The Great-great grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last ruler of Germany who was forced off the throne in 1918, is to marry on Saturday. Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Prince of Prussia is to wed Sophie Johanna Maria Princess of Isenburg and step out of a church on the grounds of the former royal palace in Potsdam. They are to ride in a carriage drawn by six horses through the city streets as did many of their ancestors for the past one thousand years of Hohenzollern history.

One hundred years ago right now in 1911 no one would have thought anything of it. It would have been business as usual — for three more years. Everything was about to change radically, and no one guessed. Wilhelm was the German ruler who directed Germany’s part in World War I and was forced to surrender, thereby losing his dynasty’s hold on power.

Germany never forgave him. The Treaty of Paris was a disaster as were the reparations that followed. That all led to the rise of Hitler, which is one of the reasons so many Germans resent the monarchy to this day — that and the Prussian military tradition that led to the Wehrmacht in the Second World War. And of course all that led to Potsdam becoming part of East Germany under Communist Russian rule for nearly half a century.

That is one reason why many leftist groups are planning satiric protests about the royal wedding. Germany can’t make peace with Wilhelm II, Hitler, or its twentieth century past.