He was the child from hell – born into royalty
with a deformity that put a lifelong chip
on his shoulder, he quickly alienated everyone
around him.
By the time he became ruler of Germany, this
grandson of Queen Victoria had grown to hate
the British, the French and just about every
other European power.
Over the next twenty years, he orchestrated
the tension that exploded into the nightmare
that was World War One.
In this week’s Biographics, we uncover the
mixed-up life of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The Troubled Child
The child who was to become Kaiser Wilhelm
II was born Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert
von Hohenzollern.
The date was January 27th, 1859 and the place
Potsdam in what was then the state of Prussia.
His father was Prince Frederick Wilhelm of
Prussia while his mother was the English princess
Victoria.
The birth was not an easy one, with the doctor
having great difficulty getting the baby out
of the birth canal.
As a result, Wilhelm’s left arm was virtually
useless, being significantly shorter than
his other arm.
Many historians believe that Wilhelm’s deformity
stunted his emotional growth and contributed
to his reckless behavior in later life.
What is certain is that he was extremely self-conscious
about his impaired arm and constantly sought
ways to hide the deformity.
Wilhelm was the second in line to be king
of Prussia.
He was also the first grandson born to England’s
Queen Victoria.
Victoria was fond of the child, considering
him to be a well- mannered youngster.
From the start, however, he demonstrated a
volatile disposition.
At the age of four, he was taken to England
to attend a royal wedding.
Part of his tiny uniform included a small
dagger.
During the ceremony, Wilhelm began fidgeting.
His uncle standing alongside nudged him and
told him to be still.
But the fiery four-year old was having none
of it.
He pulled out the dagger and threatened to
stab his uncle.
Then, when the uncle attempted to restrain
him, Wilhelm bit him in the leg.
Grandmother Victoria would not have been amused
– fortunately she never found out about
the incident.
Wilhelm’s mother was constantly worrying
about her son.
In addition to having to contend with his
angry manner, she felt guilty about his arm
deformity, irrationally blaming himself for
the condition.
She worried that it would prevent from his
fulfilling his obligations as heir to the
throne.
One thing she was determined not to let the
arm deformity do was to stop her son from
riding a horse.
As a result, she ensured that he began taking
horse riding lesson at the age of eight.
The lessons were hell for the future ruler.
He constantly fell from the horse, due largely
to the lack of balance caused by his deformed
arm.
Yet, after weeks of persevering, often with
tears rolling down his cheeks, he managed
to overcome his limitations, becoming a capable
horseman.
In 1871, the German Empire officially came
into being.
It was to be ruled by the King of Prussia.
Twelve-year- old Wilhelm was now second in
line to become the head of two nations.
In his pre-teen years, Wilhelm had been privately
tutored.
From the age of thirteen, however, he was
sent to the Freidrichsgymnasium in Kassel.
He proved to be a talented student, performing
well in all of his studies.
He graduated at the age of 18 in 1877.
Grandma Victoria was so delighted with her
special boy that she awarded him the Order
of the Garter, one of the highest that she
could have bestowed.
After graduating, he attended the University
of Bonn.
For the next four years he studied law and
politics.
On addition to his formal studies, Wilhelm
was inculcated into the military ideals of
Prussian manliness.
This concept of the tough, disciplined military
man was closely aligned with that of Prussian
nationalism.
Although his mother tried hard to impress
the Victorian ideals of liberalism upon him,
Wilhelm shunned them in favor of the Prussian
way.
A Military Man
Wilhelm’s military service began at the
age of 21.
He was given the rank of first lieutenant
in the First Regiment of Foot Guards, based
in Potsdam.
He took to army life like a duck to water,
later saying the following about his time
in the military . . .
I really found my family, my friends and my
interests – everything of which I up to
that time had to do without.
Above all, his time in the military imbued
the young prince with self-confidence.
He became surer in his bearing and began to
speak with an air of authority.
However, the more he developed as a military
man, the more distant he became from his parents.
He viewed them as being too invested in British
liberalism at the expense of Prussian nationalism.
Wilhelm was 21 when he met his future wife,
Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, who
was known as Dona.
It wasn’t his first foray of the heart.
A couple of years before he had fallen hard
for his first cousin, princess Elisabeth of
Hesse-Darmstadt, but she had refused his marriage
proposal.
