<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > one of the most famous unsolved cases in history</h1>
If you have visited Germany, you will have a great chance to visit one of Germany's most famous attractions , Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. Neuschwanstein Castle is known as the "castle in fairy tales", and the castle in Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" is based on it.
Neuschwanstein Castle side
Neuschwanstein Castle façade
Neuschwanstein Castle was built in the nineteenth century by order of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. In addition to Neuschwanstein Castle, Ludwig II also built the Lindhof Palace and the Helenkimsee Palace, both beautiful buildings that have become tourist hotspots in Germany today.
Lindhof Palace
Vista of Helenkiem Lake Palace
Hall of Mirrors at Helenkheim Lake Palace
However, the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who built these castles, is not a beautiful fairy tale. His death, one of the greatest mysteries in history, is more likely a murder. How did it happen? Let's slowly get into this unsolved case and look into all kinds of doubts.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the context of the crime</h1>
Ludwig II succeeded to the Bavarian throne at the age of eighteen in 1864 AD.
Ludwig II
Ludwig II was a true scholar, fascinated by the development of art, music and architecture, and had no interest in ruling the country. However, because of this, the various buildings he led to build would have such a high artistic evaluation. Originally, he wanted to continue to build more palaces, but his profligacy caused the royal family to bear huge debts. Luitpold, Luitpold, Ludwig II's uncle, was troubled by this.
As debt grew, Ludwig II's financial prowess was questioned. Moreover, in order to obtain more money, he had done some near-criminal acts, so his reputation was very low. He never married in his life, nor did he want to communicate with his ministers, and all day long he stayed in the fairytale castles, ruling his country only by letter.
In 1885, the ministers could no longer tolerate the incompetence of Ludwig II. They reached a private agreement to find a way to end his legitimate rule. However, this was not an easy task, because under the Bavarian Constitution, the minister of government could not depose the monarch because of his incompetence. The only way to depose Ludwig II was to prove that he suffered from certain diseases that prevented him from effectively performing his duties as monarch for a year.
To this end, the ministers came up with a solution. In March 1886, they brought in Bernhard von Gudden, the most authoritative professor of psychiatry in Germany at the time, to diagnose the king's illness. Bernard's name should be remembered, because he is one of the most important figures in the mystery of the death of Ludwig II. However, he was also a victim in the case. When he was entrusted with a diagnosis for Ludwig II, the death knell of the two men had already sounded.
John Bernard Alois von Gooden
What Dr. Bernard had to do was not to determine whether the king was "insane," but whether the king was "incapable of effectively administering," and the two criteria were very different. Under Bavarian law, if a king's private conduct did not conform to civil law, he would be judged unfit to rule. However, being judged unfit to rule is not necessarily due to a violation of civil law. Because to govern a country, the skills and knowledge required are far higher than the maintenance of daily life. Thus, the legal definition of "inability to govern effectively" gave Dr. Bernard plenty of room to make a "suitable" diagnosis for the king.
This important task was not entirely entrusted to Dr. Bernard alone. The ministers gathered a great deal of evidence for Dr. Bernard to prove Ludwig II's incompetence, but all this was only one-sided. So, at the same time, they secretly found some strange decrees in Ludwig II's trash can as evidence. On 8 June of the same year, Dr. Bernard and his team, without considering any negative evidence or conducting any in-depth examination for the king himself, concluded that Ludwig II was suffering from paranoia, concluding that it was a serious influence on his performance of his duties as a monarch.
Then, on 12 June, Lyutpold succeeded Ludwig II as regent of Bavaria, and ordered Ludwig II to be arrested and sent to a castle in Berg for treatment.
To put it bluntly, it was a coup d'état. Ludwig II was placed under house arrest in the castle and received daily "treatment". In order to prevent him from escaping, his "medical team" unpluged the door handles of the rooms, closed the windows, and stationed a number of security guards to patrol the outside of the castle around the clock. The neighboring town of Berg has imposed martial law, and villagers are forbidden to go out at night.
Ruprecht Maria Lyutpold Ferdinand
Ludwig II had to obediently accept treatment for "paranoia". Dr. Bernard's treatments emphasized rest, socialization, and daily exercise, and Ludwig II cooperated with these treatments without any resistance. Of course, this is most likely his expedient.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the case</h1>
In the early hours of June 13, someone said that strange phenomena had occurred around them. The clock tower was pointing toward 12:00 a.m., and several soldiers and palace attendants swore they had seen the ghost pass through the walls into ludwig II's room and the ancestral studio of The Helenkim Lake Palace. According to Bavarian legend, this is a ghost dressed only in black, a messenger representing death. Coincidentally, the deaths of Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard were indeed near.
