A previously unknown trove of more than 1,000 private letters of the last German Empress have been discovered in a hidden compartment at the Kaiser’s palace in Potsdam.

They include personal letters to Empress Augusta Victoria from her relative, Queen Victoria of England.

Augusta Victoria, Queen of Prussia and German Empress, was married to Wilhelm II, the Kaiser who led Germany into the disaster of the First World War.

The letters, which are still sealed in the envelopes Empress Augusta stored them in, could shed new light on the life of a woman who was witness to the upheaval of the early 20th century.

“We have found a treasure more precious than gems or jewelry,” Samuel Wittwer of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation said.