Otto Witte, the clown who became King of Albania
In a muddy courtyard in the heart of Hamburg, an old man with a thick white moustache sits outside a ramshackle wooden carriage. On the caravan door, a sign reads “Otto Witte, carny”, but everyone addresses him as “Your Majesty”. Because that man, dressed in Ottoman uniform, with golden epaulettes, sequins and medals pinned on his chest, has been King of Albania for five days.
Otto Witte was born on October 16 1861, in Dresdorf, East Germany, but grew up with his grandparents on the outskirts of Berlin, because his parents were always on the move with their travelling circus. Otto also showed a vocation for that world and, while still a child, became an acrobat and fire-eater. As a teenager, he amused the public with his tiger-taming skills and magic tricks. He didn’t learn to read and write, but had an aptitude for predicting the future. At least he was very good at making people believe it, and his skill, lying, would come in very handy.
Adventures around the World
At the age of twenty-four, Otto Witte was a guest at the court of Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia. A quick eye-to-eye contact was enough for the negus’ fourteen-year-old daughter to fall in love with him. An eye-to-eye contact that cost a lot to the German heartthrob. Although he tried to escape with his beloved, the two were caught rapidly. The girl was forgiven by her father, but the young man was imprisoned in Addis Ababa and sentenced to death. However, when the executioner went to lead him to the gallows, he found the cell empty. Witte was already in Kenya to hunt lions, then crossed the Sahara with a caravan of Bedouins, reached the Middle East, enlisted in the Foreign Legion and left for South America.
Back in Europe, the young adventurer was determined to lead a quieter life, sort of. During a trip to Switzerland, he befriended a Soviet leader, Vladimir Lenin, to whom he dispensed political advice. But the role of counsellor quickly grew on him; he was born for adventure. He became a diver in the Mediterranean, engaged in all kinds of trade and was captured by Ottoman brigands while crossing the Balkans. Fascinated by their culture, as soon as he gained his freedom, he moved to Istanbul, where everyone mistook him for a Turk because of his medium build, dark hair and thick moustache. Perhaps it was precisely those features that helped him make a meteoric career in the secret service. Within a few months, he was promoted to officer and sent on a mission to Sofia. There, Otto Witte got his hands on a photo that would change his life forever. It was a portrait of Halim Eddine, the sultan’s nephew. He and Eddine were two peas in a pod.
Albania, finally
After four hundred years of Turkish rule, Albania gained its independence in 1912 but was in a stalemate, waiting for a government to be formed. Neighbouring states were eager to fill that void. Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and the Turks sent troops and diplomatic representatives. Otto Witte left Bulgaria and reached Vienna, where he joined Max, an old friend he met in Spanish prisons when they were both serving sentences for fraud. The two sent a sequence of forged telegrams to Essad Pasha, commander of the Ottoman forces in Shkodra, in which they announced that Halim Eddine, the sultan’s nephew, was on his way to Albania where he would take command of the troops stationed in the central area of the country. ‘Years ago, I appeared in the role of a Turkish prince in a theatre,’ thought Witte, ‘why can’t I also be one in life?
Otto and Max rented Ottoman officers’ uniforms from a theatre costume shop and decorated them with medals, sequins and every ornament worthy of a prince and his assistant. They then reached Rijeka and embarked on a steamer bound for Durres. Upon landing in the Albanian port, however, the two were arrested by the Serbs who controlled the city. They mistook them (obviously) for Ottoman officers. ‘We are only theatrical performers’, they justified themselves, ‘here for a show’, and proved that by performing magic tricks and acrobatics. The Serbs had a few laughs and then let them go. They still had no idea of what the two cunning tricksters were planning.
Having reached the Ottoman troops in central Albania, Witte introduced himself as Halim Eddine, thanks to the forged telegrams, and inflamed the spirits of his soldiers with an ambitious plan: to invade Belgrade. His popularity also grew among the Albanians. Eddine embodied the fledgling nation’s dream of occupying a central place on the international chessboard. Moreover, like most of them, he was Muslim, and many believed he was the right man to become the first king of independent Albania.
