Unlike London, Berlin has few tales of ghosts and spooks (something to do with German practicality and reason perhaps). But it does have some that stand out.
One of them is the White Lady, ghost of Elector Joachim II “Hector”'s mistress, Anna Sydow, also known as the “Fair Foundrywoman” who died in November 1575.
Married to gun-founder Michael Dietrich (whose humiliation as a cuckolded spouse was generously compensated by the ruler) and mother of three, she became Elector's favourite mistress and was treated by him like his par. Which did not bring her much sympathy from the people. Unlike the Elector himself, whose ribaldry and bon viveur lifestyle won him quiet admiration of many subjects.
Anna Dietrich nee Sydow lived in the Jagdschloß Grunewald, or what is now the oldest still existing Berlin palace, built in the 1540s upon Joachim's orders. There she spent her time waiting for the Elector’s visits and bringing up their children. Anna was also famously fond of hunting and would accompany her partner dressed up in man’s clothes (sensible choice considering how for centuries women ended up dead or incapacitated after horse-riding in their rocks and dresses, forced to sit sideways).
It was perhaps an illicit but a very harmonious and happy relationship. No wonder then that Joachim tried to secure his lover’s future by asking his son and heir, Johann Georg, to swear to provide for Anna and her children after Joachim’s death. Which Johann duly did.
Well, reader, he lied: after in January 1571 Joachim died in a hunting accident in Köpenick, Anna was arrested and locked up in Juliusturm (now the oldest existing building in Berlin) in Zitadelle Spandau - Fortress Spandau, ironically built at Joachim Hector’s behest.
Anna remained in captivity there till her death four years later.
But this is not the end of the story. Anna is said to have returned with a vengeance: she showed her ghoulish self at Schloß Cölln (future Berlin Stadtschloss, the city royal palace, before Berlin and Cölln became one for good and the palace got expanded).
She appeared to Elector Johann Georg - the same who broke his promise (by the way, not unlike his own father) and had her imprisoned - eight days before his death. And she kept showing up prior to the Grim Reaper’s visit whenever a Hohenzollern was about to die.
She is said to still be hanging around, even the Hohenzollerns have practically left town. Perhaps Anna doesn’t mind. After 450 years one has seen it all anyway.
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