Contemporaries referred to Wilhelm II's time of government before 1914 as an ‘age of festivities’ and speeches. In 1913, the Sozialdemokratische Flugschriften commented: ‘The amount of official celebrations that the German Empire has had to endure over these last twenty-five years has been seemingly endless. They follow each other as uninterruptedly as film-reels do in a cinema … And each festivity is a “milestone”, each is glorified by speeches …’ The Kaiser's appearances in public are revealing processes of public communication. Contemporaries counted among them ‘national public holidays’ (Nationalfesttage), ‘state celebrations’ (Staatsfeste), regional and local events, as well as a number of other public holidays and jubilees of very different natures. Addresses, speeches and toasts formed part of these, as did marches and parades, flags and standards, obelisks and memorials, illuminations, torch-lit processions and fireworks, church visits, poems, songs, and the Hohenzollernfestspiele in the new opera house (Neues Königliches Operntheater). The court ceremonial planned all details and accompanied the media from the first announcement of an event to the publications which were intended to record and secure its fame for the future.

As in most monarchies at the end of the nineteenth century, in the German Reich and in Prussia, the birthday of the ruler and his more famous ancestors, selected historical events, funerals, and the coronation formed the core of an increasingly secularized culture of celebration. Laws and decrees stipulated whatever was necessary for this.