The conspiracy of Freemasons, Jews

and Communists. An analysis of the

French and German nationalist
discourse (1918-1940).
Jimmy Koppen, Ph D-student – Interdisciplinary Research Group Freemasonry,
Free University Brussels (VUB)

Shortly after the First World War, the Austrian nationalist and member of the provisional Parliament
in Vienna Friedrich Wichtl (1872-1921) became famous with a sensational book titled
Weltfreimaurerei – Weltrevolution – Weltrepublik. Eine Untersuchung über Ursprünge und Endziele
des Weltkrieges (World Freemasonry – World Revolution – World Republic. An investigation into the
origin and the end goal of the World War). Wichtl resumed the myth of the Judeo Masonic
conspiracy and focused on the new element of Bolshevism. According to Wichtl, the Freemason was
an ‘artificial Jew’, promoted Communism or Bolshevism all over the world and was – through
intrigues and manipulations – the main one responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914.
Notwithstanding the complete distortion of facts and the addition of historical inaccuracies, Wichtl’s
book was very influential. Anti-nationalism, as well as moral and political decay of society, led to
revolution, war and oppression by the occult forces of Freemasonry, Judaism and Bolshevism.
The National-Socialist ideology firmly embedded this myth. However, neither did the Nazis
nor Wichtl invent this conspiracy theory: references to the Judeo Masonic plot were already made
during the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890’s, and much earlier in the 19th century the anti-Masonic
discourse already referred to anti-Semitism. In this article I will not elaborate on the origin or
construction of the myth, but I shall analyze why radical nationalism and anti-Masonry are in line.
What arguments are used to describe Freemasonry as anti-nationalist or anti-patriotic? How are
these conspiracy theories constructed? And how were they present in the minds and works of two
personalities, namely Ernest Jouin in France and Erich Ludendorff in Germany. Both were leading
opinion formers in the interwar nationalist discourse and championed the belief in a plot-theory of
history.

***

Before continuing we must first give the main features of a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy or plot is
a secretly arranged agreement between persons or small groups of persons and aiming at a certain
goal. This goal must be achieved on short term notice. However, conspiracy believers are often
convinced that a secret plot can be conceived throughout the centuries and crossing all frontiers.
From this point of view, nothing really ever happens without a reason and answers the question ‘why
bad things happen to good people’. A believer can find, in his own indisputable logics, an explanation
for everything that has happened in history – and everything that is going to happen. In doing so, the
individual realizes that he is the plaything of higher forces.

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 But why can intelligent and educated people honestly believe that, for instance, a conspiracy
of Freemasons, Jews and Bolshevists caused the First World War? We can point out several reasons:
first, conspiracies really exist. The failed attempt to blow up Hitler in 1944 is an example of an actual
conspiracy, but the shooting of Prince Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 is, from an historical
point of view, far less obvious. Second: human psychology tends to believe that other truths are
possible. The apparently unexplainable – the outbreak of war, the lost of so many lives and defeat –
must be explained in some way or another. In doing so, the world with all its complexity can be
simplified and will now be understandable. If necessary, history is deliberately or unintentionally
forged. Prophets of deceit now step into the limelight. Fortune tellers, astrologers and pseudo-
scientists assure the people that they ‘do not have to take matters in their own hands’ because it will
not be of any use. ‘Wehe uns armen Betrognen und schmählich Besiegten’ – ‘Woe us poorly deceived
and shamefully conquered‘ Wichtl writes at the end of his book. Others on the contrary sometimes
explicitly call for action, but they are in the minority. Third: fear can cause people to believe in
conspiracy theories. The German sociologist Norbert Elias named this ‘der Horror des Nichtwissens’ –
‘the horror of the unknown’. Fears for social upheaval, poverty, violence and moral corruption can be
regarded as building stones of a conspiracy theory. Besides, explanations and statements by
government or science do not always succeed in neutralizing fears. A conspiracy theorist will tend to
believe that this ‘official’ truth is not the ‘real’ truth; the ‘real’ truth is, after all, terrifying.
The conspiracy theorist – whether his name is Barruel, Wichtl, Jouin or Ludendorff – wants to
warn or inform the people that the enemy is at the gates. The public exposure of the enemy is the
main concern of the conspiracy theorist, rather than offering ways to reverse the effects of the
conspiracy. The characterization of the enemy is always defined by the way individuals, groups or
even nations describe and approach the others. The other is the opposite of the self: social, religious,
ideological, economical or political arguments are used by the self to argue that the others are not
wanted in its group, society or nation. Stereotypes are now created: extremists and fascists will
always draw a ridiculous image of ‘the Jew’. In their world view, he will always be pictured as corrupt,
aggressive, unreliable and stingy. These stereotypes do not always flourish in crises or in conflict
situations; the German sociologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm called paranoia and the
construction of enemy images inevitable because they offer the individual a structured world: if
something apparently unexpected should happen, the individual would panic and this would
furthermore increase his fear for enemies and conspiracies. Feindbilder can be religious or political
inspired, or have the combination of both.
The Feindbild always has following features:
1. The other is the complete opposite to the self. Compromises are out of the question. The
others often live within the perfect community of the self: Freemasons can be infiltrated in
the highest levels of society: they are the enemy within.
2. The characterization of the enemy is plain simple. Complicated theoretical discussions are
not to be found in the discourse. The different forms of Freemasonry are minimized and
simplified. ‘Freemasonry’ or ‘the Freemason’ become all-embracing concepts. The
simplification can take such extreme forms that the Masonic enemy becomes dehumanized.
3. The strength and influence of the enemy is exaggerated. The conspiracy of Freemasons, Jews
and Bolshevists is the main responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914; Freemasonry is the
scapegoat. So-called ‘authoritarian personalities’, who regard themselves as superior do not
hesitate to consider the others as a threat – and will even use verbal and physical violence.
4. The enemy can never be defeated completely but will resurrect again and again, and
becomes more powerful than before. The hatred of the Freemason, the Jew and the
Bolshevist for the nation-state is present throughout the centuries. In other words: the acts
of the enemy are a-historical: Freemasonry was driven by, more or less, the same arguments
to cause the French Revolution as the First World War.

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 5. The enemy, and certainly the enemy within, has a double morality: Freemasonry pictures
itself as a philanthropic or philosophical society, but behind closed doors the lodges contain
conspirators, revolutionaries and criminal minds.
6. Under certain circumstances the discourse can give the enemy supernatural powers, and so
the image of the Freemason as a disciple of Satan can be explained.
Feindbilder and conspiracy theories are furthermore stimulated by nationalism. I am not going to
elaborate on the theory of nationalism, but I do want to emphasize that nationalism gives the
somewhat inevitably possibility to construct the Feindbilder. Can nationalism be regarded as the
answer on the psychological and anthropological need of the individual to be member of a certain
group? Or, to paraphrase Benedict Anderson, can nationalism be seen as the desire to belong to an
imagined community?

***

Both Ernest Jouin as Erich Ludendorff were guided by their definition of nationalism to portray the
Judeo Mason as an enemy and a plotter. Ernest Jouin (1844-1932) was born in Angers and was
ordained a priest in 1868. In 1882, he was the victim of anticlerical attacks at his parish of Joinville-le-
Pont in the suburbs of Paris; this event allegedly convinced him that Freemasonry was the dark force
behind anticlericalism. It was Jean Bidegain (1870-1926), a former member of the Masonic lodge
Travail et Vrais Amis Fidèles in Paris and now an author of ‘Masonic exposures’ in which he accused
the Freemasons of intrigues, who suggested in 1909 that Jouin would write an anti-Masonic novel;
from that day on, the latter started to build his own Masonic library. Jouin was also the editor of the
first French edition of James Anderson’s Constitutions in almost two hundred years. According to the
French historian, ‘connaisseur’ of French Freemasonry and Sorbonne-professor Charles Porset Jouin
is on the Vatican’s waiting-list for beatification.
Although he has written an amount of apostolic books and was – partly for that reason –
made a prelate by Pope Benedict XV, Monsignor Jouin is mainly remembered as the founder, in 1912,
of the Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes. This magazine is considered as the most
professional and influential of all the anti-Masonic periodicals published in France since the end of
the 19th century. From 1913 on, the Revue is called the magazine of the Ligue Franc-Catholique – one
of the French anti-Masonic associations active at that time – and in 1914 the focus is equally divided
between ‘la partie judéo-occultiste’ and ‘la partie maçonnique’. Interrupted during the First World
War, the Revue resurfaces in 1920 until its definitive end in 1939. Now, the tone had changed.
Although one could still occasionally read stories about Freemasons and Satan – that theme
completely disappeared in 1922 – the main point of interest was now anti-Semitism. The Revue
combined all old and new conspiracy theories, including Charles Maurras’ convictions that the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Society of Nations in 1919 were Jewish
accomplishments. This was not so surprisingly as Jouin issued in 1920 the first French edition of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the same year Jouin started a 12-volume series called Le Péril judéo-
maçonnique. In his preface to the Protocols Jouin stated that ‘from the angle of race, nationality and
religion the Jew had become the enemy of humanity’ and that it was ‘the duty of the Revue to
unmask Freemasonry and all its branches, aimed at the destruction of the Catholic Church’. As we all
know, the Protocols were a hoax and appeared in pre-war Russia: they were presented as a secret
guideline to Jewry to gain world domination, thereby ‘helped’ by Freemasonry. Whether
Freemasonry was a Jewish invention or not wasn’t exactly made clear by the Protocols nor its
followers like Jouin and Ludendorff.
Undoubtedly, the sources for Jouin’s anti-Masonic way of thinking traced back to the first
papal condemnations. The genesis, contents and influence of Pope Clement XIIth In eminent (1738)

