But murder is possible, as Katerina von Burg sets out in her description of the Ludwig’s last days, which were spent with Dr. von Gudden and his examiner at Schloss Berg, Dr. Müller: “…Unlike genuine paranoids, Ludwig at no time expressed the fear that everyone was against him. On the contrary, he continued to trust people who were most definitely his enemies. He merely pinpointed a small minority group and stuck to his story, and this was what most disturbed Müller who had naturally encountered many paranoids and schizophrenics in the course of his work and was accustomed to persecution complexes…”⁶ Müller’s later summing up of his interview with Ludwig was that “I was with the King for about three-quarters of an hour and during that time I had more questions put to me than in the State Examinations. If I had not already been informed of the patient’s bearing by Dr. Gudden and convinced of his illness during our first and second visits to Neuschwanstein, then I would never have had occasion to make my diagnosis.” (Author’s italics, von Burg, 297-8).

On the late afternoon of the 13th, when it rained constantly, Ludwig remarked to his nurse and body servant, Mauder, gloomily that “it is still raining.” June weather in Bavaria is notoriously bad, but again, Mauder got the strong impression that Ludwig was annoyed by it because it would hamper some personal plan. The King then added, as von Burg tells us, “and such weather for the consecration of the church at Grosshessenloh’ – the new church there, you know. Such bad luck.” (von Burg, 300). If Ludwig was crazy, why would he make such a mundane, everyday comment? Even von Gudden himself confessed that he was ‘completely bewildered as to Ludwig’s docility, his amiability and calm, and that he agreed “to all suggestions (…) without demur”.’ (von Burg, 301) Furthermore, why did von Gudden go for a walk along the lake, alone and without aides, with a man that he himself had certified to be a raving madman? Why did he insist that no one was to follow them, not even at a distance? And, most damningly of all, why did von Gudden go walking with Ludwig to a vulnerable location earlier in the day, deliberately sending back the keeper who had been provided for his protection? It makes no sense except to cast further doubt on von Gudden’s credibility and, indeed, von Burg has no qualms about Gudden’s motives: “Surely he would only have done that if he had known without any doubt that the ‘patient’ was perfectly normal or, more sinister still if he had known that some third person, armed with a weapon of some kind, already waited in the vicinity for a suitable opportunity to present itself or alternatively, carrying out a rehearsal for some later attack.” (von Burg, 298-9).