In the course of five years’ visits the Emperor had roused English feeling against Germany; by his conduct towards his uncle he had offended the Cour… - Emil Ludwig

The instability to which he was victim had flung him from the arms of one national group into another, and then back to the first; and all the time that he was treacherously playing off one enemy against the other, he was but drawing the two together. Since he would always do everything himself, and spoke the decisive word in all great national affairs, he bore and bears the responsibility for Germany’s isolation and encirclement in the decade immediately before the World-War. Never, but for William’s provocations, would Edward VII and his people have joined the enemies of Germany. The security of the German Empire was offered up on the altar of the Emperor’s nervous temperament.

The Germans, who love order more than freedom, and whose ruling passion is obedience, rejoiced in their release from an uncomfortable equality into new ranks of superiors and inferiors. This is the second source of Hitler's success.

Bismarck was an oppression on the realm.
For a decade no political intelligence had dared to raise its head, unless prepared to defy him; thus the best brains in the Opposition were repressed, instead of ripening to potential authority. No official could develop under his rule, for all feared him who drew all things into his orbit, and decreed. Justly could the young Emperor say: “I have no Ministers; they are all Prince Bismarck’s Ministers.”