The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II

Rating:
Summary: A Fresh Look at Kaiser Bill
Review: Gile MacDonogh has produced an interesting new look at Kaiser Wilhelm II. The writing is not scintillating, and there are some ridiculous errors (The Tsar-Liberator was Alexander II, not Nicholas II). The editing leaves a lot to be desired, too, as there are some sentences which don't make sense unless you figure out that there are some words missing here and there.
Be that as it may, the book is nevertheless well worth your time. MacDonogh takes a different attitude than most about the Kaiser's damaged arm, pointing out that he was able to cope successfully with the handicap throughout a long life and that it was not necessarily psychologically damaging. MacDonogh also takes another view of Wilhelm's parents, Kaiser Frederick III and Victoria, Princess Royal of Britain. Most of their previous biographers have made "Fritz" and "Vicky" out as heroes determined to make Germany a liberal, democratic nation. MacDonogh underscores Fritz's weaknesses and penchant for pomp and Vicky's cold and demanding nature.
MacDonogh also illuminates Wilhelm's role as a surprisingly progressive ruler. The Kaiser was one of the first to speak of a United States of Europe and the need to let down customs barriers, eighty years before such ideas became fashionable. At the same time Wilhelm was advocating these reforms, unfortunately, he was also pushing Germany's imperialistic and militaristic policies until they became an open challenge to Great Britain and led to World War I.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the section dealing with Wilhelm's exile in Doorn, Holland. It seems the ex-Kaiser may have grown up a little once he was out of the spotlight, refusing to deal with the Nazis, for example, and reducing some of his braggadocio.
So, despite the shortcomings of the writing and editorial processes, this is a worthwhile addition to your library.

Rating:
Summary: A New Perspective On Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany
Review: Giles MacDonogh gives a fine, often thoughtful, account of the life of the last German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, whom the author refers repeatedly as William. MacDonogh offers a vivid, complex portrait of Wilhelm II, which clearly illustrates the contradictory aspects of the Kaiser's personality. Much to my surprise, MacDonogh amply demonstrates how progressive the Kaiser was with regards to labor relations and economics, having the vision of creating a "United States of Europe" nearly a century before its inception as the European Union. And he shows how determined Wilhelm was in maintaining peaceful relations between the German Empire and its neighbors. Indeed, Kaiser Wilhelm II comes across as the most level-headed person in his regime at the outbreak of World War II; yet he was paradoxically also the most naive, hoping that his family ties to the ruling houses of Great Britain and Russia would ensure peace. MacDonogh also notes Wilhelm's complex, often contradictory, atttitudes towards England (The British Empire), often cast as family quarrels between himself and his British Coburg cousins; for example seeking an alliance with Great Britain while simultaneously building a German navy which threatened British interests. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the book covers Wilhelm's years in exile at Doorn, The Netherlands, where the former Kaiser indulged in his lifelong passion for archaeology.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough and balanced picture of Willy
Review: Good biography about man who treated his parents Fritz and Vicky very poorly but was with his grandmother Queen Victoria when she died.His belligerent and bellicose nature did nothing to quell emotions and tempers in the period prior to the outbreak of World War I.His physical deformities really messed him up as a child from which he never recovered and which plagued him with self doubt and anger. The book was very balanced in its treatment of him and attempts to remove the generally accepted position that he was largely responsible for the First World War.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't Quite Come Together
Review: I actually feel a little bit guilty giving this book only 3 stars! It is clear from the endnotes that Mr. MacDonogh did a prodigious amount of research, almost all of it in the primary German sources. There are many amusing and interesting bits and pieces.....little details concerning the way William dressed and ate; many clever and sarcastic comments about their contemporaraies made by William and Bismarck; a description of how William passed the time of day after he was forced to abdicate (he loved to chop wood, and at his first "home" in exile, Amerongen, he managed to chop up some 14,000 trees- giving away most of the wood to the poor). And even though it is interesting to read about many of these things, the end result is oddly unsatisfying. It is almost as though the author found lots of fascinating material, knew he had to include it, but couldn't turn everything into a coherent whole. Mr. MacDonogh quotes so many contrasting opinions that we are left with all of the following: William was an anti-Semite; William was not an anti-Semite; William was brilliant and could have been another Frederick The Great; William was lazy; William had boundless energy and was always traveling and making speeches; William was mentally unbalanced; William could have done more to prevent the slide into WWI; William's hands were tied by the military and by right-wing members of the government; William wanted an alliance with the British; no he didn't; William wanted an alliance with the Russians; no he didn't.....I think you get the idea! In the end, we are left with no clear picture of William as a person or as a ruler, nor are we left with a clear picture of what was going on in Germany in the crucial years leading up to 1914. Imagine that Georges Seurat started to paint a portrait of someone, but by the time the picture was finished it had mutated into a Jackson Pollock! That's probably the best description I could give you of how I felt by the end of this book...

