Issue H021 of 17 March 2002

The Bavarians of Greece

A hundred and seventy years ago, Otto of Wittelsbach was appointed as the first king of the newly created state of Hellas (Greece). Thirty years later, in 1862, a revolution forced Otto of Greece to abdicate and leave the country along with his Greek queen Amalia. However, some of the descendants of the Bavarians who came along with him have stayed and still live in Greece, especially in the northern suburbs of Athens (Neo Herakleio, Amarousion-Marousi, Pefki, Lykovrysi). Therefore, the Bavarian link in the modern history of Greece is still there.

Otto was one of the sons of King Ludwig of Bavaria and he was appointed King of Greece by the three great powers of his era, namely England, France and Russia. The three European countries acted as protecting powers of Greece, which had just been declared independent after a four hundred-year (400 years) occupation by the Ottoman Turks. The independence of the Greeks after a long war (1821-1827) with the Ottomans signified the beginning of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.

Although Otto was an appointed King, he must have come to love the country and the people he was asked to rule. When he was forced to leave in 1862 he wrote in his last royal edict to the Greeks: "I decided to leave at the moment the place (Greece) I loved and love most heartily." When they arrived in Germany, Otto and his Greek wife, Amalia, decided that they would speak Greek every day from 6 to 8 in the evening so that they will be reminded of Greece. Germany and Greece commemorated this idiosyncratic affection in 1999 when a large-scale exhibition of Otto's rule memorabilia was opened first in Munch and then in 2000 in Athens.

Ludwig, Otto's father, was a true lover of Ancient Greece, a fact that was proven by his collection of sculpture from the temple of Athena on Aigina island (nowadays in the Munich Sculpture Museum). This collection was bought legally at an auction in 1812. Ludwig's love for Greece was also linked to the emerging German nationalism and identity as opposed to French and British expansionism in Europe. It was natural, therefore, that the King of Bavaria would feel for the independence of the Greeks in the 1820s.

Ludwig sent to Greece his son Otto to rule, the best of his administrators to set up a state organization in Greece and a few thousand of soldiers to protect the new king and the monarchy. Moreover, hundreds of Bavarian civilians, including technicians, engineers, doctors and scholars, also came to Greece voluntarily and proved the high fever of German philellenism (friends of Greece) of the era. They were all given a two-volume introduction to the geography, the history, the language, and the people of Greece specially prepared by the Bavarian royal court. Peter Hess, the royal portraitist, was ordered to follow Otto in Greece and be inspired by the country for new works. The Bavarian engineers even brought to Greece a winch to be used in the first restoration of the Acropolis buildings.

A hundred and seventy years have elapsed since the appointment of Otto of Greece and a hundred and forty since his forced abdication. History proved that love alone could not guarantee the duration of his monarchy. During his reign Otto remained a weak and unable to make decisions monarch, a faithful Catholic in an Orthodox Christian country, a childless king when a successor was badly needed. However, those who followed him did not leave. They settled down in Greece, mixed with the Greeks, and linked their fortunes with their new fatherland.

Peter Hess: Theseion and the Acropolis



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