"As a young student in Berlin in 1905 I had seen the Kaiser riding majestically down Unter den Linden at the head of his Guards. He was then a resplendent figure in white and black with his famous moustache pointing its waxed ends perpendicularly to the heavens. Nothing could then have been further from my mind than the thought that 23 years later I should meet him, visit him in exile and maintain with him until the outbreak of the second world war a more or less regular correspondence.
The manner of our meeting was wholly unexpected. In November 1928, I had just become a journalist and had been sent on a short visit to Berlin as a test of my abilities.
I had been sumptuously entertained by my old German friends, but had discovered nothing of particular interest to my newspaper and had already booked my sleeper for the homeward journey when I received an invitation to lunch with Richard Kiihlmann, the former German Foreign Minister.
At the luncheon at Kühlmann's house I met Karl Friedrich Nowak, the author of The Downfall of the Central Powers and of Versailles and at this time the Kaiser's historical adviser. We got on well. He asked me to dine alone with him and took me into his confidence. In that autumn of 1928 there had appeared in England a book entitled The Letters of the Empress Frederick. It had a preface by Sir Frederick Ponsonby, then the Keeper of the Privy Purse. The Empress Frederick, daughter of Queen Victoria, was the Kaiser's mother, and the Kaiser, bitterly hurt by the references to himself, wanted to have the book withdrawn. He had placed the handling of this business in Nowak's hands. Could I recommend a British authority on copyright?…"
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Amicalement
Armand
