‘Nazis vs. Freemasons’

    

Nazis vs. Freemasons documentary.

Sounds almost like a soccer match but, no, Nazis vs. Freemasons is a new film from Free Documentary on the subject of the Masonic archives looted by Nazi Germany during its conquest of Europe in World War Two; those records’ subsequent seizure by the Soviets; and the surprising return of 28,000 meticulously labeled files to their original owners, despite reluctance in the Duma, at the close of the last century.

Free Documentary is one of the many brands of Quintus Studios. Based in Germany, Quintus is an aggregator of documentaries it has uploaded to YouTube for more than ten years for our enjoyment free of charge.

Free Documentary

Nazis vs. Freemasons: Looting of the Lodges recounts the story of how and why Nazis, commanded by Alfred Rosenberg, plundered the Masonic buildings in Germany and the countries sacked by the German army, confiscating all kinds of archives, libraries, and possessions. The Masonic items later were shipped to Moscow, where they were lodged for more than fifty years.

Of Rosenberg, Holocaust Encyclopedia says:

On November 9, 1923, Rosenberg participated in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, which resulted in Hitler’s arrest. Tasked by Hitler as interim leader of the Nazi Party, Rosenberg struggled to prevent the Nazi movement’s disintegration. After Hitler’s release, Rosenberg returned to journalism and began his chief work, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, published in 1930…

Based on a selective reading of earlier works of philosophers, neo-pagan authors, and racial theorists, such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the volume embodied a dichotomist world view that positioned the “Aryan” and the Jewish “races” irreconcilably against one another. All the fruits of Western culture, Rosenberg posited, had evolved solely from the Germanic tribes; yet the Roman “priestly caste” which had arisen with Christianity had combined with Freemasons, Jesuits, and “international Jewry” to erode this culture and with it German spiritual values.

Free Documentary

From the Masonic perspective, the film highlights the explanation offered by Pierre Mollier, one of the Grand Orient of France’s best known scholars. We also hear from historian Patricia Grimsted, who brought the archives to light after the collapse of the Soviet government—and was denounced as a spy, among other experts.

Some takeaways from the film:

Free Documentary

◆ These archives are not mere inanimate objects and dry documents. They comprise nothing less than the fraternity’s lost “collective memory.” Facts unknown by anyone living, even about Lodge of Nine Sisters in Paris, have been exhumed to illumine our past.

◆ Nazi venom for Freemasonry wasn’t merely loathing of Enlightenment (and anti-fascist) thinking. Heinrich Himmler believed Freemasons “held mysterious esoteric powers.”

◆ The Soviets’ interest in Freemasonry was more practical. They wanted to know about Masonic political networking to learn if Masonry had members inside the Communist Party. Also, knowing that many Western politicians and generals were Masons, they sought to leverage Masonic knowledge to infiltrate that leadership.

There’s no sense in me writing at length about the documentary. Click the image at top and watch the 51-minute film, posted to YouTube about a week ago.

My thanks to Bro. Don for alerting me to the film’s arrival on YouTube.

     

‘Robert N. Stutz, R.I.P.’

    

RW Bro. Bob Stutz at the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library’s Freemasonry and the Arts Dinner-Lecture, December 8, 2008.

Sad news yesterday of the death of RW Bro. Robert N. Stutz of New Jersey. Bob was 95.

I had the pleasure of meeting him many years ago upon the launch of the research lodge, and it was always a joy to greet him again there for many years thereafter, and especially at other places where Masons “who get it” congregate. For example, he made sure he got to the Masonic Society’s Second Circle dinner-lectures in New Jersey (he was not a PayPal customer, so he was the only one from whom I accepted payment at the door), and it was delightful to shake his hand at similar events in Manhattan.

At age 95, Bob obviously was one of the “Greatest Generation,” the popular abbreviation for those young Americans who donned our country’s uniform to deploy in distant lands to obliterate the enemies of humanity. Bob was of the Seabees (C.B. = Construction Battalion) of the U.S. Navy, serving in the Pacific Theater, from Pearl Harbor to occupied Japan, with the Battle of Iwo Jima along the way.

He was a Past Master (1993) of Mercer Lodge 50 in Trenton, and he served as Secretary to Grand Master Ray Vanden Berghe in 1996.

A lot of life transpired between the war and my acquaintance with Bro. Bob, and I regret not talking with him about things not Masonic so I might tell you more about him now, but Bob Stutz was a joy when it came to Masonic conversation. His demeanor said gentlemanliness to all, but the initiated eye perceived the Light that makes a man a Mason. May we bear his memory to keep his goodness alive.

     

‘Hitler declares war, blames a famous Mason’

     
I thought that subject line would get ya!

But I promise that is no mere clickbait. There actually is a point to this, and it involves Hitler—and not in one of those reductio ad absurdum ways either.

Last Wednesday, we observed the 75th anniversary of Imperial Japan’s devastating sneak attack on the American military bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which brought the United States into what would become known as World War II. The day after that surprise attack, the U.S. Congress, at the request of President Franklin Roosevelt, declared war on Japan. In less than four years, America would completely vanquish Japan’s land, sea, and air forces, and reduce much of the Japanese home islands to rubble, including a few parts that were caused to glow in the dark. But you know that already.

The Germans were not too keen on being at war with the United States again. With total war being waged against both the British Empire and the Soviet Union already, the last thing the Nazi leadership wanted was a third great power as a foe, particularly the one with the seemingly limitless economic potential. But Japan was Germany’s strategic partner, and if Hitler wanted Japan to join the fight against the Soviets, he would have to agree to support Japan’s war on the United States.

