Ludwig II: The Only Real King of the 19th Century
47:39 Share

Have you ever found yourself wondering about your financial future, whether it's planning for retirement or diversifying your investment portfolio? The answer is J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. With advisors in Chase branches and tools like Wealth Plan and the Chase mobile app, they have options for every investor. Visit your local branch or explore the Chase mobile app to get started. J.P. Morgan Wealth Management offers investment products and services through J.P. Morgan Securities LLC. Member FINRA SIPC.

Hey, everybody. Host Nora McInerney is back for season two of The Head Start, Embracing the Journey, a podcast from Ruby Studio and AbbVie. In each episode, Nora has a real conversation with real people living with chronic migraine to see how they took action to understand this disease. So jump into the conversation for season two, a show that creates a little more space for empathy and understanding in such a complicated world.

There shouldn't be so much hesitation around asking questions and asking for help. So don't wait. Join the Head Start Embracing the Journey and learn a little bit more about life with chronic migraine. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and this is Stuff You Should Know. The, um...

Fairytale King edition, I guess. Yeah, it's the one and only. It's the best I could come up with. I love stories of allegedly mad kings. I've spoken before about The Madness of King George, a great film. Sure. And I'm surprised no one's done a movie about this character. I am too, as a matter of fact, because even if he's not that well-known, and he's pretty well-known. Yeah.

His castle is certainly extraordinarily well known. Sure. Which one? Well, yeah. He made three castles, as we'll see. But the one that really takes the cake is Neuschwanstein, which means new swan stone. Do you want to know the German pronunciation? I just gave it. Neuschwanstein. That's what I said. Oh, okay. Great. Is it really? Yeah.

Yeah, for E-I, it's always the second letter in German. Neusch. And then Neu is, it's not new, it's Neu. Gotcha.

So, yeah, I'll just call it New Swanstone Castle then from now on. Yeah, that's what it means, right? All right, let me try my hand at this. Okay. Ludwig II, and we're saying the W like a V, correct? Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Ludwig II, known as the Fairytale King. In German, Fairytale King is Der Markenkönig. Yeah, you just got to work on your umlauts.

I thought I nailed it. So, okay, what is that one then? I think that would be Merchenkönig. Okay. Well, at any rate, I love these words. I just can't pronounce them at all. Hey, I'm going on German I learned in 1988 and 89 and a little bit in 91 and 92. I don't know if I do or not.

So as we'll see, even if you haven't heard of Ludwig, he is a really appealing character in history. He was a real life character. But he was, I think he kind of taps into this universal desire that everybody has every once in a while, or some people have more than others. But we all like face that.

times and circumstances and consequences that make us just want to turn away from the world, turn inward into like a fantasy world of our own making where we can be happy. And most of us don't go actually do that. Ludwig II did just that because he had the opportunity and he had the means to do it. And I think in that sense, he's appealing in a lot of ways. Plus, he's a deeply tragic, romantic figure as well. Yeah. Yeah.

As they say, it's good to be the king, right? Sure. Sure. In his case, for a little while at least. Well, actually for a long while. He had a nice run. He did. 20-something years. But let's set up the stage of kind of what was going on when he came about in southeastern Germany, what was known as Bavaria. And they still call that area Bavaria. Yeah.

Did you like that? It did. But back then it was just Bavaria. It had its own, you know, it was independent. It had its own taxes and it had its own constitution. But it was surrounded by just a lot of upheaval in Europe at the time. Right. And when he was born to Crown Prince Ludwig II...

He was born in 1845. I'm sorry, that was his name. He was born to King Maximilian II. And Marie of Prussia had a brother named Otto who suffered from mental illness. It looked like probably schizophrenia.

And his aunt, Princess Alexandra, also suffered from some sort of mental illness because she believed one of the things she believed that she had swallowed a piano made of glass when she was a kid and she was protecting it. And if she moved the wrong way, it could shatter. And the reason we bring those two cases up is because.

uh ludwig's own mental um capabilities would be questioned later in life and so you obviously look to the family a lot of times and say hey he also had this in his bloodline yeah i had an uncle who thought he was saint jerome right

So, Ludwig was born into, like you said, this really strange time or time of turmoil geopolitically. And like you said, Bavaria was an independent state. It was a kingdom. And it was one of the last kingdoms in the area. Things were moving more toward more of a nation state, more of less monarchy, more constitution kind of thing, right? Yeah.

