Leo Müffelmann

Grave of Leo Müffelmann in the Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf

Leo Müffelmann , actually: Leopold Müffelmann (* May 1, 1881 in Rostock ; † August 29, 1934 in Berlin ) was a lawyer and chief executive of the Association of Executive Employees in Berlin (Vela), captain of the reserve in World War I and pioneer of humanitarian freemasonry in Germany.

Life

Leo Müffelmann spent his childhood and youth in Rostock. He visited the Great City School Rostock , was there Easter 1899 a high school, then studied law in Berlin, Munich and Rostock and was on 15 February 1902 a study "The problem of free will in the latest German philosophy" of the University of Rostock to Dr . phil. (sic!) PhD.

His father, the journalist and writer Ludwig Müffelmann (1853–1927), was a committed Freemason and was elected Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Hamburg . He personally accepted his son into the Freemasons' Association in 1913 in the Lodge Humanitas in Hamburg. His brother Ronald Müffelmann was also a Freemason.

In the First World War, Müffelmann took part as a captain. After the end of the German Empire, Müffelmann pursued a commercial activity and at the end of the 1920s became chief executive of the Association of Executive Employees (Vela) in Berlin.

Foundation of the symbolic grand lodge

After the First World War, regular German Freemasonry subscribed to uncompromising nationalism . Their public relations work was aimed at improving the relationship with the growing völkisch right and positioning German Freemasonry as an ideological unit.

The strictly nationalistic course encountered resistance within the brotherhood and led to a further split in German Freemasonry. The liberal and international trend to which Müffelmann belonged led to the establishment of the Bluntschli Committee of the German League for the League of Nations , which was close to the Grand Lodge for the Sun. Ludwig and Leo Müffelmann as well as Hjalmar Schacht belonged to this committee . The international ideals of this group were rejected and opposed by the leaders of the grand lodges.

In 1928 Müffelmann took part in the international Masonic Congress in Belgrade, where he exchanged a brotherly kiss with the GOdF Grand Master Groussier, which was interpreted as a provocation of the nationally-minded Masons and an insult to the national forces in Germany. The German grand lodge then excluded him from German Freemasonry. Müffelmann then joined the Lodge Laboratory of the internationally oriented Grand Lodge of Vienna, where he achieved the 33rd degree (AASR) in 1929.

In 1930, 600 Freemasons, who no longer saw a home in the existing national grand lodges, founded the Symbolische Großloge von Deutschland, Sitz Hamburg e. V. It fulfilled all the conditions set by the Grand Lodge of England for international recognition and was subsequently accepted by foreign grand lodges. The first grandmaster was Leo Müffelmann. As early as 1932, the grand lodge consisted of 1200 members in 26 lodges.

After the National Socialists came to power, the pressure on all German Freemasons increased. They were ostracized as Unarian agitators, traitors to the fatherland and capitalists. Around 1932, the Grand Master of the Freemasons' Association "To the rising sun" , Max Seber, called for intellectual resistance against the Nazi regime. While several German grand lodges ingratiated themselves with the Nazis in 1933, this was strictly rejected by the Freemasons' Association "To the rising sun" and the Symbolic Grand Lodge . In the same year they were dissolved by their grandmasters Seber and Müffelmann (on April 15, 1933). In the same year the so-called “humanitarian” grand lodges of Bayreuth, Darmstadt, Frankfurt a. M. and Hamburg. The other five German grand lodges, on the other hand, were converted into national Christian orders in 1933 with no Masonic references. They wanted to avoid a forced dissolution by adapting. In 1935 they had to be closed anyway.

On September 5, 1933, Müffelmann was arrested by the Gestapo and, after interrogation, brought to the Sonnenburg concentration camp . In his diary he wrote 3 months of protective custody, from September to November 1933 because of membership in Freemasonry. On November 26, 1933, as a result of beatings and the conditions in which he was detained, he was released from the concentration camp with serious illness and permanent damage.

Foundation of exile in Palestine, death after imprisonment in a concentration camp

After his release from the concentration camp, Müffelmann traveled to Jerusalem and founded the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Germany in exile there on November 15, 1933, with its seat in Jerusalem / Palestine , the establishment of which was decided on July 5, 1933. This was the only German Masonic Grand Lodge that could continue to exist after the final ban on Freemasonry by the National Socialist dictatorship from 1935; the national Christian orders also had to dissolve in 1935.

Müffelmann returned to Germany in 1934 despite his deteriorating health.

On August 29, 1934, immediately after his return, Müffelmann succumbed to the consequences of the health damage he had suffered from being imprisoned again. He found his final resting place in the Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf .

The light of the Symbolic Grand Lodge that he rescued from Germany to Jerusalem and that of the Grand Lodge of Hamburg (whose light continued to exist in boxes in Palestine and Chile) was finally brought to the newly founded United Grand Lodge of Germany on June 19, 1949 .

In memory of Leo Müffelmann

In memory of Leo Müffelmann, the AASR Müffelmann's atelier for duty and loyalty was founded in Münster (Westphalia) on April 1, 1987, and the Müffelmann Freemason Lodge for Loyalty ( AFAM ) on August 31, 1996 . The Masonic Lodge Müffelmann zur Treue Nr. 29 (now under the Grand Lodge of the State of Israel), founded in Tel-Aviv after Leo Müffelmann's death, still exists today and works in German.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Enrollment on October 20, 1900 (matriculation entry: http://purl.uni-rostock.de/matrikel/200007214 )
^ Helmut Neuberger: angle measure and swastika. The Freemasons and the Third Reich. Herbig (May 2001). ISBN 978-3-7766-2222-5 . P. 18 ff.
↑ Homepage of the Freemason Lodge Müffelmann zur Treue No. 29, founded in Tel-Aviv : http://www.geocities.com/fmisrael/deutsch.html ( Memento from February 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

personal data
SURNAME	Müffelmann, Leo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Müffelmann, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German freemason and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 1, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rostock
DATE OF DEATH	August 29, 1934
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Enrollment on October 20, 1900 (matriculation entry: http://purl.uni-rostock.de/matrikel/200007214 )

[2] Helmut Neuberger: angle measure and swastika. The Freemasons and the Third Reich. Herbig (May 2001). ISBN 978-3-7766-2222-5 . P. 18 ff.

[3] Homepage of the Freemason Lodge Müffelmann zur Treue No. 29, founded in Tel-Aviv : http://www.geocities.com/fmisrael/deutsch.html ( Memento from February 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )