The Crown of William II, also known as the Hohenzollern Crown, is the 1888 crown

Crown (headgear)

A crown is the traditional symbolic form of headgear worn by a monarch or by a deity, for whom the crown traditionally represents power, legitimacy, immortality, righteousness, victory, triumph, resurrection, honour and glory of life after death. In art, the crown may be shown being offered to...

 made for William II, German Emperor

William II, German Emperor

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...

 in his role as King of Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

. A Crown of the German Empire

German State Crown

In 1871 a design and model for a new state crown was created to reflect the new German Empire. The model was based upon the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire and was kept in the Hohenzollern museum at Schloss Monbijou in Berlin, until it disappeared during World War II. It has never re-surfaced. No...

 was never made. It was only used for heraldic purposes.

Design

The crown itself contains a large sapphire

Sapphire

Sapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide , when it is a color other than red or dark pink; in which case the gem would instead be called a ruby, considered to be a different gemstone. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, or chromium can give...

, supporting a diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

-studded cross, plus 142 rose-cut diamonds, 18 diamonds and 8 large pearl

Pearl

A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...

s. It comprises eight half-arches.

After the establishment of the Republic

When William abdicated in 1918 he was permitted to retain the family jewels, which included the Hohenzollern crown. To protect it from theft and destruction, during the Second World War it was hidden in a wall in the crypt of a church. After the war it was returned to the Hohenzollern family.

It is now kept at the family residence of the Hohenzollern Castle

Burg Hohenzollern

Hohenzollern Castle is a castle about south of Stuttgart, Germany. It is considered the ancestral seat of the Hohenzollern family, which emerged in the Middle Ages and eventually became German Emperors....

.

External links

• The Hohenzollern Crown photograph