His birth had been so difficult and dangerous that for a time it was feared both mother and child might die. The child's left arm was dislocated during the birth, but by the time this was noticed by the English midwife, Mrs. Innocent, it was too late to rectify the damage.

As a child he was lively and intelligent yet proved backward at learning to read and write. No allowance was made for his withered arm and he was forced to ride, shoot and play games. However, he overcame his handicap and became a competent pianist and tennis player. Also
obsessed with uniforms, for his eight birthday he asked Queen Victoria for "an English uniform" as a birthday present and, when he was ten, his grandfather, Emperor Wilhelm I, commissioned him as a lieutenant in the 2nd Pomeranian Regiment.
Under the influence of his grandmother, Empress Augusta, and the Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, he became alienated from his mother as, with lies and flattery, they convinced him of his own superiority and of the duplicity of his English mother. Nevertheless, he loved and was in awe of his English grandmother, Queen Victoria.
On 27 February 1881 he married Princess Auguste Viktoria zu Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg and they became the parents of six sons and one daughter. He was devoted to the plump and placid "Dona" and their children, but he did not hesitate to interfere in the lives of other close relations.
In 1888 his grandfather died and Wilhelm's father became Emperor Friedrich III. However, his father was mortally ill with cancer of the throat and died ninety-eight days later. Having become Emperor himself, he sealed off the Neues Palace in Potsdam as he was convinced that his mother had been passing state secrets to Britain, but no evidence was found.
He was now the ruler of Europe's richest industrial nation with prosperous overseas colonies. However, he was impossible for his ministers to deal with, considering he knew best and that he was infallible as well as beyond reproach. He was more concerned with Imperial grandeur and military display and, as a result, owned an astonishing variety of uniforms.
Although shy, sensitive and intelligent, he was also cruel and ruthless. He could be charming and considerate but also would turn his rings inwards so that the stones cut into the palms of people with whom he shook hands.
There is little doubt that Wilhelm II allowed his pride and dislike of his uncle, King Edward VII, to lead him and Germany to the brink of war, from which he did not have the skill or ability to
withdraw. Yet as soon as war came, little was heard of the Supreme War Lord. The First World War cost the German nation two million lives and five million more crippled and wounded.

In 1918 he was advised to abdicate and, if he had accepted the advice, the House of Hohenzollern might have remained on Germany's throne. In the end he was forced into exile, in Holland, where he spent his last twenty years leading the quiet life of a country gentleman --- growing roses, drinking English tea, and reading the novels of P. G. Wodehouse.
In 1920 his son Joachim committed suicide and neither Wilhelm nor his wife were allowed to attend the funeral in Germany. The Empress never recovered from the shock and died a few months later. A year later Wilhelm married the widowed Princess Hermine von
Schoenaich-Carolath, who was thirty years younger and the mother of five children.
In his later years he behaved with remarkable dignity and discretion. The Jewish persecutions in 1938 made him declare, "I am ashamed to be a German". When The Netherlands were invaded in 1940, Churchill offered him refuge in England, but the offer was declined as, in his opinion, "Old bones cannot be transplanted".
When he died in 1941 the Nazis offered him a state funeral in Berlin but, at his request, he was buried at Doorn. His widow, Hermine, believing that Hitler intended to restore the Hohenzollerns
on Germany's throne, was a fervent supporter of Hitler and Nazi Germany. However, at the end of World War II, she was captured and imprisoned by the Russians, and died in their hands in 1947.
 

Source: Leo van de Pas