Kaiser Wilhelm II - The Last Emperor of Germany Documentary

The Man known to history as vilhm II Kaiser of the German Empire was born as friederick vilhelm Victor Albert on the 27th of January 1859 in the cron Prince and pal on un Den Lindon Boulevard in the center of Berlin which was the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia the greatest of the north German states his father was Prince Frederick William the second in line to the throne of Prussia at the time of vilhelms birth his great uncle King Frederick William IV was the ruler of Prussia although he had suffered several Strokes from 1857 onwards

and was so incapacitated after 1858 that vilhelms grandfather also vilhelm was the de facto ruler by the time of young vilhelms birth 2 years later in 1861 Old Frederick William IV died and so vilhelms grandfather succeeded as king vilhelm I first this meant that Prince Frederick William was now the heir to the throne and 2-year-old Prince vilhelm was second in line billh Helm's mother was Victoria the eldest daughter and child of Queen Victoria of Great Britain this meant that vilhelm was the British Queen's grandson and a close cousin of the members of the British royal

family for decades to come vilhelm was Victoria and Frederick's oldest child they would have several others though two sons died quite Young one of his siblings Sophia born in 1870 would become the queen consort of Greece for a time in the 1910s and early 1920s a major factor in assessing vilhelms life was how he entered the world his birth was a difficult one he was in the breach position when Victoria went into labor meaning he was coming out bottom first first rather than head first something which was still a significant enough complication in the mid

19th century to endanger either the life of the mother the infant or both the doctor delivering vilhelm Edward Arnold Martin made a number of Errors thereafter administering too much chloroform for pain relief something which was a relatively novel form of sedation in the late 1850s and then tearing the brachial plexus of vilhelm while he attempted to speed along the delivery the latter resulted in a condition called herbs py which left vilhelms left arm permanently damaged he was able to use the arm but its development was stunted and it was about 6 in shorter than his

right arm the excessive use of chloroform and the difficult delivery also resulted in a temporary lack of oxygen to vilhelm during the delivery and it has been speculated that he suffered from a very mild form of brain damage which made him hyperactive as a child in the long run the damage to his arm was probably the more consequential many historians have speculated that vilhelms more aggressive tendencies as ruler of Germany decades later were the result of insecurities brought about by his disability young vilhelm was raised in a manner typical of royalty in the 19th century

he was provided with private tutors from infancy amongst whom were some of the best teachers Germany had to offer at the time when he was just 4 years old vilhelm traveled to England for the first time to meet his extended family the occasion was the marriage of his uncle Prince Albert Edward the Future King Edward iith to princess Alexandra of Denmark there his Restless nature was on display back home in Prussia his mother obsessed over him guilt clearly weighed on her as misplaced as it might have been that she had been in some way responsible

for vilhelms disability she compensated for this by trying to encourage him to be able to do all the things that any Prussian Prince would be expected to do a tendency which only exacerbated the problem what made things even more difficult is that Prussia was a marshal Society one which had developed centuries earlier as a nightly State on the frontiers of Europe spreading Christian ity to the Pagan bolts and vents of the Baltic Sea region for much of the 18th and 19th centuries the Prussian military was acknowledged as the greatest army in Europe the combination of

being mired in a military Society while also being slightly disabled and having difficulties with both holding a gun and riding a horse would create insecurities in vilhelm which impacted on his his entire life by the time vilhelm was born in 1859 a process was already underway that would shape Germany's history and vilhelms life over the next Century Germany a region which had historically included Austria and some other small parts of neighboring countries had been United a millennium earlier under the rule of shalam the king of the Franks and the First Holy Roman Emperor owing to

a process of decentralization of Imperial power between the 10th and 13th centuries Germany fragmented into hundreds of principalities duchies counties ecclesiastical States and Imperial cities all virtually independent though tied together Loosely through the Holy Roman Empire where other countries were United under centralizing powers like the crown of France and those of Castile and aragan in Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries Germany continued as a disunited region after the Austrian habsburgs failed to create a more centralized State under their control through the 30 years war between 1618 and 1648 what changed matters was the rise

of liberal nationalism across Europe in the first half of the 19th century following the example of the French Revolution by then the Holy Roman Empire was gone abolished as an outdated institution by Napoleon bonapart in 1806 while several dozen German states had emerged as the core rulers of Central Europe Prussia in the north and east and Austria and the South were the two most powerful it remained to be seen if the two could come to an arrangement to unite together with the other German states like Bavaria Saxony Barden oldenberg and mecklinburg to form a new

