Reinhold Feuerbach

A German novelist, anarchist and polemicist. Another candidate for the “true identity” of V.M. Straka.

Jen and Eric Husch conclude that Pfeifer is Feuerbach's narrative stand-in in Ship of Theseus. (page 77)

Biography
He was born in 1866, around the same time as Torsten Ekstrom, he was much older than other members of the S group. He emigrated to the United States in 1886, arriving in Chicago shortly before the Haymarket Massacre, and is believed by some to have thrown the bomb that started the Chicago police shooting into the crowds. Feuerbach allegedly escaped from police that day and fled back to Germany. Fellow anarchists revered him for the bombing. Eric notes that chapter 3 of the Ship of Theseus shows that Feuerbach was involved in the Haymarket Bombing before he fled back to Europe.

It was learned posthumously that he went in the town of St. Goar and took an assumed name, living atop a haberdashery. From his flat, loud typerwriter sounds were heard, as well as occasional shouts of enthusiasm or frustration. During that time he published anarchist pamphlets and 5 novels.

As an anarchist, he signed and distributed pamphlets. His protégé and "secretary" was Horst Wechsler but there are implications (although not confirmation) that they were lovers. He had a bad gout by the early '30s and had problem walking.

In 1937, a reporter (Hoeppner?) searching for V. M. Straka followed a trail of clues to Feuerbach. He claimed that he saw two men (Feuerbach and Wechsler?) fleeing the building via a back exit. Hoeppner, working for a Bouchard magazine, claimed in an 1937 article that Feuerbach lives near Heidelberg. Despite his known anarchist affiliations and the rumors of his homosexuality Joseph Goebbels, having read the repoarter's article, demanded that the writer should be hired to devote his literary talents to glorifying the Third Reich.

After the revelation of his whereabouts Nazis went after him, so Feuerbach escaped Germany and fled to Dublin (64 Heagy Street) with Wechsler. He lived his final years in relative obscurity. He had a long illness and He gave a statement to Irish authorities on his deathbed, only to request that his typewriter be shipped to an address in Rangoon.

He died in 1939 while he was terminally ill (according to EO) or in 1940 by falling in his bathroom.

The typewriter was delivered but never claimed, and it was probably stolen or destroyed during the Japanese occupation of Burma during World War II.

Works
He published many inflammatory anarchist treatises and pamphlets under his own name, including the hugely-influential Die Münze der Verdammten. He also wrote five novels, including Das rollende Fass (1893) and Schießpulver-Tee (1901). None sold particularly well but received notice because of his popularity among anarchists, his rumored past, and the mystery of his whereabouts.

Feuerbach’s writings are direct in their propagandist aims; do not display literary/moral complexity like Straka's.

Those who believe he was Straka point out their political affinities, and that he would assume the penname of Straka for more mainstream acceptance; considering Feuerbach's alleged participation in the Haymarket Bombing, Straka's The Square shows first-hand knowledge about it. As he died in 1940, it is possible that subsequent books were posthumous publications.

Jen thinks that as he was probably gay, F.X. Caldeira wouldn't have fallen for him, so she doesn't believe he is Straka. (page 78, 124, 188, 208)