Freemasonry in Germany

Even before there were lodges in Germany, Germans were becoming Freemasons in English lodges. One of the earliest was Albert Wolfgang, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe. In 1729 Count Thuanus was appointed Envoy Extraordinary of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Provincial Grand Master of Lower Saxony by the Premier Grand Lodge of England with the aim of establishing lodges in Germany. No activity for this Provincial Grand Master is known. In 1733 'eleven German Gentlemen' in London were admitted to Freemasonry and received permission to found a lodge in Hamburg. There is no evidence that anything came of this, either.[1]

It was only on December 6, 1737 that the Grand Master's Deputies of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Electorate of Brandenburg Hamburg founded a lodge. This first German lodge was called Loge d'Hambourg[2] but did not belong to any Grand Lodge. Its second master went to the London Grand Lodge in 1743 and registered it as lodge number 108, returning with the title of Provincial Grand Master. Later that year the lodge was named Absalom zu den drei Nesseln. In 1738 Loge aux trois aigles blancs was founded in Dresden by Count Rutowski. It had such a large intake that two more lodges emerged from it within two years.[3]

By 1754 a total of 19 lodges were founded in Germany. Gradually, provincial, grand and mother lodges emerged, such as the Provincial Grand Lodge of Hamburg in 1740, the Mother Lodge l'Union of Frankfurt in 1741, the Grand Lodge of Upper Saxony in 1741 and the Grand Royal Mother Lodge The Three Globes in 1744.[3]

Foundation of German Grand Lodges

A Bavarian masonic certificate from 1780, written in French

After the era of the Strict Observance, set against much stranger forms of Freemasonry, the craft in Germany came to be governed by several strong and durable Grand Lodges. The Grand National Mother Lodge, "The Three Globes" and the Grand Mother Lodge "Zur Sonne" had already been established in 1744. They were followed by the Grand Landlodge of the Freemasons of Germany in 1770, the Great Mother Lodge of the Eclectic Masonic Federation 1783, the Grand Lodge of Prussia called the Royal York for friendship 1798, the Grand Lodge of Hamburg 1811, the Grand Landlodge of Saxony 1811, and the Grand Masonic Lodge "Concord (Zur Eintracht)" in 1846.[3]

From 1801, at the suggestion of Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, lodges from the various Grand Lodges started to found "lodge clubs". In the first association of its kind, the Provincial Grand Lodge of Hamburg met with the Grand Lodge of Hanover and the Grand Lodge Royal York of Friendship. The "Masonic Society of the Three Grand Lodges of Berlin", comprising the Grand National Mother Lodge "the Three Globes", the Grand Landlodge and the Grand Lodge "Royal York" was founded on the same model in 1810. The Hamburg club focused more on the content of scientific questions, the Berliners were more concerned with administrative aspects of their Grand Lodge. The Berlin club became dormant in 1823. In 1839 the "Grand Masters Club of the three Old Prussian Grand Lodges" was formed in its place, which existed until 1935. A close cooperation between the Berlin Grand Lodges developed from this.[3]

The first truly Germany-wide association was an association of German grandmasters, founded in 1868 by Gustav Heinrich Warnatz, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Saxony for life. It met in Berlin in the lodge of the Three Globes. Further meetings took place in 1869 in Dresden, 1870 in Hamburg, 1871 in Frankfurt a. M. and again in 1872 in Berlin. As Germany unified, these meetings formed the "Federation of German Grand Lodges" (Deutscher Großlogenbund), formulated in 1871 and officially founded on May 19, 1872. This comprised the eight German Grand Lodges recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England, being the Grand National Motherlodge "The Three Globes", the Grand Landlodge of Freemasons of Germany, the Grand Lodge of Prussia called the Royal York for friendship, the Grand Land of Saxony, the Grand Lodge of Hamburg, the Grand Lodge of the Sun, the Grand Masonic lodge "Zur Eintracht" and the Grand Mother Lodge of the Eclectic Masonic Federation. No binding decisions could be made by the federation. The organisation was collaborative rather than authoritative, and few joint statements could be made. In 1874 they found that race and skin color are not a criterion for the rejection of membership. They produced an aim to establish a National Grand Lodge of all German Freemasons in 1880, and in 1897 recognised Anderson's charges. In 1903, the Grande Loge de France was recognized as the regular Grand Lodge of France. In 1909, the Grand Orient de France was again recognised, against the wishes of the three old Prussian Grand Lodges, who supported the United Grand Lodge of England's rejection of the new French constitutions in 1877. After World War I of the German Grand Lodges mediated the distribution of humanitarian aid to needy women and children from the Grand Lodges of England, the USA and neutral countries. On the 50th anniversary, in 1922, the three Berlin Grand Lodges left the federation as the rift between the three Christian Berlin Grand Lodges and the "humanitarian" Grand Lodges widened. The organisation was further weakened when the Great Lodge of Saxony left. The remainder of the organization was to continue until 1935 and the forced dissolution of the German Grand Lodges.[5]

