All language subtitles for The.Fairytale.Castles.Of.King.Ludwig.II.2013.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

Bavaria.

The soul of Germany.

Its romance, its culture,
its sense of history...

..even its food and drink,
define the image of the nation.

And much of it is down to
the legacy of one man.

Ludwig II of Bavaria
is a legendary figure.

The handsome boy-king,
loved by his people,

betrayed by his ministers and found
dead in mysterious circumstances.

A monarch obsessed by beauty

and heroic legend...

..who sacrificed everything
for his art.

Even today, his castles and palaces
are the most fantastical

examples of Romantic architecture
anywhere in the world.

Nowhere have history,
illusion, artifice

and reality combined to create
such visually powerful buildings.

And all of them are windows
into the soul

of their extraordinary creator...

..Ludwig II, the dream king.

Our story begins here, in the
mountains of Southern Bavaria.

Hohenschwangau Castle sits
high above Lake Alpsee.

It was here that
the young Prince Ludwig grew up.

An enchanted landscape,

providing the perfect backdrop
for a flourish of Gothic fantasy.

For Ludwig, a shy child
with a vivid imagination,

the castle represented
a wonderful refuge,

escape from
the conventions and bustle

of court life in Munich.

It, and this wonderful landscape,
captivated his imagination,

ignited an obsession for the past
and, in many ways,

defined his life
and the fate of his kingdom.

Ludwig's father, Maximilian,
had built the castle in the 1830s,

on the site of a medieval ruin.

He spent much of the year here
with his Prussian-born wife, Marie,

and his two young sons,
Ludwig and Otto.

Ludwig was a dreamy child.

He loved stories and art,
dressing up and make-believe.

For most children,
this is an obsession

that begins and ends
at the dressing-up box.

But for Ludwig,
it was his whole world.

Ludwig's father decorated
the walls of the castle

with scenes of
ancient chivalry and combat.

It was a very particular vision
of German legend.

Maximilian called
this his Hall Of Heroes.

These are scenes
that Ludwig grew up with,

highly romanticised images
of medieval life -

knights, castles, chivalry.

Every room in this castle
fed his imagination.

You can see here,
the seeds of his later obsessions.

But romantic though they are,
the paintings at Hohenschwangau

carried an important
political message.

In the mid-19th century,
there was no single German nation,

just a group of
princely states and dukedoms.

Two of the largest were
Prussia and Bavaria.

Though independent, these states
had a shared culture and language

and there was a growing mood
among their people for unification.

But which princely state
would determine

the nature of the new Germany?

The castle curator understands
the message of Hohenschwangau

better than most.

It's a hymn to Bavaria's
artistic dominance.

Bavaria was really
the cultural heart of Germany,

so Maximilian saw it this way,
the Bavarians saw it this way.

They had their history
over centuries.

And that's why Maximilian
wanted to show his history,

the history of Bavaria,
of his family.

He wanted to have kind of picture
book, a history picture book.

He was very interested
to teach his people here.

So the paintings tell historical
stories about Bavaria,

about the family, about its great
history as rulers in this area.

Also, there are myths and legends.

After centuries,
where all these myths were forgotten,

they were collecting them again.

Well, that's the Brothers Grimm,
of course,

who are involved in this
creation of this interior scheme.

And the Brothers Grimm
and some others were very involved,

they were searching for
the myths of the old Germans,

they were collecting these
sagas and fairy tales,

so this was a renaissance
of German identity.

One room more than any other
would captivate the young Ludwig.

This is the Hall Of The Swan Knight.
It tells the story of Lohengrin.

Now, according to legend, Lohengrin,
a Grail knight, left his family,

shown in this painting here,

and stepped into a small craft
pulled by a single white swan

and then was taken away
to save a damsel in distress.

For Ludwig's father,
the greatest heroes of the past

were the Knights Of Schwangau,

literally translating as
the Knights Of The Swan.

