Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Uh. Several of our listeners today will be
Speaker 1: familiar with a little country called Germany. I'm kidding Germany
Speaker 1: as a huge country. As of seventeen, Germany alone accounted
Speaker 1: for twenty eight percent of the economy in the EU,
Speaker 1: according to the International Monetary Fund. I'm ben hey, I'm
Speaker 1: no remember that weird Al song the Ryer the Kaiser.
Speaker 1: It was like a joke on the eye of the tiger.
Speaker 1: That's all I got. You know, weird Al is such
Speaker 1: a technically phenomenal musician. Have you see him? Whale on
Speaker 1: an accordion? Absolutely shreds Those keys are flying everywhere. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you must go through an accordion a day,
Speaker 1: and you know who is shredding on the producer in today,
Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram is here in spirit and
Speaker 1: has bequeathed the next few episodes to our guest super
Speaker 1: producer j J. Pauseway, I love that word bequeath man. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so if it's very princely. What makes me think
Speaker 1: of giving someone in a state or a fine castle
Speaker 1: with linens and you know, high bedposts and things like that,
Speaker 1: and everybody senses that that gravity. The drama that comes
Speaker 1: with the use of that word such that if you
Speaker 1: if you, if, if you're on the street and someone
Speaker 1: asks you for a dollar or something and you say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll bequeath you a dollar, they'll think you're being rude,
Speaker 1: you know, because words have power. That's misuse of the
Speaker 1: word band. That is gross negligence when using that where
Speaker 1: you can just throw around bequeath. It's like bestowing right now,
Speaker 1: there's there has to be respect on both sides of
Speaker 1: the equation. But when bequeathing something, I think, at least
Speaker 1: in modern English here in the States, the implication is
Speaker 1: that something is posthumously given to someone. I have bequeathed
Speaker 1: this and yeah, exactly, j J is JJ is looking on.
Speaker 1: This is his first time working with us on Ridiculous History.
Speaker 1: JJ thumbs up, thumbs down. How you doing well, that's
Speaker 1: a strong thumbs up. Okay, we're gonna have to check
Speaker 1: back in the end and see why he was always
Speaker 1: my favorite son. Strong thumbs So, as you know, longtime listeners,
Speaker 1: our show is based here in Atlanta, Georgia, which is
Speaker 1: based here in these United States of ours. We mentioned
Speaker 1: Germany at the top because today Germany is this incredibly powerful,
Speaker 1: strong econo coomic, cultural, socio political force, and this was
Speaker 1: not always the case. You see, Germany was kind of
Speaker 1: late to the game of geopolitics. By the time the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century came to close. It was sort of an
Speaker 1: upstart in many other countries eyes because Germany, as we
Speaker 1: know it really coalesces in eighteen seventy one when a
Speaker 1: bunch of different provinces are unified at the end of
Speaker 1: the Franco Prussian War, and at the time there was
Speaker 1: this Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and he adopted this policy
Speaker 1: he called real politic. This meant what they wanted to
Speaker 1: do through the pursuit of real politics was to kind
Speaker 1: of make Germany the go to mediator for European affairs,
Speaker 1: such that like, if France and Britain have a problem,
Speaker 1: they will speak with Germany and Germany will help try
Speaker 1: to solve it. But the weird thing is, soon after
Speaker 1: a guy named Kaiser Wilhelm the Second took over the
Speaker 1: nation change the tone became nationalistic, militarily aggressive, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, why be mediators when we can expand our
Speaker 1: empire into a world power. And this is where our
Speaker 1: story sort of takes place. Right like two decades before
Speaker 1: World War One even began, the Kaiser had a plan
Speaker 1: for the US. Yeah, the guy had a real priapism
Speaker 1: for the for the United States. Here he was not uh,
Speaker 1: he wanted it. He wanted to flex his superiority, or
Speaker 1: in his mind, you know, what was superior. And he
Speaker 1: did not like this thing called the Monroe Doctrine one bit,
Speaker 1: which was a thing that we adopted that established us
Speaker 1: as sort of a sort of world police almost like
Speaker 1: I'm sort of standing in the way of UH colonization.
