The
Kaiserabwesenheit (literally Kaiser's Absence), refers to the period of political turmoil and instability in Germany between 2012 and 2022 due Kaiser Wilhem V making increasingly fewer public appearances amid rumours of declining health, and the simultaneous rise in prominence and influence of his heir and successor Alfred.
Following the death of Empress Consort Elisabeth-Marie in 2014, Wilhelm V went into a period of "seclusion", making few public appearances beyond regular constitutional obligations such as the state opening of the Reichstag, the formal re-appointment of the Lasker Cabinet following the 2016 and 2020 elections and televised addresses. But in the following years speculation over Wilhelm's health grew as he made fewer and fewer public engagements; those he did make were closed off and heavily stage managed. This came to a head in 2020, when
Kronprinz Alfred officially opened the Munich Winter Olympics and the Reichstag session, with his father's frail and disoriented appearance at the latter causing national and international concern.
However, German media regulation heavily censors coverage and criticism regarding the royal family. In the previous decade, senior British journalist Patrick Persaud had been all but exiled from Berlin for a decade over a hostile interview of the Kaiser, and several Berlin-based media outlets were fined and faced hostile protests for publishing speculation over the Kaiser's health. As a result of these restrictions, German and international media outlets and online Memex gatherings increasingly referred euphemistically to the
Kaiserabwesenheit, as the figure who once dominated the German and international body politic very quickly disappeared from view.
Kaiserabwesenheit also refers to the political changes that occurred during this time, as then-Kronprinz Alfred rose in prominence and influence, taking his father's place at diplomatic and constitutional events and making increasingly direct political interventions. In 2016 Alfred made a controversial trip to Reichswehr soldiers stationed in Malaya, speaking supportively of their mission, in contrast to his father's well-known scepticism of the German-led Malayan Intervention. The next year the Hohenzollern household was effectively purged, with several aides and courtiers close to Wilhelm V dismissed and his siblings stripped of public-facing positions. While as politically conservative as his father, Alfred had different political interest than Wilhelm. He was more interested in environmentalism, population control and the Lasker Cabinet's foreign policy of interventionism and European integration. Close to Reichkanzler Arnold Lasker, the Fifth Lasker cabinet formed in 2021 reflected the Kronprinz's interests; ministers known to be hostile to Alfred and his politics such as Clarissa Ulrich and Rudolph Hipper were demoted or dismissed.
This apparent usurpation led to political unrest and instability. Alfred was held with far less reverence than his father, with memories of 2000s-era financial scandals involving the Kronprinz and his in-laws still lingering. Mass protests organised by both the far right and the far left against the alleged
StillerPutsch (silent putsch) that had took place within the German government.
Even much of the Junkers establishment were sceptical or downright hostile to this emerging political dynamic. Alfred was referred to by many conservative politicians and commentators as the
Gymnasiumkaiser, as Alfred appeared closer to middle-class
Gymnasium-educated conservatives such as Lasker than the traditional German aristocracy that was still more loyal to his father. Depending on the commentator, "
Gymnasiumkaiser" was either praise for Alfred's more direct, down-to-earth approach or class-based derision over his more direct approach to politics. With lines of accountability and decision-making becoming heavily blurred, the 2021 German elections became an unspoken referendum on the
Kaiserabwesenheit, with Lasker's governing coalition re-elected by a surprisingly slender margin.
While international observers (and German-language media outlets based in Vienna, Zurich and Amsterdam) speculated that Wilhelm V may have been suffering from Parkinson's Disease, dementia or a similar degenerative illness, neither the Hohenzollern family nor the German government has ever publicly commented on his health. Wilhelm's official death certificate, released to the media after his state funeral, listed his cause of death as simply "old age."
(credit to
@Beata Beatrix for coining the name)