The swan appears again
and again throughout the castle

and, as a symbol of
the idyllic hero,

was the creature that Ludwig
came to identify with strongly.

He began to imagine that when he
grew up, he would be the Swan King,

the Lohengrin character of legend
made monarch.

The scale and imagery of
Hohenschwangau is extraordinary.

But it would be nothing
compared to the heights

to which the adult Ludwig would go.

On March 10, 1864,
Ludwig became King of Bavaria.

He was crowned at the Royal Palace

in the heart of
the Bavarian capital, Munich.

He was just 18 years old,
a shy young man

and not greatly interested
in affairs of state.

He was much more interested
in the things that happened

in the magnificent building

just a stone's throw
from the royal residence.

It was a place where he could
lose himself

in the stories and legends
he adored.

Munich's theatre and opera house
was, to Ludwig,

a spectacular place
of magic and escapism.

Here he saw that heroic
architecture could be evoked

through operatic stage sets.

Artifice would be the means
to conjure up

the power of German myth and legend
as the epic scale demanded.

The man who would take opera

to new Romantic heights in
the 19th century was Richard Wagner.

And Ludwig had been following
the great composer even as a boy.

On February 2, 1861,
three years before he became king,

Ludwig attended a performance
here in the Munich State Theatre

of Wagner's Lohengrin.

Now, at that point,
Ludwig was 15 years old

and familiar with Wagner's
writing about art and politics,

but his experience that night,
in this theatre,

transformed admiration

into something akin to
religious devotion.

One of Ludwig's first actions
on becoming king

was to invite Wagner to dinner.

Wagner was 50 years old.
Ludwig was 18.

It was an extraordinary
relationship -

the gauche boy-king
and the operatic revolutionary.

But they shared a love of excess
and a world built on a heroic scale

and, of course,
an obsession with Germanic legend.

For Ludwig, Wagner's operas are
magical experiences, revelations,

they transported him into worlds
of beauty, myth, legend and romance.

Soon, he started to command
his own private performances,

so that he could hear
the music in solitude,

but eventually
not even that was enough.

He built his own
Wagnerian stage sets.

Neuschwanstein, Ludwig's
remarkable attempt to realise

the operas of Richard Wagner
in masonry and mortar.

In a commanding position,
high above a ravine,

this was to be the castle
of Lohengrin, the Swan Knight,

and a powerful statement
of Ludwig's position -

a king with a mythological status,

part of the pantheon of strong
Germanic kings of legend.

It's an extraordinary
Romanesque and Gothic vision

of a medieval knight's castle.

The image is taken straight
from German legend.

The impression
is of a fairy-tale castle,

perched on top of
an impossible mountain.

Neuschwanstein is
a stunning feat of engineering.

Work began in 1869 and continued
for almost two decades,

at times employing between
200 and 300 workers per day.

It drew artists, craftsmen
and artisans from much of Europe.

The result is pure
architectural theatre.

This courtyard is based
on Wagner's instructions

for a stage set
for his opera, Lohengrin.

Ludwig took his architectural
inspiration primarily,

and certainly for this castle,

from Wagner rather than
from architectural precedent.

And when he needed
detailed drawings,

he turned not to an architect,
but to a set designer.

Christian Jank had worked with
Wagner at the Court Theatre

on an early performance
of Lohengrin.

From the start, Jank's drawings
show an heroic vision.

Ludwig's fantasy, Wagner's fiction

and a heavy helping
of Romantic Gothic.

In Ludwig's mind would be
the Singers' Hall

that brought
legend and reality together,

a medieval style feasting room

in which Wagner's operas
could be sung...

..and a monument to the knights
and kings of Germanic myth.

This could hardly be
more theatrical.

This is like a backdrop on a stage
at one end of the Singers' Hall.

Amazing. It shows
the enchanted forest

surrounding the hiding place
of the Holy Grail.

The legend of the Grail was

one of Ludwig's greatest
inspirations in the castle.