Speaker 1: That would, you know, affect our relationship with other countries,
Speaker 1: for example, like Germany had relationships with UH South American countries,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to kind of stem the tide of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And Wilhelm was like, who are you gonna say,
Speaker 1: I'm Kaiser, Wilhelm, I have a golden I have a
Speaker 1: golden horned helmet. You can tell me nothing. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: And this this is weird because it was a slow
Speaker 1: burned situation way before World War One. The Kaiser thought,
Speaker 1: you know, it's in the cards for Germany and the
Speaker 1: United States to come into conflict, and it's not too
Speaker 1: far down the road because we had already had as
Speaker 1: you said, no, they had already been some budding of heads,
Speaker 1: especially in eighteen eighty nine when the two countries were
Speaker 1: fighting over control of the Samoan Islands, and Germany, as
Speaker 1: you said, wanted to grow. Right, we had established that
Speaker 1: it went from real politics to what it called velt
Speaker 1: politic world politics, and so it needed to expand. But
Speaker 1: as it was trying to expand, especially in the Far
Speaker 1: East in the Pacific theater, it also found another country
Speaker 1: trying to rapidly expand, that be in the US. This
Speaker 1: kind of situation is something that you can play out
Speaker 1: for yourself. If you have you know, six bucks and
Speaker 1: hours of free time. You can pick up the game Civilization.
Speaker 1: Are you aware of that? Have you ever played that?
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the SIMS or sim City, but
Speaker 1: with you know, countries, countries and world events. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you run into this idea of mutually conflicting expansionist
Speaker 1: goals pretty often. And the other thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: how okay, so we're pretty hesitant, and rightly so to
Speaker 1: ascribe personal or emotional motivation to historical figures were not
Speaker 1: in their heads. We don't know. We only know what
Speaker 1: they wrote, or we only know what was written about
Speaker 1: them or what they said, especially in the days before
Speaker 1: widespread audio video capture. We do know, however, that Kaiser
Speaker 1: Willhelm the second Uh really hated the US. It was like,
Speaker 1: it's corrupt, it's decadent, democracy, capitalism, it's for the birds,
Speaker 1: it's all gone to the dogs, and various other animal
Speaker 1: related figures of speech. We we know this um through multiple,
Speaker 1: multiple different accounts, and the Monroe doctrine, which had been
Speaker 1: in place for a long time, I think half a century. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Monroe doctrine really really stuck. In the Kaiser's Crawl.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just wanted to say the Kaiser's Craw.
Speaker 1: It feels like maybe it's the name of the beach
Speaker 1: Cobrat Restaurants, Florida, perhaps a brand of margarine, the Kaisers,
Speaker 1: the Kaisers, I don't know, I'm thinking Kroc. It's different
Speaker 1: than kraw. Well, we could have a whole Kaiser line
Speaker 1: and the Kaiser's Kroc, the Kaiser's Craw, the Kaiser's crab,
Speaker 1: crab dip, the Kaiser's crab dip. Not the Kaiser's crabs.
Speaker 1: That's a that's probably a medical condition. Go get it
Speaker 1: checked out. So so what what happens. He's he's mad
Speaker 1: about the Monroe doctrine. Well, he's in sense's sense, he's
Speaker 1: thinking big though, right, UM. He wanted to essentially get
Speaker 1: unfeathered access to the Pacific Ocean. UM. He wanted to
Speaker 1: completely go against the Monroe doctrine and had all of
Speaker 1: these very detailed military plans in place to establish a
Speaker 1: naval base in the Caribbean in Cuba or possibly Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: and then that would give them access to South America,
Speaker 1: Central America and the Panama Canal UM, which it was
Speaker 1: hoping to take over once it was done being built.
Speaker 1: It was still in the process of being built. You know.
Speaker 1: He had big, big designs on the future, UM and
Speaker 1: in order to do that, he needed to deal with
Speaker 1: the United States. And there's a fantastic article from Gizmoto
Speaker 1: called the Secret German Scheme to Invade America UM before
Speaker 1: the First World War, and it outlines this story beautifully. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you heard the line correctly there, folks. You see, will Helm,
Speaker 1: while very aggressive, very bellicosts, belligerent, and agro as we
Speaker 1: would say today. While he was all those things, he
Speaker 1: was not a nincompoop. He was not a dunderhead. Right.
Speaker 1: He knew that there had to be some sort of
Speaker 1: plan addressing the US, because the US, like any other country,
Speaker 1: would not be particularly happy with this foreign empire being
Speaker 1: in their backyard, especially on what they considered already is
Speaker 1: their domain. There the um, the place where they were Hedgemon's.
