Martha Küntzel

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Martha Küntzel (married Martha Erbs-Küntzel ; born 1857 ; died on December 8, 1942 , presumably in Bad Blankenburg ) was a German author of theosophical writings and translator of thelemic writings, in particular of the works of Aleister Crowley .

Life

Early years

Martha Küntzel was a trained pianist and a piano teacher by profession. Among other things, she set a poem by Hermann Hesse to music and wrote several piano pieces that appeared in print in the USA .

She was taught by Annette Essipoff , held a diploma as a "freelance artist" from the Petersburg Imperial Conservatory and, after she moved from Russia to Berlin in 1902, received two years of lessons from Teresa Carreño .

Theosophy and Thelema

In advanced years she turned increasingly to the occult and was initially a member of the Theosophical Society in Germany founded by Franz Hartmann and acquainted with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky . At this time, Küntzel was in a relationship with the telegraph secretary and pansophen Otto Gebhardi. Gebhardi and Küntzel appeared as representatives of Blavatsky's ideas and jointly wrote articles for the journal Theosophical Culture of the Theosophical Culture Publishing House , the successor to Heinrich Tränker's Theosophical Central Bookshop .

Later Küntzel and Gebhardi joined the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) headed by Theodor Reuss , Gebhardi under the religious name Ich Will (abbreviated IW ) and Küntzel under the name Ich Will Es (abbreviated IWE ).

In June 1925 Gebhardi and Küntzel met the British occultist Aleister Crowley at the so-called Weida Conference in Tränker's house near Hohenleuben near Weida and recognized him as the “world savior”. After this encounter, Küntzel developed into a fanatical follower of Crowley and his thelemic philosophy . Crowley had come with the pregnant Leah Hirsig , under the name Alostrael, the seventh in the series of Crowley's Scarlet Women .

During her pregnancy, Hirsig, who had been cast out by Crowley, lived with Küntzel in Leipzig. Norman Mudd, another of Crowley's companions, also stayed with Küntzel for a while. Crowley had left Hirsig and Mudd penniless in Germany and had traveled on. When Mudd, who was supposed to end by suicide in 1934, began to declare himself a “world teacher”, he was thrown out by Küntzel.

Thelema Publishing Company

The establishment of a publishing house for Crowley's writings in Germany had already been discussed at the Weida Conference in 1925. The publisher was to be based in Küntzel's apartment at 4 Tief Strasse in Leipzig, and sales were to be carried out through Otto Wilhelm Barth's Asokthebu bookstore in Munich and Eugen Grosche's bookstore Inveha in Berlin. Some of Crowley's writings, translated by Karl Germer , had already appeared in Tränker's Pansophie-Verlag , but that had come to an end due to the gap that had arisen after the Weida conference between Crowley's supporters and Tränker's. Küntzel hated Tränker, who had tried to get Crowley to be expelled from Germany.

On March 15, 1927, the Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft Leipzig was finally founded. In addition to Küntzel with a share of 10% in net profit and Crowley with a share of 35%, the partners were Otto Gebhardi (Leipzig), Karl Germer (Boston), the illustrator Oskar Hopfer ( Weißendorf ) and Bernhard Sporn ( Zeulenroda ). Originally Otto Wilhelm Barth was supposed to take over the printing, but he had taken on Tränker's side. With 12 votes, Crowley, Küntzel and Sporn each had 3 votes, the others only one vote each. As a result of the power struggle between Crowley's Thelema supporters and Tränkers Pansophen, Küntzel and Gebhardi were informed in January 1927 that they no longer had to consider themselves members of the International Theosophical Fraternization and they were banned from entering the Leipzig headquarters of the ITV.

In July 1930, Küntzel signed a contract with Henry Birven as a representative of Thelema Verlag , who published the magazine Hain der Isis , and who henceforth allowed Birven to publish texts by Crowley, which Crowley forbade him again in 1932. The translation of Crowley's Book of the Law , completed by Küntzel in 1925, was rejected by Karl Germer and Henry Birven. Germer told Crowley that Birven thought Küntzel's translation was “childish and silly”. Crowley thought Birven was a "cute old idiot" and as a result Küntzel continued to translate numerous works by Crowley into German, which then appeared in the Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft . Current new editions are also available for some of these translations. And Küntzel remained loyal to Crowley, also through extensive correspondence. On August 16, 1929, she was the bride's hostess when Crowley married Maria de Miramar from Nicaragua in Leipzig.

