Wilhelm II
Early life

Wilhelm was born in Berlin on 27 January 1859—at the Crown Prince's Palace —to Victoria, Princess Royal ("Vicky") and Prince Frederick William of Prussia ("Fritz", the future Frederick III). His mother, Vicky, was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. At the time of Wilhelm's birth, his granduncle Frederick William IV was king of Prussia. Frederick William IV had been left permanently incapacitated by a series of strokes, and his younger brother Wilhelm, the young prince's grandfather, was acting as regent. Prince Wilhelm was the oldest of the 42 grandchildren of his maternal grandparents (Queen Victoria and Prince Albert). Upon the death of Frederick William IV in January 1861, Wilhelm's namesake grandfather became king, and the two-year-old Wilhelm became second in the line of succession to the Prussian throne. After 1871, Wilhelm also became second in the line to the newly created German Empire, which, according to the constitution of the German Empire, was ruled by the Prussian king. At the time of his birth, he was also sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, after his maternal uncles and his mother.
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