In the Weimar Republic Jews and Freemasons were the preferred objects of right-wing propaganda. Emigrants such as the Baltic German Alfred Rosenberg brought the fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Western and Central Europe. He published writings such as "The crime of Freemasonry, Judaism, Jesuitism, German Christianity" (1921). His theme was the theory of Jewish/Masonic conspiracy, that it was bent on undermining the existence of other nations. To this end, the Freemasons and the Jews had caused the Russian Revolution. Therefore, capitalism and communism were only apparent opposites, in truth they were one and the same pincer movement, caused by international Jewry and their aspirations of world domination. High finance was the mistress of the labour movement in all countries. Rosenberg's comments on the protocols' in 1923 were a publishing success, invoked by Hitler in Mein Kampf.[6]

The former military chief Erich Ludendorff successfully propagated the Stab-in-the-back myth. This stated that Germany could have been victorious, had not greater powers insidiously undermined the "heroic struggle of the German people". His wife Mathilde authored writings on the "supranational powers" which existed, Jews, Jesuits and Freemasons in an international network formed for the purpose of gaining and maintaining power. Hitler and his followers adopted much of Ludendorff's anti-Masonic conspiracy theory.[7][8]

Jewish-Masonic conspiracy: A poster from the series 'Heredity and Race Science' (1935)

Memorial to Liberté chérie in Esterwegen

When the Enabling Act of 1933 placed power in the hands of Hitler, the Humanitarian lodges, which all admitted Jews and had cosmopolitan ideals, voluntarily dissolved themselves. The three old Prussian Grand Lodges, exclusively Christian in membership, continued to protest their patriotism in an effort to stay open. The Sturmabteilung had already removed files from the Three Globes at gunpoint. After unsuccessful attempts to address the impossibility of a Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy in lodges that did not admit Jews, Lieut. Col. von Heeringen of the Landesloge obtained an audience with Hermann Göring. Apparently as a result of this, the three remaining Grand Lodges severed all international relations, ceased all ritual work, and removed from their titles all reference to Freemasonry and lodges. In January 1934, a new decree made it impossible for Masons who had joined the Nazi party after the previous January to become or remain party members. Those who joined before were allowed to remain in the rank and file, but never expect promotion. The dissolution of all lodges was eventually ordered in May 1935.[9]

In the next decade lodge Liberté Chérie was briefly established in hut 6 of Esterwegen concentration camp. In November 1943 seven Freemasons, who were Nacht und nebel prisoners from the Belgian resistance, formed a lodge which initiated another intern and accepted two more members. Within a year movement of inmates dissolved the lodge. Only three of the ten members survived the war.[10] Masonic activity has also been reported in 14 prisoner of war camps. These meetings, composed of "regular" masons, did not feel empowered to initiate or confer degrees without a Grand Lodge warrant, and often took the form of lodges of instruction; time was frequently spent trying to remember ritual.[11]

After the fall of the Nazi regime, the first meetings of Freemasons were probably the Square and Compass clubs of British, American and Canadian servicemen. By the end of the 1940s, some of these were obtaining warrants and operating as lodges, as German Freemasons were reforming their old lodges, and beginning to reconstitute German Grand Lodges.[12] Freemasonry in the Soviet occupied areas of Germany, which later became known as the DDR - Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic) was forbidden.