Schiller Institute
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The Schiller Institute is an international political and economic thinktank, one of the primary organizations of the LaRouche movement, with headquarters in Germany and the United States.
The Institute's stated aim is to apply the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Schiller to what it calls the "contemporary world crisis." It was founded at a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1984 by Helga Zepp LaRouche, the German-born wife of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. The American branch of the Institute publishes a quarterly magazine, Fidelio, which it describes as a "Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft." The German branch publishes a similar magazine called Ibykus, named after Schiller's poem "The Cranes of Ibykus."[1]
According to the Institute's website, it "is also established in Australia, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and has a growing influence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East."[2]
The Institute has been described by the London Metropolitan Police as a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."[1][2][3][4]
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[edit] Connection with LaRouche
The Schiller Institute is closely tied to Lyndon LaRouche, writing that: "It is his work and his ideas, that inspired the creation of the international Schiller Institute, as well as his intellectual and moral leadership that continue to set the standard for the policies and activity of the movement."[5] LaRouche's writings are featured prominently in Schiller Institute communications, and he is the keynote speaker at most Schiller Institute conferences.
[edit] Stated aims
The Institute's stated aim is to seek to apply the ideas of poet, dramatist and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to the current global political situation. They emphasize Schiller's concept of the interdependence of classical artistic beauty and republican political freedom, as elaborated in his series of essays entitled Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man.
On November 26, 1984, the Institute released a "Declaration of the Inalienable Rights of Man," which it describes as "the basis of the Institute's work and efforts worldwide." It states in part:
We, therefore, Representatives of the Peoples of the World, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, do ... solemnly publish and declare that all countries of the world are and of right ought to be free and independent States. That all human beings on this planet have inalienable rights, which guarantee them life, freedom, material conditions worthy of man, and the right to develop fully all potentialities of their intellect and their souls. That, therefore, a change in the present economic and monetary order is necessary and urgent to establish justice among the peoples of the world.
– Signators at Schiller Institute conference[6]
Zepp-LaRouche has explained the need for the Schiller Institute as follows:
We need a movement that can finally free Germany from the control of the Versailles and Yalta treaties, which have tossed us from one catastrophe to another for an entire century." (Wir brauchen eine Bewegung, die Deutschland endlich aus der Kontrolle der Kräfte von Versailles und Jalta befreit, die uns schon ein ganzes Jahrhundert lang von einer Kastastrophe in die andere stürzt.
[edit] Political activity
The website of the Schiller Institute includes transcripts of conferences that the Institute has sponsored, throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, to promote the idea of what it calls "peace through development". [4] The discussion at these conferences has generally centered around LaRouche's proposals for infrastructure projects such as the "Eurasian Land-Bridge", and the "Oasis Plan", a Middle East peace agreement based on Arab-Israeli collaboration on major water projects. The conferences also typically discuss proposals for debt relief and the "New Bretton Woods," a proposal for a sweeping reorganization of the world monetary system (see Political views of Lyndon LaRouche). The Institute strongly opposes the "Clash of Civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington, counterposing what it calls a "Dialogue of Cultures".
The March 18, 2007 internet edition of the Danish Paper Jyllands-Posten covers the Schiller Institute proposal for a national Maglev train system in that country. [5] In the 2007 Danish elections there were four candidates for parliament affiliated with the Schiller Institute. Despite their poor showing at the polls (they totaled just 197 votes nationwide, while at least 32000 are needed for a local mandate,) they garnered significant press coverage, including an interview with Tom Gillesberg in Berlingske Tidende, which discussed the slogan of the LaRouche slate, "After the financial crash, Maglev over Kattegat."[6].
During Fall of 2007, Schiller Institute Vice President Amelia Boynton Robinson toured the nations of Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and Italy, during which she spoke with European youth about her support for LaRouche, Martin Luther King, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as the continuing problem of racism in the United States, which she said was illustrated by the recent events in Jena, Louisiana.[7][8]
[edit] Mann-Chestnut hearings
Between August 31 and September 1, 1995, the Institute sponsored hearings chaired by former congressman James R. Mann and civil rights attorney J. L. Chestnut. The purpose was to investigate what it called "rampant corruption inside the permanent bureaucracy at the U.S. DOJ."[7] Its areas of concern were the alleged "harassment of African-American elected and public officials,"[8] alleged misconduct by the U.S. DOJ Office of Special Investigations; and the United States v. LaRouche case.
[edit] Cultural activity
[edit] Fidelio
The Institute has published its quarterly magazine, Fidelio, since 1992, described as a "Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft." It was co-founded and edited by Kenneth Kronberg.[9][10] The magazine is named after Ludwig van Beethoven's opera, "Fidelio," which tells the story of a political prisoner who is freed by the courage of his wife. At the time the magazine was founded, Lyndon LaRouche was still in prison.
