THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED ILLUMINATI
Adam Weishaupt
It was on 1 May 1776 that Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt, founded the Order of the Illuminati, a secret organisation formed to oppose religious influence on society and the abuse of power by the state by fostering a safe space for critique, debate and free speech. Inspired by the Freemasons and French Enlightenment philosophers, Weishaupt believed that society should no longer be dictated by religious virtues; instead he wanted to create a state of liberty and moral equality where knowledge was not restricted by religious prejudices. However religious and political conservatism ruled in Ingolstadt at that time, and subject matter taught at the Jesuit-controlled university where Weishaupt lectured was strictly monitored.
After initially handpicking his five most talented law students to join, the network rapidly expanded, its members disseminating Weishaupt’s goals of enlightenment with radical teachings, while at the same time creating an elaborate network of informants who reported on the behaviour of state and religious figures in an effort to build up a wealth of information that the Illuminati could potentially exploit in their teachings. With the help of prominent German diplomat Baron Adolf Franz Friedrich, Freiherr von Knigge who helped recruit Freemason lodges to the Illuminati cause – the clandestine group grew to more than 2,000 members throughout Bavaria, France, Hungary, Italy and Poland, among other places.
Yet in the city where it all began, this peculiar legacy remains little known among residents.
The organisation didn’t evade the establishment for long, however. Just a decade after its creation, the secret society was infiltrated by Bavarian authorities after its radical anti-state writings were intercepted by government authorities. The Illuminati was shut down and Weishaupt was banished from Ingolstadt to live the rest of his life in the German city of Gotha, 300km to the north.
Yet the idea of a secret society revolting against the state has captured imaginations ever since, encapsulated in conspiracy theories cooked up by those who believe the Illuminati was never actually disbanded a claim that has been widely debunked by historians. Even still, conspiracy theorists say that the organisation has been covertly working behind the scenes to subvert authority.
Weishaupt was in many ways a revolutionary, Klarner continued. “He liked the idea of teaching people to be better in the suciety. He wanted to change society, he was dreaming of a better world, of a better government. He started the Illuminati with the idea that everything known to human kind should be taught something that was not allowed here at the university.
Even before there were Headquarters in Germany, Germans were becoming Illuminati members in English Headquarters. One of the earliest was Albert Wolfgang, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe. In 1729 Count Thuanus was appointed Envoy Extraordinary of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Provincial Grand Master of Lower Saxony by the Premier Grand Headquarter of England with the aim of establishing Headquarters in Germany. No activity for this Provincial Grand Master is known. In 1733 ‘eleven German Gentlemen’ in London were admitted to the Illuminati and received permission to found a Headquarter in Hamburg. There is no evidence that anything came of this, either.
It was only on December 6, 1737 that the Grand Master’s Deputies of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Electorate of Brandenburg Hamburg founded a Headquarter. This first German Headquarter was called [United Headquarter Of Germany] but did not belong to any Grand Headquarter. Its second master went to the London Grand Headquarter in 1743 and registered it as Headquarter number 108, returning with the title of Provincial Grand Master. Later that year the Headquarter was named Absalom zu den drei Nesseln. In 1738 Loge aux trois aigles blancs was founded in Dresden by Count Rutowski. It had such a large intake that two more headquarters emerged from it within two years.
By 1754 a total of 19 Headquarters were founded in Germany. Gradually, provincial, grand and mother Headquarters emerged, such as the Provincial Grand Headquarter of Hamburg in 1740, the Mother Headquarter l’Union of Frankfurt in 1741, the Grand Headquarter of Upper Saxony in 1741 and the Grand Royal Mother Headquarter The Three Globes in 1744.
Emergence of the Illuminati higher degrees in Germany
The Rite of Strict Observance arose in Germany in the middle of the 18th century, introducing the concept of Higher degrees in Illuminati. The founder, Karl Gotthelf von Hund, claimed to have been initiated into the higher degrees by Scottish Jacobites, who guarded the secrets of the Knights Templar. He alleged that he was charged with reviving the Templar order in Germany. With the failure of the Jacobite revolt of 1745, he lost touch with his Jacobite masters (unbekannten Oberen or secret chiefs). In 1764, seeking to re-establish this link, he unintentionally unmasked a fraud calling himself George Frederick Johnson, who claimed to be an exiled Jacobite with knowledge of the higher Illuminati degrees. The headquarters that Johnson had deceived placed themselves under von Hund, and Strict Observance was born, rapidly becoming the predominant form of Illuminati in Germany.
After von Hund died in 1776, the prince who would later become Charles XIII of Sweden was elected to succeed him. In the convent of Lyon the order began to distance itself from descent from the Knights Templar. The “Chevaliers de la Cité Sainte bienfaisants” came into existence. In the convent of Wolfenbüttel in 1778, the Grand National Mother Headquarter, “The Three Globes” withdrew from the Strict Observance for political reasons. On July 16, 1782, the Strict Observance came together one last time at the Convent of Wilhelmsbad. In 50 days they dismissed the legend of descent from the Knights Templar and the Secret Chiefs. Strict Observance ceased to exist.