3
and Pope Benedict XIVth Providas (1751) are well known and studied; the Spanish historian and
director of the Masonic Research Centre at the University of Zaragosa, professor José Ferrer-
Benemeli, has already twenty years ago written the ultimate book of reference. It would be
redundantly to summarize his work here. However, the conservative and Catholic discourse
regarding Freemasonry was, at the beginning of the 20th century, still based on the main and original
objections of Clement XII – secrecy and syncretism – but was now entangled into a vast web of both
religious as political-ideological arguments. In the eyes of Catholicism, the Freemason could well be
an atheist or a heathen; a conspirator; a worshipper of the Devil; a Liberal or Socialist intriguer whose
ideology was taught in the Masonic lodges; a power-mad person; a syncretist who denied his
Catholic background in favor of Protestantism or Judaism; a freethinker in pursuit of secularization of
the whole of society, starting at the level of education and of benevolence; or the Freemason could
be all at the same time, portrayed as the nemesis of the Catholic faith. The position of the Catholic
Church towards Freemasonry was made official by the promulgation of 1917 Code of Canon Law.
Members of heretic or Masonic sects were not to be buried in sacred ground (canon 1240); books
dealing with Freemasonry were not to be read (canon 1399); Freemasons ought to be
excommunicated (canon 2335) and clergymen and religious should take care that their names were
never associated with Freemasonry or related groups (canon 2336).
The decades preceding this promulgation of May 27, 1917, clearly showed that the Catholic
points of view regarding Freemasonry increased in their intensity as well as in their scale. In this
respect, the popes always played a dominant role in the discourse. Especially Leo XIII proved to be
very influential. His 1884 encyclical Humanum genus, in which he summoned to unmask the dark
forces behind Freemasonry – however, without harming the innocents – was, and still is, a
benchmark. One easily tends to forget that this pope wrote dozens of texts in which Freemasonry
was depicted as the ‘think tank’ behind both Liberalism as Socialism; some of them weren’t as
diplomatic and well-balanced conceived as the famous 1884 encyclical. Few know that one of Leo’s
last texts before his death in 1903 was dominated by his aversion for the occult and Masonic sect
that, like a lethal germ, contaminated man and society. This pastoral letter Pervenuti all’anno (dated
March 19, 1902), addressed to the Italian and French high clergy, warned for the invisible and
irresponsible state within the State that called for political action to spread secularism. Freemasonry
only used the idioms of humanism, enlightment and liberty to veil her sectarian objectives to bring
down Catholicism and society.
On the other hand, the Code of Canon Law was not the finishing point of the Catholic anti-
Masonic struggle: Pope Pius XI for instance recalled in an apostolic letter of 1925 (servatoris Iesu
Christi) that members of the Masonic sect could only absolved of sin after renouncing their
membership in confession. In any case, the framework in which Jouin was working in the interwar
period was shaped by a real anti-Masonic ‘tradition’, starting with Augustin de Barruel’s
benchmarking Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinism – in which the idea of the Freemason
as a plotter was now fully exposed – and incorporating late 19th-century anti-Semitism and myths of
Satanism. The myth of the Freemason as a conspirator, as an adept of Satan or as a ally of the truly
unpatriotic Jewry, in combination with papal stimuli like Humanum genus gave birth to several anti-
Masonic associations and organizations. At the turn of the century, in France alone groups like Le
Comité anti-maçonnique de Paris, La Ligue française antimaçonnique, Le Conseil anti-maçonnique de
France or Le Groupe des Amis de ‘A bas les tyrans’ were active at the same time, and often engaged
in competitive warfare with each other. These associations published specialized magazines and
pamphlets like La Bastille – Journal anti-maçonnique, La franc-maçonnerie démasquée or La Revue
antimaçonnique. Infamous authors and journalists like Jean Bidegain, abbé Tourmentin (1850-...),
Paul Nourrisson (1858-19..), Paul Fesch (1858-1910) and Paul Copin-Albancelli (1851-1939), just to
name a few, build a rather impressive catalogue of anti-Masonic writings. Members of the French
high clergy, with bishop of Grenoble Amand-Joseph Fava (1826-1899) as the most engaged in the
French anti-Masonic discourse of his time, or politicians – for example Albert de Mun (1841-1914),
member of the Académie française and leader of the French Christian Democrats – also publicly

