October 13, 2020 • 28 mins
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...
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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 and as bibliographies for
the readings and episode scripts, check out patreon dot com
slash Noble Blood Tales. All right, let's dive in. Welcome
(00:25):
to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. 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,
(00:49):
Prince von Prussen. Germany is no longer a monarchy today,
but if it were, Georg Friedrich would be its leader.
The forty four year old head of the House of
Hohenzo Learn is the great great grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm
the Second, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia,
who abdicated both of those titles in nineteen eighteen following
(01:14):
Germany's defeat in World War One. Up until then, the
hohens O Learned family had ruled in modern day Prussia
for over three hundred years. Looking at Georg Friedrich, you
wouldn't necessarily think that he's royal. He looks like any
other attractive, wealthy person in his forties. He could be
(01:35):
a stockbroker or a member of the local school board. Still,
he is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, which makes
him technically two hundred second in line for the British throne,
although I've seen that number as low as one hundred
and seventy Yet. The second German Man you need to
(01:55):
know for this story is the German equivalent of John
Stewart back when he was hosted The Daily Show, a
man named Jan Boorman. Jan is the host of a
late night television show called Neo Magazine Royal. Like any
political satire, the show is no stranger to controversy. Jan
(02:15):
has launched a handful of national scandals in the press
and dealt with about as many lawsuits. Last year in
Jan air to segment that brought a little known legal
battle to national attention. For years, Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia,
had secretly been embroiled in negotiations with the German government
(02:39):
in an effort to reclaim thousands of pieces of art
and other priceless historical artifacts and to regain his family's
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 two, and half the
(03:02):
country fell under communism, much of the Holland or Land
family property fell on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.
But then the Berlin Wall came down and in German
parliament passed a law which allowed Germans the right to
reclaim property that had been seized in the Soviet occupation.
(03:24):
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 eighteen after Germany's defeat
(03:49):
in World War One, 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
will Home, 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
(04:15):
to Adolf Hitler like they're the best friends in the world.
Georg Friedrich's negotiations with the German government over the art
and the property had almost been entirely private until beyond
Borman segment, in which the comedian dubbed Georg Friedrich in
German hashtag print stupid. Young Gorman said that for bringing
(04:38):
the case at all, for trying to reclaim any of
the property that was currently being displayed to the public
as museums, meant that Georg Friedrick had and I quote,
I are ashall balls of steel for Georg Friedrich. I
imagine it's not just a matter of money, though it
(05:00):
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 swatsticka But those photos, embarrassing as they are,
(05:23):
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 Wilholm significantly help the Nazis?
I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. Crown Prince
(05:54):
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 eighteen seventy one,
Prussia was one of a number of sovereign states within
the German Confederation. In eighteen seventy one, the states became
(06:15):
the German Empire and the Hohenzollern 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 One, and his oldest son,
Crown Prince Wilholm, was obviously expected to show his bravery
(06:39):
and composure on the battlefield in a leadership position. The
Crown Prince was in his thirties when World War One 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
(07:01):
given command of an entire field army, regardless of the
fact that he was completely unqualified and had done nothing
with his twenties 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
(07:22):
of monarchy in Europe was facing a major reckoning. Famously,
the devastation of World War One can be in part
attributed to nineteenth century tactics and twentieth century technology. A
similar mismatch was at play with Europe's royal families at
(07:44):
the time. Crown Prince will Holm 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 will Holm was technically the commander of the
military's fifth Army, he had a chief of staff with
(08:06):
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 about to wear the sash
and badges of a commander. The most noteworthy thing that
(08:30):
Crown Print Wilhelm was actually involved in in the war,
for my money, is having an affair with the performer
known as Mata Harri, 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
(08:50):
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
(09:11):
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 percent of Germany's
men were killed. While the German army stood facing the
precipice of true and genuine defeat, It's demoralized soldiers began
(09:35):
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
(09:57):
a republic at any cost. On November nine, with a
crowd gathering in Berlin, the Kaiser and his closest advisers
realized that they had no choice. The Kaiser resigned his
royal title, as did his son, the Crown Prince. Privately,
(10:22):
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
(10:43):
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
(11:04):
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 adds to her nation's autonomy,
and so the Kaiser would go on to buy a
big house, endured, and live in exile in the Netherlands
for the rest of his life, stewing about his wrongful
(11:26):
forced eviction and blaming the Jews for sabotage in Germany
during World War One. 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 nineteen nineteen, a former Tennessee senator
(11:52):
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
(12:12):
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 Connacht, the uncle of
both King George five and the Kaiser. With the blase
(12:34):
attitude of the blue blooded, the Duke mentioned off handedly
that no one was going to make a real fuss
about the Kaiser now that he was an exile. Of course,
they were all embarrassed by the Kaiser. The British royal
family had changed their last name in v from sax
Coburg Gotha to the more neutral sounding Windsor in order
(12:58):
to avoid the as 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
(13:19):
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
(13:40):
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. They can bring him to justice, he said.
