Karl Ernst Krafft

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Karl Ernst Krafft (born May 10, 1900 in Basel , † January 8, 1945 in Buchenwald concentration camp ) was a Swiss astrologer , statistician and economic advisor.

Life

Hotel Krafft Basel on the banks of the Rhine

Krafft's grandfather Ernst (Ulrich) was the client of the Hotel Krafft in Basel and a partner in the Gebr. Krafft shoe factory in Fahrnau in the nearby Wiesental in Baden . His parents were the director of the Cardinal brewery , Carl Krafft (born November 24, 1864), and Anna geb. Gebhard (born March 11, 1867 in Schopfheim ) from Wiesental in Baden. From 1910 the family lived in Basel and from 1925 in Coppet . His uncle was the chemist Albert Krafft.

After graduating from the Humanist Gymnasium in Basel , Krafft studied mathematics, physics, chemistry and statistics in Basel , Geneva and London from 1919 to 1924 , the latter under Karl Pearson .

When Krafft's sister Anneliese died in 1919, the family turned to the occult and held séances . From then on, Krafft also dealt intensively with yoga and astrology . In Geneva he met Hazrat Inayat Khan . From 1921 to 1923 he used statistical means to check thousands of births and deaths in Geneva for astrological relationships; he later continued this work in Basel. Krafft also created 2,800 musicians' horoscopes to check the relationship between birth constellation and occupation. He became the predecessor of Michel Gauquelin and Gunter Sachs and his work The Astrology Files . Since his parents no longer supported him after they had discovered that he was more concerned with astrology than with the established sciences, Krafft first became a bookseller in the esoteric bookstore "Quo Vadis" in 1925.

From 1926 to 1936 Krafft worked as an economic consultant using astrology, and from 1929 also graphology . First he was supported by the Swiss banker Oscar Guhl, who also controlled the Globus department store and the Orell Füssli publishing house . Without questioning the characterologist Krafft, there was no personnel decision in Guhl's company. Krafft later also advised other companies, such as the Printemps department store in Paris. During this time, Krafft developed difficult to understand theories about cosmobiology and "typocosmia", held courses in Lausanne and lectures in numerous German cities. In May 1937 he married Anna (Theresia) van der Koppel in Zurich, the daughter of a Dutch entrepreneur from Zeist near Utrecht.

Because of a general enthusiasm for a "Greater Germany" he moved with his wife to Urberg in the southern Black Forest in 1937 , a place recommended by the psychologist Hans Bender after he had organized a lecture for Krafft in July 1937 in Bonn. His astrological calculations led Krafft to predict that Hitler would be in extreme danger from November 7-10, 1939. Enthusiastic about himself, he warned the German authorities. When Georg Elser failed on November 8th in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich, Krafft was arrested as a possible co-perpetrator. This experience did not prevent him from being recruited for the Reich Security Main Office , because he saw the possibility of helping astrology to break through as a recognized science. In Berlin he was allowed to calculate the horoscopes of people and events and to interpret the prophecies of Nostradamus in order to use them for psychological warfare . The British took up the method and in return hired the astrologer Louis de Wohl, who had emigrated from Germany, for their psychological warfare.

On June 12, 1941, about a month after Rudolf Hess had flown to England, Krafft was arrested like numerous other astrologers as part of Aktion Hess . On June 24, 1941, the Nazi regime banned the public use of all occult practices. Nevertheless, Krafft, together with psychologists such as the Bonn philosophy professor Johannes Maria Verweyen , should continue to work for the Nazis and create horoscopes of generals. The works were collected and viewed by Kurd Kisshauer from the Rosenberg Office . After a nervous breakdown in prison, Krafft was unable to work from autumn 1942 and fell ill with typhus in spring 1943 . He had not yet recovered from his illness when he was brought to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg . On November 27, 1944, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp and died there on January 8, 1945.

Works (selection)

  • Influences cosmiques sur l'individu humain (Genève, 1923)
  • Astro-Physiology (Leipzig, 1928)
  • Caractériologie Typocosmique (with Adolphe Ferrière ) (Genève, 1932)
  • Typocosmia (Düsseldorf, 1934)
  • Traite d'Astro-Biology (Paris-Lausanne-Bruxelles, 1939)
  • Comment Nostradamus at-il entrevu l'avenir de l'Europe? (Bruxelles, Snellew, 1941)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the family register 1932: Anna Bertha Gebhardt
  2. ^ Yves Hueber: Karl Ernst Krafft. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . October 25, 2007 , accessed July 2, 2019 .
  3. ^ Frank-Rutger Hausmann : Hans Bender (1907-1991) and the "Institute for Psychology and Clinical Psychology" at the University of Strasbourg. 1941-1944. Ergon-Verlag, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-89913-530-X ( border crossings 4). P. 52
  4. ↑ TWM van Berkel: Information on Karl Ernst Krafft (1900-1945) , nostradamusresearch.org
personal data
SURNAME Krafft, Karl Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss statistician, astrologer and economic advisor
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1945
Place of death Buchenwald concentration camp