Who was Ignatius Trebistch?....................Arion

In 1943, a man died in a Buddhist monastery at the age of 68, but then, as now, no one is quite sure what to make of him. His name was Ignatius Trebitsch, but even that seems debatable when you consider how widely varied his life was. Over the course of his career he was a Protestant missionary, an Anglican priest, a British member of Parliament, a German right-wing politician, a spy, a Nazi sympathizer, and finally Buddhist abbot in China.

He was born into a Jewish family in the village of Paks, in Hungary in 1879. His family later moved to Budapest, which was where Ignatius spent his childhood. Friends from that period describe him as extremely inventive, imaginative, and blessed with a clever tongue and the ability to talk anyone into doing what he wanted. With such talent, it surprised no one that he enrolled in the Royal Hungarian Academy of Dramatic Art in 1897. He was forced to leave before completing his education, however, as the police wanted to charge him with theft.

Ignatius fled the country and turned up in London, where, for some reason, he took up company with Christian missionaries. On Christmas Day, 1899, he was baptized as a Christian. He then enrolled in Lutheran seminary in Breklum in Schleswig-Holstein, with the intention of becoming a minister. Then, abruptly, he traveled to Montreal and took up the ministerial trade of converting Canadian Jews to Christianity.

After an argument over his salary, Ignatius returned to England in 1903, and for some reason changed his name to Tribich Lincoln. He sought English citizenship, and became a naturalized Englishman in 1909.

Using his gift of conversation and past work in religion, Ignatius struck up a friendship with the Archbishop of Canterbury and secured a religious post. He then became interested in politics, made more influential friends, and ran for a seat in Parliament! Incredibly, he won the election, despite the fact that he had a terrible Hungarian accent. Just one problem: Members of Parliament were not paid a salary, and Ignatius soon found himself flat broke.

By 1914, Ignatius had failed in a number of commercial businesses, but World War I broke out, and he went to the British Government and offered his services as a spy! They turned him down. So, he crossed the English Channel, went to Belgium, contacted the Germans and made them the same offer! They immediately employed him as a Double-Agent!

He returned to England, but his contact with the Germans had been noticed, and the English wanted to arrest him as a German spy. Ignatius hopped a steamer to the USA, where he contacted the German embassy. The Germans knew he was hot, and dropped him. Out of money, Ignatius pulled an American trick: he cashed in! He sold his story to newspapers about being a former Parliamentarian and a German Spy, and the newspapers ate it up!

The British government employed private detectives to capture him and bring him back to the U.K., where they threw him in prison until after the war. He was deported in 1919. By 1920, he was broke again, and in Germany, where he fell into the right-wing military crowd of Weimar, Germany, and actually met Adolf Hitler! Ignatius was part of the infamous Beer Hall Putsch when Hitler's troops tried to take down the government! Hitler went to prison, of course, but Ignatius fled the country, and wound up in Austria. Using his right-wing political connections, he somehow got his hands on some secret information which he tried to sell to government agents. Rather than being grateful to him, he was arrested and tried for high treason. Whether or not he was convicted is unclear, but he was deported from Austria.

Between 1920 and 1931, his trail goes cold, but somehow he ended up in China, where he used his political connections again and became a staff officer for a variety of different warlords. China was struggling under the heel of Japanese oppression at the time, and many different soldiers were carving out small empires with swords and guns. For a clever man, it must have been a time of great opportunity.

In 1931, Ignatius changed religions again, and became a Buddhist, and changed his name to Abbot Chao Kung. He founded his own monastery, and had many followers.

By 1937, his sense of political opportunism dominated him, and he proceeded to write inflammatory propaganda for the Japanese, although this is disputed by some. According to other sources, he wrote anti-Japanese articles for the British press. It may well be that he did both! It wouldn't be the first time he played both sides against the middle!

When World War II broke out, with Adolf Hitler in the center of it all, Ignatius contacted Nazi Germany to offer his services; as an old comrade of Hitler's, the temptation to cash in again must have been tremendous. Ignatius offered to do broadcasts for the Nazis in the Far East, and to whip up anti-British sentiment among all the Buddhists. His plan caught the attention of SS Colonel Joseph Mesinger, who lobbied heavily for the plan. Hitler, however, put the kibosh on the idea in 1941, although Ignatius continued to work for the Germans until his death in 1943.

So who was Ignatius Trebitsch? From all evidence, he was a man who changed nationalities, faiths, and friends with apparent ease. He cannot simply be labeled a traitor and dismissed out of hand. He traveled thousands of miles, and was at the center of many historical events, but who was he really? To this day, he remains a riddle.

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