The Report

The infamous Arztliches Gutachten or Medical Report into Ludwig's fitness to rule was begun around January 1886 and completed on 23rd March, 1886. The Report is around 5 or 6,000 words long, consisting mainly of the gossip and stories of past and present disgruntled servants and lackeys seeking revenge on their former Master. It's chief compiler was Count von Holnstein, who was in the King's service while it was being compiled. He was the Judas in the matter, using his high position in the servant's pecking order to bully other servants into testifying. Richard Hornig, one of Ludwig's most trusted servants and a companion for almost 20 years, only agreed to add to the Report after threats and bullying from Holnstein.

Basically, the Report contained the following claims -

• Insanity ran in his family. Prince Otto, Ludwig's younger brother, had been diagnosed insane for years and committed to an asylum since he was a young man.

• The King was shy to the point of mania. At State balls he would hide behind a screen of flowers so as to not be seen by guests, and during these balls he would order the music to be loud enough to make conversation impossible. When forced through duty to attend State Dinners, he would steady his nerves with 10 or so glasses of champagne before 'mounting the scaffold' as he referred to it.

• The King's behaviour was childish and bizarre. Early in Ludwig's reign, moon-light picnics at midnight were arranged in the mountains for the King and his young grooms, where children's games were played - such as blind-man's bluff etc - under a full moon. Later in his reign, Turkish parties were organised in the Oriental Pavilions around Linderhof, where young grooms and lackeys were to sit cross-legged and smoke hookahs. At these parties, the good-looking grooms were made to strip and dance naked together. Similar parties were held in the early hours of the morning in the Hunding's Hut at Linderhof.

• While the King could carouse with his servants, he could never find time to see his Ministers, and at the end he refused to see them altogether. All messages and directions for governing were passed to the Cabinet through servants. Lackeys and barbers were given the task of finding new Ministers and a Cabinet Secretary.

• The King suffered from hallucinations. He would often hear footsteps and voices when nobody else could. When he was alone at dinner, Ludwig was heard chatting away and laughing loudly to unseen guests. Richard Hornig mentioned that the King would often arrange a picnic in the mountains during a blizzard, and tell Hornig that they were at the beach, under a tropical sun.

• He suffered from strange and sick fantasies. Once he told Hornig that he wished to smash a jug over the Queen-mother's head, drag her around by her hair, and stamp on her breasts with his heels. He also told him that he had dreamed of pulling King Max (his father) out of his coffin and bash his ears.

• Ludwig had a 'holy tree' near Berg that he bowed to whenever he passed, and a pillar at Linderhof he embraced every time he arrived or departed.

• The King often made strange dancing movements or pull his beard if he got excited, and make faces at himself in a mirror.

• Towards the end, the King would often order his enemies to be taken prisoner and flogged, or deported from Bavaria.

• Servants were often beaten by the King, and the Report contains over 30 cases of him hitting or kicking them. One stable-lad was beaten so badly that a trooper had to rescue him. One small and frail servant had died within a year of being beaten by the King. (Although the Report could not ascertain whether he had died from his beating or some other cause.)

• Servants were sent on ridiculous missions at great expense to the State, such as to Capri, Italy, to check that the blue lighting of Linderhof's Grotto matched that of the Blue Grotto.

• Towards the end, the King was obsessed with Absolute Monarchy. Army officers were ordered to set up Absolute Rule in Bavaria. Servants were made to bow low and grovel in the King's presence. He even sent servants on missions to find a country whose government was by Absolute Rule and negotiate a trade with him, ie. swap Bavaria for this country.

• The King's table manners were atrocious, and his clothes were carefully studied and noted by the Conspirators. His eating habits were described as 'slovenly' and 'disgusting'.

In summary, the Report concludes in the following cold-blooded way. Remember that this was addressed to Ludwig.

"Your Majesty is in a very advanced stage of mental disorder, a form of insanity known to brain-specialists by the name 'Paranoia'. As this form of brain-trouble has a slow but progressive development of many years duration, Your Majesty must be regarded as incurable, a still further decline of the mental powers being the natural development of this disease. 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 reference to one year was included because the Bavarian constitution contained a clause allowing the Monarch to be deposed if he was incapable of ruling for more than one year.