Behind the Bastards - CZM Rewind: Part One: Kaiser Wilhelm: The Saddest Warlord In History

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Robert sits down with Jamie Loftus to talk about Kaiser Wilhelm, the devastatingly cringy Mama's boy who came to rule an empire despite lacking even a single relevant skill.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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media Hey, mother fuckies and mother fuckettes Wow, that's not how I should introduce this it anyway. Hello everybody Robert here, and this is our last week of Hello, everybody. Robert here. And this is our last week of what you may call them, rerun episodes. We are still on vacation here at Cool Zone, having a great time. Actually not on vacation. We were on vacation, but this is the week where I have to write so that we can catch up and have episodes for you all in the new year. But, you know, because I have one more week of blessed, relative freedom. Here's another fucking rerun.

Enjoy it. I love you. What's doing an episode, the podcast that I do? I'm Robert Evans. Nice. Very badly introducing another podcast of Behind the Bastards, the show where we talk about the worst people in all of history.

And here to help me today is one of the best people in all of history. Jamie Loftus! Hi Robert. How you doing Jamie? I'm good. I'm having a lovely day. I'm too cold Bruce Deep.

Ooh, too cold Bruce Deep. Are you feeling optimistic and positive about the world? I'm feeling like who we talk about today is gonna might end up actually being a pretty good guy. Pretty good guy. That's how I go into every bastard episode now. I'm just like, you know what? This guy's gonna end up being pretty nice.

I think I might change my opinion on this fella. Well, I think that I'm gonna really have some arguments in his paper. You might have a couple, because the guy we're talking about today is Kaiser motherfucking Wilhelm. Yeah. Yeah, your reaction was pretty intense

when I told you that right before the episode. I was, well, I'm never allowed to know in advance and then I just and then I sit down and it's what fresh hell in terms of in terms of person in terms of facial hair in terms just in every this is a brutal one for me strictly on a facial hair level. You're not a fan of his walrus mustache. He's, he's, I respect someone who makes a choice, right? He made a choice, you have to give him that. You, I will hand it to him, much like Robert Pattinson in the lighthouse, he is making a choice.

Choices don't always work out. No. This is actually, I think this is one of the first subjects that I actually like no affair amount About I took a I took a in high school for some reason my last two years of high school. I only learned about World War one That's great. I love World War one. I mean I'm as I stand and we stand We stand absolutely. Oh the Psalm so good the, so good. The the trench, I love there. We like acted out the assassination

of Archduke, friends, Ferdinand. It was a blast. One of my favorite assassinations. So long. The assassinations. The fashion. The fashion. The fashion, the trenches.

The helmets that didn't stop bullets. Oh, I love them. You know what you love it. It's all so good. An underrated world war I am alone. Oh, I love them. You know what you love it. It's all so good. An underrated world war, I am a... Oh yeah, yeah. No way better than the sequel, in my opinion. I totally agree.

Sequel is overhyped. We get it. Right, I mean, I'll pick Terminator 2 over Terminator 1. I'll pick aliens over alien, but I'm gonna pick World War 1 over World War 2 every day of the week. I'm gonna pick the Cheetah Girls Two over Cheetah Girls One,

and that's a controversial opinion for those not in the middle. I don't even know which Cheetah Girls two. I know you don't, Ron. I'm still, I had to tell you, Arianna Grande was last year, which is something that I still, it still shakes me to my marrow that that happened.

Well, speaking of your marrow. Speaking of your marrow. Speaking of your marrow. Wait, no. We can't start the show until you know who the Cheetah Girls are. Who. You don't know who the cheetah girls are? Wait, no. We can't start the show until you know who the cheetah girls are. Who, you don't know who the cheetah girls are? I, of course I don't. I know, but I'm just always waiting for girls.

Are they like the spice girls? I, they wish. They do wish they were like the spice girls, but they're a band that was started by, well, some great novellas for young girls, but it's like Raven Simone, two of the girls. Oh, shit.

Yeah, right. She's the alpha. And then two girls from three LW, which you also don't know what that is. And then a fourth girl who has dropped off the face of the planet, we don't know what happened to her. The point is it was good. The singles were fine. And they wore track suits.

Oh, I do love track suits. I love it. I am a big track suit fan. I love people in matching track suits. Because they wore like complimentary pastel track suits and then the second one they go to Barcelona. Yeah, I think when it comes to like, you're talking about the fashion in World War I

and how good it was. I hope when we have our next World War that it's basically the same as World War One, but we're all wearing tracksuits. Like that is my dream. Imagine that yeah, World War Three will be waged in juicy couture head to toe, like form fitting tracksuits. Yeah. Comfortable waistbands by God.

Yeah. It's pretty great. Yeah. I don't want those royal tenon bombs, tracksuits, mist, I want like, hair and kiln. All those goddamn belts in. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the ones that have like rhinestones on them, and that's how you know who's on what side. Yeah, yeah, but the color of the rhinestones, yeah, it'll be a great war.

Yeah, I think that this is actually gonna be the best world war yet. I feel like we have a real chance to make it so. This is what I think it's called. Before we start another world war, we should learn about one of the guys who is most behind the first world war. Yes. Now, one I think is interesting about the Kaiser is that like most of the people we talk

about on the show make a decision at a certain point to be shitty people who do like horrible exploitative violent things to other people. Like they make a choice to be bastards at some point, but there's also another less common category of bastards who are just sort of born into it. They have bastardy, you know, thrust upon them by the circumstances of their family and the time they live in, which doesn't like make them mitigate the evils they perpetrated or remove their agency entirely.

But I think it makes them more sympathetic figures than guys like Hitler or Saddam who kind of like Dovehead first into that. And Kaiser Wellhelm is like once you understand his whole backstory, you're kind of like, yeah, you were a piece of shit, but like how could this story have ended well? How could you, yeah, how could you have learned, who would you have learned how to be a good person from

exactly like how was this not gonna suck and that's the story of Kaiser Wilhelm. That's a good that'll be the name of the biopic. Yeah how could this have not sucked? Yeah okay cool yeah Kaiser Wilhelm was born of the Hallins all-earned dynasty a family of German Nobles whose history stretches back nearly a thousand years to understand where he comes from we have to start this Episode by talking about his father's birth on October 18th 1831 now This is long before Germany was a thing Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia was born in Potstam. His father was also named Wilhelm. All of the men in this story are named fucking Friedrich Wilhelm.

And I don't understand why the numbering works the way it does. I don't understand any of this. But they're all named Friedrich Wilhelm. Wait, is the numbering out of order? It's weird. I think it's because of like their middle names and shit because they have a bunch of names

other than Friedrich Wilhelm. But they're all known as Friedrich Wilhelm. It's very dumb. The God, I don't like when rich people try to bamboozle me. They also have the same name. God damn it. Yeah, I would love it if the reasoning for that was just that the common people couldn't be trusted to learn a new king's

name, but I know it's something dumber and more arrogant than that. It's still like, I don't know, like, why are there 500 Hollywood agents named Scott and that are all the same man? You know, it's oh, that's that's nominative determinism. That's because if you're born Scott, you get fast-tracked into CAA. You got it. There's a lot of, you know, the scots and the mics. And, you know, we love them, but can we tell them apart?

No. Now, so Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, who is the dad of the Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, will be talking about this episode, entered the world second and lined at the throne of Prussia after his brother, the crown prince, who is also named Friedrich Wilhelm His parents had a typically loveless royal marriage his father was in love with princess Elise Radsowell of Poland

But she wasn't noble enough for a holenzole learned to marry so he had to marry one of his relatives Augusta while vowing that he would never give his heart to her So this is how the relationship that leads to Kaiser Wilhelm starts never give his heart to her. So this is how the relationship that leads to Kaiser Wilhelm starts. Right. Now as you might expect, familial compromises like this did not make for the happiest of home lives. In June 1840, King Friedrich Wilhelm III died after 43 years of ruling pressure.

His oldest son succeeded him and Wilhelm became the Prince of Prussia. So Kaiser Wilhelm's dad is now the crown prince of Prussia. So, okay, so Wilhelm, the previous Wilhelm. His brother, yeah, his dad dies. His father is named Wilhelm, right? That's the thing. Yeah, he sure does.

He sure does. His dad dies and his brother, who is the same name as him and his dad becomes the king, and he is now the crown prince. How does that work when it's dinner time? You just shout one name? I don't know. I don't know how they told each other apart. It sucks so much.

I'm getting it. It's like writing this part sucks because it's just incredibly confusing. Like reading about royal, I don't understand people who like royal families because it makes me just want to start punching and never stop. Yeah, I hope that there were some really disturbing

nicknames in the mix. It seems like the only way that this would work. Yeah, I don't know. So when he was 18, a very right-wing general named Leopold von Gerlock told Kaiser Wilhelm's dad that he invades the Prince's youth for he would no doubt survive the end of this absurd constitutionalism. Because there were a lot of democratic movements going through the German states at this point, including pressure, which is when they established the Reichstag and stuff like that. So like people are starting to get a voice in this period monarchs. You know, when we talk about the Kaisers, we're not talking about absolute monarchs.