And Germany was very much on the brink of basically being brought together into the modern Germany that we think of it now. This happened when Ludwig was, I think, 18 or 19 or 20 years old, basically. I think he rose to the throne at 18. Okay. One thing we should set up, though, just, you know, as far as his...

his palace that he would later go on to build that he's famous for. He grew up in these kinds of palaces, obviously his royalty in Bavaria at the time. The place where he was mainly raised was called Hohenschwangau Castle, even though he was born in Nymphenburg Palace. But both of these places, if you're looking at, you know, quality castles, they were both pretty amazing. Growing up in these places, little Ludwig was like, you know,

This established his aesthetic of what he thought was amazing and beautiful. Yeah, and there's a quote from his mom that said that as a child, he enjoyed dressing up, took pleasure in play acting, loved pictures, and liked making presents of his property, money, and other possessions. Does that mean like giving it away? Yeah, exactly. Like here, I want you to have this. That's nice. That's a good kid, right? Not exactly like king type behavior. And as we'll see, he basically set the stage for himself or set the tempo for himself

from a very early age, it turns out. So I think, like you said, he was 18 when his father died, and he ascended to the throne. He became king of Bavaria in 1864, and he felt totally unprepared for it.

Yeah, he was not excited about it like a lot of, you know, kind of boy kings were. He had never, he wasn't very well schooled, seems very sheltered, didn't travel abroad really, never wanted anything to do with, you know, kinging or anything like that. Kind of throughout his life, it seems like.

And he was a total pacifist at a time where there was a lot of warring going on. He said it corrupts people's morals, makes them unable to entertain grand noble ideals, dulls them for spiritual enjoyment. So he was a pacifist. Yeah, he was also very much opposed to hunting and he loved nature, right? I love this guy. So he was apprehensive. He did have a really good education. He just felt like he didn't have enough of it.

to qualify as a ruler of a kingdom. But that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Sorry, king. But when he came to power within just a couple of years, despite his pacifist leanings, Bavaria was forced into two different wars. And as a result of that, the geopolitical map changed dramatically. Yeah, for sure. They were allied with Australia because of royal bloodlines.

You said Australia. Really? Yeah. All right. So remove the L. And there's a couple, I think another vowel or so that needs to be taken. I think another A. Clearly meant Austria. They were allied with Austria. Who knows what he thought about Australia? No one ever asked as far as I know. Right. And so when Prussia came knocking on the door for the Seven Weeks War, that he was sort of forced to fight with Austria,

And then they got their butts whipped pretty good. And then Bavaria was part of or at least under the thumb of Prussia to the north. And then when the Franco-Prussian war started, then they had to fight with Prussia.

Yeah. And then after the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussians came out on top. And at that point, they're like, all right, you know what? We're just going to take over all of Germany. And they established the First Reich, the German Empire, that collected all these separate little kingdoms, including Bavaria, and put them under the rule of Prussia.

But rather than being Prussia, the whole group, the whole collection that was now combined was Germany, as we recognize it today. Although a little more because there's a bunch of Poland that was also part of Prussia that would be included in that map of Germany. But that was an enormous, huge change.

And for Ludwig II, personally, it meant that he was he had no power any longer. He was a ceremonial figurehead. And geopolitically speaking, he really was not very significant at all. Yeah. So I imagine, I mean, from everything I know about poor little Ludwig II,

This probably wasn't the worst thing in the world because all of a sudden he was forced into a figurehead sort of role. Right. And I get the idea that that was probably ideal for him. Like he didn't he didn't want to govern. It seems like he didn't mind doing the day to day bureaucracy of the job. Yes. And like, you know, signing the things he needed to sign and allocating the things he needed to allocate. But he was not interested in being king.

And so all of a sudden, sort of under this new, I mean, sort of protection in a way as being part of the German Empire and only having figurehead duties, he was free to be a fanciful boy king.

Yeah. And to add a little nuance, he was totally fine with being king, but he wanted to be like an absolute monarch, like God's divine representative on earth, like the kings of the centuries before were considered. But that wasn't happening, even if Prussia wasn't running the show, because by that time, Bavaria had become a constitutional monarchy. So even before the German Empire was founded,

He wasn't nearly as powerful a king as he would have liked to have been. So, yeah, that combined with his pacifism, combined with his proneness to fantasy, he was like, yes, this is my chance. I'll see y'all later. I'm going to go over here into this little fantasy world. It's going to be awesome. Yeah, he got to basically pretend that.

that he was the king that he wasn't. Yes, yeah, well put. And he was a romanticist. He was very much into romanticism. That's something that had already come and gone. But just like so many teenagers are obsessed with the generations before them, he loved the literature and the art of the movement.

Obviously, romanticism was all about emotion and art and vast imagination and history. And so all of this sort of wrapped up in this idea that he was like, all right, well, I'm going to pretend like I'm Louis XIV. And basically –

sit around all day and fantasize. Right. And then also really importantly, one part of romanticism, the architectural part of it is called historicism. Yeah. And it's basically a nostalgic return to past architectural styles. But rather than going for historical accuracy, you go for idealization or improvement.

So it ends up being like this fantasy version of what used to be. Yeah. More gilded things. Exactly. That totally jibed with how Ludwig liked to live and think. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's. Well, this one's been densely packed so far. Yeah. There was a lot of geopolitics, a lot of architecture, historic movements. What else?

