Johann Georg Schrepfer

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Johann Georg Schrepfer also Johann Georg Schröpfer (* baptized March 26, 1738 in Nuremberg ; † October 8, 1774 in Leipzig ), according to other information, born in 1730, was a German Freemason , impostor , magician and occultist . He was a pioneer of Séance -Entertainment and has the one of the first magic lantern used to project ghosts. He gave demonstrations in his Leipzig coffee house , where he convinced the audience that he could speak to the dead.

Life

Schrepfer was baptized on March 26, 1738 in the St. Sebald Church in Nuremberg and was the son of the innkeeper Zum Roten Roß at Weinmarkt 14 and from 1744 host of Zum Goldenen Lamm in Breiten Gasse 58. When his father filed for bankruptcy in 1744, left Johann Georg Schrepfer took over the city with two other sons. According to his own account, he was a Prussian hussar for a while , and told others that he was an officer in the imperial service. He came to Leipzig in 1760 when the city was occupied by Prussia and initially worked as a waiter (wine tavern). In September 1761 he married the daughter of a master tailor. In 1769 he bought a coffee house in Leipzig's Barfußgäßchen (from 1841 Zill's tunnel ) and received a license to play billiards and to serve coffee and tea. By buying a house he was heavily in debt.

In 1772 at the latest he founded the "Lodge of the real masons". Schrepfer himself had never been accepted as a Freemason himself. In 1772 he held meetings of his box in his coffee house. According to his statements, he had the backing of the Jesuits and he used and was probably connected with Rosicrucian ideas (he often made long trips to centers of the Rosicrucians in Frankfurt and Berlin and after his death important members of his lodge played an important role in the Gold and Rosicrucians). Posing as a Scottish bricklayer, he performed evocations and apparitions with the aid of projections from a magic lantern that helped him attract members of the prestigious Minerva Municipal Lodge of the Strict Observance Freemasons , founded in 1766, to his lodge. At the same time he lowered the Minerva lodge, so that it summoned him to her place in 1773 and advised moderation. Instead of following, he disclosed their secret rituals in pamphlets. At first he was able to assert himself and was even recognized as a Freemason by the Duke of Braunschweig.

Schrepfer's performances used a variety of techniques. He made friends with the pharmacist and naturalist Johann Heinrich Linck , who supported him in the procurement of the necessary optical equipment and chemicals. Some of his techniques were adopted by Paul Philidor and later by Étienne-Gaspard Robert . Philidor called his representations "Schröpferesque Geisterscheinings". This developed into phantasmagoria , a very popular form of theater across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

He began to publicly divulge the secrets of the Minerva Lodge and thus unsettled the entire nationwide order. The lodge called on its grand master , the Dresden Duke Carl von Curland , son of the former Elector Friedrich August II., For help. Thereupon Curland had him illegally arrested on September 17, 1773 in Linck's garden . What Schrepfer successfully complained to the Leipzig Council. The matter was settled internally and Schrepfer was finally even invited to Dresden, where he had "ghosts" appear for members of the high and court nobility in the Kurländer Palais . Those present were actually so enthusiastic that they trusted Schrepfer.

Schrepfer used the trust placed in him and invented a fortune that is allegedly deposited in Swiss banks - electoral Saxon Cammercreditcassen notes worth millions of thalers . The Saxon nobility fell for the hoax and granted Schrepfer tens of thousands of thalers in exchange for promissory notes. Even the conference minister Friedrich Ludwig von Wurmb, who was actually responsible for these Saxon government bonds and their protection, was deceived by Schrepfer.

On September 15, 1774, Schrepfer's treasure chests with his alleged Cammercreditcassen notes, which Wurmb had brought from Frankfurt to Leipzig, were opened in Leipzig in the presence of senior lodge brothers (Schrepfer himself was not present, as he said he was traveling to Schkeuditz near the had to travel to the Prussian border). The contents of the boxes were worthless. The cheated lodge brothers were now faced with a problem as a public complaint would have resulted in an embarrassing investigation. In particular, the connection between important personalities in Saxony and the reactionary, anti-Enlightenment secret order of the Gold and Rosicrucians would have become apparent.

death

There are various theories about Schrepfer's death. What is certain is that Schrepfer died on the morning of October 8, 1774 in the Leipzig Rosental under mysterious circumstances from a gunshot wound. Five of his deceived supporters were present, the chamberlains of the Saxon Duke of Carl von Curland, Hans Rudolf von Bischoffwerder and Christian Friedrich von Hopfgarten, who was also a war councilor, the Görlitz merchants Fröhlich and Petri and the Leipzig lawyer Johann Heinrich Hoffmann. They had all met the evening before in Schrepfer's house and agreed to go for a walk in the Rosenthal, leaving so early that everything happened in complete darkness. At 5:30 in the morning, Schrepfer was already dead, according to the witnesses by suicide with a gun.