They have more power than obviously the British royal family, but they're not like the Tsar. Like they don't get to just make it. But they're not just making Tsar. Like they don't get to just make it. But they're not yet game, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So Prince Friedrich, the Kaiser's dad, was actually a fan of the growing democratic movements in Germany.

He was a liberal. He was a very progressive guy. He believed that the people deserved a constitution that would guarantee their rights and protect them from like nobles just wanting to do whatever. Okay. Yeah, so the Kaiser's dad's actually a pretty chill dude.

He's not like the other Kaiser's. Or the Prince. He's a Prince? Yeah, he's a, the Crown Prince at this point. He's a Prince. Which is like the next in line for the throne. There's a fuckload of princes. The Crown Prince is the one who's gonna be the king next.

Okay. Yeah, that's the way it works all over in all the different royal families. Right, right. So the Kaiser's dad, again, who's also Prince Wilhelm, spent a shitload of his youth in England due to a friendship with the British royal family that was orchestrated in part by our old pal, King Leopold of Belgium. Ooh.

This is actually one of the nice things Leopold did, because the goal of it was basically, I have all these, if these royal families start fucking and and marrying a bunch then they clearly will never fight in a war Wow What a problem solving they're like well, what if this whole family fucked each other that would really solve Politics and he was right for a while there for a while there for a while there If he'd if he'd been to the American South, he would have known that having a family

that fucks each other does not stop them from shooting at each other, but alas. I mean, the American South, once again, coming out on top, they're way ahead of their time in terms of fucking and also killing their family. Yeah, yeah. Now in 1855, Prince Prince Wilhelm was invited to Britain without his parents to stay with Queen Victoria

and her family and proposed to the princess who was also named Victoria because the British Royal family's just as insufferable was the German. Oh, nice. Yeah, now happily enough, it turns out that the Kaiser's dad and his mom, Princess Victoria, were actually a very rare love match, which doesn't happen often in royal marriages.

And they weren't closely related, which is also great. So by the summer of 1858, Princess Victoria was pregnant and expecting. This was not treated with joy by Queen Victoria. She considered this horrid news, which would all end in nothing, because the Princess got sick almost immediately and stayed ill throughout much of the pregnancy. Queen Victoria was not an optimist. Yeah.

The royal doctors assured everyone that things would be fine, but the princess's midwife, Miss Innocent, knew it a single look that the pregnancy would not end well. Miss Innocent? Yeah, named after Pope Innocent, I think. That's what I feel like I had a shirt this of that in junior high. Different meaning. I had misinnocent, uh, misindependent after the Kelly Clarkson song. Yeah, that was that's another Pope. Yeah. 99% angel 1% devil yet another pope a lot of popes that you had shirts based off 99% angel 1% devil. We had shared space. 99% angel. 1% devil.

He was the guy. He was of the popes. One of the top. Oh, no, I've been pretty close to being a complete angel. Yeah. Now, we don't know precisely what went wrong with Kaiser Wilhelm's birth, but it is certain that the doctors who managed the birth fucked up in some way. Some of this was due to the fact that the infant Kaiser was a breach birth. At that time in central Europe, about 98% of babies born in breach were still born.

So almost all of the babies born this way died. But obviously the Kaiser had the very best doctors. I mean, you might argue that his doctors did a great job of bringing him through alive, but known at the time said so. The princess would later write of the bungling way she was treated. And it seems like what happened is while they were pulling him out of the birth canal, they basically ripped his left arm off of his body and fucked it. Like they didn't sever it, but like ripped the muscles and shit. So he has his arm as fucked up from the jump. Now the princess was confined to bed rest after the birth for a month, but both she and the

child survived. I'll be it not without permanent damage. Okay. When the birth was announced to the people of pressure by a field marshal, the baby prince was described as, as sturdy a little recruit as a heart could wish to see. But the obstetrician told a different story. The infant was seemingly dead to a high degree. No!

Yeah, that's how they described it. That is absolutely savage take on that infant. Yeah, yeah, really roasting the baby Kaiser. Geez. His survival was considered close to miraculous. And I'm going to quote next from the book Kaiser Wilhelm, the second Germany's last emperor by John Vanderkist. Okay.

Three or four days after the birth, Miss Innocent drew Dr. Martin's attention to the baby's left arm, hanging lifelessly from the shoulder socket. The father was told at once, when he asked the German doctors, they reassured him that the damage was only temporary paralysis, which would improve with a little gentle massage at first, followed by exercises at a later stage. This would prove to be optimistic and untrue, even as an adult, Williams left arm was six inches shorter than the right.

He reminds me of Nemo. Who? Robert from Find Nemo, the one that gets found. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. He is. He is. And like Nemo, he grows up to spark a war that killed 17 million people. That is what happened.

Pixar hasn't gotten to that movie yet, but that's how the story goes Well, they're all about revisionist history over there. It's a disaster. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nimo did become yeah, like a brutal general. He's he's actually people blame global warming for the whole like coral reef dying off, but that's simply not the case. Yeah, a move. And also like the Kaiser, super anti-Semitic. Didn't come up in the movie once, but really, really, really far off there. Horrible. You get the feeling that they're just cutting away

just before something terrible happens. Yeah, in every scene in that movie, he has a copy of the protocols of the elders of Zion tucked beneath his good fin. Oh my God. You know, again, I love fun fat. I love movie trivia. So the young guys whose hand looked normal when he grew up, but his actual arm and hand

itself were too weak to hold anything much heavier than a piece of paper. He's been to his life hiding it at. Yeah, that's fucking hard. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah, if you look at pictures of him, he's always hiding his left arm out of sight in a coat pocket or like, like, kind of up to his side with like a glove on and he had gloves that would help like extend the length of his hand a little bit to make it look more normal. I've decided to forgive him. Now we're cool.

Yeah. You're going to wind up feeling very sympathetic throughout a significant chunk of this until we get to the parts of it where he's a giant piece of shit. Okay. Yeah. Now, as Vanderkiss' book notes, hiding this deformed arm became a guiding motivation for the young prince. Throughout his life, few photographs showed his left arm clearly, let alone the hand.

From an early age, the art of concealing it from the camera lens became second nature to him. At meals, he could not manage an ordinary knife and fork, but his bodyguard always carried a special combined one, while the person sitting next to him discreetly cut up his food. As if to compensate, his right hand had an iron grip, something he would often exploit as an adult one greeting people for the first time with a vice-like handshake, sadistically turning the rings on his fingers inward first, so as to add to the other person's discomfort. If these men or women were English, he laughed hardly at their winces as he made drives

about the male fist. Okay. Okay. He grows up with a bit of a thing. He's getting a bit of a stuff. I mean, I guess you have to, it begs the question. Like if I had power influences a 12 year old with a back brace, would I have oppressed other people?

I don't know. Yes. I feel like you absolutely would have. Yeah. Any furious 12 year old that feels out of place, if they had, it just no 12 year olds have the ability to. He's the rare one. Yeah. 12 year old have the ability to he's the rare one. Yeah, if I had absolute power at the age of 12 when I was like a like an insecure fat kid

who didn't know how to be social, I would have killed millions, millions. Well, I know I was a gigantic walking rectangle for most of my formative years. What if I, what if someone could have suffered for that? Yeah, exactly. No. Yeah. Okay. Now, the Kaiser's hand was not the only part of him injured by the circumstances of his

birth. His neck was also damaged, and his head tilted to the left his entire life. His left ear was likewise unformed, and he was partly deaf and had problems with balances or results of this his entire life. He suffered from constant ear infections and required a series of surgeries, which left him eventually completely deaf and his left ear and frequently subjected him

to intense pain that probably contributed to his infamous temper tantrums. There's also a chance that he was born profoundly mentally ill with a specific kind of mental illness that is common among royal families as a result of in-braining. There's no proof of this. And I kind of think that the other stuff explains

his temper tantrums and shit more than Porphyria. I think it was the name of the illness, but it's possible he had like a brain thing going on too. Got it. Now, in short, the Prince who would one day become the Kaiser came into this world with very serious difficulties to overcome, even for a child born as wealthy as a child could possibly be born. His father, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, was a decent guy and handled this with love and support. But his grandfather, who was the Kaiser, was said to have noted that he wasn't sure if he should even congratulate his son on the birth of a defective prince.

And like one of the German generals who's around when the Kaiser's like a little kid is like no one with a fucked up arm should ever become the Kaiser. Like you should even be alive. So like this is not his parents are really good and really loving, but like he also grows up in this very unforgiving culture that cannot tolerate physical imperfection. Right.

