Dutch Nazis, Nationalism and the Monarchy

Regular readers may recall a past article on the Netherlands involvement in World War II in which mention was made of the Dutch equivalent of the Nazi Party, the NSB or Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland (National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands) which was founded in 1931 and led by Anton Mussert, today the most notorious Dutch collaborator of World War II. There is much that can, I think, be learned from the relationship between Anton Mussert and Adolf Hitler, the Dutch NSB and the German NSDAP which should serve as a warning for people today who might have the right intentions but who should be on guard against any threats to separate them from their own unique identity and historic institutions. The NSB started out with the simple goal of wishing to stop the decay in Dutch society and restore the Netherlands to her former status as a major world power but ended up, by their increasing adherence to the German Nazi Party, fighting for the exact opposite of that.

As with many such similar movements, the NSB was originally most inspired by the fantastic success of Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party in Italy. They had swept to power a decade earlier while Hitler and his Brown shirts were still struggling. Because of this, the NSB, founded by Anton Mussert and Cornelis van Geelkerken, had more in common with the Italian Black shirts than with Hitler and the Nazis. The most noticeable difference was that they were pro-Dutch and not anti-Jewish, indeed, like the Fascists, originally had Jewish members. They were opposed to direct democracy, advocating corporatism rather than capitalism or socialism but were not revolutionary, planning to work within the existing constitutional framework to achieve power and enact their changes to the Netherlands legally. They pushed for national unity and favored the corporatist model specifically to end the labor-versus-ownership divide which caused strikes and to put occupational concerns over ideological divisions.

Their goal of pushing for a return to national greatness also meant calling to mind the glory days of Dutch history when the Netherlands had been a major power. This meant that they were not opposed to the Dutch monarchy, indeed they drew inspiration from many past members of the House of Orange and, most significantly for our purposes here, they wanted to see the strengthening and expansion of Dutch power around the world. This meant that they wanted to strengthen their position in the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia) and to annex Flanders and French Flanders to create a “Greater Netherlands”. This would, of course, necessitate the break up of the Kingdom of Belgium and the NSB intended for the vast Belgian Congo to become a Dutch colony and, if possible, for the Netherlands to regain control of South Africa by restoring the Afrikaner republics as Dutch colonies united with their ancestral homeland. They expected to be a close ally of Germany but nothing more, pursuing their own national interests on the world stage. However, their friendship with the Nazi Party proved a double-edged sword.

Early on the NSB gained some surprising electoral success for a country which, then as now, was seen as a place where such a party would not be expected to do well. The NSB gained enough of a following for the socialists, trade unionists and major religious institutions to come out against them. The government forbid state employees from joining the party and the socialists formed groups to disrupt their events and prevent the NSB from getting its message out (the Antifa of the day). They reached their peak in 1935, saw support drop somewhat after that but they were still a force to be reckoned with when World War II in Europe broke out with the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

The decline in support for the NSB came at around the same time, roughly 1936 and afterwards, that the Nazis began to eclipse the Italian Fascists as their primary source of inspiration. Racial rhetoric and anti-Semitism began to appear and became increasingly common though never on the same level as these subjects dominated political discourse in Germany. One area of concern in this regard was the Dutch East Indies where the NSB had some sizeable support before the war. This is not surprising given that one of the primary concerns of the NSB was to strengthen and enlarge the Dutch colonial empire and so, naturally, they were not without support in the largest and most important Dutch colony. However, the Dutch East Indies was also home to a sizeable minority of mixed-race people who, like the Anglo-Indians for the British, were quite important to the smooth operation of the colony which constituted the vast majority of the Dutch empire. There was considerable concern that the racial rhetoric would damage the support for the NSB in the East Indies. As it turned out, that would prove the least of their problems.

Future Dutch Queen Juliana with exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II

Yet, it was partly the racial rhetoric of the Nazis that kept the Dutch complacent. When Hitler invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war on Germany, most people in the Netherlands expected to sit out the war just as they had done from 1914-1918. The German Nazis, after all, viewed them as their Germanic cousins of superior racial stock and this, along with the fact that the Germans had pledged to respect Dutch neutrality and the detail that the Dutch had not and would not be so foolish as to attack the Germans, caused many to think the war would pass them by. Their queen was even married to a German prince and the former German Kaiser was living in the Netherlands and had been protected by the Dutch monarchy from efforts by the Allies to have him extradited and hanged as a “war criminal”. It therefore came as a great shock when the Germans started bombing them, dropping airborne troops on them and had panzers racing across the border. The Dutch were caught completely unprepared and despite their surprisingly fierce resistance were only able to hold on for four days before being obliged to surrender with the government and Queen Wilhelmina going into exile in England (quite against her wishes as she was preparing to hand out rifles to her maids and butlers and defend her palace herself -she was quite a formidable old lady).

The Nazis occupied the Netherlands and, naturally, turned to their biggest local fans in the NSB for support in running the country and dealing with the local population. This brought about a dramatic change in how the NSB was viewed and by what the role of the NSB was to be in the destiny of the Netherlands. Formed in reaction to the Great Depression, the NSB had garnered much of its support from presenting an alternative to communism and Mussert had addressed record crowds to talk about an alternative to the alien ideology of communism and the recently discredited model of capitalism. However, as soon as the war touched the Netherlands, a war no one expected, least of all the NSB which thought the Nazis would never attack, bomb and invade their Germanic racial brethren which was also neutral, until they did, Mussert immediately got in touch with the Nazis and offered his country up for annexation by Hitler’s Third Reich and even proposed leading a secret mission to kidnap Queen Wilhelmina and present her to the Germans.

Anton Mussert, doing his best to look the part

Mussert had rather ‘jumped the gun’ in throwing himself at the feet of Hitler before Hitler’s forces had actually conquered the Netherlands with the result that the Dutch government found out about these messages and several NSB leaders were arrested though Mussert himself escaped and remained in hiding until after the German conquest was complete. When the dust settled, however, he was not immediately given control of the Netherlands as he had expected, Hitler appointing the Austrian Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Reichskommissar of the Occupied Dutch Territories. When Mussert approached him about being named head of state in place of the Queen, Seyss-Inquart referred him to Hitler and to Hitler the ambitious Mussert proposed a ‘Nordic Federation’ of Germanic countries under Hitler’s direction and with himself in charge of the Netherlands. Hitler brushed him off but Mussert went on, holding rallies urging for cooperation with the Germans but with talk of the “Greater Netherlands” being sidelined in favor of talk about the Netherlands simply having “a place” in the “new Europe” run by Germany and Italy. Later on, Mussert would propose that he himself should be Hitler’s ‘number two’ man in this new order but, again, Hitler brushed him off.

Nonetheless, Mussert remained devoted to Hitler, even publicly swearing personal allegiance to him and urged his people to do the same. In June of 1940, at a mass gathering, he called on the Dutch people to rally behind him in supporting Hitler and the German war effort and to renounce their allegiance to the House of Orange, the Dutch monarchy and the government-in-exile in Britain. The Dutch were thus given a choice and it was made very stark for them; Mussert or Queen Wilhelmina. Mussert had been the nationalist leader pledging to strengthen and expand the Dutch empire but now was more about having a favored position in German-dominated Europe so long as they behaved themselves. Hitler, it must be said, did little to encourage such expectations and never allowed Mussert any position of real importance. He was not the head of state, he was not the prime minister and was only allowed the sort of honorary title of “Leader” but with no official position or power to go along with it. On the contrary, the Germans would eventually show more favor to other NSB members who were more pro-German and anti-Dutch, one even proposing to replace the Dutch language with German.

