Kaiser William II was born on January 27, 1859 to a Prince and Princess
of Prussia. His mother was the daughter of
Queen Victoria
. He grew up like any
Prussian Prince, except for an arm that was deformed from birth. He
admired his grandparents who became Kaiser and Empress when he was
small. He also admired his English Grandmother Queen Victoria as well
as
Otto von Bismarck
. During his
formative years he had to deal with having brothers and sisters. His
brother Henry even got married to their cousin Irene (their Aunt
Alice's daughter). Because of the attention his parents gave to his arm
he grew to detest them.
When William was in his late teens he fell in love with his cousin (the
daughter of his Aunt Alice) but she did not love him and got married to
Grand Duke Serge of Russia. A few years later he got married to a
granddaughter of his grandmother's half-sister. They had several
children. In 1888 when his father died he raided his desk to find
anything that may have incriminated his father in something, but all
that was found was papers about how bad he had been in his life. He was
with his grandmother Queen Victoria when she died in 1901. Later that
year he lost his mother as well. He did the same thing to his mother
that he did with his father with the same results. Vickie had given all
her papers to the British ambassador to Berlin a few days before she
died.
After his mother died he continued to rule Germany in a back handed
manner, and did not like the fact that his Uncle Edward was more
powerful than he was. He did not like the fact that he was part of
starting World War One because it pitted him against cousins, aunts,
and uncles all over Europe and the Americas. His response to his cousin
changing their last name to Windsor was that he would like to see the
Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. After the war he had to give up his
throne and he went to the Netherlands, where after the death of his
first wife he married a second. He stayed married to his second wife
till he died at the age of 82 in 1941.