So, I mean, I feel like especially for like young, oh God, just an emasculated 12-year-old, is there anything with more potential for danger? More danger for a stranger. No, not at all. Not really. No. So, the princess was a devoted and loving mother. In a letter to his grandmother, Queen Victoria Victoria the kid who would become Kaiserville home was

Queen Victoria's first grandchild, right? So in a letter to his grandmother his mother wrote your grandson is exceedingly lively and when a wake will not be Satisfied and less kept dancing about continually. He scratches his face and tears his caps and makes every sort of extraordinary little noise I am so thankful so happy he is a boy. I longed for one more than I can describe. My whole heart was set upon a boy, and therefore I did not expect one. So it is very deeply loved,

and has, you know, kind of your best case scenario for parents in this period of time. I'm like, sure he was a breached birth, but at least he wasn't a girl child. We would have hated that. Well, you know, I think, I don't get that feeling from her. I get the feeling more that she just like, number one, like one of your jobs as a princess in this period

is to like give birth to an heir. Like they had daughters and she treated the daughters well. Like they weren't like, they'd be their daughters. That's, that's, that's, that's, there's just a lot of shit built up around having a son to continue the line. And the fact that her first child was a son, like that just a lot of shit built up around having a son to continue the line. And the fact that her first child was a son, like that takes a lot of the pressure off.

That's good for her, because then people stop giving her shit. Exactly. I think that's a big part of why she feels that way. That's nice. It's also, you know, even today, like my friends who get married have expressed preference. It's like, oh, I hope it's a boy. I hope it's a girl for whatever,

whatever thing they want to do with the kid. Like I don't get the feeling that like she was being shitty by saying that what you do when you hear about the czar well no yeah it's weird like the czar their first kid was a girl and like his the czar like his wife wrote to him that like oh I'm so sorry basically that I wasn't able to provide a son. And he was like, no, no, it's fine. We have a son. The son belongs to Russia. This daughter is ours.

So we get to really just like spoil her and enjoy having a child, and we'll have the son later. So I don't know. You get a mix of reactions from the royal family. As far as, yeah, as far as that situation goes, I guess that's one of the better ways it could shake out. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Cool. So we know a lot about the life and particularly the childhood of the Kaiser. More than we know about the life and childhood of literally anyone else I've ever

talked about on the show, because he was born to be king. So every scrap of correspondence from his parents and his teachers and his relatives about him and from himself has been saved in his in archives. So it's fair to say there's more detail on the early life of this guy than any other person I've covered on the show. Which is probably why I'm more sympathetic about this guy because when you have that much detail to draw on, like it's hard not to feel some sympathy for you. When you know that much about kids miserable's miserable childhood one way or another.

Yeah, exactly. That's tough. Yeah. Neema, that's why they made finding Neema to be empathized with a monster. They're like, well, he lost his mother young. He got, he got kidnapped by the ocean and he had a, he had a difficult friend. So we should forgive him for his sins. Yeah, for his rabbit anti-Semitism.

For, I mean, I can't say it enough. Yeah, it's really impossible to over-impose. So, Prince Wilhelm was baptized on March 5, 1859. Queen Victoria was unable to attend and was represented by Lord Raglan, the British commander during the Crimean War, and one of the guys in charge of the Light Brigade. He's that dude, so that's who like represents his grandma at the baptism. Well, that's nice. Yeah, in general, the future Kaiser had a very British upbringing.

His nurse, Mrs. Hobbes, was English. His chief doctor, Sir Benjamin Brody, was also British. The most British has names I've ever heard. Yeah, very British. This is Hobbes. Yeah, this kid was also British. The most British has names I've ever heard. Yeah, very British. This is Forbes. Yeah, this kid is half British. You have to remember that, because his mom is an English princess.

His grandmother is the fucking literal queen Victoria. And he's raised, but he grew up without, he spoke English perfectly with almost no accent. Oh, you can listen to speeches by this guy in English, and you can barely notice the accent. So posh. Yeah, it's impossible to overstate how intermarried and intermingled the royal families that helped launch World War I, where Prince Wilhelm, the guy who became the Kaiser, was also the Prince of Orange, an inline for the throne of England.

His current, like great grandson, who's alive today, is 170th in line for the throne of England. His current like great grandson who's a life today is 170th in line for the British throne. Over in Russia the Tsar's wife was a German princess and the Tsar and the Kaiser were cousins. All of the monarchs in charge of the primary belligerence in World War I shared grandparents and aunts and were cousins and had grown up together. Those are my favorite letters. I wish I haven't, like, it's been like almost 10 years now, but like, the reading through the letters between cousins where they're like, are we gonna start a war?

Like, Jimmy, where are we gonna get all these people killed? It's so, it's so bizarre being like, what if I could just write my cousin Tammy and be like, so like, how attached are we to people? Do we like four to six million of our young men? Can we just do you feel able to just it's so bizarre knowing that their cousins that like for the most part know each other like it's just very weird. Yeah and and love each other. Yeah. Yeah, the way we're like there's those like the letters between Wilhelm and this, and the Zar, they're so bizarre.

It's just, yeah. Yeah. You know what's not bizarre, Jamie. What, Robert? The products and services that support this podcast with their advertising, petrodollars. I love a product and I love a service. Well, here's both.

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or Prussian at this point royal family. His nurse rubbed massage oil on it daily to try and stimulate growth. Wilhelm's doctors ordered that his arm be tied to the side of his leg for an hour a day in order to try to force it to grow normally. Oh my God, he is a back brace for his arm. Oh, we're getting to the back brace.

Oh, yes, okay. Yeah, now the infant prince had almost no feeling in the limb and barely noticed most of this. While most of his treatments were ineffective, but benign, some were really brutal. And I'm gonna quote now from the book, Kaiser Wilhelm II, a concise life by John Rol. Okay.

When the infant was six months old, Professor Bernhard von Langenbeck of the Charite hospital in Berlin prescribed animal baths. Twice a week, Wilhelm's left arm was inserted into the body of a freshly slaughtered hair for half an hour. And the hope that the wild animals warmth and vigor would be transferred to the arm. No. They stuck him arm deep and it did animal. No. why do you have a baby? You're just like, how would this grow up to be a good person? This is like biblical curses,

they're forcing upon a baby. Shova fresh bloody corpse on the literal infant child's arm for an hour. Like how does that not talk about? I had this one in the room like we've got to make sure that this is remembered, because what if it works? What if it works? What if he's the best king ever? Fuck him up. Fuck him up. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I the country Germany at this point is renowned as having some of the best doctors on the world. So this is like the height of medical science. What is that? Does everyone else? I honestly, I would rather die at 24 than have that

be my medical regimen. I would rather have died years ago. It's terrible. Now, perhaps the most damaging treatment came at the direct orders of Queen Victoria. And I'm going to quote now from John Vanderkiss' biography. Queen Victoria is a piece of shit, by the way, just as it heads up. I went to England over the summer brag and we did the Buckingham Palace tour because I just wanted to see what it was like and the, oh, the revisionism, aren't like, there's no mention of Wilhelm,

there's no mention of, you know, it's just too messy. They're like, she was really nice, she hated when her husband died, thanks for the $40. Yeah. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. Well, here's a little bit more about Queen Victoria.

Hit it. The princess, we're talking about Kaiserville Helms mom, doted on babies. And within a few days of his birth, she had started breastfeeding him to the revulsion of her mother-in-law. Knowing Queen Victoria's views on the subject were at one with hers, she, the mother-in-law, wrote to the queen asking for her approval in putting it into this odious habit. Much to the young mother's disappointment, her baby was promptly handed over to a wet nurse whose milk irritated his bowels and caused regular stomach upsets. So the queen of pressure and queen Victoria both

hate breastfeeding because they think it's a gross commoner thing to do. And so they make somebody whose milk makes Kaiser Wilhelm sick breastfeed the baby. You know what? My mom did the same thing except with formula. So, you know, my mom was just like, you stay away from me. Here's some wrestling. Here's some wrestling chemicals. Good luck with your life. Now, years later, his grandmother, the Empress Augusta,

his other grandmother, would lie to Kaiser Wilhelm and tell him that his mother had refused to breastfeed him because she found his arm disgusting. Oh, but his mom was nice. Oh arm disgusting. Oh, but he was nice. Oh, that's nice. His mom was nice. She's just a bitch who hates his mom and is like, he's like, like I said, how does this kid not grow up fucked up?

Like, I don't like women on, I don't like woman on women conflict. It's not fair. We don't need it. It makes me upset. And again, my grandma did that though to my mom. Yeah, and it's less damaging when the babies that are getting manipulated by the fucked up people aren't growing up to be the impers of Germany.

Yeah, I mean, just regular fucked up people are the best. But we do enough damage as it is. Yeah, don't give anyone any power. Nobody turns out great. No, everyone's a disaster. Like every now and then, every now and then, you get a Danny DeVito. But most of us don't turn out well. We're obsessed with Danny DeVito.

