Noble Blood - What Crown Prince Wilhelm Left Behind

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Georg Friedrich, the great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II is embroiled in a legal battle with Germany, attempting to reclaim millions of euros worth of property that was taken from his family during the Soviet occupation of Germany. But the law that allows property reclamation has one major caveat: property is forfeited if your ancestors significantly contributed to the rise of the Nazi party. So exactly how significant was the role of the Kaiser's son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, in the Nazi party? Because the photos don't look great for him... Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

One quick note before we begin, Noble Blood is now on Patreon. So if you are interested in supporting the show and getting a behind the scenes look at my process and getting access to Q&A's, bibliographies, further readings, and episode scripts, Check out patreon.com slash nobleblood tales. All right, let's dive in. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. There are two German people that I need to introduce you to before this story can really begin.

The first is Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia. That's his legal last name. Prince von Prusson. Germany is no longer a monarchy today, but if it were, Georg Friedrich would be its leader. The 44-year-old head of the House of Hohenjolern is the great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German emperor and king of Prussia, who abdicated both of those titles in 1918, following Germany's defeat in World War I. Up until then, the Hohenzollern family had ruled in modern-day Prussia for over 300 years. Looking at Gaior Friedrich, you wouldn't necessarily think that he's royal.

He looks like any other attractive, wealthy person in his 40s. He could be a stockbroker or a member of the local school board. Still, he is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, which makes him technically 202nd in line for the British throne, although I've seen that number as low as 170th. The second German man you need to know for this story is the German equivalent of John Stewart back when he was hosting The Daily Show, a man named Jan Borman.

Jan is the host of a late-night television show called Neo-Magazin Royal. Like any political satire, the show is no stranger to controversy. Jan has launched a handful of national scandals, in the press and dealt with about as many lawsuits. Last year, in 2019, Jan erred a segment that brought a little-known legal battle to national attention. For years, Gaeorick Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, had secretly been embroiled in negotiations with the German government in an effort to reclaim thousands of pieces of art and other priceless historical artifacts and to regain his family.

claim to a number of castles and other properties, a negotiation worth hundreds of millions of euros. When the Soviets claimed East Germany after World War II and half the country fell under communism, much of the Holon-Jorland family property fell on the wrong side of the iron curtain. But then the Berlin Wall came down and in 1994, German Parliament passed a law which allowed Germans the right to reclaim property that had been seized in the Soviet occupation. But that law had one major caveat. You had the right to family property, but that right was automatically forfeited if your ancestors significantly contributed to the rise of the Nazi party. This is where things get slightly sticky for Georg Friedrich. The Kaiser abdicated in 1918 after

after Germany's defeat in World War I, and he spent the rest of his life in exile in the Netherlands to avoid being extradited by the Allies. But his son, former Crown Prince Wilhelm, did return to Germany. And there are a number of more than uncomfortable photos of the former Crown Prince wearing a Nazi uniform, saluting, smiling and laughing next to Adolf Hitler, like they're the best friends in the world.

Geyorg Friedrich's negotiations with the German government over the art and the property had almost been entirely private until the Jan Bormann segment in which the comedian dubbed Geyorg Friedrich, in German, hashtag print stupid. Jan Borman said that for bringing the case at all, for trying to reclaim any of the property that was currently being displayed to the public as museums, meant that Gaeorges Georg Friedrich had, and I quote, I are Ashtal, balls of steel. For Georg Friedrich, I imagine it's not just a matter of money,

although it does seem like quite a bit of money, but of family honor and shame. Whatever pride he might take in being able to trace his lineage back past Queen Victoria, is permanently overshadowed by those photos of his great-grandfather, proudly wearing a swastika. But those photos, embarrassing as they are, can't tell a full story. And so millions of euros are at stake in a legal battle in which historians have been enlisted on both sides

to answer a seemingly simple question, did Crown Prince Wilhelm significantly help the Nazis? I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Crown Prince Wilhelm was the son of the last Kaiser. He was actually the son of a man with two titles, Kaiser of Germany and King of Prussia. Until 1871, Prussia was one of a number of sovereign states within the German Confederation. In 1871, the states became the German Empire, and the Hohen-Zollern family became its emperors. Kaiser Wilhelm the second.

went to war against two of his first cousins, the king and czar of England and Russia, respectively, in World War I. And his oldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, was obviously expected to show his bravery and composure on the battlefield in a leadership position. The Crown Prince was in his 30s when World War I began, and he, patriotic as any German, was thrilled at the notion of expansion and the sharing of Teutonic glory all over Europe. As a prominent noble, he was, of course, given command of an entire field army, regardless of the fact that he was completely unqualified and had done nothing with his 20s more notable than having an affair with the opera singer Geraldine Farrar.

