Edward Conze

Eberhart (Edward) Julius Dietrich Conze (1904 – September 24, 1979) was an Anglo-German scholar probably best known for his pioneering translations of Buddhist texts.

Conze was born in London of mixed German, French, and Dutch ancestry. His father belonged to the German landed aristocracy, and his mother to what he himself would have called the "plutocracy". His background was Protestant, though his mother became a Roman Catholic in later life. He seems to have had a rather difficult relationship with his mother. Conze claimed to be related to Friedrich Engels.

He was born in England because his father happened to be posted there as German Vice-Consul, but this meant that he had British nationality. He was educated at various German universities, graduating with a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne in 1928, he then proceeded to carry out post doctoral studies in comparative European and Indian Philosophy at the University of Bonn and the University of Hamburg. Conze had a talent for learning languages and picked up fourteen of them, including Sanskrit, by age 24. Like many other Europeans, he came into contact with Theosophy early in life. He also took up astrology, and remained a keen astrologer throughout his life. While still a young man, he wrote a substantial book called The Principle of Contradiction.

Conze opposed Hitler's rise to power, joining the Communist Party and seriously studying Marxist thought. For a while he was the leader of the communist movement in Bonn, and his autobiography, Memoirs of a Modern Gnostic, talks about organizing communist street gangs in Hamburg, which briefly put his life in danger.

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