Kaiser Wilhelm’s Library At Manor Doorn

After abdicating the German throne, Kaiser Wilhelm lived in exile in The Netherlands for the final twenty-three years of his life. Twenty-one of those years were spent at Manor Doorn, a stately mansion the Kaiser purchased as his residence-in-exile.

Wilhelm spent hours and hours in his library at Manor Doorn, corresponding with a wide range of persons.

The anti-Semitic comments in his letters are legion. In a 1940 letter to his sister, Princess Margaret, Wilhelm wrote:

The hand of God is creating a new world and working miracles. We [Germany] are becoming the United States Of Europe under German leadership, a united European continent. The Jews are being thrust out of their nefarious positions in all countries, which they have driven to hostility for centuries.

Wilhelm’s death occurred at the height of German conquest: he died seven days before Germany’s invasion of Russia.