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German States – Bavaria ruled by Otto I –
90th Birthday of Prince Regent Luitpold
1911 D Silver 2 Mark 28mm (11.14 grams) 0.900 Silver (0.3215 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 997
LVITPOLD PRINZ- REGENT V. BAYERN D 1821*12 MÆRZ*, Bearded bust facing right, year and mintmark below.
DEUTSCHES REICH * ZWEI MARK *, Eagle with crown above, year.
Edge Lettering: GOTT MIT UNS
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Otto I (German: Otto Wilhelm Luitpold Adalbert Waldemar; 27 April 1848 – 11 October 1916) was King of Bavaria from 1886 to 1913. However, he never actively ruled because of alleged severe mental illness. His uncle, Luitpold, and his cousin, Ludwig, served as regents.
Ludwig deposed him in 1913, a day after the legislature passed a law allowing him to do so, and became king in his own right.
Otto was the son of Maximilian II and his wife, Marie of Prussia, and the younger brother of Ludwig II. He is not to be confused with King Otto of Greece, his uncle and godfather.
Mental incapacity
After the Franco-Prussian War, Otto became very depressed and anxious, which worried his family. Otto had spells during which he slept poorly for days and acted out followed by periods of time during which he was perfectly normal and lucid. His illness progressively grew worse. Ludwig was horrified because he had been counting on Otto to marry and have a son who could eventually inherit the throne. Otto was placed under medical supervision, and reports about his condition were sent by spies of Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. Doctors reported that Otto was mentally ill in January 1872. From 1873, he was held in isolation in the southern pavilion of Nymphenburg Palace. His attending physician was Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, who later diagnosed Otto’s brother, Ludwig, as mentally ill without bothering to examine him and without asking him a single question, which raises questions about his competence and his motives. Both Ludwig and Otto despised Prussia, and their uncle, Luitpold, and Gudden supported Prussia’s rise to dominance. Some contemporaries believed that Gudden’s diagnoses of Otto and Ludwig were motivated by political considerations and that more could and should have been done to help and treat Otto. Some contemporaries also believed that Bismarck did not want Ludwig or Otto to remain in power and decided to replace the brothers with their malleable uncle, Luitpold.
During Corpus Christi Mass in 1875 in the Frauenkirche in Munich, Otto, who had not attended the church service, rushed into the church wearing hunting clothes and fell on his knees before the celebrant, Archbishop Gregor von Scherr, to ask forgiveness for his sins. The High Mass was interrupted, and the prince did not resist when he was led away by two church ministers. Otto was then moved to Schleissheim Palace and was effectively held prisoner there, much to his dismay. Gudden made no effort to treat him; it is possible that Otto was heavily drugged. Otto’s last public appearance was his presence at the side of his brother at the King’s parade on 22 August 1875, at the Marsfeld in Munich. From 1 June 1876, he stayed for a few weeks in the castle at Ludwigsthal in the Bavarian Forest. In the spring of 1880, his condition worsened. In 1883, he was confined under medical supervision in Fürstenried Palace near Munich, where he would remain for the rest of his life. The palace had been specially converted for his confinement. Ludwig occasionally visited him at night and ordered for no violence to be used against him.
Otto became king after Ludwig died, but he was never truly allowed to reign. In 1886, the senior royal medical officer wrote a statement declaring that Otto was severely mentally ill. It has been claimed that Ludwig had a schizotypal personality disorder[[citation needed] and that Otto suffered from schizophrenia. It has also been persuasively argued that Otto’s problems were the result of contracting syphilis, which would also account for his physical problems, particularly the paralysis from which he suffered from in later years.
King of Bavaria
On 10 June 1886, the Bavarian cabinet declared King Ludwig II unable to rule and appointed his uncle, Luitpold, as Prince Regent. Ludwig died only three days later under unexplained circumstances. That meant that Otto became king on 13 June 1886. He was, however, unable to rule. The official explanation “the King is melancholic”. The proclamation of his inauguration was read to him at Fürstenried Castle the next day, but he failed to understand it.
End of reign and death
Luitpold kept his role as Prince Regent until he died in 1912 and was succeeded by his son Ludwig, who was Otto’s first cousin. By then, it had been obvious for some time that Otto would never emerge from seclusion or be mentally capable of actively reigning. Almost as soon as Ludwig became regent, elements in the press and larger society clamoured for Ludwig to become king in his own right.
Accordingly, the constitution of Bavaria was amended on 4 November 1913 to include a clause specifying that if a regency for reasons of incapacity lasted for ten years, with no expectation that the King would ever be able to reign, the Regent could end the regency, depose the King and assume the crown himself with the assent of the legislature. The following day, Prince Regent Ludwig ended the regency and proclaimed his own reign as Ludwig III. The parliament assented on 6 November, and Ludwig III took the constitutional oath on 8 November. King Otto was permitted to retain his title and honours for life.
Otto died unexpectedly on 11 October 1916 from a volvulus (an obstruction of the bowel). His remains were interred in the crypt of the Michaelskirche in Munich. Bavarian tradition caused the heart of the king to be placed in a silver urn and sent to the Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of the Miraculous Image) in Altötting, beside those of his brother, father and grandfather.
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Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before 100 CE. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation.
The rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states in 1871 into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918-1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The establishment of the Third Reich in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After 1945, Germany split into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990, the country was reunified.
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