Few historical figures have lived as chaotically as the man who served as a Christian missionary, a British Member of Parliament, a German spy, a Nazi collaborator, and a Buddhist abbot.
Born in Hungary in 1879, Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln operated under multiple aliases, crossed international borders, infiltrated governments, and swindled his way through the most consequential events of the early twentieth century.
From Missionary to Parliament
Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Hungary, Trebitsch fled to London in 1897 to escape police trouble over petty theft. He converted to Christianity, underwent baptism in 1899, and trained as a Lutheran minister. He traveled to Canada for missionary work before returning to England in 1903.
After legally changing his name to Tribich Lincoln, he befriended the Archbishop of Canterbury and wealthy Liberal Party member Seebohm Rowntree. With Rowntree’s backing, the immigrant successfully ran for the British Parliament in 1910, representing Darlington. Since Parliament members received no salary, his financial troubles ended his political career after just eleven months.
Double Agent and Fraudster
Desperate for money before World War I, Trebitsch-Lincoln offered his services to the British government as a spy. When London rejected him, he traveled to the Netherlands and worked for the Germans as a double agent. He narrowly escaped arrest in England and fled to the United States in 1915.
Rejected by the German military attaché there, he sold his sensationalized espionage story to a New York magazine. The British government hired the Pinkerton detective agency to track him down. Extradited back to England for fraud, he spent three years in Parkhurst Prison before being deported in 1919.
Right-Wing Conspirator
Arriving penniless in Weimar Germany, Trebitsch-Lincoln embedded himself in extremist right-wing factions. During the 1920 Kapp Putsch, he served as a press censor for the provisional government, meeting Adolf Hitler.
When the coup collapsed, he fled to Austria, joining a reactionary group known as the White International. After gaining control of their archives, he sold their secrets to multiple government intelligence agencies before Austria deported him for high treason.
The Abbot of Shanghai
He relocated to China in the late 1920s, working for warlords before converting to Buddhism. By 1931, he established his own monastery in Shanghai, demanding that all initiates surrender their possessions to him. Taking the name Abbot Chao Kung, he produced anti-British propaganda for the Japanese Empire.
He later contacted the Nazis, proposing a scheme to turn Eastern Buddhists against the British. Following the death of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, Trebitsch-Lincoln proclaimed himself the new Dalai Lama, a claim the Tibetans firmly rejected. He died in Shanghai in 1943.