Dutch recruiting poster for the SS

A new chance arose, however, to rally the Dutch to the Axis cause when the war was expanded to what Germany and Italy had always claimed was their real enemy; the Soviet Union. The Dutch had no desire to fight against the British but they volunteered in large numbers to fight the communist threat which had openly called for the subjugation of the world. The Netherlands supplied more volunteers for the Axis war effort than any other occupied country and the Germans were quick to make use of them on the brutal eastern front. Putting politics aside, the Dutch proved themselves in dramatic fashion, fighting with immense courage, many being highly decorated and taking dramatic losses in the process. Against the Bolshevik hordes, the Dutch fighting man had proven his worth and made incredible sacrifices in the process. However, just as the first year of the ‘Crusade against Bolshevism’ came to an end, Dutch nationalists would find themselves betrayed yet again when the Empire of Japan decided to get in on the global war. However, rather than joining Germany and Italy in war against the Soviet Union, it would be against the United States of America and, subsequently, against the Netherlands as well in order to seize the extensive oilfields of the Dutch East Indies.

Japan invades the Dutch East Indies

Once again, the Dutch were caught unprepared and had only minimal Allied assistance to call upon when the Japanese invaded, a massive operation that none of the western powers had previously thought Japan capable of. The Dutch set fire to their oilfields and their small colonial army offered gallant resistance but it was to no avail. Needless to say, the previously considerable support the NSB had in the Dutch East Indies immediately evaporated. It also caused considerable dismay at home. Imagine yourself being a proud, patriotic Nederlander; the NSB says they will lead you to a “Greater Netherlands” which will revive and enlarge the Dutch empire, making it bigger and better than it had ever been before. Then you are told that, instead, the Netherlands will be a subsidiary part of a greater Germanic federation but you can at least keep what you have and will be protected from communist subjugation. Finally, while your men are fighting and freezing to death on the eastern front alongside the Germans, you find out that Germany’s ally has seized your largest and most important colony, killed large numbers of your people and put everyone else in concentration camps. That sort of thing would tend to sap morale.

Queen Wilhelmina during the war

Now, still keeping in mind that you are a proud Dutch nationalist, possibly freezing to death on the Russian front, that while the side you are fighting for says your empire must be given up and your relatives in Southeast Asia are at the mercy of the Japanese, that Queen Wilhelmina, who you are told is now your enemy, is calling for the liberation of the Netherlands from German rule and the liberation of the Dutch East Indies from Japanese rule, fighting for the full restoration of the Dutch empire. You will also notice that all talk about South Africa is out of the question whereas Queen Wilhelmina had been the most sympathetic leader in the world toward your Boer brethren back in the days of their fight against the British, even sending a Dutch warship, HNLMS Gelderland, to evacuate the Boer President Paul Krueger from Africa and bring him to Europe. You might have even heard that the German Kaiser would not receive Krueger but in the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch Royal Family gave him the warmest welcome in The Hague. Which side, that represented by the Queen, or that represented by Mussert, must have seemed the proper cause for any proud Nederlander?

Mussert had enough sense to see this and when the Dutch East Indies was invaded he appealed to Hitler to use his influence to get the Japanese to back off, to call off his “Honorary Aryans” in favor of actual Aryans as the Nazis might put it. Again, Mussert was ignored and Hitler and Mussolini quickly declared war on the United States in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Did this have an impact on the Dutch who were fighting alongside the Germans? Obviously, it could not have helped. Friction over Dutch officers being replaced with German ones in the Dutch SS volunteer legion had caused many to resign and the Dutch suffered heavy losses around Leningrad after being reformed in the spring of 1942. Later, their nominal commander, a former high ranking officer of the Dutch military, Lt. General Hendrik Seyffardt was assassinated at home. After their enlistments expired in the spring of 1943, by which time the Japanese had seized the Dutch East Indies, most refused to reenlist to fight with the Germans. Due to the lack of recruits, the legion was disbanded in May of 1943. When Mussert tried to protest against the reprisals taken by the SS after the murder of Seyffardt, Hitler would not even see him.

As Axis forces were being pushed back in Russia, North Africa and the Pacific, the Germans ordered the conscription of all former Dutch soldiers into their own army and SS legions. In response, the Dutch went on strike and nearly a hundred were shot in retaliation but there was little the Germans could really do, a dead man being rather less likely to work or fight for your war effort than one on strike. The NSB was decimated, most of its members dead on the Russian front or assassinated by the Dutch underground. When Hitler finally gave Mussert a last audience he informed the Dutch “Leader” plainly that he would never be given any political power. Still, he carried on even as June 1944 saw the Allied invasion of France, including over a thousand Dutch soldiers who had escaped the continent, fighting for their Queen and country. On September 5, fearing the approach of Allied soldiers, the remaining NSB members fled to Germany though Mussert notably did not, was taken prisoner and executed for high treason after the war.

The Dutch spent the last winter of the war starving and freezing as the Allied Operation Market Garden failed and the Germans cut off all supplies to punish their racial cousins. The only relief came from 11,000 tons of food dropped by American and British aircraft. Not long after, the German forces remaining surrendered and soon the Queen returned, met by a rapturous welcome. Interestingly enough, after Mussert was convicted and sentenced to death, he appealed to Queen Wilhelmina to spare him. The Queen he had renounced his allegiance to, the Queen he encouraged his people to abandon, the last hope Mussert had was for her to use her royal powers to spare his life. However, Queen Wilhelmina was not that sort and Mussert was executed by firing squad. He died for his persistent allegiance to a German ruler who never trusted him nor made any objection to the stripping away of Dutch territory. Queen Wilhelmina, on the other hand, would spend the end of her reign fighting to maintain the Dutch colonial empire in Southeast Asia, even while her own allies betrayed her and the business elites of the country criticized her for not conceding.

Dutch colonial troops march against Japan

There is a great lesson to be learned from the sad life of Anton Mussert and his NSB. His desire for the Netherlands to be stronger was certainly valid as subsequent events proved that neutrality only works if your neighbors are good enough to respect it. He was not a revolutionary, was not anti-religion nor was he anti-other races, simply pro-Dutch. His political views about disliking democracy and preferring a system based around occupational representation were, in my view, perfectly reasonable. However, his captivation with Hitler proved disastrous for himself as well as his movement. It certainly did his country no good but Hitler would have done with the Netherlands as he pleased regardless of whether Mussert was in the picture or not. He became so enamored with the idealized image of Hitler that he turned against the traditions and traditional institutions of his own nation so that, in the end, it was the Queen he betrayed and was fighting against who represented the cause of Dutch greatness while the side he was on was allied to a power which themselves claim to have been fighting a race war against his people and those like them. That is something everyone with a proper pride and self-respect for their own people and culture would do well to take notice of.

Rexisme and Leon Degrelle

I have wanted to talk about Rexisme for a long time but always hesitated to do so because it is a thorny issue and brings up so many other thorny issues and has so many controversial associations that I always drew back. However, as to being controversial, at this point, why not? And, I do think the history of Rexisme and its charismatic and very controversial leader Leon Degrelle, has much to teach us that is pertinent to this day and age. Rexisme or the Rexist Party was founded on November 2, 1935 by Leon Degrelle in the Kingdom of Belgium. The term “Rexisme” is my preference rather than “Rexist Party” as Degrelle did intend for Rexisme to be a national movement rather than only a political party, which is fine by me as I generally detest political parties. It remains even now a rather ‘rare bird’ in the world of Belgian politics in that it was a Belgian nationalist party. As most know, Walloon nationalist parties and certainly Flemish nationalist parties in Belgium are extremely common but a broader *Belgian* nationalist party is hard to come by. However, it was never very pan-Belgian in terms of its support, attracting very few members or voters from the Flanders region.

