Kaiser
Kaiser is the
German title meaning
Emperor.
Kaiser is derived from the
Roman title of
Caesar (phonetic in German for caesar: c=k ,a, e=i, s, a=e, r) , as is the
Slavic title of
Tsar. It is a sovereign
Monarchic title of the highest rank, explicitly at par with
padishah.
In German, the word is also used in a generic sense equivalent to the English
emperor. For instance, German-speaking historians would refer to an emperor of China as a
Chinesischer Kaiser. Cognate, nearly homophone titles, are used in the same ways in Germanic languages or those (mainly Baltic and Slavonic) who derived the term from German, for example:
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Kejser in
Danish;
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Keizer in
Dutch;
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Keiser in
Estonian;
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Keisari in
Finnish;
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Keisari in
Icelandic;
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Keser in
Lëtzebuergesch (in Luxembourg).
Hebrew also uses the same word ("Keisar", Heb. קיסר) , though in this case the term did not go through German but came directly from Latin in the Roman period itself.
In contrast, most Romance and tributary vocabularies, including English, derive their terms for emperor from the Latin
imperator.The Roman imperial style was first revived in the Frankish realm, the hegemon of the Catholic West, thus claiming equality with the
Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Caliphate, by
Charlemagne in 800, and when his empire was divided again through inheritances it came to be linked to the eastern ('German') kingdom. The
Holy Roman Emperors (
962 -
1806) (the "First German
Reich", becoming an
elective monarchy) called themselves
Kaiser, while combining this imperial title with that of Roman King (assumed by the designated heir before the imperial coronation); they saw their rule as a continuation of that of the
Roman Emperors and so used the name "Caesar" to reflect their supposed heritage.
The rulers of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire (
1806 -
1918), from the Habsburg dynasty that had provided all
Holy Roman Emperors (though formally still elected) since
1440, again used the title
Kaiser.
In
English and most other foreign usage, however, the untranslated title is mainly associated with the emperors of the unified
German Empire (
1871 -
1918) (the "Second Reich") which chancellor Bismarck had welded skilfully from two federations covering most of the many principalities (mainly petty, known as
Kleinstaaterei) that had constituted Germany, the core of the former
Holy Roman Empire. The term is particularly associated in English with the last Kaiser, Wilhelm II.
There were three Kaisers of the German Empire. All belonged to the
Hohenzollern dynasty, which had already ruled much of Germany ruled as kings of (originally 'in')
Prussia, militarily the only great power among the German principalities, before ascending the brand new "German" imperial throne. These three Prussian Kaisers were:
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Wilhelm I (1871 -
1888);
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Friedrich III (1888), who ruled for 99 days;
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Wilhelm II (1888 - 1918), during whose reign the monarchy in Germany ended after
World War I.
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German Monarchy*
Franz Beckenbauer*
Daniel Passarella