Crown Prince Wilhelm had the misfortune of being born as a prince, while the idea of monarchy in Europe was facing a major reckoning. Famously, the devastation of World War I can be, in part, attributed to 19th century tactics and 20th century technology. A similar mismatch was at play with Europe's royal families at the time. Crown Prince Wilhelm had the lineage and ego of the absolute monarchs in a country no longer willing to give him any real power. And so, though Crown Prince Wilhelm was technically the commander of the military's fifth army, he had a chief of staff with actual experience who would be

actually, you know, doing the work. It was understood and expected that Crown Prince Wilhelm would defer to his chief of staff on all important military decisions. But the Crown Prince, still got to wear the sash and badges of a commander. The most noteworthy thing that Crown Prince Wilhelm was actually involved in in the war, for my money, is having an affair with the performer known as Madahari, who would be offered a million francs by the French military for German secrets, attempt to double cross them with the Germans, and then face execution by a French firing squad when the Germans left her out to dry.

Now, this would be a much longer and a much different podcast if I were to go into all of the details about the military maneuvers of the First World War. Those details are fascinating, and I encourage you to read more about them. But for now, I think it suffices to say that at the end of the war, Germany was in free fall. A generation of young men had been wiped out in the senseless bloodshed of trench warfare. Three million Germans, 15% of Germany's men were killed. While the German army stood facing the precipice of true and genuine defeat, its demoralized soldiers began to splinter in revolt against the aristocrats who had put them in that position to begin with.

First, there was a mutiny at sea by naval officers. Then, coming in from the coasts, the masses demanded change. A socialist uprising was bubbling within Germany. The nation was going to become a republic at any cost. On November 9th, with a crowd gathering in Berlin, the Kaiser and his closest advisors realized that they had no choice. The Kaiser resigned his royal title, as did his son, the crown prince.

Privately, the former Kaiser believed that, even though he had technically abdicated his title as Kaiser, he could still hold some power as the king of Prussia. It's the type of naivety that almost looks adorable in retrospect, like someone on the Titanic asking to make sure their tea is still out by the time they get back. Both the former Kaiser and former crown prince had to flee Germany in order to protect themselves from their own people's revolt. They went through Belgium and rode a train across,

the border to the Netherlands, a country that was neutral under Queen Wilhelmina. The Allied powers tried in vain to extradite the former Kaiser in order to charge him for war crimes, but Queen Wilhelmina was neutral and wanted to make a clear point to the rest of Europe, as to her nation's autonomy. And so the Kaiser would go on to buy a big house in Duren and live in exile in the Netherlands for the rest of his life, stewing about his wrongful forced eviction and blaming the Jews for sabotaging Germany during World War I from within. One more interesting thing happened to the former Kaiser,

not entirely relevant to the story, but I think worth mentioning just because it seems surreal to me that Ben Affleck hasn't made it into a movie yet. In January 1919, a former Tennessee senator named Luke Lee, who had just been serving as a colonel in France, attempted to kidnap the former Kaiser and bring him to justice. Like most American soldiers, Lee was frustrated that Kaiser Bill, as he called him, was just going to get away with it, to have caused so much death and then just go on to live a quiet life. in a pastoral Dutch village somewhere, it seemed unimaginable. After the war, Lee happened to stumble into a party where he met the Duke of Cognot, the uncle of both King George V and the Kaiser.

With the blazé attitude of the blue-blooded, the Duke mentioned offhandedly that no one was going to make a real fuss about the Kaiser now that he was in exile. Of course they were all embarrassed by the Kaiser. The British royal family had changed their last name in 1917 from Saxe Cobra Gotha to the more neutral-sounding Windsor, in order to avoid those pesky German associations. But nobility was nobility. The noble, like the wealthy, like to protect their own, or at least to try to prevent them from ever facing any actual consequences.

But Luke Lee was a good Southern boy who instinctively bristled against the insular camaraderie of the elite. And so he took matters into his own hands. With absolutely no permission from any authority whatsoever, Lee gathered a handful of other officers from his unit, and the group of them used fake civilian passports to sneak into Holland in a seven-passenger Winston car. Lee didn't tell the other men what their mission was going to be until they were already across the border. We're here to kidnap Kaiser Bill and bring him to Paris where they're having peace talks so they can bring them to justice, he said. Anyone who doesn't want to come along doesn't have to. Leave now. None of the men left.

