About Me
Ludwig (Louis) II, King of Bavaria, Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm; sometimes known as the "Märchenkönig" (Fairy-tale King) in German. (August 25, 1845 – June 13, 1886) was king of Bavaria from 1864 until his death.
King Ludwig II designed and built the Bavarian castle Neuschwanstein, which inspired the design of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland; he left a large collection of plans for other castles that were never built.
Born in Nymphenburg (today part of Munich), he was the son of King Maximilian II of Bavaria and Princess Marie of Prussia. Ludwig was continually reminded of his royal power as a child, and as a child he was extremely spoiled on some occasions but severely controlled by his instructors and subjected to a strict regimen of study and exercise on others. Ludwig apologists explain that much of his odd behaviour as an adult was caused by the stress of growing up in a royal family.
Prince Ludwig and Otto as Boys
Ludwig's youth did have happy times, such as visits to Hohenschwangau and Lake Starnberg with his family. Teenaged Ludwig became best friends and possibly the lover of his aide de camp, the handsome aristocrat and actor Paul Maximilian Lamoral of Thurn and Taxis of Bavaria's wealthy Thurn and Taxis family. The two young men rode together, read poetry aloud, and staged scenes from the Romantic operas of Richard Wagner. The relationship broke off when Paul became more interested in young women. During his youth, Ludwig also initiated a lifelong friendship with his cousin Duchess Elisabeth, Empress of Austria. They both loved nature and poetry, and nicknamed each other "the Eagle" (Ludwig) and "the Seagull" (Elisabeth).
Ludwig ascended to the Bavarian throne at age 18, following his father's death. His youth and brooding good looks made him wildly popular in Bavaria and abroad. One of his first acts was official patronage of his idol, the German opera composer Richard Wagner, despite Wagner having Europe-wide notoriety for his past political activism and radical new-style operas. Wagner's Lohengrin, with its swan knight hero and focus on medieval German romance, had captivated the young king's fantasy-filled imagination, and he even invited the radical composer to his conservative-minded royal court.
The greatest stresses of Ludwig's early reign were pressure to produce an heir, and relations with militant Prussia. Both issues came to the forefront in 1867. Ludwig was engaged to Princess Sophie, his cousin and Empress Elisabeth's younger sister. Their engagement was publicized on January 22, 1867, but after repeatedly postponing the wedding date, Ludwig finally cancelled the engagement in October. Ludwig never married, but Sophie later married Ferdinand Philippe Marie, duc d'Alençon (1844–1910), son of Louis Charles Philippe Raphael, duc de Nemours. She died several years later in a fire which destroyed the Paris Charity Bazaar.
Though Ludwig had sided with Austria against Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War, he accepted a mutual defense treaty with Prussia in 1867 after being defeated in the war. Under the terms of this treaty, Bavaria joined with Prussia against France in the Franco-Prussian War. On the request of Bismarck, Ludwig solicited a letter in December 1870 calling for the creation of a German Empire. He received some concessions in return for his support, but the era of Bavarian independence was over.
Throughout his reign, Ludwig had a succession of infatuations with handsome men, including his chief equerry Richard Hornig, Hungarian theatre star Josef Kainz, and courtier Alfons Weber. In 1869, he began keeping a diary in which he recorded his private thoughts and discussed his attempts to suppress his sexual desires and remain true to his Catholic beliefs. Ludwig's original diaries were lost during World War II, and all that remains today are copies of entries made prior to the war. These copied diary entries, along with private letters and other surviving personal documents, suggest that Ludwig struggled with homosexuality.[1]
As Ludwig's rule progressed, he became increasingly withdrawn. In the 1880s, Ludwig spent much of his time in seclusion in the Alps. There he built several expensive fairytale palaces with the stage designer Christian Jank, and imagined a dream world with himself as an absolute monarch descended from Louis XIV of France.