Yeah, that's about it. Oh, okay. Pronunciation. Yeah, don't forget that. All right, we'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Hey, folks, Lululemon knows that feeling good starts with moving more and their workout gear is designed to make that as comfortable as possible. Yeah, let's zero in on the zeroed in short. It's a perfect example of how they combine performance and comfort because it has a smooth waistband that never digs in. Very important. And it's designed to move with you. So it ensures that no matter how intense your workout gets, you'll remain comfortable and focused on it.

That's right. It's also crafted from fabric that dries super fast so you won't have to worry about distractions from moisture during your workouts or your day. It's also available in three different lengths so you can choose the one that suits your style and needs best. Whether you're hitting the gym or going for a run or even just relaxing, these shorts are tailored for versatility and comfort. So are you ready to upgrade your workout wardrobe? Shop for the Zeroed In Short now at lululemon.com. ♪ music playing ♪

Hey, everyone. We want to talk to you about Squarespace, possibly the best way to grow your online presence for your e-commerce store. That's right, because they utilize Squarespace payments. It's the easiest way to manage your payments in one place with Squarespace. Onboarding is fast and simple. You can get started in just a few clicks and start receiving payments right away. Plus, you can give your customers more ways to pay with popular payment methods like Klarna, ACH Direct Debit, and Squarespace.

Apple Pay, Afterpay, and ClearPay. Yeah, and if you want to catch more flies, you got to spread more honey. So you can connect your major social and multimedia accounts to your website in just a few clicks as icons, direct links, embedded feeds. So you can build visitor trust while updating content only where you need it, extending your brand's footprint.

So if all this sounds good to you, then go to squarespace.com slash stuff and you'll get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code stuff and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists you can connect with via phone, video, or chat. Here's BetterHelp head of clinical operations, Hesu Jo, discussing who can benefit from therapy. I think...

A lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody.

There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com.

All right, so welcome to Act Two. This is where we talk about the private life of Ludwig. And I love how Livia put it in this section title. No, that was me. Oh, that was you? Yeah. Oh, that sounded a little bit like Livia, but now I see Josh all over it. Okay. Was Ludwig gay? Yes. Yes, he was.

And that's the deal. Ludwig was a gay man, a gay king. He was sort of arranged to be married, married to his 22-year-old cousin, Elsa, which was a duchess in not Australia, but in Austria. And not surprisingly, he did not go through with that wedding. He blamed it on the father-in-law. And that was just a deal. He bestied up with Elsa's sister, Empress Elizabeth, and they were peas in a pod.

Yeah, they both had a disdain for war and violence. They both loved classical literature. They both liked their solitude. And so much so that Ludwig, when he had his birthday parties, most of the people who were ever invited were the people who already worked for him, like his attendants and servants. They would dress up and come to the parties as guests. That's how much of a loner he was. And he liked it that way. And he was also not exactly...

quiet about his sexual orientation, which is really something at the time. I mean, we're talking about the late 19th century in Bavaria. This is the king. And he's not exactly making it a huge secret. And in fact, while he was alive, it was like a very open secret that Ludwig enjoyed the company of men, as they would have put it back then.

Yeah, when you were listing out the shared loves that he and Empress Elizabeth had, you left one out, though. They both love Sean Cassidy. Sean Cassidy, what was his one hit? He just had the one, right? Don't know. I don't know. I remember, though. We were all in love with him. Yeah, he had that great feathered hair. Me, Ludwig, all of us. Sure. So, like you said, his relationships were no... It was sort of like one of those open secrets when...

He had fixers, you know, he was the king. So when something happened, people would, you know, would clean up after him. I think there were men in the stables that he was very fond of and perhaps had, you know, physical relationships with one man named Richard Hornig, who would eventually be his private secretary. And there was also a groom named Karl Hessel Schwert.

uh, who was sort of his traveling valet and apparently wingman because would help him find sexual partners. Right. But anytime something like this would happen, uh, and it got to, you know, uh,

Yeah, and we know all this because he wrote a lot about this in his diary entries. And from what I gleaned from it, he would basically pull out all the stops for his dates, like there'd be shifts, and he'd pull out all the stops for his dates.

champagne and candles and gifts and stuff like that. Bottle service? Yeah, basically. You got to do it. Yeah. But also in his diary, very sadly, he was a devout, very pious Catholic. So he had a lot of inner turmoil that he was conflicted between his religious beliefs and his sexual orientation.

And so in that sense, that's like just one leg of the stool that makes him a tragic figure. Yeah, absolutely. One thing that we aren't as clear about as far as relationship goes is his relationship to composer Richard Wagner. He was a big, big fan of Wagner since he was a little kid. And once he became king and had means...

he found Wagner sort of on hard times financially and was able to basically say like, hey, I love your music. You're not doing too well. So why don't you let me financially support you? And you'll kind of just be like my private entertainer. I mean, you can still go on and make your great compositions, but you can also do these private operas and private concerts here in the court. And it was a mutually beneficial relationship for both of them.

