Johann Joachim Christoph Bode

Bode was born in Braunschweig, the son of a poor day laborer from Schöppenstedt, and went as a shepherd boy to his grandfather in Barum.

When she died after several years, he married a third time, to the widow of a bookseller, with whom he established a printing business, and in connection with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a scholarly bookstore.

This store sold its own and other works, including Lessing's Dramaturgie, Goethe's Götz, and Klopstock's Oden, but the venture soon failed, taking much of Bode's fortune with it.

After the order was banned in Bavaria in 1784, he became the de facto chief executive officer, following Knigge's resignation and Weishaupt's flight.

He then participated in the controversy that raged in Germany following rumors of the conversion to Catholicism of the Protestant German prince and the anti-Papist reactions that followed.