A fierce controversy has emerged regarding the Hohenzollerns and the question of whether they gave a ‘significant boost’ to the rise of Nazism. At the centre of this controversy is the ex-Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, whose public appearances in the period from 1932 to 1934 are also of key legal importance when it comes to answering this question. Jürgen Luh, an expert on this subject, explores the Crown Prince’s behaviour in meticulous case studies based on the source material, and uses telling examples to show how Wilhelm publicly advocated not only for the old elites to collaborate with the Nazis but also for Hitler’s ‘Führerstaat’.

• The Crown Prince and the Nazis

• On the debate about the Hohenzollerns

• A public man – ex-Crown Prince Wilhelm and the rise of National Socialism

• With a foreword by Georg Herbert (former presiding judge at the Federal Administrative Court) and Stephan Malinowski (‘Die Hohenzollern und die Nazis’)