It had everything - chivalric
knights, religious significance

and untold power.

The Singers' Hall is Ludwig
at his most heroic and optimistic.

But in private, there are
parts of the castle

that don't quite fit this
conventional Teutonic vision.

This is Ludwig's bedroom. Very
ecclesiastical, richly monastic.

In front of me, his bed,
which is amazing really.

It's like a Gothic shrine and a
tremendously rich carved canopy.

A shrine or a tomb.
Amazing really.

As Ludwig lay there,

he was presided over by
a portrait of the Virgin Mary.

On the walls are scenes from
the story that was very much

part of Germanic myth,
the story, the legend

of Tristan and Isolde,

a strange story really
for his bedroom

because it speaks of
forbidden earthly love,

brought on by enchantment,
a story that ends in tragic death,

but through death,
there is redemption.

Ludwig never married

and his sexuality has long been
the subject of speculation.

Throughout his life, he formed
close bonds with numerous young men,

from actors to courtiers.

It seems almost certain
that Ludwig was homosexual.

Seen in this light,
the room begins to make sense.

As a devout Catholic monarch,

Ludwig's homosexuality filled him
with remorse, shame and guilt,

and I suppose, therefore,
one can see these paintings

as representing, for him,
a cautionary tale,

a tale that told him that
earthly love was out of bounds.

Also, I suppose, it could have
suggested that, through death,

he would be redeemed.

Outside the bedroom, Ludwig
seems to regain his confidence.

His throne room expresses Ludwig's
desire to be an autocratic king,

ruling by God's will,

rather than the constrained,
constitutional monarch that he was.

This really is
the focus of the entire castle.

Not just the throne room,
but a shrine to kingship

and a bold statement
of Ludwig's belief

that kings rule by divine right.

It also reveals his view of himself
as the king ruling by God's grace,

but also as a mediator
between the world and God.

That explains the scheme of
decoration of the room to a degree.

Here below me on the floor
are images of plants, flowers,

animals, the world we inhabit.

Above, is a celestial dome of stars
and a great sun, I suppose -

the heavens and sky.

God and the world of man,
and between the two,

this great chandelier in the form
of a regal crown,

representing, of course, the king's
role between the world and God.

The mediator.

Yet this elaborate imagery
was not a public statement.

Neither Ludwig's subjects

nor visiting dignitaries
were allowed in.

This was an expression of visual
beauty and of a kingly ideal

for the eyes of Ludwig
and God alone.

So this seeming public statement

was only for Ludwig's
private satisfaction.

Strange, but little here

is as straightforward or
obvious as it might seem.

Above the throne room

lies the structural reality
behind the theatre set.

This castle is
all about appearances.

Here, history is only skin deep.

Clearly, Ludwig didn't care too much

about authentic
medieval construction

because, behind the veneer
of Romanesque detail and stone,

is this utterly modern, utilitarian,
almost industrial world,

because this in front of me
is the dome above the throne room.

Incredible. There is the central
dome of the throne room

and you can see
it is supported by, I suppose,

wrought-iron lattice sort of ribs

and they hold up the dome itself,
which appears to be made out of

some sort of concrete or
lime mixture, entirely modern.

So, an incredible world, isn't it?
Below, ancient beauty.

Up here, modern
industrial construction.

The relationship between engineering
and artifice is an effective one.

Likewise, the overall fantasy
of Neuschwanstein was not entirely

disconnected from events
outside its walls.

In 1866, Ludwig and Bavaria had
suffered a bruising humiliation.

Ludwig, much against his will,
had been obliged to pick sides

when two Germanic states,
Austria and Prussia, came to blows.

Unfortunately,
he backed the wrong horse.

Feeling more sympathy for

their southern neighbours
and fellow Catholics,

the Bavarians had sided
with Austria, but the conflict,

known as the Seven Weeks War, ended
in a decisive Prussian victory.

