Wilhelm II

British  

noun

1. the German name of William II

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Wilhelm II Cultural  

1. A German emperor, or kaiser, of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After disagreements with Kaiser Wilhelm in the late nineteenth century, Otto von Bismarck resigned as head of the German government. Wilhelm then made aggressive moves abroad that increased instability throughout Europe. He ruled Germany in World War I and abdicated after his country's defeat. He lived the rest of his life in obscurity in The Netherlands.

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Example Sentences

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Wilhelm II

His book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890, found disciples in Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the Japanese imperial naval ministry, and shaped 20th-century history.

From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026

It is believed they were named after German emperor Wilhelm II, who also had a moustache.

From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2023

The Hughes’s were related to German royalty, and when Thomas was 13, he traded letters with the deposed Kaiser Wilhelm II, as part of his research for a book about that side of his family.

From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2023

Wilhelm II abdicated on November 9, 1918, leaving the country for the Netherlands where he lived until his death in 1941.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

Louis Lépine’s international dragnet—the trains stopped in Belgium, the Kaiser Wilhelm II searched in New York—had been for nothing.

From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day