4
denounced Freemasonry as an unpatriotic or anti-religious brotherhood of conspirators.
Furthermore, conservative Catholic newspapers like La Croix and the anti-Semitic La Libre Parole -
directed by Edouard Drumont (1844-1917), head of the anti-Dreyfus movement – also often referred
to Freemasonry in a complete negative way. However, none of all these organizations, publications
or individual authors shared a common view on Freemasonry. To some, Freemasonry was worldwide
entangled and secretly controlled by unknown and very powerful superiors. Some honestly believed
that English Prime Minister lord Palmerston (1784-1865) or Albert Pike (1809-1891) and later on
Adriano Lemmi (1822-1906), Sovereign Grand Inspector General and Grand Commander of the Italian
Supreme Council, was in fact ‘Sovereign Pontifex’ of World Freemasonry. Eugène Goblet d’Alviella
(1846-1925) for instance was one of Lemmi’s subordinates with the title of ‘Patriarch Maçon Emérite
belge”. Others called Freemasonry an esoteric, theosophical and occult society that renounced
Christianity in favor of, at best, Deism.
Almost all of these anti-Masonic actors disappeared with the First World War, leaving only
Ernest Jouin who successfully re-launched his Revue international des Sociétés secretes in 1920. The
magazine first appeared in 1912, in a time when the French anti-Masonic associations were heavenly
divided, and was immediately the quintessence of the French anti-Masonic discourse. The RISS was
encyclopaedic, its articles were well-founded and it tackled the whole of Freemasonry, limited
neither by space nor time. Not only did the scope of the RISS made all other anti-Masonic
publications dwarf – Jouin was also surrounded by some well-informed collaborators like Paul
Nourrisson – whose book La Club des Jacobins sous la Troisième République from 1900, solely based
on official and leaked Masonic documents, was one of the main sources of inspiration to Valentin
Brifaut (1875-1963), head of the Belgian anti-Masonic League – and the German Jesuit Hermann
Gruber (1851-1930), who openly attacked Léo Taxil’s ‘testimonies’ even before the latter admitted
his deceit. Other names included the astrologist Charles Nicoullaud (1854-1923) (pseudonym
Formalhaut), anti-Semite Albert Monniot (1862-1938), historian Gustave Bord (1852-1917), Italian
bishop and confidant of Pope Pius X Umberto Benigni (1862-1934), priest Paul Boulin (1875-1933)
(pseudonym Pierre Colmet), Georges Ollivier (1898-…), Robert Vallery-Radot (1885-1970) and, in the
very last issue, Bernard Faÿ (1893-1978), the future administrator of the Bibliothèque nationale
during the Second World War.
It combined the two most common approaches in the discourse: you could either publish the
Masonic documents as a whole, thereby giving the reader the opportunity to draw his own
conclusions – or you could use or paraphrase these original documents as a starting point to research
philosophy and motives of Freemasonry yourself. From 1912 until its disappearance in 1939,
innumerable articles and ten thousands of pages were published, making this magazine the ultimate
anti-Masonic document. Although the RISS probably only had 200 subscribers in 1912, growing to 2
000 twenty years later, the magazine could apparently only survive thanks to the efforts by
anonymous benefactors.
The objectives of the RISS were immediately made clear in the first sentence on the first page
of the first issue: ‘In our days, a secret society rules the world; doubt about it would be childish – lack
of interest almost criminal. The secret society has undoubtedly multiplied itself up to a point it would
be impossible to know all the forms it incorporates, to know all the names – who are sometimes not
even complete – that are used for hiding its activities, to count all the varieties. (…) It is certain that
these organizations are linked to a common centre called Freemasonry.’ The mission of the RISS was,
according to Jouin’s biographer canon Sauvêtre plain simple: ‘Pour démasquer, il faut connaître; pour
connaître, il faut chercher, fouiller. Et M. Jouin, aidé de ses collaborateurs, se mit à dépouiller revues
et journaux, bulletins, ouvrages anciens et récents sur les origines et l’histoire de la secte maçonnique.
Pendant que les uns traduisaient les articles russes ou anglais, d’autres photographiaient des
documents secrets importants qu’on lui avait confiés, parfois pour quelques heures.’ According to
Jouin, the sources of Freemasonry were to be found in the Rosicrucians who were partly Jewish. This
very loose interpretation of history also occurred on the other side of the Rhine. Erich Ludendorff, for

5
instance, labeled Adam Weisshaupt (1748-1811) as a Jew to argue that the Illuminati were part of a
Judeo Masonic conspiracy.

