Hello Horsa,
thank you for your post. As it is also written in the book (next part of translation) the Kaiser really was most probably ill, suffering from a well known disease that was widely spread among the relatives of the royal families.
The situation and atrocities of WW2 indeed hide the time before 1933, and give a picture that is not correct regarding the Germany before this time - "thanks" to Hitler.
Germany was not a democracy until 1918, but even after this time the political classes and factions tried to de-stabilize the young democracy of the Republic of Weimar at each and every moment. They blamed this democracy for having lost the war, which certainly made no sense - but if you repeat something long enough the people will tend to believe it.
And unlike England and France, Germany had no long history of democracy or elections, indeed Germany as a nation did not exist before 1871. So the self-conscience you would expect from a sober and enlightened state was badly missing here ...
Greetings,
Catfish
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