Walther Rathenau, one of Germany's leading industrialists, bankers, and widely read authors, has often been regarded as a critic of his time in general, and of Wilhelmine Germany in particular. However, his vigour of criticism with regard to the latter was not in the same league as that of his one-time friend, Maximilian Harden, the editor of the influential paper, Die Zukunft, or that of the political left. In the field of politics, Rathenau restricted himself to complaints about some constitutional deficits and about the Prussian state's treatment of the Jewish minority in Germany. Despite these criticisms he identified strongly with the pre-war political system and Wilhelmine Germany in general. He did not want to overthrow anything. His liberal reformist aims were to strengthen Wilhelmine Germany abroad and to integrate the entirety of the German population more strongly with the state. This dialectic approach to politics and to affairs of society in general raises the question as to whether the label Wilhelminist is an appropriate one to describe his position.

Given his close identification with the Wilhelmine epoch, it was not surprising that Rathenau was deeply shocked by the military and political collapse of Imperial Germany in November 1918. One of his reactions to the newly developing political and social circumstances was the publication, among many articles and booklets, of a tract in March 1919 with the title Der Kaiser. In the first parts of this book he analysed the monarchy under Wilhelm II in Germany.