KING LUDWIG II OF BAVARIA

KING LUDWIG II 

Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria was born on 25 August 1845 in the palace of Nymphenburg in Munich.  He was the first son of King Maximilian II of Bavaria and Queen Marie (a Prussian Princess).

He was very romantic, a bit of a dreamer and handsome looking King.  The people named him the fairytale King.  He was 1.91m tall.  He adored Wagner's music and was a great builder.  He loved Bavaria and the people.  They loved him, even nowadays.  Unfortunately, through continued intermarriage of royalty the result was that his younger brother Otto went mad.  King Ludwig also withdrew in later life because the Bavarian government stated that he is making Bavaria bankrupt with building all these palaces and castles.  Yet Bavaria could effort to be involved in a war with Prussia and later on with the Franco-Prussia war.

KING LUDWIG'S
SLEDGE RIDE - PAINTING

16 June 1861 Crown Prince Ludwig heard for the first time Wagner's opera 'Lohengrin' which is part of the Germanic mythology.

RICHARD WAGNER

Richard Wagner was an absolute genius of a composer but he was always on the run from his creditors. Ludwig was his saviour. If it wasn't for Ludwig's protection the world would have never had these magnificent operas. Also performed in the full magnitude they deserved.

Mid August 1864 The Crown Prince Ludwig had a meeting with the Chancellor Bismark and on 15 December the very ill King Maximilian I was persuaded to returned from Italy on the request of his people.

KING MAXIMILLIAN II  
AND WIFE,
CROWN PRINCE LUDWIG
AND PRINCE OTTO

10 March 1864 King Maximilian died and Ludwig was crowned as King Ludwig II. Ludwig's Grandfather was King Ludwig I but had to abdicate and Ludwig's father Maximilian then became King.

King Ludwig's love and admiration for art and music was part of the decline in finances of Bavaria. Although he gave a lot of work to the people by building all these palaces and castle but it had a tremendous strain on Bavaria's finances.

Wagner was pressuring him and taking advantages of King Ludwig's friendship to further his music. Admittedly we wouldn't have had that amount of music from Wagner and all these beautiful buildings but the Bavarian government didn't see it that way and couldn't because Bavaria was on the verge of bankruptcy, so they said.

Ludwig's best friend was aide de Camp the Prince of Turn and Taxis from a very rich Bavarian family. Ludwig also had lifelong friendship with his half-first cousin once removed, Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria, later Empress of Austria. It was assumed they were very fond of each other and had the same taste in art, music and poetry.

Elisabeth was made to marry the Emperor of Austria. Although the Emperor loved her, he could not stand up to his mother who was evil. At one stage Elisabeth was so ill they feared for her death, most properly if Ludwig and Elisabeth married they would have been happy.

4 December 1864 First performance of Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman'.

10 June 1865 First performance of Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde'

Yet on 11 May 1866 the Bavarian government was able to finance the war with Prussia and Bavaria was heavily defeated in June/July. 28 July a truce with Prussia and 22 August peace was declared.

This had a traumatic impact on King Ludwig having to send thousands of his beloved people into war. He himself rode with them. After that he refused to see his minister and loved the company of his mountain people. He withdrew from politics and started to build Neuschwanstein and Linderhof.

22 January 1867 King Ludwig II got engaged to the Duchess Sofie but it was annulled on 10 October 1867. The Duchess Sofie married on 28 September 1868 the Duke of Alencon.

21 June 1868 was the first performance of Wagner's 'Meistersinger'. In that year the palace Linderhof and the castle of Neuschwanstein were planned and the building of Linderhof began.

22 September 1869 The first performance of Wagner's 'Rheingold' and in the same year they started building Neuschwanstein.

26 June 1870 the first performance of Wagner's 'Walkuere' and on the 16th July King Ludwig was made to sign the mobilization against France.

On the 1 September there was the Victory at Sedan. After that Bismark made Ludwig to include Bavaria into the unification of the German Empire with Prussia being the leader.

Bavaria lost its sovereignty and King Ludwig was just a figurehead. It was all a tragic build-up in Ludwig's life. He withdrew from an unkind world into a world of his own making.

6 May 1872 the start of opera house in Bayreuth this was purely designed and builds to perform Wagner’s operas. Wagner became more and more domineering.

1873 King Ludwig bought the Herreninsel in lake Chiemsee.

5 and 15 August and 26 till 31 August 1876 King Ludwig attended the performance of Wagner's opera 'Ring der Nibelungen' at the Bayreuth opera house.

King Ludwig began more and more to retreat and showed depressions.

1878 The building of Linderhof is more or less finished and the building of Herrenchiemsee started.

1883 Wagner died in Venice.

1886 King Ludwig II moved to Neuschwanstein. On 11 June Dr. von Gudden, a psychologist, came to Neuschwanstein. King Ludwig said, "How can you declare me for mad? You have not examined me."

They moved the King to the small castle Berg at the shore of Lake Starnberg. On the 12 June Ludwig went for a walk with Dr Gudden. Gudden told the guards not to follow. Both were found, in shallow water, dead.

Ludwig's death was established as suicide by drowning but Ludwig was known as a strong swimmer. The autopsy showed no water in the lungs. People belief he was murdered by his enemies.

Jacob Lidl, the king's fisherman said, "Three weeks after the king's death I was made to swear an oath that I would never say a certain thing, not to my wife, nor on my deathbed and not to a priest. The state has undertaken to look after my family if anything would happen to me either in peace or war".

Lidle kept his oath, but only orally. He left a note saying that he had hidden behind bushes with his boat, waiting to meet the king, to row him out into the lake, where loyalist were to help him to escape. As the king stepped out and put his foot into the boat a shot rang out from the bank and killed him.

Officially there were no scars or wounds on his body. Another theory is that King Ludwig died naturally (heart attack) brought on by the extreme cold of the lake during the attempt of escape.

WHERE KING LUDWIG DIED - - YOU CAN SEE HOW SHALLOW IT IS