German Empire
House of Hohenzollern
Wilhelm I (1861–1888)
Children
Frederick III
Princess Louise
Frederick III (1888)
Children
Wilhelm II
Princess Charlotte
Prince Heinrich
Prince Sigismund
Princess Viktoria
Prince Waldemar
Princess Sophie
Princess Margaret
Grandchildren
Prince Waldemar
Prince Sigismund
Prince Heinrich
Wilhelm II (1888–1918)
Children
Crown Prince William
Prince Eitel Friedrich
Prince Adalbert
Prince August Wilhelm
Prince Oskar
Prince Joachim
Princess Victoria Louise
Grandchildren include
Prince Wilhelm
Prince Louis Ferdinand
Prince Hubertus
Prince Friedrich
As a scion of the Royal house of Hohenzollern, Wilhelm was also exposed from an early age to the military society of the Prussian aristocracy. This had a major impact on him and, in maturity, Wilhelm was seldom to be seen out of uniform. The hyper-masculine military culture of Prussia in this period did much to frame Wilhelm's political ideals as well as his personal relationships.
Wilhelm's relationship with the male members of his family was as interesting as that with his mother. Crown Prince Frederick was viewed by his son with a deeply-felt love and respect. His father's status as a hero of the wars of unification was largely responsible for the young Wilhelm's attitude, as in the circumstances in which he was raised; close emotional contact between father and son was not encouraged. Later, as he came into contact with the Crown Prince's political opponents, Wilhelm came to adopt more ambivalent feelings toward his father, given the perceived influence of Wilhelm's mother over a figure who should have been possessed of masculine independence and strength. Wilhelm also idolised his grandfather, Wilhelm I, and he was instrumental in later attempts to foster a cult of the first German Emperor as "Wilhelm the Great".
In many ways, Wilhelm was a victim of his inheritance and of Otto von Bismarck's machinations. Both sides of his family had suffered from mental illness, and this may explain his emotional instability. The Emperor's parents, Frederick and Victoria, were great admirers of the Prince Consort of the United Kingdom, Victoria's father. They planned to rule as consorts, like Albert and Queen Victoria, and they planned to reform the fatal flaws in the executive branch that Bismarck had created for himself. The office of Chancellor responsible to the Emperor would be replaced with a British-style cabinet, with ministers responsible to the Reichstag. Government policy would be based on the consensus of the cabinet. Frederick "described the Imperial Constitution as ingeniously contrived chaos."[2]
"The Crown Prince and Princess shared the outlook of the Progressive Party, and Bismarck was haunted by the fear that should the old Emperor die--and he was now in his seventies--they would call on one of the Progressive leaders to become Chancellor. He sought to guard against such a turn by keeping the Crown Prince from a position of any influence and by using foul means as well as fair to make him unpopular."[3]
When Wilhelm was in his early twenties, Bismarck tried to separate him from his liberal parents with some success. Bismarck planned to use the young prince as a weapon against his parents in order to retain his political dominance. Wilhelm thus developed a dysfunctional relationship with his parents, but especially with his English mother. In an outburst in April 1889, which the Empress Frederick conveyed in a letter to her mother, Queen Victoria, Wilhelm angrily inferred that “an English doctor killed my father, and an English doctor crippled my arm – which is the fault of my mother” who allowed no German physicians to attend to herself or her immediate family.[4]
Next to the throne
The German Emperor Wilhelm I died in Berlin on 9 March 1888, and Prince Wilhelm's father was proclaimed Emperor as Frederick III. He was already suffering from an incurable throat cancer and spent all 99 days of his reign fighting the disease before dying. On 15 June of that same year, his 29-year-old son succeeded him as German Emperor and King of Prussia.
Although in his youth he had been a great admirer of Otto von Bismarck, Wilhelm's characteristic impatience soon brought him into conflict with the "Iron Chancellor", the dominant figure in the foundation of his empire. The new Emperor opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy, preferring vigorous and rapid expansion to protect Germany's "place in the sun." Furthermore, the young Emperor had come to the throne with the determination that he was going to rule as well as reign, unlike his grandfather, who had largely been content to leave day-to-day administration to Bismarck.
Early conflicts between Wilhelm II and his chancellor soon poisoned the relationship between the two men. Bismarck believed that Wilhelm was a lightweight who could be dominated, and he showed scant respect for Wilhelm's policies in the late 1880s. The final split between monarch and statesman occurred soon after an attempt by Bismarck to implement a far-reaching anti-Socialist law in early 1890.
he Great War
Italian Propaganda Postcard from the World War I era showing a caricature of Wilhelm II biting into the world. The text reads "The glutton - too hard."
It is difficult to argue that Wilhelm actively sought to unleash the First World War. Though he had ambitions for the German Empire to be a world power, it was never Wilhelm's intention to conjure a large-scale conflict to achieve such ends. As soon as his better judgment dictated that a world war was imminent, he made strenuous efforts to preserve the peace—such as The Willy-Nicky Correspondence mentioned earlier, and his optimistic interpretation of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum that Austro-Hungarian troops should go no further than Belgrade, thus limiting the conflict. But by then it was far too late, for the eager military officials of Germany and the German Foreign Office were successful in persuading him to sign the mobilisation order and initiate the Schlieffen Plan that envisaged the occupation of Paris within 40 days. The contemporary British reference to the First World War as "the Kaiser's War" in the same way that the Second was "Hitler's War" is not wholly accurate in its suggestion that Wilhelm was deliberately responsible for unleashing the conflict. "He may not have been 'the father of war' but he was certainly its godfather' (A. Woodcock-Clarke).
His own love of the culture and trappings of militarism and push to endorse the German military establishment and industry (most notably the Krupp corporation), which were the key support which enabled his dynasty to rule helped push his empire into an armaments race with competing European powers. Similarly, though on signing the mobilisation order, Wilhelm is reported as having said "You will regret this, gentlemen", he had encouraged Austria to pursue a hard line with Serbia, was an enthusiastic supporter of the subsequent German actions during the war and revelled in the title of "Supreme War Lord" and "Allerhöchste" (All-highest).
Germany's war aims were published with his consent on 9 September 1914, and stiffened his enemies' resolve to avoid a compromise peace, whatever the costs.
Wilhelm II died of a pulmonary embolus in Doorn, the Netherlands on 4 June, 1941 aged 82, with German soldiers at the gates of his estate. Hitler, however, was reportedly angry that the former monarch had an honour guard of German troops and nearly fired the general who ordered them there when he found out. Despite his personal animosity toward Wilhelm, Hitler nonetheless hoped to bring Wilhelm's body back to Berlin for a state funeral for propaganda purposes, as Wilhelm was a symbol of Germany and Germans during World War I. (Hitler felt this would demonstrate to Germans the direct succession of the Third Reich from the old Kaiserreich.)[34] However, Wilhelm's wishes of never returning to Germany until the restoration of the monarchy were nevertheless respected, and the Nazi occupation authorities granted a small military funeral with a few hundred people present, the mourners including August von Mackensen, along with a few other military advisors. Wilhelm's request that the swastika and other Nazi regalia not be displayed at the final rites was ignored, however, and they feature in the photos of the funeral that were taken by a Dutch photographer.[35]
He was buried in a mausoleum in the grounds of Huis Doorn, which has since become a place of pilgrimage for German monarchists. To this day, small but enthusiastic numbers of them gather at Huis Doorn every year on the anniversary of his death to pay their homage to the last German Emperor.[36]
