, includes an off-colour story about Wilhelm's courtiers proposing a poodle game to amuse the Kaiser. It involved shaving their backsides. Another senior courtier, Dietrich Count von Hulsen-Haseler, chief of the military cabinet, died of a heart attack while dancing in a tutu and feather hat for the kaiser.

�

Q.� What happened to Emilie Klopp

A.� She disappeared - with the payout.

�

Q.� Ands the other players

A.� Chancellor Bismarck was sacked in 1890 when the kaiser decided he wanted to conduct his own foreign policy. These led to power-building - and the First World War. The kaiser was forced to abdicate when Germany lost the war. He fled to Holland where he died in 1941. Hitler had refused to allow him back to his homeland. He is buried at Doorn, Utrecht.

�

To ask another question about History & Myths, click here

By Steve Cunningham