Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels

Adolf Josef Lanz (aka Jörg Lanz), who called himself Lanz von Liebenfels (July 19 1874 - April 22, 1954) was an Austrian publicist and journalist. He was a former monk and the founder of the magazine "Ostara", in which he published anti-semitic and völkisch theories.

Early life

He was born on July 19, 1874 in the Penzing district of Vienna in what was then Austria-Hungary, as the son of schoolmaster Johann Lanz and his wife Katharina, née Hoffenreich. His parents were middle class, and his fathers ancestors had been burghers in Vienna since the early 18th century.

Lanz became a monk in the Cistercian order in 1893, assuming the name Georg and living in the Heiligenkreuz monastery. In 1894, he claimed to have been "enlightened" after finding the tombstone of a Knight Templar, and began developing his theories of "blue-blond aryanism" and "lower races". He left the monastery in 1899; although Lanz claimed that this was due to "growing nervousness", the official documents recorded "carnal love" as the reason, something that may have contributed to his later anti-feminism.

Work with Theozoology

In 1904, he published his book "Theozoologie" ("Theozoology") in which he advocated sterilization of the sick and the "lower races" as well as forced labour for "castrated chandals", and glorified the "Aryan race" as "Gottmenschen" ("god-men"). Lanz justified his neognostic racial ideology by attempting to give it a biblical foundation; according to him, Eve, whom he described as initially being divine, involved herself with a demon and gave birth to the "lower races" in the process. Furthermore, he claimed that this led to blonde women being attracted primarily to "dark men", something that only could be stopped by "racial demixing" so that the "Aryan-Christian master humans" could "once again rule the dark-skinned beastmen" and ultimately achieve "divinity". A copy of this book was sent to Swedish poet August Strindberg, from whom Lanz received an enthusiastic reply in which he was described as a "prophetic voice".

One year later, in 1905, he founded the magazine "Ostara, Briefbücherei der Blonden und Mannesrechtler", of which he became the sole author and editor in 1908. Lanz himself claimed to have up to 100,000 subscribers, but it is generally agreed that this figure is grossly exaggerated. Readers of this publication included Adolf Hitler and Dietrich Eckart, among others. Lanz claimed he was once visited by the young Hitler, whom he supplied with two missing issues of the magazine.

As a student of Guido von List, Lanz further expanded his theories; other influences included Otto Weininger, of whom Lanz was a fervent follower.

Interactions with Aryan societies

In 1905 Lanz and some fifty other supporters of List signed a declaration endorsing the proposed "Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft" (Guido von List Society), which was officially founded in 1908. He also founded his own esoteric organisation, the "Ordo Novi Templi" (Order of the New Templars) in 1907. These movements were supposed to "further the racial self-confidence by doing pedigree and racial research, beauty contests and the founding of racist "future sites" in underdeveloped parts of the Earth" ("das Rassebewusstsein durch Stammbaum- und Rassekundeforschung, Schönheitswettbewerbe und die Gründung rassistischer Zukunftsstätten in unterentwickelten Teilen der Erde zu fördern"). To further this agenda, he purchased the Werfenstein castle ruins in Austria. Neither organization really managed to attract a large member base, though; it is estimated that the order had around 300 members, the most prominent of which was the poet Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando. Lanz's claim that the organization was already founded prior to 1900, and that he met with August Strindberg in 1896 and managed to convince him to join the order, have been shown to be fabricated.

After Hitler's rise to prominence in the 1920s, Lanz tried to be recognized as one of the ideological precursors to Adolf Hitler. In the preface of issue one in the 3. series of Ostara, c. 1927, he wrote for example: "Es sei daran erinnert, daß die 'Hakenkreuz-' und Faschistenbewegungen im Grunde genommen, nur Seitenentwicklungen der Ostara-Ideen sind." [ Ostara, III, 1; p.3. [http://www.archive.org/details/UnknownOstara152ndSeries] ] (Translation: "One shall remember that the swastika- and fascist movements" (he is obviously referring to the Nazi party) "basically are just side-developments of the Ostara-ideas.")

After Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, Lanz hoped for Hitler's patronage, but Hitler may have felt embarrassed by this early connection. Hence, Lanz was banned from publishing his writings. Most notably copies of "Ostara" were removed from circulation. After the war, Lanz accused Hitler of having not only stolen but corrupted his idea, and also of being of "inferior racial stock". An alternative view is that Hitler was simply embarrassed by Liebenfels himself. There is no strong scholarly consensus as to whether Hitler was directly or indirectly significantly influenced by Liebenfels' work, and no strong evidence that he was interested in the occult movement as a whole apart from its racial aspects, though the association has been repeatedly made by critics and occultists during and after the Third Reich.

Publications

In his publications, Lanz mixed völkisch and anti-semitic ideas with Aryanism, racism and esotericism. The following is a partial list of Lanz's publications:

* "Katholizismus wider Jesuitismus" ("Catholicism versus Jesuitism"), Frankfurt, 1903
* "Anthropozoon biblicum", in "Vjschr. für Bibelkunde 1", 1903/1904
* "Zur Theologie der gotischen Bibel" ("Regarding the Theology of the Gothic Bible") in "Vjschr. für Bibelkunde 1", 1903/1904
* "Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron" ("Theozoology or the account of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron"), Vienna, (1905)
* "Das Breve "Dominus ac redemptor noster", Frankfurt, 1905
* "Der Taxilschwindel. Ein welthistorischer Ulk", Frankfurt, 1905
* "Ostara" (magazine), 89 issues, Rodaun and Mödling, 1905-1917 (38 issues were republished in Vienna between 1926 and 1931)
* "Kraus und das Rassenproblem" ("Kraus and the race problem"), in "Der Brenner 4", 1913/1914
* "Weltende und Weltwende", ("World's End and World's Turn"), Lorch, 1923
* "Grundriss der ariosophischen Geheimlehre" ("Outline of the Aryosophic Secret Teachings"), Oestrich, 1925
* "Der Weltkrieg als Rassenkampf der Dunklen gegen die Blonden" ("The World War as a Race Fight Between the Dark and the Blondes"), Vienna, 1927
* "Bibliomystikon oder die Geheimbibel der Eingeweihten" ("Bibliomystikon or the secret bible of the initiated"), 10 volumes, Pforzheim and elsewhere, 1929 - 1934
* "Praktisch-empirisches Handbuch der ariosophischen Astrologie" ("Practical-empirical Handbook of Aryosophic Astrology"), Düsseldorf, 1926 - 1934

ee also

* Ariosophy
* Christian mysticism
* German mysticism
* Theosophy (history of philosophy)
* Nazi occultism
* Nazism

Further reading

* For a relatively unbiased scholarly English account of Lanz see Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's "The Occult Roots of Nazism" p. 90-122.
* Joachim C. Fest, "Hitler", p. 169f, 175f
* Ekkehard Hieronimus: "Lanz von Liebenfels. Eine Biographie", Toppenstedt, 1991
* Anton Maegerle, Peter Paul Heller: "Thule. Vom völkischen Okkultismus bis zur Neuen Rechten", Stuttgart, 1995.
* Wilfried Daim: "Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab", 1. Edition 1957, 2. rev. ed. 1985, 3.rev.ed.1994

References

External links

* [http://www.archive.org/details/EuropaHouseTheozoology Complete text of Lanz von Liebenfels' "Theozoology or the science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron" in English at archive.org]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/Theozoology_0 Complete text of Lanz von Liebenfels' "Theozoology or the science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron" in German at archive.org]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/DasBuchdesPsalmenTeutch "Das Buch des Psalmen Teutch" "The Book of the Teutonic Psalms" by Lanz von Liebenfels at archive.org. In German]