The first war criminal?

The first war criminal?

Wilhelm II (1891) by Max Koner

Book Details

John C. G. Röhl

WILHELM II

Into the abyss of war and exile, 1900–1941
Translated by Sheila de Bellaigue and Roy Bridge
1,562pp. Cambridge University Press. £45.
978 0 521 84431 4

Wilhelm II: a toxic brew of religious fanaticism, anti-Semitism and mental instability

JONATHAN SPERBER

Contemporary opinion was not kind to the German Emperor Wilhelm II. In the course of his reign, he was increasingly perceived in foreign countries as a major threat to world peace, while Germany's political class grew steadily more contemptuous of him. His abdication at the end of the First World War was little regretted; the Treaty of Versailles officially named him a war criminal, the first person to enjoy such a dubious distinction.

Wilhelm's reputation continued to decline after his death. The advent of a clearly worse ruler in Germany did not improve him in retrospect; historians were more interested in noting similarities between the Kaiser and the Führer or in examining the features of Wilhelm's realm that were precursors to the Third Reich. Apologists for the German Empire focused their attention on Bismarck. Unlike so many historical figures, Wilhelm has rarely been rehabilitated by revisionists . Even more favourable interpretations have regarded him as irrelevant, making extravagant and outrageous statements, while the work of government was carried out by his nominal subordinates, who carefully ignored him. One of the very few positive assessments came from the economist Joseph Schumpeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), a strange compendium of economic theory, political philosophy and personal prejudices. Admitting that the swashbuckling and erratic foreign policy of Germany before 1914 had made "the world's opinion . . . thoroughly disgusted as well as disquieted", the esteemed economist added that he had "not intended to attribute this policy, either wholly or primarily, to Wilhelm II". The Emperor "was no insignificant ruler". Indeed, Schumpeter claimed, if one "disregarded talk" and followed "the emperor's acts from year to year", one would arrive at the conclusion that "he was often right in his views about the great questions of his time".

This is not exactly a ringing defence, and its internal contradictions are evident. Wilhelm played an important governing role but was not responsible for a dangerous foreign policy; he was right on crucial questions of the time, as long as you disregard everything he said about them. If Schumpeter's apologia falls short, its observations do provide a way to think about the English-language edition of the third and final volume of John Röhl's biography of Wilhelm II, dealing with the second half of the Emperor's life, 1900–41.

Like its two predecessor volumes, this is a massive work: almost 1300 pages of text and 200 of endnotes. Röhl has exploited every source imaginable, combing through archives from Berlin to Bückeberg to Budapest, from Meiningen to Munich, from Windsor to Washington. One reason the book is so extensive is that the author has freely displayed the results of his research: lengthy quotes abound, directly related to the topic or off on a tangent, but still fascinating. My favourite is on pp644–5, a memo to Wilhelm II from his chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, about the seemingly unstoppable progress of democratic and parliamentary government in Europe in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Unlike many historians, Röhl does not drown in his sources. His very clearly focused book emphasizes foreign policy, and Wilhelm's role in devising, directing and implementing it. The origins of and responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War stand at the heart of the volume, making its publication in the year of the war's centenary a fortunate coincidence. Issues of domestic politics, discussions of Wilhelm's private life and of his mental and physical health, which played such a major role in the first two volumes of the biography, by no means disappear but are subordinated to the account of international relations.

As Röhl notes in his introduction, he worked on the biography for longer than Wilhelm reigned over Germany. This close attention to one individual for over thirty-five years proves that familiarity really does breed contempt. The historian's verdict on the Emperor is devastating and confirms much of contemporary and later opinion. In Schumpeter's terms, Röhl would agree that Wilhelm was very much a significant ruler. Contemporaries called it "personal rule", not just absolutist contempt for parliamentary institutions, but a domination of his ministers and subordinates, an insistence on setting policy himself. Most accounts see Wilhelm as aspiring to be such a ruler but either being incapable of it, or gradually renouncing this aspiration after c.1900. Röhl will have none of this: Wilhelm was in charge, and the highpoint of his personal rule was in 1906-7. Increasing public and private criticism from Germany's political class did nothing to change his mind. It was only after the scandals surrounding the homosexuality of his friend and courtier Philipp zu Eulenburg broke in 1907 and the dreadful public reception of his interview published in an English newspaper the following year, the so-called Daily Telegraph affair, that the emperor was forced to step back a bit. Even so, Röhl insists, his withdrawal occurred mostly in the realm of domestic policy; in military questions and foreign affairs, his dominance continued.

Röhl thus clearly disagrees with Schumpeter about Wilhelm's responsibility for Germany's disastrous pre-1914 foreign policy. While endorsing Schumpeter's implicit admission that the Emperor talked too much, too publicly and too erratically, he certainly does not see Wilhelm as someone who was right about the questions of the day. Quite the opposite, he regards the Emperor's opinions as a toxic brew of religious fanaticism, anti-Semitism and mental instability, containing all-too-evident links to a pernicious future. The upshot is a powerful and impressive thesis, sustained over a vast expanse of text, which holds the reader's attention throughout; although there are also indications in the material provided that might suggest some different shadings of interpretation.