I love Danny DeVito. What about Billy's Aine? I don't know anything about Billy's Aine. Is he nice? He's nice.'t know anything about Billy's Aine. Is he nice? He's nice. Good. Good for Billy's Aine. Everyone's a nice. Well, let's replace Congress with Danny DeVito and Billy's Aine.

It's a new Aine. You know what? You only two white men we can support at this point. Yeah. Now, in 1860, when the Prince was one year old, his doctors began giving him daily electromagnetic therapy, applying constant galvanic current to his neck for hours every day To attempt to stimulate blood flow in his arm electrocuting the infant Kaiser for hours a day did not work either No kidding

God it's just like your child has a disability We're four pages in and we haven't stopped talking about the fucked up ways they damaged this kid trying to heal his arm We feel so I got it is hard not to feel for him You like that's a lot to deal with Families electrocuting you because they find you to be gross. That's a nightmare. That's across to bear A nightmare. That's across to bear. That certainly is. On January 2nd, 1861, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV died

and Prince Wilhelm's grandfather became Kaiser Wilhelm I. He was 63 at the time, two years later, and 1863 when the Prince who would become the Kaiser that we're talking about, I know this is confusing. It's okay. I'm gonna call, like when I say King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who would become the Kaiser that we're talking about. I know this is confusing. It's okay. It's okay. I'm gonna call, like when I say King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, he's also a Kaiser Wilhelm.

I'm only gonna call the Kaiser Wilhelm from World War I that we're talking about this episode, the Kaiser for the sake of making this make sense. Sure. So when the future Kaiser was for, his doctors presented him with a terrifying and barbaric machine designed to help him treat another one of his ailments. See, four years after birth, Wilhelm had developed tortuic colis, caused by the healthy muscles

on the right side of his neck pulling his head downwards in that direction. Now this would obviously be way too visible, an ailment to possibly let the king of Prussia have, the future king of Prussia have. So to treat this, his doctor just prescribed him what his mother called a head stretching machine. That sounds safe. Sounds safe to me. He had to wear it.

An hour a day every day. And in a letter to Queen Victoria, the prince's mother described it thusly. A belt around his waist to the back of which an iron bar is affixed. The bar leads up the back to something which of which an iron bar is affixed. The bar leads up the back to something which looks exactly like a horse's bridal. The head is then fixed in this and positioned as desired by means of a screw which adjusts the iron bar.

Oh, why? This is... oh, I feel sad. I'm sad, Robert. This sucks. Now, the young prince eventually went through facial surgery to correct this, which alleviated the problem at the cost of some permanent disfigurement. He was also subject to an arm stretching machine, which was used on him for years, and was similar to the next stretching machine. These are medieval torture devices.

Yeah, this is not helpful. Yeah. The thing that actually did help his arm to grow somewhat was a course of regular gymnastics, which seems to have helped a lot. Oh, holistic stuff worked, go figure. Like actually just actual exercise. Yes, that one didn't seem to help.

It's so, I'm like, I mean, these doctors have to have at least the foresight to give the arm stretching machine a confusing name. So you don't notice it's an arm stretching machine. Yeah, I mean, I'm only wearing a referred to as the arm stretching machine, but it probably had a fun German nickname. A Dr. Sue sounding thing. Yeah.

Now, in spite of all this horror, Wilhelm's early childhood was considered he remembered it at least as fairly pleasant. His mother and father were both doting parents, which was unusual in Prussian families of that era. He was the baby of the global royal family. And for a time, Queen Victoria's favorite grandchild. Starting in 1863, he began to regularly visit his aunts and uncles and cousins in Great Britain.

John Vanderkiss describes him as a spirited child. Quote. On his way to St. George's Chapel, Windsor, he threw his aunt Beatrice's muff out the carriage window. Beatrice was only five years old at the time and in no position to exercise any authority over him. Queen Victoria's youngest child, she wasn't always remained her mother's baby, a name her nephew soon picked up. When she told him petulently that he must address her as an aunt, he back aunt baby then bored during the long marriage service while most of his relations were shedding emotional tears he pulled his dork which is a knife from his stocking and threw it noisily across the chapel floor when his young uncles Arthur and Leopold remonstrated with him he bit them in the legs what a sweet kid i mean i got a love that he that he bites King Leopold of Belgium, the slaughterer of the Congo in

the leg for yelling at him for throwing a knife during a wedding, which is awesome. That actually does sound like what you would have done. Yes, that sounds like a little knife-thrower. We might have bonded over knife-throwing knives. I love throwing knives. When I, if I, anytime I get really drunk, I'm gonna throw knives. I, you know, I, I, I know that to be true. Yeah.

It's true. I think I also had a shirt that said, Aunt Baby in middle school. Oh, I think she, there's a lot of these phrases are bringing, are bringing back some, some memories. Aunt Baby, that's actually a sick burn for phrases are bringing back some memories. Aren't baby.

That's actually a sick burn for... That is a sick bird. He was not, uh, not whittless. Yeah, that's quick. Yeah, that's quick. For like a four year old too, not bad. To be like, aren't baby, fuck you aren't baby. I'll be fine, fuck you aren't baby.

I can't. I have no punch ups, that's great. Hell yeah, kid. Now, in 1864, the prince's father, who is the crown prince, fought in the Prussia Danish War and returned home a war hero. The future Kaiser's father would again win laurels in the Franco Prussian War of 1871,

which is what led to the establishment of the German Empire. Some of the prince's earliest strong memories, the future Kaiser's strong memories, where his father's sending back captured battle flags and glorious reports of conquest from the front lines. So he grows up with some of his earliest memories being his dad being a legitimate war hero. He was really close to the front, obviously not as much dangerous in infantry men, but he was like participating in battles and leading troops in combat and stuff.

So as he grew into an adolescent, the young prince gradually overcame many of his physical limitations. He learned how to swim and row and was quite good at it. His grandmother, Queen Victoria, was ever on the watch for signs of pride from her first grandchild. She told the crown princess to bring him up simply plainly and not with that terrible Prussian pride and ambition which grieved dear Papa so much and which he always said would stand in the way of Prussia taking that lead in Germany, which he ever wished her to do. If only the Germans were more British. If only the Germans were more humble like us, all we did was conquer a quarter of the world's

land surface. Unlike these arrogant Germans. The notoriously chill and tolerant British. Yes, yes. Now, the prince's parents seem to have listened to this advice. Starting in mid 1866, when the future Kaiser was seven and starting school, George Henspeter was chosen to be his tutor.

Now, Henspeter was a Calvinist, which means he believed that only a predetermined elect few few ever got into heaven and the vast majority of humanity was destined for hell, no matter what they did. As you might expect, he was a gigantic dick. He also looked exactly like the dude who played Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones. Like Sophie looks up his picture, like exactly like him. It's really weird. Now, Hens Peter's educational program involved 12 hour days of mixed study and exercise. It was, in his words, based exclusively on a stern sense of duty and the idea of service. The character was to be fortified by perpetual renunciation, the life of the prince to be

molded on the lines of old Prussian simplicity, its ideal being the harsh discipline of the Spartans. Now, it's here, should say a few words about Prussia. Prussia no longer exists as a state or as a political entity in any way. Prussia's disillusion was one of the British requirements for the end of World War II. Prior to that, Prussia was the most powerful German state and the source for all of our modern stereotypes of Germany and Germans as disciplined, stern, humorless, and militaristic. The Prussian military was one of the chief military forces in Europe for centuries and became world famous for their discipline and skill.

During the US Revolutionary War, a Prussian noblemen, Baron von Stuben, built the entire American military from scratch. The core of our military's organization to this day is still based along Prussian lines. So it makes sense that the young prince would be raised in a strict militaristic Spartan way. Okay. But while Prussian discipline made for an effective military, it also made for profoundly damaged young men, which is why we got a quarter one or two. Yeah. Hinspeter declared that the growing will helm could never ever receive any kind of praise,

approval or encouragement for any reason. He was ordered to eat dry bread for breakfast. When he and his siblings hosted their cousins, they were required to give them cakes and cookies without eating any sweets for themselves. No matter how well, yeah, this guy's, this is so fucked up. This is like calculated shit, yeah. well, yeah, this guy's, this is so fucked up. This is like calculated shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No matter how well Prince Wilhelm performed, George Hens Peter never gave him so much as a kind word. The impossible was expected of the pupil in order to force him to meet the nearest degree of perfection. Naturally, the impossible goal could never be achieved, logically, therefore, the praise which registers approval was also excluded.

God. Yeah, just with whole love from your child and see what happens. That's such a, oh, God, why did I feel like sometimes parents, I mean, again, this is just like every bad parenting technique turned up to an 11 for no reason. It's amazing how many different bad types of parenting he receives from really everyone but his parents. But his parents.