Yeah, Ludwig was considered one of the great patrons of the arts of the 19th century. And he actually made Munich, which was the capital of Bavaria,

essentially the music capital of Europe during the time. And to give you an idea of what people who were into Romanticism, what they talked like in their letters back then, there's a really great quote about Wagner that he wrote to, I think, his mistress who would eventually become his wife, Cosima. He said,

He is unfortunately so beautiful and wise, soulful and lordly, that I fear his life must fade away like a divine dream in this base world. That's great. Yeah. So this is what he's writing to his wife about this new patron he has. And Wagner was into women. He had a longstanding affair with the woman, like I said, who had become his wife. But

But if you read some of their letters and even taking into account that people expressed friendship much differently than they do today. Yeah. Between men, especially even taking that into account, like the flowery language they would use and just the desperation they would have at being apart.

It's still not 100 percent clear what all went down between Wagner and Ludwig when it was just the two of them hanging out in a castle. Yeah, for sure. There was one quote that Wagner wrote, I think, to Ludwig, right? After they had been, you know, in each other's company, he wrote this. How can I find words to describe you, the magic witch?

of this hour. I am in your angelic arms. We are near to one another. So, you know, that reads as, you know, possibly something happening there. And I'm certainly no expert, but was it this you or Olivia that found the LGTBQ history writer? Olivia found that guy. Yeah, it's a guy named Richard Norton wrote that their relationship was almost certainly physical, though not necessarily genital. So, yeah,

I mean, it seems like if that's correct or if that, you know, he's he's, you know, it's a supposition. But if that's correct, then it may be the case of a young, wealthy patron who is around his idol and the idol may be.

You know, giving the patrons just some extra time and affection to stay in the good graces and to stay funded. Maybe like who knows what happened behind closed doors, but that's at least Richter Norton's take. Yeah. And ultimately, it doesn't matter what happened. I think the point is, is that Ludwig was a gay icon before there were such things as gay icons. And he still is today. It's just palace intrigue, basically. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So from the moment Wagner showed up or was invited to court through Ludwig's death, he was supported by Ludwig financially. And it's pretty widely agreed that

Had Ludwig not supported Wagner, he probably would not have been able to create a lot of the compositions that he came up with. Yeah, for sure. So in that sense, Ludwig II gave the world a lot of Wagner's later work. And if you're familiar with Wagner and his...

Germanic nationalism. He was also an anti-Semite. And one of the cool things about Ludwig is he objected to his friend's anti-Semitism. He didn't just turn a blind eye to it. Oh, nice. Yeah. He was a great guy. The more I find out about him, the more I just love him. Totally.

So the other thing that he was really into, like we kind of mentioned earlier, was architecture, especially Romanticist stuff, sort of Byzantine influences and Roman kind of stuff. Byzantine is Roman, I guess. But he...

Love to build things. He loved to take on these big projects, even though he did not hunt and was against it. He built a lavish hunting retreat. He built these three palaces that you mentioned earlier. And the UNESCO World Heritage Sites had this to say of the palaces.

The monarch created artificial alternative worlds in which he could immerse himself in far distant places in past eras. Their main function was to simulate literary and ideal fantasy worlds as realistically as possible using architecture, art, and technology in order to produce an all-encompassing experience, a perfect illusion. Yeah. That says it all. I left it out of this quote, but it also goes on to say he was also a really big fan of Australia. Right.

So they said something, UNESCO said something, they used the word technology. And that was part of that historicism that you took something that you loved about the past, but you improved it, you made it better. And part of that was using modern technology. And Ludwig was an eager, enthusiastic early adopter of new technology, in particular electricity. And he was using this stuff in the 1870s.

It's worth pointing out, Edison did not invent the light bulb, but he did produce the first best incandescent light bulb. That wasn't until 1880. Ludwig was already using light bulbs and electricity in the decade before that.

Yeah, and using them as every lovely outdoor cafe does with like string lights. He had a artificial cave, and this is at Linderhorst Castle. He had an artificial cave in a lake which had these colored lights everywhere. He eventually would build a recreation of Versailles on a lake island. I believe it's called, oh, geez, this is a tough one.

Heron Shemesee Palace. But that was... That can't be it. What do you think it is? I don't know, but that sounds like a town along the Mississippi. It didn't sound German at all. Well, it doesn't look German. I don't think it's... I don't think it is German. I think it is. Heron...

heron him him cmc i don't know how would you say it i think i liked what you just said i'm just going to stick with that i'm not attempting it i'm just making fun that's all okay nice work thanks uh that was never finished um but they did finish some sections um but his most famous the one that we're going to kind of focus on is uh you want to try it again tough guy

A new swan stone. Neuschwanstein Castle, which, I mean, you got to look this thing up. It's unbelievable. I say we take a break and then come back and talk about Neuschwanstein. Stein. Man. Stein. No, it is Stein. You're right. Now you're just confusing me. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Change it.

Hey, folks, Lululemon knows that feeling good starts with moving more and their workout gear is designed to make that as comfortable as possible. Yeah, let's zero in on the zeroed in short. It's a perfect example of how they combine performance and comfort because it has a smooth waistband that never digs in. Very important. And it's designed to move with you. So it ensures that no matter how intense your workout gets, you'll remain comfortable and focused on it.

