"There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for ... the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates ... multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility."
-- Norman Cohn
Alfred Rosenberg with Hitler, 1925
Shortly after arriving in Munich, Russian emigre Alfred Rosenberg visited ballet dancer Edith von Schrenck, an acquaintance of his wife. He told her of his wish to write about the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. Ms. Von Schrenck advised him to contact Dietrich Eckart, a writer living in Munich, whom she had met a few years earlier while taking the rest cure at Schwarzeck Sanitarium.
On a cold morning in December, 1918 Rosenberg walked up the steps to Tengstrasse 38, second floor, and knocked on Eckart's door. The groggy poet rolled out of bed, opened the door, and raised an eyebrow. The thin, serious-looking Rosenberg nervously introduced himself and asked if Eckart could use another "warrior against Jerusalem." They met for lunch later that day at the Alt Wien restaurant on Bayerstrasse, where they discussed politics, art, Schopenhauer, and the Gothic period. Before long Eckart spoke of Rosenberg as "my tireless friend."
The collaboration of Eckart with Rosenberg led to a cross-pollination between the White Russian community-in-exile and Munich's homegrown Pan-Germans. Rosenberg formed a link between the worst of both worlds. The result would be an unholy amalgamation of Cossack and Nazi anti-Semitism.
During the summer of 1919 Rosenberg obtained a copy of The protocols of the Elders of Zion, recently translated into German by Ludwig Muller von Hausen. Lt. Pyotry Shabelsky-Bork gave it to him -- not a mysterious stranger. Eckart later claimed that it took him a long time to read this riveting narrative. Feelings of shock caused him to drop the book repeatedly. He soon began "leaking" this secret plot to Auf Gut Deutsch readers. For good measure he invented a story about once seeing the very map used in Basel by the Jewish elders as they laid plans to carve up Europe. When scholars and responsible journalists exposed the Protocols as a forgery, Eckart accused them of using the "Hebrew tactic" of mocking what one can't disprove. He and Rosenberg corresponded with Muller von Hausen in hopes of interviews and articles, but he dampened their fervor with curt refusals.
The shy and bookish son of a shoemaker, Rosenberg was born in Reval, Estonia on January 14, 1893. He graduated from Petri Realschule at the top of his class. From there he went to the Advanced Technical Institute of Riga and then to the University of Moscow, where he took a degree in architecture. While at the university Rosenberg boarded with a cadet family and belonged to the ultranationalist Rubonia Society. For his graduation project he designed a gigantic crematorium.
Rosenberg claimed that one day in 1917 a complete stranger marched unannounced into his room, gave him The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, then left abruptly.
"The man, whom I have never seen before, came into my study without knocking, put the book on my desk, and vanished without saying a word." [1]
The addition of The Protocols to Rosenberg's library would have devastating consequences for European Jews.
Although twenty-one years old when the war broke out in 1914, Rosenberg's status as an engineering student exempted him from Russian military service. The November, 1917 Revolution shook his world. This hard-working graduate student, who had undergone so much training in order to advance beyond his petite bourgeois origins, suddenly faced proletarianization at the hands of godless Bolsheviks.
Anxious to escape the chaos of Moscow, Rosenberg went back to Reval where he worked for nine months as a high school drawing teacher. By November, 1918 communist forces threatened the city. Rosenberg and his wife joined the stampede of "Whites" fleeing west under protection of the evacuating German Army. During this exodus to Germany he met various absconding rascals. From former government officials Fyodor Vinberg and Pyotr Shabelsky-Bork he heard accounts of how Jews overthrew the Tsarist Autocracy. Shabelsky-Bork's mother had been active in the Union of the Russian People, a rightwing group which subsidized The Black Hundreds' pogroms against Jews. She denounced both Jews and Freemasons as agents of the Antichrist in her book The Satanists of the 20th Century. Characters like Vinberg, Shabelsky-Bork, and Max von Scheubner-Richter had ties with the Okrhana (Tsarist Secret Police.) Their associates distributed typed copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to delegates at the Versailles Peace Conference.
Black Hundred fortunes only briefly improved beginning in March 1911, when a twelve-year-old boy was butchered in Kiev and the belief spread among the populace that Jews had killed him as part of a ritual. A member of the Union of the Russian People in Kiev wrote an appeal that appeared throughout the city: “Russian People! If you value your children, then kill the Yids! Kill them until there is not even a single Yid in Russia!” In April 1911, Purishkevich and Nikolai Markov II, the influential leader of the Kursk branch of the Union of the Russian People, argued before the Duma that Jews had murdered the boy in Kiev as part of a demonic ritual. [87] An article in a July 1911 edition of the Union newspaper The Russian Banner warned, “Our poor dear children, fear and be afraid of your primordial enemy, tormenter and infanticide, accursed of God and man – the Yid!” The article further admonished Russian children to avoid “the Yid” as if he were a “plague-stricken pest.” [88]
A front-page article in an August 1913 edition of The Russian Banner asserted: “The guilt of the Kiev Jewish Kahal in this matter is established,” no matter what verdict the court would pronounce in the ritual murder case (the accused were found not guilty). Moreover, Jewry deserved to be “expelled from Russia to a country where the use of human blood is not considered a crime.” The article argued that the Russian government had to adopt severe measures against this “accursed people,” the Jews. The piece stressed, “The Yids must be placed artificially in conditions such that they continually die out.” [89] The Union thus served as the first European political group seriously to propose physically exterminating Jews.