He's got so many sets of, yeah. Yeah. God, that's so brutal. Yeah, they're like, oh, watch your cousin eat a piece. I feel like that happens to kids sometimes as punishment. You know, you're like, oh, look, everyone's gonna get birthday cake,

but you, whatever, you shit on the floor. So you got to eat a cracker I'm not some of those people grow up to be shitty managers at a sonic, but since they don't have the German mill They don't inherit the German military. So it's not a huge problem There's a version of Wilhelm had he been from you know like from a normal class of person where he would have just been a Perfectly happy manager of a lids that didn't talk to his family that much. No, no, and he would have denied his employees' lunch breaks for shitty reasons.

Yeah, just because he's got some hurt in his heart. Yeah, the damage would have been contained. Right, right. Not that we can don't this behavior from lids managers. We don't. But I prefer people don't this behavior from Lids managers. We don't. But, but I prefer people like Ville Home become Lids managers than imperial German army managers. Okay. Okay. I'm listening. Yeah. Now every Wednesday and Saturday, Hins Peter and Ville Home would visit museums and art galleries. They would also visit factories, foundries, workshops, farms, and the like. The goal was to show the would-be Kaiser what life was like

for the manual laborers who actually built his country. To Hens Peters' credit, he also wanted the royal family to gain an understanding of social inequality and the suffering of workers. Wilhelm was required to remove his hat and deliver a thankful speech at every place of business they visited after their tour. So Hens Peters did a lot of the job of raising Ville home,

and that had positive and negative echoes as we'll see. One of his big demands was that the Prince develop and express an opinion of every single person he met. This was part of Hens Peter's plan to get the young man to express his views at all times, so that he would not be dominated by his advisors in the future. This one would wind up backfiring on the entire planet.

No. Now, as he grew into a young boy, Queen Victoria noticed some unpleasant changes taking over her darling grandson. He is inclined to be selfish, domineering, and proud, but I must say they are not his own faults, as they have been hitherto more encouraged than checked. A hinspider taught Wilhelm to write a horse by letting him fall off of it repeatedly, ignoring the princess's tears, enforcing him back on the horse for weeks until he got good at writing one handed.

He was said to be an excellent horseman. Nice. So he learns how to one handed write a horse. It's almost like they should have just let him learn how to do things with one hand the entire time. Rather than the torture machines. Rather than the evil torture machines. Yeah.

Jamie, your anti-torturing baby's agenda has been clear for quite some time. And I think you might be biased on this. Think, you know what, it's true. And people have been calling me out a lot. They're like, no, but what if we did torture the baby's, how will you know until you've tried it? How will you know until you've tried it?

Right, and that's fair. I haven't tried it yet. Yeah, well, this podcast. This podcast? Sure, of course. Yeah, well, this podcast. This podcast? Sure, of course. Yeah. What are they going to tell? Exactly.

What are they going to do? Nothing. Because they can't speak English. I'm about to get a kitten. So, you know, it's going to be fine. There is a specific type of torture that you have to do to young kittens if you want them to be affectionate, which is that you pick from a very young age. Do you know what the cat gun is?

The cat gun? It's when you hold your cat like a gun with its back legs as the handle and its front legs like a foregrip and you pretend it's a little machine gun. If you do that from the time that they're at what if you do that when they're a kitten then they grow up just knowing that people are going to pick them up and fuck with them and they're fine with it. And then they're really cuddly. You know, you hold it with anything that you hold with, too, Andrew, like, you know,

like a machine gun. I mean, you pretend it's a machine gun. You pretend it's, yeah, it just feels natural and right. I'm bringing you to the hospital, right? It's how you raise a baby kitten and then they grow up being very affectionate. Because they just know that people pick them up and do weird things to them and it's fine. That's nice.

I almost dressed my dog up like a gun for Halloween but I didn't want it to be interpreted as political. So I changed it to a knife. Your radical pro knife agenda has also been clear for some time. I have been in favor of knives. Look someone in the eye. Look, I just want eye contact.

Now, when Bill Helm was 10 in 1869, he was awarded the Order of the Black Eagle, a Prussian Chivalric Award that was supposed to be very prestigious, but kind of loses its lustre to me when awarded to children. He received fucking hundreds of awards and orders and knighthoods and duked them over the course of his life. We're going to ignore basically all of them, although his biography is always note whenever he was given a new one. He was also inducted into the first infantry regiment of the guards and made a German officer when he was 10 years old. So yeah, he's in the military from a very young age. And he's continually gifted more military units and made honorary member and commander of different military regiments in the Prussian army over

the course of his childhood. This is like getting micro machines was for me. Right. Right. They become, they're nice to have, but eventually they become meaningless. Yeah. Yeah. And he, and he loves these. Yeah, he loves his Louisville, a Terry unit. Sure. It's made up of real men. In 1870, France and Prussia went to war. Prussia I and Germany was born.

From here on out to the Kaisers, the kings of Prussia were kings of the entire German empire. There were like 22 other kings in Germany, but the Kaisers, the Kings of Prussia, where Kings of the entire German Empire. Now, there were like 22 other Kings in Germany, but the Kaisers were like the chief Kings of all of them. So, that's the story as we go in to our second ad break. Still, I think we're all kinda on the future Kaisers side at this point. I like that Robert, you choose moments to go to ad breaks where I feel I'm at the peak of I'm

in the edge of my seat and my hand is on my wallet as well. Yeah, you that could have gone another way, but it went wallet, you know, you have a weird habit with that wallet of holding it out before ad breaks. Yeah, my hands trembling. I'm helpless in the face of capitalism. I need the products, I need the services. Pull out your credit cards, everybody. Ignore what the actual products are and just immediately buy them without a thought. Don't even put in the discount code. Don't even put in the discount.

Well, no do because then we get, then it helps us. Oh, sorry, Robert needs us. It's good for the show. Yes, I do. Here they go. In every town at the end of a quiet tree line street, there's one house that looks the same, but everyone knows is different. And in my new podcast, Murder Homes, we tell those stories of routine days

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Because a murder home is almost always two things. The place a family felt safest and the last place on Earth they expected to be hunted down. Listen to murder homes in the I-Hard Radio app Apple Podcast safest and the last place on Earth they expected to be hunted down. Listen to motorhomes on the IHR radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. On a winter morning in 2015 an electrician is murdered in a quiet Amsterdam suburb. It looks like an assassination but there's no motive. The killing, it leads investigators into a web of drugs, money laundering, and state sponsors assassinations that stretch us from Dublin to Dubai. At the centre is a cocaine

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I can tell you right now, the dog ramp guy has some very interesting problems. Listen to what's your problem on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back! We're back. So after 1871, Franco-Prussian War happens, the Prince's mother, the crown princess, who was, you know, was British and not Prussian, was very concerned about all of the war focus in her son's childhood. Again, she wanted relations between Britain and Prussia to be good, and she knew there was always a chance that there would be war between them. So she was very concerned like everyone in Europe about Prussia militarism, and she didn't

want her son to say, grow into a man whose ambition helped Europe plunge into a war that killed 17 million people. She didn't want that to happen. A frapper, I guess. A frapper. At least it occurred to her that it might happen. This could be a problem. So she sent the future Kaiser off to Germany in January of 1871 to remove him from Prussia in these negative military influences for a while. Now that month she wrote to Queen Victoria about her son's pleasant, amiable ways. She admitted that he was not possessed of brilliant qualities, nor any strength of character or talents, but he is a dear boy,

and I hope and trust he will grow up into a good and useful man. I've described a lot of my boyfriends that way, I think. I'm just like, He looks like shit. He can't seem to stay clean for some reason, but he's nice. I don't know. I hope he grow up into useful. I hope one day grow up. I'm trying to raise him as best I can.

I of course. Yeah, so I get know, I get it. I get it. Yeah. The bar's low. The bar's low. Yeah. And at some point, you know, the Kaiser read these letters, his mom wrote about him to his

grandma, which has to have done some damage. That sucks. If you, like, that's like going into your mom's text and finding out how disappointed she actually is, you're like, oh, yeah, it's okay. Now, the prince loved his time in England. He spent a lot of it making butter and cheese at the Royal Dairy and looking over Britain's incredible collection of old wooden ships. Normal things.

Yeah. He really liked England. He was set for most of his life. He said that he would be happier as an English country gentleman than as the king of pressure. It was probably true. I was like that. Tracks. Yeah. Yeah, we all wish that had been the case, Wilhelm.

Honey, you and I both, baby. In 1874, 15-year-old Prince Wilhelm started classes at Castle Polytechnic, a public school. Now, this was hugely controversial among, and by public school, I mean, in like the sense of only rich, non-nobal kids got to go there, not in the sense of everybody from all walks of life went there, but they weren't,

royals, they weren't like, aristocrats. It wasn't like, exclusive enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was very controversial among his family, many of whom were horrified of the idea of a noble child competing against commoners for grades. But Hens Peter thought it would be good for the prince. He knew was not all of that bright,

to be humiliated by getting bested by his social inferior. For some reason, I do not grasp. He thought that this would push the prince to develop a sense of superiority over common people. Like, it's one of those things where at the start where he's like, oh, you want him to realize that like, he's not the smartest person in the room. Okay, this can the start where it's like, oh, you want him to realize that like,

he's not the smartest person in the room. Okay, this can actually be really healthy. Oh, no, you want him to get a sense of superiority of people over learning that they're better at school than him. How did this track to you? It's Peter. I get it.

