CastleView: The Fairytale Castles of King Ludwig II

Photo: BBC
BBC's "The Fairytale Castles of King Ludwig II" by Dan Cruickshank gives an inside glimpse into the three fairytale castles of King Ludwig II of Bavaria: Schloss Neuschwanstein, Schloss Herrenchiemsee and Schloss Linderhof - three fantasies come to life.


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The (In)Famous Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg Will, Round 3: When There Is An Estate Worth Half a Billion Up For Grabs, That's Apparently Where Cordial Family Relations End

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...at least here on Confessions of a Castleholic, I'm sure it has been more rounds for the family. Just the other week I said over on Twitter that deposed royal families without their family disputes would only be half the fun - and one of the most intriguing family disputes within the German nobility has reared is ugly head again as of late: The inheritance dispute within the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg family. It is based on a will that was drawn up during the days of the Third Reich and includes some, well, racist, to say the least, stipulations. Yours truly still has a hard time to understand that someone would actually try to enforce those... Then again, there is an estate said to be worth about a half of a billion euros up for grabs - and that's probably where most friendships (or cordial family relations) end.
(To catch up: What is this will?What is the dispute about?)
To recap: In 1943, Fürst Gustav Albrecht of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg drew up a will for his inheri…
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Schloss Köpenick

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In Germany, Köpenick isn't famous for its castle but for an infamous imposter, the Captain of Köpenick, who even amused the last German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II. What did the imposter do? Wilhelm Voigt masqueraded as a Prussian military officer, rounded up a bunch of soldiers under his "command" and "confiscated" more than 4,000 German gold mark from the municipal treasury of Köpenick. It was on October 16, 1906, that the out-of-work shoemaker donned a second-hand military captain's uniform he had purchased in a store, walked out into the street and assumed control of a company of soldiers marching past.  He led them to the town hall of Köpenick, at the time a small town just outside of Berlin and today part of the German capital, arrested the mayor and the treasurer on charges of embezzlement, and took possession of 4,000 Mark from the town treasury. He then disappeared with the money but was later found out and arrested. Affectionately known as the &qu…
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The "Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds" or How the Bavarians Probably Got the Best Deal When the Monarchy Ended

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They came to power during the 12th century in the days of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa - and on November 7, 1918, their head of the family was the first German King forced to abdicate. But in the end, the former Royal Family of Bavaria may just have gotten the best deals of all the formerly reigning families in Germany. You see, the German nobility is full of curious inheritance cases like the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg's or the Thurn und Taxis'. In addition to these internal family matters, there are also some interesting constructions between former German reigning family and the German state - or one of its federal states. Case in point: The Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds. It was established as a public foundation in 1923 within the framework of the apportionment of assets and liabilities between the Free State of Bavaria and their former royal family, the Wittelsbachs.
Five years prior, in 1918, the monarchies in Germany had come to their ends and all German-…
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