Ludwig's image of himself
had taken a blow.

Both his kingdom and his position
had been fundamentally weakened.

Neuschwanstein was
Ludwig's retort to reality,

a beacon for how things should be.

It would set him on a course.

Architecture would become
his manifesto for a better future.

It would be a journey that would
take Ludwig to ever greater heights

of visual beauty and excess.

Ludwig became increasingly
reclusive as he spent

more and more of his time, money
and energy on architecture.

If Neuschwanstein was a castle fit
for a Swan King, what he needed,

he thought, was a country retreat,
a royal villa,

and he knew just the place
to build it.

Ludwig had inherited
a small hunting lodge

just 15 miles into the mountains
from Neuschwanstein.

He now turned his attention to
transforming it into a royal palace,

a refuge deep in secluded woods,

and one that could scarcely be more
dissimilar to Neuschwanstein.

This is Linderhof.

After Neuschwanstein,
this palatial villa

comes as something of a surprise.

It's utterly different in
architectural style and in scale.

Gone are the fairy-tale towers
and the mock medieval detailing.

Instead, for this mini palace,
Ludwig preferred to go for

the Baroque Classical manner
of 18th-century France.

For Ludwig,
this change in style was deliberate.

In the real world, he was a king
constrained by his ministers

and by the military might
of his Prussian neighbour.

But in his imagination,

he was the very embodiment
of the all-powerful monarch,

a king ruling by divine right.

And one historical figure
more than any other

symbolised this ideal for Ludwig.

The entrance vestibule.
Solid grandeur.

Lovely marble,
Doric columns and...

Well, now,
there can be no doubt about

who's the inspiration behind
this creation because here,

confronting all who arrive,
is an equestrian statue

of the French king, Louis XIV,
the epitome of the absolute monarch.

A lovely piece of work.

And here, on the ceiling above,

is a great sunburst of the Sun King
with, in the middle,

the Bourbon motto - "Nec pluribus
impar," none his equal.

Of course,
the motto of the Sun King, Louis,

but also the motto by which
Ludwig would like to be known.

As Prussia dominated
the Germanic world

and Bavaria's power waned,
Ludwig's architecture became

the one place he could create the
world as he thought it should be.

A world that respected the power
of absolute monarchy,

the world of Louis XIV.

What an astonishing room.

An incredible evocation of
the grandeur and opulence

of early 18th-century France.

This is the king's bedroom,
there is the king's bed,

separated from the world of mere
mortals by this balustrade.

Raised, as if on an altar,

is the divine bed
of the incredible divine king.

Incredible sanctified territory.

Here, Ludwig would have
presided in solitary grandeur.

Almost every room
in this building

speaks of power and kingship
through beauty.

But they do so
on a surprisingly small scale.

This is Ludwig's world in miniature,

a private set of rooms decorated
to mind-boggling intensity.

This is the most visually dramatic
room in the palace.

Standing here
between these two mirrors,

I can see an endless vista of rooms
stretching to infinity.

It's incredible.

Ludwig would come into this
mirror room to read alone at night.

It's strange, this mirrored room
offers a window into Ludwig's soul.

You can imagine him standing here
looking into these mirrors,

seeing himself in a vast
and stately palace, but in fact,

it's nothing but a tiny room, all
just a figment of his imagination.

Each room in this mini palace

is stuffed full of
priceless works of art.

Sevres porcelain urns.

Even Sevres porcelain peacocks.

Meissen candelabra and sconces.

Lobmeyr crystal chandeliers.

Under the patronage of Ludwig,

there was a blossoming
of the arts in Bavaria.

Munich came second only to
Paris and Vienna

as a centre of artistic excellence.

And Ludwig was a man possessed.
Every detail was agonised over,

every element personally overseen
by the obsessive monarch,

inside and out.

The gardens became
Ludwig's playground,

where he achieved glorious
and instant gratification

through the construction
of buildings

that were little more
than stage sets.

