by Frank Tallis
Von List's closest disciple was Josef Adolf Lanz-now better known as Lanz von Liebenfels (a completely fabricated identity that allowed him to claim noble descent). Von Liebenfels proposed the revival of the Knights Templar as an Aryan order, and on Christmas day 1907, he unfurled a flag bearing the swastika on the summit of Burg Werfenstein-their intended seat of power. Liebenfels's most famous work, rejoicing in the extraordinary title Theozoology, or the News about the Little Sodom Monkeys and the Gods’ Electron, envisaged a future society guided by Von List-inspired ideals of racial purity. Liebenfels insisted that a blond heroic race should be raised in secret cloisters, and that Aryans should be trained to exterminate “impure races” by castration and sterilization.
Like Von List's Armanenschaft, Von Liebenfels's cult has always been regarded as something of a joke. Contemporary intellectuals were convinced that he and his followers posed no threat to the established order; however, once again, twentieth-century history reminds us that one can never be too complacent when it comes to secret societies and prophetic visionaries.
Between 1905 and 1931, Von Liebenfels published a journal in Vienna called Ostara (the German goddess of dawn). One of his readers was so keen that he visited Von Liebenfels in 1909 to collect some back issues. In 1951, the aged Von Liebenfels remembered the enthusiastic nineteen-year-old fondly. Indeed, he was pleased to give Hitler the copies he wanted, and because the young man looked “quite poor,” he was moved to give him two kronen to help him get back home in comfort.
The influence of Von Liebenfels on Hitler was not merely ideological (although that would have been bad enough). Of all the Pan-German writers and race theorists around at the time, Von Liebenfels was the most florid. His language was fierce and garishfebrile with maniacal evangelism. Experts claim that Von Liebenfels's cadences are clearly evident in Hitler's Mein Kampf: With satanic joy on his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to destroy the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate.
All of the above begs the question: Why were there so many secret societies and cults in Vienna around 1900? Vienna was the most civilized city in Europe, enjoying a cultural renaissance and producing unprecedented advances in the arts, science, and philosophy. The alarming answer might be a simple piece of legislation: article 18 of the postrevolutionary “Law on Associations” of 1867.
In a sense, the city was dramatizing the principles of Freudian repression. Essentially, psychoanalysis tells us that if you push something down (for example, a memory), it'll pop up somewhere else (perhaps as a symptom). Article 18 of the “Law on Associations” was all about pushing things down.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was undoubtedly repressive with respect to the formation of societies and associations. A license to convene was required and this was granted only by a specially appointed commissioner. These licenses were not easily obtained and were often given with strings attached. The Freemasons, for example, could meet in Vienna under the auspices of a friendly society-but they were forbidden to work their rituals. The “Law on Associations” was extremely counterproductive, driving subversives underground and “infecting” the body politic in the process. One could argue- perhaps controversially-that the social illness that eventually emerged was National Socialism, and so virulent was this illness, it took a world war to treat it.
In these troubled times, there is still much to learn from events in Vienna in 1900 and the principles of psychoanalysis. Freedom of speech is sacred and should never be compromised. When we consign demons to the unconscious, they do not go away, they simply become more powerful.
Frank Tallis
London 2007
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