YEAR OF FATE FOR GERMANY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIII, Issue XVIII, 3 August 1912, Page 10

YEAR OF FATE FOR GERMANY.

According to many Germans, including the Kaiser (writes the Berlin correspondent of an American paper), the year 1913 is destined to prove either of great prolit or of serious loss to Germany. They reach this conclusion through a calculation made by a woman reputed to be gifted with "second sight."

The prophecy dates originally from the marriage of Prince William of Prussia, later the first German Emperor, in 1829. The.dates of the leading events in German history, it is said, could be traced by adding together the digits in 1829 and adding the total to the year. Thus, 1 plus 8 plus 2 plus 9 is 20, which added to 1829, gives 1849, the year of the revolution which broke the absolute feudal power: of the Prussian Crown.

Again, 1 plus 8 plus 4 lilus 9 is 22, which, added to 1849, gives 1871, the year of the defeat of France, which resulted in the acquisition of Alsace-Lor-raine aud the birth of the German Empire. Treating 1871 in the same way we get 1888, the year of the death'of the old Eraperor William and his son and the succession of the present Kaiser. And the sum of its digits, 25, to 1888, and we get 1919fthe year which almost all Prussians are in the habit of describing as "schicksals jahr," or year of fate.

FINAL STRUgG LE WITH ENGLAND It was a result of this' figuring that 1913 was so long pointed to as the probable year of the final struggle with England, and as 1912 advances apprehension of a great struggle coming next year , increases. It is common knowledge that the Kaiser, while refusing to give ear to the soothsayers, nevertheless has an uneasy feeling about the schicksals jahr."-

But now it is being asserted that 1913 is not the end of the series. The sum of its digits added to it gives 1927, the year when the German Navy will finally reach its complete stage, and when the prophets of evil say will be fought the last great battle of European history, which will break up the established order of things.

Another prophecy, the so-called "Wisdom of Frankfort," declares that "when a seventh son is born to the eldest of six sons a beloved monarch will die, and the empire will come to an end. The Kaiser has six sons, and his eldest son has already four.

KAISER'S SUPERSTITIONS

Among the Kaiser's personal superstitions, mostly connected with charms, are said to be a bullet and a "piece of tiie garment of a materialised spirit," both of which he is reputed to carry on his person wherever he goes. The Buitowa spur is sown into a leather pocket in the inside of the Kaiser's uniforms.

The piece of "spirit garment" was originally referred to in a book on the ''Kaiser as a Spiritist," published in Berlin some years ago by one of the most famous of Berlin necromancers. It is now out of print and practically unobtainable. The story has never been denied. It is said that this thin piece -of cobwebby stuff is carried in the case of the Kaiser's watch. •

It is well known that the Kaiser will not endure near him anything depicting death. Thus, when he took over the Achilleion palace in Corfu he removed not only the famous statue of Heine but a beautiful statue of the dying Archilles; the latter was replaced by the new statue of Achilles with the Spear which stands on the cliff in front of the palace, near the private landing place. It was a copy of this statue which the Kaiser presented to Lord Haldane.

WHITE LADY OF HOHENZOLLERNS.

All the Imperial family are said to believe in the "White Lady of the Hohenzollerns," of whose reputed appearance there is contemporary written evidence dating from the end of the h'iteenth century. She had successively "spooked" in different castles of the Hohenzollerns, and for the last hundred years the castle in Berlin.

She invariably appears, it is said, before the death of a male member of the l-oyal family, but the belief in her is preserved rather as a pious tradition than as a working creed—at least since the Kaiser had investigated the supposed origin of the gtiost, the Countess of Ohlamuende, who wanted to marry Albert the Fair, Hohenzollern Prince of Nuremberg. Albert replied to the countess's proposal that "the countess fair is injured by children and eyes two pair," meaning that her two children, in the eyes of his two parents, were sufficient reason why he should not marry her ; whereupon the countess put her two children to. death.

The Kaiser himself believes that the ghost was traditionally that of Dorothea of Brandenburg, wife of the great elector, who is shown on an old wood cut going to the funeral completely clothed in white.