How much was Kaiser Wilhelm II’s ability to rule shaped by his early life?
Here we bring the personal story to life. Kaiser Wilhelm was a deeply flawed and complex personality. He was charming, capricious, intelligent yet lacking an eye for detail, cruel… and so much more. To really understand Germany 1890-1914 and Wilhelm’s rule we need to know about him as a person.
This quirky enquiry looks to see how far his personality and abilities were shaped by his upbringing. Born with a defective arm , his mother struggled to come to terms with his disability. His upbringing was sometimes cruel.
Your students will work out what kind of person the Kaiser was as adult, then they will look at his early life to decide how much it shaped him. This is really great HIStory Such ideas are often missed out in textbooks due to the lack of page space but we think they are essential for engagement and understanding.
This enquiry neatly fits before the decision making enquiry which comes next.
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- Lesson presentation: PowerPoint
- Lesson write-up: PDF
- Resource 1: PDF
- Worksheet 1-3: PDF