Regardless of whether they liked it, from the eighteenth century onward the Hohenzollerns found themselves wrapped in popular anecdotes that emphasized their modesty, accessibility, and down-to-earthness. This image was as misleading as it was appealing: Frederick William III was no more a Bürgerkönig than William I was a meek, kindly old gentleman. Such wishful thinking was comforting, though, to subjects who stressed their own relevance by imagining their rulers as bürgerlich. Above all, middle-class hopes ran highest for Crown Prince Frederick William, whose reign was to usher in a golden age of parliamentary institutions and pro-western diplomacy—hopes that were dashed in 1888 when he succumbed to throat cancer after only ninety-nine days on the throne (as Emperor Frederick III). Thus was born the legend of the Liberal Kaiser, which enjoyed an especially long afterlife both because Frederick William was more progressive than his kin—married to Queen Victoria's daughter, he openly befriended prominent Liberals and voiced liberal views—and because it provided a seductive counterfactual narrative: had Frederick III ruled instead of his disastrous son, Wilhelm II, Germany would have overcome the Sonderweg and become pacific, democratic, and firmly tied to the west.
Frank Lorenz Müller's compelling biography of the crown prince does not succumb to wishful thinking or to hagiography, but instead engages in a nuanced, in-depth contemplation of how deep Frederick William's liberalism really ran and what a longer reign might have meant to Germany's political development.
Versatile in its approach, the book appeals to many different audiences. General readers will find an eminently readable account of Frederick William's life, rich with vivid anecdotes. For advanced undergraduate and graduate students, the book captures the essence of Imperial German politics, society, and culture in a pithy manner. Succinctness also poses challenges, though, for instance in the book's main biographical chapter. Here, Müller gives a finely sketched overview of Frederick William's relationship to his father William I, his wife Crown Princess Victoria, and Otto von Bismarck as the political thorn in his side. For the sake of brevity, Müller has restricted his examination of other important individuals, for instance Frederick William's mother Augusta. This seems a shame since, although unpopular, Augusta was a significant player in her son's life and the political culture in which he moved. She was as much an enemy of Bismarck as anyone; she sought to inculcate her liberal ideals in her son through his education; and she actively conspired with Prince Albert to manipulate Frederick William through Crown Princess Victoria. Augusta also represented the negative counterfoil to Queen Louise, Frederick William's grandmother who, due to her persecution by Napoleon I, became a virtual patron saint of Prussia. Louise's legacy sidelined all Augusta stood for—intellectualism, liberal politics, strong women (in the British mode), and the Third Germany—setting up a grand conflict between Frederick William's maternal and grand-maternal lineages. Müller alludes to these factors, but only in passing.
Still, while the biography is not exhaustive, it deftly sets the context for the following chapters on Frederick William's place in Germany's political culture. And here, there is much for specialists to appreciate. In one chapter, Müller examines in fascinating detail that famous medical question, was there a political cabal behind the British laryngologist Morell Mackenzie's misdiagnosis of Frederick William's cancer? Other chapters outline how various Liberal parties used the crown prince for their electioneering and political skirmishes. Müller then turns the formula around to ask, was Frederick William really liberal? Yes, in that he believed in laissez-faire economics, a relatively free press, constitutionalism, and limited parliamentary representation. No, given his militarism and his autocratic views on his role as emperor, particularly that his power of adjudication trumped the parliamentary process. In sum, Frederick William preferred constitutional monarchy over a British-style parliamentary system, and his support of the Kulturkampf and antisocialist laws linked him to mainstream (not left-wing) German Liberalism.
Perhaps the best example of myth versus reality in Frederick William's life emerges from his attitude toward the German Empire, which Müller traces in nuanced detail. To the general public, Frederick William was a military hero as commander of the south German troops against France, making him a uniquely integrating figure in the Empire. (Wilhelm II later lost that integrating role by overtly insulting non-Prussian sensibilities.) What was little known, though, was that Frederick William's impatient longing for a unified Empire led him in the 1860s to advocate military action against the Rhineland and the south German states to bring them into the fold. But even if the general public was ignorant of his aggressive, even arrogant, stance, the southern princes were well aware of it and distrusted Frederick William as a result, raising doubts about how harmonious his reign would have been, had he lived longer.
Müller also provides a corrective to the standard view of Frederick William's relationship with Bismarck, which was not as hopelessly fraught as is often assumed. By the late 1870s, the two men had established a working relationship, and while there was no great love lost between them, the crown prince would very likely have kept Bismarck on as his chancellor, again questioning whether a longer reign would have seen significant policy changes. Only the chapter on royal public relations is less sharply defined. Müller reviews Frederick William's efforts to promote his image through museums, architectural preservation, and media events, but does not evaluate whether various publics accepted that image or not. Müller also cites multiple popular anecdotes about the crown prince, but unfortunately does not explore how this hagiography functioned in the political system, relying instead on the assumption that Germany's “mass politics” forced the monarchy to cultivate popular opinion.
Finally, in the conclusion, Müller weighs in persuasively on relevant debates about Imperial Germany: whether the emperor would have been a shadow kaiser or ruled through a personal regime; the extent of the Reichstag's power as a political institution; how modern German society was, how independent its bourgeoisie, and how adaptable the Hohenzollern monarchy; and whether a political generation was tragically skipped. When all the evidence is weighed, it seems that even under Frederick William, Germany would not have become Britain. In its full scope, Müller's work is a highly welcome appraisal of the empire's political possibilities.