That's right. It's also crafted from fabric that dries super fast so you won't have to worry about distractions from moisture during your workouts or your day. It's also available in three different lengths so you can choose the one that suits your style and needs best. Whether you're hitting the gym or going for a run or even just relaxing, these shorts are tailored for versatility and comfort. So are you ready to upgrade your workout wardrobe? Shop for the zeroed-in short now at lululemon.com. ♪ music playing ♪

Attention, parents and grandparents. Are you searching for the perfect gift for your kids this holiday season? Well, give the gift of adventure that will last all year long. We're talking about a Guardian bike, of course. Yeah, the easiest, safest and quickest bikes for kids to learn on. Your kid could learn to ride in just one day with no training wheels needed. I got to say, my daughter has a Guardian bike. I put that thing together. No problem. And I'm not even good at that stuff. And she loves it.

Because they are designed especially for stability, they're low to the ground with a wide wheelbase, ultra lightweight frames, and they offer superior control and balance, and I have seen it happen. Guardian bikes are also the only kids' bikes designed and assembled in a factory in the USA, ensuring top-notch quality and durability, and their holiday sales have begun. They're offering the biggest deal of the year, up to 25% off on bikes, no code needed, plus free shipping and a free bike lock and pump with your first purchase after signing up for their newsletter.

That's right. So join the hundreds of thousands of happy families by getting a Guardian bike today and visit GuardianBikes.com to take advantage of these deals and secure your holiday gifts today. Happy riding!

Have you ever found yourself wondering about your financial future, whether it's planning for retirement or diversifying your investment portfolio? The answer is JPMorgan Wealth Management. That's right. With advisors and Chase branches and powerful tools like Wealth Plan in that Chase mobile app, they have options for every investor. Imagine having access to a plan built around your goals and exclusive research from JPMorgan leading strategists to help you stay on track. So when it comes to your financial future, the answer is JPMorgan Wealth Management.

Visit your local branch or check out the Chase mobile app today. JPMorgan Wealth Management offers investment products and services through JPMorgan Securities LLC, member FINRA SIPC. Okay, everybody. So we talked about a couple of other castles, but Neuschwanstein is...

The one that is most associated with Ludwig II. The first one, Linderhof, is considered this technological amusement park. The other one that you said was like a recreation of Versailles. Neuschwanstein was the most magical looking recreation of what's called Romanesque architecture that you would just think of essentially as like

It's just like Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disney World and Disneyland. So much so that he must have been inspired by that. Are we putting a pin in that or talking about that? We can talk about it. Yeah. I mean, supposedly Walt Disney visited that castle with his wife in the 1950s. And if you look at the main castle there in Disney World, and I guess Disneyland has one too, right? I've never been there. Yeah. It looks a heck of a lot like Neuschwanstein.

Yeah. And I think it is 100% certain that he modeled it after that. And if you see it, like even if it wasn't 100% certain, you'd be like, yeah, he totally modeled it after that. It looks like a fairy tale castle. If you are not driving right now and you're just sitting around, you have your phone or your computer, a full set of encyclopedias or at least –

The ends. Look up a picture of Neuschwanstein. It is amazing. Breathtaking. It's the definition of the word breathtaking. Yeah, it is gorgeous. It sits on a top of a mountain. And like these are the mountains that have those

It looks like the castle in Frozen, like it sits on a tiny little peak. Not for defense, but he loved the view there. If you look out from the castle, the beautiful mountain ranges, you have the very small lake, but the Schwanzee is right there.

You can actually see the two castles from the video I saw online was a guy standing on the deck, or not the decking, but whatever you would call the outdoor areas. The dance floor? Hey, come out to the deck. Or a patio. The hardscape?

It's got to be something more grand than those words for what those were. But anyway, what we would call like the outdoor patio of Hohenschwangau. And right there in the background, you can see Neuschwanstein. They're only about a mile from each other. I'm guessing it's the crow flies. But it's just a gorgeous scene. Yeah, it really is. I mean, whether it's summer, fall, winter in particular with snow on it. Magical. It's gorgeous.

And like we said, Ludwig was an early adopter of technology. One of the things that he used or his construction people had to use was steam-powered cranes. Yeah. Because this was not an easy place to build. And it was a pretty massive castle made of very heavy brick and stone. And in addition to that, he had things like an elevator. Yeah.

In fact, he had an elevator table. So remember we said that he enjoyed his solitude? In particular, he appreciated dining alone. He didn't even want servants around serving him. So what he would do is sit at the table in his dining room and the table would lower down, I think three stories to the kitchen. The table would be set, all the food would be put on it, and then it would be raised back up for him to dine.

That's how remote he wanted to be from people when he didn't want to be around people. So I don't quite follow that, actually. Imagine it's like a dumbwaiter, but the whole table is the dumbwaiter.

