Guido von List Society
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Guido von List Society (Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft), was an occult völkisch movement in honour of the teachings of Guido von List. It was founded primarily by the Wannieck family, (see Friedrich Wanniek) in 1908. It was also supported by many leading figures in Austrian and German politics, publishing, and occultism.
After the Nazis had come to power, they banned Liebenfeld's writings, and some members of Guido von List's Armanenschaft were even deported to Nazi concentration camps (see also Persecution of Heathens).
A look at the signatories of the first announcement concerning support for a Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft, circa 1905, reveals that List had a following of some very prestigious people and shows that the man, his ideology and his influence had widespread and significant support, including public figures in Austria and Germany. Among some 50 signatories which endorsed the foundation of the List Society were the industrialist Friedrich Wanniek (president of the "Verein Deutsches Haus at Brno and chairman of the "Prague Iron Company" and the "First Brno Engineering Company" - major producers of capital goods in the Habsburg empire) and his son Friedrich Oskar Wanniek, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, Karl Lueger (mayor of Vienna), Ludwig von Bernuth (health organisation chairman), Ferdinand Khull (Committee member of the German Language Club), Adolf Harpf (editor of Marburger Zeitung), Hermann Pfister-Schwaighusen (lecturer in linguistics at Darmstadt University), Baron Wilhelm von Pickl-Scharfenstein, Amand Freiherr von Schweiger-Lerchenfeld (editor of the popular magazine "Stein der Weisen" and a distinguished army officer), Aurelius Polzer (newspaper editor at Horn and Graz), Ernst Wachler (author and founder of an open-air Germanic theatre in the Harz Mountains), Wilhelm Rohmeder (educator at Munich), Arthur Schulz (editor of a Berlin periodical for educational reform), Friedrich Wiegerhaus (chairman of the Elberfeld branch of the powerful "Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband" DVH (German Nationalist Commercial Employee's Association) and Franz Winterstein (committee member of the "German Social Party" DSP at Kassel). Among these men included occultists such as Hugo Goring (editor of theosophical literature at Weimar), Harald Arjuna Gravell van Jostenoode (theosophical author at Heidelberg), Max Seling (esoteric pamphleteer and popular philosopher in Munich), and Paul Zillmann (editor of the Metaphysische Rundschau and master of an occult lodge in Berlin.)
List's influence continued to grow after the official founding of the Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft on 2 March 1908. From 1908 through to 1912, new members included the deputy Beranek (a co-founder of the "Bund der Germanen" in 1894), Rudolf Berger (committee member of the "German Nationalist Workers League" in Vienna), Hermann Brass (chairman of the defence League of Germans in North Moravia [est. 1886]), Dankwart Gerlach (an ardent supporter of nationalist and romantic Youth Movements), Carl Friedrich Glasenapp (biographer of Richard Wagner), Colonel Karl Hellwig (volkish organiser in Kassel), Bernard Koerner (the heraldic expert and polulariser of middle-class genealogy), Josef Ludwig Reimer (an author in Vienna), Philipp Stauff (a Berlin journalist), Kark Herzog (DHV Manheim branch chairman), Franz Hartmann (a leading German theosophist), Arthur Weber (a theosophical editor), Karl Hilm (occult novelist), General Blasius von Schemua, the collective membership of the "Vienna Theosophical Society" and Karl Heise (a leading figure in the vegetarian and mystical mazdaznan cult of Zürich).
As the list demonstrates, the growth of nationalism within Germany during the late 19th-early 20th century, culminating in the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, provided an ideal audience of people who were already predisposed to accept List's ideas and unidentifiable personal gnosis of the Armanen way.
The register shows that List's ideas were acceptable to many intelligent persons drawn from the upper and middle classes of Austria and Germany. So impressed were they that these men were prepared to contribute ten crowns as an annual society subscription. The main part of the Society's assets derived from the Wannieck family, which put up more than three thousand crowns at the Society's inauguration.
A list of the signatories is printed in GLB (Guido-List-Bücherei) 3 (1908), [p.197f]. GLB is a series of "Ario-Germanic research reports" which were based upon his occult interpretations of ancient national Germanic culture.
The societies inner circle were called the High Armanen Order or Hoher Armanen Orden.
[edit] References
- Balzli, Johannes - ‘Guido v. List - Der Wiederentdecker uralter arischer Weisheit (Leizig and Vienna, 1917)’
- Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003). The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology. Gardners Books. ISBN 1-86064-973-4.; originally published as Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (1992). The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology; The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3060-4.
- Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3155-4.
- Flowers Ph.D., Stephen (aka Edred Thorsson) (1988). The Secret of the Runes. Destiny Books. ISBN 0-89281-207-9.