While the public uproar over the supposed Jewish ritual murder in Kiev aided the far right’s cause in Imperial Russia, a new split weakened the Black Hundred movement in 1911. At the All-Russian Congress of the Union of the Russian People in Moscow in November 1911, Markov II challenged Union leader Dubrovin’s authority. Other members of the Union’s Head Council backed Markov II, and he received the outside support of Purishkevich, who had already left the Union. Dubrovin reacted by dismissing the offending members from the Union’s Head Council and reconstituting it with reliable supporters. [90] In August 1912, Dubrovin renamed the organization the Vserossiiskogo Dubrinskogo soiuzza russkoga naroda (All-Russian Dubrovin Union of the Russian People) with himself as lifetime leader. Markov II formed another faction of the Union of the Russian People in November 1912. [91]
Dubrovin struggled to maintain his authority in far right Russian circles. Two close colleagues and friends, Aleksandr Bork, who belonged to the Union’s Head Council, and his wife Elsa Shabelskii-Bork, who regularly attended Head Council meetings in an advisory capacity, aided him in his efforts to maintain control of the Union. The couple submitted articles to The Russian Banner in accordance with Dubrovin’s wishes. [92] The pair also began publishing a newspaper, Svoboda I poriadok (Freedom and Order), with police money in December 1913. [93] The Tsar himself avidly read this paper. [94]
In his opening editorial from December 1913, Bork struck an apocalyptic tone. He quoted from Revelation 3:16 in castigating “superficial servants of Christ’s church” who were “neither cold nor hot.” He further warned that “dark forces” were leading humanity to “ruin.” He called for struggle against “Jewish Freemasonry,” which was preparing a “violent … anti-Christian revolution” in Imperial Russia along the lines of those that had “already succeeded in so many countries.” [95] Bork thus viewed Jewry as an apocalyptic force bent on destruction.
In the Russian Empire on the outbreak of World War I, anti-Semitism was relatively widespread, but the Black Hundred movement remained in a disorganized state. As war with Germany loomed, the predominantly pro-German attitude of the Black Hundred movement exacerbated its political weakness. Union of the Russian People leadership tended quite early towards a pro-German stance, largely because of Imperial Russia’s continuing rivalry with Great Britain in Central Asia. [96] In May 1914, the Union faction leader Nikolai Markov II asserted in the Russian Duma that a “small alliance with Germany” was superior to a “great friendship with England.” [97] The majority of rightist monarchists in Imperial Russia favored a German-Russian alliance along the lines that Markov II proposed. [98]
The generally positive attitude towards the German Empire in the Black Hundred movement also applied to the Baltic German population of the Russian Empire. While Union of the Russian People ideology generally disapproved of minority nationalities in Imperial Russia, Baltic Germans proved an exception. In fact, Baltic Germans generally enjoyed a favorable reputation in the Russian radical right. Point 17 of the statutes of Purishkevich’s Michael the Archangel Russian People’s Union expressed “particular trust in the German population of the Empire.” This point had to be removed after the outbreak of World War I, but a generally pro-Baltic German attitude remained among members of the Imperial Russian far right. [99]
The activities and views of right-wing Baltic German subjects of the Russian Empire deserve greater attention that they have received because of the key role that some Baltic Germans subsequently played in the National Socialist movement. The Rubonia Fraternity at the Riga Polytechnic Instituted (named after the Rubon, the Roman term for the Duna River that flows through Riga) spurred Baltic German pride. The majority of the Rubonia Fraternity members came from upper-class Baltic German families in the Russian Baltic provinces. [100] Four members of the Rubonia Fraternity eventually immigrated to Germany and played important roles in Aufbau and the National Socialist Party: Max von Scheubner-Richter, Otto von Kursell, Arno Schickedanz, and Alfred Rosenberg.
Scheubner-Richter was born Richter in Riga in 1884 to an Imperial German father and a Baltic German mother. He received his double name in the course of a love affair with Mathilde von Scheubner, the noble wife of a prominent member of Riga society. He absconded from Riga to Munich with Mathilde, who was almost thirty years his senior, and married her in 1911. A relative of Richter’s wife adopted him and granted him her noble name von Scheubner in 1912, entitling him to the name ovn Scheubner-Richter. [101]
While he was still known as Richter, Scheubner-Richter became friends with Kursell, who had been born into a noble Estonian Baltic Germany family in Saint Petersburg in 1884. [102] Scheubner-Richter and Kursell had first met at the Petri High School in Reval, in what became Estonia. The two Baltic Germans began studying together at the Riga Polytechnic Institute as members of the Rubonia Fraternity in 1905. Scheubern-Richter specialized in chemistry and Kursell studied architecture. Kursell valued Scheubner-Richter as a “popular, cheerful comrade” who held a variety of leadership positions in the Rubonia Fraternity. [103] Kursell was himself a charismatic person and, like Scheubner-Richter, a ladies’ man. [104]
While he was legally considered a subject of Imperial Germany, Scheubner-Richter spoke fluent Russian from his early Russian schooling, and he regarded himself as a Baltic German since he had spent his entire youth in the Imperial Russian Baltic ports Riga and Reval and had risked his life for Baltic German interests in 1905. During the Revolution of 1905, nationalist Latvians and Estonians had joined forces with socialist revolutionaries to overthrow Baltic German landowners who held the leading societal role in the Baltic provines. Scheubner-Richter had been shot in the knee while serving in the Baltic German Selbstschutz (Self-Protection) forces that had combated this anti-Baltic German alliance. [105]
The two other Rubonia Fraternity members who went on to play important roles in Aufbau and the National Socialist movement, Rosenberg and Schickedanz, entered Rubonia in 1910 and studied there together until 1917. Rosenberg had been born in 1893 in Reval to merchant Baltic German parents. His colleague Schickedanz had been born into a Riga merchant family in 1893. Rosenberg majored in architecture and Schickedanz studied chemistry. [106] Rosenberg admired volkisch ideology. As a young man, he read German mythology, Schopenhauer, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. He characterized the last as “the strongest positive influence in my youth.” Russian literature also strongly affected him, most notably the works of Dostoevskii. [107] Rosenberg later helped to shape National Socialist ideology by synthesizing volkisch German ideas with White émigré views.
Unlike the Rubonia Fraternity members Scheubner-Richter, Kursell, Schickedanz, and Rosenberg, a man of noble Baltic German ancestry who went on to influence the National Socialist movement, Fedor Vinberg, regarded himself unequivocally as a Russian. [108] Vinberg grew up in Saint Petersburg as the son of a general who eventually served as a member of the Highest Russian Military Council. He studied at the Classical Gymnasium in Kiev in his youth and subsequently joined the army, reaching the rank of colonel in 1913.
