8. A King Who Struggled To Suppress His Homosexual Tendencies
Ludwig II, better known as “Mad King Ludwig” (1845 – 1886), was Bavaria’s king from 1864 until his death in 1886. Unlike many other unbalanced tyrants, his madness did not express itself in cruelty and viciousness. Instead, it took the form of an obsession with art and architecture. A generous benefactor of the arts, Ludwig was an admirer and patron of the composer Richard Wagner. During his reign, he devoted himself to artistic and architectural projects, such as opulent fairy tale castles whose construction he lavishly funded to the point of bankruptcy. Ludwig never married and had no mistresses. He had strong homosexual desires, which he struggled throughout his life to suppress. He was unsuccessful.
It was an open secret in Bavaria that Ludwig had affairs with his bodyguards. Homosexuality had been decriminalized in Bavaria in 1813, but when Germany was unified under Prussian hegemony in 1871, Prussia’s criminal code, which criminalized same-sex acts, was instated. After Bavaria joined the German Empire in 1871, Ludwig withdrew from governance. He concerned himself only intermittently with affairs of state, went into morbid seclusion and devoted himself to his true passion: the arts. He worshiped the theater and the opera, especially the works of Richard Wagner, whose lifelong patron he became.