unified Germany or if Prussia and Austria would seek to dominate the German states to the exclusion of their great rival [Music] in the end this process would be dictated by a Prussian Juna or landed Aristocrat by the name of Otto Fon bismar a somewhat aimless heavy drinking Noble in his youth bismar emerged as a skilled Diplomat for Prussia in the 1850s and then in 1862 was appointed by vilhelms grandfather as Minister President and the foreign minister of Prussia Russia within weeks he delivered a fiery speech in the Prussian House of Representatives in which he stated

that Germany would be United Through Blood and iron a year and a half later Prussia went to war with the Kingdom of Denmark to rest control of the provinces of schik and holin from it on the southern side of the Jutland peninsula 2 years later a war followed with Austria in this bismar managed to destroy the German Confederation an association of most of the German states under Austrian leadership replacing it with the north German Confederation dominated by Prussia finally in 1870 bismar engineered a diplomatic spat with France over the succession to the throne of Spain

where France opposed the accession of a German Prince to ferment the Franco Prussian war in this the prussians and their allies amongst the smaller German states won a swift Victory then to conclude Affairs bismar convinced the German states to unite under Prussian leadership forming the German Empire in a ceremony held at the Royal Palace of Versa outside Paris on the 18th of January 1871 this excluded Austria and ensured that the new unified German state was dominated by Prussia with King vilhelm becoming Kaiser vilhelm I first the resulting changes to the balance of power in Europe

with Germany emerging as one of the most powerful European nations rivaled only by Britain and Russia created issues which would dominate wilhelm's future reign as Kaiser at home in Prussia young vilhelms life was not immediately impacted on by German unification though he was old enough to have been aware of a slight change in the way the court functioned with his grandfather now becoming an emperor the Kaiser rather than a king not long after this shift in the the court ceremony vilhelm was sent to the city of Cel in the Hessa region of Central Germany there

he attended the Friedrich gynasium for several years one of Germany's greatest educational institutions where the brothers Grim had been educated several decades earlier thereafter he attended the University of Bon where he studied politics and law showing considerable promise in these areas once that was finished it was believed that he should spend some time in the Prussian military and did so being stationed as part of the first Regiment of foots guard at Potsdam outside of Berlin for a time in the early 1880s it was during these years that his desire to be viewed as a Prussian

Soldier emerged perhaps in emulation of his father who had served in the wars against Denmark Austria and France in 1864 1866 and 1870 with considerable distinction leading the prussians to several victories in Austria and commanding divisions in both the decisive battle of sidan and the seizure Paris during the Franco Prussian War by the time of his military service V was a married man a union with austa Victoria of the House of schic Holstein a Danish German princely family was arranged in the course of 1880 and the pair who were very close in age austa being

just 3 months older married on the 27th of February 1881 they would have seven children a boy vilhelm came quickly in 1882 followed by itel Friedrich in 1883 adelbert in 1884 August vilhelm in 1887 Oscar in 1888 and yakim in 1889 and finally a girl named Victoria after her mother grandmother and great grandmother in 1892 all of the children would survive infancy and childbirth and would reach adulthood as they were coming into the world their father was emerging as a man in his 20s with a complex personality he was a relatively intelligent man with a

good imagination but he was headstrong was willful in ignoring advice from men more experienced than himself prone to bouts of depression and underneath his bravado and surface confidence he was an extremely insecure individual one Whose desire to prove himself to others and the world would become a destructive quality BH Helm's difficult personality would create problems within the politics of the German Empire and years to come however there was already a problem as early as the 1870s it didn't appear to be one at that time in fact the problem actually looked like the solution its name

was Otto Fon bismar after German unification in 1871 bismar took up the new post of German Chancellor he dominated the politics of the German Empire and the 1870s and 1880s somehow balancing the many disperate parts of the new state and always finding a working majority in the reichstag the German Parliament to deliver policies which drove Germany forward in the 1870s for instance he formed an alliance with the Liberals in order to undermine the power of the Roman Catholic Church in southern Germany then in the 1880s despite his aversion to socialist policies he introduced a series

of socialist measures to improve workers rights and living standards specifically with the goal of off setting the development of any radical socialist politics in Germany he was unquestionably one of the most brilliant Statesman in modern history and this was the problem he turned 70 years in 1885 and could not be expected to rule and govern forever nor was vilhelm of a disposition to essentially devolve all power to an Iron Chancellor once bismar was gone the disperate political groups and constituencies within Germany would become far less easy to manage bismar would not go quietly into the

good night instead he would be given his marching orders in his mid 70s the precursor to this was the events of 1888 the so-called year of the three Emperors in German history on the 9th of March that year old Kaiser vilhelm I died at 90 years of age he was succeeded by vilhelms father Frederick III he was 56 years old and under normal circumstances might have rained for a good 10 to 20 years given the growing life expectancies of the 19th century however VH Helm's father had begun to manifest first signs of illness early in