Speaker 1: So he says to his military thinkers, he says, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's sketch out plans for how to deal with
Speaker 1: the US. Do we want to offer the money, No?
Speaker 1: Do we want to uh seek their approval for this
Speaker 1: naval base and then access to the Panama Canal, No,
Speaker 1: So let's just figure out how to attack and invade
Speaker 1: the United States. The US is big, right, It's much
Speaker 1: larger than Germany. So we don't want to take over
Speaker 1: the US. But we want to force them to bargain
Speaker 1: with us. We want to get them to the point
Speaker 1: where we make them an offer they can't refuse. This
Speaker 1: information only came to light in two thousand two, when
Speaker 1: some of these plans, of which there are three, you
Speaker 1: gotta have options were uncovered at the German military archives
Speaker 1: in Freiburg. So why don't we start with UM plan one,
Speaker 1: which we will call attack in Blockade so UM. The
Speaker 1: naval lieutenant Eberhard von mante Um in eighteen night helped
Speaker 1: draft up this plan that would essentially UM have the
Speaker 1: German Navy sailing across the Atlantic UM making laying waste
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Navy forces in the Atlantic UM.
Speaker 1: And then there would be a targeted artillery attacks against
Speaker 1: some very key infrastructure points like the Newport News ship
Speaker 1: Building Center and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard UM and also
Speaker 1: uh an area in Virginia known as the Hampton Roads area,
Speaker 1: which is another military strong point that was seen. These
Speaker 1: were seen as being the weakest points are the most
Speaker 1: sensitive spots to conquer by Lieutenant von mante Um. And
Speaker 1: then once you know they've made quick work of the
Speaker 1: American forces, they would send some folks outs to parlay.
Speaker 1: Big problem with this plan. Huge problem. What's that they
Speaker 1: didn't have any of this stuff. They didn't have enough
Speaker 1: ships to pull this stuff off. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, I mean the Kaiser wasn't an idiot,
Speaker 1: but his reach definitely exceeded his grasp and just about
Speaker 1: all of these plans. We don't want to spoil the
Speaker 1: fun equals of poetry. I like it there. Yeah, yeah, So,
Speaker 1: as you said, there there are three plans. Plan one
Speaker 1: has some operational problems, right, has some non starters, not
Speaker 1: just the lack of naval units on the German side,
Speaker 1: but the fact that post Spanish American War, the cribbing
Speaker 1: is lousy with US ships they're all over the place.
Speaker 1: So they make another plan, Plan two of three. This
Speaker 1: is the land invasion. Did they make? Is the land
Speaker 1: invasion more reasonable now? Is it? Uh? Is it like
Speaker 1: a smaller scope plan? Absolutely not, It's crazier, it's even bigger.
Speaker 1: The Kaiser says, okay, so the naval stuff is not
Speaker 1: gonna work out in this eight. So he goes to
Speaker 1: von Mante as you said, and he said, is this time,
Speaker 1: give me a plan. Give me a scenario in which
Speaker 1: we invade New York City and Boston will need and
Speaker 1: the plan requires sixty warships. Remember again they don't have
Speaker 1: very many ships. Uh, supply chain with sixty cargo and
Speaker 1: troops ships carrying thousand tons of coal, hundred thousand soldiers
Speaker 1: huge amount of artillery, and the invasion force would have
Speaker 1: taken a little less than a month to cross the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: It's twenty five days. You can you can read more
Speaker 1: about this as well with some direct quotes on American
Speaker 1: heritage dot com about the German plan to evade America.
Speaker 1: The idea was that they would have this huge naval
Speaker 1: battle and they would secure superiority over US ships and
Speaker 1: naval forces, and then German troops would make an amphibious
Speaker 1: landing at Cape Cod. From there they would go to Boston.
Speaker 1: They would fire or artillery into the city, so they'd
Speaker 1: be attacking civilians here. And for the attack on New York,
Speaker 1: they would land at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and warships
Speaker 1: would fire at the harbor, going through Fort Hamilton's and Tompkins,
Speaker 1: and then they would go to Manhattan and they would
Speaker 1: try They were purposely going to target civilians to make
Speaker 1: people panic, to make the authorities have to concentrate on
Speaker 1: controlling and saving the civilian population as well as fighting
Speaker 1: off these German forces. And then von Nantee was actually
Speaker 1: kind of bullish on this one. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: two to three battalions of infantry and just one battalion
Speaker 1: of sappers should be efficient, and a sapper is a
Speaker 1: term for a military engineer or combat engineer. So they'll
Speaker 1: like lay mines, they'll prepare defenses. They're also specializing in
Speaker 1: demolitions and breaching fortifications. Go, it was not aware of
Speaker 1: this term. It's like lane sea essentially, doesn't it almost
Speaker 1: sound like a term of abuse. Are sort of like
Speaker 1: like a negative thing, like the old sap. Are you
Speaker 1: it does? It does because we call people a sap.
