Verrater an dem Kaiser

Count Robert Zedlitz und Truetschler, 60, a retired officer of the famed Prussian Guards and quondam Marshal of Kaiser Wilhelm's Court, wrote a book, Twelve Years at the German Court.

The Count had no good word to say for the Kaiser and he charged the great Field Marshal von Hindenburg and other officers of high rank of fawning upon the Kaiser, whom he represented as treating them as dogs and slaves.

The ire of the House of Zedlitz was aroused. Baron Eberhard von Zedlitz and Neukirch, second in command of the family, took it upon himself to denounce the Count as "ein Verraeter an dem Kaiser (a traitor to the Kaiser), and his book to be an unworthy attack by an officer of the old imperial defense forces of the former War Lord." The Baron then struck him off the family roll and organizations connected with the old German Army followed suit by expelling him from their societies.