Ludwig II (Civ6)/Civilopedia

“The Swan King” of the Catholic kingdom of Bavaria, Ludwig was a strange character. His reign was not a profitable one for his kingdom – it was under Ludwig that Bavaria lost its independence to Germany, but he himself was less interested in politics than in making the fairy tales of the region come to life. His projects and palaces were realms of imagination – or madness.
Bavaria is the largest, but not most powerful, of the German states. Long a Catholic holdout in a greater Protestant region, Bavaria was influenced from an early time by a Roman presence. In later years, Bavaria was a powerful elector in the Holy Roman Empire and was home to the Wittelsbach monarchy (from 1214) – a dynasty that competed in the Empire with the Hapsburgs in Austria, a competition that on many occasions led to outright war. It should be noted that Bavaria and Austria are more similar in language, culture, and religion than the Prussian north.
In the modern period, Bavaria played its rivals in Austria against the rising star of Prussia, to a fair degree of success, though in the end, they were forced to capitulate and join the German Federation under Prussian dominance – this is how Bavaria became a part of Germany today.
Today, Bavaria is a land of wealthy farmers, slightly conservative in outlook, with a strong Catholic bend. It is also the symbolic home of much of German folk culture – one cannot help but dream a bit, standing in the shadows of the Alps.
And that is where we come to “Mad” Ludwig. Ludwig was born into Bavarian royalty (his mother, notably, was a Crown Princess of Prussia) into what was an elite and relatively cold family. From a young age, he was surrounded by myth; from walking in the Alps to his childhood home at Castle Hohenschwangau, a Gothic-style fantasy castle devoted to Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swans, to his fascination with Wagner. Knights, dragons, nixies, and fairies ruled in young Ludwig’s life, even when, at age 19, he himself came to rule Bavaria.
Ludwig’s sexuality is also worth noting here. He was gay and had several affairs with his guards – indeed, a shared sexuality was another reason why Wagner and Ludwig were sympathetic (Ludwig did not, though, share Wagner’s antisemitism).
Ludwig’s loyalty to the Alps, and his friendship with the Austrian royalty, moved his sympathies in that direction, which was diplomatically unwise; when Prussia defeated Austria, Bavaria was pulled into the former’s diplomatic orbit and eventually forced into unification with Germany, though, as befitted Bavaria’s size and power, it was permitted its own army and a great deal of independence.
This forced abdication of Ludwig’s political ambitions enabled his fantasies to take flight. The 19th century was an era of nationalism, where various countries, new and old, were invested in discovering, embellishing upon, and, at times, fully inventing their own particular national cultures. For Ludwig, castle construction (as well as serving as Wagner’s patron) was a key part of this – his Neuschwanstein. This was a castle inspired by the Swan Knight legends that formed a part of Ludwig’s early life – the story of a knight that arrives in a swanlike boat to defend the honor of the innocent but must never be asked his name. It also is a monument to absolute monarchy, and the divine right of kings in combination with nationalism – the majesty of kings derives from the spirits of the land. But this was not his only project – he planned a replica of Versailles and another Gothic castle on “wild, romantic” Falkenstein, and built a French-styled castle at Linderhof and a magnificent apartment in the Bavarian castle of Munich.
Castles are wonderful. But also expensive. Ludwig fell deep into debt, so much so that his administration decided that he was mad. He was seized, but the day after, as he was awaiting transportation, he and his doctor were found dead in a lake on his royal grounds. The death was ruled a suicide (and, in the doctor’s case, a murder), but forensic evidence, for what it was worth at the time, did not seem to indicate this, implying something darker. The end is perhaps fitting; Ludwig was often quoted as saying, “I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and others.”