If you want to know what was up to Bavaria's kings, you have to go to Ludwigstrasse 14 in Munich.
Private letters, marriage contracts, marriage certificates and even the construction plans of the famous castles are stored here.
We visited the secret house archive of the Wittelsbach family.
The secret house archive is unique
In addition to the marriage contract of Franz and "Sissi", the building plans for the famous castles are stored there
There is also a lot about King Ludwig II in the archive.
Munich -
Anyone who asks Gerhard Immler about the most important Wittelsbacher of all time will be disappointed - if he is a fan of the Kini.
Because for the archive director there is no one greater than Elector Maximilian I .. "He was really an important personality," says Immler.
For those who have to look first: The Elector lived in the 17th century and was one of the mediators of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the terrible Thirty Years War.
The congress lasted for years, from 1643 to 1648 - and the elector was mostly in the middle of haggling over the peace treaty.
“That was the height of Bavarian influence in European diplomacy,” says Immler.
The secret house archive is unique
The 59-year-old is a friendly civil servant, authoritative in tone, accurate in his information.
He could rave about the elector for a long time.
He did his doctorate on him and is also sitting at the source.
In the secret house archive that he manages is all the written records the Wittelsbachers left behind.
Well, almost everything.
But more on that later.
The Secret House Archive is unique among the archives.
The contents belong to the family of the former kings, the shell, the building at Ludwigstrasse 14, the staff, everything around it, the Bavarian state.
It was in 1799 when the Wittelsbach family decided to centralize all of their records in an archive.
The addition "Secret" comes from back then and was actually a matter of course.
“Back then, no archive was publicly accessible,” says Immler.
The marriage contract of “Sisi” and Franz is also in the archive
In 1923 the archive was transferred to the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund, which has managed it ever since.
Cardboard boxes and finding aids, certificates and private letters are piled up in the basement and attic.
House deeds from the late Middle Ages are among them, as well as many documents relating to lands.
There are also outstanding showpieces such as a marriage certificate for the Landshut wedding of George the Rich with Hedwig, the daughter of the Polish King Casimir IV. From 1475. Or the marriage contract between Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria ("Sisi") and Emperor Franz Joseph von 1854.
And of course there is also a lot about Ludwig II, our fairy tale king.
For example the cabinet files.
Every king in Bavaria had a cabinet secretary - a kind of liaison between the monarch and the ministers.
There were several who Ludwig saw and suffered, the last (since 1883), an Alexander von Schneider, would have been only too happy to have got rid of the post if Ludwig had only let him.
So he had to be ready in the middle of the night in case the king spontaneously wanted a lecture.
If you want to find out more about Ludwig II:
A new magazine from Münchner Merkur is dedicated to the fairy tale king in all his facets - positive and negative.
Ludwig signed everything, these are the so-called signatures, which are collected in signature books.
“We also have blueprints for the castles, that belongs to the court secretariat,” says Immler.
The construction office used to be located there.
However, a lot is still with the Bavarian Palace Administration, which, to the regret of the archive manager, has not yet "released" some historically valuable documents.
+
Legacy next to legacy: Insight into the house archive of the Wittelsbach family.
© Astrid Schmidhuber
Well then: The estate also contains extensive correspondence with Richard Wagner about theater, it contains reports from the ministers on political affairs and, of course, many private letters.
There are seven places in the small reading room of the house archive.
The researchers sit behind a pane of glass, an archivist on duty has everything in view.
Not that something is missing.
Research inquiries are recorded in an incoming book
But the species of unrestrained Ludwig admirers and conspiracy theorists (“den hams kills”), who would perhaps only too like to privately delight in one or the other Wittelsbach document, cannot be seen in the archive anyway.
You don't have to deal with dry and drawn-out research.
There are 150 to 200 visitors a year with serious research concerns, plus written research inquiries that Immler meticulously lists (“we're a bit old-fashioned”) in an entry book.
There are already 1000 entries per year.
Access to the archive has become, well, liberalized over the years and has become much easier.
It used to be different.
One of Immler's predecessors, the historian Hans Rall (1912-1998), was an ardent monarchist who left a submissive biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
There was no place in the archive for critical researchers.
All applications go to Duke Franz
It's different today.
Archive director Immler is a historian himself.
He knows that unhindered access to archives is the basis of historical studies.
However, there is one problem: Immler cannot decide for himself who uses the archive.
Because the archives belong to the Wittelsbach family.
So he forwards all applications.
He has the trust of Duke Franz (87), the head of the family.
Immler politely addresses him as “Your Royal Highness”, although of course he knows that Franz is not a king.
"I stick to tradition."
Franz sometimes has difficult research cases explained to him personally.
And there certainly are.
The family's recent history is delicate, especially when the protagonists are still alive.
Example: So far there has been no work that shines into the difficult relationship between Crown Prince Rupprecht and his son Albrecht.
The two fell apart at times - which may have something to do with Albrecht's first wife, Maria Countess Draskovic von Trakoscan, who died early on.
She is the mother of Duke Franz. Curiosity for research ends here.
“It then shows that it is a family archive,” says Immler.
And it should be noted that even the average person would hardly give a foreign researcher access to private family letters.
+
Head of the Wittelsbach family: Duke Franz, born in 1933.
© Tobias Hase / dpa
Immler knows almost everything about Ludwig II.
If you ask him whether Ludwig really wore the blue ermine coat with which the painter Gabriel Schachinger, as Grand Master of the Order of St. George Knights, painted him after his death, he gives you the information without thinking too long.
Yes, of course, once a year when he was knighted in the residence, Ludwig was wearing his coat.
He also adds that it can be viewed today in the Wittelsbach Museum in Hohenschwangau.
The coat, not the picture (it hangs in Herrenchiemsee Palace).
There is still a need for research on Ludwig II.
Immler sees a need for research on Ludwig II - one would hardly believe it in view of the abundance of literature on the fairy tale king.
He is looking forward to a dissertation that will be devoted to the deep piety of Ludwig II.
Yes, our Ludwig was very pious, but he had a very divided relationship with the Catholic official church.
The theologian who wrote the dissertation and prepared it for publication sat in Immler's archives for years.
What is missing, however, is a modern scientific biography of Ludwig.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in sight, says Immler.
He has to know - he is at the source.
You can find even more about King Ludwig II on our topic page.
