German Emperor Wilhelm II ‘more colonial’ than thought

[ in Dutch ] Museum Huis Doorn in the Netherlands, the exiling place where Wilhelm II lived until his death in 1941, owns 36,000 objects from the ex- emperor. How many of these have a colonial origin, and whether there is colonial predatory art, for example, the museum did not know until recently.

‘We really wanted to find out the origin of the objects,’ says curator Cornelis van der Bas. ‘Wilhelm II is a loaded person from German history, so we thought an investigation was necessary.’

‘As far as we know, there is no looted art found amongst the objects examined, or objects that are requested back by countries of origin’, says curator Van der Bas. ‘But of six Chinese lacquer panels, we do not yet know how they came into the possession of the emperor.’