Instead, the seven American soldiers drove through the January night to the 17th century castle, where the Kaiser was living with his wife. The gate was locked, but Lee left from the car and rattled at the railing until a guard approached. I demand to see the man in charge here, Lee shouted in terrible German. The guard, no doubt deeply uncomfortable by the rowdy strangers, nevertheless brought them inside and escorted them to the castle's library. After 15 minutes, a man entered. It wasn't the Kaiser, it was a Dutch nobleman named Count Bentink, wearing a full coat and tails.

State your business, the Count said. The Americans were silent. Benton gulfed the library and slammed the doors behind him. From the other side of the library doors, the American. Americans listened as the Count and the Kaiser talked quickly back and forth. Suddenly, the Count reappeared. If you don't have official business with the Kaiser, I'm afraid you must leave now, he said. We're nephews of the German Count, one of the Americans ad-libbed.

Lee shook his head. Their mission was over, and their next move was written on his face. Abort. Before anyone could say another word, Lee and the American, ran from the castle and jumped back into their car. They drove away as they saw Dutch troops coming up the road. Finally, when it seemed like the coast was clear, one of the men pulled a silver ashtray out from his pocket. At least we got a souvenir, he said. The ashtray was embossed with the German coat of arms and the initials W.I. Wilhelm Imperator. The former Kaiser

would file a formal complaint about the illegal Americans and their burglary of a priceless stolen ashtray. But in the end, Colonel Lee and his cohorts would receive what amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrists. Was

the cost of an ashtray really worth the cost and damages the Kaiser had caused to Europe? Perhaps the former Kaiser realized that it wasn't worth asking for anything from the international community. Any attention he received at that point would probably lead to trouble for him. He had gotten away with it,

with everything he did. He had his life and his freedom, and now he just needed to keep his mouth shut. Sometimes you need to quit while you're ahead. But while the former Kaiser was more or less comfortable in exile, the former crown prince was not. In 1923, the former crown prince, who from now on we'll just call Wilhelm, made a deal with the Chancellor that he would be allowed to return to Germany as long as he didn't get involved in politics. It didn't take him too long to break that promise.

From here, we have to do a little bit of speculation to draw conclusions about motivations and ideologies about which historians on both sides of the issue argue. How did Wilhelm feel about Adolf Hitler, the rising star of German politics in the 20s? Well, we know that Wilhelm shared a hatred of Jews and Communists. He would write a column published in a New York newspaper stating that Hitler was a, quote,

clear-sighted and energetic leader and commenting that the Jews and communists were the ones to blame for Germany's lowered status on the world stage. Wilhelm wrote glowing letters to Hitler, And he joined Der Stahlholm, a World War I veterans group that then went on to become the far-right Harsberg Front. And then when Hitler and his party were celebrating the reopening of the new Reichstag after the Reichstag fire, Crown Prince Wilhelm was the guest of honor. He marched in the day of Potsdam parade with three of his four surviving brothers, with a swastika on his arm.

For Hitler, the location and date of the celebration were of massive symbolic importance. Potsdam in Prussia was the seat of power for Frederick the Great, and the center of the Second Reich under Otto von Bismarck. The date Hitler chose, March 21st, was the anniversary of the opening of the first Reichstag. Everything that Hitler did was meant to convey the continuity and greatness of Germany under his place. party, a return to its former glory, and the crown prince was essential in that vision. Not only did Wilhelm's acceptance of Hitler ingratiate the politician among the aristocratic elites, but his very presence at the parade afforded it a legitimacy. Here was the heir of the Hoenzollern family, the people who had ruled Germany for hundreds of years, throwing his weight behind Adolf Hitler.

Here's the problematic part for Georg Friedrich, the head of the Holhenzollard family today, at least in terms of public image. There is no shortage of photographs of Crown Prince Wilhelm wearing the Storm Trooper Nazi uniform and boots, or standing across from Adolf Hitler looking genial like he's seeing an old friend. They are the type of damning photos of an ancestor that, to me, would make someone want to change their last. name altogether. But was being on Hitler's side publicly enough to constitute a, quote, significant contribution to the Nazi party? Some argue that Wilhelm was just cozying up to Hitler because he secretly believed that the Nazi party might restore the monarchy. In fact, once it

became obvious that Hitler had zero intention of sharing power with anyone, Wilhelm called towards But does it make a difference why someone supported Hitler? I only supported Nazis for a selfish reason is, to my ears, not an incredibly compelling line of defense. Christopher Clark, a professor at Cambridge who was hired by the Holon-Zollerns, initially argued in favor of restoring the Holon-Zollern property. He wrote that even though it was undeniable that the Crown Prince did support Hitler, he wasn't politically adept or intelligent enough for that support to be politically meaningful.