So, on this date in 1941, Hitler, standing before the Reichstag, explained why he wanted war against the United States, and did so in a speech that mostly was calling Roosevelt names—and that gave a shout-out to Freemasonry. Excerpted:


And now permit me to define my attitude to that other world, which has its representative in that man, who, while our soldiers are fighting in snow and ice, very tactfully likes to make his chats from the fireside, the man who is the main culprit of this war…

But it is a fact that the two conflicts between Germany and the U.S.A. were inspired by the same force and caused by two men in the U.S.A.—Wilson and Roosevelt… But why is there now another President of the U.S.A. who regards it as his only task to intensify anti-German feeling to the pitch of war? National Socialism came to power in Germany in the same year as Roosevelt was elected president. I understand only too well that a worldwide distance separates Roosevelt’s ideas and my ideas. Roosevelt comes from a rich family and belongs to the class whose path is smoothed in the Democracies. I am only the child of a small, poor family and had to fight my way by work and industry. When the Great War came, Roosevelt occupied a position where he got to know only its pleasant consequences, enjoyed by those who do business while others bleed. I was only one of those who carry out orders, as an ordinary soldier, and naturally returned from the war just as poor as I was in autumn 1914. I shared the fate of millions, and Franklin Roosevelt only the fate of the so-called Upper Ten Thousand.

After the war Roosevelt tried his hand at financial speculation: he made profits out of the inflation, out of the misery of others, while I, together with many hundreds of thousands more, lay in hospital. When Roosevelt finally stepped on the political stage with all the advantages of his class, I was unknown and fought for the resurrection of my people. When Roosevelt took his place at the head of the U.S.A., he was the candidate of a Capitalist Party which made use of him: when I became Chancellor of the German Reich, I was the Führer of the popular movement I had created. The powers behind Roosevelt were those powers I had fought at home. The Brains Trust was composed of people such as we have fought against in Germany as parasites and removed from public life…

While an unprecedented revival of economic life, culture and art took place in Germany under National Socialist leadership within the space of a few years, President Roosevelt did not succeed in bringing about even the slightest improvements in his own country. And yet this work must have been much easier in the U.S.A…. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation was all wrong: it was actually the biggest failure ever experienced by one man. There can be no doubt that a continuation of this economic policy would have done this President in peacetime, in spite of all his dialectical skill. In a European State he would surely have come eventually before a State Court on a charge of deliberate waste of the national wealth; and he would have scarcely escaped at the hands of a Civil Court, on a charge of criminal business methods.

This fact was realized and fully appreciated also by many Americans including some of high standing. A threatening opposition was gathering over the head of this man... He was strengthened in this resolve by the Jews around him. Their Old Testament thirst for revenge thought to see in the U.S.A. an instrument for preparing a second “Purim” for the European nations which were becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. The full diabolical meanness of Jewry rallied round this man, and he stretched out his hands.

I will pass over the insulting attacks made by this so-called President against me. That he calls me a gangster is uninteresting. After all, this expression was not coined in Europe but in America, no doubt because such gangsters are lacking here. Apart from this, I cannot be insulted by Roosevelt for I consider him mad just as Wilson was. I don’t need to mention what this man has done for years in the same way against Japan. First he incites war then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war, not without calling God to witness the honesty of his attack—in the approved manner of an old Freemason.


Franklin Roosevelt was initiated in Freemasonry in Holland Lodge 8 in New York City on October 11, 1911. The lodge is still at labor, and you can visit the room in Masonic Hall and see the altar where that happened. For more on Hitler versus Freemasonry, read this from the Masonic Philosophical Society.
     

‘Don’t Be a Sucker’

     

Listening to the radio for some Independence Day rock & roll, the program currently tuned in mixes an occasional odd sound bite amid the tunes, including a minute or so of a U.S. War Department film titled “Don’t Be a Sucker.” Released in 1943, and revised after the war, this short partially explains how the Nazis rose to political power in Germany and drove the country to ruin in the Second World War. The story is told by a Hungarian-born university professor (Paul Lukas) who had fled Europe for the United States in the nick of time, and became an American citizen.

After an introductory segment explaining how political rabble rousers are akin to con men in their common strategies for duping the public, the film uses one character’s membership in Freemasonry to make the emotional connection for the viewer to realize that bigot demagogues typically are talking about them when blaming society’s ills on members of ethnic, racial, and religious minorities. “What’s wrong with the Masons? I’m a Mason,” the startled onlooker wonders before reappraising his opinions on American society.

Freemasonry is an odd choice of vehicle to cross that bridge, but that’s how it is in “Don’t Be a Sucker.”

It has been a number of years since Bro. Sal Corelli was mentioned on the Magpie, and I figure these photos he sent me five days ago would be perfect to share on Independence Day.

Sal was in Queens, New York and visited the site of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, which boasted an impressive Masonic pavilion, some of which remains standing.

I close this Independence Day edition of The Magpie Mason with a look at Bro. George Washington: General of the Continental Army, President of the United States, and Freemason.

Courtesy Sal Corelli

Courtesy Sal Corelli

Courtesy Sal Corelli

If the likeness of Washington looks familiar, it is because the sculptor who created it was a prolific replicator of Washington in bronze. New York artist Donald De Lue’s other Washingtons stand at the New Orleans Main Public Library; the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia; Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey; the Masonic museum in Lexington, Massachusetts; Mariner’s Church in Detroit; the Masonic Home in Indianapolis; and elsewhere.

Gotta go! The Nerds are playing some little suburban town soon, before the fireworks.