It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty how suspicion was
then directed towards Baron Kotze. But I am under the impression that
his name was first mentioned in connection with the affair by Baron
Schrader, who like himself was a Master of Ceremonies of the Court
of Berlin. The vast wealth enjoyed by the Kotzes, as well as the
extraordinary favor manifested towards them by the emperor and the
members of the reigning family, had not unnaturally rendered them
objects of no little jealousy on the part of other personages
belonging to the court circle. The exceedingly sarcastic and
malevolent tongue of the Baroness Kotze, and the somewhat coarse
flavor of the ever-ready jest and quip of her jovial, loud-voiced,
hail-fellow-well-met mannered husband did not tend to render the
couple very popular.

Baron Kotze's mother had been an heiress in her own right as the
daughter of the court banker, Krause, while the baron's wife is the
daughter of that extraordinary old General von Treskow, who for so
long commanded the division of Guards, and whose reputation as one of
the bravest and most dashing officers of the war of 1870, alone saved
him from the ridicule which his corseted waist, his painted cheeks,
his dyed moustache, and his youthful wig, would otherwise have
excited. While he himself has no drop of Jewish blood in his veins,
both his daughter, Madame Kotze, and her brother possess the facial
features of the Semitic race in a most marked degree, and despite
their protestations to the contrary, have undoubtedly Hebrew
ancestors, if not on the father's side, at any rate on that of the
mother. Old General Treskow was very rich indeed, his country seat at
Friedrichsfeld being one of the most magnificent country seats in the
neighborhood of Berlin.