Rosenfeld, Hans

Rosenfeld, Hans, a German impostor who set himself up as the Messiah, about the year 1763, in Prussia, declaring that Jesus Christ and his apostles were impostors, and that Frederick the Great was the Evil One, whom Rosenfeld was to depose. He taught that he was to govern the world, assisted by a council of twenty-four elders, like those of the Apocalypse. He deluded multitudes, and lived upon them in outrageous profligacy for twenty years. Eventually, in 1782, one of his followers appealed to the king, whom he believed to be the Evil One, to revenge him on Rosenfeld for the deduction of his three daughters. The king ordered proceedings against Rosenfeld, and he was sentenced to be flogged, and imprisoned for the remainder of his life at Spandau. After this his followers, called Rosenfelders, quietly disappeared.