Speaker 1: So these two plans now are collectively called von Mantes
Speaker 1: Winter Correspondence. If you use the right tone, winter Correspondence,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's the name of an outdated perfume,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It sounds like Elizabeth Taylor's
Speaker 1: new fragrance Winter Correspondence. Very formal though it is. It is,
Speaker 1: it is. It's definitely not not the late night perfume
Speaker 1: exactly now. It's like for the formal, you know. Indeed,
Speaker 1: So this stuff, these plans were kept active, which means
Speaker 1: they were still being considered and maybe tinkered with for
Speaker 1: a for about ten years as Berlin kept trying to
Speaker 1: expand its influence, and uh von Mante we know, continued
Speaker 1: to think about this. Sure. Have we talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about Count Alfred von Schliffen, No, not yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was the chief of Staff at the time, and
Speaker 1: he considered these plans to be a series of fools errands. Right.
Speaker 1: He thought that the idea of attacking a country three
Speaker 1: thousand miles away it is possibly not the best idea.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a terrible idea. Yeah. He literally
Speaker 1: thought that it could become some kind of ship show.
Speaker 1: Literally would be a ship show because there's ships involved.
Speaker 1: To um. So here's the thing. We also have a
Speaker 1: guy named Admiral Turpitz, who was considered the father of
Speaker 1: the German navy. He was all about it, but he's
Speaker 1: like a hawk, you know, which you would refer to
Speaker 1: as a war He wanted to just like go out
Speaker 1: there and show off his new toys. He had these
Speaker 1: flotilla that they hadn't been able to deploy yet. This
Speaker 1: is a great opportunity well, and it also could turn
Speaker 1: into more funding for the fleet because see, this is
Speaker 1: a thing that happens in every military. Of course, the
Speaker 1: guy who's in charge of hammers one to find nails everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: So if you're a hammer, every problem it's like a nail, right,
Speaker 1: and this is an opportunity for the admiral to receive
Speaker 1: more funding to build more ships, which gives him more power.
Speaker 1: It's like the way Trump loves those invisible planes and right,
Speaker 1: and he really wants to see them deployed. And von
Speaker 1: Schlieflin he was still really loyal to the Kaiser. He
Speaker 1: was his boy. So he didn't say anything. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. And at one at one very crucial point,
Speaker 1: history hinges on this kind of stuff, folks. At one
Speaker 1: crucial point, he was on the verge of ordering the
Speaker 1: invasion of New York and then he stopped and he said, look,
Speaker 1: the problem is, we just don't have the manpower for this, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of people didn't even They
Speaker 1: got so carried away, they got so in the bubble
Speaker 1: that they didn't think of the implications of beginning this
Speaker 1: much less actually carrying it out. And there's a great
Speaker 1: article in the Guardian called German Archive reveals Kaiser's Plan
Speaker 1: to Evade America by Kate Connolly, a journalists we've mentioned
Speaker 1: before on this show, that breaks down some of the
Speaker 1: blow by blow. Remember these are just the first two plans.
