The strange communications operation of a Hohenzollern – archyde

BERLIN LETTER

Potsdam, Cecilienhof Palace, January 10, 1932. Adolf Hitler is invited to have tea with William of Prussia. Between the leader of the Nazi party and the eldest son of the former emperor William II, the current passes. “Don Adolfo gives the impression of being a very nice, intelligent and educated person. He apparently felt very good with us. The atmosphere was very relaxed ”, welcomes Cécile, the wife of Guillaume, in a letter to their son Louis-Ferdinand.

Kept in the archives of the Hohenzollerns, the dynasty which reigned over Prussia and then the German Empire until the fall of the latter in November 1918, this letter is one of the documents cited by the historian Lothar Machtan in his last book , Der Kronprinz und die Nazis (“The Crown Prince and the Nazis”, ed. Duncker & Humblot, untranslated). A book which, since its publication on August 9, has enjoyed considerable media coverage in Germany.

Appalling portrait

Why such curiosity? To tell the truth, the answer depends less on the contents of the book than on the way in which its release was orchestrated by the one who is at the origin: Georges-Frédéric de Prussia, great-grandson of the Kronprinz and current head of the Hohenzollern “house”.

Aged 45, this business consultant did not hesitate to take out his checkbook to convince Lothar Machtan to write about his great-grandfather. Professor emeritus at the University of Bremen, the latter admitted to having touched “A five-digit sum” for this commissioned work, but ensures to have investigated in complete independence.

300 pages long, his monograph gives the Kronprinz a damning image. “Radical far-right anti-democrat”, the eldest son of William II is described as an indecisive pleasure-seeker, just as obsessed with the idea of ​​restoring the monarchy as incapable of putting together any plan to hope to achieve it. “Most of the scenarios that he could have constructed to gain power have turned out to be totally futile, to which he himself contributed through his recklessness, his errors of judgment and his lack of integrity”, observes the historian, for whom “Its capacity for political action was definitively reduced to nothing in the summer of 1932 (…) because he had neither a personal agenda nor a calculated strategy ”.

On reading this appalling portrait, several journalists asked themselves the same question: what interest does Georges-Frédéric of Prussia have in promoting such a book? During the evening event organized in Berlin for the release of this one, the heir to the Hohenzollerns claimed to have been ” surprised ” and even “Shocked” reading certain passages. “However, I believe that it is my responsibility and that of my family to shed light on this dark chapter in our history”, he added.

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