Seeking a cause to depose King Ludwig II of Bavaria by constitutional means, the rebelling ministers of state decided on the rationale that he was mentally ill, and unable to rule. They asked Ludwig's uncle, Prince Luitpold, to step into the royal vacancy once Ludwig was deposed. Luitpold agreed, so long as the conspirators produced reliable proof that the king was in fact helplessly insane.
Between January and March 1886, the conspirators assembled the Arztliches Gutachten or Medical Report, on Ludwig’s fitness to rule. Most of the details in the report were compiled by Count von Holnstein, who was disillusioned with Ludwig and actively sought his downfall. Holnstein used his high rank to extract a long list of complaints, accounts, and gossip about Ludwig from among the king’s servants. The litany of bizarre behavior included his pathological shyness; his avoidance of state business; his complex and expensive flights of fancy, including moonlit picnics at which his young groomsmen were said to strip naked and dance; conversations with imaginary persons; sloppy and childish table manners; dispatching servants on lengthy and expensive voyages to research architectural details in foreign lands; and abusive, sometimes violent treatment of his servants.
While some of these accusations were doubtless accurate, exactly which, and to what degree, may never be known. They were, however, sufficient to convince Prince Luitpold to cooperate. Next the conspirators approached the Prussian Minister-President, Otto von Bismarck, who doubted the report’s veracity, but did not stop the ministers from carrying out their plan.
In early June, the report was finalized and signed by a panel of four psychiatrists: Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, chief of the Munich Asylum; Dr Hubert von Grashey (who was Gudden's son-in-law); and their colleagues, a Dr. Hagen and a Dr. Hubrich. The report declared in its final sentences that the king suffered from paranoia, and concluded, “Suffering from such a disorder, freedom of action can no longer be allowed and Your Majesty is declared incapable of ruling, which incapacity will be not only for a year's duration, but for the length of Your Majesty's life." The men had never met the king, nor examined him.
It was all political!
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-do-we-get-rid-of-jew-in-pit-when.html
The March of Homage written by Richard Wagner for Ludwig II of Bavaria at the beginning of his reign. It all started out so promising!
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4 comments:
That's what they always do. How stupid is the D.C. government?
"A psychiatrist said he was crazy, but we didn't have the psychiatrist examine him personally."
That's the equivalent of -- "The dog ate my homework!"
God, how I love my free money!
This reminds me of the Leona Helmsley tax evasion case. Leona Helmsley was convicted in part on the testimony of her former employees:
At trial, a former Helmsley-Spear executive, Paul Ruffino, says that he refused to sign phony invoices illegally billing the company for work done on the Helmsely's Connecticut mansion. Ruffino, originally engaged to assist Helmsley through the Hospitality Management Services arm, says that Leona fired him on several different occasions for refusing to sign the bills, but Harry would usually tell him to ignore her and to come back to work. Another one of the key witnesses was a former housekeeper at the Helmsley home, Elizabeth Baum, who recounted having the following exchange with Leona Helmsley four to six weeks after being hired in September, 1983:
I said: "You must pay a lot of taxes". She said: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
-–Elizabeth Baum, former housekeeper to Helmsley (October 1983)
Ludwig and the Lohengrin Connection:
Crown Prince Ludwig had just turned 18 when his father died after a three-day illness, and he ascended the Bavarian throne.
Although he was not fully prepared for high office, his youth and brooding good looks made him popular in Bavaria and elsewhere. One of the first acts of his reign was to summon composer Richard Wagner to his court in Munich. Wagner had a notorious reputation as a revolutionary and a philanderer and was constantly on the run from creditors. Ludwig had admired Wagner since first seeing his opera, Lohengrin, at the impressionable age of 15½, followed by Tannhäuser ten months later. Wagner's operas appealed to the king's fantasy-filled imagination and filled an emotional void. On 4 May 1864, the 51-year-old Wagner was given an unprecedented 1¾ hour audience with Ludwig in the Royal Palace in Munich; later the composer wrote of his first meeting with Ludwig, "Alas, he is so handsome and wise, soulful and lovely, that I fear that his life must melt away in this vulgar world like a fleeting dream of the gods."
The king was likely the savior of Wagner's career. Without Ludwig, it is doubted that Wagner's later operas would have been composed, much less premiered at the prestigious Munich Royal Court Theatre, now the Bavarian State Opera House.
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