It's, as I like to think of it, the Don Jr. defense. Professor Clark says that he has since changed his mind on the issue since coming across new evidence. But the Holandzollerns have another historian, Wolframpita at the University of Stuttgart, who argues that, privately, Crown Prince Wilhelm actually rejected the Nazi system. But for the most part, the historians that I read, at least the translations of the internal reports that comedian Jan Bowerman leaked, paint a very clear picture. As the German historian Peter Brandt wrote, it cannot be denied that Wilhelm, especially in the dissolution phase of the Weimar Republic, and in the consolidation phase of the Third Reich, steadily and significantly, contributed to the transfer of power to the not party and to its consolidation. This happened in full awareness and in agreement with the path to dictatorship combined with the hope of a more prominent place in the new circumstances.

Once Hitler was fully in power, Wilhelm almost fully withdrew from public life. He lived at his palace in Potsdam, Cecilienhof, separated from his wife until the end of the war, when it was seized by the Red Army. That palace was actually used to host the Potsdam Conference, which you might remember from a famous photo they showed us in APUS history class of Winston Churchill, Harry S Truman, and Joseph Stalin all sitting side by side. After World War II, Wilhelm was captured by French Moroccan troops and placed under house arrest under the pretense of being a World War I criminal. He died of a heart attack in 1951 at age 69, and he was buried at Hohen-Zollern Castle, where his great-grandson, Georg Friedrich, now lives for part of the year. The legal demands that Georg Friedrich is making today are for the typical random assortment

of landed gentry property. Paintings by German masters, historically important letters, the chair where Frederick the Great died. You know, classic things. But he also requested the right for him and his family to live for free at the palace, Sicilianhof, which Germany recently restored with taxpayer money to turn into a museum. Georg Friedrich said that he hoped he and the government would reach a, quote, emicable settlement, but presumably to speed that along, in 2016,

he and his family began withdrawing pieces of art that they did own outright, but had been lending to public museums. Other nobles whose property had been forfeited under communism have made quiet settlement already. The Prince von Sacken Weimar Eisnuck was generous enough to accept $18.2 million for his assorted art pieces and castle inventory. There's so much on the line now between the German government and the Hohenzhenzollin family that neither side wants to

risk actually going to court and accepting the consequences of an all-or-nothing outcome. In August of 2020, both sides agreed to a year-long delay in court proceedings in order to try to negotiate a mutually acceptable compromise. The way Georg Friedrich describes it, he is simply upholding his family legacy. He's fighting not out of financial greed, but out of familial obligation, to take back the things that belong to the Holandjolern. At its inception, the idea of feudal nobility and monarchy was almost meant to be mutually beneficial

that a king or nobleman would protect his serfs in return for their loyalty. One has to wonder at what point does someone no longer earn the honor or dignity that society at large still ascribes to a title? At what point do they no longer remain? entitled to the extreme wealth that went along with it. It's not as though Georg Friedrich who owned three-fourths of the Holon-Zorne castle, two wineries, and an island outright, among his many other properties, is hard up for cash. Drawing attention to yourself and your great-grandfather in a Nazi uniform to ask for millions of euros in objects and properties that are

currently being given to the public takes, as Jan Bowerman would say, Iroche now. Being a monarch at the best of times puts a target on your back. Sometimes you need to quit while you're ahead. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network, it's Will Ferrell.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, And dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved.

And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive. scientist and hosts of the podcast a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent,

and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live. We have to be willing to live, with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In German culture, the day November 9th is massively significant. It's called Shiksalstog, or the day of fate. November 9th was the day that Kaiser Wilhelm's chancellor

announced the Kaiser's abdication. And then, five years later, it's the day that his son, the former crown prince, chose to return to Germany. It's the day of Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch and the horrific Kristlnacht in 1938, when Jewish shops and synagogues were destroyed and hundreds of Jews were murdered. And then, in 1989, it was the day the Berlin Wall fell, ending the German separation. All of the seeds of the story that led to the Kaiser's great-great-grandson, demanding compensation from the German government for the castles that the communists took,

were all planted in a steady row on different November 9th. I'm only sorry that this podcast is just a little early. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at No. Noble Blood Tales. And you can learn more about the show over at noblebloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio,

visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Bodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.