His Majesty’s Birthday

As I do every year, on January 27 I telephoned my reporting senior and liege lord, Kaiser Wilhelm II, to offer my felicitations on his birthday.  Somewhat to my surprise, I found him at home in Neues Palais at Potsdam.  Der Reisekairser is more often than not on the road; rumor has it that’s to escape the company of his good wife, but Germany loves Kaiser in Augusta Victoria and I’m sure His Majesty does too, if sometimes better from a distance.

After offering my congratulations, I expressed my mild surprise at finding His Majesty at home.  “Well, I’m busy at nearby Babelsberg, which as you know is the heart of the German film industry.  I’m making a series of ‘shorts,’ to be shown in theaters before the main film.  Their purpose is to tell Germans about the real history of their country, something few of them know.”

“Why is that the case, Your Majesty?”, I asked.

“Because in Germany as in your country, the history that is taught in schools, if any is taught at all, is so warped by cultural Marxism that it is a fable, a lie.  In the U.S., how many school teachers dare say that white Christian people turned a vast wilderness into the greatest nation on earth, Germany excepted of course, in just 300 years?  That was an incredible feat, but no young Americans celebrate it.  Quite the contrary, they are taught to feel guilty that such a triumph of civilization displaced some howling savages,  What rot!”

“Is the same thing now happening in Germany?”, I enquired.

“It is, and it has been for quite a long time,” His Majesty answered.  “Young Germans are taught that the whole of German history is just a path leading to the Third Reich.  Again, this is cultural Marxism at work.  It is ideology, not history.  As you know, my Germany, the Second Reich, was a normal country and a good country.  We had freedom of speech, freedom of the press, elections to the Reichstag, every good thing.  And that democracy was balanced, as it should be, by a monarchy.  Politicians elected to office must think only about what will make them look good in the next election.  A monarch can focus on what is good for his country as a whole over a long time.  That is why I was derided as the “Peace Kaiser.”  When the people and the politicians wanted war, over and over, I said no.  I knew Germany would come to dominate Europe economically, as it has, and only war could prevent that – in the end it only delayed it, but at what cost?  In late July of 1914, when I saw events running away with everyone, I ordered my Foreign Ministry to send Vienna a telegram saying take Belgrade and then stop.  They never sent the telegram.  And now German schoolchildren are taught the war was my fault!”

“Some people say that ever since Bismarck left office, Germany’s worst enemy has been its own Foreign Ofice,” I offered.

“They’re right!” His Majesty replied.  “And yes, I dismissed Bismarck, which I later publicly admitted was a mistake.  But he was not an easy man to work with.”

“Didn’t your grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I, say one day that, ‘Sometimes it is a hard thing, being Kaiser under Bismarck?’”

“He did, and with reason.  That doesn’t change the facts that he was brilliant and that he create modern Germany.  I should have left him in office for life and appointed his son Herbert to follow him, as he intended.  Holstein was worse than Ribbentrop.”

“I was going through the Invaliden Friedhof in Berlin where Germany’s greatest heroes are buried, and I found Holstein’s grave just at the moment when I really needed to pee,” I said.

His Majesty roared with laughter.  “I hope he felt every drop.  Maybe it will cool the Hellfire he suffers for putting Germany in a two-front situation.  Had Germany remained allied with Russia, as we were under Bismarck and I wanted to remain, there would be been no war.  France alone could not have fought Germany and the French knew it.”

Venturing on somewhat dangerous ground, I asked,”Is Your Majesty aware that they have made your birthday Holocaust Rememberance Day?”

“I am, and I take it as a compliment.  As you know, when I was Kaiser Germany and Austria-Hungary were the most philo-Semitic large countries in Europe.  The Dreyfus Affair in France, where a Jewish army officer was framed for treason, could never have happened in Germany because I would not have permitted it.  I had close Jewish friends.  One was Albert Ballin, head of the world’s largest shipping line, HAPAG.  Whenever I went to Hamburg, which was frequently, I stayed at his home.  From exile in Holland, when I heard about the Nazi’s Krystallnacht, I said publicly, ‘For the first time in my life I am ashamed to be a German.’”

“So if the monarchy had endured, there could have been no Holocaust?”, I asked.

“No, of course not.  It would have been unthinkable.” 

“So Woodrow Wilson’s demand that Germany become a republic before he would agree to peace led to the Holocaust?”

“Yes, along with many other disasters, including Bolshevism in Russia – the victorious Central Powers would never have allowed that – Hitler, World War II, all of it.  All of it traces directly to Wilson.”

“Which brings us back to where we started, and why I am making this series of films on Germany’s real history,” His Majesty concluded.  “Your Germany needs such a series too.  I am confident Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia, my heir, would be happy to narrate them.  The House of Hohenzollern does its duty.  And I must now do mine.  LZ 130, the Graf Zeppelin, awaits me at Potsdam’s Zeppelinhafen.  It will carry me safely and comfortably to your capital, Washington, DC, to pay a call on your new President, Mr. Trump.  I think we have some things in common.  Tell him I’ll meet him late one night in the Lincoln bedroom!”

And with that der Reisekaiser was off again, in the only enjoyable way to fly.  I wonder who I’ll hear from first about their meeting, the Kaiser or the President?