Association for German God Knowledge

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The Bund für (German) God Knowledge ( also Ludendorffer or Ludendorffianer after Erich Ludendorff and his wife Mathilde ) is a religious- folk ideology community based in Tutzing , which is classified as right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic by the constitution protection authorities . The Federation for God Knowledge has the legal form of a registered association . According to their own information, the number of members is 12,000, but the authorities assume only about 240 active members.

Worldview

The club is assigned to the new Germanic scene. The cultic element in the covenant for knowledge of God is completely eliminated; religion is reduced to nationality as the ultimate reality. It is claimed that the laws of heredity also apply to ethical and spiritual properties, so that religiosity is inherited. Due to the “ethnic background”, the covenant is dealt with in a separate chapter in the standard work Die Völkisch-Religious Movement , because according to the authors it has “all the traits of an esoteric sect”.

The followers reject a personalized God and seek knowledge of God in the universe around them, which the community believes is “pervaded by divine beings”. According to self-assessment , this idea is pantheistic ; the federation knows no cult and propagates the conformity of the natural sciences with Mathilde Ludendorff's philosophy of religion . Judeo-Christian monotheism , on the other hand, is rejected as being alien to Germanism.

The separation of ethnic groups from one another and the avoidance of racial mixes are important because each people represents special aspects of the divine and these are lost through the mixing of ethnic groups and the adoption of cultures and religions. The "essence of all appearances" is regarded as God:

"We call the essence of all phenomena of the universe 'God' or the 'divine' with special emphasis that this word for us has nothing in the least to do with a concept of God in the various religions."

The federal worldview is permeated by open racism and anti-Semitism . The perception of the “knowledge of God”, which varies according to the people or “race”, and the resulting demand to “avoid racial mixing” is an example of this. In addition, the Ludendorffer's world of thought is shaped by conspiracy theories , according to which alleged “supranational powers” ​​such as Jews , Freemasons , Jesuits and the Roman Catholic Church strived for world domination. Above all, “the Jews” endeavored to “induce a kind of madness in the Germans”, with the help of Christianity, Freemasonry and socialism. Under their influence, the Germans would feel drawn to other races, so that their "racial virtues with the inherited godly life" would be lost and the "mixing of blood" would ultimately lead to the German "death of the people".

history

The federal government's roots lie in the interwar period . Especially during the time of National Socialism , many people in Germany left the church . At the spiritual center of this movement to leave the church were the writings of the Nazi party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg that were critical of the church . The designation " believing in God " made it possible for all those who had left the church to choose an official designation outside the church. The Ludendorffs were also very active in this scene. However, the two predecessor organizations of the federal government, the Tannenbergbund and the Deutschvolk , were banned on September 22, 1933. The Ludendorff company had the magazine Am Heiligen Quell , which had now been changed over to half-monthly publication, but still had a medium that in 1937 had a circulation of 86,000 copies. In analogy to the German Faith Movement , which the Ludendorff House persistently refused to join, it was now called the Faith Movement of German Believers in God .

After a personal conversation between Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff, who had been linked since the joint attempted coup in 1923 , but had been at odds since 1929, the entry “Bund für Deutsche Götterwissennis (Ludendorff)” was made possible in March 1937. A few months before Ludendorff's death, Hitler gave Ludendorff permission to re-establish a national religious association, which in 1937 was named Bund für Deutsche Götterwissennis and entered in the register of associations on June 19, 1937. All restrictions on the ideological activity of the association were lifted. The Ludendorff movement is one of the few offshoots of the völkisch movement that was tolerated under National Socialist rule.

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Mathilde Ludendorff sent out circulars to the remaining followers, addressing them as "members of our religious association". Protected by the freedom of religion, which was laid down in the Potsdam Agreement , Mathilde Ludendorff received the approval of the American military government in 1947 to re-establish the union on a purely “religious basis”. However, the re-establishment was delayed by a court proceedings , according to which Mathilde Ludendorff was classified as the main culprit in connection with the denazification on January 5, 1950 .

In 1951, the Association for God Knowledge (L) was officially re-established in Berlin and entered in the register of associations at the Munich District Court . The first chairman was the lawyer Wilhelm Prothmann. In 1961 it was banned by the interior ministers of the federal states as an anti- constitutional organization and “germ area of anti-Semitic group sentiments ” (Verfassungsschutz report 1963). In 1976 the ban was lifted due to procedural errors; however, the Confederation for Knowledge of God is still observed by the protection of the constitution.

Since 1952, a certificate of leaving the church has been required for a new registration for the Bund für Gottterwissen . The ideology formulated before 1933 is still represented unchanged to the present day:

"We are used to seeing in the family the sacred source of strength of a firmly rooted, race-conscious people, and to know how much it can secure vitality even to peoples who are uprooted in their species consciousness."

