German acrobat Otto Witte is allegedly crowned King of Albania - August 13th, 1913

On this day in 1913, according to German legend, a circus performer named Otto Witte conned his way onto the Albanian throne.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that proves there's more than one way to make history.
I'm Gabe Lucier, and in this episode we're talking about
the short lived and likely imaginary reign of Otto White,

(00:23):
aka the impostor King of Albania. The day was August thirteenth,
nineteen thirteen. According to German legend, a circus performer named
Otto White conned his way onto the Albanian throne. The

(00:45):
traveling acrobat had noticed a strong resemblance between himself and
Albania's king, to be a Turkish prince whom most people
had only seen in pictures. Sensing an opportunity, White decided
to show up in our, Albania's capital and impersonate the
prince ahead of his arrival. His performance fooled officials so

(01:06):
completely that he wound up spending five glorious days as
the country's new leader, or at least that's what he claimed.
Although clearly far fetched, the story first circulated by White himself,
had an air of plausibility due to the recent political
upheaval in Albania in the early twentieth century, the Balkan

(01:28):
country had just declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire
and was known to be looking for a new protector
to help keep the peace during the transition. Most of
the independence leaders favored appointing of foreign born ruler to
prevent accusations of sectarian bias, and one of the top
names in contention was Halim Edan, a Turkish prince whose

(01:51):
religious beliefs were thought to be in line with Albanian Muslims.
News of that potential pick spread throughout the Balkan Peninsula
and eventually reached the ears of Otto White, who was
in the midst of a tour in Budapest. A professional
performer by the age of eight, White had traveled several
continents as a magician, lion tamer, and acrobat, but he

(02:15):
was perhaps most renowned as a teller of tall tales.
For example, he often boasted that his talents as a
magician had earned him the title of honorary chief among
a Pygmy tribe in Africa. He also claimed that he
had once tried and nearly succeeded in eloping with the
Emperor of Ethiopia's daughter. White found the makings of his

(02:39):
next story when he came across haleim Medean's picture in
a newspaper and realized they were each other's spitting image.
That wasn't all, though, Because White had learned to speak
fluent Turkish in his travels, he didn't just look like
the Prince, he could sound like him too. This coincidence
got White to think, thinking, what if he were to

(03:01):
present himself as Albania's prospective king. Could his skills as
a performer, along with his looks and his speech, be
enough to actually get him seated on the throne. It
was too tantalizing a prospect for the showman to pass up,
especially since even if the whole thing fell apart, he'd
still walk away with a new story to tell. White

(03:24):
set his bold scheme and motion by sending a series
of telegrams in which he pretending to be Prince Aidan,
announced that he was on his way to the Albanian
capital to accept the throne. He borrowed a luxurious costume
fit for a king, and convinced one of his colleagues,
a sword swallower named Max Schlepzig, to accompany him as

(03:46):
his bodyguard. After arriving in the capital city, of Duris,
White and his accomplice managed to pull off the greatest
stunt of their careers. They convinced local officials and the
public that White was not a German circus performer, but
in fact a Turkish prince, and so on August thirteenth,

(04:07):
nineteen thirteen, Otto White was supposedly crowned the King of Albania.
He's said to have gotten quite a lot done in
his five brief days on the throne. He held military parades,
appointed a cabinet, declared amnesty for prisoners, and even started
a war with Montenegro just for the heck of it.

(04:28):
Mostly though, King Otto lounged around in a royal tent
enjoying the company of a twenty five woman harem or again,
so he claimed. White's reign came to an abrupt end
on August eighteenth, when rumors began to circulate that the
nephew of the Turkish Sultan, the real Edan, had been

(04:49):
seen on holiday in Vienna. White knew the jig was
almost up, so before his real identity could be revealed,
he and Schlepzig high tailed it back to Germany. After
a brief stop at the Albanian Treasury. Today, Auto White
is generally thought to have made up the entire escapade,

(05:10):
or at least to have greatly exaggerated it. Still, that
didn't stop him from telling the story every chance he got,
including through reenactments of his alleged coronation. White's dedication to
his story made him a living legend in his home country.
He insisted on being addressed as the former King of Albania,

(05:30):
and German authorities even allowed him to include the title
on his official ID card. He also had the claim
engraved on his tombstone when he died, which incidentally was
on August thirteenth, nineteen fifty eight, the forty fifth anniversary
of his coronation. It's debated to this day whether Otto

(05:52):
White was a chronic liar, a con man, a committed
practical joker, or something in between. The one thing that
pretty much everyone agrees on is that he was not
the King of Albania. For one thing, there's no record
of any Turkish prince named Halem Medean, though Prince Burhan
Medean was offered the Albanian throne in nineteen fourteen. You

(06:16):
could argue that White mixed up the name and the date,
but there's also no local record of Adean's coronation or
of White's ruse being discovered. Then again, as White and
his supporters pointed out, if your country had been duped
into putting a circus clown on the throne, you probably
wouldn't go around advertising it either. I'm gay, Blues gay,

(06:45):
and hopefully you now know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep
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any comments or suggestions, feel free to send them my
way by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

(07:06):
Thanks to kas B. Bias for producing the show, and
thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back here
again tomorrow for another Day in History class