Inside this mound is Ludwig's
response to the Venus grotto

in Wagner's opera, Tannhauser.

Now, I shall enter through this
rocky crevice here in front of me

and, strangely, I see the way
is blocked by a vast stone,

which is clearly a door.

It will be heavy, I expect.

Rather impressive.

Ah!

HE LAUGHS

No, it's made of plaster.
As with so much of Ludwig's world,

all is pure artifice.

The entire grotto is man-made,
a framework of iron girders

skilfully covered with canvas
and plaster and sculpted to give

the impression of a natural grotto,
complete with stalactites.

This grotto is truly amazing.

It's so much bigger than you would
think from the outside

and like so many
of Ludwig's creations,

both eccentric and breathtaking.

It is ultimate theatre.

What an evocation!

And here, look, incredible. Here
is the world of Wagner's Tannhauser.

Here is the lake and there,
on the back wall,

indeed, is a painted scene from the
opera, showing Venus in her grotto.

There is the design, here is
the reality in three dimensions,

created by Ludwig for his
pleasure and escape and fantasy.

The lake here and the craft,
the sort of shell craft,

the boat from the opera.

He rowed around the lake in that.

You can imagine him sitting in it,
fantasising, escaping,

in this incredible world
he's created,

a world of pure imagination
and artifice.

The theatricality of the grotto
was enhanced

by the use of
pioneering technology.

Dynamos were installed to power
lights

with rotating coloured glass disks,

which created a changing light show
for the king.

Ludwig embraced stage design

and new technology at every turn in
the pursuit of the perfect illusion.

Not far from the Venus grotto

is something
perhaps even more surprising.

This extraordinary site really is

one of the great moments
in architecture,

the wonderfully incongruous
juxtaposition of this gilded

Islamic dome set against the craggy
backdrop of the Bavarian Alps.

The Moorish Kiosk was built for the
World Exhibition in Paris in 1867.

Ludwig saw it and had to have it.

He bought the entire structure

and had it rebuilt
in the grounds at Linderhof.

A richly decorated interior
that transported Ludwig

from the Bavarian Alps to the
exotic kingdoms of the Arab world.

The focus of the kiosk
is the peacock throne,

a magnificent affair.

There we have the peacock
presiding over the sofa

on which Ludwig would have sat.

He had the peacock made in Paris
and Munich in 1877.

Made of metal,

the feathers are enamelled metal
with polished stone.

The peacock, to him,
represented eternity,

the continuation
of this state of bliss.

It really is a most bold statement

of power, or imagined power,
through beauty.

These buildings in the garden
are pure fantasy.

Escapism of the most visceral kind.

There are places in which
Ludwig could for a while retreat

from the woes and horrors
of the real world.

As he said to a contemporary,
"Oh, it is essential to create

"such paradises,
such poetical sanctuaries

"where one can forget for a while
the dreadful age in which we live."

As the events of that
dreadful age develop,

such sanctuaries became increasingly
important to the King.

In 1870, Prussia
went to war with France.

It was part of a strategy
to unite the Germanic states

around a common enemy.

Ludwig had no option but to join
the war on the Prussian side.

But he was all too well aware
of the cost.

Defeat would be disastrous,

but so would Prussian victory.

For Ludwig,
the situation was impossible.

Victory would confirm Prussia as the
dominant state in a united Germany

and also confirm Bavaria
as little more than a vassal

and as king, Ludwig
as a puppet monarch.

Puppet king he would be.

With Prussian victory came
an irresistible call

for the creation
of a German Empire

but with Prussia at its head.

The dream of German unification
would happen

but Ludwig would be sidelined.

Obliged to sign away
Bavarian sovereignty to Prussia

in a document known as
the Kaiserbrief.

On 18th January, 1871,

the Prussian King was crowned
Kaiser or Emperor of Germany

in the famous Hall Of Mirrors at
the Palace Of Versailles in France.