1887 becoming easily hoarse and losing his voice various experimental Medical Treatments followed and so it was only 3 days before the old Kaiser died that Frederick learned that he was suffering from cancer of the linkx his condition deteriorated rapidly even as he assumed the throne and he died after just 99 days as Emperor on the 15th of June 1888 and so it was that vilhelm succeeded as Kaiser vilhelm II in the midsummer of that year at 29 years of age vilhelms rise to the throne did not automatically lead to Bismark dismissal still there were clear

problems straight away firstly vilhelm was much more determined to exercise control over government Affairs whereas his grandfather had spent three decades trying to devolve as much responsibility as possible onto bismar shoulders secondly bhel did not agree with the cautious foreign policy that Bismark had followed for years the Iron Chancellor had developed his policy with the intention of not disrupting the balance of power in Europe any more than German unification already had the key was not to upset the British too much or to create fears of German domination of the continent vilhelm perceived this approach as

weakness rather than shrewdness this disagreement on foreign policy matters soon expanded into disputes over domestic affairs in 1889 and Vil Helm was seen regularly interrupting bismar during Council meetings at the highest levels of government if Bismark position had been dependent on the rag as the post of prime minister was on the support of parliament in Britain by that time bismar might have survived however he served solely with the blessing of the Kaiser and so when vilhelm demanded his resignation in the spring of 1890 bismar had no option other than to offer it on the 18th

of March he retired to his Estates and lived out his life in 1898 writing his Memoirs and trying to portray the new Kaiser in the worst light possible vilhelm would never find a Chancellor as capable as the one he fired in 1890 excluding a succession of wartime chancellors who held office for brief spells in 1917 and 1918 there were four men whom vilhelm gave his trust to as head of the government from 1890 onwards leoon civy was the first of these during his four years in office from 1890 to 1894 he plated the Socialists and

managed to please vilhelm by reorienting the country's foreign policy ending the reinsurance treaty with Russia and engaging in more aggressive colonialism yet his tenure highlighted what bismar had achieved so well the juggling act that played all constituencies within Germany off against each other instead Von caprivi managed to annoy the conservative Lutheran Prussian Juna class by promising to much free trade to the Socialists and too many concessions to the Catholics similar issues plagued the lengthy tenure as Chancellor of the prince of hoena between 1894 and 1900 his successor beart Von buulo served for nearly the entirety

of the 1900s by the time vilhelm grew tired of this Chancellor and dismissed him in 1909 Fon buulo had done considerable damage to Germany's long-term security fostering a naval race with Britain pushing Britain France and Russia into a close alliance with each other and escalating Colonial tensions in Africa his successor teodor Fon betman holg was handed an impossible situation in 1909 and has been viewed poorly and probably unfairly for failing to prevent the outbreak of the first world war what each of these four individuals was ultimately guilty of was failing to curtail the worst impulses

of a kaisa who had many bad impulses domestic policy was not vilhelms major concern and he viewed Foreign Affairs and the aggrandisement of Germany's position in the world as something which would be his greatest achievement as Kaiser therefore he was happy to allow the day-to-day practicalities of domestic policy to be handled by the chancellors and other ministers they were aware that vilhelm favored what is known as Sam lung's politic an idea that translates as collective Politics the notion that ger should be brought together domestically in unity in order to further the national agenda internationally it

was in short a prototype of the kind of corporatist politics which fascism would make widespread in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s what it meant in practice was that an Eclectic range of policies were pursued to try to please everyone socialists were given socialist concessions for instance even though vilhelm leaned to the far right in terms of his societal and economic politics this approach was not handled skillfully however in the way that Bismark managed it in the 1870s and 1880s and in the end the Yuna agricultural class ended up achieving too much control over domestic

policy creating similar tensions which would erupt violently from the late 1910s onwards within Germany historians have long ruminated over the psychological factors which might have influenced vilhelms approach to being emperor of Germany a good proportion have tended to conclude that his disability combined with his father's distinguished military service and his grandfather's Legacy as the unifier of Germany under Prussian rule had fostered insecurities in vilhelm which he compensated for by presenting himself as a marshal ruler he would try over the next quarter of a century to establish Germany as a great military power and an imperial

one bismar had always been opposed to Germany entering a rapid race to acquire overseas colonies in Africa Asia and the Pacific arguing that these were of little value compared to Germany's growing domestic Industries and that entering the Scramble for Africa would only lead to diplomatic tensions with Britain and other nations yet even the Iron Chancellor had been unable to stop German enthusiasts for Empire acting on their own initiative and in 1884 and thereafter German Colonial companies acquired land concessions in Africa and on some of the Pacific Islands vilhelm encouraged this activity after coming to the

throne and by 1900 the German Colonial Empire included German East Africa a large territory encompassing modernday Tanzania Rwanda Burundi German Southwest Africa approximating to modern-day Namibia German Cameroon covering parts of Cameroon Gabon and other small parts of the Central African Republic and the Congo while in Asia the Germans acquired much of the island of New Guinea some of the Solomon Islands and the islands of New Britain and New Ireland then known as New mecklinburg and the bismar archipelago this colonial expansion as we will see would soon create the kind of tension with France and other

nations that bismar had predicted while also leading to the earliest genocide of the 20th century in assessing his desire to build Germany into a major colonial power part of the policy he pursued was known as velt politic meaning World politics billh Helm's racial and religious views are important they were not overtly extreme for their time though they would certainly be considered so today he had a belief in the basic superiority of white Christian men but in the second half of the 19th century this was completely normal in Europe and the Americans in an Infamous newspaper

interview he gave in the middle of his Reign he expressed this more aggressively stating quote the future belongs to the white race never fear it belongs to the anglan the man who came from northern Europe the home of the German it does not belong the future to the yellow nor the black nor to the olive colored it belongs to the fair skinned man and it belongs to Christianity and to protestantism thus here was vilhelm stating a very clear racial view but again this was not a fringe View for the time it was a common feature

of European activity in the world and one would have heard similar things being expressed in the corridors of power though perhaps more subtly in places like British Delhi and Cairo French alers and Hanoi Italian Tripoli and Belgian leopoldville these racial views would directly shape German foreign policy in the summer of 1900 an eight Nation Alliance was formed consisting of Germany Britain France Russia Austria Hungary Italy the United States and Japan to send a large expeditionary Force to China to combat the Boxer Rebellion that had broken out as a form of Anti-Imperialist revolt in the far

east as the German Expedition Was preparing to set sail from brah Haven near Breman in Northern Germany on the 27th of July 1900 vilhelm gave an Infamous speech referred to as the Hun speech here he compared modern-day Germans to the Huns the Asiatic people who had descended into Europe in the 4th Century ad and who under their War Lord Atilla the hanun built a huge Empire across a significant stretch of Eurasia in the fifth century ad one which virtually brought the Roman Empire to its knees then he declared quote if you come before the enemy

he will be defeated No Quarter will be given prisoners will not be taken whoever falls into your hands is forfeited just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Atilla made a name for themselves one that even today makes them seem Mighty in history and Legend So May the name Germany be affirmed by you in such a way in China these racial views of vilhelm were not idly speculative or theoretical statements that did didn't have real world consequences in 1901 vilhelm humiliated the Chinese government by insisting that Prince Chun the future zong emperor

of China travel around the world to Germany to apologize for the death of Baron Clayman Fon Kettler a German Diplomat in Beijing at the height of the Boxer Rebellion much more nefariously a few few years after vilhelm delivered the Hun speech in 1900 matters took a decidedly darker turn in German Southwest Africa the region corresponding with modern-day Namibia this vast territory was over 1 and a half times the size of the German Empire in Europe despite its sheer enormity the Germans were trying to rule over it with just around 25 00 German administrators and colonists

another 1,500 or so Africana or boa settlers had migrated to the region from South Africa Beyond these there were over 150,000 natives in the colony variously coming from the herero ambo and Nama or namaka people the Nama though numerically the smallest group had rebelled several times in the 1890s against the encroaching German colonial government the herero soon joined them in these insurrections one Revolt in the first weeks of 1904 was particularly disruptive leading the German Governor Lota font trota to commence a genocidal campaign against the Herrero and the Nama first he drove them out of

their homesteads and corals into the desert region and blocked any Retreat back towards the more hospitable territory tactics like this were deployed over the next four years leading to the deaths of nearly all of the N people in German Southwest Africa some 10,000 of them and anywhere between 25,000 and 70,000 Herrero far from condemning this the first major genocide of the 20th century vilhelm supported vont trotto's actions indeed the language which he used to refer to the herero and dama in speeches he gave in the mid 1900s mirrored the text of the Han speech and

clearly contributed to the genocide all of it was also a striking Forerunner of the rhetoric of Aryan Supremacy which would characterize far-right politics in German in the 1920s and 1930s the 1900s saw a number of events occur which impacted in a major way on vilhelm State of Mind through a combination of them the initial Zeal he had shown for government in the 1890s was dampened and he became a less interventionist figure in the politics of Germany the first such incident happened on the the 6th of March 1901 while riding through the streets of Breman on

a visit to the city vilhelm was attacked by a mentally unstable individual by the name of dri violent it may go too far to call it an assassination attempt violent was insensible had seemingly no major motive and his method of attack was to throw an iron fish plate at vilhelms head still the offending item struck vilhelm in the face and left a 1 and 1/2 in scar under other circumstances it could have blinded him and in an age when powerful European leaders were known to be assassinated for example SAR Alexander II of Russia having been

