![]() “To be sure that no one would read these private letters, the letters were packed in envelopes according to the people who wrote them and then sealed,” says Wittwer. Hulton Archive // Getty ImagesĪccording to the addresses on the boxes, Wittwer believes that the letters were transported from the Berlin Schloss to the Neues Palais when Wilhelm II and Augusta Victoria moved there. Opening this lock was rather easy.”Įmperor Wilhelm II of Germany with his wife Augusta Victoria in a photo dated around 1900. “Because the second door was only wood, the lock was much more simply made. “It was unreachable without a ladder, which would have been difficult to use in such a tight space anyway,” says Wittwer. They happened to spot a second, much smaller door above the steel door which looked very much the same. The curators tried but failed to get past the steel door. As we were preparing for the exhibition on the end of the monarchy, we were curious to see if our experts could open it.” “There are no keys and no one from the former or present palace staff ever saw it open. Samuel Wittwer, director of the Prussian castles. “In the former boudoir of Augusta Victoria there is a steel safe built in the wall in a small cabinet,” says Dr. While preparing for the exhibition, curators made a startling discovery in the dressing room of Wilhelm’s wife, Empress Augusta Victoria (pictured above with her great aunt, Queen Victoria). Restaurant.In 2018, The Neues Palais-the last palace built by Frederick the Great in Potsdam, Germany-hosted a small exhibition called “Kaiserdämmerung” (“The Twilight of the Emperor”), to mark the centenary of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s abdication as Emperor and King of Prussia. McCurdy abandoned the attempt when rival pilot Eugene Ely flew off the deck of the “USS Birmingham” off of Hampton Roads Virginia in 1910. A special platform was built on Kaiserin Auguste Victoria to provide a runway for McCurdy’s plane. In 1910 the ship was to be used in experiments for the world’s first ship-to-shore airplane flights by pilot John McCurdy. ![]() Thereafter, she regularly sailed the route between Hamburg and New York. The SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria left Hamburg on on her maiden voyage to Dover, Cherbourg, and New York under the command of Captain Hans Ruser. ![]() There was room for 212 third-class passengers and for 1,608 fourth-class passengers. The ocean liner provided accommodation for 472 first-class passengers and for 174 second class passengers. She had two funnels, four masts, twin propellers, and an average speed of 18 knots. The 24,581-ton vessel had a length of 677.5 feet, and her beam was 77.3 feet. German Empress Auguste Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein permitted the vessel to be named after her and participated in the launching ceremonies. The SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria sailed under a German flag for eight years. At the time of her launching on 29 August 1905, her only peer in size was the slightly smaller Amerika which had been launched days earlier. When the keel was laid down as “Ship #264,” this vessel was intended to be named the SS Europa she was to have been a sister ship to the SS Amerika which was being built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast during the same period. At 24,000 plus tons she was the largest passenger liner in the world from 1905 to 1907 until the advent of Cunard’s Lusitania. The new ship was ordered by the expanding Hamburg America Line. The SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria was built by AG Vulcan Stettin in Stettin on the Baltic in 1905-1906.
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