Editing Wilhelm II (section)

==Historiography==
Three trends have characterised the writing about Wilhelm. First, the court-inspired writers considered him a martyr and a hero, often uncritically accepting the justifications provided in the Kaiser's own memoirs. Second, there came those who judged Wilhelm to be completely unable to handle the great responsibilities of his position, a ruler too reckless to deal with power. Third, after 1950, later scholars have sought to transcend the passions of the early 20th century and attempted an objective portrayal of Wilhelm and his rule.{{Sfn|Goetz|1955|pp=21–44}}

On 8 June 1913, a year before the Great War began, ''[[The New York Times]]'' published a special supplement devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Kaiser's accession. The banner headline read: ''"Kaiser, 25 Years a Ruler, Hailed as Chief Peacemaker"''. The accompanying story called him "the greatest factor for peace that our time can show", and credited Wilhelm with frequently rescuing Europe from the brink of war.<ref>{{cite news |title=Kaiser, 25 Years a Ruler, Hailed as Chief Peacemaker;&nbsp;... |work=The New York Times |date=8 June 1913 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1913/06/08/archives/kaiser-25-years-a-ruler-hailed-as-chief-peacemaker-men-of-mark-in-a.html |url-access=subscription |url-status= |archive-date=18 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118144245/https://www.nytimes.com/1913/06/08/archives/kaiser-25-years-a-ruler-hailed-as-chief-peacemaker-men-of-mark-in-a.html}}</ref> Until the late 1950s, Germany under the last Kaiser was depicted by most historians as an almost [[absolute monarchy]]. Partly, however, this was a deliberate deception by German civil servants and elected officials. For example, former President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] believed the Kaiser was in control of German foreign policy because [[Hermann Speck von Sternburg]], the German ambassador in Washington and a personal friend of Roosevelt, presented to the President messages from [[Chancellor von Bülow]] as though they were messages from the Kaiser. Later historians downplayed his role, arguing that senior officials regularly learned to work around the Kaiser's back. More recently, historian [[John C. G. Röhl]] has portrayed Wilhelm as the key figure in understanding the recklessness and downfall of Imperial Germany.{{Sfn | Röhl | 1994 | p = 10}} Thus, the argument is still made that the Kaiser played a major role in promoting the policies of both naval and colonialist expansion that caused the deterioration of Germany's relations with Britain before 1914.{{Sfn|McLean|2001|pp=478–502}}{{Sfn|Berghahn|2003|pp=281–293}}