The tragic life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria
T hough he died 117 years ago, his face is as familiar to us today as that of many a 21st-century celebrity. The thick, dark hair, the rather petulant mouth and the mournful eyes can be seen everywhere: on the covers of history books, on coffee mugs and notebooks and, most recently, even on Christmas baubles. Yet, if asked to name a few facts about Ludwig II of Bavaria, few of us could recall more than that he was rumored to be mentally unstable and had a penchant for building palaces. One reason for the general ignorance concerning the life of King Ludwig II is that some of its most important moments are shrouded in mystery. Fittingly the first of these puzzles concerns his birth. When a 25-gun salute was fired off on August 25, 1845, to celebrate the birth of Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm von Wittelsbach in Munich, it was regarded as a happy coincidence that the boy had been born on the birthday of his grandfather King Ludwig I. In fact, baby Ludwig may well have arrived a few days earlier and the news kept secret in order to please the king. Young Ludwig and his brother, Otto, born two years later, had a strange and loveless childhood. The princes, brought up mainly at the Hohenschwangau Castle, were so poorly nourished that their maid, Lisi, would secretly feed the boys with food intended for the servants. Play with other children was discouraged by their father, Maximilian II, who considered such contact to be beneath the dignity of his sons. Maximilian, who came to power in 1848, seems to have been a dour individual. He suffered from constant headaches as a result of having contracted typhus on a journey to Hungary in 1835 and had an overpowering sense of responsibility, which stifled his relationship with Ludwig and Otto. Maximilian also complained that his elder son was rather boring. When it was suggested that he take Ludwig along on his daily walks in the English Garden, the king replied “What am I supposed to talk to the young man about? He’s not interested in anything I say.” So distant was Ludwig’s relationship with his mother, Queen Marie, that later in life he referred to her as “my predecessor’s consort.” She certainly was no role model as wife or mother. Interestingly Ludwig’s one attempt to found a family of his own—an apparently unplanned engagement to Sophie, Duchess of Bavaria, in 1867—was brief. After a few desultory attempts by Ludwig to set a wedding date, the engagement fizzled out and he wrote, “Thank God that the unthinkable came to nought.” The king did, however, maintain a lifelong platonic friendship with Sophie’s sister, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, otherwise known as Sissi. Ludwig’s dismal upbringing would probably have crushed the spirit of most children, but, by all accounts, it was a charming and kind-hearted young man who ascended the throne in March 1864. And after some initial qualms the 18-year-old king proved enthusiastic about his new position—so much so that he would constantly enquire of his ministers whether there were any new documents for him to study or sign. Ludwig’s 22-year-reign was dominated by a passionate interest in cultural matters, his love of the music of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) and his admiration of certain historical figures, such as kings Louis XIV and Louis XV of France, being the best documented. His fervor for all things Wagnerian began when 15-year-old Ludwig attended a performance of the opera Lohengrin in 1861. Less than two months after his coronation Ludwig summoned the composer to Munich to receive a substantial endowment—Wagner was virtually bankrupt at the time—and the promise of further patronage. Though the composer was forced to leave Munich a little over a year later, having incurred the wrath of Bavaria’s citizens by his power-hungry, extravagant behavior, his legacy in the blue and white state had been established. Not only were the premiers of Tristan and Isolde, Mastersingers of Nuremberg and Rhinegold performed at the National Theater in Munich, much of the interior decoration of Ludwig’s Linderhof Palace and Neuschwanstein Castle was inspired by Wagner’s operas. And, finally, it was Ludwig who helped finance the composer’s dream of a festival theater in Bayreuth. After two years on the throne Ludwig was beginning to find the official aspects of his job tiresome and even, on occasion, distasteful. When the Wittelsbach ruler saw himself embroiled in a war with Prussia in 1866, he could hardly disguise his aversion to the matter. While his army prepared to do battle against the Prussians, Ludwig retired to Rose Island on Lake Starnberg and tried to avoid signing the mobilization order. The conflict lasted only three weeks, but the Bavarians incurred heavy human and material losses. A peace treaty was signed on August 22 in which Ludwig agreed to pay 30 million florins in reparations to Prussia. The ultimate humiliation followed four years later, in 1870, when Ludwig was forced to agree to King William of Prussia being proclaimed Emperor of Germany at a ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. In return the Prussian chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, secured a substantial sum of money, which was paid to the Bavarian monarch as compensation. Ludwig rarely traveled beyond his country’s borders, but one journey that left a lasting impression was a visit to Versailles in 1874. The king, who as a child loved to dress up and playact, felt a great affinity with 18th-century absolutist monarchs and the pomp with which they surrounded themselves—apparently Ludwig enjoyed imaginary conversations with the dead French Queen Marie-Antoinette while seated alone at his dining table at Linderhof Palace. So in 1878 he decided to build a copy of Versailles, on the island of Herrenchiemsee, which he had bought a few years earlier. Yet, Ludwig’s pleasure in the construction of this palace, as well as that of Linderhof (1878) and Neuschwanstein (1886), was overshadowed by the enormous debts he incurred to have these projects realized. The king’s extravagance had, of course, not gone unnoticed by his subjects. Not only had his popularity waned considerably as a result—the mutterings over his financial misdemeanors were becoming louder—his ever more bizarre behavior was attracting attention too. Ludwig was increasingly inclined to be solitary—towards the end of his life the king liked to take spontaneous nighttime expeditions, for example, by sleigh, from one palace to another—and often seemed to be living in a world of his own. In 1884 matters came to a head when Ludwig, who already owed the state of Bavaria 13 million Reichsmark, attempted to fund yet another building project with money loaned to him by a bank so that he could pay off his debts. His cabinet ministers, headed by Minister President Lutz, hatched a plan to have the king removed from office. Over the next two years there was much behind-the-scenes political maneuvering at the Bavarian court. Lutz was determined not to lose his position over the scandal, but it seems that he was also unable to make Ludwig aware of the extent of his debts, communication with the troubled monarch having become almost impossible. Despite much confusion among the ministers the plan to have the king declared insane and then incarcerated gradually took shape. On June 8, 1886 Dr. von Gudden, a psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Munich, was summoned and pronounced Ludwig mad, though the king had repeatedly refused to allow himself to be examined. The medical report written by von Gudden makes for interesting reading, even today. For a doctor who had barely been given the opportunity to make the acquaintance of his patient, von Gudden knew a greal deal about the king’s condition. Four days later, on June 12, Ludwig and von Gudden traveled to Berg Castle by Lake Starnberg, where the king was to spend time “recuperating” while his uncle, Luitpold, took over the affairs of state as prince regent—the castle had secretly been turned into a kind of mental institution, with bars on the windows and heavy locks on the doors. On the evening of the following day von Gudden and his patient took a walk down to the lake. They failed to return from their outing and were both discovered drowned a few hours later. Speculation on the cause of Ludwig’s dramatic death and that of his physician has not ceased to the present day. Did the king try to kill von Gudden? Was the doctor attempting to prevent Ludwig’s escape? We will never know. As to his madness, the theories on Ludwig’s mental health vary, though the most recent findings suggest that towards the end of his life Ludwig was indeed insane. Perhaps this gentle, sensitive and intelligent man was simply not suited to the rigors of kingship. When he wrote to the actress Marie Dahn-Hausmann in 1876 that “I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and others,” it was perhaps less a wish and more a necessity for him to conceal his real self, behavior that finally caused him to lose touch with reality.