Not so with Dona, with the couple being engaged
in 1880.
They were married in 1881 and would go onto
have seven children.
Following his marriage, Wilhelm gained a powerful
ally in the form of Prussian statesman Otto
Von Bismarck, who saw the prince as a means
of advancing his own political career.
He would use the boy as a means of gaining
an advantage over their parents.
With Bismark pulling strings, Wilhelm began
to be sent on diplomatic missions.
The first was to St, Petersburg to attend
a coming of age ceremony for 16-year-old Tsarevich
Nicholas.
But the haughty, arrogant Wilhelm did not
make a favorable impression on Tsar Alexander.
Two years later, in 1886, Wilhelm went with
his grandfather to visit the Austrian-Hungarian
emperor, Franz Joseph.
This trip went better, largely because Wilhelm
was under the ever-watchful eye of his grandfather,
Kaiser Wilhelm I.
Becoming Keiser
Meanwhile, Bismark worked at preparing Wilhelm
for rulership.
He encouraged him to view all things English
with disdain and to reject the world view
of his parents.
Then, on March 9th, 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm I
died.
Wilhelm’s father now inherited the role.
But, just a few months into the reign, he
succumbed to throat cancer.
Wilhelm now became Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia
and Germany.
He was 29 years of age and the date was June
15th, 1888.
Immediately upon ascending the throne, Wilhelm
came into conflict with his advisors.
Chief among them was Otto von Bismarck.
The experienced statesman advocated a policy
of peaceful relations with the other heads
of state of Europe.
But Wilhelm was intent on extending the territorial
borders of Germany and was ready to pursue
an aggressive international stance.
Bismarck had been the trusted foreign policy
adviser to Kaiser Wilhelm I, but the new Kaiser
had no such trust in the statesman.
For his part, Bismark thought, once Wilhelm
ascended to the throne, he would be able to
manipulate and control him.
He soon realized how wrong he had been.
Wilhelm’s tolerance for Bismarck reached
its limit when the old man tried to implement
an anti-socialist policy.
Wilhelm opposed the policy at every opportunity.
Eventually the two had a heated encounter
which ended with Wilhelm demanding Bismarck's
resignation.
Alienating Nations
With Bismark as foreign minister, a balanced
state of peace existed between Germany, France
and Russia.
The Russians now had no confidence in Wilhelm’s
ability to maintain the peace and so, grew
closer to France.
The peace between Russia and Germany grew
increasingly fragile.
In the early 1900s, Wilhelm focused on building
up Germany’s navy.
He saw a powerful navy as being a symbol of
Germany’s position as a world superpower
and became obsessed with the idea off huge
ships.
Many hours were spent drawing his own designs
of ships.
He also made sure to let the rest of Europe
know how he was building up his nation’s
military might.
At the same time that he was stretching his
international muscles, Wilhelm was making
domestic improvements.
He reformed public education to make it available
to every child.
He was also an advocate of the arts and sciences,
starting the Kaiser Wilhelm Society to advance
scientific research.
Wilhelm had, by now, managed to alienate most
of the leaders of Europe.
He was lacking in patience, had an explosive
temper and possessed no tact whatsoever.
An infamous example of his ability to alienate
others was when, in 1896, he sent a telegram
to President Kruger of the Transvaal Republic
in South Africa.
The message congratulated Kruger for his suppression
of the British led Jameson raid.
When news of the telegram reached Britain,
it caused an outcry of rage against Germany.
Even before this incident, even those in the
British Royal family who were related to Wilhelm
didn’t like him.
In addition to his natural arrogance, his
overt racism alienated others.
He constantly warned European leaders of the
yellow peril, referring to Japan and China.
Building Alliances
While he was content to alienate the European
powers, Wilhelm went out of his way to develop
cordial relations with the leaders of the
Ottoman Empire.
His first trip to Istanbul was in 1889.
He made a deal to sell guns to the Ottoman
army.
Nine years later he undertook a month-long
trip through the Holy Land.
Before heading home, he professed his undying
friendship for the Turks.
In 1905, Wilhelm committed one of his bigger
diplomatic blunders when he visited Tangiers
in Morocco.
There he met with representatives of Sultan
Abdelaziz, expressing his support for Moroccan
sovereignty.
