One of the peculiarities of the Kaiserreich was that although many Germans accepted the Hohenzollerns as their sovereigns, they were not particularly well-loved by the public. Hohenzollern-centric holidays like Sedan Day had very little popularity in southern Germany outside the middle classes. The relative hollowness of the cult of the Kaiser stood in contrast to the comparative popularity of local German sovereigns such as the Wittelsbachs or William II of Württemberg who were more accessible to their subjects and fit into the pattern of bourgeois monarchy much better than Wilhelm II. Moreover, few of the major political parties of Wilhelmine mass politics really sought the Kaiser out as their patron; they might acknowledge loyalty to the Kaiser, but they did not invested in the monarchy. Some of the emerging political forces such as the SPD were downright hostile to the monarchy itself as an intrinsically reactionary political system. While this indifference or hostility to the Hohenzollerns was never strong enough in peacetime to seriously challenge the status quo, the Bismrackian system was quite vulnerable to crisis. The war was just such a crisis and denuded the Kaiser of much of his symbolic strength so that the monarchy was a husk of its former self by November 1918.

Wilhelm II's abdication was something that did not come out of the blue in 1918, but a number of German politicians, military leaders, and members of the Kaiser's own entourage toyed with at earlier stages of the war. Von Tirpitz actually sent out feelers in April 1915 whether Wilhelm II could be found unfit to rule. Wilhelm II's support for Falkenhayn and reluctance to allow Ludendorff and von Hindenburg to assume supreme command alienated a number of military leaders from the Kaiser. There were other tentative soundings for abdication in 1916 and 1917 by the military and the high command actually realized the Kaiser's lack of popularity was a problem within the ranks. And for all their claims to be loyal monarchists postwar, neither von Hindenburg nor Ludendorff treated their sovereign with much respect during the war. Wilhelm II rightfully feared the ascendancy of the duo would further lock him out of the decision-making process. This was plain in the demand by the duo that Wilhelm II dismiss Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg in July 1917 and replace him with a lackey of theirs; Wilhelm II tried to hold his ground, but failed. Most German political observers at the time noted that the Betthmann Hollweg affair had shown that not only had the military usurped the Kaiser's right of supreme command, but they were also calling the shots over his domestic political role to have the power to appoint and dismiss chancellors. This further hamstrung the monarchy's waning political clout among the various party leaders as they saw him as a pliable tool of the military.

The Kaiser's stock was also falling on the domestic homefront. The German government had tried to erect the Kaiser as a symbol of German solidarity, but these efforts fell flat amidst domestic hardships. Just as in Austria-Hungary, the escalating food crisis denuded the monarchy of much of its symbolic power as an intercessor for the people that above politics and transformed it into a lightning rod for criticisms of state corruption and incompetence. During the "Turnip Winter" of 1916/17, slogans like "the Kaiser eats war bread, follow his example" did little to endear the monarch among urban populations that lacked bread and had to survive on ersatz substitutes. The example of the Romanov's abdication set a dangerous precedent of a way out of the war and one that was not lost on a public growing increasingly war-weary. The Kaiser and the civilian government did recognize this turn in the public mood and tried to correct things by promising massive political reforms after victory. Such promises though lost their value as victory appeared more distant in 1918 and the living example of Russian politics showed that political change could occur without the monarchy. The split within the SPD between more conventional socialists and those of a more radical bent, who formed the USPD showed that Russian-style politics was taking root within the German system. The growth of the USPD within the military ranks, especially the largely-port bound capital ships of the Navy, caused a great deal of alarm both within the Kaiser's circle and the military.

The failures of the Michael spring offensives pretty much sealed the fate of the monarchies in the whole of Germany. Grand Duke Friedrich August of Oldenburg noted in October 1918:

We are entirely clear that the Kaiser has ruined the Reich... he will be chased away and that we will share his fate.

Friedrich August political instincts were correct except that the political dominoes fell in the opposite direction. As the new government of Max von Baden sought a peace with the Western Allies, the German revolution, or more correctly, revolutions, deposed many of the monarchs of the German states. Much of this was a highly civil process; King Friedrich August III abdicated by telephone to the provisional government and the soldiers councils of Württemberg actually sent an armed escort for the king after he had abdicated. The bloodlessness of the often forced abdications was a reflection not only of the lingering popularity of the minor German monarchs, but also the political realism of men like Friedrich August who recognized the writing was on the wall for monarchy given the current political temper. Kaiser Wilhelm II had none of these assets available to him. In the aftermath of the Kiel Mutiny, he asked the high command on 9 November if it would have been possible for him to assume supreme command of the troops to crush the mutineers and the general strikes in Berlin. The army chiefs answered no, and abdication thus rushed forward as the only realistic option for Wilhelm II. Max von Baden's chancellery became collateral damage to the abdication as did any thought of a regency. The latter option might have been viable in 1917, but Wilhelm II did not pursue it and by 1918, there was none of the political parties wanted to be associated with the Hohenzollerns that had sunk the ship of state.

Various right-wing political types during Weimar would claim to be monarchists and attack build on notions of a stab in the back in November 1918. But this is more demonstrative of the right-wing antipathy towards the Republic than any coherent plan to restore the monarchy. Claiming loyalty to the Kaiser was a convenient shorthand for denying the Republic any real legitimacy. The idea of a conservative figure that would stand for tradition and against the rising mass politics of the left was still powerful and the Weimar German right did not need to go to the Netherlands to get one. They had just such a figure in Paul von Hindenburg. Unlike Wilhelm II, Hindenburg's stock grew during the war and he was a consensus figure in Weimar politics among the right and center. As President, he presided over ceremonies that were quasi-monarchical like the cult around Tannenberg and much of his popular image emphasized his sobriety, attention to duty, and being above petty politics as a collective symbol for all Germans. All of these were virtues Wilhelm II tried to cultivate among the German public and largely failed to do so. But being above politics is a political position in itself and von Hindenburg proved to be a backdoor for Hitler. The elderly Field Marshal was easily persuaded by his conservative entourage to invoke emergency powers during the Depression and this helped further strengthen the latent authoritarian tendencies of the Weimar constitution. Von Hindenburg may have been the type of unifying figure possible in Weimar Germany, but such a reliance on charismatic authority was not particularly healthy for the nascent German democracy.

Sources

Davis, Belinda Joy. Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Müller, Frank Lorenz. Royal Heirs in Imperial Germany: The Future of Monarchy in Nineteenth-Century Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg. Basingstroke: Palgrave, 2017.

Röhl, John C. G.. Wilhelm II: Into the abyss of war and exile, 1900-1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Von der Goltz, Anna. Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.