Otto Witte

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Otto Witte (1868--August 13, 1958) was a circus acrobat who managed to be crowned King of Albania.

In 1913, when Albania broke off from the Ottoman Empire, it invited Sultan Halim Eddine's nephew to come and be crowned king. Noticing his own resemblance to the Sultan's nephew, Witte traveled to Albania with a friend, the sword-swallower Max Schlepsig. He succeeded in being crowned king on August 13, 1913. Over the next five days, he enjoyed his harem and declared war on Montenegro before his ruse was discovered. Taking a substantial portion of the kingdom's treasury, he and Schlepsig managed to escape the palace with the aid of the harem and they eventually made their way out of Albania.

His story was adapted for Harry Turtledove's fantasy novel Every Inch a King.

In an article in the Dutch magazine Kijk in probably the early 1970s, it could be seen that Otto Witte later on in life, still had mentioned in his passport "ex-king of Albania", apparently since the coronation went according to legal procedure, and therefore he was legally king.

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