Dietrich Graf von Hülsen-Haeseler

 Aide de Camp to the Kaiser, Graf (Count) von Hülsen-Haeseler rose to the position of Chief of the German Imperial Military Cabinet.  He was a full general of infantry, 4 stars in American parlance.  While he does not seem to have much in the way of combat experience, he must have been competent.  His boss, Wilhelm II, the Kaiser, was a crippled sadist who enjoyed bullying and humiliating high ranking men.

'To compensate for feelings of inferiority caused by his withered arm, Wilhelm had in the words of Röhl a tendency to engage in "sadistic" behavior such as having the rings on his right hand inwards, squeezing especially hard when shaking hands (as result of having the use of only one arm, Wilhelm had an abnormally strong right arm), and watching with pleasure as the other party grimaced in pain. Other antics of the Kaiser included attacking his guests with his field marshal's baton and making his elderly ministers do a vigorous round of physical exercises, sometimes cutting off their braces first so that they would have trouble keeping their pants up during the exercises. On board the royal yacht Hohenzollern on the annual North Sea summer cruise in 1894, Eulenburg was alarmed to be woken up at midnight by the “loud, laughing, shouting, pealing voice of the Kaiser outside my door; he was chasing the old excellencies Heintze, Kessel, Scholl, etc, through the corridors of the ship to bed!”.  After one especially strenuous session of physical exercises under the midday sun on the deck of the Hohenzollern presided over by a laughing Wilhelm, Eulenburg wrote: "It is a curious sight: all those old military fogeys having to do their knee-jerks with strained faces! The Kaiser sometimes laughs out loud and eggs them on with a dig to the ribs. The old boys then pretend that they are particularly delighted over such a favour, but in fact they clench their fists in their pockets and afterwards grumble among themselves about the Kaiser like a lot of old women".  The system Wilhelm created around him was known at the time as “Byzantinism” as the strange atmosphere at his court full of material opulence, factionalism, sycophancy and intrigue was so redolent of the courts of the Eastern Roman Emperors.  Wilhelm often made his courtiers dance before him and the rest of the court dressed as ballerinas or poodles while blowing kisses to him'.  (Wikipedia).

One the night of November 14, 1908, Wilhelm made von Hülsen-Haeseler don a pink tutu and dance in front of the hunting party gathered at Donaueschingen Castle.  The Graf died of a heart attack brought on by humiliation, his body lay on a pool table while the assemblage got the Kaiser away.  At this time there was widespread concern over homosexuality in the officer corps, and von Hülsen-Haeseler had orchestrated the covering up of a notorious scandal, the Harden-Eulenberg affair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulenburg_affair 

 Schloss Donaueschingen.

Allowing an unstable person like Wilhelm absolute power was the death knell of the Hohenzollern's and led directly to the pointless mass slaughter of the First World War.

https://glreview.org/article/picturing-the-german-vice/  

Wilhelm in one of his over 400 military uniforms.

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

You got to be fucking kidding me.  While I doubt this uniform is lavender, it should be.  But those boots are simply fabulous!

 

Enlisted men need not apply.