Wilhelm Kusserow (teacher)

Wilhelm Kusserow ( May 19, 1901 in Hennigsdorf - 1983 ) was a German teacher and leading head of German-believing New - Germanic paganism in the 20th century. In 1927 he founded the Nordic Faith Community , a German and Germanic faith , a neo-pagan , anti-Christian association close to the national movement . In 1934, Kusserow formulated the Nordic Species Confession as the basis of belief , a radically racist and anti-Semitic worldview based on the “ Nordic idea ” . After he had not belonged to the NSDAP during the time of National Socialism , he was able to found a successor organization in the tradition of the Nordic religious community with the species community . He headed the species community until he was deposed in 1980 by younger members around Jürgen Rieger . With his remaining followers, Kusserow formed the loyalty group Artglaube Irminsul .

Live and act

Kusserow was the son of a cantor of Huguenot origin. In 1904 the family moved to Nowawes where Kusserow his 1920 on the secondary school passed the matriculation examination. In the same year he started studying German , English and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . In his third and fourth semesters he studied theology . He did his doctorate in 1926 under Max Dessoir on Friedrich Nietzsche and Stefan George in comparison. The work was published in 1928 by the publishing house of the magazine Der Weiße Ritter , the guide magazine of the Bund der Newfadfinder . Kusserow himself was a member of the Alt-Wandervogel and the German National Youth Association . In the following years he taught as a teacher until the end of the war in Freienwalde (Oder) .

Kusserow resigned from the Protestant church . He got to know the Berlin lawyer and later Reich judge Norbert Seibertz . Together they founded the Nordic Faith Community in 1927 as a split from the German religious community of 1911 . In the Nordic religious community, the orders of the north gathered , the Germanic faith community of Ludwig Fahrenkrog and the districts of Brandenburg and Electoral Saxony of the German faith community . The north came from the youth movement and were close to the nationalist movement . The Nordic denomination emphasized the " Nordic " element of religious beliefs. In 1932 they joined forces in the Nordic-Religious Working Group, which was ultimately headed by Norbert Seibertz and Kusserow as his deputy. As Ulrich Nanko remarks, it was not a religious community, but a “combat alliance” which “only served to promote racial ideas”.

During National Socialism , the working group initially joined the working group of the German Faith Movement under Jakob Wilhelm Hauer . In October 1934 Seibertz and Kusserow left Hauer's working group and reorganized the Nordic religious community as an all-Nordic collection movement. They represented the radically racist, anti-Semitic and Germanic religiosity spectrum. They wore the silver Hagal rune as a badge . The Nordic newspaper served as the publication organ . Kusserow never became a member of the NSDAP , but in 1934 formulated the Nordic creed as an ideological basis, which he compared with Hitler's party program. When the German-Believing Community under Alfred Conn joined the Nordic Community in 1938, Kusserow became chairman.

After the Second World War , Kusserow succeeded in portraying himself as a victim of the Nazi regime. In 1951, as the successor to the Nordic denomination in Göttingen, he first founded a trust of fellow believers . From this, the species community arose in 1957 - faith federation of nature-conforming existence as a registered association based on its racist belief in species . The Nordische Zeitung appeared again since 1950 and became the organ of Kusserow's small traditional circle. Kusserow was also a member of the Northern League . In 1980 he was pushed out of the species community by a group of younger members around Jürgen Rieger and founded the loyalty group Artglaube Irminsul with the newspaper of the species faith as the publication organ .

