Wilhelm II (
German Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht von Preußen;
English Prince Frederick William Victor Albert of Prussia) (27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941) was the last
German Emperor and
King of Prussia (German
Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen), ruling both the
German Empire and the
Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918.
Wilhelm II was born in Berlin to Prince Frederick William of Prussia and his wife, Victoria, Princess of Prussia (born Princess Royal of the United Kingdom), thus making him a grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. He was Queen Victoria's first grandchild. As the son of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Wilhelm was (from 1861) the second in the line of succession to Prussia, and also, after 1871, to the German Empire, which according to the constitution of the German Empire was ruled by the Prussian King. As with most Victorian era royalty, he was related to many of Europe's royal families.
A traumatic breech birth left him with a withered left arm due to Erb's Palsy, which he tried with some success to conceal. In many photos he carries a pair of white gloves in his left hand to make the arm seem longer, or has his crippled arm on the hilt of a sword or clutching a cane to give the effect of a useful limb being posed at a dignified angle. Several biographers[who?] have suggested that this disability affected his emotional development.
Wilhelm, beginning at age 6 was tutored by the 39-year old teacher Georg Hinzpeter. He stated later that his instructor never uttered a word of praise for his efforts.[1] As a teenager he was educated at Kassel at the Friedrichsgymnasium and the University of Bonn, where he became a member of Corps Borussia Bonn. Wilhelm was possessed of a quick intelligence, but unfortunately this was often overshadowed by a cantankerous temper. Wilhelm took an interest in the science and technology of the age, but although he liked to pose in conversation as a man of the world, he remained convinced that he belonged to a distinct order of mankind, designated for monarchy by the grace of God. Wilhelm was accused of megalomania as early as 1892, by the Portuguese man of letters Eça de Queiroz, then in 1894 by the German pacifist Ludwig Quidde.
