Guillaume de Hohenzollern, born in Potsdam in 1882, died in Hechingen in 1951. Says the Kronprinz. Crown Prince of the German Empire.
Son of William II of Germany and Augusta-Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. In 1905 he married Cécile de Meklembourg-Schwerin (1886-1954).
From this union were born:
* William of Prussia (1906-1940)
* Louis Ferdinand of Prussia
* Hubert of Prussia
* Frederick of Prussia
Prince of a sickly frivolity, but of a friendly and lively approach. Unfaithful to his wife, he had a penchant for hairdressers or dancers.
During the First World War, he was commander of the hussars of death. In 1916, after the terrible battles between the French and Germans for the capture of Fort de Vaux, Commander Raynal and the French troops under his command surrendered to the Germans. During this surrender, the French commander, as was the custom at that time, handed his saber to a German officer. Prisoner, he was taken to the headquarters of William of Prussia, the Kronprinz out of respect for the French soldier wanted to give him back his sword, but it remained untraceable. Honoring the military valor of his adversary, William of Prussia decided to present the heroic defender of Fort de Vaux with a German pioneer's dagger. The Kronprinz assured the command of his troops at Mort-Homme near Verdun and had his headquarters in Charleville (Ardennes) during the conflict. Like his father, he abdicated in 1918. He was exiled to the island of Zuiderzee in the Netherlands.
In 1923 he put on his Death Hussar uniform again. In the 1930s, William of Prussia frequented the Nazis a great deal. The Kronprinz ensured the junction of the German Freikorps and veterans of the Great War with the National Socialist Party. In archival images dating from the 1930s, we can see William of Prussia alongside Adolf Hitler and luminaries of the Nazi party, swastika armband on his arm. In 1933, after the investiture of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, the Kronprinz was manipulated by the Nazis who used it as an extra in order to remove the last hesitations of the Germans who were still wary of the policy advocated by Adolf Hitler. . During the Night of the Long Knives (June 29-30, 1934), the members of the Hohenzollern family residing in Germany were not disturbed, they remained discreet as they had been asked.
The Kronprinz resided in one of his castles in Germany, he had other mistresses. His wife came to visit him from time to time to give him enough to meet his needs. During the liberation of Germany in 1945, General Jean-Marie de Lattre de Tassigny addressing William of Prussia, said to him "Sir, you are lamentable".