Theodor Reuss

Albert Karl Theodor Reuss [German: ʀɔʏ̯s or ʁɔʏ̯s] (June 28, 1855 – October 28, 1923) was an Anglo-German tantric occultist, freemason, alleged police agent, journalist, singer, and head of Ordo Templi Orientis.

Reuss was the son of an innkeeper at Augsburg. He was a professional singer in his youth, and was introduced to Ludwig II of Bavaria, in 1873. He took part in the first performance of Wagner's Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882. Reuss later became a newspaper correspondent, and travelled frequently as such to England, where he became a Mason in 1876. He also spent some time there as a journalist and as a music-hall singer under the stage name "Charles Theodore."

In 1876, Reuss married Delphina Garbois from Dublin, and moved to Munich in 1878. Their marriage was annulled, due to bigamy (Hergemöller, 1998). They had a son, Albert Franz Theodor Reuss (1879–1958), a self-educated zoologist who lived in Berlin (Krecsák and Bohle 2008).

In 1885, in England, Reuss joined the Socialist League. He had been quite involved as a librarian and labour secretary. On May 7, 1886 he was expelled as a police spy in the pay of the Prussian Secret Police. This took place in a sectarian atmosphere, with tensions between anarcho-communist Josef Peukert and the Bakuninist Victor Dave where such accusations were often made without substance. However, this accusation came from the Belgian Social Democrats, and was raised here by Henry Charles. Peukert and the Gruppe Autonomie published a rebuttal of these allegations which appeared in the Anarchist, which also accused Dave of being a spy. However, in February 1887 Reuss used the unwitting Peukert to track down Johann Neve, an arms smuggler, in Belgium, who was then arrested by the German police. .

...
Wikipedia