Vinberg attained a high status in Imperial Russia. In 1913, the Tsar named him to serve as his court equerry, meaning that he frequently participated in important ceremonies at the Tsar’s court. With the outbreak of World War I, Colonel Vinberg was assigned command of an infantry regiment. He used his connections to receive an audience with Tsaritsa Aleksandra Romanov, with whom he developed an intense personal relationship if not an outright affair. He pleaded to be allowed to serve in a cavalry regiment. The Tsaritsa saw to it that he received a position in the staff headquarters of the Second Russian Army as he desired. [109]
Vinberg participated in the Black Hundred movement. He belonged to Purishkevich’s Michael of the Archangel Russian People’s Union. Purishkevich “especially impressed” Vinberg early on, though they became somewhat alienated from each other as World War I progressed. [110] After the Tsar’s abdication during the February Revolution of 1917, Vinberg refused to serve the Provisional Government under Aleksandr Kerenskii. Kerenskii’s regime suppressed Black Hundred organizations before any other political groupings. In May 1917, Vinberg launched a counter-revolutionary initiative by founding a secret alliance, Officer’s Duty, which included both members of the officer corps and a few hundred men from outside it. [111] Vinberg remained a staunch supporter of the monarchy in the face of revolutionary upheaval.
Counter-revolutionary activities in which Vinberg participated during the period of Kerenskii’s Provisional Government culminated in the unsuccessful Kornilov Putsch of August 27-30, 1917 under the leadership of General Lavr Kornilov. Vinberg and members of his conspiratorial Officer’s Duty organization took part in this undertaking. [112] Lieutenant Piotr Shabelskii-Bork, the son of the couple who had published the Union of the Russian People newspaper Freedom and Order and a member of both the Union of the Russian People and Purishkevich's Michael the Archangel Russian People's Union, also supported the Kornilov Putsch. Lieutenant Sergei Taboritskii, Shabelskii-Bork's comrade from the Cavalry Regiment of the Caucasian Division, also took part in this counter-revolutionary endeavor. [113] Like Vinberg, both Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii went on to serve Aufbau and the National Socialist cause.
In the summer of 1917, Lieutenants Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii formed an organization of officers loyal to the Tsar. They traveled to the front at the end of June 1917 to assess which cavalry regiments would best serve for a monarchical coup in the capital Petrograd, as Saint Petersburg was then known. Shabelskii-Bork and Taboritskii planned to assist General Kornilov by using loyal Tsarist cavalry officers to storm the Winter Palace and to arrest Kerenskii's Provisional Government in August 1917, but their preparations were discovered and thwarted beforehand. [114] The Failed Kornilov Putsch increased public fears of repressive right wing counterrevolution. The unsuccessful undertaking undermined remaining public confidence in Russian army officers, and it helped to bring Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks out of the isolation that they had engendered through their own armed protest in July 1917. [115]
After the Kornilov Putsch collapsed, Colonel Vinberg continued to oppose leftist force in Russia. He collaborated with Purishkevich, who formed an underground monarchical organization in September 1917 that included many former members of the now dissolved Michael the Archangel Russian People's Union. [116] Vinberg contributed articles to the "non-socialist" newspaper Narodnyi Tribun (The People's Tribune), which Purishkevich began publishing in September 1917. [117] In an October 1917 essay, "Fighting Value," Vinberg lamented that the 'Revolution" had "torn out" the "lofty religious, public, and civil ideals" from the "souls of the soldiers" in Russia. [118] At this time, he was primarily concerned with the dissolution of the Russian Army as a potent fighting force.
Vinberg wrote an article for The People's Tribune a few days later in which he again lamented the current state of affairs in Russia. In his essay, "Contrasts," he claimed that while the Italian Army was fighting bravely against an overwhelming German force, soldiers of the numerically far superior Russian Army were running "unrestrained" from German troops. Moreover, "Native fields and settlements have been pillaged and destroyed by our own soldiers and peasants." Vinberg used the language of a disappointed lover in expressing his woe: "My poor people! ... I loved and believed in you so! ... What they have done to you!" [119] The spread of revolution and the dissolution of the army devastated Vinberg.
Vinberg's impotent frustration as expressed in Purishkevich's The People's Tribune underscored the inability of the Black Hundred movement to thwart the Bolshevik seizure of power. [120] The Bolsheviks closed The People's Tribune after they had overthrown Kerenskii's Provisional Government in October 1917 (according to the Julian calendar then used in Russia). [121] Vinberg was suddenly faced with the rule of what he termed the "Jewish Bolsheviks." [122] The success of the "October Revolution," as the Bolshevik seizure of power became known, forced Black Hundred activities in Russia to become strictly conspiratorial. [123]
After the Bolsheviks came to power, Vinberg's co-conspirator in the Kornilov Putsch, Shabelskii-Bork, retreated to his estate near Petrograd, where he researched the causes of the February and October Revolutions for Purishkevich's underground monarchical organization. Shabelskii-Bork concluded that the Entente (Britain and France) had fomented revolution in Imperial Russia since it had feared the "Russian peril" as much as the German one. He decided that the restoration of the Russian monarchy could not be achieved with Entente aid, but only through the "reestablishment of the traditional friendship between Russia and Germany." [124]
Bolshevik leaders broke up Purishkevich's underground monarchical organization and imprisoned Purishkevich, Vinberg, and Shabelskii-Bork, among others, in December 1917. Bolshevik authorities charged the three comrades with organizing a monarchical conspiracy against the fledgling Soviet regime. [125] At their trial that began in late December, Shabelskii-Bork impressed Vinberg with his fervent monarchism. [126] Vinberg moved Shabelskii-Bork by assuring the tribunal. “My head can roll off of your execution block, but it will never bow to the Revolution.” [127] The Bolshevik court convicted and imprisoned Purishkevich, Vinberg, and Shabelskii-Bork. [128] Vinberg and Shabelskii-Bork shared the same prison cell, where Vinberg received the thanks of the similarly incarcerated former Tsar for working on his behalf. [129] Vinberg and Shabelskii-Bork began a close friendship in this cell that later led to the transfer of Black Hundred ideology to the early National Socialist movement, most notably in the form of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
CONCLUSION
Far rightests in Imperial Germany and the Russian Empire established detailed anti-Western, anti-socialist, and anti-semitic ideologies in the period leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution. Largely internally orientated volkisch German thought drew on the idealistic views of Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Volkisch ideology conceived a pernicious materialistic Jewish essence that the spiritually and racially superior Germans needed to transcend by negating the will to live, thereby redeeming the world. More externally fixated Russian radical right beliefs, which were associated with the Slavophiles in general and the authors Fedor Dostoevskii and Vladimir Solovev in particular, expressed apocalyptic visions of Jewish world conspirators who threatened to ruin Imperial Russia and eventually the world. Russians needed to lead all Slavs to combat this menace in a concrete political struggle. Anti-Semitic National Socialist ideology later arose largely as a synthesis of German volkisch-redemptive and Russian conspiratorial-apocalyptic thought.