It tracks to me because it's just, I feel like that's like a way for Willhelm to realize exactly how powerful he is. He's like, oh, I'm dumb as rocked and it doesn't fucking matter. I'm still, if I don't like how much smarter someone is than me, I'll just have him fucking killed. Yeah, maybe, yeah, that may have been

the kind of the reasoning there. I don't like that I get it, but I think I get it. Yeah. Now at school, Wilhelm started his days at 5 a.m. and didn't end them until 9 p.m. So this is a brutal school schedule. He was a decent student, he got okay grades, but he was not exceptional. His best friend at Castle was Sigfried Sommer, a Jew in top of the class. Now this is not worried because as we'll cover the Prince grew into probably Germany's second most anti-Semitic

leader of all time. Oh wait, who's number one? Okay. He's not number one at anything. He's number two. And I will say this in fairness to the Kaiser, there is a big gap between two and one in most anti-Semitic German leader, the contest. That's fair. There's a sizable gap between the two. Where's his JoJo rabbit? Yeah. I can't wait to see that. Have you seen that?

I like it. Yeah, I saw it the other day. I liked it. It looks good. I just haven't had a chance to get down to the theater. It's fun. It's a romp. And that Jamie says it's a romp.

Check it out, people. It's a... It's a... It's a... It's a... It's'm so I'm so easily bothered by like child actors and they got a good one. No, I hate most children. They're okay. Well, let's take us to the next level. It's good. It's good though. I liked it. Yeah. Now is probably the right time to talk about the princes bizarre feelings towards his mother. Now Freud would tell us

that it's not unusual for young boys to have a childish sort of infatuation with their mother. But even by Freudian standards, Wilhelm was fucking odd. I mean, it sounds like she's the only person that was nice to him. Yeah, I'm still going to say this is, I'm just going to read this quote from the biography Kaiser Wilhelm can size life and you can tell me what you can help analyze this. This is a long one, Jamie, and there's a lot to unpack here. Is it horny? Let me just read the quote and we'll discuss it. Okay. Quote, in the winter of 1874, 75, Wilhelm began a series of letters to his mother in English naturally recounting a recurring dream he was having. Letters that are remarkable, So, in the winter of 1874-75, Wilhelm began a series of letters to his mother, in English

naturally, recounting a recurring dream he was having. Letters that are remarkable not only for their evidently incestuous character, but also for their fetishistic emphasis on her gloved left hand, a poignant cry for unconditional acceptance and love if ever there was one. I have got a little secret, which is for you alone, there's a peculiar dream he wrote to Vicki his mom on March 1875, shortly after her visit to Castle for his 16th birthday. I dreamt last night that I was walking with you and another lady, and walking you were

discussing who had the finest hands, whereupon the lady produced a most ungrateful hand, declaring that it was the prettiest and turned us her back. I, in my rage, broke her perisol, but you put your dear arm around my waist. Let me aside, pulled your gloved hand off your deer left hand, which I so often kissed at castle, and showed me your deer beautiful hand which I instantly covered with kisses. Will help hope that his dream would become reality. I wish that you would do the same when I am at Berlin alone with you in the evening, and he continued, craving reassurance. Pray right to me what you think about this dream.

It is quite true as I have written it. You say I always think of you, my dear mama. I sometimes dream of you. I am so glad that soon we will sit together in your dear library and sit together. But this dream is alone for you to know, he insisted. Several days later, the dream occurred. I am very glad that you liked my little secret about your dear hands. Since then I have again dreamt about you. This time I was alone with you in your library when you stretched forth your arms and pulled me down to your chairs so that my

head rest on your left arm. Then you took off your gloves and laid your hands gently on my lips. For me to kiss it, asking me at the same time if I remember dreaming about you. I instantly seized your hand and kissed. Then you gave me a warm embrace putting your right arm around my shoulder and neck and got up and walked around the rooms with me. No, no, no. So that's odd, right? That's that's peculiar. He's just like writing his mom being like, I want to fuck you. Is that okay? I want to fuck I want to fuck your hand. Well, that's well, I think well, that's like very telling, right? That he's like fixated on hands and arms.

That makes sense because of the everyone in his life is obsessed about. So of course, that man becomes this erotic fixation, left hand fetish, if you will. Oh, that's just like baby boy, put it in your journal and then light it on fire. Do not send it to Mama. Burned in that fucker.

Yeah. Why send that to Mama? And wait, so wait, so there was, he sent a letter and then presumably got a reply that was like, oh yeah, tell me more. Yeah, we're going to get into that a little bit. Now I've read a few biographies of Ville Helm, and most of them mention this weird fixation, but they kind of breeze past it.

Like they'll note it was weird, but they don't go into that much detail. Ralph's book is the one I found that really does the best job of highlighting how fucking peculiar this all was. And I'm gonna continue quoting from that. Yeah, I mean, the hand fixation's very telling. Yeah.

Yeah. He could hardly wait for his dream to be fulfilled In eight days he wrote we will go to Berlin and then what I dream about we will do in reality when we are alone in your rooms without any witnesses No, this is the second secret He's like 14 or 15. He's like a little horny teenage boy He's a horny for mama. Oh, I thought. Okay, kiss her, keep going. This is the second secret for you.

Pray right to me what you think about it and promise to do so really as you did in my dream to me for I do so love you. The correspondence continued in this vein for several months. In May 1875, he urged his mother again to keep your promise you gave me at Berlin, always give me alone the soft inside of your hand to kiss But of course you keep this as a secret for yourself With less than four weeks to go That's definitely

Hand is a pussy like that's his energy. Okay. Yeah With less than four weeks to go before the holidays He wrote thanking her for her most recent letter. How glad I was to see the promise written down that I could kiss your hands as much as I liked. Be sure of it, I shall do it. Shortly before their reunion, Wilhelm could hardly contain his excitement, calculating that

it was now only days or 84 hours or in 5,040 minutes or in 302,400 seconds before he would be able to embrace his mother again and pots him and kiss her sweet beautiful hands. Yeah. Hands, Robert. Yeah. The man likes his mommy's hands. The man loves his mom's hands.

He likes to touch mommy's hands. I, well here's my question. What is she replying to this? Because it doesn't sound like she's saying, please stop talking about fucking my hands. I think we can forgive the crown princess for not knowing how to respond to her teenage son's sexual obsession with her hands. I'm just trying to get a feel for like,

is she weirded out by it but doesn't know how to handle the situation or is she like, this is cool. She's weirded out. Okay. Okay. You know, at first she's like, okay, yeah, you can kiss my hands. Then she tries to like move the letters along

to something more normal. Like how is she trying to humor him? And then she tried politely ignoring it. She would return his letters to him with like the spelling corrected and stuff, correcting his grammar and stuff, not really addressing him. About how he wants to fuck her head.

Like if you're gonna have to talk my hands, say it right. Yeah. Oh my. We can safely say she felt very strange about it. And eventually she did what she thought was the responsible thing and pushed her son away just a little bit to try and like get some distance. Some boundaries.

Yeah. And he found this deeply painful. This led to a start of a split between mother and son, which many people who write about the Kaiser have seen as the seeds of the split between Germany and Britain, as the future Kaiser began to push back against the British site of his ancestry since his mother was British.

So, this may it can't significant repercussions. As long as it's long for. I mean, you can't blame her. She's like, what do you do? Someone shut up about wanting to kiss your hand like that yeah God what a Predicament that's what what a predicament And then you think back of like well, maybe if everyone wasn't complaining about this kids hands his whole life He wouldn't have this weird horny hand thing. And you just,

and again, this is why you shouldn't have kings or leaders with any kind of significant amount of power like this because like they grow up with, so like this weird hand thing is something that like, you know, Wilhelm couldn't help that he felt that way. It was where, like,

he was, like this was going to happen. His mom kind of drawing away from him wasn't unreasonable Him having really complicated feelings about England as a result of this wasn't unreasonable But he grew up with the German army as his inheritance so it became an issue You just have too much to lash out with you Just like take your mom's car like yeah Like yes, God, I think that so far the villain of this story is power. I know it'll be a little ham that's so-

Exactly, but right now it's power. But it's still mostly power, even though like there are points at which he does make choices that make him into a villain, the primary villain is still power. If he had just been a normal dude and like gotten some fucking therapy, I get the feeling just knowing kind of gotten some fucking therapy, I get the feeling just knowing kind of

Everything about his life. I get the feeling with a competent therapist He could have been a decent man who would have raised a relatively healthy family and like not damaged the world He would have been a perfectly like You know in an offensive like whatever guy. He just would have been a guy. I don't think he was inherently moved to commit acts of horrible evil. I, but he did. And yet, yeah.