Early that morning, Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard went out for their first walk. They strolled along the lake near the castle, when a male caretaker set out with them. At dusk, the weather was getting worse, but they were determined to take a second walk. Dr. Bernard told the male caregiver that he did not need to accompany him. This demand of his still confuses historians, because it is completely inconsistent with his behavior as a professional doctor.
Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard did not return to the castle at the scheduled time. The castle's personnel began to search. At 10:30 p.m. that same day, searchers found Ludwig II's coat and umbrella on the road. They continued their search along the road and found hats belonging to the two of them by the lake. Twenty or so steps later, they finally found Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard. The two men were next to each other, their backs floating on the surface of the lake.
The searcher immediately performed cardiac resuscitation for the two, but it was too late. At 11.35 p.m., Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard were pronounced dead.
The place where Ludwig II died
That's how it happened. So, what's so suspicious about this? Let's list here a few of the discoveries of the time:
The pocket watches worn by Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard stayed at 6:54 and 8:06 respectively.
The autopsy report did not state the cause of Ludwig II's death, but only stated that he had multiple wounds on his body and no water in his lungs.
Dr. Bernard was not dissected and autopsyed. The coroner only examined the outside of his body and found that he had a bruise in his right eye, a red and swollen patch, and a bruise on his nose.
Dr. Bernard lost one of his fingernails, which were eventually found in Ludwig II's coat.
These findings reveal an important point: Ludwig II had a fight with Dr. Bernard before his death.
Curiously, the police did not seal off the scene afterwards, and the king's bizarre death drove many curious people to the scene to search for evidence, and the crowds filled the shores and waters of the lake. Most of these people did not have professional investigation training, so they had many "surprising discoveries" that had nothing to do with the case at all, and the inferences were various, and the case was very hotly discussed at the time.
However, because of the relationship between too many people, the key evidence that may still exist at the scene of the crime has been destroyed. On the night of June 13, the Bavarian government banned all witnesses from revealing their findings to anyone, including the priest.
So, how do people explain the occurrence of this case? Basically, there are four speculations.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the first speculation: suicide</h1>
The first speculation is the official Bavarian version. This version concludes that this was a suicide case. According to official accounts, Ludwig II was depressed by the seizure of power and the loss of his freedom, so when he was out alone with Dr. Bernard, he took the opportunity to escape the doctor's follow-up and jumped into the lake, trying to drown himself. When Dr. Bernard saw this, he immediately jumped into the water in an attempt to prevent him from committing suicide. In the entanglement, the younger and stronger Ludwig II killed Dr. Bernard and drowned himself in the lake.
There are actually three untenable points in this speculation. First, Ludwig II's pocket watch stayed at 6:54 and Dr. Bernard's pocket watch stayed at 8:06. That is, Ludwig II's pocket watch came to a halt earlier than Dr. Bernard's. According to the watchmaking technology at that time, pocket watches were not waterproof, and basically once immersed in water, they would quickly break and stop. That is, it is likely that Ludwig II died before Dr. Bernard. However, this does not mean that the official report can be overturned. Ludwig II was wearing only one coat, while Dr. Bernard wore an extra coat. Because the coat is more waterproof, the pocket watch may be delayed from entering the water, so Dr. Bernard's pocket watch will pause at a later time.
Photograph of Ludwig II
In addition, a bruise in Dr. Bernard's right eye caused redness and swelling. If Dr. Bernard had been killed in an entanglement with Ludwig II, his bruises would not have caused redness and swelling. Only bruises before death can cause redness and swelling after a period of time. This shows that dr. Bernard was most likely not killed by Ludwig II during the entanglement. At least, he survived for some time after the fight.
Finally, official Bavarian reports that Ludwig II was drowned. But as mentioned above, Ludwig II's autopsy reported that there was no water in his lungs. However, the absence of standing water in his lungs does not mean that he is not drowning, because there is in fact a phenomenon called "dry drowning". "Dry drowning" is when the drowned person inhales water in the trachea, the body overreacts to tighten the trachea, causing the deceased to suffocate and die, in which case there is no standing water in the lungs. This is actually uncommon, and only about 10% to 15% of people drown as a result. If the king is judged to have drowned in this low probability and does not conduct further investigations, it is a bit "there is no silver in this place for three hundred and two.".