This was a direct challenge to the French,
who had a large military presence in Morocco.
It further alienated the Kaiser from the international
community.
What became known as the Moroccan crisis also
served to bring previous life-long rivals
France and Britain together in their opposition
to the aggressive stance of the German ruler.
In 1908, Wilhelm agreed to an interview for
the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph,
seeing it as an opportunity to strengthen
Anglo-German relations.
During the interview, his fiery temper got
the better of him and he managed to insult
the British people numerous times, as well
as insinuating that the Russians and French
had tried to pull Germany into the Second
Boer War.
The whole interview was a disaster and it
greatly embarrassed the German people.
Calls were even made for Wilhelm to abdicate.
In the wake of the fall-out from the interview,
Wilhelm laid low.
After a month he re-emerged to immediately
forced his chancellor, Prince Bulow to resign,
blaming him for authorizing the disastrous
interview in the first place.
This was a terrible move and it lost him any
of the internal support that he had remaining.
The Road to War
This episode stole away any of the self confidence
that Wilhelm still had.
He fell into a deep state of depression.
His whole energies were thrown into his pet
project of building up the German navy.
His obsession with building more powerful
battleships than the British got his country
into serious financial hardship.
By the beginning of 1914, Wilhelm had managed
to alienate all of the major powers in Europe,
undoing all of the work that Bismarck had
done when Wilhelm I was Kaiser.
One of the few friends he had was Ferdinand,
the archduke of Austria.
The assassination of Ferdinand on June 28th,
1914 deeply affected Wilhelm.
When it was revealed that an underground movement
called the Black Hand was behind the murder,
he extended his full support in hunting them
down.
He also urged Austria-Hungary to use force
against Serbia, implying that he would back
them up.
Egged on by Wilhelm, Franz Joseph I of Austria
made demands of Serbia that were impossible
to meet.
When the deadline to meet the conditions passed
without satisfaction, Austria declared war
on Serbia.
In response to this, Russian troops began
to mobilize in order to defend Serbia from
attack.
Wilhelm learned of the Russian mobilization
on July 30th.
He knew that his treaty obligations with Austria
meant that he was bound to declare war on
Russia.
He was also convinced that England, Russia
and France had conspired to knock out Germany.
This meant that he would be faced with attack
from two fronts – the Russians from the
east and the British and French from the west.
Back in 1905, a prominent German general by
the name of von Schlieffen had devised a plan
for am attack on France.
Now, the general’s nephew, Helmuth von Moltke,
adapted the plan to fight a two-front war.
The plan called for a pre-emptive strike on
the weaker country.
That weaker country was France.
Once that attack had been successfully carried
out, the focus could switch to Russia.
Wilhelm was sold on this plan – but not
so with his generals.
They were convinced that Russia was not prepared
for war and wanted to strike to the east first.
The reality was that the Russians were, indeed,
ready and had their army mobilized to defend
the Serbians.
Wilhelm got his way and the Schlieffen plan
was put into action.
It proved to be a disaster.
As the German war effort lurched on, Wilhelm’s
influence became less and less as Germany’s
top military officials, Field Marshal Paul
von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff
took the reins.
The Kaiser busied himself with awarding medals
and officiating at military ceremonies.
His moods followed a manic-depressive pattern,
fluctuating between euphoria that Germany
was about to crush the Allies and despair
that all was lost.
As the war drew to a conclusion in the closing
months of 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson,
announced that the German Kaiser would not
be permitted to take part in any peace negotiations.
This effectively made Wilhelm a lame duck
leader.
Abdication
As German capitulation drew ever nearer, a
revolt broke out in Germany.
The vast majority of the people were sick
and tired of their arrogant, bungling leader.
There were prominent calls for his abdication.
Still, Wilhelm vacillated.
Even without any support at all, he thought
that he could retain at least one of his two
crowns.
But the constitution had stipulated that the
two crowns were to forever be intertwined.
Abdication from one throne meant abdication
from both of them.
On November 9th, Chancellor Prince Max von
Baden announced that Wilhelm was abdicating.
He did this in order to stem the tide of revolution.
But the Chancellor’s efforts backfired,
and he himself was forced to resign.
However, the next day, November 10th, Wilhelm
fled to the Netherlands.
He had still not abdicated.