Crowley and Hitler

Küntzel was not only an ardent admirer of Crowley, but also of Adolf Hitler . By 1926 she had come to believe that Hitler was her “magical son”. She writes to Crowley:

"You are perfectly right when you say I can't think politically. I never cared for politics except during the war and then since the time of Hitler's rising [...]. And then it began to dawn on me how much of Hitler's thoughts were as if they had been taken from the Law of Thelema. I became his fervent admirer and am so now, and will be to my end. I have ever so often owned to this firm conviction that the close identity of Hitler's ideas with what the Book teaches endowed me with the strength necessary for my work. "

“You are absolutely right. I can't think politically. Politics has never bothered me, except during the war and since the rise of Hitler [...]. Then I began to see that Hitler's thoughts seem like the law of Thelema. I became his enthusiastic supporter, I am now and will remain so until my end. The firm conviction that Hitler's ideas match the teachings of the book has always strengthened my work. "

She expressly speaks here of a (perceived) similarity of ideologies, not of a direct transfer or influence. In contrast, legends circulated concerning the thelemic influence on Hitler's ideology, according to which Martha Küntzel somehow handed over the Book of the Law to Hitler in order to bring him closer to the thelemic principles as the philosophical basis of National Socialism . Gerald Yorke (1901–1983), for example, thought he remembered that a copy would have been brought to Hitler while he was in custody “in Nuremberg”. Hitler was not in prison in Nuremberg but in Landsberg and was released in 1924 before a first version of the book appeared in 1925. There is no evidence whatsoever for these stories. It is not known whether Küntzel ever tried to contact Hitler.

In 1925 Küntzel was informed by Crowley that the country which first accepted his Book of the Law as the official text would attain world domination in the foreseeable future , and between 1942 and 1944 Crowley made various comments in his copy of Hitler Speaks (German: Conversations with Hitler ) by Hermann Rauschning , from which it can be seen that Crowley saw parallels and similarities to Hitler's own creeds in the amorality portrayed by Rauschning: Crowley sided with Hitler and expressed his enthusiasm for the Fiihrer. After reading it, Crowley spread the legend that the parallels he discovered between his and Hitler's views could only have been inspired by Martha Künzel and his Book of the Law . Of course, Rauschning's book subsequently turned out to be largely forged, but had already served as a source for some of the legends of right-wing esotericism .

In any case, their positive attitude towards National Socialism found no equivalent on the part of the Nazis. She was summoned for interrogation by the Gestapo and OTO papers from your possession were confiscated. The Gestapo expressed surprise that a staunch National Socialist could also be a supporter of such a dubious foreigner as Crowley. Küntzel tried in vain to convey the complete compatibility of Thelema and the Nazi ideology, also by sending Crowley's writings to the Gestapo. But even on Crowley's part, the contrasts proved to be unbridgeable. In a reply to the anti-Semitic statements in Küntzel's letters, Crowley wrote to her on May 10, 1939:

“[...] practically everything in Germany that goes beyond brutality, stupidity, cruelty, servitude and thirst for blood was Jewish. The Germans are [...] as far below the Jews as monkeys are among the people. "

That was provocative and had the effect that Küntzel's answer to Crowley has not been recorded.

death

In September 1950, Eugen Grosche spread the rumor that Martha Küntzel's traces were allegedly lost in a concentration camp , which is unbelievable. According to her student Friedrich Lekve , Küntzel died on December 8, 1942 in a retirement home for former teachers in Bad Blankenburg , where she had lived since 1937. Lekve wrote in a letter to Crowley on January 11, 1955: "Until the last moment of her life I was with her." Various sources spread that she was still alive after the end of the Second World War . A foreword allegedly by Küntzel in the book Thoth , published in 1944, was written by Crowley himself. According to an entry in Crowley's diary of December 5, 1945 - years later - she died in December 1941.

Works

Fonts

in chronological ascending order

  • The thoughts as creators of our destiny. Theosophischer Kultur-Verlag, Leipzig 1923. New edition: Ed. Secret Knowledge, Graz 2013, ISBN 978-3-902881-44-1 .
  • Raising the child. Theosophical Culture Publishing House, Leipzig 1925.

