All Dressed Up & No Place To Go 02

Perhaps to compensate, as head of the House of Saxe-Coburg (rechristened "Windsor" in the British branch ), for having been turfed out of ALL his titles in 1918.

Charles/Carl Eduard/Edward is festooned with dynastic awards and the clutter of uniformed street gangs (I very much doubt he ever took part in any fisticuffs however ) in this "anything goes" 1920s photo.

He would go on to rack up--literally--uniforms in the German Air Sport League, the National Socialist Motor Corps, and the brown shirted Storm Troopers as a drawing room Gruppenf?hrer.

All for naught. In the end he would die in his 70th year, in 1954, with all his hopes, asperations



and closets full in vain.


This sort of over the top, not enough space to WEAR things is typical of the "anything goes" Weimar Republic. Half these decorations are for having been born or for being somebody's cousin, and the other half are pure foppish kitsch.


Courtesy of Robert Noss.