While the Black Hundred movement in Imperial Russia, of which the Union of the Russian People formed the most important component, managed to disseminate its anti-Semitic ideology to a considerably broader audience than any comparable volkisch German alliance, far right movements in both Imperial Russia and the German Empire nonetheless failed to achieve their political aspirations. Russian conservative revolutionaries fiercely defended the Tsar, but after initial moderate successes, the Black Hundred movement’s influence declined dramatically. Far rightists could not prevent the Tsar’s abdication, nor could they thwart the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. The Russian far right only regained a powerful drive and coherence that had been lacking of late after the Bolshevik Revolution. The Bolshevik “Reds” provided an insidious political foe for “Whites” that fit earlier apocalyptic Black Hundred warnings.
No powerful political volkisch movement developed in Imperial Germany up to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Heinrich Class’ Pan-German League, Ludwig Muller von Haussen’s Association against the Presumption of Jewry, and Wolfgang Kapp’s German Fatherland Party all failed to attract mass followings. Numerically slight volkisch elements that grouped around Kapp and Class ultimately concluded that a military dictatorship under the volkisch General Erich von Ludendorff represented a superior option to the rule of the ineffectual Kaiser. Volkisch Germans could not establish such a dictatorship, however.
In any case, although the days of the Kaiser were numbered, German prospects for victory in World War I improved considerably when the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917. German forces advanced deep into former Imperial Russian territory in 1918, most notably into the Ukraine, where right-wing German officers interacted with their monarchical Russian or Ukrainian counterparts on a large scale for the first time. German-White cooperation in the Ukraine set a precedent for further international right-wing alliances after Imperial Germany lost World War I, notably as seen in the Baltic region in 1919. Hitler’s National Socialists subsequently drew upon the tradition of German-White collaboration that had been established in the Ukraine.
-- The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Emigres and the Making of National Socialism, 1917-1945, by Michael Kellogg
Rosenberg's White Russian compatriots had a predilection for draping reactionary prejudices in the mantle of a religious crusade. In pamphlets published by The Confraternity of St. Michael they asseverated that "Christ-killers" such as Sverdlov and Yurovsky had sown seeds of discontent among serfs, then slew God's earthly representative, Tsar Nicholas. God would now bless the Whites' Holy War against these diabolical usurpers.
Rosenberg soon arrived in Berlin with a group of unsavory refugees. Not being able to find work there, he relocated to Munich in December, 1918. Having no money, he ate most of his meals in soup kitchens. A Russian expatriate discussion circle convinced Rosenberg that Germany had to defend European civilization against the spread of Jewish-Marxist nihilism. His first Auf Gut Deutsch article on the "Jewish Revolution" appeared on February, 21, 1919. It rehashed articles from Pravda and put an anti-Semitic spin on them. In December, 1919 Eckart introduced Rosenberg to Hitler, who appreciated his "deep and systematic knowledge of the Jewish problem."
While working odd jobs in Munich, Rosenberg embarked upon an independent study course. After reading Adolf Josef Lanz's TheoZoology, Houston S. Chamberlain's Foundations of the 19th Century, and other racist tomes he began churning out his own brand of humbug. In 1920 Rosenberg wrote a defamatory history of Judaism entitled The Tracks of the Jew through the Ages and edited an off-color anthology of Jewish writings, The Immorality of the Talmud. He followed up with The Crime of Freemasonry (1921), and The Morass, or Plague in Russia (1922), and a translation of Henri- Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux's old French standby, re-titled The Eternal Jew. All of these works were published by Eckart's Hoheneichen ("Big Oak") Press. Although he contended that "earth-bound" Jews lacked souls, this did not prevent the foppish and heavily perfumed Rosenberg from having a scandalous love affair with the daughter of Jewish publishing magnate Georg Bernhard.
Abandoning any pretense of intellectual honesty, Rosenberg translated and published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- a work he knew to be spurious. In Warrant for Genocide Professor Norman Cohn uncovered the origins of The Protocols. The Okrhana (Russian Secret Police) hired "Holy Fool" Sergey Nilus to write a tract about the alleged Jewish conspiracy. In 1905 he cobbled together The Great and the Small, which featured The Protocols as a postscript. To associate the "Elders" with anarchy, Nilus set his meeting of International Jewish leaders in Basle, Switzerland, where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels held their International Congress of Socialists in 1869. Dr. Cohn adduced convincing proof that Nilus plagiarized Maurice Joly's "Dialogue between Montesquieu and Machiavelli" (1864,) a satire aimed at Napoleon III's corrupt government. The Protocols' consisted of an opening speech, followed by twenty-four points that set forth the supposed master plan for world domination. In addition to unscrupulous trade practices, the program called for manipulation of education and the press, so that the legitimate authority of crown and church could be subverted. Elders suggested that the masses might be easily seduced with alcohol, drugs, and trashy entertainment.