(14:02):
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 seventeenth
century castle where the Kaiser was living with his wife.
The gate was locked, but Lee leapt from the car
and rattled at the railing until a guard approached. I
(14:26):
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 fifteen minutes, a man entered.
It wasn't the Kaiser. It was a Dutch nobleman named
(14:50):
Count Bentinck, wearing a full coat and tails, state or business.
The Count said the Americans were silent. Benton left the
library and slammed the doors behind him. From the other
side of the library doors, the Americans listened as the
Count and the Kaiser talked quickly back and forth. Suddenly
(15:12):
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 aboard.
(15:33):
Before anyone could say another word, Lee and the Americans
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.
(15:55):
The ash tray was embossed with the German coat of
arms and the initial W I Wilhelm Imperator. The former
Kaiser would file a formal complaint about the illegal Americans
and their burglary of a priceless stolen astray, but in
the end, Colonel Lee and his cohorts would receive what
(16:18):
amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrists.
Was the cost of an astray really worth the cost
in 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 you received at that
point would probably lead to trouble for him. He had
(16:41):
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 xt style, the former Crown Prince
(17:02):
was not. In N three, the former Crown Prince, who
from now on will 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.
(17:23):
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 twenties. Well, we know that Wilhelm shared
(17:43):
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
(18:05):
glowing letters to Hitler and he joined Der Staalholm, a
World War One veterans group that then went on to
become the far right Harsburg Front. And then, when Hitler
and his party were celebrating the reopening of the new
Reichstock after the Reichstag fire, Crown Prince Wilhelm was the
(18:27):
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
(18:49):
and the center of the Second Reich under Otto von Bismarck.
The date Hitler chose, March twenty one, was the anniversary
of the opening of the First Reichstock. Everything that Hitler
did was meant to convey the continuity and greatness of
Germany under his party, a return to its former glory
(19:11):
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
Hohenzolern family, the people who had ruled Germany for hundreds
(19:32):
of years, throwing his weight behind Adolf Hitler. Here's the
problematic part for Georg Friedrich, the head of the Hohenzolelern
family today, at least in terms of public image, there
is no shortage of photographs of Crown Prince Wilhelm wearing
the stormtrooper Nazi uniform in boots, or standing across from
(19:55):
Adolf Hitler looking genial like he 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
(20:16):
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. Will Holm
(20:37):
cold towards him, 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 Hollandzo Learned, initially argued in favor of restoring the
(20:59):
holandz Learned prop pretty. 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 junior defense. Professor. Clark says that he has
(21:19):
since changed his mind on the issue since coming across
new evidence. But the Hollins O Learns have another historian,
will from Peter 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
(21:43):
Jan Bowerman leaked, paint a very clear picture. As the
German historian Peter Brant wrote, it cannot be denied that
will Holm, especially in the dissolution phase of the Weimar
Republic and in the consolidation phase of the Third Right,
steadily and significantly, contributed to the transfer of power to
(22:05):
the Nazi 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
(22:25):
palace in Potsdam, Secilianhoff, 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 a p u S History class
of Winston Churchill, Harriet Strumman, and Joseph Stalin all sitting
(22:49):
side by side. After World War Two, Wilhelm was captured
by French Moroccan troops and placed under house arrest under
the pretense of being a World War One criminal. He
died of a heart attack in nineteen fifty one at
age sixty nine, and he was buried at Hohenzollern Castle,
where his great grandson Georg Friedrich now lives for part
(23:13):
of the year. The legal demands that Gaeorg Friederick 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.
