Sometimes it depends on the impression and the conversation on site. I therefore highly recommend anyone interested to visit the Huis Doorn museum near Utrecht. You can find information about this in the English-language part of the homepage. English-language tours on request.
https://www.huisdoorn.nl/de/museum/museum-huis-doorn/
The exhibition “The Emperor and the Third Reich”, which covers a large part of the narrated period of “Leinstermann in Doorn” and is also of great importance for the volume “Kratteweis in Doorn”, can be found here in digital form:
https://huisdoorn.anticipate.nl/dekeizerenhetderderijk/de/
An important part of the research is the Utrecht archive, which provides countless scans of correspondence, pay slips, service instructions, etc. online. Much of the inventory ends after Wilhelm II's death in 1941, but some areas are available online until 1952. The menu language is Dutch, most archive elements are in German.
Search for “Wilhelm II” as a keyword and select archive number 14. You can find access to the individual categories under “Inventory”.
hetutrechtsarchief.nl (opens new window)
The parent search engine archieven.nl offers comprehensive search options in a variety of Dutch archives - mostly with digitized archive items. I link the German menu navigation.
There are numerous books and reports that describe Doorn during the time of the emperor: from travel reports to memoirs to current non-fiction books. I read four of them with particular interest:
Friedhild den Toom:
Wilhelm II. in Doorn
Doorn 2013
Museum Huis Doorn:
Werken voor de hoge heer
Doorn 2020
Sigurd von Ilsemann:
Der Kaiser in Holland
Aufzeichnungen des letzten Flügeladjutanten Kaiser Wilhelms II.
Herausgegeben von Harald von Königswald in zwei Bänden
München 1967
Karel Margry:
Death of the Kaiser, in:
After the battle, Ausgabe 182
(English!)
Due to some requests for sources, I am providing here an official reference for the edition of “After the Battle”, which includes, among other things, the article about the funeral of Wilhelm II in Doorn:
https://afterthebattle.com.au/shop/after-the-battle-182-the-death-of-kaiser/
If you like something more comprehensive, extensive and political, I recommend the works of the historians John C. G. Röhl and Christopher M. Clark, who have achieved exceptional achievements in the field of research and publication on the Wilhelmine era.
I would also like to mention a children's and young adult novel in Dutch that tells life and work in Doorn from the perspective of a boy - and is also well worth reading as an adult:
Dolf Verroen:
Wachten op de Keizer
Amsterdam 1995
In the novel “Leinstermann in Doorn” a book by the (real) personal doctor Heinrich von Ortenberg is mentioned:
Aus dem Tagebuch eines Arztes – Feldzugsskizzen aus Südwestafrika, Berlin 1907.
You can find a digitized copy here, it also contains some photos:
(Link zur Digitalen Sammlung Deutscher Kolonialismus, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M. )
Some expressions used by the author are now (rightly!) considered to be discriminatory. Therefore, please consider the historical context when engaging with the book.
In addition to books, there are also freely accessible film recordings from Wilhelm's time in Doorn. Some of them can be found on YouTube under the search term “eye filmmuseum” (and there “Wilhelm”) - some of which are quite private in nature.
An episode from the series “Van Rossum vertellt” from 2014 (in Dutch) shows a good overview and an interesting interview with a former member of the court:
Equally interesting are two parts of the series “De wereld van Boudewijn Buch” about the exile of Wilhelm II from 1998. Here you will find an interview with Wilhelm-Viktor von Ilsemann, a son of Sigurd von Ilsemann and godson of Wilhelm II. Ilsemann tells among other things, about his father's approach to writing the diaries, again in Dutch.
(Direkter Link zu youtube) , Teil 1
(Direkter Link zu youtube) , Teil 2
There is a very recent video from the Belgian series “Kast van Clio” in which the history of the emperor in Holland is examined using the two residences Amerongen and Doorn (but only in Dutch).
The program “Titel Thesen Temperamente” from September 26, 2021 reports on the Hohenzollerns’ claims for reclaim and some statements from historians on the subject.
Here is a video on the occasion of the book launch “The Crown Prince and the Nazis. Hohenzollern’s blind spot” by Lothar Machtan (publisher Duncker&Humbot) on August 18, 2021 in Berlin. At minute 10:40 begins the welcome by Georg Friedrich of Prussia as a representative of the House of Hohenzollern, in which he also comments on his own understanding of science and (family) history. The (quite detailed) greeting from Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier begins at minute 29:10. You can find the conversation with the author Lothar Machtan about his research results starting at minute 1:10:50.
(Direkter Link zum youtube-Video)
The reports mentioned by the author from 1:14:40 on the role of the then crown prince in the Third Reich can now be found on the Internet, in the results and in the entire text (Prof. Christopher Clark, Dr. phil. habil. Wolfram Pyta, Prof. Dr. Peter Brandt, Dr. Stephan Malinowski). Simply enter “Kronprinz Wihlem, report” into the search engine of your choice.
Further information about the reports can be found in the following article in the “Tagesspiegel” from February 18, 2021, “Dispute over the Hohenzollern legacy”:
(Link zum Artikel auf tagesspielgel.de)
At www.preussen.de you will find the general statement from the House of Hohenzollern, which I of course do not want to ignore.
It's worth browsing the online archives of larger newspapers and magazines, as you can often find articles and reports from the 1950s and 1960s about the Hohenzollerns and how they dealt with their former property. To use these archives, registration and often a cost contribution are usually required. Use Delpher for Dutch publications (see “Research”)
The Huis Doorn Museum provides an extensive image archive on its homepage (see above). The photos are freely viewable, but the use of the images is subject to a charge.
For the contributions to the Committee for Culture and Media of the German Bundestag on January 29, 2020, see the video of the meeting: (Direkter Link zu youtube) ,The relevant explanations can be found here: (Deutscher Bundestag).