Fonts

• Friedrich Nietzsche and Stefan George. A comparison. The white knight, Potsdam 1928.
• The Nordic creed ... Second unchanged edition. , Berlin 1934.
• The Creed of the Nordic Race, etc. [An English summary of "The Nordic Species Confession."]. , Pp. 21. London 1936.
• Nordic Faith and Christianity. The essential question of our time. Seven stages publishing house, Schkeuditz b Leipzig 1940.
• Judgments of my actions. Little Nordic ethic. Species community, Berlin approx. 1960.
• Life knowledge. Natural worldview. (Ahlbrecht), o. O. 1970?
• Legacy. Species community, [Iphofen] 1972.
• But the stones, they talk ... for those who want to hear. , Berlin 1973.
• Facial stones. Mind animals, demons, sir; a contribution to prehistory. , Berlin 1973.
• Homecoming to belief in species (from Master Ekkehart to Fr. Nietzsche). Kusserow, Berlin 1974–1975.
• In the 20th [twentieth] century. Ahlbrecht, Göttingen 1976.
• Belief in species. Meaning of life, popular law, self-fulfillment; Overall representation of an essential belief of the northern European people. Ahlbrecht, Göttingen 1977.
• Escorts. Life report 1901 - 81st self-published, [Berlin] 1982.

literature

• Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement. A historical and sociological investigation. Diagonal-Verl., Marburg 1993, ISBN 9783927165168 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Franziska Hundseder: Wotan's disciples. Neo-pagan groups between esotericism and right-wing radicalism. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 9783453131910 , p. 42 f.
2. ^ Wilhelm Kusserow: Friedrich Nietzsche and Stefan George. A comparison. The white knight, Potsdam 1928, p. 77.
3. ^ Stefan Breuer: Political Reception. In: Achim Aurnhammer et al. (Ed.). Stefan George and his circle. A manual. 2nd edition, De Gruyter, Berlin 2016, ISBN 9783110456882 , pp. 1176-1225., Here pp. 1203 f.
4. ^ Franziska Hundseder: Wotan's disciples. Neo-pagan groups between esotericism and right-wing radicalism. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 9783453131910 , p. 43.
5. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German faith movement. A historical and sociological investigation. Diagonal-Verl., Marburg 1993, ISBN 9783927165168 , p. 48.
6. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German faith movement. A historical and sociological investigation. Diagonal-Verl., Marburg 1993, ISBN 9783927165168 , p. 49. In 1932 a new Nordic denomination was created under the direction of Ernst Mysing (1874–1940) and the councilor Friedbert Schultze (1883–?). Winfried Mogge: "We love Balder, the light one ...". Völkisch-religious youth leagues from the Wilhelmine Reich to the “Third Reich”. In: Uwe Puschner and Clemens Vollnhals (eds.): The ethnic-religious movement in National Socialism. A relationship and conflict story. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 9783525369968 ( writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute . Volume 047), pp. 45–64., Here p. 57.
7. ^ Gideon Botsch: Nordische Zeitung (since 1933). In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.). Handbook of Anti-Semitism. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Volume 6, Publications. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 9783110305357 , pp. 499-501, here p. 499 f.
8. ↑ Hans Buchheim: Faith Crisis in the Third Reich. Three chapters of National Socialist religious policy. German Verl.-Anst, Stuttgart 1953, p. 188.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Ulrich Nanko: Religious group formation of former “German believers” after 1945. In: Hubert Cancik and Uwe Puschner (eds.). Anti-Semitism, paganism, ethnic religion. De Gruyter, Berlin 2004, ISBN 9783110966381 , pp. 121-134, here p. 124.
10. ↑ Christoph Knüppel: Völkisch-religious attempts at unification during the Second World War. In: Uwe Puschner and Clemens Vollnhals (eds.). The ethnic-religious movement under National Socialism. A relationship and conflict story. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 9783525369968 ( writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute . Volume 47), pp. 149–192, here pp. 157, 163
11. ↑ Christoph Knüppel: Völkisch-religious attempts at unification during the Second World War. In: Uwe Puschner and Clemens Vollnhals (eds.). The ethnic-religious movement under National Socialism. A relationship and conflict story. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 9783525369968 ( writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute . Volume 47), pp. 149–192, here p. 157.
12. ↑ ^{a b c} Gideon Botsch: Nordische Zeitung (since 1933). In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.). Handbook of Anti-Semitism. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Volume 6, Publications. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2013, ISBN 9783110305357 , p. 500.