killed in 1881 when bombs were thrown at his sled in the streets of St Petersburg by political extremists the incident in 190 one cannot but have made vilhelm more cautious about his personal safety more troubling were the developments of the period from 1907 to 1909 vilhelm was at the center of two major controversies during these years on the 28th of October 1908 an Infamous interview vilhelm had given to a British army officer Edward monu Stuart werley appeared in print in the pages of the Daily Telegraph not everything in the interview was accurate however the German

government had failed to adequately check the text and had okayed it for publication when sent a copy prior to it being printed in it vilhelm had referred to the English as being quite mad as March hairs while he made new numerous other unwise statements about other nations and international diplomacy for instance he implied that both France and Russia who were allied with Britain by 1908 had tried to encourage the Germans to intervene in the second B War fought in South Africa between 1899 and 1902 Germany having troops nearby in German Southwest Africa the article was

clearly sensationalized yet that did not stop it doing a lot of damage to vilhelms reputation this all came in the midst of a long running Scandal within Germany between 1907 and 1909 it centered on the person of Prince Philip Fon o enburg since they had first become acquainted back in 1886 Philip who was 12 years older than the Kaiser had been vilhelms closest friend and adviser in 1907 a scandal broke out when it was revealed that Von o enburg was involved in a homosexual relationship with a German general Kuno Fon mul homosexuality was illegal under

the 1871 constitution of the German Empire Court Marshals and trials followed as others were implicated in their Circle and the Scandal dragged on into 1909 rumors of widespread homosexuality around vilhelms Court were not helped when a military secretary Dietrich Von hulson hazler had a heart attack and died while performing a ballet dance dressed in a pink tutu before a royal Hunting Party in the Black Forest region on the 14th of November 1908 owing to both the O enburg Affair and the daily t RH incident vilhelm suffered a nervous breakdown around this time one from which

he never fully recovered it is now believed by many historians that vilhelm had severely repressed homosexual tendencies which he found impossible to express in a society which was deeply homophobic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the day barle of the Daily Telegraph interview simply compounded what was already an escalating diplomatic crisis with the British as early as the 1890s the German Admiral Alfred Von turitz had been encouraging vilhelm to begin expanding the German Fleet in the hopes of rivaling the British royal Navy one day vilhelm was in agreement and German spending on battleships

frots and gun boats increased year on Year by the 1900s Britain and Germany were in the early stages of a naval race with Germany building three battleships every year with the announcement of the completion of the first dreadn The Cutting Edge of naval military hardware by Britain in 1906 a new supplementary funding bill was fast-tracked through the rice TG to increase the number of battleships being completed each year from three to four an act which finally brought the naval race onto the front pages of newspapers across the anglophone world little surprise then that Britain was

drawn into an onon cordial with France in 1904 and was moving closer to Russia diplomatically this was a foolish policy approach on Vel part the sort of thing bismar would never have countenanced there was never any hope that Germany could catch up with Britain navally and by the time war finally came in 1914 the Royal Navy still eclipsed the German Navy by nearly 2 to one in battleships and more than that in most areas other than submarine warfare the war at Sea would accordingly be limited all that the naval race achieved was to further alienate

Britain from Germany when the Kaiser's government should have been focusing on its strengths as a land power with the most effective military on the continent it wasn't just the naval race that was leading to escalating tensions by the dawn of the 20th century Morocco was one of the very few corners of Africa that was not controlled entirely as a European Colony the French had Ambitions there as they controlled Algeria to the East and much of Northwestern Africa to the south of Morocco around seal and Mali Bill Helm had other ideas and in March 1905 he

set off on a state visit to Tangers where he publicly declared his support for Morocco's Independence in what was was clearly intended as a rebuke to French Ambitions a diplomatic crisis followed leading eventually to the Alerus conference where Moroccan Independence was affirmed while vilhelms position as a troublemaker on the international stage was also confirmed a second Moroccan crisis followed in 1911 as Germany demanded compensation for allowing the French to take over Morocco as a protected it the only thing this gunboat diplomacy succeeded in was driving Britain which in the late 19th century had been a

rival of Russia in Central Asia and had nearly ended up at war with France over the fashoda incident in Sudan in 1898 into an alliance with the French and Russians one which was much more powerful than the alliance Germany had formed Ed with Austria Hungary eventually all of this diplomatic tension would boil over into war it started in a strange manner which did not involve Germany or vilhelm directly on the 28th of June 1914 the heir to the ostroh Hungarian Empire Arch Duke France Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist while visiting the city of

Saro this could have remained a rather minor diplomatic matter between Austria Hungary and Serbia had it not been for the heavy-handed response of the government in Vienna in demanding that Serbia allow Austrian forces to enter Serbia and act as they pleased in rooting out the black hand the Serb terrorist group behind the assassination then Russia arrival of Austria Hungary in the Balkans responded and that in turn required both Austria Hungary and Russia's allies to become involved eventually matters spiraled in Late July 194 and over the space of a week or so all of the major