Rexisme was the brainchild of Leon Degrelle, a native of Bouillon, Belgium born in 1906. His life reads like a boys adventure novel, at least up until the ‘hardcore Nazi’ part. Nonetheless, though he ended his life an ardent and unrepentant Nazi, anyone who says he was not at extremely exceptional individual is being dishonest. Degrelle was Jesuit educated (back when that meant something), studied law but ultimately turned to journalism, writing for a Catholic periodical. During that period of his life, he was sent to cover the “Cristero” rebellion in Mexico, something which would have a profound impact on his life. The Cristeros were Mexican Catholics who rose up against the anti-Catholic persecution of the Marxist PRI government (which is back in power today) and which proved surprisingly successful. However, the Mexican bishops never really supported it and finally came to an agreement with the Mexican government and told the Cristeros to lay down their arms and disperse. They did so, being loyal Catholics, at which point the government massacred most of them.

The example of the Cristeros caused Degrelle to become more militant in his Catholicism and he also became very much influenced by the writings of the French royalist Charles Maurras and the Belgian Jean Denis. From these sources, and others, he began publishing his own periodical for the Catholic Party in Belgium called “Editions de Rex”, taking his inspiration for the name from the Cristero battlecry of “Viva Cristo Rey” (Long live Christ the King). Soon, however, his views came to be at odds with the mainstream Catholic Party and in 1935 he split from them to form his own movement, which he called “Rexisme”. His goal was to lead not only a political movement but a social movement across Belgium, a revival of Catholic morality, Catholic social teachings and greater national unity. Rexisme opposed liberal democracy and promoted corporatism, envisioning a new type of government for Belgium that would do away with the usual democratic process in favor of a more robust monarchy and political representation based on occupation.

It was also very much a Belgian nationalist party in that Degrelle pressed for the unity of all Belgians, regardless of class differences or language differences and putting greater emphasis on the position of the King was part of that, as was Catholicism in a way since the monarchy and the Catholic Church were two things that traditionally united all Belgians.

There have been, of course, obvious parallels drawn between Rexisme and other parties or movements which are today all classified as “far-right”. Jean Denis, himself soon elected to office for Rexisme, had influenced the corporatist regime of Antonio Salazar in Portugal. The year after forming his party, Degrelle met with Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, leader of the Falange in Spain, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu of the Iron Guard of Romania, the leader of Fascist Italy Benito Mussolini and, yes, Adolf Hitler of Germany. However, the influence of Hitler and the National Socialists was not great in the beginning. Both Hitler and Mussolini donated money to Degrelle and his movement, but Mussolini donated more and Rexisme had more in common with Italian Fascism as it was then than it had with the Nazi Party in Germany. Race was not really an issue for Rexisme as there were no appreciable racial minorities in Belgium nor did they have much to say about the Jews. Their movement was all about Catholics and the Jews did not really come into it.

To the surprise of many, and the horror of some, Rexisme shot to considerable popularity from the very start. In the May 1936 general elections, after only one year in existence, Rexisme won a stunning string of electoral victories, winning 21 seats in the lower chamber and 8 seats in the Senate. The Belgian King Leopold III offered Degrelle a seat in the cabinet as a result of this success but, buoyed by his victories, Degrelle turned down the offer, thinking that rather than settle for a small part in government, he could build on his success and soon win it all. However, the success of Rexisme also alerted others to the threat he posed to the established order. His call for national unity largely seems to have fallen on deaf ears as almost all of his political support came from Wallonia and Brussels with only a tiny fraction from Flanders. The Catholic hierarchy in Belgium also came out strongly against his movement and would ultimately even find themselves willing to make common cause with the Communist Party in order to oppose him. One cannot help but wonder if Degrelle was reminded of the actions of the Catholic bishops in Mexico to a militant Catholic movement in their country.

Degrelle and Rexisme were shunned by the political mainstream as well as the Catholic bishops as being too extreme, too radical, too militant, too nationalistic and so on. The result, however, of this attitude was to push Degrelle and the members of Rexisme even further away. As time went on, rather than Portugal or Italy, Rexisme became ever more heavily influenced by National Socialist Germany. The periodical of the movement became noticeably more anti-Semitic, a rather inevitable result of their noticing how disproportionately represented the Jews were among their enemies. This is a lesson many today in North America and western Europe would do well to take notice of. By shunning and vilifying Rexisme as simply the Belgian version of the Nazi Party, the result was to push the two closer together. The political fortunes of Rexisme played out like a rocket going off. It shot to great heights very quickly but then plummeted just as quickly in the face of the united opposition of the political and even religious establishment. In the general election of April 1939 Rexisme lost all but 4 of their seats with Leon Degrelle himself losing the Brussels election to Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland.

The Belgian members of Rexisme thus became even more extreme out of bitterness to the whole political system. They had played the game fairly, played by the rules, had not been threatening or violent, yet they had been vilified, castigated and saw the political establishment unite to block them from electoral success. Why play the game if the other side is not going to play fairly? How things would have gone from there, we cannot know as a little thing called World War II intervened. Despite what some might think given his life subsequently, Leon Degrelle was not a cheerleader for Nazi Germany. He supported the position of King Leopold III that neutrality was the best policy. As in the last war, however, that neutrality was soon violated and after eighteen days of gallant resistance, King Leopold III surrendered to the Germans and was taken prisoner. The members of Rexisme were, to a degree, split by these events. As proud Belgian nationalists, some joined the underground to oppose the German occupation. Others, however, asked why they should support a regime that had opposed them to fight against men like Hitler and Mussolini who had consistently supported them? Many chose to join with the Axis.

Leon Degrelle was one of these, though he did first spend some time in a concentration camp in France, which, again, some may be surprised to know. Degrelle decided to join the Axis war effort, first as a member of a volunteer legion with the German army. As a prominent political personality from an occupied country, Hitler offered Degrelle an officer’s commission, however, Degrelle refused it. Instead, he began as a simple enlisted man and worked his way up through the ranks, very quickly. Degrelle proved to be an amazing soldier, skillful and fearless, which is something no one can take away from him regardless of political opinions. He and his men of the Walloon legion proved so outstanding that they were deemed worthy of transfer to the elite armed formation of the National Socialist Party, the Waffen-SS. In time, Degrelle would rise to the rank of Colonel of reserves in the SS-Sturmbrigade “Wallonie” as part of the “Wiking” division. His exploits on the Russian front were incredible and by the end of his career Degrelle had earned the Iron Cross first and second class, the Knight’s Iron Cross with oak leaves, the Close Combat Clasp in gold and the Infantry Assault Badge in Silver. Hitler famously said that if he had a son, he would wish him to be like Degrelle.

It may also surprise some, given how the local hierarchy had opposed him, that Degrelle always remained a practicing Catholic. A famous photo shows him receiving communion on the eastern front which is not at all unusual given that, as can be seen by his uniform, this was during his service with the regular German military. What is unusual is that, when he and his men were transferred to the Germanic-SS by Heinrich Himmler, they retained their Catholic chaplain. Other than the Imams for Muslim units, the SS did not “do” chaplains at all. Himmler preferred SS men not to have any strong religious ties so that the National Socialist Party and Adolf Hitler would become the sole focus of their devotion. However, Degrelle evidently insisted enough and his unit was impressive enough that Himmler made an exception for him and a Catholic priest was provided to attend to them for the rest of the war.