X: NAPOLEON AND FREEMASONRY
THE leader who arose out of the first French Revolution, and whose military and diplomatic fame is still fresh in the recollection of many of the present generation — that leader was Napoleon Bonaparte. In the days of his greatest prosperity, nothing was so distasteful to him as to be reminded of his Jacobin past. He then wished to pose as another Charlemagne, or Rudolph of Hapsburg. He wished to be considered the friend of religion, and of the Catholic religion in particular. He did something for the restoration of the Church in France, but it was as little as he could help. It, perhaps, prevented a more wholesome and complete reaction in favour of the true religious aspirations of the population. It was done grudgingly, parsimoniously, and meanly. And when it had been done, Napoleon did all he could to undo its benefits. He soon became the persecutor — the heartless, cruel, ungrateful persecutor of the Pontiff, and an opponent to the best interests of religion in France, and in every country which had the misfortune to fall under his sway. The reason for all this was, that Napoleon had commenced his career as a Freemason, and a Freemason he remained in spirit and in effect to the end of his life. It is known that he owed his first elevation to the Jacobins, and that his earliest patron was Robespierre. His first campaign in Italy was characterized by the utmost brutality which could gratify Masonic hatred for the Church. He suppressed the abodes of the consecrated servants of God, sacked churches, cathedrals, and sanctuaries, and reduced the Pope to the direst extremities. His language was the reflex of his acts and of his heart. His letters breathe everywhere the spirit of advanced Freemasonry, gloating over the wounds it had been able to inflict upon the Spouse of Christ. Yet this adventurer has, with great adroitness, been able to pass with many, and especially in Ireland, as a good Catholic. Because he was the enemy of England, or rather that England led by the counsels of Pitt and Burke, constituted herself the implacable enemy of the Revolution of which he was the incarnation and continuation, many opposed to England for political reasons, regard Bonaparte as a kind of hero. No one can doubt the military genius of the man, nor indeed his great general ability; but he was in all his acts what Freemasonry made him. He was mean, selfish, tyrannical, cruel. He was reckless of blood. He could tolerate or use the Church while that suited his policy. But he had from the beginning to the very end of his career that thorough indifference to her welfare, and want of belief in her doctrines, which an early and life-long connection with the Illuminati inspired.
Father Deschamps writes of him: "Napoleon Bonaparte was in effect an advanced Freemason, and his reign has been the most flourishing epoch of Freemasonry. During the reign of terror the Grand Orient ceased its activity. The moment Napoleon seized power the lodges were opened in every place."
I have said that the revolutionary rulers in France were all Illuminati — that is Freemasons of the most pronounced type — whose ultimate aim was the destruction of every existing religion and form of secular government, in order to found an atheistic, social republic, which would extend throughout the world and embrace all mankind. Freemasonry welcomes, as we have seen, the Mahommedan, the Indian, the Chinese, and the Buddhist, as well as the Christian and the Jew. It designs to conquer all, as a means of bringing all into the one level of Atheism and Communism. When, therefore, its Directory, in their desire to get rid of Napoleon, planned the expedition to Egypt and Asia, they meant the realization of a part of this programme, as well as the removal of a troublesome rival. A universal monarchy is, in their idea, the most efficacious means for arriving at a universal republic. Once obtained, the dagger with which they removed Gustavus III of Sweden, or the guillotine by which they rid France of Louis XVI, can at any moment remove Caesar and call in Brutus. They are not the men to recoil before deeds of blood for the accomplishment of their purposes.
Now Napoleon, who was, as Father Deschamps informs us, a member of the lodge of the Templars, the extreme Illuminated lodge of Lyons, and had given proof of his fidelity to Masonry in Italy, was the very man to extend the rule of Republicanism throughout Asia. He appeared in Egypt with the same professions of hypocritical respect for the Koran, the Prophet, and Mahommedanism, as he afterwards made when it suited his policy for Catholicism. His address to the people of Egypt will prove this. It ran as follows, with true Masonic hypocrisy: —"Cadis, Chieks, Imans, tell the people that we are the friends of true Mussulmen; that we respect more than the Mamelukes do, God, His Prophet, and the Alkoran. Is it not we who have destroyed the Pope, who wished that war should be made against the Mussulman? Is it not we who have destroyed the Knights of Malta, because these madmen thought that God willed them to make war upon the Mussulman? Is it not we who have been, in all ages the friends of the Grand Seigneur — may God fulfil his desires — and the enemy of his enemies. God is God, and Mahomet is his Prophet! Fear nothing above all for the religion of the Prophet, which I love."
The cool hypocrisy of this address is manifested by a proclamation he made on that occasion to his own soldiers. The same proclamation also shows the value we may place on his protestations of attachment to, and respect for, the usages of Christianity. The following is a translation of it: —"Soldiers! the peoples with whom we are about to live are Mahommedan. The first article of their faith is this: 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet.' Do not contradict them. Act with them as you have acted with the Jews and with the Italians. Have the same respect for their Muftis and their Imans, as you have had for Rabbis and Bishops. Have for the ceremonies prescribed by the Alkoran, for the Mosques, the same tolerance you had for Convents, for Synagogues, and for the religion of Moses and of Jesus Christ."
We read in the correspondence of Napoleon I, published by order of Napoleon III (vol. v., pp. 185, 191, 241), what he thought of this proclamation at the very end of his career: —..."After all, it was not impossible that circumstances might have brought me to embrace Islam," he said at St. Helena. "Could it be thought that the Empire of the East, and perhaps the subjection of the whole of Asia, was not worth a turban and pantaloons, for it was reduced to so much solely. We would lose only our breeches and our hats. I say that the army, disposed as it was, would have lent itself to that project undoubtedly, and it saw in it nothing but a subject for laughter and pleasantry. Meanwhile, you see the consequences. I took Europe by a back stroke. The old civilization was beaten down, and who then thought to disturb the destinies of our France and the regeneration of the world? Who had dared to undertake it? Who could have accomplished it?"
Thiers (Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empire, iv. p. 14), says that when Napoleon intended to proclaim himself Emperor, he wished to give the Masons a pledge of his principles, and that he did this by killing the Duke d'Enghien. He said, "They wish to destroy the Revolution in attacking it in my person. I will defend it, for I am the Revolution. I, myself — I, myself. They will so consider it from this day forward, for they will know of what we are capable." ...
