The Legacy of Maternal Possessiveness

Abstract In 1879, while still at the university in Bonn, Wilhelm fell in love with the woman who would become his wife, Princess Auguste Viktoria of Schleswig Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. His experience in the regiment and attachment to Dona, as she was known, when combined with his prolonged contact with his grandfather, Wilhelm I, precipitated Wilhelm’s personal and political break with his parents. In his regiment, Wilhelm had found the affirmation he had never had at home. In the emperor, he found an admirable and responsive German man to compensate for his weak and largely absent father. In Dona, he found the unequivocal and unwavering devotion that had been missing in his relationship with his mother. To fully appreciate Dona’s psycho logical significance for Wilhelm, however, it is necessary to consider one further aspect of his relationship with Victoria and of her dissatisfaction with him.