In the end, of course, Nazi Germany was defeated and the “Wallonie” brigade was effectively wiped out on the west bank of the Oder. Survivors were evacuated to Denmark where Degrelle was able to escape to Norway and fly to Spain where he was given sanctuary. Condemned and sentenced to death by the Belgian government after the war for his collaboration, Generalissimo Franco refused to hand him over and Degrelle lived on until 1994, to the very end defending and praising Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. His hero-worship of Hitler and National Socialism had, it must be pointed out, eclipsed even his own movement, Rexisme, for Degrelle in the end. By that time, he had devoted himself to writing defenses of himself and more so Adolf Hitler, National Socialism and the German vision of a pan-European super-state in which there would be no place for individual countries. He did lose one court battle and was fined for what amounted to Holocaust denial, after the fall of the Franco regime, but was always unapologetic. He famously said that the only thing he regretted about World War II was that Germany had lost.

Considering all of that though, it is important to remember where Degrelle had started and what Rexisme had been all about. Rexisme had been about the social kingship of Christ, a corporatist state, a more revered monarchy and far from erasing Belgium from the map, wanted to strengthen it. The Flemish nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis, dreamed of uniting with their Dutch Protestant neighbors to form a “Greater Netherlands” but Degrelle wanted Belgians to be the core of a revived Burgundy, even adopting the Burgundian cross, today most associated with Spain, as the second symbol of the Rexisme movement. Degrelle referred to this as the “Great Burgundian Renaissance” and it is frankly amazing that he remained adamant about being a Catholic even when the local bishops were so zealously opposed to him. Archbishop Jozef Van Roey of Mechelen and Brussels tried to have him excommunicated though, thanks to Mussolini speaking up for him at the Vatican, this did not happen though Rexisme adherents claimed that Roey was responsible for the threats of excommunication for anyone who voted for them coming from the pulpits prior to their 1939 electoral downfall. Given all of that, it would be hard to explain Degrelle’s continued insistence to be a devout Catholic other than that he firmly believed it to be true. In 1943 he was excommunicated by the Bishop of Namur after coming to mass in his SS uniform but this was lifted by the German Catholic bishop who oversaw the chaplaincy as Degrelle was within his jurisdiction. Whether he was or was not in full communion with the Church remained a controversial subject up to the time of his death, many in the Church saying he was not but Degrelle insisting that he was.

There is a lesson here for those who choose to take it. Necessarily, any view of Rexisme will depend on your view of Catholicism as the Rexists saw everything through a Catholic lens. What is important to keep in mind is that, while increasingly unfashionable, Rexisme did not advocate anything that was really out of line with traditional Catholic teachings, be it their disdain for democracy, their corporatist model (a more sophisticated version of the guild system), their support for the monarchy and opposition to things like freedom of religion or separation of Church and state. All of these were positions which the Church, at the time, was still supposed to hold. In other words, nothing the Rexists were calling for should have been considered extreme or radical.

Nonetheless, they were and the liberals, proving the founder of Fascism right about them, swiftly set aside all of their high-minded ideals about freedom and fair play to stop Rexisme from gaining power through the political process. The result was that many saw no reason not to align themselves with the Germans when they arrived. This is happening in many countries today. The liberals know of no greater evil than the Nazis and since just about the whole world agreed that Nazis are bad, the Nazis became their favorite bogey man. However, they eventually found Nazis to be thin on the ground and so have started to create Nazis by expanding the definition of the term. This behavior was reinforced by the fact that whenever they shouted “Nazi!” their opponent would shut up and back away. Naturally, finding how well that works, every enemy of the liberals became a Nazi. Then, after broadening the term to absurd proportions, they also began pushing people toward the Nazi camp by suppressing all opposition to their viewpoint.

I talked about this before in the article about liberals proving Mussolini was right about them by their own actions. The only people not offended by being called Nazis are, of course, actual Nazis. So, after using the term to silence all other opposition, they leave the Nazis as the last man standing, which they probably think is fine because almost the entire world already thinks Nazis are the worst thing ever. However, just as happened with Rexisme, they are pushing people into the Nazi camp who otherwise would never have been with them. Thus, as we are seeing in the western world right now, when people are told that everyone else has a right to their own country for their own people, except for *your* people, when everyone else has a right to the most vitriolic speech, except for *your* people, when everyone else has the right to hold demonstrations and identity-group advocacy except for *your* people, you are probably going to catch on that this is unfair, will find no refuge in the law or the constitution and will either shrink away or drop all reason and moderation and go totally extremist. And, when that happens, the stage has been set for you to find no other open arms but those of Hitler. Such was the case with Rexisme and that is the way the enemies of our civilization want it because, again, they figure the battle against Hitler has already been won.

To close, I will say then that my hope is the defenders of traditional authority, faith, family and folk, will stand up for their people and provide an alternative with deep historical and spiritual roots in western civilization. You will of course be called a Nazi if you do, but don’t help out the enemy by proving them right. Prove them wrong, don’t make it easy for them. It’s not about what they call you, it is about what you believe and what you know is right. I think Rexisme got more right than it did wrong, and I know that saying Rexisme sounds pretty good to me, given what many members later did, will cause some to call me a Nazi. I'm not, I know that, so I don't care. They would call me that anyway so, if they want to categorize things that way, I cannot stop them. Wanting to preserve your people, your faith and your heritage in your own countries is not wrong, letting all the blood, toil and tears of your ancestors be in vain is what is wrong, and to my mind unforgivable. Take your stand and do what is right, that is your only duty. As General Robert E. Lee once said, “You can never do more, you should never wish to do less.”

Prussian Princes in World War II

During the years of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, some royals embraced the new regime while others opposed it. Those who joined the Nazis were mostly from minor families who felt they had nothing to lose by doing so and would have gained little if the old monarchy system had been restored. However, it was the Prussian royals who were the focus of the most attention as they had previously been not only the Royal Family of Prussia but the Imperial Family of the whole of Germany. Of those, it is important to note that only one son of the former Kaiser, Prince August Wilhelm and his family, took up the Nazi cause. His father, Kaiser Wilhelm II, practically disowned him for doing so as he refused to have anything to do with any government in Germany that was not the old monarchy. Some thought that Prince August Wilhelm harbored ambitions of gaining the imperial throne for himself or perhaps his son but, of course, that is something the Nazis would never have done. In the end, Hitler would turn on him as he turned on all the German royals when they could no longer be of use to him.

Hitler & Prince Charles Edward of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Numerous Prussian princes, while shunning the Nazi Party, did join the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) and fight in the war, at least early on. It is important to understand who these men were and why they served considering that the Nazis and everything connected with them have been vilified to the point of appearing as almost fictional caricatures of pure evil so that the actual facts of the situation are often ignored. Not every German was a Nazi and not even every Nazi chose to be so because they wanted to be on the most evil “team” on the world stage. Many men fought for Germany in World War II who were not members of the Nazi Party and, on the other hand, there were examples like the famous case of Oscar Schindler who was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party who is honored to this day for all of the Jewish lives he saved during the Holocaust. The problem that plagued the German royals was the same as has been faced by many royals around the world whose countries have abolished their monarchies; whether to place themselves in opposition to their country because of its government or to defend their homeland regardless of the political situation.

In the absence of the Kaiser, exiled in The Netherlands, the highest ranking royal in Germany was Prussian Crown Prince Wilhelm. Of his sons, all who were able to, served in the German military during World War II in some capacity, at least for a time. The only one who did not was his youngest son, Prince Friedrich of Prussia, who was studying in England when the war broke out. He was arrested by British authorities as an “enemy alien” and placed in an internment camp in England and later moved to Canada. In both camps, his fellow inmates elected him their leader and he became a British citizen after the war in 1947. The first and third sons served in the German army while the second served in the Luftwaffe. Crown Prince Wilhelm himself is sometimes portrayed as a Nazi Party member or supporter. Neither is true. A veteran of the First World War and army group commander on the western front, the Crown Prince was as opposed to the Versailles Treaty as any patriotic German was, opposed the Weimar Republic and supported Germany reasserting itself as a proud member of the world community. However, he was never a member or supporter of the Nazi Party.

