Travel Guide Ansbach

Situated some 50 km southwest of Nuremberg, this small town of 41,000 inhabitants is the capital of Middle Franconia. In 748, St. Gumbertus established a Benedictine monastery here, and later, at the very end of the 14th century, a branch of the powerful Hohenzollern family chose Ansbach as their place of residence, building the opulent "Margraves' Residence". In 1792, the principality of Ansbach became part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and then of Bavaria in 1806. Ansbach is also known for the mystery of Kaspar Hauser. Once upon a time, a "wild" child was found in a Nuremberg street at the age of 16: he couldn't speak. It was soon rumored that this child had grown up far removed from human society. Today, this hypothesis is disputed. Residing in Ansbach from 1830 to 1833, he fascinated the whole of Europe for a long time before being stabbed to death by an unknown man in Ansbach. He was nicknamed "Europe's orphan". Rumor had it (and some theories still hold) that he was the son of Grand Duke Charles of Baden and Stéphanie de Beauharnais. DNA analysis in 2002 confirmed that the child belonged to the princely family, but these results have been disputed. Several hypotheses have been put forward, one of which is that the child was the subject of an inhuman experiment, and that his deliberate removal from all contact was necessary to study the results. Subject of a psychopathic experiment or Crown Prince of Baden? To this day, the enigma remains unsolved.