Emperor Wilhelm II (1859 - 1941) |
Wilhelm II of Prussia and Germany (27. January 1859 - 4. June 1941) was born as
Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert von Hohenzollern. He was the last German Emperor
(Kaiser) and the last King (König) of Prussia from 1888 - 1918.
He was born in Berlin to Crown Prince Friedrich and his wife, Britain's Princess
Royal, Victoria. His mother was the aunt of Empress Alexandra (the wife of Tsar
Nicholas II), and the sister of King Edward VII. Queen Victoria was his grandmother.
A traumatic breech birth damaged him physically, leading to a withered left arm, which
he tried with some success to conceal. (In the photograph opposite, for example, one
hand is holding the withered one, concealing it. In many other photos he carries a
pair of white gloves in his left hand to make the arm seem longer.)
Recent analyses of records of his birth in the former Imperial Archives have also
suggested that he may have experienced some brain trauma, possibly leading to some
brain damage. Historians are divided on whether such a mental incapacity may have
contributed to his frequently aggressive, tactless, headstrong, and occasionally
bullying approach to problems and people, which was evident in both his personal
and political lives.
Such an approach certainly marred German policy under his leadership, most notably
in his dismissal of his cautious chancellor,
Otto von Bismarck, while he had a
strikingly poor relationship with his mother.
Wilhelm was educated at Kassel at the Friedrichsgymnasium and the University of Bonn.
On the death of Wilhelm I on 9. March 1888, his father was crowned Emperor as
Friedrich III but he was dying of throat cancer and in June that same year Wilhelm II
succeeded him as Emperor.
Reign of the Emperor
Wilhelm II in militaristic outfit |
His rule was noted for his militaristic push to assert power for the
German Empire. He sought to expand
German colonial holdings, "a place in the sun". Under the Tirpitz Plan, through the
Naval Bills of 1897 and 1900, the German navy was built up to contend with that of
the United Kingdom. His personality and policies oscillated between antagonizing
and amusing Britain, France, and Russia.
He dismissed Otto von Bismarck in 1890
and abandoned the Chancellor's careful policies, replacing him with Leo Graf von
Caprivi, who in turn was replaced by Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst
in 1894. He was followed by Prince Bernhard von Bülow in 1900 and Theobald von
Bethmann-Hollweg in 1909. All of these
Chancellors were senior civil servants and
not politicians like Bismarck. Wilhelm wanted to preclude the emergence of another
Bismarck.
Despite his attitude it is difficult to say that he sought
World War I, although
he did little to halt it. He had allied with Austria-Hungary and encouraged their
hard-line in the Balkans,
and although he lost his nerve at the last minute it was
too late, and he soon recovered to push his generals for great achievements. During
the Great War he was Commander in
Chief but he soon lost all control of German policy and his popularity plunged.
As a result of the explosion of the
German Revolution, the Kaiser's abdication was
announced by Max von Baden on 9. November 1918. Wilhelm went into exile in the
Netherlands. The Dutch Queen Wilhelmina refused to extradite Wilhelm as a war criminal.
He had married Augusta Viktoria, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein, in 1881. They had seven
children.
Following her death, while living in exile, in 1922 he married Hermine von
Schoenaich, the widowed Princess Reuss. During the 1930s, he had apparently harboured
hopes that the Nazis would revive the monarchy, but when this did not come about, his
opinion of Adolf Hitler became very low.
Kaiser Wilhelm II died in Doorn on 5. June 1941 with the German occupiers on guard
at the gates of his estate. He is buried in Huis Doorn, Doorn, Netherlands. His wish
that no swastikas be displayed at his funeral was not heeded.
Wilhelm's Passions
Wilhelm was purported to have a sexual fetish for women with "beautiful hands," and
his propensity to pursue prostitutes whose hands suited him and then neglecting to
pay them for services created headaches for Herbert and Otto von Bismarck while the
then Crown Prince was still under their collective wings.
Wilhelm developed a penchant
for archaeology during his vacations on Corfu during the first decade of the 20th
Century, a passion he harbored even into his exile in Doorn. He also had a habit of
sketching plans for grand buildings and battleships when he was bored, although
experts in construction in both fields saw his ideas as grandiose and unworkable.
One of Wilhelm's greatest passions was hunting, and he bagged thousands of animals,
both beast and bird.
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