Yeah, but he would be sitting at it when it was doing this? Well, no. So he would stay seated up in the dining room and the table would go down in the kitchen. Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha. And then the table would come back up all set and resplendent with a feast. That makes sense. I thought he wrote it down. They set the table with the food and then he wrote it back up. Right. And I was like, that doesn't, I mean, that's a lot of fun, but that doesn't prevent him from seeing anybody. No, exactly. Okay, I gotcha.

Wee! Dinner time. So the throne room is pretty impressive. You can see pictures and videos of all this stuff, like full tours online. That was where the Byzantine influence really came in. It has a 13-foot tall chandelier. Never had a throne in it.

Um, but you know, this stuff is, is, is over the top as it gets, uh, when you look at pictures and videos, it's really, I mean, it's not my style obviously. And I'm, I've never like castles are kind of fun. I've toured a couple. Um, none of it aesthetically is like, Ooh, that's beautiful to me. Right. But the, the ornate qualities of it, I can appreciate.

Yeah, for sure. And I think photos don't do it justice either, especially like interior photos of these rooms. They all just seem garish and gaudy. And they are basically by definition, but I'm sure it's much more impressive in person than it is looking at a photo, you know? We should go. All right. I would totally love to go. I've been wanting to go to Germany for a while. Yeah. You know, I mean, we're talking about maybe trying to do some like real European tour dates. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

We should do a 10-person show in Germany. Yeah. Oh, I bet we could get 500 people in a room in Germany. You're crazy. All right. Well, let's talk about some other stuff. We talked about that artificial cave. That was pretty amazing. He also had a singer's hall, which was supposedly recreated from part of the Wartburg, which was a castle where they had American Idol, essentially. It was called the Singers Krieg, Singers Contest.

in 1207. Yeah, which is right in the wheelhouse of when this fantasy era would have taken place, the high Middle Ages from about 1000 CE to 1300 CE, right? Yeah, totally. There's also a winter garden, which essentially is an enclosed balcony that looks out, has an amazing view. But the thing that's really notable about that

Is that their window panes with glass measuring nine feet tall, about three meters, the largest, tallest window panes made in the history of humanity up to that point. Yeah. Pretty impressive. Now it's no big deal. But yeah, at the time it was. And then some of the other technology that he employed, he had hot and cold running water. That was not very common back then.

What else? He had central heat. He had forced air. He had a little electric bell system for his servants. Ring-a-ding. And he had telephone lines, even though there was no one he could really call. There were very few people he could call, but he did have telephone lines. Apparently, it would connect to Hohenshuanggao, his childhood castle a mile away.

Oh, really? Okay. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. He also had flush toilets, too. The thing is, is it took forever for this to be constructed. When they broke ground, I think in 1869, he estimated it to be about three years. And it took them longer than that just to build the gatehouse, which is like the first building of this massive castle complex. And that's where he lived while they were building the rest, the palace itself. Yeah.

But he only lived in the palace for about six months before he died. So I think actually as we'll see, the whole thing went unfinished as a matter of fact. But as he was doing this, he grew deeper and deeper and deeper in debt. And you might be like, boo, hiss. He used the king's money to build himself a fantasy castle. That's not correct. Yeah.

No, he did not use public monies. He just went into debt and traded on his family name, securing loans, you know, against that royal family name. He also got a loan from Otto von Bismarck of Prussia, who, you know, helped him out when he could, including vouching for him, as we'll see later.

But he just, you know, he was obsessed with these projects. He kept building these projects. He started another one about a year after Neuschwanstein, which, like you said, wasn't even close to being done. And they were like, all right, this is enough.

we need to get this guy out of here. And this was all like kind of the quiet talk, you know, around the court. Right. And, you know, it seemed like by all appearances, he was still doing the bureaucratic work of the king. Like I mentioned earlier, he was not so interested in the public sort of

warring type of stuff and being a big public face. He liked to hide away, but he wasn't like just laying around in a dream world. Like he would, he would keep up with the paperwork and stuff like that, that he had to do, but that wasn't enough. Um, they wanted him out. So in March of 1886, prime minister, uh, Johann von Lutz, uh, hired Bernard von Gooden, a very prominent psychiatrist who had already been treating his, uh, mentally ill brother, um, Ludwig's mentally ill brother, uh,

And instead of and this guy seemed like a good guy, like he was against restraints and violence and he wanted to treat patients with dignity and respect and allow them freedoms and stuff like that. Yeah, very progressive for the time. Super progressive. But he did not actually examine the king himself. He talked to people around him, sexual partners that he had and stuff like that, took into account the family diagnoses here and there and came up with his own diagnosis. Right.

He did. And to be fair, von Guden wasn't the only psychiatrist or psychologist who was tasked with preparing this report. But he was the most prominent. And in fact, he became Ludwig's personal doctor. I guess personal psychiatrist essentially is what it came to. So three months after he was tasked with this, they released this report and they diagnosed Ludwig with paranoia

parentheses, madness. Yeah. Essentially saying he probably had something like schizophrenia. And then one of the other things about that report is it touched on...