Speaker 1: By nine, will Helm says, you know what, alright, alright, alright, alright, guys,
Speaker 1: maybe I was getting a little hot under the collar.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can't launch an invasion force from Germany, but
Speaker 1: I still need that base in Cuba. And this leads
Speaker 1: us to Plan three, Yeah, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: mash shop, right, sort of a remix of the other
Speaker 1: two that involves some some little tweaks. This was a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a sensible kind of version of
Speaker 1: the plan where they buy their time, they would establish
Speaker 1: um a stronghold in Cuba, and uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It kind of depended on sort of catching the attention
Speaker 1: of the United States where it's like, oh man, they
Speaker 1: mean business and now we're we're panicking. Um. That sort
Speaker 1: of kills the element of surprise there. But uh, there's
Speaker 1: will get into why none of these things were ever
Speaker 1: going to happen. So all of these plans have a
Speaker 1: couple of things in common. I would say maybe two
Speaker 1: to three. First, it requires a massive build up of
Speaker 1: German forces, right more than they have at the time,
Speaker 1: and that build up has to occur in secret. That's
Speaker 1: number one. Two, there can't be a big war in Europe,
Speaker 1: a troubled, troubled continent that is pretty famous for having
Speaker 1: at this time for having countries almost always a war
Speaker 1: with one another totally. And then lastly they would have
Speaker 1: to catch Uncle Sam by surprise. This is tough because
Speaker 1: the US would likely, through its European allies, already be
Speaker 1: very well aware of any German build up and probably
Speaker 1: spend some manpower trying to figure out why they were
Speaker 1: building up their forces. By the first decade of the
Speaker 1: twenty century, we know that a lot of things started
Speaker 1: going wrong. Germany witnessed a shift of domestic power in Europe.
Speaker 1: France and Britain decided that they would grow up, so
Speaker 1: now they're buddies, and they started shifting their forces elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And then Germany wasn't able to get ahead of Britain
Speaker 1: in the naval arms race. At the same time, well,
Speaker 1: this is all happening in Europe. Can Currently, the US
Speaker 1: begins to assert itself more in its sphere of influence
Speaker 1: we talked about right the Caribbean, Central and South America. UH,
Speaker 1: the US demonstrates a new variation on the Monroe doctrine,
Speaker 1: something that people would call the Roosevelt corollary to the
Speaker 1: Monroe doctrine. That's Theodore Roosevelt. Uh, And it's referring to
Speaker 1: the time that the US sent naval forces to intervene
Speaker 1: in the Venezuela Crisis of nineteen o two. The Roosevelt
Speaker 1: corollary essentially states this that the US will intervene in
Speaker 1: conflicts between European and Latin American countries. And this is
Speaker 1: one of those policies that made the US what we
Speaker 1: call a police power. Now. Just because these three plans
Speaker 1: didn't work null, Uh, that doesn't mean Germany ever lost
Speaker 1: its interest in, if not directly invading the US, seeing
Speaker 1: it invaded. It kind of held onto that one, right,
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely, Like as we established from the top
Speaker 1: of the show, Um Kaiser Wilhelm was just you know,
Speaker 1: he had a real bone to pick with everything about America.
Speaker 1: I was gonna do whatever he could to either see
Speaker 1: it fail, invade it personally, or just bad mouth that,
Speaker 1: you know in his diaries. On a microcosmic level. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the way some people talk about their exes,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's strange. And even during
Speaker 1: World War One, just like a little more in ten
Speaker 1: years later, Germany was talking to Mexico and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what you should do. You should invade the US.
Speaker 1: That would be hilarious and it would be awesome, and
Speaker 1: we can both agree that's a pretty snooty country, right.
Speaker 1: The US learned about this proposal because of something called
Speaker 1: the Zimmerman Telegram. But let's let's pause for a second, because,
Speaker 1: as we said, none of these plans came to fruition.
Speaker 1: But it does give us an interesting opportunity. There were
Speaker 1: several close calls, and this allows us to speculate on
Speaker 1: what might have happened. We know the Kaiser and his
Speaker 1: administration were seriously planning this, and they put a lot
Speaker 1: of thought into it. But would it have worked, What
Speaker 1: would have happened if they tried at least? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say. We know a little bit about
Speaker 1: what might have happened, but we also know that Germany
Speaker 1: just wasn't set up for this at all, like in
Speaker 1: terms of sheer number of ships. And that's even if
Speaker 1: they had some kind of you know, stronghold fortress, impenetrable
Speaker 1: you know, base close enough to United States to actually
Speaker 1: amass some forces. Um. But the thing is the US
Speaker 1: probably would have known about that before they even met
Speaker 1: on the field or the waters of battle. Right, we
Speaker 1: just have this un mess with Herble Navy that you
Speaker 1: just can't you can't really go up against unless you're
Speaker 1: set up to do so. They just weren't. Plus it's
Speaker 1: tough to cross an ocean in that with those numbers
Speaker 1: in secret. And even if okay, even if they had
Speaker 1: attacked let's say they weren't with the plan to attack
Speaker 1: New York City in Boston. Theodore Roosevelt is president at
Speaker 1: the time, and as as we know from previous episodes
Speaker 1: on this president, he's not really a backdown guy. Right
Speaker 1: he faces down Rhino's Big Game and so on. Not
Speaker 1: only would he probably have refused to negotiate, Uh, it
Speaker 1: also doesn't really matter who the president was at the time.
