He went on: “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals?

When war was declared, the kaiser addressed the enormous crowd that had gathered beneath his palace balcony.

I finally found the BEC of my NYC dreams — the one served at Volunteer Park Cafe, where they make their own kaiser rolls to compensate for our sad regional deficit in that bread category.

He joined the Wild West Show, and while they were entertaining kaisers and queens, he brought death and suffering wherever they went.

Thereafter, Germany became the kaiser writ large, the nation’s aspirations an outgrowth of the kaiser’s insecurities.