But apparently didn't mention explicitly. I hadn't read it, so I'm not quite sure how they put it. But it was definitely in there in not direct terms, the fact that he was gay, a gay king, right? Right. And so I'm sure that by itself, like basically a report from a psychiatrist saying this would have been enough.

But the impression I have is it was really the public funds and being indebted to families from other nations. Yeah. On Bismarck. Like that's that's a big deal. Right. And then if the creditors came after him, he's like, I don't have any money. Ultimately, they're going to turn on Bavaria. And I get the impression that that was what really got them the most. Right. And what they were trying to protect against. So three days after that report comes out, they showed up at his doorstep and said, you're under arrest. Right.

Freeze, sucker. Yeah, they brought, was it Pam Greer? Yeah. No, they didn't say sugar. Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess that would have been sugar. They had chloroform. They had a straight jacket. Apparently, they didn't have to use the straight jacket. I'm not sure about the chloroform. But they placed him under arrest, sent him to the castle of Berg. Gooden was to care for him basically kind of full time there. Mm-hmm.

And here's where we get to the question of like whether or not he was genuinely mentally ill or just sort of forced out by being an eccentric gay young king. Well, he wasn't super young by this point, I guess. But in 2013, there was a paper in Germany from some mental health researchers who basically said it was an unreliable report that was politically motivated and they were just trying to get him out of there. Right.

He was still governing. He was still sort of doing the paperwork and doing the things he needed to do. He had written, in fact, von Bismarck even vouches for this guy, saying that they had exchanged letters right up until the very end where he seemed lucid and was in touch with reality. Seven years after that, in 2020, just a few years ago, there was another report from another set of German psychiatric researchers that said

Actually, it's probably pretty well founded. The fact that he was gay may have played a big part for sure, but there's a lot of pretty good evidence here that he had a mental disorder.

Yeah, you can make a pretty good case based on the contemporaneous reports, right? Like, apparently, at least once he ordered a dinner for 12 people to be set. And then when he arrived in the dining room, it was just him. And yet he still greeted all of the empty seats before sitting down. He would also talk to a bust of Marie Antoinette, right?

Quite in depth. It wasn't like a passing, like love you or anything like that. Like he would have conversations with her in French. He also, and this is, this is, this is something he would speak at a fast pace with different ideas, mixing together hallucinations and delusions. Yeah. That's a, that's a big one, right? What else? He, to pay off his debts at one point, he proposed a bank robbery. Mm-hmm.

Pretty good idea. Sure. It says odd dancing and jumping movements. Who knows? File that under whatever. Uh-huh. Maybe just fun guy. He, when they threatened his...

his, to shut down his, his construction projects, basically. At one point he threatened suicide. And he was, he was nocturnal. He would, he would be up all night. He would sleep all day. None of these things by themselves, like, you know, says, aha, schizophrenia, but taken all together. It definitely paints a picture with his family history of someone who, who may have had something legitimate going on. I don't know. I think the hallucinations and delusions by themselves could, could account for it. But,

Well, he could have also been taking drugs. Sure. I guess so. Royal 19th century drugs. Who knows what that is? That's the good stuff. But the 2020 paper, essentially, they said he probably could have been diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, which is characterized by odd eccentric behavior.

and few, if any, close friends. And that definitely describes him. So it's possible, but it's certainly, I mean, we're diagnosing this guy in the same way that Dr. Gooden did, which was based on reports and stuff like that, that the people writing these papers never examined him. So it's not clear and we'll probably never know. Yeah. I think the autopsy report was sort of a big factor. Um,

There was findings on the autopsy that showed he had scars on his frontal lobes from meningitis when he was a baby. So that could have been something. Sure. I mean, that will have some sort of effect.

And like you said, they performed an autopsy, which strongly suggests that he died. So, spoiler alert, he did die. He eventually died. I mean, he was living in the 19th century. So, yeah, he was going to die by now anyway. But he died relatively young at age 41, another leg of the stool that makes him a tragic figure. And he was – remember, they came and got him, Dr. Gooden and some –

I guess hired men by the parliament, came and took him away to Kesselberg, one of his father's castles, where he was essentially under house arrest. And then the next day, he turned up dead. He and Dr. Gooden went on a walk around the castle grounds, their second of the day.

This one was in the evening, and they never came back. So people went out to look for them, and when they did, they discovered them dead, floating face down in Lake Sternberg on the castle grounds. Yeah, the story was Ludwig wanted to drown himself, made a break for the water. Dr. Gudden went after him. They tussled in the water, and Dr. Gudden was drowned, and then the king drowned himself after Ludwig.

There's a lot of hinky stuff the way this went down. First, and like they're really the only one hinky thing in this case really, is the fact that they found them floating. Yeah. Because when you drown, you sink. Your lungs take on water and, you know, 10 seconds you can be at the bottom of that lake. Maybe a few days or a week later you might eventually float back up once like gases are released and stuff like that. But drowning victims don't float.