Crown Prince Wilhelm

Assumptions to the contrary mostly arise from the fact that numerous photos of the Crown Prince wearing what appears to be the standard Nazi Brownshirt uniform can be found. Despite appearances, the Crown Prince was not a Brownshirt but rather did belong to the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) which was a subsidiary organization for automobile and motorcycle enthusiasts. It was a fact of life in Germany that, under the Nazi regime, virtually all such organizations had to adopt Nazi-style uniforms including the ubiquitous brown shirts and swastika armbands. However, there was nothing sinister about the NSKK itself. It trained drivers, held rallies and helped motorists, similar to organizations such as AAA in America or the British Automobile Association. Crown Prince Wilhelm was never a member of the Nazi Party and never endorsed Adolf Hitler or his movement. The Nazi leadership certainly never saw the Crown Prince as an ally but rather the opposite and their feelings on that score would become very clear during the course of World War II. While, early on, they tried to recruit royals as window-dressing to add legitimacy to Nazi gatherings, the Nazis were paranoid about any sympathy for the old monarchy and took action against the royals even if they were serving in uniform with the German armed forces.

Prince Wilhelm in East Prussia

Prince Wilhelm, the eldest son of Crown Prince Wilhelm, was born with every expectation of becoming German Kaiser one day. That all changed with the German Revolution in 1918 of course. However, as he reached adulthood, romance barred the way for his expected leadership of the House of Hohenzollern. In 1933, against the wishes of his grandfather, Prince Wilhelm married Dorothea von Salviati who he had met while in school in Bonn. Due to dynastic rules he had to renounce his claim to the throne and the rights of succession for any future children in order to marry the woman who had his heart. Upon doing so, the future of the House of Hohenzollern became the responsibility of his younger brother Prince Louis Ferdinand. He had been far away from Germany for a long time, having settled in the United States and taken a job in Detroit, Michigan where he was taken in by Henry Ford. President Roosevelt was also fond of the young man. When the actions of his brother called him back to Germany in 1934 he seemed the odd man out with some whispers that he was too taken with America and American ideas about democracy to be a potential Prussian monarch. Prince Louis Ferdinand was not pleased with the marriage of his brother and how it thrust him into the position of future leader of the family but it would be his line who would carry on the Hohenzollern legacy to the present day.

Prince Hubertus of Prussia

Prince Louis Ferdinand took a job in the aviation industry in Germany and later joined the Luftwaffe as a training officer. His older and younger brothers, Prince Wilhelm and Prince Hubertus both joined the army. Prince Wilhelm became an officer in the First Regiment of the First Division, rising to command the 11th Company in 1938. Prince Hubertus was to see service in the Eighth Regiment, Third Infantry Division (he later transferred to the Luftwaffe). When war broke out, Prince Wilhelm and Prince Hubertus both saw action in the German invasion of Poland. Another Prussian royal at the front was Prince Oskar Wilhelm who was a reserve officer. He was killed in action at Widawka, Poland on September 5, 1939. This Nazis noticed this but took no immediate action. Later, however, Prince Wilhelm was fighting at the front in the invasion of France and was mortally wounded at Valenciennes and died a few days later in Nivelles on May 26, 1940. Two Prussian princes being killed at the front disturbed the Nazi leadership who did not want the royals to have any share of the glory. However, they were more disturbed by what happened later.

Prince Alexander Ferdinand

When news of the deaths of Prince Oskar and Prince Wilhelm reached Germany there was an outpouring of sympathy toward the Prussian Royal Family. When the funeral for Prince Wilhelm was held at the Church of Peace more than 50,000 Germans turned out to show their support for the House of Hohenzollern. The sheer number of mourners caused the Nazi leadership to panic and they immediately enacted the so-called “Prince’s Decree” which banned all Prussian royals from military service. Prince Hubertus was pulled out of the line and basically forced to end his military career while Prince Louis Ferdinand in the Luftwaffe was prevented from ever seeing action. The only Prussian prince who was allowed to remain at his post was Prince Alexander Ferdinand, the son of Prince August Wilhelm and, like his father, a member of the Nazi Party and originally a member of the SA Brownshirts. When the decree was issued, it coincided with a Nazi crackdown on royals and monarchists in general. Any pretense of being in any way sympathetic to the old monarchy was dropped and even the few really pro-Nazi royals in Germany were pushed to the side and became subject to state scrutiny. Prince Alexander Ferdinand, who had once harbored hopes of becoming Hitler’s successor, was sidelined and his pro-Nazi politics also caused him to be shunned by his family. When he married in 1938 none of his Hohenzollern relations attended the wedding.

Prince Wilhelm Karl & Prince Oskar

Most of the Prussian Royal Family had much closer ties to the anti-Nazi underground than they did to the ruling party. Crown Prince Wilhelm, who some people regarded as too friendly with the Nazis, showed his true colors in subtle ways so as not to endanger his family such as the regular gift of cigars he sent to anti-Nazi monarchist Reinhold Wulle who was sent to a concentration camp for organizing a monarchist opposition party. Today, most tend to think that the Crown Prince had virtually nothing to do with the anti-Nazi movement but the Nazis themselves certainly did not think so and kept the Crown Prince under close surveillance throughout the war and after the assassination attempt on Hitler made in 1944 the Gestapo were ordered to shadow him at all times. The German resistance group which orchestrated that assassination attempt had numerous ties to the Prussian Royal Family. The man who would have been chancellor of Germany had the bomb plot and coup succeeded, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, was a monarchist and most of the attention was on Prince Louis Ferdinand as a potential German Kaiser going forward. Many of the plotters were also members of the German branch of the Knights of St John which was presided over by Prince Oskar of Prussia and whose son (and successor in that position) later wrote a history of the German resistance movement.

Prince Louis Ferdinand

Although he was not personally involved in the assassination plot, the connections between the resistance and Prince Louis Ferdinand were sufficiently known for the Prince to be arrested, interrogated by the Gestapo and then imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp. Adolf Hitler himself stated that, “the Crown Prince is the actual instigator” of the attempt on his life. Propaganda Minister Goebbels said of the German royals and aristocrats, “…We must exterminate this filth,” and SS chief Heinrich Himmler said, “There will be no more princes. Hitler gave me the order to finish off all the German princes and to do so immediately.” That, thankfully, did not happen but Prince Louis Ferdinand was sent to a concentration camp and the anti-royal crackdown was so widespread that even the pro-Nazi Prince Philip of Hesse and his wife Princess Mafalda of Italy were arrested and put in (separate) concentration camps. Princess Mafalda died there from injuries sustained when the Allies bombed an ammunition factory in the camp where she was being held. Estimates are that five to six thousand royals and aristocrats were murdered in the purges following the bomb plot. Himmler wanted all German princes to be paraded through Berlin to be spit on before they were killed and their property seized and redistributed to loyal Nazis.