European powers declared war on one another pitting Germany Austria Hungary and the Ottoman Empire against Britain France and Russia the first world war would eventually pull in Myriad other powers notably Japan on the side of Britain Bulgaria joining the Central Powers led by Germany and eventually the United States on the side of the British and French in 1917 vilhelm can hardly be said to have been an innocent bystander in all of this in the early stages of the July crisis that followed Fred's ferdinand's assassination he repeatedly assured the government in Vienna that he would support

them no matter what course they took this has been interpreted as the infamous blank check whereby vilhelm failed to reign in the austrians even as they were sending messages to the Serbian government in Belgrade demanding to be allowed to V violate Serbian sovereignty to an unacceptable extent then in a fairly incredible move in retrospect vilhelm headed off on a 20-day pleasure Cruise in the North Sea to Norway on the 6th of July when he returned after 3 weeks Europe's peace was teetering on a knife edge as Russia was mobilizing in response to what was perceived

as an imminent decaration of War on Serbia by Austria Hungary one can have a little sympathy for Vil Helm's actions once the Declarations of War began as by then it seemed inevitable that Germany would have to respond but in agreeing with his generals that Germany would now invade neutral Belgium and raced towards Paris to try and defeat France before Britain could ever mobilize on the continent he doomed Europe to four years of Slaughter on the 4th of August Germany invaded Belgium and Britain declared war in response just hours later as the Diplomatic crisis escalated in

the final days of July and early days of August 1914 billh Helm had expressed a fear to his generals that Germany would become trapped in a two-front war with Britain and France in the west and Russia in the East the war that now developed was everything he had feared Germany failed to advance to take Paris in the first weeks of the conflict providing time for British troops to begin arriving to northern France to reinforce the French position four years a bitter trench warfare would follow there in the East a great victory was won at the

Battle of tannenburg within weeks of the conflict commencing but the Germans had not entered the war with the aim of achieving complete Victory on the Eastern front and so the necessary resources were not committed to bring about Russia's defeat until its own internal politics collapsed in 1917 faced with these developments vilhelm was increasingly despondent about the drift of the conflict and it is assumed that he had despaired of the chances of German success long before many others within the high command of the German Army in the course of the war BH Helm's role in managing

Affairs declined ever further over time as the generals acquired more and more power in particular two indiv uals who had been responsible for the great victory over the Russians at the Battle of tannenburg at the beginning of the war po Fon Hindenburg and Eric ludendorf acquired more and more power in the course of 1915 and 1916 this has led some historians to characterize vilhelm as a kind of Shadow Kaiser as the conflict went on a ruler in name only whereas a military dictatorship was actually in effect from August 1916 after Von Hindenberg became the new

chief of the general staff with lendorf as the first quartermaster general of the Armed Forces thereafter Chancellor bman holg attempted to continue to exercise some form of Civilian control over the government but they'll help became increasingly detached from events doing little more than showing up when requested to attach medals to the breasts of War veterans and to carry out other public duties to bolster morale he rubber stamped the Fateful decision in February 1917 to resume unrestricted submarine warfare but it was Von hintonburg lendorf and the other generals that had effectively made the decision bman holve

tried to resist it and was removed from office not long afterwards for his troubles it had the exact impact that many predicted the sinking of several American ships within weeks brought the us into the war on the side of Britain and France and even with the Revolutions in Russia knocking that country out of the war before long Germany's cause was now hopeless as American resources and troops began arriving to Europe the war now entered its last desperate phase in this the German generals began organizing a last major offensive in the West in the hopes of

making a breakthrough before so many US troops arrived that they would swing the tide completely against Germany after a strangely subdued winter season in the trenches the German spring offensive of 1918 began leading to Major gains initially though not of the kind needed soon the advance stalled and was rolled back in the Autumn the British French and Americans began pressing the Germans towards their own borders soon the war would be taken into Western Germany itself throughout these events vilhelm claims that he was distracted by efforts to rescue his cousin SAR Nicholas II and his family

from the bvic Communists in Russia this was a somewhat contradictory development in 1917 his government had facilitated Vladimir Lenin's return to Russia from Exile in Switzerland following the February Revolution but within a year he was unsuccessfully trying to stop his cousin from being killed at the hands of the bolik by the end of October 1918 it was not only clear that Germany was going to lose the war before long as the French British and Americans prepared to take the conflict onto German soil but also that German Society was fracturing at the seams as food shortages

