Events and characters from the years 1878–1918

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Events and characters from the years 1878–1918 is the title of the memoirs written in Dutch exile by the abdicated German emperor Wilhelm II.

Wilhelm II in exile in Holland

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In events and characters from the years 1878–1918, Wilhelm II expresses himself in detail about companions, opponents and international politics in these years, including about

Meaning and reception

The memory book sets out the living conditions and the worldview of Wilhelm II. In it, he denies the German guilt in the First World War, as laid down in the Versailles Peace Treaty . He answers the war guilt question primarily with reference to the policy of encirclement of the Triple Entente (primarily Great Britain , France and Russia ), their advanced war preparations and their goals. He quotes, among others, John Kenneth Turner , who criticized Woodrow Wilson's war policy in 1922 , and mentions the propaganda of London's Crewe House . Some findings about his reign that may be relevant to the war guilt issue, such as the July crisis or the German blanket power of attorney for Austria-Hungary, are not mentioned. Rather, he emphasizes his own pacifism and comes to the statement: "The goals of the Entente could only be achieved through a war, the goals of Germany only without war."

In addition, among other things, the Emperor's notes brought the Real Privy Councilor Friedrich von Holstein , who had not even held the position of Undersecretary of State in the Foreign Office , but only that of a lecturing council, wrongly in the reputation of the spiritus rector, the real mastermind of German foreign policy to have been under three Reich Chancellors. Another move by Wilhelm II, who wanted to distract from his guilt again as in the case of the Krüger telegram when he shifted the responsibility to Chancellor Clovis zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst and State Secretary Marschall.

An alleged conspiracy by French Freemasonry in the form of the " Grand Orient de France " is given as another possible cause of the war.

With regard to the outcome of the war in 1918, Wilhelm attached the so-called stab in the back legend .

The work can be seen as a reaction to the publication of the third volume of Otto von Bismarck's memoirs; for the public at the time it was less interesting for its content than for the person of its author. For the first time, a former monarch thought he had to write a written justification report. For the fact that Wilhelm II explicitly dedicated his work to the “memory of the empress, whose inspiration these notes owe their creation”, not a single word of tribute is paid to the importance and merits of women in the imperial era. Although the Empress, as chairwoman of the Patriotic Women's Associations, ultimately successfully demanded the same dedication and willingness to make sacrifices from the German women as from the men, as thousands of nurses and industrial workers attested in addition to their personal sacrifices, Wilhelm did not lose a line.

However, in the chapter 'The coup and Germany's future' he wrote: “The coup broke the heart of the empress. From November 1918 onwards she was visibly aging and was no longer able to counteract the physical ailments with the previous resistance. Her sickness soon began. Most of all, she was homesick for the German soil, for the German people. Nevertheless she still tried to comfort me. "

He complains that, despite his efforts in the previous decades, he had not succeeded in giving the German people a Germanic upbringing: “If Germans of all classes and classes had been brought up to be proud of their fatherland, then this would have been the case Self-degradation of such a large people was unthinkable. "

As the last sentence Wilhelm II writes: "I believe in the German people and in the continuation of their peaceful mission in the world, which was interrupted by a terrible war for which Germany did not want, and therefore not to blame ."

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Frank-Lothar Kroll : On the assessment of Wilhelm II. In: Das Historisch-Politische Buch 40 (1992), pp. 355–358.
  2. ^ Helga Neumann, Manfred Neumann: Maximilian Harden: (1861-1927). An intrepid German-Jewish critic and publicist . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2409-5 , p. 105.
  3. ↑ a b Kaiser Wilhelm II .: Events and characters from the years 1878–1918 . Leipzig u. a. 1922, p. 219 f.
  4. ^ Events and characters from the years 1878–1918 . P. 69.
  5. ↑ Markus Laag: The German-Boer “colonial partnership” in southern Africa up to the Boer War (1899–1902) . GRIN Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-71466-2 , p. 58.
  6. ↑ Otto Hammann: The origin of the Krügerdepesche . In: Archive for Politics and History, Vol. 2, 1924, pp. 203-208.
  7. ^ First print in: Der Kaiser and Bismarck . In: Vossische Zeitung . January 17, 1920, No. 30.
  8. ↑ Martin Kohlrausch: The monarch in the scandal, the logic of the mass media and the transformation of the Wilhelmine monarchy . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-004020-3 , p. 338.
  9. ↑ Gerhard shield mountain Schroth: Scenes of Empire: views of and from the 19th to the 20th century . Lit, Münster / Hamburg / London 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6307-7 , p. 63.
  10. ↑ Events and characters from the years 1878–1918 , p. 49.