Deserving DeathUnder this headline, the German news magazine *Stern* reported in October 1988 on a renegade Memphis-Misraim lodge in Hamburg. The article alleged that its self-styled leader, Lothar Arno-Wilke—who claimed the title of "Grand Master for the German Reich" and boasted of presiding over no fewer than fifty lodges with a total of two thousand members—had orchestrated threats against a dissident member, Hans F. Senkel, and arranged for him to be held hostage by two fellow lodge members. 
Hans F. Senkel [Colored with AI] 
Senkel was subjected to this ordeal because of his homosexuality—an attitude reportedly endorsed by lodge member Ms. Christiane-Maria Schwarzweller. She is on record as asserting that homosexuals live "impure and unclean lives", adding for good measure: "It is my realisation that from the Old Testament such homosexuals are worthy of death." She informed Senkel that she would raise the question of whether the death penalty for homosexuals remained thinkable today—an inquiry she apparently planned to table at the next lodge meeting. Since, as she confessed, she lacked the capacity to render a final judgment on the matter, Senkel would be required to attend. He was, as she phrased it, "morally obliged, since you alone have homosexual practice, to enlighten the Lodge." In December 1987, Schwarzweller published an article titled "Homosexuality and Freemasonry" in the official *Hanseatisches Logenblatt*. Citing biblical authority, she declared: "The mason cannot therefore be a homosexual, for he would desecrate his own body—i.e. the temple in which he dwells." In more florid historical terms, she elaborated: "Such corporae infames were once buried alive or sunk in the bog! In any case, emasculated and banished from the country for eternity. They fell prey to peacelessness and were—hunted like wolves." Her reply in the subsequent issue of *Stern* struck a notably different chord: "Our Lodge is [...] a Christian one whose supreme law is the New Testament. I do not consider anyone 'worthy of death' because he is homosexual. The only decisive factor for us Christians can be the 'New Commandment of Love' from the New Testament." 
Christiane–Marie Schwarzweller Markus Kumer, a member of Hermann Joseph Metzger’s inner circle in the Swiss O.T.O., reported that Frau Schwarzweller was a regular participant in Metzger’s temple rituals. [Kumer in conversation with P.R. Koenig, 8.9.91.] 
Senkel demonstrates for the police how he had been tied up. [Colored with AI] 
Some documents
[From: 'Materialien Zum O.T.O.'] Senkel maintained that the rituals and records of this M.M. group had been forged by Wilke—a view later supported by Jean Mallinger’s successor as head of Memphis-Misraim in Germany, Martin Erler. (Erler, it should be noted, reintroduced A.M.O.R.C. to Germany in 1949 and in 1956 established a German O.R.A. lodge near Munich, styling himself its Grand Master.) 
Wilke claimed initiatory successions from Georges Delaire, François Bruyninckx, and also professed to be Jean Mallinger’s heir. The group was formally registered by E.R.M. Brandt, and it published a rebuttal to Ellic Howe and Helmut Möller’s complex 'biography' of Theodor Reuss under the imposing name of "Lord Grand Master of the Memphis-Misraim Order of International Co-Freemasonry". This statement was co-signed by Elizabeth Gould, Christiane-Marie Schwarzweller, and Lothar-Arno Wilke. ['Bericht über die Jahrestagung der Forschungsloge Quatuor Coronati', Hamburg, 1990.] There were also accusations that Wilke had lifted entire ritual structures from the published ceremonies of Rudolf Steiner—texts that themselves referred only to the “Office of Misraim”—in much the same way as Metzger’s earlier "O.T.O. Orient Thuricensium Rituals." Hans F. Senkel's letters
Fearing for his safety, Senkel dispatched a flurry of documents to regular German Masonic bodies between spring 1987 and spring 1988, attempting to clarify the situation. These materials revealed a proliferation of rival Memphis-Misraim lodges across Europe. Senkel used the occasion to expose the genealogy—or lack thereof—of Wilke’s organization, naming numerous individuals involved, and concluding that Wilke’s group could lay no legitimate claim to any authentic tradition. 
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