“Among the dangers of death for peoples, I mentioned above all the mixture of races and demonstrated in detail how much the individual person is deprived of the faithful consultation of all his or her abilities of the consciousness through the racial inheritance in the subconscious. The racial hybrid is not as instinctive as the racially pure human being, who very often in life is under the advice of the people's soul. "

Facilities and events

The Association for God Knowledge maintains an independent entrepreneurial branch with the Hohe Warte publishing house , which publically disseminates the Ludendorffer's worldview.

There are also several private cemeteries known as "ancestral sites" , the use of which is or was reserved for members of the federal government. They are owned by groups affiliated with the Covenant for God Knowledge . For example, the members of the sponsoring association “Ahnenstätte Hilligenloh e. V. ”according to her statutes for a long time connected to“ Mathilde Ludendorff's knowledge of God ”. In 2015 the statutes were changed. Although there are still members of the Association for God Knowledge , they can no longer influence the fate of the Hilligenloh ancestral site, according to the ancestral site chairman Ekkehard Mannigel. There is also an ancestral home in Petershagen - Seelenfeld . It was founded by the Tannenberg Association. Ludendorffer met there in June 2017.

In 1999 the Association for God Knowledge in Kirchmöser acquired a farm in need of renovation. A large hall, a cafeteria and numerous guest rooms were created.

The Ludendorffer's ideological ideas are conveyed at regular conferences and seminars. In addition, the Union for God Knowledge has its own celebration culture. According to the protection of the constitution in Schleswig-Holstein, the federal government has a focus in northern Germany. In 1994, the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of the Interior assessed the activities as follows: "These (events) also attract members of other right-wing extremist organizations in not inconsiderable numbers - beyond the small and consistently over-aged groups of BfG members."

In the recent past there has been growing activity, recruiting new members and networking with the right-wing extremist scene, especially the völkisch movement . In the Lower Saxony village of Dorfmark in the district of Heidekreis (Lüneburger Heide), the federal government has been holding a meeting every spring at Easter since 1971, even when it was prohibited. Again and again, prominent neo-Nazis guests of the Ludendorffer, such as Steffen Hupka (2006 and 2012), members of the now banned home loyal German youth (2007), Hans-Joachim Herrmann (2010), the repeatedly convicted Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel (2013) and Nikolai Nerling (2018).

The “Working Group for Life Science” (AfL), which is based on Mathilde Ludendorff's philosophy, is responsible for youth events. Holiday camps, hikes and "philosophical" training courses are held regularly in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. Children and adolescents are also given "life skills" lessons.

media

At the sacred source of German power was a magazine from the Ludendorffs Volkswarte publishing house in Munich. It appeared at bimonthly to weekly intervals. Initially a purely philosophical newspaper, after the ban on Ludendorff's public observatory in 1933, it also dealt with political topics. It had a circulation of 100,000 in 1937, but had to cease its publication in 1939 due to the lack of government paper allocation. After the war, the successor magazine Der Quell was published in 1948 , which was replaced by the magazine Mensch und Maß in 1961 after a ban . To this day, Mensch und Maß is published by the Hohe Warte publishing house as the philosophical-political journal of the “Bund für Gotterwissennis”. In a new edition of the book by the chronicler of the Ludendorff movement, Hans Kopp, published in 2002 by the publishing house “Hohe Warte”, it says with regard to the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust: “Even those who questioned the unsustainable number of 6 million were considered Anti-Semite branded, although one would actually have to expect that an anti-Semite would have preferred to see more dead. "

The anti-Semitic and historical revisionist “Publishing House for Holistic Research” had been closely associated with the “Bund für Götterwissennis” since the 1970s. The publishing house was headed by Ludendorff supporter Roland Bohlinger. The publisher is known for reprints and facsimiles of Volkish and National Socialist works from the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, reprints and publications by authors such as Wilhelm Kammeier and Helmut Schrätze are published . The publishing house continues today under the name Verlagsgruppe Bohlinger .

literature

Primary literature

  • Mathilde Ludendorff: From the knowledge of God in my works . Ludendorffs Verlag, Munich 1935.
  • Mathilde Ludendorff: The people's soul work in the human soul and its burial through foreign doctrine and racial mixing . In: Gunther Duda u. a .: Races and peoples in the light of the sciences and the knowledge of God by M. Ludendorff (= Tutzinger writings). Verlag Hohe Warte, Pähl 1987, ISBN 3-88202-333-3 , pp. 78-88 (collection of articles).
  • Erich Weferling: Brief introduction to knowledge of God . Verlag Hohe Warte, Pähl 1952.

