Equestrian monument of Kaiser Wilhelm II

Last crawled date: 2 years ago

Wilhelm II, whose full name was Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert of Prussia, (born January 27, 1859 in Berlin; † June 4, 1941 in Doorn) from the House of Hohenzollern, was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 to 1918. Wilhelm was a grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm I and a son of Kaiser Friedrich III. He ruled for only 99 days, so that in the “three emperor year” of 1888 a 90-year-old and a 56-year-old ruler was followed by the 29-year-old Wilhelm II. Through his mother Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland, Wilhelm was the grandson of the British Queen Victoria. With his traditional view of the empire, Wilhelm showed little understanding of the nature of the constitutional monarchy. It was not until October 1918, under the pressure of the First World War, which was looming for Germany and its allied other Central Powers as lost, that Wilhelm agreed to the October reforms, according to which the Chancellor formally needed the confidence of the Reichstag. The expansion of the Imperial Navy, strongly promoted by Wilhelm, and the closely related so-called world politics became a trademark of Wilhelmine politics, but at the same time also a symbol of its failure.