No, not the Kaiser you’re thinking of, the hated Kaiser Bill of World War I—although the mustache bears a resemblance. It’s his grandfather, Wilhelm I, and this memorial along the Rhine in Koblenz, Germany testifies to the esteem in which he held his predecessor.
Even from a little distance it’s obvious how huge—you might say ‘monumental’ without irony—the installation is. It was meant to dominate the so-called German Corner at Koblenz, where the Moselle joins the Rhine.
It’s very much, also, a monument to the German Empire. Wilhelm I and Bismarck welded together all the German states into one country, using war, negotiation and even bluff to achieve their goal, and Wilhelm II, who ordered the statue in the 1890s was already dreaming of replacing Britain as the most powerful empire.
