He was born in Berlin to Crown Prince Friedrich and his wife, Victoria, Princess Royal of Britain. His mother was the aunt of Empress Alexandra (wife of Tsar Nicholas II), and sister of King Edward VII. A traumatic breech birth left him with a withered left arm due to Erb's Palsy, which he tried with some success to conceal. (In the photograph opposite, one hand is holding the withered one, concealing it. In many other photos he carries a pair of white gloves in his left hand to make the arm seem longer, or has his crippled arm on the hilt of a sword or clutching a cane to give the effect of the limb being poised at a dignified angle.)
Recent analyses of records of his birth in the Imperial Archives have also suggested that he may have experienced some brain trauma, possibly leading to damage. Historians are divided on whether such a mental incapacity may have contributed to his frequently aggressive, tactless, headstrong, and occasionally bullying approach to problems and people, which was evident in both his personal and political life. Such an approach certainly marred German policy under his leadership, most notably in his dismissal of the cautious Otto von Bismarck. He also had a very poor relationship with his mother, who was always cold towards him and whose guilt over his deformity led her to try to "beat" it out of him through a regimen of rigorous exercise. He was accused of megalomania as early as 1894, by German pacifist Ludwig Quidde.
Wilhelm was educated at Kassel at the Friedrichsgymnasium and the University of Bonn. He was possessed of a quick intelligence, but unfortunately this was often overshadowed by a cantankerous temper. Wilhelm also took a certain interest in the science and technology of the age, but though he liked to pose, in conversation, as a man of the world, he remained convinced that he belonged to a distinct order of mankind, designated for monarchy by the grace of God.
On the death of Wilhelm I on March 9, 1888, his father was crowned Kaiser as Friedrich III but he was dying of throat cancer, and on 15th June of that same year Wilhelm II succeeded him as German Emperor and King of Prussia.