Prince Wilhelm

It seems strange that some modern historians will go out of their way, grasping at straws, in a desperate effort to link the royals with the Nazis (in an effort to discredit them of course) when the Nazis themselves were absolutely certain that the royals were the heart and center of their most dangerous internal opposition. Those Prussian and other royal princes who fought in the German armed forces, almost without exception, did so purely out of their devotion to Germany and the German people and not because of any sympathy at all with the Nazi regime. Those princes and aristocrats who were truly devoted to the Nazi cause were very few and found themselves betrayed by the party they served and shunned by the rest of their class and often by their own families. The handful that the party did not turn against, such as Prince Josias zu Waldeck und Pyrmont, a notorious general in the SS, faced retribution at the hands of the Allies when the war was over. For the House of Hohenzollern, the Crown Prince was held under house arrest as some considered prosecuting him for “war crimes” during the First World War, which was plainly absurd but his death in 1951 saw leadership of the family pass to the capable hands of Prince Louis Ferdinand, a man with friendly ties to the Allies and a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime throughout his life.

Hitler and Royal Bavaria

At the end of World War I, the last Bavarian monarch, King Ludwig III, had relinquished power, though without abdicating, in the face of the German Revolution. He went into exile, later returned to Bavaria but had to leave again due to fear of assassination. He died in Hungary in 1921. However, the experience of radical revolutionary rule seemed to shock many Bavarians back to their senses and his funeral was a mass demonstration of support for the old monarchy. His son and heir, Crown Prince Rupprecht, refused, however, to use the occasion of his father’s funeral to seize power even though many thought such a coup could be successful. He was a celebrated war hero, a former army group commander on the western front, and after the death of his father was referred to by many as “Your Majesty”, even by some in the local government. The Crown Prince was adamant that he wanted the monarchy restored but only by legal means. He refused to recognize the Weimar Republic and was as upset about the state of affairs that prevailed in his country as every proud German was.

Brownshirts leader Ernst Roehm

Crown Prince Rupprecht refrained from entering the political fray himself but made it clear that he supported the creation of a “…constitutional, social monarchy with universal suffrage.” This seemed to be a very real possibility as monarchist support in Bavaria seemed increasingly widespread. However, Bavaria was also the birthplace of the Nazi Party and the aspiring dictator, Adolf Hitler, would find an implacable enemy in the person of the Bavarian crown prince. Hitler had served in a Bavarian regiment in World War I and started his political career in Bavaria (he belatedly had to renounce his Austrian citizenship to enter politics). However, traditional, Catholic conservatism ran strong in Bavaria and Hitler would actually find less support there than in other areas. In 1923 Hitler had tried to enlist the Crown Prince in his “Beer Hall Putsch” but the royal would have no part of it. He had earlier sent his supporter Ernst Roehm (who he would ultimately have killed) to try to enlist the support of the Crown Prince, but the Bavarian heir would have no part of it. Hitler tried to tempt the Crown Prince by hinting at supporting a restoration but never outright promising it due to the support among many Bavarian monarchists for seceding from Germany, which Hitler would not allow.

To his credit, Crown Prince Rupprecht was never taken in by the vague promises of the Nazis. It was all a deception of course as, privately, Hitler admitted, “that he couldn’t stand Rupprecht von Bayern” and never had any intention of restoring him to his throne. Fortunately, there were considerable numbers of loyal Bavarian monarchists who did support the heir-to-the-throne and as the Nazi Party grew in power, others in Bavaria increasingly looked to Crown Prince Rupprecht for their political salvation. The royal war hero commanded sufficiently widespread support in Bavaria to be seen as a potential savior from the Nazis, pushing some that were probably not monarchists at all to get behind the idea of a royal restoration. Despite being born in Bavaria, the Nazi Party actually had less support there than most would think. Finally, as the Nazis grew in power throughout Germany, Bavarian politicians began to look to Crown Prince Rupprecht as their savior. The Crown Prince himself certainly thought something needed to be done to spare Bavaria from Nazi rule and offered to step in and take charge of the government himself if no one else had the spine to stand up to Hitler.

Kronprinz Rupprecht

Finally, a plan began to take shape for Crown Prince Rupprecht to step in as a sort of Bavarian dictator with the title of “Staatskommissar” so that he could do things that the existing political establishment lacked the will or courage (or both) to do. Many Bavarian monarchists naturally supported this plan as a prelude to the restoration of the monarchy but so did many Social Democrats, so frightened were they by the sudden and rapid rise of the Nazi Party. Everything seemed favorable as every day brought more supporters as the Nazis gained more power. However, the plan was thwarted when the elderly (and increasingly senile) President Paul von Hindenburg was induced to appoint Hitler Chancellor of Germany. After that, the Nazi dictatorship was swiftly established and numerous Bavarian monarchists were thrown into prison by the new regime. Crown Prince Rupprecht refused to be reconciled with this new state of affairs. He refused to fly the Nazi flag at any of his residences and when Hitler requested the use of one of the royal castles to entertain state guests, the Crown Prince refused.

When he hoped to gain monarchist support, Hitler tried to give the impression that he would restore the monarchy in Bavaria (as in other parts of Germany depending on who he was talking to) and enlisted prominent Bavarians to try to convince the Crown Prince to endorse the Nazis. Ernst Roehm was one such figure as was his former Freikorps commander Franz Ritter von Epp, a former friend of the Crown Prince and a former monarchist but one who had abandoned that to embrace the Nazi cause. None of them succeeded. While on a visit to King George V of Great Britain, Crown Prince Rupprecht stated that he supported a “reasonable” German rearmament but felt certain that Hitler was completely insane. He still held out hope that the monarchy would be restored but, unlike some, he had the wherewithal to realize that it would not be because of the Nazis, despite their many implied or overt promises. Nor was the Crown Prince alone as there were many devout, traditional, Catholic Bavarian monarchists who were determined to resist the Nazis. One of the most prominent was Baron Adolf von Harnier but he was found out by the Gestapo and arrested in 1939.

Adolf Freiherr von Harnier

With the arrest of Baron von Harnier and the discovery of his hopes of restoring the House of Wittelsbach to the Bavarian throne, the Nazi state came down on the old Bavarian Royal Family. Properties were confiscated and, at the end of the year, Crown Prince Rupprecht and his family were forced to flee to the Kingdom of Italy where they were given sanctuary by King Victor Emmanuel III. Despite the close alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Victor Emmanuel III was still the King of Italy, above Mussolini and there was nothing anyone could do to harm the Bavarian royals as long as the Savoy monarchy protected them. Furiously, Hitler banned the Crown Prince from returning to Germany and the royals settled in Florence. Likewise, Crown Prince Rupprecht never relented in his staunch opposition to the Nazi regime. Of course, there was little the Crown Prince could do under the circumstances, even his life in Italy was not totally free from worry, but he never gave up hope that the monarchy would be restored and as the war went on, it seemed more and more likely the Nazi regime would fall. He had very definite ideas about what should replace it.

One of the problems that the Nazis had with the Bavarian royal house (and some other German monarchists did as well) was their openness toward secession and the break-up of Germany. In 1942 a British diplomat who met with the Crown Prince reported that he envisioned a South German monarchy that would include Bavaria and the Austrian-Tyrol while the Rhineland and Hanover would form another state and Schleswig, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony and Posen combining to form another that would separate western Europe from the Soviets. At least that was one idea. In 1943 the Crown Prince sent a memorandum to the British government volunteering to take charge of things in Germany when the Nazi regime collapsed, seemingly implying his willingness to assume the role of German Kaiser. However, more common was the proposal of joining Austria to Bavaria in a new South German monarchy. Unfortunately, after 1943, things became much more dangerous for the Bavarian Royal Family. The King of Italy dismissed Mussolini and began trying to extricate Italy from the Axis and the war. The Germans promptly began moving in to take control of as much of the Italian peninsula as possible.