One theory assumes that Schrepfer went crazy because of the illusions he created and shot himself in front of an audience, only to be resurrected again.

Another theory suggests that Schrepfer did not commit suicide, but was murdered by his companions as part of a conspiracy .

The witness statements recorded by the Leipzig court contradict each other; the two war-experienced chamberlaughters were not even heard, according to court records. The young Elector Friedrich August III. had the Leipzig files and the confiscated Schrepfer correspondence sent to Dresden - the latter never came back and has disappeared to this day. The Dresden state government stopped all further investigations and the case was put on record as a suicide. The chamberlain Bischoffwerder left Saxony that same autumn and went to Prussian Silesia.

Darkened affair

The murder theory is based on inspections of the original files (especially Schrepfer files in the Leipzig City Archives ) and newly found documents (including a letter from Bischoffwerder to Conference Minister Friedrich Ludwig von Wurmb, contemporary manuscript "Schrepfers teachings", Schrepfers letters, letter from the Duke of Courland to) the commanders of the Pleißenburg ). The autopsy report by Schrepfers in the Leipzig city archives suggests, according to an expert report (June 2011) by a Leipzig forensic doctor, that the "suicide" was physically helped.

Too much was at stake if the heavily indebted Schrepfer had been brought to justice: The felt of the Templar order up to the highest circles, the forbidden speculation by members of the high nobility with - alleged - Saxon government papers (Cammercreditcassen-Scheine), the proportion of Gold and Rosicrucians . Several of those involved became circle leaders of the Gold and Rosicrucians in Saxony after Schrepfers death; They intended to infiltrate Freemasonry in order to push back the ideas of the Enlightenment with their Catholic "pure teaching" and thus to gain political influence in Protestant northern Germany. That was also achieved through Bischoffwerder and Wöllner and their Rosicrucian Lodge at the Prussian court.

The reports, essays and books about Schrepfer that have been circulating for more than 200 years are mainly based on the legends that were scattered immediately after his death. The affair around Johann Georg Schrepfer is symptomatic of the counter-movement in the age of the Enlightenment , the "dark" side of the Enlightenment.

Others

  • Schrepfer served Friedrich Schiller (in Dresden, with his friend and Freemason Christian Gottfried Körner , Minerva member) as a template among others for his unfinished novel The Ghost Seer .
  • The painter and writer Wilhelm von Kügelgen reports on Schrepfer in a passage from the memories of an old man's youth.
  • Theodor Fontane deals with the affair in his walks through the Mark Brandenburg , Volume 3 (Marquardt from 1795 to 1803) in connection with General Hans Rudolf von Bischofswerder and Marquardt Castle . Fontane calls Schrepfer the most remarkable "alchemist and wonder people" around Duke Karl von Kurland. According to Fontane, he owned an "apparatus" that was one of the best that was available in his day. "In addition, he was bold and had a certain honest faith in himself. It seems that in the midst of all his deceptions he quite sincerely entertained the opinion: every day brings miracles, why shouldn't a miracle also happen for me in the end?"

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Remember the Phantasmagoria , Oliver Grau .
  2. ↑ Otto Förster, Der Geisterseher Johann Georg Schrepfer, The Legend of Suicide 1774 , Leipzig Research 2015
  3. ↑ Schrepfer's letter of September 22, 1773 to the Mayor and Council of the City of Leipzig, Leipzig City Archives
  4. ↑ Eds. Crangle, Richard, Heard, Mervyn, and van Dooren, Ine. "Devices and Desires." Realms of Light. London, England: The Magic Lantern Society, 2005. 11-45. Print.
  5. ↑ Otto Werner Förster: Death of a ghost seer. Johann Georg Schrepfer. A hushed up Saxon state affair, 1774. Taurus Verlag Leipzig, 2011
  6. ↑ Otto Werner Förster: Death of a ghost seer. Johann Georg Schrepfer. A covered up Saxon state affair, 1774. Taurus Verlag Leipzig, 2011. The bullet was made in the oral vestibule and not in the oral cavity, as if Schrepfer wanted to prevent further penetration by clenching his teeth. The examining forensic doctor is Carsten Hädrich.
  7. ^ Friedrich Ludwig von Wurmb, Johann Heinrich Zimmermann, Johann Heinrich Hoffmann and François DuBosc
  8. ↑ Otto Werner Förster: Death of a ghost seer. Johann Georg Schrepfer. A hushed up Saxon state affair, 1774. Taurus Verlag Leipzig, 2011
  9. ^ Fontane, Walks through the Mark Brandenburg, Marquardt from 1795 to 1803 , zeno.org

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schrepfer, Johann Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ghost seers, impostors
DATE OF BIRTH baptized March 26, 1738
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1774
Place of death Rosental near Leipzig