The Funeral of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany at Huis Doorn in The Netherlands on this day in 1941, during the Second World War and the Nazi Occupation of The Netherlands. While Nazis had wanted to bring the Kaiser’s body back to Berlin for a state funeral, in 1933, the Kaiser had stipulated in his will that he wanted to be buried in Doorn if, at the time of his death, the monarchy in Germany had not been restored. Instead of being buried at the Berliner Dom, the Kaiser was laid to rest in a Mausoleum at Huis Doorn, where he remains today. In addition to his extended family, led by Crown Prince William, Crown Princess Cecilie, and Princess Victoria Louise, Duchess of Brunswick, there were only a few hundred people present at a funeral, due to the ongoing War.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was a complicated and sometimes conflicted man. He didn’t start WW1, nor did he want it, but he is often blamed for it. He was known to make anti-semitic statements, yet he had Jews as friends, and his response to the Nazi’s “Krystallnacht” was to call it “barbaric”. The German monarchy and other monarchies fell in years past in the name of “democracy”, yet look at the state of many democratic republics today. They are rife with a kind of liberalism that disconnects their people from good and noble things found in their collective pasts. They push individual liberties to the point of the absurd, often working against the common good. They squelch differing opinions, demand conformity, and exhibit a kind of tyranny that was never found in the rule of Wilhelm II.