Translations:

  • Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley: Liber LXXI. The voice of silence. The two paths. The seven gates. With a comment by Master Therion. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1928.
  • Aleister Crowley: Book 4. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1927. 2 vols. Part 1: Mystik. Part 2: Magick. Psychosophical Society, Zurich 1964.
  • Aleister Crowley: Brief Introductory Essays. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1927.
  • Aleister Crowley: Berashith = Berašit. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1928.
  • Aleister Crowley: The Message of Master Therion. Translated by Karl Germer and Martha Küntzel. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1928. Contains: Liber 837: The law of freedom. Liber 150: De lege libellum. The Thelema method by Gérard Aumont.
  • Aleister Crowley: The waking world. A story for young children and infants. With explanatory notes in the margin in Hebrew and Latin, on the use of ways to communicate. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1928.
  • Aleister Crowley: Science and Buddhism. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1928.
  • Aleister Crowley, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: Liber LXXI: The Voice of Silence: The Two Paths: The Seven Gates. Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1928.
  • Gérard Aumont: The three schools of magic. Psychosophia Cooperative, Zurich 1956.
  • Aleister Crowley: Harpocrates - Assumption d. God form. Psychosophical Society in d. Switzerland, Stein AR 1956.
  • Aleister Crowley: Liber Aleph vel CXI. The book of wisdom and folly; in the form of an epistle from 666 the great wild beast to his son 777. Ansata, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7787-7243-0 .

Compositions

  • Setting by Hermann Hesse: Elisabeth
Piano pieces
  • Pierrot's Serenade , published in 1911 by Arthur P. Schmidt, Boston, Mass.
  • Impatience , published 1911 by Arthur P. Schmidt, Boston, Mass.

literature

  • Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin: art, sex, and magick in the Weimar Republic. Inner Traditions, Rochester 2014, ISBN 978-1-62055-256-8 .
  • Peter-Robert König : The OTO phenomenon RELOAD. Volume 1. Working group for questions of religion and ideology, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-941421-16-5 , pp. 359–363.
  • Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptations of politics. Acumen, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-1-84465-695-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Stern: What does music student need to know about Berlin? Berlin 1913, p. 84.
  2. ^ Hermann Hesse: Elisabeth. OCLC 249249416
  3. ^ Karl Storck: Critical review of concert and opera . In: Music pedagogical journal for all areas of musical art . Twenty-ninth year, Cologne a. a. 1906, p. 9
  4. ^ Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptations of politics. Durham 2014, p. 18.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Peter-Robert König: The OTO phenomenon RELOAD. Volume 1. Munich 2011, p. 359.
  6. ↑ Peter-Robert König: The OTO phenomenon RELOAD. Volume 1. Munich 2011. p. 155.
  7. ↑ a b Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin. Rochester 2014, p. 68 ff.
  8. ↑ Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley. The biography. Watkins, London 2011, p. 291.
  9. ↑ John Symonds: The great beast. The life and magick of Aleister Crowley. Mayflower, St. Albans 1973, ISBN 0-583-12195-0 , pp. 398-401.
  10. ↑ Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin. Rochester 2014, p. 71 f.
  11. ↑ Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin. Rochester 2014, pp. 68, 80, 86 ff ..
  12. ↑ Peter-Robert König: The OTO phenomenon RELOAD. Volume 1. Munich 2011. pp. 359f.
  13. ↑ "[...] darling old idiot". Quoted in Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin. Rochester 2014, p. 91.
  14. ↑ Richard B. Spence: Secret agent 666; Aleister Crowley, British intelligence, and the occult. Feral House, Port Townsend 2008, ISBN 978-1-932595-33-8 , p. 212.
  15. ↑ Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley. The biography. Watkins, London 2011, p. 318.
  16. ^ A b John Symonds: The great beast. The life and magick of Aleister Crowley. Mayflower, St. Albans 1973, ISBN 0-583-12195-0 , pp. 434 f.
  17. ↑ Küntzel refers here to the First World War.
  18. ↑ a b Lawrence Sutin: Do what thou wilt. A life of Aleister Crowley. St. Martin's Press, New York 2000, ISBN 0-312-25243-9 , pp. 369 f.
  19. ↑ a b James Webb : The Age of the Irrational. Politics, Culture & Occultism in the 20th Century. Marix, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-86539-152-0 , p. 564ff.
  20. ↑ Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin. Rochester 2014, p. 337 f.
  21. ↑ a b Churton: Aleister Crowley. The Beast in Berlin. Rochester 2014, p. 339.
  22. ^ Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptations of politics. Durham 2014, pp. 52-58.
  23. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of secret knowledge. Goldmann, Munich 1993, p. 363.
  24. ↑ Peter-Robert König: The OTO phenomenon RELOAD. Volume 1. Munich 2011. p. 363.
  25. ^ Hermann Hesse: Elisabeth. OCLC 249249416
personal data
SURNAME Küntzel, Martha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Erbs-Küntzel, Martha (married name); Erbs, Martha (married name); IWE (order name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist and author of theosophical writings and translator
DATE OF BIRTH 1857
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1942
Place of death unsure: Bad Blankenburg