Rating:
Summary: Politics with No Personality
Review: I picked up this book on recommendation from my dad, a history buff much like myself, and was extremely disappointed in it. Instead of dealing properly with the Kaiser himself it spent the vast majority of the time discussing and analyzing German politics and political figures active during the Kaiser's reign and made only the most fleeting references to the personal life of the Kaiser (or anything to do with him personally, for that matter). It's as if the author was too afraid to delve into the private life of this controversial figure because he knew that the bright picture he put forth of the Kaiser would be blown to pieces. Needless to say, this book should be entitled "Politics and Political Figures During the Reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II."
Go to another book if you are looking for a true biography of Wilhelm. This one will only disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: A historically rich but disappointing read
Review: Not only should a great biography of an important world leader be well researched and historically accurate, but in order to have any appeal beyond scholastic circles it should also be entertaining and bring the subject to life. In order to achieve this delicate balance, an author must carefully review the voluminous historical record and cull the mundane and marginally relevant details from those that provide real interest and insight. I can't speak authoritatively on the subject, but it is clear that Giles MacDonogh has exhaustively studied the life of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Both original sources in the form of personal letters and first hand accounts and later critical examinations of Wilhelm are well represented. Unfortunately, while this book may be a scholarly success, it is not a particularly good read. The subject is compelling, but MacDonogh's pedantic rendition never fully engages the lay reader. Wilhelm is one of the most contradictory and controversial leaders of the 2th century, but this book never really gives you a sense of his personality or his relationships with others. Instead of really delving into the heart and soul of his subject, MacDonogh produces a dry litany of historical facts. The only personal aspect of the kaiser that MacDonogh tries to address in any depth is his anti-semitism, but even here he is not completely successful.

Rating:
Summary: Good biography of the last major monachist tyrant.
Review: The book is good because it examines one of the figures who was instrumental in shapping the 20th century. The author proves that he was very erratic with his forighn policy and his views on the world. The author also disproves the misconception that it was his imperial ambitions that led to the first World War and points out that it was the militarism of prussian aristocrats.

Rating:
Summary: Good biography of the last major monachist tyrant.
Review: The book is good because it examines one of the figures who was instrumental in shapping the 20th century. The author proves that he was very erratic with his forighn policy and his views on the world. The author also disproves the misconception that it was his imperial ambitions that led to the first World War and points out that it was the militarism of prussian aristocrats.

Rating:
Summary: A revisionist work that may be too forgiving
Review: The most recent English language biographical study of Wilhelm is The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II by Giles MacDonogh (2001). MacDonogh seems to have set out deterministically to write something other than an "indictment" of Wilhelm. He asserts that historians have been unduly critical against the emperor for eighty years, which has prompted him to examine Wilhelm "in a light which, if not ridiculously positive, [is] at least a little more indulgent than that which as coloured attitudes in the past." (viii) While MacDonogh's study is not "ridiculously positive," it does tend to minimize Wilhelm's culpability for the various blunders historians commonly associate with his reign. While he concurs with other scholars of Wilhelmine Germany that the emperor was "a mass of contradictions," (1) MacDonogh also minimizes the Kaiser's documented anti-Semitism, and strongly implies that the "cases brought up against the emperor" such as the Kruger telegram (1896), the "Hun Speech" of 1900, and the Daily Telegraph Affair (1908), were handled "reasonable, and in some cases well" by the Kaiser. (7) This attempt to show that Wilhelm did not act maliciously, criminally or incompetently is what differentiates The Last Kaiser from its predecessors.
In MacDonogh's account of Wilhelm's wartime role, he reaches a familiar conclusion: "it would be impossible to make out that he played the role of `Supreme Warlord' between 1914 and 1918." (3) He shows that Wilhelm "wavered over the preventive strike" long advocated by the General Staff, and "each time he looked in to the abyss he drew back in horror and countermanded" his generals' orders for such an attack. (9) This gives the kaiser too much of a benevolent, conscientious role for the time. MacDonogh portrays a Kaiser swept up with the emotions and events of August 1914, a leader who allowed himself to be carried into the war. By the first weeks of the conflict, "he had become increasingly peripheral." (367) This declension culminated in January 1917 with Bethmann Hollweg's removal at the insistence of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, at which point Wilhelm "was no more than a shadow emperor. No one listened to him." (391) Probably true.....
Despite showing far more sympathy toward his subject than other biographers of Wilhelm II have done, MacDonogh echoes many of their conclusions. "It is perhaps right that we condemn William," he suggests, "for if the First World War was not his undertaking, the finger of blames points over and over again to the failure of German diplomacy in which he tried so hard to play a positive role." (460) MacDonogh seems reluctant to assign Wilhelm much direct blame for the origins of the Great War or how it was conducted. On the contrary, most students of the last Hohenzollern ruler of Germany concur with the concise biographical entry in The Oxford Companion to Military History (2001): Kaiser Wilhelm II was "seduced by...nationalism and militarism," and came to discover that "leading a cavalry charge on maneuvers...is not the same thing as presiding over a beleaguered state engaged in total war." The last German Kaiser "lacked the strength of character and consistency of purpose which his role demanded, and if he cannot be blamed for leading Germany into war, he may be more justly censured for what one historian has called `a childlike flight from reality' in the crisis of 1914."

