Here's a little of what I know:
Since Wilhelm couldn't visit Germany or meddle in politics, whenever he wanted to do anything that involved these things, he would send Hermine as his emissary.
She visited Anna Anderson who commented on the match, saying it was a 'scandal' amongst Germany society that he'd married her. She added that CPss Cecile never went to Doorn and, in fact, refused to step foot in Doorn as long as 'that woman' was there and that if Cecile visited, Hermine had to leave--which isn't true, there are photos of Cecile and Hermine together at Doorn, posed formally and informally. She further added that Hermine was acceptable as a Princess but
not an Empress. Regardless, after Hermine's visit, the two women established a 'special friendship' and the visit was seen by the German nobility as the seal of approval by the Kaiser on AA's identity. (Ths info comes from James Blair Lovell's book on AA)
Other members of society referred to her as the Quotation Mark Empress. Hermine often travelled to Germany to visit various people. At one gathering, at the Countess von der Groeben's, in 1932 the Countess asked Hermine directly to her face that, based on Hermine's 'well-known' sympathies for the Nazi Party, was it true that Wilhelm had given money to the cause? Hermine stood there in 'embarrassed silence'. In 1933, monarchists pinned hopes on the Nazis when Hermine journeyed from Doorn to Berlin in a reputed effort to sound out Hitler on restoration.
Time magazine in 1927 wrote of her: "The present consort of Wilhelm II is a healthy, good-humored woman with an easy stride, who does not take too seriously the pompous courtesy titles sometimes proclaimed at her approach by Netherlandic butlers in the vicinity of Doom....Actually Princess Hermine is a strictly practical woman who stipulated in her marriage contract (1922) that she should be allowed every year a vacation away from the Netherlands—in Germany."
On one of her trips, to Germany, she made clear her plans to stay at the Wilhelm I palace on the Unter der Linden. The government replied that she had the right to (this was 1927) but they couldn't guarantee her safety. Nonetheless, she did indeed take up residence there, occupying four rooms of the old palace: bedroom, boudoir, sitting-room, bath. She also brought 2 of her Mercedes with her from Doorn.
From Time magazine in 1929, on the occasion of WII's 70th birthday celebrations: "As the guests trooped in to dinner they found no place card laid for "the Empress Hermine," present consort of Wilhelm II. His 70th birthday was to have been the occasion for the first general recognition of her rank by the entire House of Hohenzollern. Poor Hermine! On the night before she had been stricken with chicken pox. "
She was captured by the Russians at the end of the war and impressoned in a camp for displaced persons at Frankfurt an der Oder where she died on August 7th, 1947.
(courtesy Nuria)
She also wrote her memoirs,
An empress in exile: my days in Doorn.
