Vomit affair

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Original letters from the Kotze affair with pornographic representations from the Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage

The Kotze affair was a scandal about the German imperial court at the end of the 19th century. From 1891 onwards, several members of the noble court society and the Wilhelm II family were accused of sexual debauchery in anonymous letters.

background

Since the letters contained non-public details from court life, the author of the letters was presumed to be a high-ranking member of the court . The suspicion finally fell in 1894 on the court ceremony master Leberecht von Kotze , who was then arrested. However, puke could not be proven. To restore his honor, he challenged two of his accusers to a duel , in which he was injured himself and Karl von Schrader , against whom he faced twice, ultimately killed.

The affair - like the Harden-Eulenburg affair a few years later - caused a sensation in society and led to a loss of credibility and prestige for the imperial family .

course

While the German imperial family tried to present itself virtuously to the outside world, feasts and orgies occurred again and again at court , for example during hunting trips to Grunewald Castle . Such a meeting took place in January 1891. Among the 15 participants were Friedrich Karl von Hessen , the sister of the Emperor Charlotte of Prussia as host, Leberecht von Kotze and Charlotte von der Betten , wife of Count Friedrich von Hohenau . The following day, several of them received anonymous letters detailing the previous evening's events, including group sex and homosexual intercourse. Pornographic pictures and drawings of genital organs were included. This was repeated in later societies; but also uninvolved courtiers and nobles received similar abusive letters in which the author reported on the sexual debauchery of the courtly circles. In particular, Charlotte von der Betten was described by the author as a man stupid and several of her high-ranking sexual partners were named, as were Karl von Schrader and his wife Alide. In total, more than 200 such letters were sent.

Grunewald hunting lodge

When the resulting rumors increased, some of those affected decided in 1892 to hand over the letters to the police in censored form. Due to the abundance of details, it could be concluded that the author of the letters himself belonged to the inner circle of court society and must have been among the 15 participants in the orgy in the Grunewald hunting lodge. Eventually the imperial master of ceremonies Leberecht von Kotze was accused of being behind the letters. He was considered chatty in court circles and was unpopular because of his sarcasm , but was sponsored by Wilhelm II. 1894 confiscated the secret police blotters from Kotzes possession, allegedly loaded him, after Wilhelm II von Kotze without. Criminal complaint was arrested. However, as the suspicion could not be maintained, von Kotze was released a few days later. Wilhelm II, however, stuck to his approach and commissioned a military court to investigate the case. The court questioned all members of the court, but could not find any guilt on Kotzes.

Right from vomit

The so-called Hohenau-Schradersche Kreis , whose protagonists Friedrich von Hohenau and Karl von Schrader, continued the investigation on their own. But von Kotze now demanded satisfaction from his accusers. In 1895 there was a first duel between von Schrader and von Kotze, which went smoothly. In a duel with Hugo von Reischach , however, von Kotze was injured in the thigh and admitted to hospital. Wilhelm II sent him a flower arrangement in the form of an Easter egg as a gesture of reconciliation to the sick bed. Nevertheless, there was another duel with von Schrader in 1896, in which he was killed.

The duels also caused a sensation among the common people, so that there were crowds at the duel grounds in Berlin. The press sharply criticized the behavior of court society as it would damage royalism and the image of the royal family. The dueling itself was also criticized. Wilhelm II banned public funeral services for von Schrader in order to prevent further stir.

Historical processing

In 1996, Tobias C. Bringmann was able to view and evaluate the original documents in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage for the first time , although he left some passages unpublished for reasons of decency. Wolfgang Wippermann made the original letters available to the public for the first time in his book Scandal im Jagdschloss Grunewald , published in 2010 .

It is still unclear who wrote the letters. John Röhl thinks it likely that Ernst Günther von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg , the emperor's brother-in-law, together with accomplices from the demimonde, are to be regarded as the author. He thus follows the first findings of the investigators, which were also publicly expressed at the time. Insider knowledge and arrogance, according to Röhl, speak for Duke Ernst Günther as the author, who was also known for an extravagant, scandalous sex life.

Wippermann does not commit himself, but is of the opinion that something speaks for Duchess Charlotte von Meiningen as the author of the letters. She, too, has already been suspected by contemporary Berlin society. This is justified on the one hand by the fact that the (detailed) description of the female genitals in the letters speaks in favor of a woman as an author, on the other hand with an assumed resentment of the Duchess against the Countess Hohenau: As a born of the blankets, the Countess came from the lower Aristocracy and by marrying Count Hohenau, who as a son from the morganatic marriage of Prince Albrecht of Prussia sr. with whom Rosalie von Rauch was related to the royal family, gained access to the inner circles of the court and especially the high nobility - a social rise that could regularly arouse resentment and even enmity in court circles. Finally, the documented later partisanship of the Duchess Charlotte for the Kotze couple, who had been severely discredited by the false suspicion of Leberecht von Kotzes, comes into question as an indication.

A combination of both theories is also discussed in research. Then Charlotte collaborated with her brother-in-law .

filming

The affair was filmed in 1966 by Wolfgang Luderer for the DEFA television series Pitaval des Kaiserreiches under the title The scandal surrounding Mr Leberecht von Kotze .

literature

  • Tobias C. Bringmann : Reichstag and duel. The duel question as an internal political conflict in the empire 1871–1918. Hochschul-Verlag, Freiburg 1996, ISBN 3-8107-2249-9 .
  • Fritz Friedmann: The German Emperor and the Hofkamarilla. Schmidt, Zurich 1896.
  • John Röhl : The Kotze Affair. In: Wilhelm II. The structure of the personal monarchy. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-48229-5 , p. 741 ff.
  • Wolfgang Wippermann : Scandal in the Grunewald hunting lodge. Masculinity and honor in the German Empire. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-89678-810-8 .

Web links

Commons : Puking Affair  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Tobias C. Bringmann, 1996.
  2. ↑ 3. “Morbidly feminine people”. P. 59 in: Scandal in the Grunewald hunting lodge
  3. ↑ John Röhl, pp. 751-753.
  4. ↑ Group sex in Grunewald on ZEIT online
  5. ↑ Cf. Marie von Bunsen : Contemporaries I experienced . Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1932, p. 35.