The Shadow of Versailles and the Starnberger See: The Disempowerment and Unexplained Death of Louis II of Bavaria

Probably no other chapter in the biography of Ludwig II of Bavaria has heated up the minds, inspires people’s imagination and riddled historical research up to the present day as immensely as the dramatic events surrounding his disempowerment and his death, which has not been clarified to this day. Born in 1845 and reigning since 1864, King Ludwig II of Bavaria isto this day, the Bavarian population is still perceived as a profound identification figure and as a symbol of a lost, independent kingdom. The calls of Bavaria for greater autonomy or even a separate, sovereign state have remained relevant in the political landscape of the Free State until modern times. These fateful events about the death of the monarch in the1886 must not be considered in isolation, but must be analyzed in the context of its entire conflict-shaped reign. Years before it ended, there were massive efforts and secret plans to declare the king a minor and have him deported to an institution. The exact circumstances of the death of Louis II of Bavaria on June 13th1886 in the Starnberger See will probably never be able to be enlightened with the last legal security. But even today, in the public and scientific debate, the possible political motives of his death and their far-reaching classification into German history are only mentioned incredibly rarely, because such a reappraisal also today’s state of Germany inits historical legitimacy.

The beginnings of rule and the conflict with Prussia

When Ludwig II ascended the Bavarian throne in 1864 at the age of eighteen, hardly anyone suspected the turbulent and violent epoch of European history he had been born into. The relationship between the Kingdom of Bavaria and the emerging Kingdom of Prussia had always been characterized by deep mutual dislike and power-political distrust,A hostility that can be transmitted to a certain extent to this day. Since the late 1850s, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck has pursued an uncompromising strategy of the Klein German solution, which meant nothing other than enforcing Prussia’s dominance over the other German states with all available funds. In 1866 it cameto the open break, when Prussia waged a one-sided war of aggression against Austria and its allies, including the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was a brutal war in which “Germans” fought “Germans” to cement the Hohenzollern dominance. Although the Bavarian troops fought alongside Austria, the 1866 campaign ended with a crushing defeatagainst the superior Prussian army. Bavaria actually lost its full foreign policy sovereignty and was forced into a military alliance that set the course for later interrogation in the Prussian Empire. The memories of this bloody war of 1866 were still extremely fresh at the time of the founding of the empire, and the Bavarian King Ludwig II felt the dominancePrussia as a deep humiliation for his house and his people.

The violent formation of the German Empire

In fact, the emergence of the German Empire in 1871, from which today’s Federal Republic of Germany emerges in a direct constitutional line, was not a pure history of democratic unification, as many today’s historians would like to present in the sense of the national identity foundation. Put simply, Otto von Bismarck wanted in 1866 and in theJust create facts in the following years. After the victory of 1866, numerous larger and smaller German states, which had fought on the wrong side, were simply annexed by Prussia. The Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt lost their own statehood and were degraded to Prussian provinces. byThese violent annexations had been irrevocably strengthened the supremacy of Prussia in northern and central Germany. But Bismarck strove for total hegemony over the entire German-language “continent”. In order to force the southern German states, especially the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Württemberg, into the New Kingdom, further diplomaticExtortion and military threatening gestures, which culminated in the course of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871. The proclamation of the Prussian king to the German Emperor in January 1871 was an act of the deepest humiliation for Ludwig II of Bavaria, since he had been actually forced to renounce his sovereign rights.

The Reptile Fund and the Extortion of the Bavarian King

After Hanover’s annexation in 1866, Prussia not only confiscated state property, but also the immense private assets of the Welfen, the former Hanover family of Hanover. Otto von Bismarck used this confiscated property as a secret state pot, the so-called Welfenfonds, which soon became a reptile fund in the public and political language.became known. The term reptile fund is said to have been a separate creation by Bismarck, since he liked to disparage his political opponents, critics and independent journalists as reptiles. With the funds from this completely non-transparent fund, Bismarck financed a huge network of bribed newspapers, journalists and politicians to make public opinion in mindto manipulate Prussian politics without ever having to give the Reichstag or the public an account of it. Even then, German government policy was pursued on a large scale with black coffers, an inglorious tradition that seems to have survived in various forms until the time of the Federal Republic of Germany. Obviously, Ludwig II of Bavariareceived considerable funds from this reptile fund in the form of secret payments. The purpose of these payments was very clear: Bismarck wanted to buy the approval of the Bavarian king to found the German Empire in 1871, since Ludwig II, without his consent under the November Treaties of 1870, gave rise to the constitutional basis for the empirecouldn’t have done it.

The illusion of Bavarian sovereignty and internal emigration

As can be seen from several historical writings and by Louis II of Bavaria, the king was apparently deeply unhappy with the founding of the German Reich and the associated disempowerment of his house. This feeling of disenfranchisement also affected the monarchs of the other former independent states, but Ludwig II of Bavaria was not just anyInsignificant monarch in what was then the German Reich. All other remaining principalities, duchies, kingdoms and imperial cities were considerably smaller and politically completely insignificant compared to the great powers of Prussia and Bavaria. The Kingdom of Bavaria was smaller in terms of area and militarily than Prussia, but it was the last real, important power factor within thethen German Reich. There a king reigned, who obviously could do little with Prussia, Prussian militarism and the German empire created by Bismarck. Louis II retired to internal emigration, devoted to the art of Richard Wagner’s music and the construction of his famous castles, beginning with Neuschwanstein Castle in 1869. but his withdrawalwas also a silent protest. He refused to take military parade duties in Berlin and avoided the Prussian court wherever he could.