***

In Germany, the anti-Masonic discourse was far less apparent in the 19th – early 20th century.
Nevertheless a few publications gained international interest, but these dated from the middle of the
century. Die Freimaurerorden in seiner wahren Bedeutung (The Masonic Order in its true meaning),
published in 1852 by the jurist, journalist and anti-Semite Eduard Emil Eckert (…-1866) from
Dresden, proofed to be rather influential due to the French translation the priest Jean-Guillaume Gyr
from Liège made two years later. And the bishop of Mainz, Emmanuel von Ketteler (1811-1877),
designated Freemasonry in a pamphlet in 1862 subversive and called it unthinkable that a Catholic
should join a Masonic lodge. It would of course be too simple to state that the German anti-Masonic
discourse was rather a marginal phenomenon at the turning of the century – at least if we should
compare it to France. None of the German publications were ever translated in French, so these
books could not be brought to the attention of the French or Belgian reader. Furthermore, German
Freemasonry was not as politically involved like its French or Belgian counterpart; the majority of the
Masonic lodges and Grand Lodges were closely connected to Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian
Freemasonry. In the southern German-speaking countries – Bavaria, Austria – the anti-Masonic
discourse was moreover influenced by Catholicism. The Viennese jurist Hugo Walther clearly showed
these influences in his 1910 book Die Freimaurerei. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen
Geheimbünde - Freemasonry. A study in the history of political secret societies. Other books from
that period emphasized the connection between Freemasonry and Jewry (L. Dasté, Die geheime
Gesellschaften und die Juden, 1914) or focused on the war crimes of the Brotherhood (K. Heise,
Entente-Freimaurerie und Weltkrieg, 1919).
In fact, the first and internationally acclaimed German anti-Masonic publication was Wichtl’s
1919 book. Wichtl charged that the Austrian-Hungarian crown prince was sentenced to death by
‘International Freemasonry’ because the monarchy obstructed the political take-over of Freemasonry
in Austria. As a proof for this accusation Wichtl published, parallel with Weltfreimaurerei –
Weltrevolution – Weltrepublik, the so-called Pharos-protocol. The full title of this protocol was Der
Prozess gegen die Attentäter von Sarajewo, aktenmässig dargestellt von Professor Pharos (The trial
against the plotters of Sarajevo, procedurally assembled by professor Pharos), a forged document
that was assumingly produced by the Jesuit Anton Puntigam (1859-1926). It was not taken for
granted by every other anti-Mason: Hermann Gruber was one of the first to call this document plain
nonsense for the simple reason that the Freemasons would never recruit a minor to carry out such
an important task. Nevertheless did Wichtl play a substantial role in the spread of anti-Masonic
conspiracy theories featuring these ‘Masonic murderers of Sarajavo’ and also the ‘wire-pullers’, the
‘disgrace of Versailles’ and not forgetting the ‘stab-in-the-back theory’.
In reality, German Freemasonry was a house divided. It entered the First World War in a
rather unbrotherly way, and in the preceding decades the German lodges were very reserved with
initiating non-Christians – that is to say: Jews. It is an issue within the research community whether
to call these lodges anti-Semitic. Anyhow, anti-Semitism did play a role in the anti-Masonic discourse.
Wichtl admitted that Jews were not originally welcomed in the German lodges, but they did rapidly
succeed in forcing their entrance. Wichtl quoted the German Masonic magazine Acacia that in 1908
mentioned the Jews as the ‘natural allies’ of the Freemasons, which made Wichtl conclude that the
Freemason was in fact a ‘künstlicher Jude’ or ‘artificial Jew’.
Ludendorff really had nothing in common with Jouin, with the exception of a fanatic belief in
a Judeo Masonic plot in combination with extreme nationalism. In spite of the allied victory in 1918,