(23:34):
But he also requested the right for him and his
family to live for free at the palace sicilian Hof,
which Germany recently restored with taxpayer money to turn into
a museum. Georg Friederich said that he hoped he and
the government would reach a quote amicable settlement, but presumably
to speed that alone in he and his family began
(23:58):
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 seckend Weimar Eisenach was generous enough to
accept eighteen point two million dollars for his assorted art
(24:21):
pieces and castle inventory. There's so much on the line
now between the German government and the Hohenzolen family that
neither side wants to risk actually going to court and
accepting the consequences of an all or nothing outcome. In August,
both sides agreed to a year long delay in court
(24:42):
proceedings in order to try to negotiate a mutually acceptable compromise.
The way Gayeric 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 the things that
belong to the holland to Learn. At its inception, the
(25:05):
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.
(25:27):
At what point do they no longer remain entitled to
the extreme wealth that went along with it. It's not
as though gay Org Friederich, who owned three fourths of
the Home to Learn, castle, to 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
(25:48):
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, here a stale. Being a
monarch at the best of times puts a target on
your back. Sometimes you need to quit while you're ahead.
(26:16):
In German culture, the date November nine is massively significant.
It's called shiksaws Dog or the day of fate. November
nine was the day that Kaiser Wilhelms 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
(26:36):
to Germany. It's the day of Hitler's failed beer hall
putch and the horrific Crystal knach In when Jewish shops
and synagogues were destroyed and hundreds of Jewish were murdered.
And then in nine it was the day the Berlin
Wall fell, ending the German separation. All of the seeds
(27:00):
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 We're all planted in a steady
row on different November nine. I'm only sorry that this
podcast is just a little early. Noble Blood is a
(27:28):
production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Aaron Manky. The show was written and hosted by Danis
Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
(27:51):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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 and as bibliographies for
the readings and episode scripts, check out patreon dot com
slash Noble Blood Tales. All right, let's dive in. Welcome
(00:25):
to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. 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,
(00:49):
Prince von Prussen. Germany is no longer a monarchy today,
but if it were, Georg Friedrich would be its leader.
The forty four year old head of the House of
Hohenzo Learn is the great great grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm
the Second, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia,
who abdicated both of those titles in nineteen eighteen following
(01:14):
Germany's defeat in World War One. Up until then, the
hohens O Learned family had ruled in modern day Prussia
for over three hundred years. Looking at Georg Friedrich, you
wouldn't necessarily think that he's royal. He looks like any
other attractive, wealthy person in his forties. He could be
(01:35):
a stockbroker or a member of the local school board. Still,
he is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, which makes
him technically two hundred second in line for the British throne,
although I've seen that number as low as one hundred
and seventy Yet. The second German Man you need to
(01:55):
know for this story is the German equivalent of John
Stewart back when he was hosted The Daily Show, a
man named Jan Boorman. Jan is the host of a
late night television show called Neo Magazine Royal. Like any
political satire, the show is no stranger to controversy. Jan
(02:15):
has launched a handful of national scandals in the press
and dealt with about as many lawsuits. Last year in
Jan air to segment that brought a little known legal
battle to national attention. For years, Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia,
had secretly been embroiled in negotiations with the German government
(02:39):
in an effort to reclaim thousands of pieces of art
and other priceless historical artifacts and to regain his family's
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 two, and half the
(03:02):
country fell under communism, much of the Holland or Land
family property fell on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.
But then the Berlin Wall came down and in German
parliament passed a law which allowed Germans the right to
reclaim property that had been seized in the Soviet occupation.
(03:24):
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 eighteen after Germany's defeat
(03:49):
in World War One, 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
will Home, 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
(04:15):
to Adolf Hitler like they're the best friends in the world.
