[hider=Willie][center][img]https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5700330-3x4-340x453.jpg[/img]
[b]Wilhelm “Willie” Malte von Tecklenburg
Born in Tecklenburg, Westphalia, Das Fürstentum Rheinland
January 19th, 1884[/b][/center]

Wilhelm was the eldest grandson of the [i]Waldgraf (Count)[/i] Nikolaus VI von Tecklenburg. Son to the Count’s middle child, Wilhelm spent his adolescence in the confines of the Castle Tecklenburg overlooking the Teutoburg Forest. His father oversaw the lumber mills and public works constructions within the County, an architect by trade, and sought to it that Wilhelm received a first rate tutor, education, and practical experience. Work that many nobles would shy away from became the business of young Willie (as he prefers to be called in the company of friends), but where Wilhelm took interest was in the pages of any text he could lay his hands upon. His wit and thirst for knowledge were unmatched, but were often overshadowed largely by his awkward demeanor and aversion to noble responsibility.

When Wilhelm was fifteen, his father Matthias was chosen by the Count to be one of the Westphalian-Rhineland representatives in the Confederation’s Diet, to be held in Prussian territory. Coaxing his son into accompanying him, he exposed him to the high life of Berlin, before receiving a summons to the Prussian royal court summered in Königsberg. The ancient Teutonic city is where Wilhelm thrived. The by comparison culturally diverse meeting point of the Slavs, Eastern European Jews, Germans, and Scandinavians exposed him to literature and works which he could only dream of. Even his own Catholicism was largely tolerated, unheard of in such a Protestant and Orthodox area.

Upon return to Tecklenburg, Wilhelm begged his father to enroll him in the famed University of Albertina. His father conceded, and at age 17, Willie set off for Königsberg once more. Though interested in learning, Wilhelm often found himself skipping classes to visit the Königstraße Academy of Art and the Stadt Theatre, admiring works of literature, opera, and painting rather than committing to his studies. Upon one excursion from the campus to the theatre, Wilhelm argued with a fellow student, a Prussian, over the superiority of German artists, on which Wilhelm was willing to posit that there may be some foreign artists better than contemporary Germans, leading to a duel which left Wilhelm with a light dueling scar upon his right cheek.

He did eventually graduate, however, albeit with a nigh useless degree in Studies of German Literature and an education he hardly remembered. All that mattered was in his time in Tecklenburg, he had brushed shoulders with and made friends with some of the East Prussian high society. Upon his return to Tecklenburg, he found his father the sole heir to the noble title (on account of the eldest brother dying of consumption), and a correspondence in the mail from a [i]Freiherr (Baron)[/i] Friedrich summoning him to Lötzen.[/hider]