Otto I, King of Albania
Thus, in February 1913, the fake Halim Eddine was crowned with the name Otto I, set up a government and appointed his friend Max as minister. Parades and firework displays were organised to celebrate the event. As the new king walked through the streets, people threw rose petals from their balconies, and Otto didn’t even disdain a few visits to the harem that the Turks had organised for him. News of the coronation spread quickly through Europe and even reached the real Eddine in Turkey. It didn’t take long for Commander Essad Pasha to receive a telegram from Istanbul revealing the deception. Witte tried to stall, claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy but already had an escape plan ready. During the night, he and Max grabbed as much as they could from the royal palace, disguised themselves as beggars and secretly boarded a ship bound for Italy.
Back home
After the outbreak of the First World War, Otto Witte put an end to his life as a globetrotter. He returned to Berlin, raised cattle, owned an orchard and engaged in all kinds of trade. He called his daughter Princess Elfriede and expected to be called ‘Your Majesty’. He even founded a political party and ran for the German presidential elections. He got many votes, although he was not elected. After this experience, he moved to Hamburg and lived in what he called his castle on wheels, his carriage, where he was found lifeless on the morning of 13 August 1958. Next to his deathbed, he left business cards with the words ‘Otto Witte, former ruler and pretender to the throne of Albania’.
Pseudologia fantastica
Witte’s story is so incredible that it has been repeatedly reported in German newspapers for several decades. Today it has gone viral on the internet, been performed in theatres and inspired a novel. It only has one problem. In Albania, nobody knows Otto Witte’s name.
Those who have tried to put together the historical sources of these events soon realised something was amiss. The names mentioned by Witte in his narrative are real. But Essad Pasha never moved from Shkodra on the days when Witte claims to have met him. There are no reports of Turkish troops in central Albania when Witte says he took command of them. The Ottoman royal family members include three Halim Eddine, but none of these appears to have ever played a role in Albania or the Balkans. The story of founding a political movement with broad support also does not hold water. There is no trace of Witte’s party in the historical documents concerning the presidential elections in which he is said to have run. And even if one were to attribute to him all the preferences gathered by the minor parties that cannot be traced today, they would be a handful of votes. Basically, in his tale, Witte puts together real facts and false ones supported by plausible elements. The modus operandi of a good con artist.
The only source of the incredible story of the clown who became King of Albania is Otto Witte himself. He is the one who told those events in two autobiographical volumes published in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The story was picked up and emphasised in the newspapers of the time because it appealed to the people as a symbolic representation of the superiority of the German intellect. After the Italian invasion of Albania, during the Nazi period, Witte’s books became unavailable. Whether real or not, the facts could be read as a mockery of an ally of the Reich.
At the end of the Second World War, it was again Witte who brought out the story, when he told it every day outside his carriage. Once again, the newspapers were fascinated by his adventures, and no one undertook to investigate further. Why not believe him again if they had believed him many years before?
Today, Otto Witte is buried at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. The inscription on his grave reads: “Otto Witte. 1878–1958. Former King of Albania’, and it is fair that we remember him this way. After all, Otto Witte never lied to deceive anyone or for financial gain. According to historian Michael Schmidt-Necke, this is a case of pseudologia fantastica. Witte himself was convinced that he had lived the experiences he told about. He needed to lie first of all to himself, to boost his self-esteem and protect himself from the judgement of others. And deep down, perhaps, because his dream has always been that of every jester: to sit, at least for a day, on the king’s throne.
To know more:
- «ALBANIA: The Man Who Was King». Time, 25 agosto 1958.
- «Beinahe Reichspräsident». Der Spiegel, 3 ottobre 1947.
- «Berlins gekrönter König». Tagesspiegel, 19 febbraio 2013.
- Michael Schmidt-Necke. Pseudologia phantastica und Orientalismus — Albanien als imaginäre Bühne für Spiridion Gopčević, Karl May und Otto Witte.
Main photo: janwillemsen — CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