When Napoleon obtained power, it was we know principally by means of the Illuminated Freemason Talleyrand. [1] By him and his confederates of the Illuminati, he was recalled from Egypt and placed in the way of its attainment. His brothers were — every one of them — deep in the secrets of the Sect. Its supreme hidden directory saw that a reaction had set in, which if not averted, would speedily lead to the return of the exiled Bourbons, and to the disgorgement of ill-gotten goods on the part of the revolutionists. As a lesser evil, therefore, and as a means of forwarding the unification of Europe which they had planned, by his conquests, they placed supreme power in the hands of Bonaparte, and urged him on in his career, watching, at the same time, closely, their own opportunities for the development of the deadly designs of the Sect. Then, they obtained the first places in his Empire for themselves. They put as much mischief into the measures of relief given to conscience as they could. They established a fatal supremacy for secularism in the matter of education. They brought dissension between the Pope and the Emperor. They caused the second confiscation of the States of the Church. They caused and continued to the end, the imprisonment of Pius VII. They were at the bottom of every attack made by Napoleon while Emperor upon the rights of the Church, the freedom and independence of the Supreme Pontiff, and the well-being of religion.
But the chief mistake of Napoleon was the encouragement he gave to Freemasonry. It served his purpose admirably for a while, that is so long as he served the present and ultimate views of the conspiracy; for a conspiracy Masonry ever was and ever will be. Even if Cambaceres, Talleyrand, Fouche, and the old leaders of the Illuminati, whom he had taken into his confidence and richly rewarded, should be satisfied, there was a mass of others whom no reward could conciliate, and who, filled with the spirit of the Sect, were sure to be ever on the look out for the means to advance the designs of Weishaupt and his inner circle. That inner circle never ceased its action. It held the members of the Sect, whom it not only permitted but assisted to attain high worldly honours, completely in its power, and hence in absolute subjection. For them as well as for the humblest member of the secret conclave, the poisoned aqua tophona and the dagger were ready to do the work of certain death should they lack obedience to those depraved fanatics of one diabolical idea, who were found worthy to be selected by their fellow conspirators to occupy the highest place of infamy and secret power. These latter scattered secretly amidst the rank and file of the lodges, hundreds of Argus-eyed, skilled plotters, who kept the real power of inner or high Masonry in the hands of its hidden masters. Masonry from this secret vantage ground ceaselessly conspired during the Empire. It assisted the conquest of the victor of Austerlitz and Jena; and if Deschamps, who quotes from the most reliable sources, is to be trusted, it actually did more for these victories than the great military leader himself. Through its instrumentality the resources of the enemies of Napoleon were never at hand, the designs of the Austrian and other generals opposed to him were thwarted, treason was rife in their camps, and information fatal to their designs was conveyed to the French commander. Masonry was then on his side, and as now the secret resources of the Order, its power of hidden influence and espionage were placed at the disposal of the cause it served. But when Masonry had reason to fear that Napoleon's power might be perpetuated; when his alliance with the Imperial Family of Austria, and above all, when the consequence of that alliance, an heir to his throne, caused danger to the universal republic it could otherwise assure itself of at his death; when, too, he began to show a coldness for the sect, and sought means to prevent it from the propagandism of its diabolical aims, then it became his enemy, and his end was not far off. [2] Distracting councils prevailed in his cabinet. His opponents began to get information regarding his movements, which he had obtained previously of theirs. Members of the sect urged on his mad expedition to Moscow. His resources were paralyzed; and he was, in one word, sold by secret, invisible foes into the hands of his enemies. In Germany, Weishaupt and his party, still living on in dark intrigue, prepared secretly for his downfall. His generals were beaten in detail. He was betrayed, hoodwinked, and finally led to his deposition and ruin. He then received with a measure, pressed down and overflowing, and shaken together, the gratitude of the father of lies, incarnate in Freemasonry, in the Illuminati, and kindred Atheist secret societies. Banished to Elba he was permitted to return to France only in order to meet the fate of an outcast and a prisoner upon the rock of St. Helena, where he died abandoned and persecuted by the dark Sect which had used, abused, and betrayed him. So it has continued, as we shall see, to use, to abuse, and to betray every usurper or despot whom it lures into its toils.
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Notes:
1. Alexander Dumas in his Memoires de Garibaldi, first series, p. 34, tells us: —
"Illuminism and Freemasonry, these two great enemies of royalty, and the adopted device of both of which was L. P. D., lilia pedibus destrue, had a grand part in the French Revolution.
"Napoleon took Masonry under his protection. Joseph Napoleon was Grand Master of the Order, Joachim Murat second Master adjoint. The Empress Josephine being at Strasbourg, in 1805, presided over the fete for the adoption of the lodge of True Chevaliers of Paris. At the same time Eugene de Beauharnais was Venerable of the lodge of St. Eugene in Paris. Having come to Italy with the title of Viceroy, the Grand Orient of Milan named him Master and Sovereign Commander of the Supreme Council of the thirty-second grade, that is to say, accorded him the greatest honour which could be given him according to the Statutes of the Order. Bernadotte was a Mason. His son Oscar was Grand Master of the Swedish lodge. In the different lodges of Paris were successively initiated, Alexander, Duke of Wurtemburg; the Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, even the Persian Ambassador, Askeri Khan. The President of the Senate, Count de Lacipede, presided over the Grand Orient of France, which had for officers of honour the Generals Kellerman, Messina, and Soult. Princes, Ministers, Marshals, Officers, Magistrates, all the men, in fine, remarkable for their glory or considerable by their position, ambitioned to be made Masons. The women even wished to have their lodges into which entered Mesdames de Vaudemont, de Carignan, de Gerardin, de Narbonne and many other ladies."
Frere Clavel, in his picturesque history of Freemasonry, says that, "Of all these high personages the Prince Cambaceres was the one who most occupied himself with Masonry. He made it his duty to rally to Masonry all the men in France who were influential by their official position, by their talent, or by their fortune. The personal services which he rendered to many of the brethren, the eclat which he caused to be given to the lodges in bringing to their sittings by his example and invitations all those illustrious amongst the military and judicial professions and others, contributed powerfully to the fusion of parties and to the consolidation of the imperial throne. In effect under his brilliant and active administration the lodges multiplied ad infinitum. They were composed of the elect of French society. They became a point of re-union for the partisans of the existing and of passed regimes. They celebrated in them the feasts of the Emperor. They read in them the bulletins of his victories before they were made public by the press, and able men organized the enthusiasm which gradually took hold of all minds."
-- Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked As the Secret Power Behind Communism, by Monsignor George F. Dillon DD. with Preface by The Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S.SP., B.A., D.PH., D.D.
The Protocols reflect the fallacy inherent in all conspiracy theories -- that a secret cabal can "herd cats." Men act independently in their own rational self-interest. No shadowy board of overseers can brainwash the majority, rig stock prices, control the media, and determine the fate of nations. Such sleuths cannot analyze events without introducing secret camarillas and hidden meanings which track with their inmost fears. Nazism's Holocaust proved that the Jews were a vulnerable minority, rather than clandestine world rulers.
Who holds the purse strings to the majority of the world’s wealth? There is a new global elite at the controls of our economic future, and here former Project Censored director and media monitoring sociologist Peter Phillips unveils for the general reader just who these players are. The book includes such power players as Larry Fink, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett.
As the number of men with as much wealth as half the world fell from sixty-two to just eight between January 2016 and January 2017, according to Oxfam International, fewer than 200 super-connected asset managers at only 17 asset management firms—each with well over a trillion dollars in assets under management–now represent the financial core of the world’s transnational capitalist class. Members of the global power elite are the management -- the facilitators -- of world capitalism, the firewall protecting the capital investment, growth, and debt collection that keeps the status quo from changing. Each chapter in Giants identifies by name the members of this international club of multi-millionaires, their 17 global financial companies—and including NGOs such as the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission—and their transnational military protectors, so the reader, for the first time anywhere, can identify who constitutes this network of influence, where the wealth is concentrated, how it suppresses social movements, and how it can be redistributed for maximum systemic change.
-- Giants: The Global Power Elite, by Project Censored: The News That Didn't Make the News
Despite importunities from Prussia's government, British police prefect Lord Aberdare declined to investigate the radical political activities of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1871 on the grounds that they were no more than "harmless malcontents ... (in need of) education (and) religious training." [3] Dissatisfied with this explanation The New York World dispatched a reporter to interview Marx, who asked him if he were the evil genius behind a vast anti-government conspiracy. The communist leader replied:
"There is no mystery to clear up, dear sir, except perhaps the mystery of human stupidity in those who perpetually ignore the fact that our Association is a public one and that the fullest reports of its proceedings are published for all who care to read them. You may buy our rules for a penny, and a shilling laid out in pamphlets will teach you almost as much about us as we know ourselves." [4]
The paranoiacs who hatch conspiracy theories have latched onto Jews, Freemasons, and Jesuits for generations.
Tactician from Cossack-Land
"Everyone (of those who died in the Putsch) is replaceable with the exception of one -- Scheubner-Richter!"
-- Adolf Hitler
Ludwig Maximilian von Scheubner-Richter was born in Riga, Livonia on January 21, 1884. Although of German extraction, he lived most of his life in Russia, and belonged to the Rubonia Fraternity. An engineer and historian by training, he operated as a double agent in Constantinople between 1914 and 1916 -- then as German Vice Consul of Erzerum. There he witnessed Turkey's massacres of Armenians. To no avail Scheubner-Richter advised Kemal Ataturk's agents to stop the bloodshed. In 1917 he acted as a military and political attache while German forces advanced through the Baltic States. He functioned not only as a consultant to German high command, but as liaison officer with Russian civilians and army personnel. During the November Revolution, he recommended that German troops be sent into Petrograd to crush the Bolshevik uprising.
In March, 1920 Alfred Rosenberg introduced Hitler to Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, one of General Ludendorff's advisers. A Baltic German who had intimate connections with Germany's White Russian community, Scheubner-Richter assisted Hitler as a political counselor and channel for Russian emigre contributions. Besides Ludendorff, his wide circle of acquaintances included Grand Duke Cyril (the late Tsar's uncle,) Russian Orthodox prelates, members of the deposed Wittelsbach dynasty, General Skoropadski of The Black Hundreds, Dr. Nemirovich-Dantchenko, a former member of the Tsar's secret police, and Dr. Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitch, a Kiev theater manager turned propagandist.
An engineer by training, Scheubner-Richter's political career began during the Revolution of 1905 when he served in a private landowners' army. After marrying the daughter of an industrialist whose factory he guarded, Scheubner-Richter devoted himself to counterrevolutionary activities. Between 1906 and 1918 he worked as a German agent, with the mission of undermining Russia's alliance with France and England. During World War I he operated as a double agent in Constantinople. The German and Russian governments both paid him to conduct intrigues with Turks, Armenians, and Kurds.
When Tsarist Russia collapsed after the November, 1917 Revolution, Germany's victory suddenly changed into a Bolshevik triumph. Scheubner-Richter harshly criticized the German intelligence operations which abetted Lenin. He temporarily switched back to the White Russian side in a futile effort to stem Bolshevism. These frantic last minute measures came to naught. Though on opposite sides during World War 1, the Russian and German empires both crumbled to dust simultaneously due to a "Jewish-Marxist plot."
After being captured and nearly executed, Scheubner-Richter beat it out of Russia with General Wrangel's army in the spring of 1919 with the Red Army on his heels. Upon arriving in Germany he affiliated himself with the Freikorps movement, and soon met Ludendorff, von Epp, Ernst Rohm, and Alfred Rosenberg. Scheubner-Richter joined the N.S.D.A.P. in April, 1920. Later that year Dietrich Eckart interviewed him for an Auf Gut Deutsch article on the Bolshevik Revolution, "Juden Uber Alles." Scheubner-Richter stated that Baron Wrangel and his staff knew that Jews planned the November, 1917 Revolution. He added that the British and French sent Jewish operatives to Russia who aided Communists in order to scotch Germany's Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Scheubner-Richter knew artist Otto von Kursell, who had illustrated Eckart's article, Aus Ungarns Schreckstagen (Panic in Hungary.) This "comic book" satirized Bela Kun's communist revolution. Scheubner-Richter sensed the vulnerability of Kun's government to counterrevolution, and predicted that a nationalistic Hungary would make a good ally for Germany.
