THE EX-KAISER.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 December 1923, Page 5

THE EX-KAISER.

amazing new light. COURT OFFICIAL'S DIARY. HOST DAMNING EVIDENCE. THE TRUTH AT LAST. Bv Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright Received Dec. 26, 10.50 aan. London, Dec. 25. The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle says that Count Robert Zedlitztrutxschler, a veteran representative of Prussian aristocracy, has been excommunicated owing to the publication of his diary, which throws an amazing new light on the ex-Kaieer. The leagues of army and navy officers, and the guild of German Nobility pronounce anathema against the Count for his baseless and disloyal behaviour. Even the Count’s own family have disowned him.

The Count’s crime is that he has told the truth about the ex-J£aiser, with whom he was in daily communication for a dozen years as Court Chamberlain. Written at the momeiy of observation, the Count’s diary embodies the most damning judgment ever pronounced on almost any figure in history. What lends special significance to the book is that the Count published it at the dictates of his own conscience. His contemporary comments show that the Count foresaw the eatastrephe to which Germany hastened. The Count originally sealed the diary and inscribed it “not to be opened prior to 1970,” but says he felt compelled to publish it e- a warning to his own countrymen never to revert to a system of absolute monarchy. Among the ex-Kaiser’s declarations quoted day after day is this one: “I have never read the Constitution. I know nothing about it. My subjects oueht simply to do what I teil them. What is wanted is a little periodical blood-letting. “I think what Friedrich 11. accomplished I could do still more if I were free as Friedrich to flog and behead.” From 1907 onWards the ex-Kaiser began to complain bitterlv that King Ed•ward VII. was intriguing against him. He fulminated daily England, and declared in 1910 that England was completely decadent, the upper classes demoralised, the army and navy undermined by corruption and incapability, and that England’s economic life was stagnant, her people being unable tn compete with other nations, adding: “In the shortest time the world wiil witness the collapse of the British Empire.” The Count says the ex-Empress tried vainly to check these outbreaks.