The palace of Louis XIV became the
birthplace of the new German Reich.

It was a victory for German
nationalism on a Wagnerian scale,

but one that made Ludwig and Bavaria
subservient to the Prussian King.

Ludwig's response as ever
would be architectural

and this time, more ambitious
than ever before.

The Prussian King had defiled
the greatest palace
of Ludwig's hero, Louis XIV.

Now Ludwig would create
that palace anew

on an island on Lake Chiemsee,

far from the intrusion
and disappointment of real life.

Herrenchiemsee, Ludwig's
very own Palace Of Versailles.

But it was built not with
the bountiful riches

of a Bourbon monarch,

but at least in part
with a secret annual stipend

paid to Ludwig
by the Prussian Exchequer

after signing the Kaiserbrief,

the very document that
had officially stripped Ludwig

of much of his regal power
and status.

Goodness. What grandeur,

what opulence and dare I say,
what sort of pretension, really,

because this staircase is based
on the Ambassadors' Staircase

in Versailles, of course.

Same scale, same sort of plan.

Incredible decoration.

Apparently, walls of marble,

though I'm sure it's only a veneer.

What's amazing about this,
of course, is that

as real power slipped
from Ludwig's grip in the world,

he created bigger and grander
buildings,

as if, of course, to compensate
for the loss of the real thing.

Ludwig's architecture had begun by
taking inspiration from the stage.

Now it had truly become
little more THAN a stage.

Goodness.

This really is one of the oddest
architectural experiences
I've ever heard.

I've travelled to a remote island
in southern Bavaria

and found myself in Versailles,
in the world of Louis XIV.

Incredible. In detail, in scale

in spatial experience,
it's Versailles, really.

This is the king's state bedroom.

But of course, not the bedroom
of Louis XIV, but of Ludwig II,

the man obsessed by Louis.

Louis represented to Ludwig
the idea of absolute monarchy.

This is his homage to Louis.
Incredible.

There's Ludwig's bed, balustrade.

What amazing opulence.

It's extraordinary.

Um, what can one say? It's...

extreme, extreme in every way.

He's living in the shadow,
in the whorl, of Louis XIV.

Louis is everywhere.
His presence, you almost feel it.

And that's the thing.
Louis was a great model for Ludwig

of the proper king,
the king ruling by divine right,

the absolute monarch.

And indeed, one can see
images of Louis there.

Above each of the four doors
are scenes from court life

in Versailles, each featuring
Louis going about his business,

dispensing power, giving audiences,

indeed, exuding that sort of power,
that regal power,

which Ludwig did not have.

There is one key difference -

Louis XIV's palace functioned,

Ludwig's did not.

This is the council chamber,

but no historic council meetings
took place here, no audiences.

Ludwig wouldn't allow them.

But of course, the palace
of an absolute monarch

had to have an audience chamber
and so here it is.

There is the throne
on which Ludwig should have sat.

Behind it, staring down
as if bestowing blessings,

is a portrait of Louis XIV.

But of course, it's all very sad

because he's looking down
onto a chair

which was and remains
perpetually empty.

It's all, really, very haunting.

But the focus of the palace
is Ludwig's answer

to the very grandest room
of Versailles,

the scene of the recent
Prussian triumph

which had led to the eclipse
of Ludwig's dreams and ambitions
for Bavaria.

This is the visually most striking
room in the palace, or is usually,

but as you can see,
it's under repair.

It's based on the Hall Of Mirrors
at Versailles.

Indeed, in many ways,
it's a very exact replica.

This room must have had
great meaning for Ludwig.

The Hall Of Mirrors at Versailles
had been sullied

because it had been used by
the Prussians as a location

in which to proclaim their king
the new emperor of united Germany.

Ludwig's response was to build
his own Hall Of Mirrors,

which at 98 metres is somewhat
larger than the original.

He was, of course, making a point.