and the basics of daily life ended up in short supply everywhere the erroneously named Spanish Flu which was first detected in Kansas in the United States was also beginning to impact on the country Bill Helm himself possibly contracted it in 198 in response to the Mad crisis revolts and protests began in many German cities and in and around Berlin inspired by similar revolts in Russia and Austria Hungary over the previous year then on the 3rd of November 1918 Sailors of the German Navy at anchor in the port of Keel revolted against the military High command

on the fourth they took over the town of Keel his ministers now approached vilhelm and in informed him that drastic measures were needed it was also clear that a ceasefire could not be secured in France while vilhelm was still in the picture the British and French having told the US President woodro Wilson that no peace was possible until vilhelm renounced his position as Kaiser realizing that it was over BH Helm agreed to abdicate and to also renounce the claims of The Wider House of hezen to the Imperial title the chancellor Prince maximilan of Barden made

the announcement to the German Nation on the 9th of November that vilhelm had abdicated even as Germany continued to descend into the chaos of the German Revolution which would continue long into 1919 even as news of his abdic ation was spreading across Germany vilhelm and his family were making their final preparations to leave Germany doubtlessly scared by the fate of vilhelms cousin Zar Nicholas II who had first been detained by the revolutionaries in Russia and then murdered along with his family in the summer of 1918 Arrangements were reached with the government of the Netherlands which

had remained neutral in the war whereby vilhelm and his family could go into Exile there so it was that the imperial train set off from Spa in Belgium on the 10th of November where the Imperial military headquarters was located to the border of the Netherlands on the train platform soldiers and refugees gave shouts of murderer and traitor at the former Emperor one day later news filtered through true that an Armistice had been agreed between the interim German government and the onon powers bringing the first world war to an end when he arrived to the Netherlands

billh Helm was first allowed to reside temporarily at Castel arangan and then later was provided with a large Manor and estate at dawn he would never be visited or given an official invitation to court by Queen Ville herina of the Netherlands much to his irritation though the Netherlands government did resist calls by the British to extradite vilhelm to stand trial on the 28th of November 198 vilhelm issued a short written confirmation of his abdication vilhelm had hardly lost everything in the final weeks of 1918 and into 1919 convoys carrying tens of millions of dollars worth

of artworks furniture and other valuable items arrived to the Netherlands from Germany he also had substantial cash assets and he soon purchased the Dorn estate from the Dutch government while a large number of castles properties and Estates in Germany continued to belong to the hoens under the viar Republic that was established there in the course of 1919 without any Financial worries he began something of a literary and scholarly career for instance he developed an interest in ancient Greek archaeology working on vacations spent at the ailon palace he had purchased on the Greek island of Corfu

back in 1907 much of this written output though was self-serving he began to work on his Memoirs while at dawn and these were clearly designed to exonerate himself and justify his actions as Kaiser as much as possible In fairness to him in a post-war environment where Germany had been blamed entirely for causing the war by Britain and France and he in particular had been vilified for years as the ger manic warlord who had fermented the chaos some push back on vilhelms part was probably somewhat Justified philh Helm's personal life in the Netherlands also took a

major turn his son Yim a competent military officer and a figure who had been considered as a possible king of several countries during the war took his own life on the 18th of July 1920 in despair over the combined effects of the collapse of the Imperial regime in Germany a divorce from his wife and financial difficulties this in turn led to a precipitous decline in his mother vilhelms wife's health and she died less than a year later in the late spring of 1921 a body was repatriated to German and buried at Potsdam near Berlin because

vilhelm was prohibited from returning to Germany he could only accompany her coffin to the Border devastated by her loss vilhelm found some comfort in letters sent to him from the family of Princess hermin Rey of gites he invited them to visit him at dawn and soon married Amina in November 19 22 despite her being 28 years his Junior they had no children though it was a warm family environment at Dorne as her minor had five children from her first marriage to Prince Johan of sherik carolot who had died in 1920 one could even call it

a pastoral existence in the Dutch Countryside in the years that followed with Amina and vilhelm both writing Memoirs learning to speak Dutch and vilhelm even becoming a lumberjack cutting wood on the estate as a hobby and providing it for free to the poorer locals in the Netherlands in the early 1930s vilhelm could not but take an interest in the rapidly changing politics of his homeland the Wall Street Crash and the economic crisis of the Great Depression that followed hit Germany particularly badly owing to its huge debts and reparations payments and weaknesses within its banking system

as Millions were impoverished and lost their jobs they turned to extremist parties above all the national socialists or Nazis led by Adolf Hitler when they attained power in the early months of 1933 it must have seemed like something of a new dawn to many old German Aristocrats as the Nazis were accommodating of the old Imperial princes and nobility allowing them to resume their titles that have been abolished under the viima Constitution back in 1919 a huge proportion joined the Nazi party vilhelm though was more skeptical and he was opposed to it when his fourth side

