Culture

A fairytale? Kaspar Hauser - Crown prince of Baden

Numerous stories of political power, plot and scheme surround the hereditary prince of Baden, born on 29 September 1812, in Karlsruhe. We are safe to assume that the prince did not die in his cot, but that he was replaced by a dead toddler in a scheme to remove a rival to the throne of Baden.



What remains unclear, however, is the legend of how the child - later to be known as Kaspar Hauser - was brought to Schloss Beuggen on the river Rhein and stayed here with his nanny Anna Dabone, a former lady-in-waiting, until 1816. Kaspar's imprisonment that followed in Pilsach Castle near Neumarkt in the Oberpfalz region is also uncertain.

Nonetheless, there is a consensus that the assassination attempts on Kaspar Hauser following his appearance in Nürnberg were politically motivated in a bid to definitely remove the possible and hated rival to the throne of Baden.

On 17 December 1833, Kaspar Hauser died at the age of 21, following the second assassination attempt.