Berlin refuses Kaiser a final resting place

By Tony Paterson in Doorn [Holland]

A PLAN by the Dutch government to close the former home of Germany's last monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who spent his final years in exile at a manor in the Netherlands, has caused a row between Berlin and The Hague.

Holland is threatening to close the former home of the kaiser who still lies in state on Dutch soil, but Germany is making it clear that it does not want his body or his possessions back. The kaiser fled to Holland after Germany's defeat in the First World War to take up residence in exile at a manor house at Doorn near Utrecht until his death in 1941. The Dutch government confiscated the premises in 1945 claiming it as "war booty". Since the early Fifties it has run the Doorn house and mausoleum containing the kaiser's body as a museum commemorating the last days of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

In a radical break with previous policy, however, Holland's Social Democrat culture minister, Rick van der Ploeg, last month announced plans to withdraw the annual £160,000 grant used to fund the museum. The Doorn estate earns about £83,000 a year from ticket sales.

Dick Verroen, the director of Doorn, said: "This covers only a third of our outgoings. We would not be able to survive without additional government funding. It is highly embarrassing. After seizing Doorn as government property after the war, Holland will now have to go to the Germans with a begging bowl if it wants to prevent the museum's closure."

Doorn has 45,000 visitors annually. Many are Germans who buy souvenirs bearing the kaiser's Prussian coat of arms. The Doorn estate comprises a moated 24-room manor house, a 14-acre park and a huge collection of furniture, mementos and other personal belongings that were shipped in 59 railway wagons from Germany to Doorn after his abdication. The house is valued at £47 million, which would go to the Dutch government if Doorn were sold.

The closure threat has met with a mixture of embarrassment, lack of interest and guarded optimism in Germany. Some leading members of Germany's Protestant Church have launched a campaign to return the kaiser's remains for burial in the Hohenzollern crypt at Berlin's turn-of-the-century cathedral, built by the kaiser to rival St Paul's in London.

Wilhelm Huffmeyer, the chief administrator of Berlin's cathedral, said: "One should not destroy long-established traditions, but there is an open question as to whether the last German kaiser should lie for eternity in Doorn."

Schroeder (second from left) with friends
(right: Paul Spiegel, the new, revered
head of Germany's Jewish community)

Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's government is alarmed at the prospect of inheriting the kaiser's legacy. The former Emperor of Germany and grandson of Queen Victoria is still regarded by many as a nationalist who plunged Germany into the catastrophe of the Great War, paving the way for the Nazi dictatorship.

Michael Naumann, Germany's Social Democrat culture minister, said: "The kaiser is not my favourite subject. The Dutch government would find it very difficult to sell off Doorn because the Hohenzollern family could make a legal claim for it." The return to Germany of the kaiser's coffin and his belongings is seen as sending the wrong signals about a country that this month celebrated the 10th anniversary of its reunification.

The Berlin government has ruled out the idea of buying back the estate or its contents. A government official in Berlin said last week: "Doorn is the responsibility of the Dutch government." Several German historians point out that far from opposing the Nazis, the kaiser entertained the hope that they would restore him as a monarch.

Wolfgang Wippermann, the Berlin historian who argues against the return of the kaiser, said: "Wilhelm II was the representative of the old system that had nothing in common with parliamentary monarchy." The last in line of the kaiser's Hohenzollern family, Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia, 24, also rejected the idea of returning the contents of his great-great grandfather's estate to Germany.

Mr Wipperman said: "We would prefer Doorn to be left intact. Wilhelm stipulated in his will that he did not want his body returned to Germany unless the monarchy was restored there."

The trustees of the manor house in Doorn have deliberately kept it as a "living museum" to the former kaiser. Its rooms are packed with memorablilia including uniforms, portraits of the kaiser and his wife Empress Auguste-Victoria and even a kilt given to the kaiser by Queen Victoria when he was a child.

The hallways are decked out with photographs and paintings of German troops attacking the enemy or being reviewed by the emperor. The kaiser's private sitting room is furnished with a tapestry-covered cushion bearing the now banned verse of the German national anthem Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles. In a mausoleum the kaiser's coffin lies in state covered with the Prussian standard and surrounded by wreaths.

Mr Verroen said: "If the kaiser were to rise from his coffin and walk into the house today, he would have no difficulty in recognising it. We have done our utmost to keep it exactly as it was."

The Dutch government has given the trustees of the Doorn estate 10 months to find alternative methods of funding the kaiser's last refuge otherwise it will close. Mr Verroen said: "Despite their reservations, the Germans may have to rescue their kaiser. Doorn is too valuable a part of European history to lose."