AUST vilhelm joined the Nazis in 1930 AI as his family called him was soon being exploited by the Nazis for propaganda purposes though he was quickly sidelined once they achieved power in 1933 meanwhile vilhelms views hardened following the night of the Long Knives in the summer of 1934 coming to perceive hit as a gangster though his relationship with Herman guring a figure who had a Rosier perception of the old German Empire and its Constitution and colonies was much more cordial and he visited him on several occasions at dawn vilhelms views on the Nazis became even

more hostile following the night of the broken glass or Crystal KN a attacks on Jewish people all across Germany and the recently annexed territories of Austria and the Sudan land on the 9th and 10th of November 1938 nearly a 100 Jews were killed initially by the Nazi regime thousands more were arrested and businesses and synagogues were destroyed all across Germany with hundreds more deaths following through people taking their own own lives as well as detentions billh Helm's views on the Jewish people were complicated he had em bibed much of the anti-Semitism which had become particularly

rabid in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries yet at the same time he had a number of Associates and even friends over the years who were Jewish notably the German industrialist vter rattin he indicated his disgust at the crystaln attacks and derided his son AWI for indicating his support for the Nazi actions although this conflicts sharply with statements made by vilhelm years earlier about being in favor of pograms against Germany's Jews the latter statements were made in November 1918 when the German Empire was collapsing around him and he was being told he

would have to abdicate a year and a half later in the Twilight of his life vilhelm was in a more conflicted position when the Nazis commenced their successful invasion of the low countries and France in May 1940 after the Inception of the second world war the previous September the rapid conquest of Western Europe that followed was essentially a successful version of the plan which vilhelms generals had tried to implement back in 1914 only to get bogged down in the trenches of Northeastern France and Belgium in the aftermath of this perhaps conscious that he and his

family were now living under Nazi rule in the Netherlands he wrote to Hitler congratulating him on his success while also noting that many of his leading generals had been trained by his government back in the 1890s 1900s and 1910s he must have also been conscious that many of his sons and grandsons were serving in the German military by that time BH Helm would not live to see his second eldest son Idol Friedrich be killed in 1942 during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on the 4th of June 1941 vilhelm suffered a pulmonary embolism at

home in Dawn and died at 82 years of age vilhelm had outlined in his last will that he wanted to be laid to rest in the Netherlands and not returned to Germany unless the monarchy was restored in some fashion in the future while he also did not want any Nazi role being played in his funeral one wish was honored the other wasn't his funeral took place in the Netherlands but Nazi swastikas and Banners were prominently on display as the regime made the most that it could of the event despite Hitler's loathing of a figure he

viewed as responsible in large part for Germany's defeat in the first World War a melum though admittedly a relatively modest one was erected on the Kaiser's estate in Dawn to house his remains one which is a venerated site for German monarchists down to the present day the house of henzen is alive and well today though the basic law of the Federal Republic of Germany established in 1949 prohibits any calls for a monarchy to be restored much of the family's Estates in Eastern Germany were seized by the Soviet Union after the war while post Dawn in

the Netherlands became a national museum George friederick Prince Von pron billh Helm's great great grandson is the head of the family line today BH Helm II was one of the most significant and controversial figures in the the history of modern Germany assessments of his Reign have varied considerably traditionally he was perceived as having fermented the first world war as part of his efforts to aize Germany and dominate the continent revisionists in the late 20th century sought to reappraise this view arguing that Germany was not as responsible for the outbreak of the first World War as

many nations contended back in the 1910s there is some truth to this and few historians today would argue that Germany was exclusively responsible for the war but these reassessments aside there is no doubt that vilhelm was an incredibly destructive character he was possessed of a dangerous combination of being extremely ambitious and also not being anywhere near as intelligent as he believed himself to be he removed one of the greatest Statesmen of modern times from his position as chancellor of Germany and then over the next quarter of a century pushed Europe towards war with his jingoistic

approach to government what was perhaps worse was the drift of society and political culture in Germany during his time time as Kaiser Nazism and the Third Reich did not emerge in a vacuum there were serious problems that emerged within German society and vilhelms day which presaged it whether it was the drift towards radicalism domestically or the orchestration of genocide in Namibia in the 1900s vilhelm might have been critical of the Nazis later that he Bears a considerable amount of blame for the terror visited on Europe in the first half of the 20th century what do

you think of Kaiser vilhelm II is he largely responsible for the horrors of the first world war and the genocidal conduct of Germany in Africa or were other factors to blame namely Franco British opposition to the rise of Germany and structural flaws in the political system created by bismar in the 1870s and 1880s please let us know in the comment section and in the meantime thank you very much for watching thank you for watching people profiles documentaries Please Subscribe if you haven't already and don't forget to hit the Bell icon to get notifications so you

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