Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany

Wilhelm III (b 1882) became Kaiser of Germany in 1941 at he age of 59 upon the death of his father, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Prior to his ascension to the throne, Wilhelm had made an official state visit to the United States aboard the Kronprinz Wilhelm in an effort to shore up newly tense relations between the two principal members of the Central Powers in the wake of their Great War victory.

Upon ascending to the throne, Wilhelm III was bombarded with a series of ultimata from Britain, France, and Russia demanding reversals of the terms imposed on those countries by Germany at the end of the Great War. Wilhelm III claimed that making such concessions was impossible, and the Second Great War began.

If the Entente had hoped the new Kaiser would be unprepared for war, they underestimated him. After some initial setbacks, German forces stabilized their fronts, then pushed back against their invaders. The Kaiser's deft diplomacy won him a number of minor allies across Europe, including Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Ukraine, and Poland. And he compiled a team of world-renowned physicists headed by the Austrian Albert Einstein to head his uranium bomb project at an undisclosed location. In late 1943, he threatened Britain, France, and Russia with "unprecedented destruction" if they did not capitulate soon, probably a reference to the uranium bomb.

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