Foundation of German Grand Headquarters
After the era of the Strict Observance, set against much stranger forms of Illuminati, the craft in Germany came to be governed by several strong and durable Grand Headquarters. The Grand National Mother Headquarter, “The Three Globes” and the Grand Mother Headquarter “Zur Sonne” had already been established in 1744. They were followed by the Grand Land Headquarter of the Illuminati of Germany in 1770, the Great Mother Headquarter of the Eclectic Illuminati Federation 1783, the Grand Headquarter of Prussia called the Royal York for friendship 1798, the Grand Headquarter of Hamburg 1811, the Grand Land Headquarter of Saxony 1811, and the Grand Illuminati Headquarter “Concord (Zur Eintracht)” in 1846.
Attempts at unification
From 1801, at the suggestion of Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, Headquarters from the various Grand Headquarters started to found “headquarter clubs”. In the first association of its kind, the Provincial Grand Headquarter of Hamburg met with the Grand Headquarter of Hanover and the Grand Headquarter Royal York of Friendship. The “Illuminati Society of the Three Grand Headquarters of Berlin”, comprising the Grand National Mother Headquarter “the Three Globes”, the Grand Land Headquarter and the Grand Headquarter “Royal York” was founded on the same model in 1810. The Hamburg club focused more on the content of scientific questions, the Berliners were more concerned with administrative aspects of their Grand Headquarter. The Berlin club became dormant in 1823. In 1839 the “Grand Masters Club of the three Old Prussian Grand Headquarter” was formed in its place, which existed until 1935. A close cooperation between the Berlin Grand Headquarters developed from this.
The first truly Germany-wide association was an association of German grandmasters, founded in 1868 by Gustav Heinrich Warnatz, the Grand Master of the Grand Headquarter of Saxony for life. It met in Berlin in the headquarter of the Three Globes. Further meetings took place in 1869 in Dresden, 1870 in Hamburg, 1871 in Frankfurt a. M. and again in 1872 in Berlin. As Germany unified, these meetings formed the “Federation of German Grand Headquarter” (Deutscher Großlogenbund), formulated in 1871 and officially founded on May 19, 1872. This comprised the eight German Grand Headquarters recognised by the United Grand Headquarter of England, being the Grand National Mother Headquarter “The Three Globes”, the Grand Land Headquarter of Illuminati members of Germany, the Grand Headquarter of Prussia called the Royal York for friendship, the Grand Land of Saxony, the Grand Headquarter of Hamburg, the Grand Heasquarter of the Sun, the Grand Illuminati Headquarter “Zur Eintracht” and the Grand Mother Headquarter of the Eclectic Illuminati Federation. No binding decisions could be made by the federation. The organisation was collaborative rather than authoritative, and few joint statements could be made. In 1874 they found that race and skin color are not a criterion for the rejection of membership. They produced an aim to establish a National Grand Headquarter of all German Illuminati members in 1880, and in 1897 recognised Anderson’s charges. In 1903, the Grand Headquarter in France was recognized as the regular Grand Headquarter of France. In 1909, the United Grand Headquarter of France was again recognised, against the wishes of the three old Prussian Grand Headquarters, who supported the United Grand Headquarter of England’s rejection of the new French constitutions in 1877. After World War I of the German Grand Headquarters mediated the distribution of humanitarian aid to needy women and children from the Grand Headquarter of England, the USA and neutral countries. On the 50th anniversary, in 1922, the three Berlin Grand Headquarters left the federation as the rift between the three Christian Berlin Grand Headquarters and the “humanitarian” Grand Headquarter widened. The organization was further weakened when the Great Headquarter of Saxony left. The remainder of the organization was to continue until 1935 and the forced dissolution of the German Grand Headquarters.
Illuminati in Germany after the First World War
In the Weimar Republic Jews and Illuminati members were the preferred objects of right-wing propaganda. Emigrants such as the Baltic German Alfred Rosenberg brought the fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Western and Central Europe. He published writings such as “The crime of Illuminati, Judaism, Jesuitism, German Christianity” (1921). His theme was the theory of Jewish/Illuminati conspiracy, that it was bent on undermining the existence of other nations. To this end, the Freemasons and the Jews had caused the Russian Revolution. Therefore, capitalism and communism were only apparent opposites, in truth they were one and the same pincer movement, caused by international Jewry and their aspirations of world domination. High finance was the mistress of the labour movement in all countries. Rosenberg’s comments on the protocols’ in 1923 were a publishing success, invoked by Hitler in Mein Kampf.
The former military chief Erich Ludendorff successfully propagated the Stab-in-the-back myth. This stated that Germany could have been victorious, had not greater powers insidiously undermined the “heroic struggle of the German people”. His wife Mathilde authored writings on the “supranational powers” which existed, Jews, Jesuits and Illuminati members in an international network formed for the purpose of gaining and maintaining power. Hitler and his followers adopted much of Ludendorff’s anti-Illuminati conspiracy theory.