On June 10, 1886, Ludwig was officially declared insane by the government and incapable of executing his governmental powers, and Prince Luitpold was declared regent. The psychiatrist Professor Bernhard von Gudden despite never having examined Ludwig, headed the psychiatric team that declared Ludwig to be suffering from paranoia (comparable to a modern diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia). Their chief evidence was stories of Ludwig's odd behavior, collected from palace servants by his political enemies. As many of these stories were not firsthand accounts and may have been obtained with bribery or threats, their reliability is questionable. Some historians believe that Ludwig was sane, an innocent victim of political intrigue. Others believe he may have suffered from a substance abuse problem or neurological disorder rather than mental illness. Empress Elisabeth held that "The King was not mad; he was just an eccentric living in a world of dreams. They might have treated him more gently, and thus perhaps spared him so terrible an end."
Ludwig was taken into custody in secret. The event proved as unusual as any in his life. An eccentric but loyal baroness arrived at the gate of the rural castle to wave her umbrella menacingly and to harangue the men who came to imprison Ludwig. The king himself reportedly ordered all kinds of nonsensical punishments against the "treasonous" ministers. A huge force of peasants swarmed to Hohenschwangau to protect the King. They were willing to escort Ludwig under guard across the border and save him. But Ludwig refused. The battalion of soldiers at nearby Kempten had been summoned to Neuschwanstein, but it was retained by the government.
Ludwig attempted to issue the following proclamation to the public:
The Prince Luitpold intends, against my will, to ascend to the Regency of my land, and my erstwhile ministry has, through false allegations regarding the state of my health, deceived my beloved people, and is preparing to commit acts of high treason. [...] I call upon every loyal Bavarian to rally around my loyal supporters to thwart the planned treason against the King and the fatherland.
This was printed by a Bamberg newspaper on June 11, 1886, but the copies were seized by the government to prevent distribution. Most of Ludwig's telegrams to the newspapers and his friends were intercepted. Ludwig did receive a message from Bismarck advising him to go to Munich and show himself to the people, but Ludwig refused to leave Neuschwanstein. On the morning of the twelfth, a second Commission reached the castle. The King was placed under arrest at 4:00 a.m. and transported to Castle Berg in Berg, south of Munich.
Mystery surrounds Ludwig's death on Lake Starnberg (then called Lake Würm). On June 13, at 6:30 p.m., Ludwig asked to take a walk with Professor Gudden. Gudden agreed, and told the guards not to follow them. The two men never returned from their walk. King Ludwig and Professor Gudden were found dead in the water near the shore of Lake Starnberg at 11:30 p.m. that night. A little chapel was later built overlooking the site. A remembrance ceremony is held there each year on June 13.
Ludwig's death was officially ruled a suicide by drowning, but alternate theories abound. Ludwig was known to be a good swimmer, the water was less than waist-deep where his body was found, and the official autopsy report indicates that no water was found in his lungs. No solid proof of foul play has ever come to light, but many hold that Ludwig was either assassinated by his political enemies or killed while attempting to escape from Berg. Another theory suggests that Ludwig died of natural causes (such as a heart attack or stroke) during an escape attempt.
Ludwig's body was interred in the crypt of the Michaelskirche in Munich. His heart, however, does not lie with the rest of his body. Bavarian tradition called for the heart of the king to be placed in a silver urn and sent to the Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of the Miraculous Image) in Altötting. Ludwig's urn sits beside those of his father and grandfather inside the shrine.
His legacy
Ludwig is remembered as one of the most unusual rulers in German history. He was quite popular among his subjects, for three major reasons. First, he avoided engaging in war, giving Bavaria a time of peace. Whether this was due to a belief in pacifism or a lack of interest in politics is debatable. Second, Ludwig funded the construction of his famous fairy-tale castles with his personal income, not from the state budget. This gave many people employment and brought a considerable flow of money to the regions involved. Third, his public eccentricities could be very charming. He hated crowds and formal affairs, but Ludwig did not consider himself above socializing with commoners. He enjoyed traveling in the Bavarian countryside and chatting with farmers and labourers he met along the way. Ludwig also delighted in rewarding those who were hospitable to him during his travels with lavish gifts. He is still remembered in Bavaria as "Unser Kini" which means "our darling king" in the Bavarian dialect of German.
Ironically, although their construction nearly bankrupted Bavaria's royal family, Ludwig's palaces have become profitable tourist attractions for the Bavarian state. The palaces have paid for themselves many times over.
