In March 1960 Gerhard Ritter noted in the preface to the second volume of his work Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk that during his studies of the Wilhelmine era he had become aware of ‘much darker shadows’ than his generation and that of his academic teachers had considered possible. Following more than forty years of intensive research, this dark vision has noticeably expanded and has been put into even sharper relief – and as such is in stark contrast with accounts of the Kaiserreich which focus on developments in the economy, in industry and technology, the sciences and culture. The shadows apply to aspects of the Reich's constitutional law, and to its political structures and their consequences which, according to Wolfgang Mommsen, have resulted in a ‘relatively high immobility of the … system’.

A significant factor of that system, however – Wilhelm II as German Kaiser – embodied anything but immobility. His incessant activity necessarily had to lead to tensions whose general and specific effects within the system, and within society as a whole, have by no means yet been analysed to a sufficient degree by historians. The following volume presents a further step in that direction. Based to a large extent on new archival sources, the essays in this collection illuminate different aspects of Wilhelm II's ‘personal rule’, both in domestic and foreign policy, focusing particularly on the time after the turn of the century when the monarch was increasingly confronted by national and international limitations to his desire to rule Germany personally.