The Crown Prince & Princess in Italy

The Crown Prince left his residence and was hidden by an Italian colonel, allowing him to evade the German occupation forces. However, his family was not so fortunate. They were in Hungary at the time and when the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944 Crown Princess Antonia (of Luxembourg) and the children were taken prisoner on direct orders from Hitler himself. They were sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and were later moved to Dachau. Within the month they were liberated by American troops but the trauma of the ordeal had weakened Crown Princess Antonia and she never fully recovered, dying nine years later in Switzerland. The Crown Prince’s son, Duke Albrecht (future head of the family), was moved from place to place as well before being liberated by the French in Austria. When the war ended in 1945, U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower sent a special plane to fly Crown Prince Rupprecht back to Germany but while they were very polite and friendly, no one was prepared to take his ideas for post-war Germany under serious consideration. The Allies had already made their own agreements concerning the occupation and division of Germany and none of them included a restoration of any of the German monarchies, even one that had been so staunchly anti-Nazi from the beginning as the Royal House of Bavaria.

Crown Prince Rupprecht returned home as a more beloved figure than ever before due to his staunch opposition to the Nazis from the very beginning. Looking at the situation in post-war Bavaria, one would think that a restoration of the monarchy would have been easy. However, four foreign countries were then involved in Germany and a restoration of the monarchy was considered out of the question by both the Allies and the West German government which (and this is at least understandable) feared that this would coincide with calls for Bavarian independence, breaking up the federal union and weakening West Germany at a time when they were most concerned by the looming threat of a third world war with East Germany and the rest of the Soviet bloc. So, Crown Prince Rupprecht remained honored, beloved and respected but also without a throne. One German historian stated that many Bavarian people considered him their monarch anyway, regardless of what the law said, referring to Rupprecht as, “uncrowned, and yet a king”. When he died in 1955 tens of thousands of people visited his remains and he was given a full state funeral by the Bavarian government as if he had been a former monarch. In his person, he represented an older, nobler Bavaria and an example of a national figure who was untainted by the Nazi regime, who also represented all those Bavarians, not just the loyal Catholic royalists, who had opposed the Nazis from start to finish. He was a figure everyone in post-war Bavaria could, and in large part did, admire.

The Kaiser and the Führer

When the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, went into exile in the Netherlands in 1918 he was a man rejected by his country, betrayed by his army and demonized by the world. To understand why he came to take such a cool approach to the politics of Germany in the days leading up to the Second World War one must understand how close the Kaiser came to public humiliation and execution after the first. It had to make an impression on the crestfallen former monarch. After being vilified in the Allied press since 1914 as the very incarnation of evil itself there was no shortage of powerful individuals who wanted to see the last German Kaiser pay with his life for the mass atrocity that was the Great War. The British were the most adamant to see him hanged, the French, surprisingly, were not terribly moved one way or the other and the Americans opposed taking the life of the fallen monarch. Britain’s King George V opposed the idea but, given the clamor for it in his own country, would not speak on his cousin’s behalf. Belgian King Albert I, perhaps surprisingly and perhaps not, opposed executing the Kaiser and did speak up in opposition to such a thing.

Kronprinz Wilhelm, Dutch Princess Juliana & the Kaiser

The lack of Allied unity on the subject, the lack of any recognized legal precedent to do such a thing and the refusal of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands to hand her guest over (as a matter of Dutch sovereignty) meant that eventually the issue, rather than the Kaiser, died after 1920. However, for about a year Wilhelm II had to have been apprehensive as his life hung in the balance. He felt considerable bitterness at having been made the scapegoat for the murderous insanity that gripped Europe in August of 1914, and rightly so for, if he was to blame, he was certainly no more guilty than the leaders of Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Russia, Britain and France. Kaiser Wilhelm II saw himself as a man who had been wronged and so he was. He refused to recognize the Weimar Republic of Germany and vowed that he would not set foot on German soil again unless it was as King of Prussia and German Emperor. When some suggested that his son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, run for president alongside Field Marshal Hindenburg, the Kaiser was repelled by the very idea. Somewhat unjustly but also somewhat understandably, Wilhelm II always viewed Hindenburg as one of his betrayers.

The Kaiser, of course, followed German politics quite closely and hoped that an opportunity to restore the monarchy might present itself even as he gloomily admitted that such second chances seldom to never come about. His days were further darkened in 1921 when his beloved wife, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria passed away. The Kaiser accompanied the remains of his wife to the German border but could go no farther. However, some 200,000 Germans turned out to mourn her, which was noted as a hopeful sign that considerable monarchist support remained in Germany. Only the year before about 5,000 men had staged a coup in Berlin, under the nominal leadership of Wolfgang Kapp, that aimed to restore the Kaiser but it had been swiftly suppressed. In 1923 Hitler launched his “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich which was suppressed even faster but the Kaiser certainly did not support it. He feared that behind it was an effort by the Bavarian royal House of Wittelsbach to replace the House of Hohenzollern on the German throne. In fact, however, the popular Bavarian Crown Prince had refused to have anything to do with Hitler’s wild scheme and remained staunchly opposed to the Nazis for the rest of his life.

There were various monarchist groups in Germany but the one political party most associated with a desire to restore the empire was the German National People’s Party or DNVP. However, while monarchists made up a large part of its membership, it was not a purely monarchist party by any means and as total electoral success continued to elude them, many began drifting toward an alliance with the rising power of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP); the Nazis. Eventually the DNVP would join in a coalition with the Nazis but it was only one example out of many of Hitler courting the monarchists when they could be of use to him and dropping them as soon as his goals were achieved. When Hitler began to become a major player on the German political stage he began to make some effort to court the exiled Kaiser and, having the bulk of his support in the middle to lower class, add aristocratic respectability to his movement. His choice for this campaign was his most likeable lieutenant, former First World War flying ace, Hermann Goering.

In January of 1931 Goering visited the Kaiser at his home in Doorn for the first time. It was a brief visit and somewhat stormy. Princess Hermine (the Kaiser’s second wife) stated that the conversation between the two had become quite heated, probably due to the Kaiser not being used to being challenged and disagreed with. For her part, Princess Hermine was rather hopeful about the Nazis but Wilhelm II distrusted them. For someone who had been around politics for as long as he had, there seemed to be something unsavory about them. When Goering returned in May of 1932 he stayed for a week and afterwards there were reports that the Kaiser had been completely won over. They were entirely mistaken. The Kaiser adopted a wait-and-see attitude about them but while he praised the positive changes that came with the Nazi takeover (and no one denies that these existed), he was never taken in by them and warned his family to keep their distance. When, on his second visit, Goering claimed to be in favor of restoring the imperial throne (which he certainly was not as he was set to be Hitler’s designated successor), the Kaiser stood up for his fellow German royals and insisted that such a thing would not be sufficient as the whole “princely brotherhood” had to be revived as well. The Bavarian monarchists and others of the German states should remember that in his haggling the former King of Prussia had not abandoned them.

Hermann Goering, Hitler's #2

If the Kaiser had ever read ‘Mein Kampf’ he might have known that Hitler was no friend of the old reich. He stated quite clearly that his intention was a racial state rather than a restored monarchy and that he had nothing but contempt for the Kaiser, blaming him for the mistakes of World War I (he would, of course, go on to make bigger ones). As it was, the Kaiser approved of the DNVP voting with the Nazis in the hope that they could help achieve sufficient mastery over the leftists to bring about a vote on restoring the monarchy. As for the Nazis themselves though, he could see that their claim to represent something new was simply an effort to turn both ends against the middle and had no consistency to it. He had been around long enough to know that there was no “third” direction. One could go left or right but any effort to go both was false and doomed to failure. He wrote in 1930 of National Socialism, “Social = National! - Socialism = Bolshevism = antinational and international…This socialism is therefore irreconcilable with the idea of the national.” Socialism by any other name, to the Kaiser, was still the same poison that had been preached by Thomas Paine, Karl Marx, the Paris Communards and Vladimir Lenin.