Its issues include articles on Homer, Henry VII, Benjamin Franklin, Gottfried Leibniz, the “Four Serious Songs” of Johannes Brahms, Vice President Dick Cheney, Paul Kreingold’s “I.L. Peretz, Father of the Yiddish Renaissance”, and reviews of books, art exhibits, and musical, and dramatic performances.
[edit] Music
In 1988, the Institute initiated a campaign to return to the so-called "Verdi tuning" in the world of classical music, so-called because it was Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who originally waged a battle to stop the rising of the pitch to which orchestras are tuned. The "Verdi tuning" is one where C=256HZ, or A=432HZ, as opposed to the common practice today of tuning to anywhere from A=440 to A in the 450+ range.
Many prominent singers and instrumentalists actively campaigned for the Schiller Institute's proposal, including several who performed recitals for the Institute to demonstrate the different quality of the Verdi tuning, compared with contemporary tuning. Beginning in 1988, the Institute starting circulating petitions calling for a change in pitch. [9] In 1999, the Institute circulated a petition calling for the establishment of a permanent orchestra in Verdi's childhood home in Busseto, Italy, employing the special tuning in order to mark the composer's centennial. [10] Signers of the petitions have included Norbert Brainin, former First Violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, and the following vocalists: William Warfield (baritone), Carlo Bergonzi (tenor), and Piero Cappuccilli (baritone). Other well known vocalists who endorsed the initiative include Shirley Verrett (soprano), Joan Sutherland (soprano), George Shirley (tenor), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), Sherrill Milne (baritone), Fedora Barbier (mezzosoprano), Grace Bumbry (soprano), Elly Ameling (soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Birgit Nilsson (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Kurt Moll (basso), Marilyn Horne (mezzosoprano), and Ruggero Raimondi (basso).
The tuning initiative is opposed by Stefan Zucker. According to Zucker, the Institute offered a bill in Italy to impose the Verdi tuning on state-sponsored musicians that included provisions for fines and confiscation of non-Verdi tuning forks. Zucker has written that he believes the claims about the Verdi tuning are historically inaccurate. Institute followers are reported by Tim Page of Newsday to have stood outside concert halls with petitions to ban the music of Vivaldi and even to have disrupted a concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin in order to pass out pamphlets titled "Leonard Slatkin Serves Satan." [11]
In 1992, the Institute published A Manual on the Rudiments of Tuning and Registration: Book I: Introduction and Human Singing Voice, which discusses the tuning issue from the artistic and the scientific point of view. The Institute asserts the Bel Canto method of singing is "one of the best examples of mankind's ability to discover an existing physical principle, and to use that discovery to create new works of science and art, which then increase humanity's power to build civilization." They also assert that composers such as J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Guiseppi Verdi all wrote with the distinct vocal registers of the Bel Canto system in mind, and that their compositions intentionally exploit the different tone colors that these registers produce. [12]
In 1998, it co-sponsored a tour of the United States by the Thomanerchor, the 800-year-old "St.Thomas Choir" of Leipzig, Germany. The Thomanerchor is a boy's choir and teaching institution, among whose members at one time was Johann Sebastian Bach. The tour concluded with a performance at National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. before an audience of nearly 9,000 people, many of them young children who had never before been exposed to classical music.[13]
[edit] Drama and poetry
The Institute has published a four-volume series of English translations of the works of Friedrich Schiller, entitled Poet of Freedom, as well as some translations into other languages. In Germany, Institute members have organized public performances of Schiller's plays, including Wilhelm Tell.
