To name just a few titles: The “Sissi” trilogy from 1955 with Romy Schneider, the Visconti film “Ludwig II.” from 1973, the series “Princess Sissi”, which appeared in 1998 on the 100th anniversary of Empress Elisabeth’s death, or the “Sisi” series from RTL Plus, which was published for the first time in the past few days. Every year, just in time for Christmas, films are broadcast about Empress Elisabeth, who spent her youth at Possenhofen Castle. And every year the Sisi fan community gets excited when myths and fairy tales are portrayed as facts in the programs.
In fact, according to Rosemarie Mann-Stein, director of the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Museum in Possenhofen, the film characters of the Austrian Empress have little in common with the historical personality. The museum guides adjust to this and try to refute the invented stories from a technical point of view.
With regard to the latest Sisi series, the museum director received a particularly large number of angry emails this Christmas. The comments range from “cheesy”, “directly unbearable” and “your hair stands on end” to “disgusting fake news”, “film freak” or “expensive impertinence”. Museum guide Angelika Nuscheler quotes Italian comments on Facebook: There is talk of deep shock and that the Empress was stabbed a second time by this fake news.
She is very familiar with the history of Sisi: Angelika Nuscheler from the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Museum in Possenhofen tries to refute invented stories from a technical point of view.
(Photo: Nila Thiel)
“In our museum in Possenhofen we will once again have great difficulty explaining to visitors what was on show in terms of false, invented and absurd”, explains Mann-Stein. In the romantic ideal world story from the 1950s, for example, Sisi’s sister Helene was originally supposed to be betrothed to Emperor Franz Joseph I. But no evidence of this agreement between Sisi’s mother Ludovica and her sister Archduchess Sophie, the mother of Franz Joseph, can be found, according to Mann-Stein. “We have been fighting this myth of the offended Helene for years,” she explains. The fact is that Emperor Franz Joseph spontaneously fell in love with Sisi when they met in Ischl.
The museum manager is particularly annoyed when historical facts are assigned to the wrong date. She cites the RTL series as an example, in which members of the Hungarian uprising ambush and attack Elisabeth in the forest. There was an assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph. However, that took place long before the engagement to Elisabeth. Mann-Stein is particularly outraged by a fictitious “sexist story” according to which the Austrian emperor is said to have gone to a prostitute named Fanny in a brothel in Starnberg after visiting his fiancée at Possenhofen Castle.
Head of Rosemarie Mann-Stein in her Empress Elisabeth Museum.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
There was never a brothel in Starnberg and the name Fanny is mixed up with Sisi’s maid, explains Nuscheler. Fanny was a respectable woman who, according to Mann-Stein’s hairdresser, was at the Vienna Burgtheater before she was hired by Elisabeth and invented the empress’s famous braided crown hairstyle. The museum director admits that Emperor Franz Joseph did have affairs. Mann-Stein is convinced that Elisabeth was traumatized by her father Duke Max’s numerous infidelities and deeply abhorred such behavior. After an affair with her husband Franz Joseph, she reacted accordingly by traveling. However, according to Mann-Stein, it is wrong that all of their trips were an escape. Elisabeth had repeatedly had a cough and fever in Vienna, and cures were prescribed accordingly. Today, according to the museum director, it is known that the empress had an allergic reaction to the wood of her bedroom furniture.
Even during her lifetime, the empress was not spared from rumors. She was said to have had an affair with Count Gyula Andrássy – and that he was allegedly the father of Elisabeth’s daughter Marie Valerie. “They had no relationship,” explains Mann-Stein. Women in these circles were never alone, and Andrássy had a happy marriage.
The story that Elisabeth and her cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, wrote poems that they left behind in a secretary in the casino on Roseninsel, also belongs to the realm of legends, according to Nuscheler. In her opinion, the secret meetings with Ludwig II on Rose Island must also be put into perspective. Evidently there were only two meetings. The size specifications of the imperial couple were also embellished from the start. Although Franz Joseph was 1.68 meters shorter than Elisabeth with her 1.72 meters, he towers over her in all the depictions.
To this day, the Empress’s diet mania, her body cult, her excessive sport or her forced marches are topics. Back then, women who played sport caused a sensation, for example when Sisi was the only woman to take part in the dangerous parforce hunts. “Elisabeth was a fascinating personality,” emphasizes Nuscheler, although she was certainly eccentric. She paid strict attention to her figure, but that’s normal for celebrities today. Mann-Stein praises the Empress as a spontaneous person who always supported poor people. Unfortunately, this is not addressed in the broadcasts. “There are also excellent programs, but none of the series shows their charm.”