Adolf Knigge

Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Freiherr Knigge (16 October 1752 – 6 May 1796) was a German writer, Freemason, and a leading member of the Order of the Illuminati.

Biography

Adolph Freiherr von Knigge was born in Bredenbeck (now a part of Wennigsen, Lower Saxony) in the Electorate of Hanover as a member of the Knigge family, an old German nobility dating back to 13th century. He was the only son of Carl Philipp Freiherr Knigge (1723–1766) and his wife, Louise Wilhelmine Baroness Knigge (1730–1763), member of the same family from Weimar. When he was barely eleven, his mother died, and when his father died three years later the teenager inherited a large debt. His creditors took possession of the family property and assigned the boy a meagre pension of 500 thalers.

He studied law from 1769 to 1772 in Göttingen where he became a member of Corps Hannovera. He was allegedly initiated into Freemasonry in 1772 in Kassel, where he held a position as Court Squire (hofjunker) and Assessor of the War and Domains Exchequer. In 1777 he became Chamberlain at the Weimar court.

In 1780 Knigge joined Adam Weishaupt's Bavarian Illuminati and his work with the Illuminati gave the group a great deal of publicity and influence of Masonic chapters. But in 1783 dissensions arose between Knigge and Weishaupt, which resulted in Knigge's final withdrawal from the group on 1 July 1784. Knigge stated that he could no longer endure Weishaupt's pedantic domineering, which frequently assumed offensive forms. He accused Weishaupt of "Jesuitism", and suspected him of being "a Jesuit in disguise" (Nachtr., I, 129). "And was I", he adds, "to labour under his banner for mankind, to lead men under the yoke of so stiff-necked a fellow?—Never!"