In this grand hall, Ludwig's pursuit
of beauty reached a crescendo.

It is an almost exact reproduction

of the Hall Of Mirrors
at Versailles.

Ludwig couldn't resist one or two
ironical theatrical flourishes,

such as this image of Fame
blowing her trumpet

but tumbling from the heights.

In the dining room,
the table is today encased

in a protective glass box.

It's not for the sake of the table
so much as what sits on it.

Look. Upon the table is, well,
a bunch of flowers,

but they're not flowers
in the usual sense,

they're made of porcelain,
Meissen porcelain.

Absolutely fantastic.

Sitting in a Meissen porcelain urn.

Absolutely delicate,
lifelike, beautiful.

You can almost see the dew
upon the petals. Incredible stuff.

What's more amazing still is what
hangs above the table. Look at that.

The largest Meissen porcelain
chandelier ever made.

108 candles on it.

A thing of utter beauty.

Look at the colours,
the way it glistens.

Little bunch of flowers

and I see birds sitting
on the stems of the object.

Absolutely amazing. Now, Ludwig
was a jealous monarch,

jealous when it came to beauty,
to things he loved.

When this was made, he ordered
the mould should be smashed

so no such chandelier
could ever be made again.

This remains unique.

And here the dining table is small.
Just seats four people, really.

So, clearly, if the King
wanted to be left alone

to dine in reflective solitude,

perhaps joined only by characters
from his imagination.

Also, a wishing table,
as it's called,

descends into the floor. The pulley,
so it can be laid, pulled up.

The King can sit there dining

and not be disturbed by servants
coming and going.

As with so much of Ludwig's world,
this is a brilliant conjuring trick.

Downstairs, Ludwig
employed technology

and the lessons
of theatre set design

to safeguard his solitude.

This is the mechanism that operates
the wishing table.

Up there, it's a table

in that wonderful porcelain
rococo dining room.

Below here, this utterly ruthless
piece of late 19th-century

hi-tech engineering. Wonderful
sort of lattice construction.

Wrought iron or maybe steal.
And of course, this great wheel.

It's a winch to push this round.
There are counterweights.

There's a ratchet over here.

And one would simply
lower the table,

down it would come
into this space here

and I suppose, if possible,
one would put on the next course

and up it would go again.

So, typical of Ludwig,
this contrast of worlds,

the world of beauty, history
and solitude,

and down here, modern engineering

and I say a scurry of staff.

Active here,
invisible to the King above.

As Ludwig retreated further
into his own fantasy world,

he began to see himself not
as a Sun King in Louis XIV's image,

but as the Moon King,
a dark reflection of his hero.

Veronika Endlicher is a curator
at Herrenchiemsee

and an authority on both
the palace and its creator.

Ludwig inverts aspects
of Louis the Sun King

because Ludwig sees himself
as the Moon King, doesn't he?

SHE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

Of course, Ludwig is obsessed
with beauty in architecture, in art,

but he himself becomes, in his view,
anyway, less beautiful.

So this must be a big issue for him,
a challenge.

Ludwig only stayed
at this palace once.

Despite his grand plans,
events overtook him

and the palace remains unfinished.

The result is rather spooky.

Beautifully ornate rooms
lead into unfinished shells.

Walking between these spaces
is like walking offstage

into the wings of a theatre.

This is the companion staircase
to the one I walked up earlier.

That, of course, clad in marble,

a thing of great beauty
expressing imperial power.

This, a hollow sham, really,

a grim reflection of reality.

This is all so symbolic.

Ludwig created this palace
to express kingship,

but he was, in fact,
a king who'd lost his kingdom

and the unfinished
state of this staircase,

captures the absolute moment
when the dream came to an end.

Ludwig's increasingly eccentric
behaviour had not gone unnoticed

by his ministers.

He spent months at a time
away from Munich.

He lived by night and had
little or no interest

in public appearances
or matters of state.

More importantly,
he had run up enormous debts.