Secondary literature

  • Annika Spilker: Gender, Religion and Volkish Nationalism. The doctor and anti-Semite Mathilde von Kemnitz-Ludendorff (1877-1966) . Campus Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39987-4 (also Diss. University of Kassel 2012).
  • Bettina Amm: The Ludendorff Movement. Between nationalistic fighting alliance and völkisch Weltanschauung sect. Dissertation, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-932681-47-9 .
  • Frank Schnoor: Mathilde Ludendorff and Christianity. A radical nationalist position during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi state (= Deutsche Hochschulschriften, 1192). Publishing house Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Egelsbach u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8267-1192-0 (also Diss. University of Kiel 1998).
  • Gideon Thalmann, Felix Reiter: In the fight against "supranational powers". The Volkish Ludendorff Movement - from “youth education” to “ancestral care”. Educational Association Work and Life, Braunschweig 2011, ISBN 978-3-932082-46-7 .

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b Constitutional Protection Report Schleswig-Holstein 2000
  2. ^ Protection of the Constitution Brandenburg: Anti-Semitic Weltanschauungsverein settles in Brandenburg , 2008
  3. ↑ My German summer. taz, June 12, 2007.
  4. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Glossary of right-wing extremism: Bund für Gottterwissennis ( Memento from June 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Harald Baer et al. a .: Lexicon of new religious groups, scenes and world views . Freiburg u. a., ISBN 3-451-28256-9 , p. 878.
  6. ↑ Uwe Puschner, Clemens Vollnhals: The ethnic-religious movement in National Socialism: A relationship and conflict history . Göttingen 2012, p. 160.
  7. ↑ Stefanie von Schnurbein: God comfort in times of change . Munich 1993, p. 48.
  8. ^ Mathilde Ludendorff: From the knowledge of God in my works . P. 24.
  9. ↑ Gabriele Nandlinger, Holger Kulick: Bund für Gotterwissennis (BfG). Prevention network against right-wing extremism, April 2013, archived from the original on June 24, 2014 ; accessed on September 30, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Harald Iber: Christian Faith or Racial Myth , 1987.
  11. ^ Margarete Dierks: Jakob Wilhelm Hauer . Heidelberg 1986; P. 270
  12. ^ Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff: The powerful religiosity of the German people before 1945 . 2004.
  13. ↑ Stefan Breuer: The Völkische in Germany. Empire and Weimar Republic . Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-21354-2 , pp. 258f.
  14. ^ Spruchkammerakten, File III, pages 38–42, received on January 16, 1947
  15. ↑ Documentation on the arbitration chamber proceedings against Dr. Mathilde Ludendorff from November 23 to December 26 , 1949 , several volumes, edited by Franz Karg von Bebenburg, Pähl 1950.
  16. ↑ https://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografie/biografie-mathilde-ludendorff.html
  17. ↑ Articles of Association dated December 16, 1952, certified by notary Victor Nowak, Berlin
  18. ↑ Der Quell, October 9, 1952
  19. ↑ Mathilde Ludendorff in Mensch und Maß No. 18, 9/1989, p. 863, column 1.
  20. ^ Mathilde Ludendorff: Is god knowledge possible . 1975, p. 16.
  21. ↑ For more information see the following section on media
  22. ↑ Karsten Krogmann: Where old Nazis are allowed to rest peacefully . In: Nordwest-Zeitung (NWZ) of September 27, 2014
  23. ^ Julian Feldmann: Burial place for Völkische | Look to the right. June 16, 2017. Retrieved June 28, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Racist and historical revisionist workshop weekend (sic!) In Hof Märkische Heide in Kirchmöser
  25. ↑ The right margin no. 37, Nov./Dec. 1995, p. 17.
  26. ^ Website Norddeutscher Rundfunk: NDR report on the 2013 conference ( Memento from April 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  27. ^ "Volkslehrer" Nikolai Nerling: Tango down! In: Ruhrbarone . April 14, 2019, accessed on September 30, 2019 (German).
  28. ↑ Working group for life studies: Reference to the philosophy of Mathilde Ludendorff .
  29. ↑ Der Spiegel No. 26/1949, p. 6 ("At the holy source of German power")
  30. ^ Felix Reiter, Gideon Thalmann: The Ludendorff movement. Brochure of the parents' initiative to help against mental dependence and religious extremism eV, 2012, p. 4.
  31. ↑ Uwe Backes, Patrick Moreau: The extreme right in Germany: history, current dangers, causes, countermeasures. Akademischer Verlag, Munich 1993, p. 124.
  32. ^ Uwe Backes: Right-wing extremist ideologies in the past and present. Böhlau Verlag, 2003, p. 220.
  33. ↑ https://www.apabiz.de/archiv/material/Profile/Bohlinger,%20Roland.htm
  34. ↑ a b Roland Bohlinger died in 2013, today's company name under Verlagsgruppe Bohlinger
  35. ↑ Constitutional Protection Report of the State of Schleswig-Holstein 2003, p. 38.