Einer nur ist Herr im Reiche

One of the many unique features of the German emperor Wilhelm II was his penchant for speech-making—a characteristic of the mustachioed ruler well known to contemporaries and frequently emphasised by historians. Equally well known was another feature of his oratory: the inability to open his mouth without sticking his foot in it. The celebrated speech of 1900, comparing imperial German troops to the Huns, and the 1908 interview with the Daily Telegraph were just the two best-known examples of a lifetime of rhetorical indiscretions and faux-pas. Explanations of this practice have varied from seeing it as sinister—a (perhaps not entirely successful) precursor to Hitler, as pathological—a manifestation of the German ruler’s many psychological problems—or as simply comic. Michael Obst’s thoughtful, perceptive, very detailed and eminently well-documented investigation into the political speeches of the Kaiser evaluates the ruler’s flights of oratory in the context of the changing constitutional and political realities of the German Empire and the attitudes of its political class

Ancient history · Art · Art history · Comics · Context (archaeology · Emperor · Empire · German · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Politics · Rhetorical question · Ruler · Central European national history · Classics · European history and politics · German legal, social, and political studies · History · Law · Philosophy