The cost of his building schemes
had bankrupted Ludwig,

but he refused to curb
his expenditure.

By 1885, the King was more
than 14 million marks in debt,

3.5 billion euros in today's money.

The Cabinet, faced with a king
who seem to have few interests

beyond his building projects
and running up debts,

decided to act. It gathered facts
and opinions from Ludwig's staff

and then consulted
a team of psychiatrists.

Now, these psychiatrists
without even interviewing Ludwig

concluded that His Majesty is in
a far advanced state of insanity.

It was all his ministers needed
to topple the monarch.

Just after midnight
on 12th June, 1886,

a government commission
placed the King in custody.

Ludwig's uncle was declared
Prince Regent.

Ludwig was transferred to a castle

on the shores of Lake Starnberg
near Munich

and placed under house arrest.

The Moon King had lost his kingdom

and perhaps more importantly,
his beloved palaces.

He was, according to accounts,

bereft at the thought of the future.

The following day,
Ludwig went for a walk

with his psychiatrist Dr Gudden
along the banks of the nearby lake.

Neither man returned.

After hours of searching, the bodies
of Ludwig and Dr Gudden were found

floating in shallow water
on the edge of the lake.

Both had been dead
for several hours.

The body of Ludwig showed
no signs of obvious injury,

but the body of the doctor showed
evidence of a violent struggle.

The King's final moments
have been the subject of debate

and speculation ever since.

Did Ludwig attempt suicide,
killing his psychiatrist

when he tried to intervene?

Was it a dreadful accident?

Or was the King murdered?

And if so, why? And by whom?

The truth is that Ludwig's
last hours remain a mystery,

the final mystery of the man
who had declared,

"I want to remain an eternal enigma
to myself and to others."

He had his wish.

Today, the site of his death
is marked by this simple cross

standing in the lake.

This site remains a place
of pilgrimage for Ludwig's admirers.

They gather here every year

on the anniversary of his death
to mourn the lost king of Bavaria.

Bigger places of pilgrimage
are the palaces themselves.

All were open to the public within
six weeks of the King's death.

They've paid for themselves
many times over.

Today, Neuschwanstein,
the most famous of the palaces,

receives some 6,000 visitors a day
in the summer months

and has received
more than 50 million visitors

since it was opened to the public
on 1st August, 1886.

King Ludwig himself has become
a symbol of German pride,

more so today than ever
he was in his lifetime.

For many, he represents the heart
of Bavaria and the soul of Germany.

I'd be very interested to hear from
a young person about King Ludwig.

What do you think?
What do people now think
of this rather tragic king?

He was kind of special, different,

because Bavaria is very,
I would say, conservative

and he wasn't for his time.

I think he was a very modern man
in his thinking

and that's because he was an outsider
then, so as a consequence.

People thought, "Oh, God.
What is he doing?

"He's spending so much money
on art or architecture."

But I think people love him.
Today, they love him for that.

For most people, the story of Ludwig
ends at Lake Starnberg

and the wooden cross.

But for me, there's
a more fitting memorial

to this visionary
and eccentric king.

This is the Chapel Of Grace
in the small town of Altotting,

some 60 miles from Munich,

one of the most visited shrines
in the whole of Germany.

It is home to the much venerated
Black Madonna,

a 14th-century icon of profound
importance in Catholic Bavaria.

But it is also a shrine to Ludwig.

This beautifully-crafted
silver-gold urn was made in 1886

by a jeweller that Ludwig used
to decorate his palaces.

Outside is Ludwig's cipher,

two Ls entwined.

Inside is Ludwig's heart.

This is entirely in keeping
with Bavarian tradition

because resting each side and above

are the hearts of other
Bavarian monarchs.

It seems to me that is
completely fitting

that a heart that beat for beauty,

the heart of a king
that lived for art and architecture

should reside for eternity
in an object so beguiling,

in a building so beautiful.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd