Friedrich Hielscher | |
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| Born | (1902-05-31)May 31, 1902 |
| Died | March 6, 1990(1990-03-06) (aged 87) |
| Occupation | Founder of Unabhängige Freikirche |
Friedrich Hielscher (31 May 1902 – 6 March 1990) was a German intellectual involved in theConservative Revolutionary movement during theWeimar Republic and in theGerman resistance during theNazi era. He was the founder of anesoteric orNeopagan movement, theUnabhängige Freikirche (UFK, "Independent Free Church"), which he headed from 1933 until his death.
Hielscher was born the eldest of three children to Fritz Hielscher and Gertrud Hielschernée Erdmenger inPlauen,Vogtland, at the time part of theKingdom of Saxony. Baptized into the Lutheran Church as Fritz Johannes, he later changed his name to Hans Friedrich and finally to Friedrich.
Hielscher joined aFreikorps on June 10, 1919. He left his unit in 1920 due to his refusal to participate in the 1920Kapp-Putsch, which he regarded as "reactionary".[citation needed]
Although his religious mother encouraged him to study theology, from 1920 he studied law in Berlin, where he joined theschlagendeCorps Normania Berlin. He studied for his doctorate under the juristOtto Koellreutter, culminating in his 1928 dissertation, "Die Selbstherrlichkeit: Versuch einer Darsterstellung des deutschen Rechtsgrundbegriffs" (Self-Aggrandisement: An Attempt to Present the German Legal Concept). This thesis was an effort to define the legal foundations of the German Right around the philosophy ofFriedrich Nietzsche,Max Weber, andOswald Spengler.[citation needed]
He became politically active in theGerman People's Party, a conservative liberal party and precursor of the modernFree Democratic Party. Joining the DVP's "Reichsklub," he regularly visited sessions in the Reichstag, an experience that turned him against parliamentary politics and his attack of the Reichstag as a "Phantom Assembly" representing secret financial interests rather than the German nation.[citation needed]
Hielscher was influenced by theConservative Revolution movement, especiallyArthur Moeller van den Bruck. After readingThe Decline of the West, he contactedOswald Spengler and visited his apartment in Munich, but was rejected by the historian.[citation needed]
Through their mutual friend,August Winnig, Hielscher was introduced toErnst Jünger in 1926. Jünger held Hielscher in high esteem and credited him with his own disenchantment with technology (tecknik). FollowingErnst von Salomon, who named Hielscher "Bogumil", Jünger nicknamed Hielscher "Bodo" or "Bogo" as an homage to Hielscher's interest inGnosticism.
Hielscher's first publication was an essay entitled "Intrigue and Artistry" in Jünger's magazineStandarte-Arminius, in December 1926. Jünger entrusted Hielscher with editorship of his magazineDer Vormarsch (The Advance) in April 1928.[citation needed]
Hielscher abandonedDer Vormarsch to launch his own journal,Das Reich, in the summer of 1929. Both journals were banned by the Hitler regime in 1933.[citation needed]
In 1931, Hielscher published his vision of an ethnic GermanReich in his magnum opus,Das Reich. Hielscher proposed this as a "political theology of the Empire", harmonizing his spiritual and political views into a new vision of Deutschheit (Germanness). He argued against a racial or biological definition of the German nation, extolling "the community of a race of the spirit" over a biological emphasis he condemned as "entirely materialistic". Deeper "spiritual" values were genetic: "Lineage is not a question of descent but of mental attitude."[1]
He was inspired byFriedrich Schiller, who consoled himself during the French occupation by recalling that the values of "Germandom" lay outside the political sphere and thus indestructible.[2] Hielscher proposed that the "Myth" of das Reich could be found in the merger of "Power" and "Inwardness", which he regarded as "divine totality". He combined philosophical influences from the "chain of Inwardness" -Meister Eckhart,Martin Luther,Goethe, and Nietzsche - which he saw as corresponding to an external "chain of Power":Theodoric,Heinrich VI,Gustavus Adolphus,Frederick the Great, andBismarck.[3]
Hielscher's concept ofReich was also inspired byStefan George's belief in a "Secret Germany" (Geheimes Deutschland), a mystical andethnic essentialist argument for a spiritual and cultural potential held by theGerman people and a German nation which existedin potentia but which had been prevented from realization in the history of theHoly Roman Empire. This was an inner, positive force rooted in the ethical and moral imperatives of "the spirit", and not imposed from above by either social classes or politics.[4] George's vision influencedGerman resistance to Nazism, particularlyClaus von Stauffenberg.
As with other members of the Conservative Revolution, Hielscher advocated for anti-colonialist movements as the natural allies of Germany in its own struggle against the supposed powers behind Versailles. He argued for an alliance with Russia while opposing Communism.[5] In his own magazineDas Reich, Hielscher gave an audience to anti-imperialist liberation movements under the heading "Vormarsch der Volker" (Rise of the Peoples).[6] These meetings were personally condemned by the Nordicist race theorist Alfred Rosenberg.[7]
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Hielscher was a member of theEvangelical Church in Germany until 1924.In 1933, he founded theUnabhängige Freikirche ("Independent Free Church", UFK), a non-Christian religious institution designed to put into practice his theological ideas. The UFK combinedpanentheism withpaganism andnationalism.In Hielscher's theology,God is external to the universe, or the universe contained within God. Within the universe are the "Twelve Divine Messengers" (zwölf göttliche Boten), six male and six female, identified with the pagan deities, specifically with thegods ofGermanic paganism. Hielscher elaborates the personality of three out of these twelve deities in particular, describing them as "divine couple", also "king and queen", namedWode andFrigga, and the "god of Easter" (Ostergott), namedFro. The remaining nine Messengers are treated much more briefly, or not at all; they includeFreya,Loki andSigyn.The principles of his religious system are elaborated in twelve pamphlets (Leitbriefe) written in 1956 and 1957 and distributed to his adherents. This "pagan catechism" of Hielscher's were edited by Bahn (2009). The religious doctrine of Hielscher's UFK consists of asyncretism of monotheistic Christianity,panentheism as advocated byGoethe, and polytheistic reconstruction related to other currents ofGermanic mysticism at the time (such as the groups led byJakob Wilhelm Hauer andLudwig Fahrenkrog).
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Like some conservatives of 1920s Germany, Hielscher was opposed to Nazism andits form of racism. While his early writings were openly nationalist, he moved away from German nationalism after 1933 and participated in the undergroundGerman resistance.[citation needed]
Under theNazi regime of 1933 to 1945, he advocated a clandestine approach to resistance, attempting to place his adherents in key positions where they could contribute to the ultimate downfall of the regime. Hielscher's UFK was not itself a cell of the German resistance, but several of its members were at the same time active in such. ViaFranz Maria Liedig andAugust Winnig, the UFK was well-connected with the resistance movement. Hielscher convinced several of his followers to seek positions within the regime, including intelligence (Abwehr), military command,Ahnenerbe and police (SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt), from which positions they managed to protect some of those persecuted by the Nazi regime.
Hielscher was arrested in 1944 in connection with the failed20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. He was released afterAhnenerbe directorWolfram Sievers interceded on his behalf.
When Sievers was accused of war crimes at theDoctors' Trial atNuremberg, Hielscher in turn interceded for him, stating that Sievers was part of his clandestine resistance. Sievers was nevertheless condemned to death and executed in 1948.
Hielscher was criticized by his own followers for his leadership, the failure of his concept of clandestine resistance, and his attempts to defend Sievers. Disillusioned, and disappointed with his failure to save Sievers from execution, Hielscher publicly announced his retirement from all political activities, resolving to restrict his efforts to the purely religious.
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After the war, Hielscher retired from all public office. He lived with his wife Gertrud inMarburg andMünnerstadt and from 1964 at the secluded Rimprechtshof[8] nearSchönwald in theBlack Forest.
He was the editor of theDeutsche Corpszeitung during the 1960s, where he published a number of essays onacademic fencing.
Hielscher continued to lead the UFK until his death inFurtwangen in 1990.
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