And there was also no water in his lungs at the autopsy or no foam at his mouth or nose or anything like that. Like he didn't drown. It just seems pretty clear. Certainly doesn't seem that way. So other people say, well, no, he didn't drown. He died from being assassinated. He was shot, as was Dr. Gooden, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And whoever assassinated Ludwig didn't want to leave any witnesses. And there's a whole...

fringe belief that this was a, that, that Ludwig was assassinated and this was covered up. Um, and, and,

There's supposedly like the diary of a fisherman who was there at the scene that he left this confession or description of what really happened after he died. Supposedly somebody in the same royal family as Ludwig or the royal house had his coat that he wore that night and it had two bullet holes in it. And supposedly she showed it to some other people. All of this stuff, the big problem is it's all second and third hand accounts of

And all of the evidence that's referenced, the physical evidence, it's gone, vanished, burned up in a house fire. No one knows where it went, whatever. So it's just going to always essentially remain a fringe theory unless we find evidence.

like a writing from Otto von Bismarck talking about how he had Ludwig assassinated. We're just probably never going to know what happened to him. And there's actually a group called the Gugelmaner. Did I say that right? It's really more like Mena. And they're essentially like a Bavarian independent society who say, not only was Ludwig assassinated, that makes everything that came after that illegitimate. Right.

Yeah, they said it. You hate umlauts. Why do you hate umlauts? Their reasoning. So that's the thing. One of the, there weren't very many people who had good reason to have Ludwig assassinated. He was deposed. His uncle was put in, into power. Um, and Ludwig had been taken care of. So why kill him? And the Google monitor, uh,

says that von Bismarck had found out that Ludwig was negotiating with France to help liberate Bavaria from this new German empire so that he could, you know, take his rightful place on the throne again. And Bismarck was like, we can't have that and assassinated him.

So who knows? We'll never know. He died at 41. That's one thing we do know. And he, very much like you've been saying, was a tragic figure. His bestie there, Empress Elizabeth, put some jasmine in his hands, in his casket, which is a very sweet thing to do. French poet Verlaine called him the only true king of this century. And the irony of all this is that Neuschwanstein was...

which was had basically not bankrupted him, but put him in dire financial straits and may have led to his ouster kind of right after he died. They opened it to tourists and it has made a ton of money since then and continues to. Yeah, they estimate 130 million people have visited it since they opened it a few weeks after his death. Isn't that nuts?

It's pretty great. Also, if you go to Castle Burg in Lake Sternberg, there's a cross coming out of the water to mark the spot where his body was found. And he's even more beloved in death than he was in life. Every August 24th and 25th, Fusen, the town nearest the castle, celebrates his birthday. So he's kind of a big deal around there, you know? Yeah, totally. Great, great story. I love Ludwig II.

I don't know if I got the point across or not, but he was a tragic figure. Tragic figure. You got anything else? I'm going to guess no. I got nothing else. Okay. That means everybody, it's time for Listener Mail. All right. I'm going to say this is from Parker and it's about Cher. I'm kind of going to bed for Cher with some of her...

Hey guys, I hope people aren't too hard on Cher these days for the title Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves and for the song Half-Breed. I was a young child living an apple pie life when those songs were released and they were my first introduction to how unfair life can be. I felt a lot of empathy for the characters singing the songs and swore to myself never to make people feel like that. Cher is awesome.

So thanks for that great episode. And, you know, that's something that I don't even think we mentioned. There are certain singers who at times have sung sort of as character, in character. My own beloved Billy Joel wrote songs about, you know, seemingly from the perspective of a Vietnam vet or from a longboat pilot.

you know, longshoremen and a fisherman. Sure. And Bruce Springsteen. And, you know, there's long been a rich history of sort of writing in character and as a character and singing as a character. So that is how Parker took it. And it seems like it imparted a good lesson. Yeah, for sure. That's a great, great point, Parker. Thanks for writing in to point that out. If you want to be like Parker and write in to point something out, that's very insightful. We love that kind of thing. You can send it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

What is this place? Welcome to Cloud Nine. How exactly did I get here? You're a Toyota Crown driver. And only Crown drivers ever reach this level of pure bliss. The refined but elegant design makes you sit up a little straighter. It gives you a rush of confidence as soon as you're behind the wheel and a feeling of all eyes on you. That's how the Crown transports you here. It's pretty awesome, right? The captivating Toyota Crown family. Toyota. Let's go places.

CBS Thursday Academy Award winner Kathy Bates stars as Matlock in the new CBS original series that critics are calling brilliantly witty with great storytelling and a suspenseful joyride. You won't be able to take your eyes off Kathy Bates in this reimagining of the original classic.

Madeline Matlock is rejoining the workforce at a prestigious law firm and using her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases and hide a secret from everyone around her. The next great CBS mystery, Matlock, continues with a new episode Thursday, 9, 8 central on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists you can connect with via video, phone, or email.

or chat. Here's BetterHelp Head of Clinical Operations Hesu Jo discussing who can benefit from therapy. I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody.

There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today. That's BetterHelp.com.