Nine Lives

 

The chameleon Trebitsch as Chao Kung

Many people follow the same occupation for most or all of their lives. But one Ignac Trebitsch was quite the opposite as he was, successively (quoting author and scholar John  Lukacs), a petty thief, journalist, Presbyterian missionary, clergyman, councilman in Halifax, a vicar in Kent, researcher for a philanthropist, member of the House of Commons in 1910, oil drilling speculator in Eastern Europe, a defendant in criminal fraud lawsuits, promoter of a WWI scheme against the German fleet, British prisoner for three years, press secretary in Germany, military advisor to Chinese warlords, and Buddhist monk with a small sect following. This chaotic journey across the globe ended with his death in a Shanghai hospital in 1943. 

Born to a well-off Jewish family in Hungary, he began his first occupation, that of a thief of gold watches and jewelry, after they were ruined by a stock market crash.  As religion and politics are the natural refuges of scoundrels, Ignac went to England in the 1890s to begin conversion to Christianity with the Society for Promotion of Christianity Amongst the Jews.  He stole from them, of course, and high-tailed it back to Hungary and Germany where he met his future wife Margaret Kahlor.  Not surprisingly, Ignac abandoned her and their two sons at various times in various countries, even as far away as Java.

In case you might still give our ramblin' man some benefit of the doubt, consider what he wrote in a pamphlet during the Japanese occupation of China:  "They molest nobody...they are kind and helpful to the people..."

In China during WWII he conspired with German agents to install himself as leader of Tibet under the Reich after the untimely death of both the high lamas.  His life ended not as king of the Himalayas, but as a Buddhist monk named Chao Kung (he styled himself an Abbott) with only two followers.

Punch magazine had some fun with the unusual  Member of Parliament

 

 In between being a Christian and Buddhist, he joined the Theosophist religious movement, which is the source of today's New Age culture, believe it or not.  One might, maybe, question his sincerity in any of it.  But he probably enjoyed the wild ride.