Yeah. Now, Willhelm reached adulthood and did the normal things that Prussian kids did at that point. He joined the military, he went to military school, he got command of his first military units. Now, he was noted by everyone as having no real ability to focus on the finer points of strategy and tactics, but having a deep and abiding love of making men march around in fancy

uniforms. It became instantly apparent that the prince would not be the great warlord that his father was. Now on the 27th of March 1879, Wilhelm's 11-year-old younger brother, Waldenmar, died from diphtheria, along with one of his aunts. Wilhelm had been jealous of the little boy, who was widely seen as his parents' favorite, but he was a dutiful mourner for his brother, and held an all-night vigil at the coffin. He described the family pain as deep and cruel beyond words, which is a reasonable way to

react to the death of an 11-year-old. Sure, yeah. But a few months later, Wilhelm was back to acting like a dick to his mom. His little brother had owned a cat, which his mom had adopted once he died, and she loved the animal, and it clearly gave her some comfort in the absence of her beloved boy. While they were out vacationing, the housekeeper of one of their vacation homes shot the cat, cut off his nose, and hung it up against a tree. He did this because it was his job to ensure the fesant population

of the property stayed healthy so the nobles could hunt. Wilhelm's mother and sisters were horrified, but the prince defended the keeper, saying the cat murder had been lottable zeal in the pursuance of his duty. So we're seeing as he grows into a young man, this guy has some emotional depth issues,

some difficulty understanding why certain things are horrifying to other people Good Yeah, his poor I'm just like feeling for his mom of just like oh his mom is obsessed with me He won't stop mutilating animals. What yeah, what do I do? No, her son didn't do it the guy who killed the cat mutilated it to scare off other cats. Oh, okay That's still not okay, but okay. It's not okay.

It is pretty normal. Like, you know, I have friends and family with farms, and like, if you kill a coyote on your farm and you have livestock, it's not abnormal to like, hang the corpse of the coyote up to scare off other coyotes to protect your cows and shit. Like, it's something that people do when they're trying to maintain a population of prey animals.

Very game of thrones. Yeah, it's fucked up, but it's also like life in the rural world. Although killing somebody's pet cat to protect a fesant population, I would argue is not the healthy way to deal with that. Maybe keep the cat indoors. It's the eggs.

Yeah, like there was a clear solution to that and it was, it's not like a pack of, yeah, it's not like a pack of wild wolves like there are other ways that this could have been handled The worst case scenario is that there were a couple more cats around Yeah, oh boy now as a young adult will help them fell madly in love with his cousin Ella But auto van Bismarck was not a fan of the pairing. Now Bismarck is a guy will probably do an episode on at some point. He's one of the most important people who's ever lived. He was the actual mind behind the formation of the German Empire. He engineered the Franco-Prussian war and is again probably the single man most responsible

for making Germany a thing. We did a whole unit on that motherfucker. Yeah, he's a very important influential guy. Yeah, he's an influencer. Yeah, as he's a dip, but he's also he's also very smart and very capable. Yeah, like he's not one of these powerful people who's also an idiot. He knows what the fuck he's doing. Now, the Kaiser Prince Wilhelms grandfather was the monarch of Germany, but Bismarck made a lot of the critical decisions. He was kind of the, it's not fair to compare Prince Wilhelms, grandfather or father to George W. Bush, but Bismarck is kind of like a dick-chainy type, the power behind the throne.

Yeah. And Otto von Bismarck was worried that Ella was too closely related to Kaiser Wilhelm, so he didn't let that relationship come to pass. So Kaiser saw this as Ella rejecting him, and he wrote to his Peter that he thought his fucked up arm had made him unlovable, which was a normal thing for him to feel considering that his grandmother had told him that his fucked up arm made him unlovable. Now thankfully there was another princess waiting

in the wings, Donna Augustinburg. She was a low-rint princess, basically the safe way select equivalent of a Holland's Aller, the family of the Kaisers. But Bismarck liked that she was not. Yeah, yeah, she's not like a high level princess. But Bismarck liked that she was not closely related to Wilhelm. He called

her a Holstein cow and thought that she would inject fresh blood into the Hawthorne's all-in line, which was played by in breeding an illness. That's not great. Love that description of her. But super into that. Okay. But good to know. Now, when the marriage was announced, his Peter was a static that his dearly beloved problem child was going to marry someone who understands him and sympathizes with him in his weaknesses. Hens Peter was on record as saying that Wilhelm needed people around him who gave him unconditional

love and admiration because he just couldn't exist without it. And one of the weird notes is that like, I think we can all look at how Hens Peter had him raised as like profoundly abusive. But Kaiser Wilhelm loved Hens Peter till the day he died and wrote him letters up until the older man's death, like almost on a daily basis, he would write,

like desperately seemed to crave this man's affection and approval. It's like devastating, you know what, yeah. Yeah, it, desperately seem to crave this man's affection and approval. It's like devastating, you know, yeah. Yeah, it's fucked up, man. This kid, like, how does, there's no way this guy ends up healthy, you know? And again, it's like if you're just in a regular person with daddy issues, you're just one of the many. But daddy issues with power.

Who people are going to die? Real problem. Yeah. Now, this gets at one of the things I think is wildest about the very idea of a monarchy. When you really look into the letters everyone around the future Kaiser was writing, as both Rolf and Vanderkiss, the main biographers who were sources for this episode, did, it's obvious that 100% of the people who knew Wilhelm when he was young, knew ahead of time that he was going to be a terrible Kaiser.

The best anyone would say about him was that he was going to be a terrible Kaiser. The best anyone would say about him was that he could be sweet and charming, but nobody thought he was gifted in any intellectual capacity. As he grew older, his family wrote increasingly about his startling arrogance, his inability to take advice or criticism, and his frequent tendency to snap into blind rages.

So everyone's like, oh, this guy shouldn't be king, but he's gonna. But he's gonna. Boy, that'll suck when that inevitably happens. It's a shame there's no other possible thing we can have than a monarchy. Oh, well.

Too bad. Jesus Christ. Okay, all right. Yeah. That is, I mean, that does make me slight. I mean, obviously we're in a terrible version of democracy, but like, at least there, some things aren't inevitable from that far away. No, that's an iterative sort of thing.

Yeah. Now, the Prince's parents hope that the marriage would have a soothing effect on his worst characteristics. But unfortunately, his wife Donna was one biographer describes as a reactionary bigot who small-minded views only reinforced his own. Oh, whoopsies. Yeah, to make matters worse, she despised the British,

which helped push Prince Wilhelm further away from his mother. She was against liberal politics and the growing mood towards democratization in Europe. She treated the crown prince and princess Wilhelm's parents coldly and further pushed them away from him. Wilhelm started referring to his family

as the English colony and complained that his father treated him as if he were a dumb child. Now, Otto von Bismarck also took advantage of the growing rifts between Wilhelm and his parents. While the Crown Prince wanted Germany to draw closer to England, Bismarck was deeply suspicious of the British. He'd spent his entire life building an intricate series

of alliances that he believed would render Germany essentially impossible to invade. Under Bismarck's guidance, the German Empire had forged a strong defensive pact with Russia and Austria-Hungary. This meant that roughly 80% of Europe would be on one side, Germany's side, if a war broke out, which would essentially make it impossible to have nobody's going to go to war with you.

Like the Russian Empire at this point is one-sixth of the world's landmass. So like, and Germany has, by all accounts, the best army in Europe. So nobody is going to war against that. Like it's just impossible. Nobody would make a decision that stupid. And they're all cousins. And they're all cousins. But they're all cousins. Yeah. But yeah, Bismarck doesn't have much faith in royal diplomacy, which would prove to be wise.

He had faith in if we have, essentially, this is the nuclear arms race of its day, is having an alliance that no one could dare to fight. And so that was Bismarck's strategy. He's like, well, as long as we're in good with Russia, nobody will fuck with us. And that ensures peace in Europe. And he's right. As long as Russia is allied with Germany, there are no wars between European states and like a mass scale. Right.

Now, there are some very persistent rumors that Wilhelm was homosexual. It seems more accurate to say that he might have been bisexual. Okay. He fell in love with a guy named Juleimberg, another noble who Wilhelm described as, my bosom friend, the only one I have. Now it's very unlikely, either boy ever consummated their attraction, but for years they were inseparable. In his biography of Wilhelm, Emil Ludwig wrote that Yulimberg was, the first to open the gates of the Garden of Romance to the young man who had been forced

into the part of hard-bitten Prussian prince and was now taking leave of an adolescence, poor alike, and love and the dreams of youth. God. So. Yeah. It's really hard not to feel for this guy. Like he's.

It's rough, man. Yeah. He's got a lot of forces working against him. It's, oh, it's not. Oh. Yeah. He's a disabled bisexual abuse victim. They should just, yeah, he and his boyfriend should just move away.