6
Jouin interpreted the war as a plot to destabilize France; Ludendorff argued that the German defeat
was caused by the ‘Dolchstoss’ – the stab in the back, which was a widely spread line of thought in
Germany immediately following the end of the war. Jews, Freemasons and Bolshevists held the
dagger, and the German edition of the Protocols in 1919 – the first to appear outside Russia –
seemed to subscribe to this theory. The German editor of the Protocols, originally translated as Die
Geheimnisse der Weisen von Zion – The secrets of the Sages of Sion, was a man named Gottfried zur
Beek stated in the preface that ‘the course of world history would have been completely different if
the monarchs would have been alarmed in time to take action against the secret societies’.
Military defeat, hyperinflation and political turmoil created in Germany an acute sense of
despair. It offered a breeding ground where anti-Semitism could now flourish. The Nazis would bring
this conspiratorial anti-Semitism under the state’s authority, thereby institutionalizing the conspiracy
myth. Extreme nationalism proofed to be very effective in promoting this ideology; without really
wanting it, Ludendorff would be a trailblazer of National-Socialism.
General Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) was not just anyone. Born in the Prussian province of
Posen, Ludendorff entered the military as a teenager. During the First World War he was ‘Erster
Generalquartiermeister’ or the second in command after Fieldmarshall Paul von Hindenburg (1847-
1934). In contrast to Wichtl, who was a political lightweight, Ludendorff possessed authority. With
his extreme ideas on nationalism, race and anti-Semitism Ludendorff quickly became a ‘völkisch’
symbol. The ‘völkisch’ movement – one cannot really translate ‘völkisch’: it refers to German and
Austrian right-wing radical nationalism, with almost religious dimensions, that paved the road to
National-Socialism – blamed Jews, Freemasons, Bolshevists but also Jesuits for the German defeat.
To the ‘völkisch’ movement, Christianity could be described as a variation on the Jewish religion,
thereby almost romantically longing for a pagan age. Ludendorff’s memoirs show us a very
embittered person but do not offer a straightforward attack on the occult forces and secret societies
responsible for the stab in the back. As a matter of fact, the general originally stated that the allied
victory was largely made possibly through their intensive propaganda in interior Germany.
Reverend’s daughter and philosopher Mathilde Spiess (1877-1966) heavily influenced
Ludendorff’s plot-thinking. Mathilde Ludendorff was a psychiatrist and the author of several
philosophical-esoterical works, bearing titles like The triumph of the immortality will, Soul of man,
History of creation and The mistake of Pantheism and its morality. Her visions on God and society
made her leave the Church in 1906. Her philosophical works were regarded by general Ludendorff,
whom she married in 1926, as a possible ideological platform for the ‘völkisch’ movement he had
encountered.
The books of Wichtl or Heise were probably welcomed by the ‘völkisch’ movement. Obscure
and occult associations from which the National-Socialist Party originated – the Germanenorden
(est.1912) or the Thule Gesellschaft (est.1918) for instance – even described themselves as ‘counter-
Masonry’. New members of the Germanenorde were initiated and this ritual was inspired by both
Freemasonry as racial theory, written down by Austrian occultists, esoterists and extremists like
Guido von List (1848-1919) or Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874-1954) and the ‘Germanische’ ideology
of composer Richard Wagner (1813-1884). The occult was not an undiscovered country to
Ludendorff. For a moment the general thought that a young rascal from Austria, who was under the
influence of the ‘völkisch’ philosophy and who served as a corporal in the Bavarian army during the
war, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), could be a true leader to the ‘völkisch’ movement. This explains why
Ludendorff associated himself with the new National-Socialist Party (NSDAP) that, on November 8
and 9, 1923, organized a failed revolution or coup d’état in Munich – the so-called Beer Hall Putsch.
The trial cleared Ludendorff of all charges, and Hitler was sentenced to a very mild 3,5 year’s
imprisonment. It is well known that Hitler wrote, or better said dictated, the first part of Mein Kampf
(My struggle) in prison: not only did this book referred continuously to the alliance of ‘international’
or ‘eternal Jewry’ and Marxism or Bolshevism to explain the nation’s misfortune – Hitler also
mentioned ‘the secret organizations’ as co-responsibles. Freemasonry was one of the three main

7
forces of Jewry, next to Marxism and the international press, that ought to be abolished. Ludendorff
was eventually the NSDAP’s candidate for the presidential elections of 1925, but shortly afterwards
their ways parted.
The general and the corporal both bore a grudge about Germany’s downfall in 1918 and
disrespected the Weimar Republic deeply. Both were convinced of the ‘stab-in-the-back’-legend. But,
as historians noticed, there was a fundamental different approach in their world view. Ludendorff
took the legend as a method to justify the course of war and to give himself rehabilitation; Hitler on
the contrary used it as a starting point for the National-Socialist ideology and looked forward into the
future. Ludendorff’s radicalism could also be explained by the nervous breakdown he suffered in the
autumn of 1918. His actions and publications show a man who was almost at the edge of mental
disorder; he interpreted dates like the signing of the Treaty of Versailles or the promulgation of the
Weimar Constitution kabalistic – according to Ludendorff, these dates were specifically chosen by the
Jewish conspirators. The Tannenbergbund he founded in 1925 ought to become his instrument to
efficiently counteract these supranational powers. Nothing or no-one seemed to escape from his
paranoia. Field marshal Hindenburg, now President of the Republic, was accused of having
inaugurated a kabalistic war memorial in Tannenberg and in 1931 he publish a pamphlet titled
Hitler’s betrayal of the Germans for the benefit of the Pope in Rome. Ludendorff actually detested the
Catholic Church and together with his wife he established, in 1930, the Bund für Gotterkenntnis –
Society for the Knowledge of God; a rather suspicious organization. In his final book, Das grosse
Entsetzen: die Bibel nicht Gottes Wort (The great terror: the Bible is not the word of God) Ludendorff
once more blamed the Jews, the Jesuits, theocrats and ‘Rome’ for being damaging to the Nordic race.
Not surprisingly, Hitler placed the Tannenbergbund on his black list as soon as he came to power in
1933.
It is obvious that, according to the Ludendorffs, the ‘überstaatliche Mächte’ or supranational
powers, where just not only Jewry and Freemasonry, but also the Catholic Church. Just like Jews and
Jesuits, Freemasons were acting anti-national. According to Mathilde Ludendorff, the Freemason also
was a criminal mind. In her 1936 pamphlet Mozarts Leben und gewaltsamer Tod (Mozart’s life and
violent death) repeated her claim that the composer was killed by his Masonic brethren for having
violated his oath of secrecy. It was Mathilde Ludendorff’s merit that Mozart’s sudden demise after
completion of The Magic Flute at the hands of Freemasonry entered popular belief. Also Friedrich
von Schiller (1759-1805), Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) and even Martin Luther (1483-1546) were
introduced to the Grim Reaper by Freemasonry. It was in the same line of irrational reasoning that
General Ludendorff attempted to counter the ‘überstaatliche Macht’ of Freemasonry. His pamphlet,
titled Vernichtung der Freimaurerei durch Enthüllung ihrer Geheimnisse (Destruction of Freemasonry
through revelation of its secrets) was published in 1927, one year after his marriage. The pamphlet
was obviously inspired by the Protocols, and accused Jewish Freemasonry – interconnected
throughout the whole world – of playing a part in recent revolutions. The real secret of Freemasonry
was its Jewish background. But what was the exact relation between Freemasonry and Jewry? And
what did the Freemasons do to cause war and revolution? Ludendorff stayed very vague. In fact,
Destruction of Freemasonry did not offer any new insights. We heard the conspiracy theories and the
nationalist discourse presented in this publication before: already in 1915, at a time the German
victory was still possible, the Historisch-politische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland wrote an
article in which the outbreak of war was described as the result of a Masonic plot. The same Catholic
magazine published two subsequent articles in 1917 with the unmistakable titles Weltkrieg und
Freimaurerei (World war and Freemasonry) and Grande Oriente d’Italia, Verräter von Italien (Grande
Oriente d’Italia, betrayer of Italy). That same year Hermann Gruber, who we already met at the RISS,
wrote Freimaurerei, Weltkrieg und Weltfriede (Freemasonry, world war and world peace) and
claimed that Freemasonry, hence 1776, was the main responsible for all revolutions. The war of 1914
aimed at the ‘triumph of the principles of democracy over monarchy, theocracy and imperialism’. Also
the connection Ludendorff made between the Jesuits and the Freemasons was not original; this was
already made in 1910 by the infamous anti-Semite Hermann Ahlwadt (1846-1914).

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 Destruction of Freemasonry even made clear that the author did not really knew what he was
writing about. If it wasn’t for Ludendorff’s name on the front page, as an ‘authoritarian personality’,
the pamphlet would soon have been completely forgotten. The contrast with the well informed and
intellectual Jouin could not be bigger. Nevertheless, the stab-in-the-back legend and other myths
were combined in the nationalist discourse made by Ludendorff. The same was true for some of his
other books: Das Geheimniss der Jesuitenmacht und ihr Ende (The secret of the Jesuit’s power and its
end) (1929) and Kriegshetze und Völkermorden der letzen 150 Jahren im Dienste des 'Allmächtigen
Baumeisters aller Welten‘ (War campaigns and genocides during the last 150 years in service of the
'Great Architect of the Universe‘) (1928) for instance.

***

If we now compare the anti-Masonic discourse by both protagonists we see some resemblances but
also a few striking differences. Let us start with the similarities: the First World War was to both a
point of departure to define the nation as a community where ‘others’ were not welcome. They – the
Freemasons, the Jews and the Bolshevists – were regarded as real enemies. Their distinctive features
were simplified and their actual influence on the society they had infiltrated was overestimated. The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion were the common bench-mark: Jouin was the French editor, and the
German edition was edited by a close friend of Ludendorff. However, if we look beneath the surface
it is obvious that the construction of enemy images was based on different foundations.
In both cases, extreme nationalism, influenced by war, was in search of a scapegoat.
Freemasonry, being a ‘secret society’ with an ‘international character’, proved to be, once more, an
ideal candidate. But after traumatic experiences as the Russian Revolution this ‘internationalism’ was
interpreted differently. The ‘internationalism’ of Freemasonry was now regarded as ‘anti-patriotic’;
‘anti-patriotism’ was therefore an act or even a crime of endangering the State. In the anti-Masonic
discourse, both in France as Germany, the Freemason had become a war criminal. One of Jouin’s
interwar books even bared the title La guerre maçonnique – for which he actually was congratulated
by the pope’s Secretary of State cardinal Gasparri (1852-1934) – and Ludendorff’s writings actually
‘confirmed’ rumors of Masonic ‘war crimes’ already circulating in German radical nationalist
pamphlets from 1915 onwards. But the Freemason was really a conspirator rather than an actor, and
I must refer to one of Jouin’s quotes that in the conspiracy causing the war ‘Israel was king, the
Freemason his chamberlain and the Bolshevist his executioner’.
In fact, the myth of the ‘unknown superiors’ became the main point of interest to both the
French Monsignor as the German general: perhaps the biggest difference in the anti-Masonic
discourse before and after the First World War is the key position of anti-Semitism. The ‘revelation of
Masonic secrets’ was, in the first place, the denomination of Jewry as the occult force behind
Freemasonry, and where ‘International Freemasonry’ acted as an intermediary between
‘International Bolshevism’ and ‘International Jewry’.
Jouin was fully aware of Masonic history, but used this knowledge to verify his conspiracy
theories that was not based on an ‘Aryan’ interpretation of history. His work as a publicist was
deeply-rooted in Catholicism and was an incarnation of French anti-Masonic tradition, starting with
Barruel (1741-1820) and climaxing with Nicolas Dechamps (1797-1873), Léo Taxil (1851-1907) and
Jean Marquès-Rivière (1903-2000) – to name just a few. This ‘tradition’ addressed itself against
Freemasonry that had identified itself with republicanism and free-thought; quite the opposite of the
Catholic nation-state that was the central figure in Jouin’s conspiracy thinking. Ludendorff, on the
contrary, linked his name to a sort of anti-Masonic and anti-Semitic movement, present in all layers
of society of interwar Germany. This ‘movement’ did not really have an intellectual or moral leader.

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The German conspiracy thinkers like ‘völkisch’-writers Dietrich Eckart (1868-1923) or Alfred
Rosenberg (1893-1946) took liberties with the interpretation of the Judeo Masonic and Bolshevist
plot to which they all referred. Friedrich Wichtl, for instance, called the war the result of this plot
whereas Karl Heise, whose Entente-Freimaurei und Weltkrieg was first published in October 1918 –
months before Wichtl – argued that the war was needed so that Freemasonry could guarantee the
British world domination. It is not possible to consider the hardly original Ludendorff as an
undeniable key figure, nor can a real buildup of the discourse be detected. Jouin’s followers – and I
just give Henry Coston (1910-2001) as an example – were very conscientious in considering their part
in the discourse in defending the French Catholic nation-state as the opposite of the irreligious and
immoral Republic. This nation-state was not only threatened by the dark forces of Judeo Masonry
but also by Protestantism. Not without coincidence did Jouin pay attention to the double anniversary
of 1917: in 1717 the Grand Lodge of London was founded and two centuries earlier Martin Luther
published the Ninety-Five Theses. Jouin explicitly refered to the ‘union of Freemasons and
Protestants against the Church’, making Protestantism as dangerous to the French nation-state as
Jewry. Religion was a matter of lesser importance to Ludendorff: it did not guide his ideology like it
guided Jouin. Quite to the contrary: the Catholic Church, stereotyped as the Jesuit Order, also had
her part in this vast conspiracy.
I can conclude that the image of the Judeo-Masonic enemy had received his definitive form
in the 1920’s and was now ready to be absorbed into National-Socialist ideology. The French variant
of this image however, with her almost unbreakable ties to Catholicism, managed to survive way
beyond the Second World War, tempered with anti-Semitism and detached from most of the
references to the war period. This is perhaps the best way to show that, in the eyes of the conspiracy
thinker, the enemy never really can be defeated.

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