Over the next weeks days, however, his top
military adviser, Paul von Hindenburg advised
abdication.
The general made it clear that Wilhelm did
not enjoy the support of the army and that
they would not back him when they returned
from the war.
Realizing that his situation was untenable,
Wilhelm faced reality and abdicated on November
28th, 1918.
The Treaty of Versailles, which officially
ended the war, was signed on June 28th, 1919.
It branded Kaiser Wilhelm as a war criminal
and stipulated that he be prosecuted for ‘a
supreme offence against international morality
and the sanctity of treaties’.
The Netherlands government, however, refused
to extradite Wilhelm.
This situation was actually pleasing to President
Wilson who felt that the trial and prosecution
of the Keiser would only prolong tensions
between Germany and the rest of Europe.
The best thing would be for Wilhelm to remain
in the Netherlands.
Life in Exile
Wilhelm purchased a house in the municipality
of Doorn.
He would remain there for the rest of his
life.
The new German Weimar Republic allowed him
to transport some of his possessions there
from his old palace near Potsdam.
He now made it his life’s mission to clear
his name of wrongdoing when it came to the
war.
In April, 1921, Wilhelm’s wife, Dona, died.
A few months earlier, their son, Joachim,
had committed suicide.
These deaths were a devastating blow to the
exiled Kaiser.
In 1922, Wilhelm wrote a memoir in which he
defended his international policy and put
forth his case that he was not responsible
for a war that had led to ten million deaths.
At the same time, he became socially active
in the Netherlands, entertaining high-profile
guests and engaging his passions for archeology
and hunting.
He also started a new hobby – wood chopping.
Despite his withered arm, he became quite
proficient at it, chopping down thousands
of trees during the last two decades of his
life.
In Mid-1922, Wilhelm met Princess Hermine
Reuss of Greiz.
There was an immediate mutual attraction and
they were married on November 9th.
Rise of the Nazis
During the 1930’s, Wilhelm paid close attention
to the rise of Nazism.
He never embraced the party or its leader
but did hold out the hope that Hitler would
eventually restore the monarchy.
It was his vain hope that his oldest grandson
would be appointed as Kaiser once that occurred.
His wife, Hermine, even sent a request to
that effect to Adolf Hitler.
But the Fuhrer wasn’t interested.
In fact, he held a special hatred for Wilhelm,
blaming him for the disastrous defeat in the
war.
As Hitler’s actions became more extreme,
the former leader of Germany, observing from
his exiled home on the Netherlands, became
increasingly alarmed at what was taking place
under Nazi rule.
When he heard that Hitler had ordered the
murder of the wife of a chancellor, he commented
. . .
We have ceased to live under the rule of law
and everyone must be prepared for the possibility
that the Nazis will push their way in and
put them up against the wall.
Wilhelm’s antipathy toward Hitler became
personal.
He believed that the Fuhrer was turning his
cherished military into a gang of thugs.
However, as Hitler began to rack up international
military victories, Wilhelm changed his tune
and began to heap praise upon him.
When the Netherlands were occupied in May,
1940, he received the following message from
Wilhelm . . .
My Fuhrer, I congratulate you and hope that
under your marvelous leadership the German
monarchy will be restored completely.
Hitler wasn’t amused.
In fact, he referred to Wilhelm as an idiot.
That impression was reinforced when, following
the fall of Paris, he received this message
. . .
Congratulations, you have won using my troops.
Under the German occupation, Wilhelm’s house
was kept under German guard.
This was more to provide protection for the
old Kaiser, who was now 82, than to imprison
him.
It was done at the behest of a Nazi general
and when Hitler found out about it, he was
furious.
He had the general fired.
Death of a Kaiser
Kaiser Wilhelm II died on June 4, 1941 of
a pulmonary embolism.
In the death, Adolf Hitler saw an opportunity
to make political capital.
He ordered that the body be returned to Berlin
for a state funeral.
He saw this as a way of showing to the German
people that the Third Reich was a continuation
of the old German Empire.
But Hitler’s wished were denied.
Wilhelm had made it clear to the Dutch authorities
that he would never return to Germany until
the monarchy was restored.
The Dutch government acceded to these wishes
and the body remained in the Netherlands where
he was given a military funeral.
He was buried in a mausoleum on the property
in Doorn that was his Dutch home.
There he remains to this day.
