Around 1280, Adolf became involved in the Nassau-Eppstein Feud [de] with the Lords of Eppstein, in which the city of Wiesbaden was devastated and Sonnenberg Castle destroyed.

He took the side of the nobles in the core Habsburg areas of Swabia and in their newly acquired territories in Austria, with whom Albert was unpopular.

Archbishop Siegfried believed that the Emperor should not receive the crown as an inheritance from his father, but should be freely selected by the College of Electors.

He convinced the Archbishop of Mainz, Gerard II of Eppstein [de], to select a king who would principally serve their interests.

Gerard in turn recruited the new Archbishop of Trier, Bohemund I. Thereupon, the Count Palatine was forced to submit to the majority of the College of Electors.

A few days before the election, on 27 April 1292, the first of the electors, Archbishop Siegfried issued the Treaty of Andernach, stating that for Adolf to be chosen king he must promise a long list of acknowledgments of possession (including the imperial cities of Dortmund and Duisburg, and the Vogtship of Essen), pledges of imperial cities and castles, and a sum of 25,000 marks in silver.

In comparison to the benefits which the electors of Mainz, Cologne and Bohemian received, the donations to the Count Palatine and the Archbishop of Trier were modest.

On 5 May 1292 in Frankfurt am Main, the Archbishop of Mainz, in the name of all the electors, elected Adolf King of the Germans (Emperor-Elect).

At the start of his reign, Adolf had neither influence nor power, and was elected Rex Romanorum because of the electors' preference for a weak king.

In exchange for his surrender of the Imperial Regalia, which he still had in his possession, he received, in November 1292, a formal enfeoffment with Austria, Styria, the Windic March, and the Lordship of Pordenone.

The disposition of the prestigious insignia and relics of the empire was an additional and important sign for the legitimacy of the reign of the king, but not a mandatory prerequisite.

Many of today's historians, however, view it as an innovative way to open up new state revenue sources, as other Western European kings did.

In 1294, when Adolf’s rule was at its height, he concluded an alliance with the King Edward I of England against France[6] and was awarded 60 000 pounds sterling, which corresponded to 90 000 gold marks.

That the alliance was construed by his contemporaries as purely mercenary, and the fact that Adolf did not comply with its obligations, damaged his reputation, but this was initially without consequences.

[7] Pope Boniface VIII, however, ordered peace in 1295 and threatened to commence the excommunication of Adolf in the event of an outbreak of war.

A little later, Adolf intervened in war-torn Thuringia, where fighting had erupted between Landgrave Albert the Degenerate and his sons Frederick and Theodoric IV of Lusatia.

Legally, it was perfectly acceptable for Adolf to induce the feudal lord to abandon his fief and to bring the land under the empire.

Furthermore, he seized the Margraviate of Meissen as an imperial fief, since it had been literally ownerless after the extinction of a collateral line of the House of Wettin and had been occupied by a son of Albert the Degenerate.

Wenceslaus II of Bohemia was not thrilled by the growing power of the emperor on his northern border, especially since Adolf had promised to give him the Margraviate of Meissen.

In addition to the ostensible return of imperial fiefs to the empire, it can not be ruled out that Adolf was anxious to build a dynastic power base (albeit a small one).

First, Adolf succeeded in securing his acquisitions diplomatically and provoking the Margrave of Brandenburg toward active support and the Archbishop of Mainz and the Duke of Saxony toward at least acquiescence of the purchase.

Two years later, in the summer of 1296, Adolf proudly announced on the invitation to a court day that he had by his actions significantly increased the possessions of the empire.

[8] Adolf, as a party to the conflict, could not at the same time act as judge and saw these charges as a provocation given that Albert was raising arms against him, the rightful king.

In these proceedings Adolf was charged with numerous crimes, including the continued breach of the peace in Thuringia and the breaking of the promises he had made to the archbishop of Mainz.

The princes, it is true, did try to formulate their arguments similarly to Innocent IV’s statement in the deposition of Frederick II, but the process was unprecedented.

Because Adolf had been elected and crowned, the contemporary understanding was that he had been chosen by God to be the ruler and that the princes were breaking their oath in which they swore loyalty to the king.

Therefore, included in the list of charges were some that, at first glance, appear peculiar today, such as the desecration of communion wafers and the simonistic extortion of money.

Therefore, Adolf was initially buried in the Cistercian monastery of Rosenthal Abbey [de] in present-day Kerzenheim and was only later transferred to Speyer.

The picture depicts King Adolf with chest armor, a white coat; and wearing an iron crown with an "implied spiked helmet”; in his right hand he holds a sword and in the left a shield with an eagle.

It is not based on previous portraits, since Mücke considered other representations, such as the one attributed to Georg Friedrich Christian Seekatz, to be too moderate[12] On 8 May 1858, Duke Adolf of Nassau established a Military and Civil Order of Merit for the Duchy.