Princess Hermine, who had actually met Hitler once, remained hopeful and after the visit by Goering she asked her husband if he might have some place of honor in the restored German Empire if their hopes were realized. The Kaiser remained dubious and said, at best, he might give him command of the air force. He was more positive about the prospects of Mussolini and Italian Fascism under which the monarchy remained in place and which hearkened back to Italian tradition and history in Imperial Rome. However, when he sent one of his courtiers to Rome to convey his greetings to Mussolini, the Duce refused to even see him, so that was the end of that. When Hitler began his talks with Field Marshal Hindenburg, President of Germany, the Kaiser was disgusted by the whole scene, still regarding Hindenburg as a traitor and dismissing Hitler as “a fool”. The higher the Nazis climbed the less likely it seemed that they would do any favors for the monarchists. As far as Hitler was concerned, giving the former German monarch a pension as a former head-of-state was more than sufficient.

Wilhelm II, last legitimate German leader

When some of the Kaiser’s private sentiments were leaked to the Nazi leadership, Wilhelm II did all in his power to separate his family from them. He dismissed his openly pro-Nazi courtier, Leopold von Kleist, urged his son Prince August Wilhelm and his grandson to leave the Nazi Party as well as Princess Hermine’s son Georg (though they did not listen). When one of his former courtiers asked permission to stand for office as a Nazi the Kaiser refused on the grounds that anyone who worked for him should have nothing to do with politics (since he regarded the entire German government as illegitimate). When the man protested, defending the Nazis, the Kaiser took it as proof enough that he was not a loyal monarchist and never had been. There would be no more visits from high-ranking Nazi officials, which was as well for the Kaiser who was happier to have as his guests on his birthday the deposed kings of Saxony and Wurttemberg. When the Nazis did finally come to power, with some DNVP members in the coalition, some raised the issue of a restoration but found no support and after the Reichstag fire and Hitler’s assumption of dictatorial powers, any realistic chance of working within the system to bring the Kaiser back came to an end.

From that point on, the whole hope for the Kaiser to enjoy his own again would purely depend on the generosity of Hitler or the overthrow of his regime. An overthrow was not likely to happen as Hitler enjoyed widespread popular support and was successfully suppressing those who opposed him. An early target, of course, was the Jews. Critical historians have tried to portray the Kaiser as an anti-Semite and he certainly made some anti-Semitic statements but it would be a total deception to portray this as being anything at all like the Nazi position. When the Kaiser condemned “the Jews” he did so in the context of condemning a variety of peoples whom he believed had betrayed him. However, when the Nazis began their first organized persecution of Jews the Kaiser was disgusted, famously saying that it made him ashamed to be a German for the first time in his life. Such activities, he thought, showed the Nazi regime to be gangsters, unworthy of a position of national leadership. Still, for the time being, care had to be taken not to offend Hitler or it would have meant ruination for everyone.

Princess Hermine & Kaiser Wilhelm II

The 75th birthday of the Kaiser was a turning point. There were public celebrations in Germany which Hitler ordered broken up. He then followed this up by outlawing all monarchist organizations, something Wilhelm II considered “an act of war against the House of Hohenzollern”. Even Princess Hermine, who had been the most hopeful regarding the Nazis being the short-cut to restoration, finally lost her rose-colored glasses and dropped all sympathy for the new regime. The Kaiser was further alienated when the Nazis began to remove from public view any lingering traces of the monarchial past. The mutual loathing of Nazi government in Berlin and the exiled court in Doorn was obvious and ever deepening. In terms of policy, the Kaiser approved of Hitler ignoring the Versailles Treaty, the building back up of the military and the steps taken to redress German grievances but disapproved of the anti-Semitic program. In any dealings with the regime in Germany he was polite and correct but knew that they had only been trying to use him and so was careful to keep a space between himself and them. When war came in 1939 the Kaiser doubted that Hitler would ultimately succeed.

After the conquest of Poland, a courtier wrote to Hitler (as the Kaiser would not) pointing out that nine Prussian princes had served at the front and after the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands an honor guard was posted at Doorn. Churchill, once his enemy, had offered to take the Kaiser away to England but Wilhelm II refused, preferring to stay where he was and, in any event, would not countenance “escaping” from German troops. When the Nazi regime expressed their displeasure that there had been no formal word from Doorn about the Nazi victory over France, the Kaiser finally sent a message of congratulations. However, while the Kaiser certainly did relish the defeat of France as revenge for 1918 his message was less than well received as the Kaiser referred to the victorious troops as ‘his’ army and expressed his hope that the monarchy would be restored. Hitler, upon reading the message, referred to the Kaiser as “an idiot”. At his home, the Kaiser would often go out to chat with the German guards and to the horror of the  strict Nazi-types these men soon began snapping to attention, saluting and treating the Kaiser as if he were still their sovereign. Hitler was less than pleased.

Seyß-Inquart, Mackensen, Canaris, Christiansen,
Haase and Densch at the Kaiser's funeral

Not long after, on June 3, 1941 Kaiser Wilhelm II passed away. Hitler was still thinking of using the former monarch for his own purposes. He envisioned an elaborate state funeral in Berlin, with Hitler playing the mourner, walking behind the coffin to give the appearance of himself as the “legitimate” successor to the past imperial leader. However, this dream fell apart when the last will of the Kaiser was produced. Wilhelm II had suspected that such ambitions were on the mind of Hitler and he forbid such a thing. If Germany would not have him back in life, they would not have him back in death. He expressed his wish to be buried on his estate at Doorn, that his funeral be simple and that no Nazi pageantry be allowed. Hitler was furious and immediately forbid any German officers to appear in uniform at the service, refused to send any high-ranking Nazi official but did send a wreath, making sure it was draped with a very large swastika in a last act of spitefulness.

However, in spite of Hitler’s order, a number of serving German officers attended the funeral in uniform (and there was a small official delegation) such as Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of military intelligence, General Friedrich Christiansen of the German occupation forces in the Netherlands, Admiral Hermann Densch, III Corps commander General Curt Haase and others. Nazi commissioner for the Netherlands Arthur Seyss-Inquart was the highest ranking political official present but the most prominent attendee was General Field Marshal August von Mackensen who appeared in his old Life Guard Hussars uniform, clutching the marshal’s baton that the Kaiser had given to him in the First World War. The 91-year old veteran was a committed monarchist. He was also suspected of “disloyalty” to the Nazi regime and, as most know, Admiral Canaris was later executed on such a charge after it was found he was actively working to thwart the Nazi Party. Hitler himself, of course, would have a very different sort of funeral, his remains being doused with gasoline and burned in a ditch.

On the mind of the Indian judge?

The Nazi Fuhrer and the German Kaiser never met each other and remained at odds to the very end. However, Hitler did do the Kaiser one service, inadvertently, in that he gave the world a new German villain to rail against. After the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, few people could summon that much outrage against the Kaiser. Efforts to link the two proved to be intellectually weak and taken seriously by very few. Hitler was the new bogeyman and the Nazi state the new example of perfect evil on the world stage. The old Kaiser quickly faded from memory in favor of the new global antagonist. However, after World War II, the name of Kaiser Wilhelm II was invoked in a rather strange way.  In his dissenting opinion at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial Indian Justice Radhabinad Pal lumped the Kaiser together with Hitler and the Allies when he compared America’s use of the atomic bomb to “the directives of the German Emperor during the first World War and of the Nazi leaders during the second World War”. It was a bizarre comparison but probably the last time the Kaiser was linked to Hitler on the world stage.