Wilhelminism

The Wilhelmine Period comprises the period of German history between 1890 and 1918, embracing the reign of Emperor Wilhelm II in the German Empire from the resignation of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck until the end of World War I and Wilhelm's abdication during the November Revolution. It roughly coincided with the Belle Époque era of Western Europe.

By Wilhelminism is not meant a conception of society associated with the name Wilhelm, and traceable to an intellectual initiative of the German Emperor. Rather, it relates to the image presented by Wilhelm II, and his demeanour, manifested by the public presentation of grandiose military parades, and self-aggrandisement on his part, this latter tendency having already been noticed by his grandfather Emperor Wilhelm I during the period that Wilhelm’s father Frederick was Crown Prince.

The term Wilhelminism also characterizes the social and cultural climate of the reign of Wilhelm II, which found expression in rigidly conservative attitudes relying on the Prussian Junker landowners and associated in the German Agrarian League. Thereby resembling the Victorian era in the United Kingdom, at the same time, the period was distinguished by an extraordinary belief in progress, which, while contributing to the enormous prosperity of the highly industrialised German Empire, was at odds with its social conservatism. Though Bismarcks's Anti-Socialist Laws were not renewed, Wilhelm's government continued to implement measures against Socialist ideas. Nevertheless, the Social Democratic Party continued to grow in strength and became the largest faction in the Reichstag parliament upon the 1912 elections. With stronger influence, the internal developments were characterised by an increasing loyalty of the party establishment towards Emperor and Reich; an attitude that was condemned as "revisionism" by its opponents and culminated in the Burgfrieden policy of granting loans to fund the German effort in World War I.

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