If only they'd gotten a house in Paris or something together. So nice. That painted pictures. Yeah. Yeah, and he was, will helmet had like some aptitude for art. He was described by someone as a gifted artist who never found his art. So like he was good at a bunch of different things,

but he never really found his family. Well, no, because Hitler was shitty at it. Like Wilhelm, you get the feeling if he'd like gotten some actual, if it had been made a real, like if people had made a point of really giving him some serious art training, he would have figured out what he was into and could have been really talented. What if this was the point where you found out that I actually thought Hitler's art was

really good and that he was in the awkward position? I was like, oh yeah, like, yeah, no, Hitler was a terroir. Obviously, we all agree on that. Jamie Loftus has a Hitler. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I would actually love to have an original Hitler just for the talk about it. Oh, yeah, but I love haunted things. You my God. No, they're so haunted. They're so.

Yeah, but I love haunted things. You do love haunted things. That's very true. Absolutely. Oh my God. So he was like, he was a better artist. You know, I just, yeah. He seems to have been good.

He just never quite like found something that he was really into throwing his whole interest behind. And obviously, he had to be the Kaiser. So there was a lot of other shit on his play. No time for painting when you're the Kaiser. No time for painting when you're the Kaiser. Some time for painting, but not enough. Right.

Now, Bismarck saw Wilhelm as a plant moldable dummy. He could direct in whichever direction he chose. The key for Bismarck was to deepen the rift between the prince and his father. In the mid-1880s, he went behind the crown prince's back and made the future Kaiser the chief envoy of the German Empire. Now this by all right should have been his father's job, but Bismarck worried the crown prince's English sympathies would look bad to the Russians, since Russia and England had just fought a war over the Crimea. So he pushed Wilhelm into

the role. Wilhelm's father complained that this was a terrible idea. In view of the immaturity, as well as the inexperience of my eldest son, together with his tendency towards overbearingness and self-conceit, I cannot but frankly regard it as dangerous to allow him at present to take pardon any foreign affairs. Wooo! Yeah. Yeah. Prince Wilhelm was a terrible diplomat.

His arrogance came off badly, and he had a nasty habit of insulting the world leaders he talked to. He botched his first meeting with the Russian Tsar by basically giving him approval to conquer Constantinople. Something the Tsar didn't think he needed a proof, he didn't need to get from an upstart boy who wasn't even Kaiser yet. No!

So the print, yeah. God, what a doofus. Yeah, so the Princess career did not start with great promise, but at least he was a conjure. Which everyone everyone knew was gonna. Yeah, everyone knew was happening. Yeah, I Will say though he enjoyed some fringe benefits of the gig is envoy to Russia according to Vanderkiss book Quote he relished the attention paid to him as chief envoy of the German Empire and he was deeply impressed with the bearing of the young Infantry recruits on parade at the winter palace. Nevertheless, he betrayed rather more than he intended when he wrote into tale about the physical appearance of the soldiers. A very nice-looking lot, though the fact that hardly any of them had any hips made their white capes look as though they had been poured into their slim bodies.

He doesn't understand when to like not be horny. Oversh-you're oversharing, man. He's horny on main. He's horny on main all the time. Just be, yeah, he's like, yeah, at least make a fake account. Don't you see? Yeah, Pola, Mitt Romney, right these under another name.

He is being horny on the main. It's so, it's such a bad look. I mean, I'm fine with it. Like no judgment, bro, but like, don't be horny on the main. I'm fine with it. Like no judgment, bro, but like, don't judge it. Don't be horny on the main. Yeah, you are being horny in your official job as international diplomat,

which is probably inappropriate. That's a line. That's a line, Wilhelm. Now, Wilhelm also had mistresses, but he was no better at managing them than he was at managing international diplomacy. In 1886, he arranged to have two of his mistresses follow his train out of Berlin and meet him in a small village in Austria.

The women did so, but when they arrived, he refused to reimburse them for their travel costs. Now, she note now that he was the wealthiest man in Germany. I mean, I felt, well, that's just dating a rich guy. Yeah. Yeah. The women are going to be great. Yeah, I mean, I felt well, that's just dating a rich guy. Yeah, yeah, the women. The women gonna be great. And then it turns out that they're fucking mean.

Meisers. Yeah, the women left. Yeah, the women left in a rage and one of them stole one of the prince's monogrammed cufflinks. So you can display it around town to prove that she's had a liaison with the prince. When the Kaiser realized this, oh, she was like, he's a real fucking king. I flew southwest for this. I'm with the prince when the Kaiser realized this

He gave me our flu Southwest for this Now when the Kaiser realized this he begged them to come back and he offered to pay for their travel costs They returned and finally The ensuing threesome was do. They are. Yeah. Yeah. The ensuing threesome was so loud that it woke up other guests in the hotel. People could actually hear them talking post-coitus. A number of random austrians heard the future chisers complaining to

prostitutes about his parents. He called his dad a conceded popularity seeker under Jewish influence. He also loudly insulted Austria, his nation's closest ally as rotten, close to dissolution. God, I know. He called the Austrian people useless pansees and gourmands,

no longer fit for life. I hope that the sex workers got like an emotional support bonus. You know, it's like, that's not what you, huh? Well, he made one of them pregnant and she blackmailed him and she got a shitload of money out of it. So that's good. Oh, these, these are in rule.

They're fine. They're like, this guy's a loser. Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy. They're, oh man, brutal. Word of all this got back to the Austrian crown prince, which sparked another international incident. This all boated particularly ill for the future.

In the space of a year, the young prince had insulted both of his nation's chief military allies. The emperor, his grandfather, was ill and near death. And right as his grandfather starts dying, his father also gets sick, which would prove to be throat cancer. So none of this boads well for the future of peace in Europe. Right. They're like, oh no, the fuck up is the future of peace in Europe. Right. They're like, oh, no, the fuck up is the only one who will live.

Okay. In 1888, the emperor died and the crown prince became Kaiser. The crown prince, you know, the Kaiser's, the future Kaiser's dad. He would only rule for 99 days and he was very ill for all of them. By the time he died on June 15th, 1888, now crown prince, Wilhelm had already been taking on and botching many of his dad's duties. That same day, Kaiser Ville Helm

ascended to the throne of the German Empire. So in part two, we're gonna talk about what happened once he was in charge. All right. It's not gonna go well. It's not gonna go well. Jamie, you got some plug-ables to plug? I got some plug-ies.

I'm releasing a podcast on Thanksgiving called My Year of Menta. It's about what the title is about. It's about My Year of Menta, how I got in and how I almost got bullied out. And then you can listen to the Bechtel cast every week. You can follow me on Twitter at Jamie Loftus' Help, and that's what you can do. That's what you can do. That's what you're able to do at this time. Now, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram, and at Bastards Pod, you can find me personally

on Twitter at I Write Okay, where I am not horny on main, because that's inappropriate, especially with all of the diplomacy I have to do with the Russian army. Yeah, I mean, it would make you a terrible Kaiser. It would make me a terrible Kaiser, and my whole job is to become a very good Kaiser. Yeah, your Finsta is horny as hell. Yes, oh my God. It's out of control. It is nothing but thirst posting, really shameless, shameless, cancelable, thirst posting.

Really awful. It's hide, I muted it. Now Jamie,, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like like where you post, you know, you post, you know, the illusion on the main, right? You're like, I'm so happy. Everything's great. And then you post depression memes and thirst posts on the finster. Oh, that's where you're like, you're, you're, you're, you know, two extremes. See, I write my thirst posts on a sheet of paper and then I cut my finger and block them out with blood and then I burn them in a bonfire at night in order to wipe away my shame in front of God and the heavens. I know, but unfortunately that is a spell that means it's in a book somewhere far away. So your thirst posts are, uh, they're documented somewhere.

You shouldn't drop blood on it. That activates the curse. Damn it. I'll send you some words. Well, damn it. If you want to activate a curse, buy some T-shirts from teapublic.com. All of our shirts come cursed. That's good. The episode's over. Okay. the episode's over. Okay. Behind the bastard's introduction of Cool Zone Media, for more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website CoolZoneMedia.com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Maroonovich and I've been obsessed by homes that are stigmatized forever by the brittle crimes that happen inside four walls. And in my new podcast, Murder Homes, we tell those stories. Of routine days that start like any other, and turn into wrenching nightmares. All across the country, there are addresses I'll introduce you to that you'll never forget, and the experts that know them best.

Listen to Murder Homes on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told, where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of those roles. These are the stories we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Listen to the greatest true cram stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, this is Shannon Dordy. Host of the new podcast, let's be clear with Shannon Dirty. So in this podcast I'm going to be talking about marriage, divorce, my family, my career. I'm also going to be talking a lot about cancer, the ups and the downs, everything that I've learned from it. It's going to be a wild ride. So listen to Let's Be Clear with Shannon Dirty. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. So listen to Let's Be Claire with Shannon Dordy on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts