The Bavarian royal drama of 1886 and the misuse of psychiatry: new results.

The deaths of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Bernhard von Gudden, Professor of Psychiatry in Munich, in Lake Starnberg near Munich on 13 June 1886 have often been mentioned in the psychiatric-historical literature and in fiction. Von Gudden had written a psychiatric assessment of the King, rating him permanently mentally ill and incapable of reigning. Ludwig II was declared legally incapacitated, dethroned and psychiatrically interned. We will report on an interdisciplinary research project conducted at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Information was collected from state, local and private archives in Germany and abroad on: (1) the correctness of the psychiatric assessment in form and content; (2) the constitutional basis of the deposition; and (3) its background, motives and execution. The results show that the psychiatric assessment was incorrect in substance and form. They highlight how those in power used psychiatry for their own purposes.