Georg Friedrich's negotiations with the German government over the art
and the property had almost been entirely private until beyond
Borman segment, in which the comedian dubbed Georg Friedrich in
German hashtag print stupid. Young Gorman said that for bringing
(04:38):
the case at all, for trying to reclaim any of
the property that was currently being displayed to the public
as museums, meant that Georg Friedrick had and I quote,
I are ashall balls of steel for Georg Friedrich. I
imagine it's not just a matter of money, though it
(05:00):
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 swatsticka But those photos, embarrassing as they are,
(05:23):
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 Wilholm significantly help the Nazis?
I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. Crown Prince
(05:54):
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 eighteen seventy one,
Prussia was one of a number of sovereign states within
the German Confederation. In eighteen seventy one, the states became
(06:15):
the German Empire and the Hohenzollern 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 One, and his oldest son,
Crown Prince Wilholm, was obviously expected to show his bravery
(06:39):
and composure on the battlefield in a leadership position. The
Crown Prince was in his thirties when World War One 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
(07:01):
given command of an entire field army, regardless of the
fact that he was completely unqualified and had done nothing
with his twenties 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
(07:22):
of monarchy in Europe was facing a major reckoning. Famously,
the devastation of World War One can be in part
attributed to nineteenth century tactics and twentieth century technology. A
similar mismatch was at play with Europe's royal families at
(07:44):
the time. Crown Prince will Holm 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 will Holm was technically the commander of the
military's fifth Army, he had a chief of staff with
(08:06):
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 about to wear the sash
and badges of a commander. The most noteworthy thing that
(08:30):
Crown Print Wilhelm was actually involved in in the war,
for my money, is having an affair with the performer
known as Mata Harri, 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
(08:50):
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
(09:11):
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 percent of Germany's
men were killed. While the German army stood facing the
precipice of true and genuine defeat, It's demoralized soldiers began
(09:35):
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
(09:57):
a republic at any cost. On November nine, with a
crowd gathering in Berlin, the Kaiser and his closest advisers
realized that they had no choice. The Kaiser resigned his
royal title, as did his son, the Crown Prince. Privately,
(10:22):
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
(10:43):
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
(11:04):
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 adds to her nation's autonomy,
and so the Kaiser would go on to buy a
big house, endured, and live in exile in the Netherlands
for the rest of his life, stewing about his wrongful
(11:26):
forced eviction and blaming the Jews for sabotage in Germany
during World War One. 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 nineteen nineteen, a former Tennessee senator
(11:52):
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
(12:12):
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 Connacht, the uncle of
both King George five and the Kaiser. With the blase
(12:34):
attitude of the blue blooded, the Duke mentioned off handedly
that no one was going to make a real fuss
about the Kaiser now that he was an exile. Of course,
they were all embarrassed by the Kaiser. The British royal
family had changed their last name in v from sax
Coburg Gotha to the more neutral sounding Windsor in order
(12:58):
to avoid the as 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
(13:19):
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
(13:40):
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. They can bring him to justice, he said.
(14:02):
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 seventeenth
century castle where the Kaiser was living with his wife.
The gate was locked, but Lee leapt from the car
and rattled at the railing until a guard approached. I
(14:26):
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 fifteen minutes, a man entered.
It wasn't the Kaiser. It was a Dutch nobleman named
(14:50):
Count Bentinck, wearing a full coat and tails, state or business.
The Count said the Americans were silent. Benton left the
library and slammed the doors behind him. From the other
side of the library doors, the Americans listened as the
Count and the Kaiser talked quickly back and forth. Suddenly
(15:12):
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 aboard.
(15:33):
Before anyone could say another word, Lee and the Americans
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.
(15:55):
The ash tray was embossed with the German coat of
arms and the initial W I Wilhelm Imperator. The former
Kaiser would file a formal complaint about the illegal Americans
and their burglary of a priceless stolen astray, but in
the end, Colonel Lee and his cohorts would receive what
(16:18):
amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrists.
Was the cost of an astray really worth the cost
in 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 you received at that
point would probably lead to trouble for him. He had
(16:41):
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 xt style, the former Crown Prince
(17:02):
was not. In N three, the former Crown Prince, who
from now on will 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.
