The great, great grandson of the last Kaiser called for the return of the monarchy in Germany yesterday and insisted that his family would bring greater stability and even stimulate the birth rate. Prince Philip Kiril of Prussia seized his chance to push for restoration in the hiatus after the resignation of the last President, Christian Wulff, over claims of taking favours from rich friends.
Germany is expected to choose its first head of state from the former Communist East on Sunday, when Joachim Gauck is favourite to become the sixth President of the reunited nation in a vote of MPs and state representatives.
The last Kaiser, Wilhelm II, grandson of Queen Victoria, abdicated in 1918 two days before the end of the First World War and fled into exile in the Netherlands, but the Hohenzollern family retains its royal titles.
Prince Philip lost his own place in the dynastic pecking order when his father married below him. The head of the family is one of his cousins, 35-year-old Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia. But Philip, 43, a Protestant pastor, told Christ & Welt magazine that monarchies were a stabilising force in difficult times and better able to withstand the kind of material temptations that led Mr Wulff to quit.
“Royal families are not swept aside by votes of no-confidence or the withdrawal of immunity from prosecution,” the prince said, in a reference to the last nail in Mr Wulff’s presidential coffin.
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“A monarch is invulnerable to such things. Either he has a family fortune or an allowance and it would be beneath his dignity to accept gifts from friends.”
Mr Wulff failed to declare a €500,000 home loan from the wife of a rich friend and suffered from a series of newspaper revelations about gifts from tycoons.
Presidents might be respected, but only monarchs were truly loved, the prince added. “The royal family reaches people’s emotions. They do not have to think up a manifesto, it touches people’s hearts that they are simply there.”
As evidence of the benefits a monarchy could bring to Germany, the prince cited the recent excitement in Sweden over the birth of a daughter to the Crown Princess Victoria.
The example of royal breeding could set an example and encourage others to tackle the “demographic time bomb” he suggested.