Speaker 1: Just in the numbers of forces, the US would be
Speaker 1: able to pull things together very quickly because it's a
Speaker 1: it's a home game for them, But the German forces
Speaker 1: would be at the mercy of supply chains and any
Speaker 1: assistance they could get from third parties, whatever those might be. Right. Also,
Speaker 1: this is an ugly truth if it lasted for any
Speaker 1: long amount of time or met with any modicum of success.
Speaker 1: Um in any fashion. Then it's quite possible that a
Speaker 1: lot of German Americans would have been discriminated against, maybe
Speaker 1: even placed in camps the way Japanese Americans were during
Speaker 1: World War Two. It's very good that this didn't happen.
Speaker 1: It's one of those close calls, just from from multiple angles.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to physically invade the US because of
Speaker 1: the rise and information technology and what we call asymmetrical warfare.
Speaker 1: The best and most popular way to invade the United
Speaker 1: States now from within is from within, through through telecommunications
Speaker 1: right and through you know bots, things like that, to
Speaker 1: to mess with the mind, to gaslight the nation, rather
Speaker 1: than to attack its harbor's physically. Uh. And that's that's
Speaker 1: our story. If if Kaiser Wilhelm too had Twitter, who
Speaker 1: knows what would be happening right now? He would be
Speaker 1: tweeting up storms. I guarantee, don't you think I believe you?
Speaker 1: Guys seem to really like to hear himself talking. He
Speaker 1: was also a big fan of of wiener dogs, you
Speaker 1: know that been Docksin's. They're called deaf tubes for badgers
Speaker 1: and other bowering animals. That's right. Um. He actually was
Speaker 1: eventually exiled from Germany because he was responsible, I mean
Speaker 1: this kind of blustering nature that he had, Um was
Speaker 1: responsible for steering Germany into the First World War. They
Speaker 1: ended up being disastrously defeated in nineteen eighteen, and Um
Speaker 1: he was kind of seen as the scapegoat, the fall
Speaker 1: guy for that, and he was because he single handedly
Speaker 1: pushed the country into that. Um. But he was actually
Speaker 1: allowed to escape being charged with war crimes for a
Speaker 1: lot of the German atrocities and was eventually exiled to
Speaker 1: Holland where he lived in a you know, a modest
Speaker 1: castle called hoss dorn Um where he kept several docsins Um.
Speaker 1: He had Wattle, Hexel and senta Um and he had
Speaker 1: a few others as well and had five of them
Speaker 1: buried at this this modest castle where he lived in exile.
Speaker 1: Um and those are the most famous ones that I
Speaker 1: mentioned the names of. And Senta was always with him
Speaker 1: when he was during during the war, and that is
Speaker 1: what earned that creature an actual like a headstone with
Speaker 1: a with a very sentimental um dedication. He also reminds
Speaker 1: me of the Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm, the First of Prussia,
Speaker 1: in that he had he had this weird military. I
Speaker 1: hesitate to use the word, but he had a military fetish,
Speaker 1: especially for uniforms. He was obsessed with them. Apparently he
Speaker 1: thought dressing gowns were for WIMPs and milk toast types,
Speaker 1: but he himself had more than four hundred military uniforms.
Speaker 1: He was known to have them for every occasion. He
Speaker 1: would have uniforms for going to parties, uniforms for eating out, uh,
Speaker 1: some informal uniforms when he's just kind of doing his
Speaker 1: version in Netflix and chill at home. He had uniforms
Speaker 1: to greet other uniform people. And he also did really
Speaker 1: we're not joking at the beginning there. He did have
Speaker 1: a helmet of solid gold, and when he was informal receptions,
Speaker 1: he would change his wardrobe like five or six times
Speaker 1: in one night. And like, here's how here's how specific
Speaker 1: and strange it was. And picture this description with a
Speaker 1: bevy of of wiener dogs or badger death tubes running
Speaker 1: around his ankles. Whenever he ate plumb pudding, he insisted
Speaker 1: on dressing as a British admiral. He also wanted to
Speaker 1: design his army's uniforms, but they were pretty horrible designs
Speaker 1: like they didn't really fit the soldiers. Uh. They you
Speaker 1: couldn't move around in them. They itched in the summer,
Speaker 1: they weren't warm in the winter. But the big Daddy
Speaker 1: of the army liked their style. So a lot of
Speaker 1: us listening to today's episode are wondering about the timing.