(17:23):
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 twenties. Well, we know that Wilhelm shared
(17:43):
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
(18:05):
glowing letters to Hitler and he joined Der Staalholm, a
World War One veterans group that then went on to
become the far right Harsburg Front. And then, when Hitler
and his party were celebrating the reopening of the new
Reichstock after the Reichstag fire, Crown Prince Wilhelm was the
(18:27):
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
(18:49):
and the center of the Second Reich under Otto von Bismarck.
The date Hitler chose, March twenty one, was the anniversary
of the opening of the First Reichstock. Everything that Hitler
did was meant to convey the continuity and greatness of
Germany under his party, a return to its former glory
(19:11):
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
Hohenzolern family, the people who had ruled Germany for hundreds
(19:32):
of years, throwing his weight behind Adolf Hitler. Here's the
problematic part for Georg Friedrich, the head of the Hohenzolelern
family today, at least in terms of public image, there
is no shortage of photographs of Crown Prince Wilhelm wearing
the stormtrooper Nazi uniform in boots, or standing across from
(19:55):
Adolf Hitler looking genial like he 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
(20:16):
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. Will Holm
(20:37):
cold towards him, 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 Hollandzo Learned, initially argued in favor of restoring the
(20:59):
holandz Learned prop pretty. 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 junior defense. Professor. Clark says that he has
(21:19):
since changed his mind on the issue since coming across
new evidence. But the Hollins O Learns have another historian,
will from Peter 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
(21:43):
Jan Bowerman leaked, paint a very clear picture. As the
German historian Peter Brant wrote, it cannot be denied that
will Holm, especially in the dissolution phase of the Weimar
Republic and in the consolidation phase of the Third Right,
steadily and significantly, contributed to the transfer of power to
(22:05):
the Nazi 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
(22:25):
palace in Potsdam, Secilianhoff, 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 a p u S History class
of Winston Churchill, Harriet Strumman, and Joseph Stalin all sitting
(22:49):
side by side. After World War Two, Wilhelm was captured
by French Moroccan troops and placed under house arrest under
the pretense of being a World War One criminal. He
died of a heart attack in nineteen fifty one at
age sixty nine, and he was buried at Hohenzollern Castle,
where his great grandson Georg Friedrich now lives for part
(23:13):
of the year. The legal demands that Gaeorg Friederick 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.
(23:34):
But he also requested the right for him and his
family to live for free at the palace sicilian Hof,
which Germany recently restored with taxpayer money to turn into
a museum. Georg Friederich said that he hoped he and
the government would reach a quote amicable settlement, but presumably
to speed that alone in he and his family began
(23:58):
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 seckend Weimar Eisenach was generous enough to
accept eighteen point two million dollars for his assorted art
(24:21):
pieces and castle inventory. There's so much on the line
now between the German government and the Hohenzolen family that
neither side wants to risk actually going to court and
accepting the consequences of an all or nothing outcome. In August,
both sides agreed to a year long delay in court
(24:42):
proceedings in order to try to negotiate a mutually acceptable compromise.
The way Gayeric 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 the things that
belong to the holland to Learn. At its inception, the
(25:05):
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.
(25:27):
At what point do they no longer remain entitled to
the extreme wealth that went along with it. It's not
as though gay Org Friederich, who owned three fourths of
the Home to Learn, castle, to 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
(25:48):
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, here a stale. Being a
monarch at the best of times puts a target on
your back. Sometimes you need to quit while you're ahead.
(26:16):
In German culture, the date November nine is massively significant.
It's called shiksaws Dog or the day of fate. November
nine was the day that Kaiser Wilhelms 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
(26:36):
to Germany. It's the day of Hitler's failed beer hall
putch and the horrific Crystal knach In when Jewish shops
and synagogues were destroyed and hundreds of Jewish were murdered.
And then in nine it was the day the Berlin
Wall fell, ending the German separation. All of the seeds
(27:00):
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 We're all planted in a steady
row on different November nine. I'm only sorry that this
podcast is just a little early. Noble Blood is a
(27:28):
production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Aaron Manky. The show was written and hosted by Danis
Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
(27:51):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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