Rating:
Summary: A revisionist work that may be too forgiving
Review: The most recent English language biographical study of Wilhelm is The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II by Giles MacDonogh (2001). MacDonogh seems to have set out deterministically to write something other than an "indictment" of Wilhelm. He asserts that historians have been unduly critical against the emperor for eighty years, which has prompted him to examine Wilhelm "in a light which, if not ridiculously positive, [is] at least a little more indulgent than that which as coloured attitudes in the past." (viii) While MacDonogh's study is not "ridiculously positive," it does tend to minimize Wilhelm's culpability for the various blunders historians commonly associate with his reign. While he concurs with other scholars of Wilhelmine Germany that the emperor was "a mass of contradictions," (1) MacDonogh also minimizes the Kaiser's documented anti-Semitism, and strongly implies that the "cases brought up against the emperor" such as the Kruger telegram (1896), the "Hun Speech" of 1900, and the Daily Telegraph Affair (1908), were handled "reasonable, and in some cases well" by the Kaiser. (7) This attempt to show that Wilhelm did not act maliciously, criminally or incompetently is what differentiates The Last Kaiser from its predecessors.
In MacDonogh's account of Wilhelm's wartime role, he reaches a familiar conclusion: "it would be impossible to make out that he played the role of 'Supreme Warlord' between 1914 and 1918." (3) He shows that Wilhelm "wavered over the preventive strike" long advocated by the General Staff, and "each time he looked in to the abyss he drew back in horror and countermanded" his generals' orders for such an attack. (9) This gives the kaiser too much of a benevolent, conscientious role for the time. MacDonogh portrays a Kaiser swept up with the emotions and events of August 1914, a leader who allowed himself to be carried into the war. By the first weeks of the conflict, "he had become increasingly peripheral." (367) This declension culminated in January 1917 with Bethmann Hollweg's removal at the insistence of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, at which point Wilhelm "was no more than a shadow emperor. No one listened to him." (391) Probably true.....
Despite showing far more sympathy toward his subject than other biographers of Wilhelm II have done, MacDonogh echoes many of their conclusions. "It is perhaps right that we condemn William," he suggests, "for if the First World War was not his undertaking, the finger of blames points over and over again to the failure of German diplomacy in which he tried so hard to play a positive role." (460) MacDonogh seems reluctant to assign Wilhelm much direct blame for the origins of the Great War or how it was conducted. On the contrary, most students of the last Hohenzollern ruler of Germany concur with the concise biographical entry in The Oxford Companion to Military History (2001): Kaiser Wilhelm II was "seduced by...nationalism and militarism," and came to discover that "leading a cavalry charge on maneuvers...is not the same thing as presiding over a beleaguered state engaged in total war." The last German Kaiser "lacked the strength of character and consistency of purpose which his role demanded, and if he cannot be blamed for leading Germany into war, he may be more justly censured for what one historian has called 'a childlike flight from reality' in the crisis of 1914."