Wilhelm II - is he in HOI IV?

[svennnnnnnnnnnn]

Well the fella did die, but maybe getting his ol' reich back would have given him the will to go on and pull himself together. Butterfly effect and all that.

 

[Dr. Frog]

To my knowledge, Wilhelm wasn't the biggest fan of the Nazis; I recall reading something about him specifically saying that a state funeral was fine, as long as no swastikas were shown.
Needless to say, his funeral was turned into a propaganda event.

 

[Sergey Shoigu]

I just want to point out he had children, so they could of inherited his throne.

 

[illathid]

I just want to point out he had children, so they could of inherited his throne.

Yeah, his heir (also a Wilhelm) was actually a rather smart fellow according top the reading I've done. IIRC he was also active in german politics in the 1930's unlike his father.

 

[MarcoRossolini]

Having Wilhelm III would be very interesting.

Despite all appearances, he was a pretty competent commander during World War I.

 

[TheDerpyBeagle]

Wilhelm III actually was going to run for President and compete against Hindenburg in 1932 but his father wouldn't let him.

 

[J_Master]

To my knowledge, Wilhelm wasn't the biggest fan of the Nazis; I recall reading something about him specifically saying that a state funeral was fine, as long as no swastikas were shown.
Needless to say, his funeral was turned into a propaganda event.

I've been to Huis Doorn, where he spent the last years of his live, living in exile. I've even seen the mausoleum, and heard that sometimes people can actually get to go in there, but only with permission of the current head of the Hohenzollern dynasty. The plot also is the only piece of german property to not have been cofiscated after WWII, but the mansion was.

 

[Adonnus]

I sense some rose-tinted lenses; the German Empire (2nd Reich) was arguably almost as much of a despotic dictatorship as the Third Reich.

That's quite the exaggeration. For starters the 2nd Reich had elections, not entirely democratic, but hey. By the standards of the major nations of the world at this time, none of them allowed women to vote anyway so they weren't much better. The civilian elected ministers did have some power in contrast to Nazi Germany.

As for colonial crimes... you can find plenty of British and French examples of them going well after the WW2 period rather than the WW1 period. The 2nd reich wasn't particularly more nasty than the other great empires of the time. The 3rd Reich was a whole world apart from it in that factor.