ICHF 2009

Het evenement van het jaar (of moet ik zeggen: van de twee jaar) zit er weer op: de International Conference on the History of Freemasonry, gehouden in de lokalen van de Grandlodge of Scotland in Edinburgh. In de komende posts zal ik uitvoerig verslag geven over deze conferentie, maar ik begin alvast met de abstract van mijn paper die ik op zaterdag 29 mei bracht:

Paper 16c. The conspiracy of Freemasons, Jews and Communists: an analysis of German and French nationalist discourse (1918-1940). Jimmy Koppen, Belgium.
In the aftermath of the First World War everal books and leaflets were published, both in defeated Germany/Austria as in victorious France, in which Freemasonry was called the dark force that caused war and revolution in order to gain supreme power. Publications like Worldfreemasonry-Worldrevolution-Worldrepublic by the autrian politician Friedrich Wichtl or Destrcution of Freemasonry through revelation of its secrets by general Ludendorff became best sellers and were a source of inspiration for emergent Nazism. These notoriuous anti-Masonic authors regarded Freemasonry as the antithesis of the German national identity. The brotherhood itself was at least infiltrated or perhaps even invented by the "International Judaism", as claimed in the Russian Protocolls of the Elders of Sion. On the other side of the Rhine, the same frightening conspiracy theory was put forward by the extreme right catholic priest Ernest Jouin, founder of the Revue Internationale des Sociétés secrètes. From 1912 onwards, Jouin proclaimed in this magazine taht the anti-patriotic attitude of Freemasonry would wooner or later lead to the downfall of France in revolution and decadence. Jouin considered the outcome of war as a Pyrrhic victory and Freemasons and Jews in French politics were tot blame for the tremendous death toll. The magazine and its spokesman had a huge influence on ultra-nationalist and anti-Masonic writers in France and abroad. The visions of both French and German/Austrian anti-Masons paved the way for the anti-Semitic world view of the Nazis, and were the transition of the traditional, Catholic-inspired anti-Masonry to a new level. This paper will discuss resemblances and differences in the nationalist and anti-Masonic discourse during the Interwar period. How did the protagonists analyse Freemasonry and the Nation? How could they involve Communism in their conspiracy theories? And how were they influenced by their sociological or (semi)religious background?

Update: de paper is via deze link te lezen.