Deutsche Version

The crime story about the Leipzig coffee house owner Johann Georg Schrepfer from Nuremberg also deals with the involvement of the high nobility and secret societies of Dresden during the superficially enlightened 18th century, and has been, since Schrepfer’s “suicide” in 1774 in the Leipzig Rosenthal park, the subject of many magazine articles and books.

Moses Mendelssohn has addressed the matter, as well as Friedrich II., Goethe and Friedrich Nicolai, Schiller and Fontane. The case was never solved because the royal court of Dresden did not allow an investigation to take place.

For a while, there was an unusual connection between Johann Georg Schrepfer and the pharmacist Johann Heinrich Linck the Younger, who was the third-generation owner of the Leipzig Lion Pharmacy.

His grandfather had created a natural history collection and a collection of curiosities which also contained physical instruments such as a large concave mirror and a laterna magica, a magic lantern. His widow continued working on the collection and completed it. The remarkable, extensive collection has been on display in the Waldenburg Museum since 1840.

Linck d. J. completed his apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Frankfurt/Main before studying medicine and pharmacy in Strasbourg until 1757. While there, he also joined the Freemasons, and was, immediately after his return to Leipzig, accepted as a member of the lodge “Minerva at the Circle” which, at least in part, merged with the “Strict Observance” Freemasonry system in 1766.

“Commercial Counsellor” Linck -- the title was awarded to him by the electors of Saxony in 1760 -- was also, in 1767, the first guest of the restructured, publicly accessible Saxony electoral assembly. Linck’s house, which included the thriving pharmacy, was in an excellent location on “Grimmischen Gasse”, in fact, at the very place where the side entrance to a big department store is today. Linck had enough time and creativity to undertake experiments in chemistry and physics in his garden building, which was right next door to the Grossbosischen Garden, today Seeburgstrasse 45. Linck was learned, scientifically interested, and open to the progressive thoughts of his time, and Schrepfer, the bird of paradise with his ominous lodge, would have quickly come to his attention.

Johann Georg Schrepfer, in turn, needed substances and raw materials that only a licensed pharmacist could provide. Thus, it is understandable when Wurmb writes to him “That which you sent me before your departure did not work. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding...” That would mean that Schrepfer was making medicaments, which is also documented elsewhere-he had given the Dresden “Knight of Templar” and chamberlain of Heinitz a remedy that apparently worked. Such things were also part of the repertoire of the members of the Golden Cross and the Rosicrucians. And Linck also knew how the optical and acoustical devices used for theatre magic worked, and where they could be obtained. However, this was a very expensive hobby.

In return, Linck became a regular visitor at Schrepfer’s lodge meetings, the dark side of the Renaissance, as it were. Schrepfer’s friendship with the Lion Pharmacist (Linck) was apparently important enough to him that he let Linck convince him to do something that was actually unthinkable for a member of the Freemasons. Linck’s second wife Dorothea was said to have nagged her husband for the same reason. Samuel Benedict Schlegel, in his "Diary", wrote the following:

He is speaking of Schrepfer’s “Order” -- it cannot have been the official Freemasons or the Knights Templars. Johann Heinrich Linck also participated in Schrepfer’s famous spirit seances. Out of scientific curiosity, in all likelihood.

Shortly after Schrepfer’s death, enlightened periodicals were occupied with the subject for some time. Among those was the “Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek”, from the Berlin publisher and Freemason Friedrich Nicolai, which was one of the most interesting periodicals of the era and one of the most critical of the times. In 1775, Moses Mendelssohn, who, by the way, was the model for Lessing’s “Nathan” and the grandfather of the composer and Leipzig Gewandhaus conductor, had, in connection with a review of “Anmerkungen über einen schriftlichen Aufsatz, die Wunderthaten des berüchtigten Schröpfers betreffend” made some remarks about the technical background of the “spirit seances”.

Moses Mendelssohn, a contemporary of Schrepfer, a thinking man. The “magic lantern” is called a slide projector today. However, it is, even today, not all that easy to project images on smoke, mist and steam. Modern artists and media craftsman have rediscovered this technique, but they are using far stronger light sources. So Schrepfer was, as far as that goes, a very gifted craftsman.

Linck’s garden, outside the city and in no danger of getting unwelcome guests, was often the meeting place of Schrepfer’s “society”. The friendly relationship between Linck and Schrepfer, ended abruptly in this very same garden.

[...]

[One year after his arrest in Linck’s garden, Schrepfer died, on the 8th of October 1774, under mysterious circumstances. The cause of death was declared to be »suicide«, a pistol shot in the Leipzig Rosenthal park.]

End of excerpts from Dr Otto Werner Förster: “Death of a Spirit Seer”- Johann Georg Schrepfer: A hushed up affair of the State of Saxony, 1774. Taurus Verlag Leipzig, 2011, 112 pages, with images from the original documents)