Coup d’état against Louis II in 1886

The Bavarian government under Prime Minister Johann von Lutz, who collaborated closely with Bismarck in Berlin, increasingly saw the idiosyncratic, highly indebted and politically unreliable king as an obstacle to the smooth integration of Bavaria into the Prussian-dominated empire. It was feared that Ludwig II of Bavaria should free himself from his isolation, the dissatisfiedbundle southern German forces and shake the fragile structure of the empire. In 1886, the situation came to a dramatic point. The Bavarian government commissioned a psychiatric commission, led by the renowned insane doctor Bernhard von Gudden, to examine the king. Gudden created his infamous report, without Ludwig II of Bavaria even onceto have spoken personally and in detail. On June 9, 1886, the report was published and the king declared a minor. The government deposed him and had him arrested at Neuschwanstein Castle on June 10, 1886. This unconstitutional coup d’état triggered a storm of outrage among the Bavarian population, which was deeply attached to their king. Thousands of farmers and citizensMoved to Neuschwanstein to free their monarchs, which is why the government of Ludwig II moved to the Berg Castle on Lake Starnberg that same evening.

The Tragic Events at Lake Starnberg in June 1886

The events that took place on the shore of Lake Starnberg on June 13, 1886 form the darkest and most mysterious moment in Bavarian history. Louis II of Bavaria and his psychiatrist Bernhard von Gudden were found dead in the shallow waters of the lake. The official representation was for suicide or at least a violent death by someone else’s hand in the framean escape. But the circumstances still raise massive doubts to this day. The king’s guard was lax, the escape was made almost too easy for him, and the bodies showed traces that did not fit in suicidal by drowning. It is obvious that Ludwig II was eliminated by Bavaria in order to prevent him from being freed from his loyal followers or that he was in Munichinitiated political uprising. His death was extremely well-known for the Bavarian government and for Bismarck in Berlin. The insubordinate monarch, who had the potential to turn things around and disintegrate the German Reich again by mobilizing Bavarian particularism, was cleared out of the way. With Ludwig II not only one person died, but also the last living oneResistance to Bavaria’s Prussian appropriation.

The political calculus behind the cover-up of the king’s death

At the same time, Bayern’s displeasure and deep grief over Prussia’s politics and the role of Prussia have remained to this day, even if the state is now called the Federal Republic of Germany and has a democratic constitution. That is why even in modern times, no real, legally perfect clarification of the circumstances of death of 1886 can be expected. The archives are partlydisappeared or were destroyed or subject to the strictest secrecy. An official reappraisal would mean admitting that the founding history of the modern German state is based on bloody wars of conquest, political blackmail and the elimination of a legitimate monarch through a staged coup d’etat. It would be the foundation of the official historicalquestion the narrative of the Federal Republic of Germany. So the comfy narrative of the crazy fairy tale king, who perished in his own mental illness and his wastefulness, remains. This narrative serves to skilfully cover up the political motives of the disempowerment and the possible murder of Louis II of Bavaria.

The persistence of the myth and the silence of the republic

The eternal myth of Louis II of Bavaria remains, who stubbornly asserts himself against any official historiography. The Bavarians have never forgotten their king, and the calls for a stronger independence of the Free State of Bavaria within the Federal Republic are a direct response to the forced submission of 1871 and the tragic events of 1886. Louis II of Bavariabecame a martyr of Bavarian sovereignty posthumously. As long as the political elite in Berlin and Munich has no interest in working through the dark chapters of the founding of the Reich and the entanglements of the reptile fund, the Starnberger See will keep its secret. The king who hated modernity and fled into the world of myths and castles wasReckoned and sacrificed modern real politics. His fate still reminds us that the official story is often just the facade behind which the true, unembellished power struggles of the powerful are hidden.

The historical classification of the events surrounding Ludwig II of Bavaria

The historical classification of the events surrounding Ludwig II of Bavaria forces us to critically question the self-image of the modern German state. If the roots of a political order lie in bribery, war and the elimination of political opponents, then the silence of posterity is not the result of coincidence, but the result of conscious reasons of state.The Bavarian identity, which is so clearly different from the Prussian-German leading culture, cannot be understood without the trauma of 1866 and the betrayal of 1886. Ludwig II of Bavaria may have been an eccentric dreamer, but he was an advocate of Bavarian statehood who stood in the way of Bismarck’s desire for expansion. His unexplained death in StarnbergerSee thus remains not only a personal drama, but the dark foundation on which the centralist order of today’s Germany rests. As long as this foundation is not brought into the light of historical truth, the King of Bavaria remains the eternal prisoner of German history.