The Ludwig Conspiracy
Read The Ludwig Conspiracy Online
Authors: Oliver Potzsch
Dramatis Personae of the Historical Characters
A Little Glossary for Conspiracy Theorists
Text copyright © 2011 by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin
Maps copyright © Peter Balm, Berlin, Germany English translation copyright © 2013 Anthea Bell
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
The Ludwig Conspiracy
was first published in 2011 by Ullstein Taschenbuch Verlag as
Die Ludwig Verschwörung
.
Translated from German by Anthea Bell. First published in English by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2013.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN
978-0-547-74010-2
e
ISBN
978-0-547-74013-3
v1.0913
For my father
History is the lie that is commonly agreed upon.
—Voltaire
Ludwig II, king of Bavaria
Professor Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, doctor specializing in insanity
Dr. Max Schleiss von Loewenfeld, royal physician
Theodor Marot, his medical assistant (not recorded in history)
Alfred, Count Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin, adjutant to the king
Richard Hornig, equerry and constant companion of the king
Hermann von Kaulbach, painter
Maria, maidservant to Ludwig II (not recorded in history)
Johann, Baron von Lutz, president of the Bavarian Council of Ministers
Maximilian Karl Theodor, Count von Holnstein, Master of the Royal Stables
Carl von Strelitz, Prussian agent (not recorded in history)
O
THER
H
ISTORICAL
C
HARACTERS
King Maximilian II, father of Ludwig II
Marie Friederike of Prussia, mother of Ludwig II
Otto I, Ludwig’s deranged younger brother, later king
Prince Luitpold, uncle of Ludwig II, later prince regent
Empress Sisi (Elisabeth) of Austria, cousin and confidante of Ludwig II
Prince Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German Empire
Richard Wagner, composer
O
N THE NIGHT BETWEEN
13 and 14 June 1886, the bodies of two men were found drifting in the shallows of Lake Starnberg. Both were among the most famous personages of their time: Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, a psychiatrist known all over Europe, and King Ludwig II of Bavaria, sometimes known today as the Fairy-tale King
,
or Swan King, or simply “Mad King Ludwig.” Ludwig was born in 1845 and ascended the throne in 1864. He commissioned two castles and a palace—Schloss Neuschwanstein (imitated by Walt Disney for his company’s logo and symbol of Disney World), Schloss Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee (an imitation of Versailles). He was a crucial patron of the composer Richard Wagner, and a Roman Catholic who struggled with his homosexuality. His death remains a mystery.
An investigating committee, convened at short notice, concluded that the king, who had been deposed only three days earlier on the grounds of insanity, had strangled his doctor and then committed suicide in the water.
That is the official version.
Somewhere near Munich, October 2010
T
HE KING TOOK OUT
a cell phone and stared at the text message, while Professor Paul Liebermann, lying at the royal feet, spat out blood and spruce needles.
The message appeared to annoy The Royal Highness. The king raised an eyebrow and sighed regretfully, as if disappointed with a small child. Then the king dug the toe of one boot into the man on the ground, to make sure that he was not, at this very moment, choking to death. Paul Liebermann moaned, then coughed out a few more spruce needles. Everything around him was shrouded in fog, a mystic landscape where a few dead spruce trees rose to the overcast night sky.
“I . . . I really don’t know what you want from me,” the professor gasped, turning over on his back with a groan. “There must be some mistake . . . a terrible mistake.”
“Terrible. Yes, indeed,” the king murmured. “I am extremely displeased.”
The Royal Highness was wearing a suit of the best English tweed, with a red silk cravat and a white fur coat. The hem of the coat was spattered with blood.
My blood,
Liebermann thought.
And a lot of it. It makes that coat look like ermine. Could it actually be?
He couldn’t tell for certain, because his left eye was swollen and completely closed while his right eye was encrusted with blood. His glasses lay twisted and broken somewhere in the undergrowth; he had lost his hat and walking stick already, in the car on the way here; and remains of moldering spruce needles still stuck to his gums. The two thugs had stuffed his mouth with them until he was almost choking on the stuff. In addition, the effects of the injection hadn’t worn off yet.
They had seized him only a few steps from the secondhand bookshop. When he heard the car, he knew he had to act. He had hidden the book and hurried out so as not to give away the man in the shop. After only a little prick, he had collapsed into the arms of the two powerful men beside him. They pushed him into the car. He had lost consciousness after a few seconds, only to come back to his senses in this wood, among mushrooms and withered bramble bushes. In the distance, he could hear the faint droning of cars; otherwise, only the cawing of a few crows broke the silence of fall.