There is no documentary evidence that the Countess of Hochberg ordered or participated in any such substitution. The theory’s case for her as the architect rests entirely on the circumstantial argument of motive, combined with the claim that the infant prince did not actually die in 1812 as the official records indicate. The official records — baptism, medical attendance, death certification, burial — have been examined by multiple historians, including Mittelstädt in 1876, and found to be consistent documents without obvious signs of tampering.
The Countess of Hochberg died in 1820, before Kaspar Hauser’s appearance in Nuremberg. She could not be questioned, investigated, or confronted with any claim about her alleged role. This chronological fact has been both a source of frustration for those who wanted to investigate the theory more directly and, in some ways, a convenience for the theory itself: the alleged architect was unavailable for interrogation.
The historical record of the Countess of Hochberg is that of a woman who navigated her own complex position in the Baden court with considerable skill. She is not documented as a figure of exceptional villainy or unusual ruthlessness. The theory requires attributing to her an extraordinary crime — the stealing of an heir to the succession, the elaborate concealment of that theft over decades, and presumably the arrangement of Hauser’s later abandonment and death — on the basis of motive alone, without documentary support.
The 2024 DNA study did not address the Countess of Hochberg’s alleged role. It addressed only the genetic question of whether Hauser belonged to the Baden maternal line. The answer was negative. If Hauser was not Stéphanie’s child in the maternal line, the entire structure of the theory — which depends on that specific identity — collapses regardless of what the Countess of Hochberg may or may not have done.