Like Eckart, Scheubner-Richter wanted to unite anti-Semites of all nations against International Jewry. He admired Mussolini, but faulted him for being insufficiently anti-Jewish. As a German agent in the Mideast, Scheubner-Richter had witnessed Turkish genocide against Armenia. The Turks murdered 1,000,000 Armenians between 1915 and 1919. He pointed out to Hitler that Kemal Ataturk, chief perpetrator of this bloodbath, remained in power. Hence, a large-scale German pogrom against Jews might not necessarily generate much of a backlash. Bleeding hearts in the "civilized world" would send letters of protest, help a few boatloads of refugees, then shrug the whole thing off, since no one liked Jews anyway.
When Hitler emerged as undisputed leader of an anti-Bolshevik party in July, 1921, 5 foot 2 inch Scheubner-Richter replaced the absent Eckart as his right-hand man. Jealous of the "Russian shrimp's" growing influence, Eckart responded in typical fashion -- reasserting his own supremacy by belittling an adversary. Wasn't Russia in worse shape than Germany? So how come Adolf listened with rapt attention to a displaced Baltic midget with shifty eyes behind thick pince-nez? Who could trust a double-crossing spy? Scheubner-Richter's hare-brained plan to kidnap Crown Prince Rupprecht would land them all on the gallows.
Furthermore, Scheubner-Richter's boss, General Erich Ludendorff, had recently turned into a wild-eyed crank. In October, 1923 Gottfried Feder introduced Ludendorff to Dr. Mathilde von Kemnitz (1874-1966), and initially acted as a chaperone. "Matti" soon lured the fifty-eight year old general away from Margarete Schmidt Ludendorff, his wife of thirty years (and mother of six children,) then drew him into the realm of occultism and crackpot theories. Ludendorff married Mathilde in 1926.
The daughter of Protestant theologian Bernhard Spiess, Mathilde studied medicine after her mountain-climbing first husband died in an avalanche. She eventually became a psychologist specializing in spiritual disorders. Though an "integrationist" on the Jewish question, Mathilde frowned upon Jewry's "criminal element," as well as astrologers, Freemasons, and Jesuits. She not only assailed the Red International (Communism), and Gold International (Jewry), but Ultramontane Catholicism, also known as "The Black International." Her magazine, At the Holy Well, recommended the abolition of Christian churches. She founded an Aryan sect, the Tannenberg Bund, which fostered "German God-Knowledge" by worshiping in "forest temples." In her book Redemption from Jesus Christ, Mathilde argued that Jesus was an "alcoholic" who never died on the cross. General Ludendorff nodded vigorously while she uttered such loony beliefs, looking ready to cuff any dissenters with his swagger stick. Under her supervision he undertook studies which exposed the Antichrist's machinations. After the scales fell from his eyes he wrote:
"More and more plainly I became aware of the fission-fungi within ... our society ... in the form of secret supranational forces -- the Jews and Rome, along with their tools, the Freemasons, the Jesuits, occult and satanic structures." [5]
This passage reflects the opinions of cult leader Josef Weissenberg, who revered "Bismarck as ... appointed savior, ... and saw his fall as engineered by Freemasons and Jesuits." [6]
Eckart had mixed feelings about Ludendorff, the hero of Liege, Tannenberg, and Masurian Lakes. He respected the general's prowess as an army commander and understood the prestige he lent to Hitler's movement. On the other hand he considered Ludendorff a "military blockhead" who lacked political sense.
Hitler dismissed Eckart's criticisms of Ludendorff and Scheubner-Richter as sour grapes. Ludendorff, in spite of his descent into irrationalism, still enjoyed the officer corps's trust. Thus, Hitler didn't care about his idiosyncrasies. Scheubner-Richter's fundraising had improved the party's finances. His revolutionary strategies appeared sound. Max preached that seizure of police authority must be the party's primary goal. If the S.A. captured Munich's streets today, they could control all of Germany tomorrow. Lenin had toppled the Tsar's autocracy with less than 50,000 mutinous troops.
The Nazi Party should try to pull off a nationalist revolution similar to Mussolini's coup in Italy -- not a chaotic affair like the Kapp Putsch. If politically ignorant army types grabbed power for a few days and made a mess of things, the whole movement would fall apart. Thank God the Spartacists were imbeciles. Nazis must not repeat their mistakes. The people hate unnecessary discomforts. There can be no looting, power outages, food shortages, or long lines at petrol stations. All hell would break loose if interruptions in water service, electricity, home heating, and trash collection were allowed to occur. Court proceedings, mail delivery, and train service must proceed on time. Every measure must be taken to insure an adequate beer supply. Party leaders must act in concert with reliable officials in government and business, who have the necessary administrative experience to effect an orderly transition of power from the Weimar Republic to an Aryan state. Lenin realized that amateurs in the working class and military could not efficiently govern a village, much less a nation. So did Karl Marx, who wrote that it would be a gross mistake for untrained members of the proletariat to "lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes." [7]
At noon on November 9, 1923 Max von Scheubner-Richter locked arms with Alfred Rosenberg and Hitler for the march on Munich's city hall. He turned to Hitler and said: "this may be our last walk together." A minute later a bullet tore through his heart, killing him instantly. After the Beer Hall Putsch's failure Hitler abandoned Scheubner-Richter's notion of armed revolt and adopted Eckart's idea of a "ballot box revolution."
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Endnotes
1 Trevor Ravenscroft, The Spear of Destiny, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, ME, 1973, p. 106.
2 Hannah Newman, The Rainbow Swastika, Philogos.org, p. 20 or 21.
3 Francis Wheen, Karl Marx: A Life, Norton & Co., New York, 2000, p. 333.
4 Ibid., p. 336.
5 Leonard Mosley, The Reich Marshal, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1974, p. 77.
6 James Webb, The Occult Establishment, Open Court Publishing Co., LaSalle, IL, 1976, p. 33.
7 Francis Wheen, Karl Marx: A Life, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 2000, p. 329.