Ludwig II became the ruler of Bavaria when he was nineteen, after the death of his father. He was a popular king. Unlike other royal wastrels, he did not indulge himself at the cost of public funds. He spent his own vast assets, mainly on building projects such as the construction of the famous castle at Neuschwanstein, today the principal tourist attraction in Bavaria. However, Ludwig was a homosexual at a time when homosexuality was considered to be a serious mental illness.
The independence of Bavaria stood in the way of Bismarck’s efforts to create a united Germany. Bismarck was not only a political genius, he was also the first modern politician to perceive and make use of the possibilities of enlisting psychiatry directly in the service of the State: He knew how to play the insanity card long before playing it became an accepted judicial and political practice, in democratic and totalitarian countries alike. Unable to join Bavaria to Germany by diplomacy, Bismarck turned to psychiatry for help. In 1886, he proposed to Dr. Bernard van Gudden, professor of psychiatry at the University of Munich, that Ludwig be deposed by declaring him insane. Gudden jumped at the opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of psychiatry to power. Although he had never met the king, he prepared a draft of his “medical findings,” based on rumors about the “patient.” To give his “findings” a veneer of authenticity, he “consulted” with three distinguished col leagues. Then, the four eminent psychiatrists signed a document in which they declared:
His Majesty is psychically disturbed in an advanced degree, suffering from the kind of mental sickness which psychiatrists know well and call paranoia (insanity). In view of this form of sickness and its gradual and progressive development over a great number of years, His Majesty must be declared incurable, for a further deterioration of his mental powers appears certain. Because of his sickness the exercise of His Majesty’s free will is rendered completely impossible and His Majesty must be considered hindered in the exercise of government, which impediment will last not only longer than a year, but for his entire lifetime.
After Ludwig was apprehended, the psychiatrists faced the problem of what to do with him. “Hospitalizing” the king in a private or a public insane asylum was out of the question. Instead, arrangements were made to place Ludwig under a kind of psychiatric house arrest: Berg Castle, one of the royal palaces situated by Lake Starnberg, was converted into an asylum, for the sole use of the royal patient. Recognizing that he had been sentenced to life imprisonment without any hope of parole, Ludwig decided to kill himself. On a pleasant day in June 1886, only two days after being installed at Berg Castle, the king and Dr. Gudden went for a walk by the lake. With the attendants guarding the king walking a polite distance behind them, Ludwig dashed into the lake. Gudden, much older and weaker than the youthful king, dashed after him. Before the guards could reach them, Ludwig drowned Gudden and then himself.