His Majesty's Birthday
Preparing to congratulate His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm ll, Germany’s last legitimate ruler and my reporting senior, on his birthday on January 27, I made a rough winter crossing of the North Atlantic on the splendid liner Vaterland. I usually telephone, but something in the air--the voice of the people, coming from the U.S. Capitol where it is almost never heard of--led me to call in person. I hoped His Majesty could offer a useful perspective.
I arrived in Potsdam three days early, to find, unsurprisingly, that His Majesty was traveling. He wasn’t called der Reisekaiser for nothing. I was surprised when, on the 25th, he arrived by sleigh instead of on the Imperial train at his private railway station. Recognizing me in the welcoming crowd, he beckoned me over and said, “Get in!”
“I’m just back from St. Petersburg. Did the whole trip by sleigh! Splendid time! How the Russian people love their Tsar! Damn cossacks in my escort stole my cuirass, though. I felt half-naked at the balls.”
“You know cossacks are going to steal something, Your Majesty,” I said. “Last time I visited Stavka with von Seekt they stole his monocle! Talk about feeling naked. The man was so shocked his face actually showed expression.”
“Seekt? I don’t believe it,” replied the Kaiser.
“But I’m not surprised the Russian people love their monarch. Almost a century of Bolshevism taught them that much,” I said.
"It’s not just the Russian people,” His Majesty declared. “It’s happening everywhere. The Reichsburger movement in Germany is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s made up of Germans who know I was their last legitimate government. That’s why I was in St. Petersburg. Tsar Nicholas called a conference to work out how we could best meet our peoples’ desire for legitimate governments. Everybody came--the Bourbons, the Hapsburgs, the Vasas, the Ming, and of course lots of my Saxe-Gotha-Coburg cousins, who’re always hoping an empty throne will turn up.”
“I think everyone who has eyes and can see know so-called ‘democracies’ have run their course,” I replied to His Majesty. “In America, ordinary people recently occupied the Capitol building in Washington, because they know they have no voice there. If they aren’t members of some ‘victims’ group, if they just live on what they can earn and pay their taxes and help their neighbors, they are told by the high and mighty that they are evil 'oppressors' who should apologize endlessly to whatever floats down society’s gutter. And their ‘democratic, elected’ government is now trying to arrest all of them who dared make their voice heard. If we could put good King George III back on the ballot as a replacement for the whole current Washington lot, he'd win in a landslide.”
“It’s the same in Germany,” the Kaiser said. “That wretched hausfrau they jokingly call 'chancellor' flooded Germany with dirt, more than a million Arabs, and Germans don’t like seeing their country all schmutzig. Turks are one thing, but Arabs quite another. They will never become Germans, not in ten generations. Now the people learn the hard way why I said women were only for 'Kinder, Kirche, und Kuche'. That woman dirtied up Germany, and it will take a Hohenzollern to clean it again.”
“Where will this return to monarchy come from, Your Majesty,” I asked. “From the people?”
“From the people? No, of course not. I thought a General Staff officer knew better than that. ‘From the people’, democracy, always results in what you have now, oligarchies of low-class graspers and climbers, false aristocrats who think only of themselves. Prussian aristocrats ploughed their own land. Monarchs come from God. That is why only monarchy offers legitimate government. The people want legitimacy, but only God can provide.”
“So how does this come about? On the surface of things, it seems so unlikely,” I said wonderingly.
“God acts in His own time, my friend,” His Majesty said with a kindly voice. “But there are things you can do. You can attend church regularly and pray for monarchy. You can govern yourself as a Godly monarch would govern all. And you can come together and support one another, as the good Reichsburger are doing in Germany. Remember, the King returns like a thief in the night. Trim your lamps and keep watch.”
“And now I must let you go to lighten the sleigh, for I lead the hussars! It’s time to partition Poland again!” And off flew our good Kaiser for another year, leaving me to watch, wait, and try to remember what kielbasa is called in German. Schnittwurst?