The Kaiser

The Roman fort at Bad Homburg was “restored” by Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Emperor of Germany at the beginning of the 20th Century. Does anyone under age 70 remember him?.

The Kaiser fancied himself an archeologist. He supervised digging up the remains of this fort and rebuilt it, complete with high walls and square towers at each corner. Perhaps the Kaiser thought he knew more about Roman military architecture than any historian. He was wrong. Karl took us around the walls of the restoration and explained that the rebuilt fort to looked less like a true Roman outpost from the First Century A.D. and more like an early 20th Century German garrison.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was mistaken about many things. Born with a “withered” right arm, he strutted about in fancy uniforms with lots of medals on his chest. With the title of Emperor, he thought Germany was the greatest military power in the World. In the 1870's hadn’t they .
defeated the French in the Franco-Prussian War? (Maybe he failed to notice that as a result another emperor, Napoleon III, lost his throne, and France became a republic.)

In 1914, when the Austrian Archduke was assassinated in Serbia, all of Europe went to war. Kaiser Wilhelm’s army invaded France, expecting a quick victory. The result was the bloodbath of World War I, which destroyed a whole generation of Europe’s young men. Every American hated The Kaiser for forcing the us into that war, just as we hated the Emperor of Japan during World War II.

With American help, our allies won that World War I. That was also the end of the German Empire. Deprived of his throne, Wilhelm II retired to live the rest of his long life quietly in a small village in Holland.

In Germany the people still harbored the delusion that they were a great military nation. They smoldered under defeat and eagerly embraced Hitler’s promise to conquer the World. It took World War II and thousands more dead – six million Jews and twenty million Russians, plus our own losses – to convince the Germans that they could win more by trade than by killing people.

People cling to delusions because they accept what they are told as truth. They buy into stupid slogans. “Lower taxes, less government” will bankrupt this big nation if the Tea Party forces its policies through Congress. Cheney blows his trumpet and millions believe that the U.S. should bully other nations with its military might and “bring freedom” to people who wish we would keep our Army out of their homes.

People can be sincere and still be deluded. Listen carefully at what people say. Be skeptical about everything you read on the internet. The Kaiser was wrong in the way he reconstructed the Roman fort at Bad Homburg. That doesn’t matter. But he was also wrong in his belief in the importance of Germany’s military glory. Millions died.