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the second conjecture: unexpected</h1>
The second speculation is an accidental death. Ludwig II and Dr. Bernard may have both fallen into the lake during a fight. The lake was cold at the time, and their ongoing fighting could have killed at least one of them from an occasional heart attack.
In addition to accidental death from heart disease, there may be other causes of death. Dr. Bernard carried with him a belt of gorophon (also known as trichloromethane (CHCl3) or chloroform) to subdue mentally ill patients who were in distress. Poisoning may cause one of them to faint in the water and drown. Indeed, one witness once said that Ludwig II's body smelled of ether, a drug that can make people faint.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the third conjecture: murder</h1>
As for the third speculation, it is the most convincing – it was a murder case. If the incident had happened, as stated in the official Bavarian report or if it had been truly accidental, the Bavarian government need not deliberately conceal it. Practices such as the police not blocking the scene and letting people in to destroy the evidence at the scene, or prohibiting witnesses from revealing any findings, etc., are reminiscent of this is not a simple accident.
According to a third presumption, Ludwig II was killed. Dr. Bernard witnessed the whole process, but he was killed because the principal wanted to prevent him from leaking his voice. It also explains why Dr. Bernard suddenly asks the caregivers not to follow them for a walk. Later, two people who claimed to be insiders revealed in their diaries and before their deaths, one of whom was a fisherman, mentioned in the diary that he happened to see someone shooting the king that night, and that he had tried to help the king escape. When the king escaped from his fishing boat, he was shot from behind. The fisherman panicked, pushed the king's body into the lake, and drove away from the fishing boat to save his life. He claimed that he did not confess the facts afterwards, but only secretly helped search for evidence.
Another insider told his daughter on his deathbed that he could not help but tell the truth because of his guilty relationship. Basically, he also said that the king was shot, and that the so-called drowning was just a cover-up.
Ludwig II was placed under house arrest at Berg Castle (rebuilt after World War II), where the lake was found dead
More evidence was provided later. A relative of Ludwig II even showed his guests the tunic the king wore before his death, with bullet holes in it. Another witness claimed to have painted a painting based on the death of Ludwig II, with a dark liquid flowing from the king's mouth. An art historian who saw the painting made it clear that the dark liquid in the king's mouth was blood. There are indications that Ludwig II was murdered.
However, something coincidental happened. Just as these witnesses appeared, the bullet-hole coat suddenly burned in a fire; the fisherman was found dead suddenly, his diary missing (the fisherman gave the most crucial page to a local historian before his death, who later made it public).
There are also doctors who have come out to overturn the hypothesis that the dark liquid is blood. He believes that when a person is suffocated by dry sex, he will spit white foam in his mouth, and then dark body fluids will flow out of his mouth, not necessarily blood. Moreover, the painting was painted after the autopsy, and the dark liquid was basically removed by the coroner as early as the autopsy, and it is impossible to still exist in the mouth of the king.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the fourth conjecture: manslaughter</h1>
The last speculation is manslaughter. Near Berg Castle, patrolling the vicinity to prevent the king from taking the opportunity to escape. It so happened that the soldiers saw two people pulling and pulling in the lake in the distance, and in the dark of the sky, the soldiers may mistakenly think that the two malicious intruders and shoot them. If this were the case, the Bavarian government, fearing that the announcement that the killing of the king would lead to a sudden change in politics, would most likely have fabricated a story to cover it up and make it happen to the king committing suicide.
This presumption also represents that the doctor in charge of the autopsy falsified the autopsy report, as there was no mention of wounds caused by bullets in the report. However, this raises a question. If the Bavarian government really wants to cover it up, why not falsify a more comprehensive autopsy report? For example, just saying that Ludwig II had water in his lungs would give the official report much more credibility. Therefore, the fourth speculation is not entirely correct.
Conclusion: The death of Ludwig II is one of the biggest mysteries in history because all kinds of speculations are plausible, even if it is suicide, accident, murder or manslaughter, it seems reasonable but always finds some unreasonable situation, unable to satisfactorily explain what happened that night. To this day, historians still have no clue about the unsolved case that occurred more than a hundred years ago. Ludwig II wrote in his diary that he hoped that his own life would leave an eternal mystery for future generations. Ironically, his death really fulfilled his wish.