The Last Hohenzollern King, Kaiser Wilhelm II

The mighty German dynasty of Hohenzollern produced electors, kings and emperors of Prussia, Germany, and Romania under their motto “Nihil sine Deo” (nothing without God).

They originated in Swabia during the 11th century, taking the name from their castle, Burg Hohenzollern.The castle is in the Swabian Alps next to the town of Hechingen in the south of Baden-Württemberg and was first documented in 1077. The old castle was reconstructed under Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia beginning in 1819 from the old castle ruins where only the original chapel was intact. In 1844, as King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, he wrote how he relished the memory of that year as a beautiful dream, and particularly a sunset when he recalled watching from the castle bastions, hoping to see the old castle made habitable again.

The family’s brilliant leaders took backwater Brandenburg to a pinnacle of power and prosperity in Europe. The Hohenzollerns, one of the most important and oldest royal families of Europe, sacrificed their lives, health and personal enrichment for their homeland, eventually lending their power to the Unification of Germany and to the creation of the German Empire in 1871. They ruled until they were forced to abdicate the German throne in 1918.

The forty years following the foundation of the German empire were years of peace in Europe. Under Bismarck’s policy there would be no conflicts among the major powers in central Europe and several potential European wars were avoided because of his diplomatic genius. Bismarck gained respect world-wide and a reputation as a solid peace maker as did Kaiser Wilhelm I, who gained international respect as an able and just mediator. He would shape the fortunes of Germany for nearly three decades

When Wilhelm I died in 1888 after his extraordinary long reign, his popular and handsome son, Crown Prince Friedrich III, finally became Emperor, only to die of throat cancer after 99 days.

Wilhelm II took over the throne. Hence, 1888 was known as the Year of Three Emperors. Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and German Kaiser from June 15, 1888 to November 9, 1918, was born January 27, 1859 in Berlin to Friedrich III and Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom. As the eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm II journeyed to England in January of 1901 to be at the bedside of his dying grandmother, and he held her in his arms at the moment of her death. He and Bismarck had one thing in common: they were ardent Anglophiles, and he often stated that he could not envisage a war with Britain. He was cousin to both the British King and the Russian Czar. Kaiser Wilhelm was probably the most unjustly reviled man in the world during his era.

His son, the last Hohenzollern Crown Prince, Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Ernst, was born to the 23-year-old Prince, later Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his wife Auguste Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein in 1882. The adored Crown Prince spent his early youth in Berlin in winter and at the New Palace in Potsdam in summer. At age 10, he began informal military training and when he was 14 years old, he and his brother were sent to the Academy at Ploen in Schleswig-Holstein, where he became a cadet. A Hohenzollern family rule was that every Prince had to learn a trade and Wilhelm chose to become a drechsler, or lathe operator. After graduating in 1900, he began officer training in Potsdam and began active service with his regiment. He studied civil law and administration at the University of Bonn, and in 1904 he met beautiful Princess Cecilie of Mecklenburg at a wedding.

His future wife was the third child of the Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III and his wife the Grand Duchess Anastasia Michailowna Romanov, a niece of Tsar Alexander II. The Crown Prince later said he loved her at first sight. They were wed on June 6, 1905.

In the chaos following the war, Chancellor Max von Baden announced on his own initiative that the Kaiser of Germany and King of Prussia, Wilhelm II, had decided to denounce the throne. The Kaiser and the Crown Prince had no choice but to abdicate and then flee. They avoided capture and left for Doorn, Holland in November of 1918. With this, the 500 year-old dynasty which had started in 1412, when Friedrich of Hohenzollern was made Markgraf of Brandenburg, had come to an end.

Princess Cecilie remained in Germany and devoted herself to her six children. She continued living in the official residence, named “Cecilienhof “ (the last palace ever build by the Hohenzollerns) until she moved in with her mother-in-law at the New Palais where they felt safer. She spent some time in Silesia at an estate they were allowed to keep, her younger children accompanying her while her two oldest sons remained in school in Potsdam. In the meantime, the German Crown Prince lived in Holland with no electricity or running water. After a year, the Dutch government relaxed restrictions, and his two youngest sons, Hubertus and Friedrich, were allowed to visit in September 1919. The Prince did not meet with his own father until May 21, 1920.

The Prince worked in a local blacksmith shop and wrote his memoirs on the island of Wieringen. When it was finally safe, he left the island to return home in 1923. He reunited with his wife and children, and they returned to Potsdam, where he finally saw their home Cecilenhof for the first time since its completion, but they would enjoy it for only a few years. The Royal couple gave a reception there in 1936 for Charles Lindbergh, who was in Berlin for the Olympic Games.

The prince was not overly political in the World War Two years. In the first year of the war their eldest son was wounded in France and died. On June 4, 1941, his father, the German Kaiser, died in exile and was buried in Doorn, Holland in accordance with his last will and testament. By 1944, the royal couple was saddened and heavy of heart, their whole world in debris.

During the last days of the war, the Prince was at a friend’s hunting lodge in Austria. French troops reached the region, and recognized the Prince on the street and arrested him. He was taken to a hotel in Lindau and kept under guard. The French Supreme Commander did not allow him to return to his friends hunting lodge, but let him find living quarters in the French zone and the Prince chose to stay in 2 cold rooms at Hechingen, the ancestral home of his family, technically as a French prisoner until October, 1945. Princess Cecilie stayed at Cecilienhof until she had to flee in February 1945 when the Red Army was approaching. She then stayed with the family of the Kaiser’s former doctor in the town of Kissingen. In October of 1945, and on a couple of other occasions, she managed to meet her husband in Hechingen but they had grown apart. He had developed a lifelong friendship with opera singer Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967).

His son would later say of him, “he lived alone with his few earthly possessions he was able to save out of all this chaos. He lived in this small house in Hechingen, where he was stranded, looking daily up to the ancestral Burg, where so many hundred years before his ancestors had begun their unbelievable glorious ascent.” On July 20, 1951 the German Crown Prince died of a heart attack at age 69. Princess Cecilie moved into a house in Stuttgart in 1952 and soon became ill and died two years later in 1954 on her husband’s birthday.

Thus ended the power of an ancient dynasty, a family who had for centuries given themselves wholly and selflessly to their fatherland only to end up stripped of their reputations, personal wealth, private possessions and homes.