Wilhelm II, German Emperor despite appeals from the Allies. King George V wrote that he looked on his cousin as "the greatest criminal in history", but opposed Prime Minister David Lloyd George's proposal to "hang the Kaiser". President Woodrow Wilson of the United States opposed extradition, arguing that prosecuting Wilhelm would destabilize international order and lose the peace. Wilhelm first settled in Amerongen, where on 28 November he issued a belated statement of abdication from both the Prussian and imperial thrones, thus formally ending the Hohenzollerns' 400-year rule over Prussia. Accepting the reality that he had lost both of his crowns for good, he
SS Kaiser Wilhelm II SS Kaiser Wilhelm II The second SS "Kaiser Wilhelm II, named for the German Emperor, was a 19,361 gross ton passenger ship built at Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland). The ship was completed in the spring of 1903. The ship was seized by the U.S. Government during World War I, and subsequently served as a transport ship under the name USS Agamemnon". A famous photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz called "The Steerage", as well as descriptions of the conditions of travel in the lowest class, have conflicted with her otherwise glitzy reputation as a high class, high speed trans-Atlantic liner.