One particularly interesting example of a point not emphasized by Röhl is that the Emperor was a man who thought globally. Rather in contrast to most European statesmen of the early twentieth century, his political vision was not at all Eurocentric. Fascinated by the United States, China and Japan, he regarded them as countries of the future – not such a bad prediction about the subsequent hundred years. Admittedly, Wilhelm did coin the phrase "the yellow peril", yet for all his racist ideas about the Chinese, he contemplated a military alliance between Germany and China and saw the centre of global politics in East Asia.

Röhl demonstrates very convincingly the extreme vacillations of the Emperor's foreign policy views. Sometimes, he wanted to lead a league of European countries against the United States; at other times, he envisaged an Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic racial alliance of Germany, the UK and the US; at still other times, he thought about a German–US–Chinese alliance directed against the British Empire. Great Britain and its empire were the subject of a passionate love-hate relationship, all too evidently tied up in Wilhelm's deeply ambivalent feelings about his mother, the English princess Victoria, and his grandmother, Queen Victoria. Wilhelm repeatedly went from seeking close ties with Britain to regarding the country as Germany's greatest enemy. His attitude towards the Tsar's Empire had no such profound psychological roots, but there as well he swung between seeking an alliance and regarding Russia as a dangerous racial antagonist. Flexibility can be a virtue in conducting foreign policy, but these inconsistencies seem more like mania.

This outlook on the world raises questions about Wilhelm's governmental role. In today's terms, he was incapable of delegating authority or responsibility. He had to do everything – from drawing up plans for new warships to approaching personally the monarchical rulers of other European powers and imploring them to ignore the policies of their government ministers. It is not that these rulers were not influential, or that dealing with them personally was a bad idea, but Wilhelm's initiatives would have worked much better as a supplement to or back channel of ordinary diplomacy – an idea he could not accept, because he could not do it all himself. One cannot help but make comparisons with Hitler, whose power as a ruler put Wilhelm's in the shade, and whose manias make Wilhelm look distinctly sane. Hitler certainly knew how to implement his plans and to strengthen his rule by assigning tasks to his subordinates and getting them to anticipate his wishes; Wilhelm was incapable of it.

Röhl documents very incisively the growing criticisms of the Emperor on the part of Germany's political class, although from his account it is less clear if this criticism was shared by a broader public. He emphasizes attacks on Wilhelm's reactionary and absolutist actions and policies by the social democrats and progressives, which form the basis of his own evaluation of the Emperor. But his conscientious detailing of sources includes the critical observations of the nobility, courtiers and officer corps that Wilhelm was not reactionary enough – opposing high agricultural tariffs in favour of Junker landowners, and incapable of taking decisive measures to smash the labour movement. Above all, they criticized him for being too timid in foreign affairs, unwilling to risk the dangers of war.

Röhl shows very clearly how in the crisis of July 1914 Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg and Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke consciously sidelined the Emperor, sending him off on his yacht to Norway, leaving him uninformed, or carefully editing official documents they sent him. They perceived him as an obstacle to their aggressive policies leading to the brink of war and beyond. On closer examination, one version or another of this way of dealing with Wilhelm had been going on for at least a decade, starting with the Moroccan Crisis of 1905, the first of the great pre-1914 diplomatic crises. Rather than a determined absolutist ruler driving his country to war, the impression is of Germany's leading state officials trying to pursue a consistently aggressive foreign policy and finding ways to take a vacillating and erratic monarch with them.

The biography only reaches the First World War on p1,106, and Röhl must admit that Wilhelm played little role in that conflict. As Germany lurched towards a military dictatorship, the Emperor was the least of the obstacles in the way of the general staff. With defeat looming, the generals had no compunction about sacrificing him in a final attempt to save the German power structure. Röhl's portrayal of Wilhelm's sudden descent to ignominy between 1914 and 1918 raises questions about the accuracy of his description of the Emperor's previously dominant position.

The concluding chapters detail the last two decades of Wilhelm's life. He spent his time in Dutch exile ranting against the Jesuits, Freemasons and, especially, the Jews, who had supposedly thwarted his policies and driven him from his throne. The Nazi seizure of power raised Wilhelm's hopes of a restoration. When his personal emissary, General von Dommes, met Hitler in 1933, he found that the latter was unwilling to discuss any concrete plans for a return to the monarchy, but spent his time railing against the Jews. Like many pre-1914 conservatives, Wilhelm exulted in the Nazis' foreign policy and military triumphs, although more than most he was appalled by their totalitarian excesses, such as the Night of Long Knives (Wilhelm's gay youngest son, August Wilhelm, a prominent stormtrooper, had been on the list to be shot, and was only saved by the personal intervention of Hermann Goering) or Kristallnacht, which disgusted Wilhelm, for all his vehement anti-Semitism.

Röhl's portrait of Wilhelm's last years is of a piece with the picture painted – not always as the author intended – throughout the book. The Emperor was mentally unstable as well as an adherent of an aggressive and militaristic foreign policy, which led up to the catastrophe of 1914. But his mental instability prevented him from effectively pursuing his aims, or even formulating them clearly. Diametrically opposed to Joseph Schumpeter's judgment, John Röhl shows us an Emperor who was partly responsible for an erratic and dangerous foreign policy, but increasingly became an insignificant ruler.