Speaker 1: Kaiser Wilhelm the Second was born in eighteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: on the seven January, and he passed away in June four,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one. He was the last German Emperor and
Speaker 1: King of Prussia. However, if you if you noticed the
Speaker 1: timeline there, he was alive while Adolf Hitler was alive,
Speaker 1: you know, after he had steered Germany in the World
Speaker 1: War One. In Germany was defeated ninet eighteen, and he
Speaker 1: was exiled in Holland, as as I believe you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: not yet he lived in that he lived in that
Speaker 1: small castle, but he kept his eyes on Germany. He
Speaker 1: was writing his memoirs and blaming the First World War
Speaker 1: on everyone except for one guy himself. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty he wrote a really weird telegram to
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler and said, congratulations, you have one using my troops,
Speaker 1: and he was thinking he was like, all right, as
Speaker 1: a good German, Hitler is going to restore my throne
Speaker 1: right now. Hitler already was was on record as having
Speaker 1: as not liking right at all. Right, he turned him down,
Speaker 1: he said nope, and didn't get him a soft pass,
Speaker 1: really just snubbed him. Kaiser was mad, and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: don't send my body back to Germany until the monarchy
Speaker 1: and the real rule of laws restored. And he said,
Speaker 1: and also no Nazi stuff at my funeral. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: did not honor those wishes whatsoever. His his estate was
Speaker 1: absolutely covered with swastika's. Yeah, and there there ends the
Speaker 1: story of Kaiser Wilhelm two's ill faded plan to invade
Speaker 1: the United States. He did get a little bit of
Speaker 1: a bone thrown to him, literally, his his own bones
Speaker 1: were left there in a masoleum um in Holland rather
Speaker 1: than returned back to Germany. So he got a little
Speaker 1: song that he wanted, I guess. So. Yeah, but look,
Speaker 1: if you look at the list of stuff, this guy
Speaker 1: wanted a lot. He wanted a lot and didn't have
Speaker 1: too much reciprocation. I think it was just so focused
Speaker 1: on expanding his empire that he went a little bit
Speaker 1: into mad king terry. Absolutely this thing I always wonder
Speaker 1: about these kinds of monarchs, like is it all it's
Speaker 1: all just for their own glory, Like it's not even
Speaker 1: like even these plans were so poorly thought out, they
Speaker 1: weren't realistic to achieve it was obviously does he was
Speaker 1: just bluster and just wanting to kind of make himself
Speaker 1: out to be some sort of you know, military genius
Speaker 1: when his own military advisors are like, no, man, this
Speaker 1: is this is not gonna work. He wanted to be
Speaker 1: a conquering king. And the strange thing about conquering kings
Speaker 1: or any kind of conquering, despot expansionist oriented leader is
Speaker 1: that often they're they're piss poor maintainers of a kingdom
Speaker 1: and empire or a country. You know, they spend so
Speaker 1: much time focusing on growing stuff that they don't support
Speaker 1: the people who already lived there, were already part of
Speaker 1: their kingdom, their empire or their country. Yeah, that feels
Speaker 1: like tales all as time. It's almost like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're the least of of their concern. And so we
Speaker 1: draw a close to today's episode, but not the show.
Speaker 1: As we said at the beginning, let's check back in
Speaker 1: with our guests. Super producer j J j J was
Speaker 1: still thumbs up or thumbs down? Oh, thumbs up. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not thumbs upping the Kaiser's plan, are you? I
Speaker 1: am not thumbs upping the Kaiser's plan. Not into that great,
Speaker 1: that's j j uh. So Thank you so thanks so much, man,
Speaker 1: seriously for for joining us on today's episode. Thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: who composed our theme, um research associate Gabe Losier and
Speaker 1: Ryan Barrish. Christopher Haciota is here in spirit as always.
Speaker 1: Thanks of course to Eve's Jeff Coat, who recently finally
Speaker 1: appeared on an episode of our show. Thanks for classing
Speaker 1: it up their Eves uh And I don't want to
Speaker 1: say thanks to the Kaiser, but I will say thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone in the government at that time who kept
Speaker 1: him from trying to invade the US. We'll see you
Speaker 1: next time, Fooks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.