So, I've just finished Müller's "Der 99 Tage Kaiser", quite the interesting read.
Some interesting things (not all will need to read it again) about Fritz and Willy II:
-Fritz shared his sons love for uniforms and medals, Vicky could never get that out of him
-Just like Wilhelm II. Fritz quickly got bored of things and jumped to new ones
-Fritz traveled a lot and restless, ever more the older he got, again, Wilhelm did that as well
-Fritz planned a lot of things like churches, palasts etc, his ideas were often giagantic and a lot of them were continued by Wilhelm
-Fritz was obsessed with the impirial crown and was planning to strenghten it's powers (much like Willy)
-Fritz also viewed the other German monarchs as beneath him (just like Willy) , he especially disliked the Kings of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg and Saxony cause they got their crowns from Napoleon and he mused about reducing them back to their former titles
-Father and son shared romantic views about the middle age, highlightend by Fritz' plans to be Frederick IV instead of Frederick III
-Both saw the potential of the media and used it for their own gains, though Fritz was more talented in this, successfully creating himself the picture of "our Fritz" which combined modern elements with attributes of Frederick the Great and Queen Luise. And using it to strenghten the Hohenzollern prestige throughout Germany.
Though the one time Fritz critisised his father in public nearly backfired spectaculary on him. Bismarck and Augusta (Fritz mother) had to talk Wilhelm out of having Fritz thrown into jail, and for the rest of his live Wilhelm would distrust his own son. He supposedly even said he would not allow himself to die as long as the crown prince was still alive and didn't show any compassion when hearing of Fritz' cancer, thinking it was more important to inspect a regiment than listening to the reports on Fritz' health.
-Fritz shared his fathers and sons view on the military, dissolving parliament if it didn't pass the military etat was right in his eyes and he was not going to compromise on the Kaisers/Kings powers within the army
-In 1885 Fritz drew up a plan of how he wished to govern, this plan had a lot in common with the "personal regime" Wilhelm II supposedly managed to eract
At the end of the day Willy had much more in common with his father than with his grandfather.
But there were huge differences between their characters.
Fritz generally managed to leave a positive impression on people who often viewed him as an understanding and polite man after the first meeting. He was also better at keeping his temper in check. But he was also very depressive and doubted his ability to change things and lacked confidence.
Vicky needed to encourage him all the time and even that was at times not enough. He also relayed heavily on her in a lot of things like when formulating answers to things or when it came to writting speeches or when he didn't understand something.
Last but not least, though Fritz was in favor of the fleet and colonies he would not have pursued a strategy that he knew would upset Britain. And Vicky would have made sure of that.
Whatever that is enough to get into an alliance with it is another question.
Some other points:
-Fritz hated the social democrats and though he came to doubt the efficiancy of the socialist laws there is no evidence he ever thought about dropping them
-He despised the catholic church and critisised Bismarck for ending the Kulturkampf, thinking about starting it anew once he was Kaiser
-He hated antisemitists and openly expressed his disgust at them
-Bismarck successfully got Fritz closer to the Nationalliberals than the progressive, Fritz found he liked their program and was very fond of some of them, talking with Bismarck about macking Benningsen, Miquel and some others to ministers
-Fritz viewed Bismarcks ways of appeasing the working class as wrong and critisised them. Preffering to encourage the working people to handle their problems themself and making some concession like no work on Sundays.
His liberal views wandered from some points he had in common with the progressives to views that were more in common with those of the Nationalliberals.
He was not planning to have royal or impirial powers reduced but indeed thought about increasing them. He also was planning to strengthen the federal position at the expanse of the member states, suggesting to make Brunswick a Reichsland like Alsace-Lorrain.
He never burned all bridges to Bismarck who also never completly ignored him since Wilhelms I. advanced age was a fact and no one would have thought he would live to be nearly 91 years old. So, since Bismarck had to expect Wilhelm I to drop dead any month he was always looking for ways to get on the good side of the crown prince and secure his own position. By 1885/6 he had pretty much managed to do that, but his plans got thwarted by Fritz' cancer.
There is more but this is all I can think of from the top of my head for now.