Count Alfred A. Hessenstein
Count Hessenstein in his final talk in this series will recall Berlin in the days which he knew so intimately as a boy. He was there in 1888 with his sister, who was presented at the court of Kaiser William I, then an old man of ninety-four and the oldest reigning monarch in Europe. That was the year when Kaiser William I died and his son, the Emperor Frederick, came to the throne practically as a dying man and reigned for ninety-nine days; Count Hessenstein will describe the contrast when the young Crown Prince, Kaiser William II (the Kaiser of the Great War days) succeeded him. He will speak of Frederick's wife-Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria-and describe being taken to the Lake District near Berlin, where he remembers feeding the peacocks. He will recall driving down what is now one of the most fashionable streets in Berlin-fursurstendamm, which was in those days more like a lane.