The Von Baurs
Originally published at The Codex Continual. You can comment here or there.
The Von Baur Family: An Occult History
The Von Baurs rose along the Haldenaab in northeastern Bavaria. The tiny village of Baur came under attack in 1483 by “forces dark and overwhelming,” long postulated to be brigands or barbarians (though hidden histories mark the attackers as diabolic and certainly of fell origins). Only the defenses mustered by the brothers Baldric (a shepherd) and Corrado (a blacksmith) saved the village, albeit at the cost of Baldric’s life. In gratitude, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III made Corrado Von Baur the local baron and gave him control over these lands.
Noble titles and family fortunes waxed and waned through the 16th and 17th centuries, and this holds true for the Von Baurs as well. For the first two generations, the nobility mocked the Von Baurs for their common name of “farmer” raised to noble status, but soon, very few dared question the Von Baurs’ influence. Depending on whose accounts one believes, the Von Baurs had connections with every major German or Austrian in history. Family lore links the pious Axel Von Baur with Martin Luther and more than a few Von Baurs claimed to have fought at the right hand of many a powerful king or emperor. They never proved their greatest claim-that the Von Baur bloodline descended from both the Hohenstaufens (through a daughter of Frederick II) and the Habsburgs (via an illegitimate son of Rudolf I). Even so, various members of the family laid claim to much political power through these tenuous claims to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire up until the late 17th century. For a time, the Von Baurs were among the more powerful families in southern Germany and northern Austria.
The Von Baurs become of interest to esoteric societies (and the Vanguard in particular) by 1708. Idette Von Baur, the eldest child of Baron Arndt Von Baur, became the lover of Kolya Nashivev, the infamous Russian sorcerer. Nashivev’s notoriety of being “too brutal and ruthless” even for the likes of Czar Peter I, proved irresistible to the spoiled noblewoman, much to her family’s dismay. She fled Bavaria, taking with her many riches (and secrets she used for later blackmail of many a German noble family for generations) to fund her and Nashivev’s activities. For decades, the pair spawned both children and evils on the world, the worst being their youngest offspring, Vasily Baurovitch Nashivev-“the Butcher of Slavuta.”
Between 1715 and 1738, at least seventeen Von Baurs of both genders learned magic and took vows to fight the evils “the Betrayer” unleashed. Idette’s apparent death in St. Petersburg in 1736 ended the family’s personal connection to fighting magical evils, but the tradition continued beyond its initial impetus. This bloodline (regardless of the actual surname) dominated the esoteric battlefields and conflicts of Europe for the 18th and 19th centuries. At the height of their influence, those of Von Baur blood or name controlled or led the Cabal of the Seven Mysteries, the Domini Reattaria, the Jadeatici, and the Annulusi Order. They also held major positions in at least nine other secret magical sects across Asia, the Americas, and Australia.
One of the more notable Von Baurs was Baron Wolfgang Von Baur (1757-1822), founder of the Rhinevulfen. A small, nigh-ineffectual group of monster hunters that existed from 1784 until 1806, the “Wolves of the Rhine” would barely register a footnote in arcane histories if not for their leader. In his lifetime, Wolfgang wrote more than three dozen treatises, monographs, studies, and a dozen books about various and sundry occult threats in the world. While his works on lycanthropy and faeries are error-riddled and disproved, his two seminal volumes on ghosts and how to both detect and fight them remain the gold standards of esoteric lore and paranormal studies since their writing. He wrote the more famous Von Bessenheit durch Fremde und Ungehere Geister (“On the Matter of Hostile and Possessive Spirits”) in 1797, though it did not see print for nearly ten years. By 1803, he had also penned Ein Werk Bezüglich des Kämpfens und des Ausrottens von Geistern, Besitzende Entitäten, und Feindliche Gespenste (“Regarding the Combating and Eradicating Ghosts, Possessive Entities, and Hostile Spirits”). A small printer in Bonn published both books in 1805 and Bulwark Publications translated and published them in English by 1842. Neither book has been in print in any language since 1943.
By 1894, Baron Frederick Von Baur buried his fifth child and final heir after having to behead the young man-turned-vampire (having lost his other children in vendettas with the Condottieri Cosini in Venice and Club Thirteen in London). A widower for more than two decades, Frederick had no heirs and no blood ties he wished to acknowledge. He sold off his real estate holdings to local gentry and disappeared. Rumors of his whereabouts spread as “the Bleak Baron” cut a swathe across all measures of secret societies for more than 40 years. Many say he funded some of the greatest secret societies still extant in the modern world. Some say Frederick’s interference in machinations of the powerful helped foment or prolong the chaos of the First World War. Others say his activities kept the death toll far lower than might have occurred. Without exception, no one ever recorded more lore about vampires and how to hunt and kill them than the last Baron Von Baur. His marshalling the Seers’ Society and the Vanguard against more than four clans of vampires in Italy, France, and Belgium led to the destruction of more than 200 vampires between 1911 and 1919. Frederick died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 89, a lay worshiper among the Brethren of Saint Donnait. On February 15, 1940, they buried his body in secret to prevent any vampiric foes from desecrating Frederick’s grave.
Little of any note can be found in modern Germany of the Von Baurs, despite all their former works and wealth. All traces of the last identifiable Von Baur estates vanished with the firebombing of Dresden and surrounding areas during the latter half of World War II. The only place one may find them is in esoteric and occult histories and their own works spread across at least seven generations. The major works and esoterica authored by the Von Baurs number in scores, though many have since been forgotten by all but the most learned of modern arcane scholars and occultists. Unless a member of the Vanguard or the Scarlet Scholars (both groups paying attention to what most consider obscure and nigh-useless knowledge), even most paranormal agents active today have only heard of the Bleak Baron Frederick or his granduncle Wolfgang and their works on fighting monsters.
© 2009 by Steven E. Schend. All rights reserved.