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Allegations of antisemitism
The Schiller Institute has been accused of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. An internal London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) letter, obtained by the BBC's Newsnight during an investigation into the death of Jeremiah Duggan says: "The Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movement ... blames the Jewish people for the Iraq war and all the other problems in the world. Jeremiah's lecture notes and bulletins showed the antisemitic nature of [the] ideology."[11]
In an interview with Newsnight, Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks right-wing movements, said:
The antisemitism at a meeting of the Schiller Institute would not be obvious at first. You would have to listen over time to a ... set of patterns, and you would begin to hear the echoes of the classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, in the way that Israel is talked about, in the way that Jews are talked about, in the way that the idea is put forward that the wars of America are somehow manipulated by Jewish lobbies and Israeli interests, and this really is an echo of the old classic antisemitic conspiracy theories. It's not that every criticism of Israel or American-Jewish lobby groups is antisemitic, but over time this pattern emerges."[11]
LaRouche has condemned antisemitism. "Religious and racial hatred, such as anti-Semitism, or hatred against Islam, or, hatred of Christians, is, on record of known history, the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today."[12]
[edit] Cult allegations
The Institute is alleged by critics to be a cult.[3][4][13][1][2] According to the Berliner Zeitung, the LaRouche movement in Germany, operating as the Schiller Institute, LaRouche Youth Movement, Europäische Arbeiterpartei and Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität (BüSo), has around 300 followers, and "next to Scientology, is the cult soliciting most aggressively in German streets at this time."[13]
The BBC's Newsnight has said the Institute places members under "psychological duress," during "so-called psycho sessions."[11] Aglaja Beyes Corleis, a member of the Schiller Institute for 16 years, who left in the early 90s and wrote a book about the Institute,[14] told the BBC:
When I speak with family members how I was then at that time, [they] tell me 'You were like from a different planet.' ... People tend to be drawn into it who did not want to be drawn into it, who did not want to join a cult or a sect or something like that ... I was freaked out and I experienced that other people freaked out. I saw other people who, members who, got out of their mind ... Sometimes Jewish members were put under special pressure. For instance, at a public meeting, the person was picked out and publicly attacked — 'your mother visited Israel'."[11]
[edit] Death of Jeremiah Duggan
On November 6, 2003, a British inquest heard allegations that the Schiller Institute is a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections,"[15][1] which may have used controversial recruitment techniques on Jeremiah Duggan, a 22-year-old British-Jewish student who died in March 2003 in disputed circumstances.[16]
Duggan had been attending a Schiller Institute conference and LaRouche Youth Movement cadre school in Wiesbaden, Germany,[17] when he died after running onto a busy road. The German police investigation found that he had committed suicide. A British inquest rejected that verdict after hearing testimony about the nature of the Schiller Institute,[18][3] which are rejected by the German authorities.[19]
[edit] Death of Kenneth Kronberg
Kenneth Kronberg, co-founder and editor of the Schiller Institute's magazine, Fidelio, and the president of a LaRouche movement printing business, committed suicide in April 2007.[10] According to Nicholas F. Benton, a former member of the LaRouche movement, Kronberg killed himself on the day of a so-called "morning briefing," published daily by the LaRouche movement, in which Kronberg's printing business was heavily criticized.[20] Kronberg's printing business was also reported to be in financial trouble, the Washington Monthly described it as being in "serious arrears in tax payments, including employee withholding, due largely to lack of payment for printing jobs by other LaRouche entities."[21]
[edit] Conferences
These are highlights of conferences from the Schiller Institute's 20-year history. [14]
- Nov. 1-3, 1985: "Saint Augustine, Father of European and African Civilization" — Rome, Italy
- Labor Day conference, 1986, featuring a performance of Mozart's Requiem at C=256HZ, with Schiller chorus and orchestra — Reston, Virginia, U.S.A.
- Nov. 22-23, 1990: "The Productive Triangle: Centerpiece of an All-Eurasian Infrastructure Program, Locomotive for a New, Just World Economic Order" — Berlin, Germany
- April 26-30, 1993: International conference on religions sponsored by the government of Sudan — Khartoum
- Aug. 7-14, 1994: Educational-cultural seminar for young musicians and artists, featuring Norbert Brainin, Lyndon LaRouche, and Helga Zepp LaRouche — Smolenice Castle, Slovakia
- July 17, 1997: Presentation by Dr. Jozef Miklosko, president of the Slovakian branch of the Schiller Institute and former vice premier of post-communist Czechoslovakia — Manila, Philippines
- Dec. 13, 2000: Memorial seminar for Russian Schiller Institute leader Taras V. Muranivsky — Moscow, Russia
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Townsend, Mark. "The student, the shadowy cult and a mother's fight for justice", The Observer, October 31, 2004.
- ^ a b Coroner's Court transcript, Justice for Jeremiah website, undated, retrieved March 26, 2007.
- ^ a b c Townsend, Mark & Doward, Jamie. "New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death", The Observer, March 25, 2007.
- ^ a b Minz, John. "Ideological Odyssey: From Old Left to Far Right", The Washington Post, January 14, 1985.
- ^ Meet Lyndon LaRouche Schiller Institute
- ^ The Inalienable Rights of Man Schiller Institute
- ^ Statement of Mann-Chestnut Commission, Schiller Institute press release, May 21, 1997
- ^ Schlanger, Harley, From "Operation Fruehmenschen" to McDade-Murtha: The Case of Congressman Dymally, New Federalist, August 3, 1998
- ^ Fidelio Magazine masthead Accessed May 4, 2007
- ^ a b "Kenneth L. Kronberg Sterling Businessman", The Washington Post, May 1, 2007.
- ^ a b c d Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan and Lyndon LaRouche," Newsnight, November 2006, possibly November 28.
- ^ LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. "On The Press Hoax Against the Pope: Britain's Bernard Lewis & His Crimes", Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee, September 17, 2006.
- ^ a b Nordhausen, Frank. "A Mother's Investigations", Berliner Zeitung, April 4, 2007, page 3.
- ^ Beyes-Corleis, Aglaja. Verirrt: Mein Leben in einer radikalen Politorganisation (Lost: My life in a radical political organization). Herder/Spektrum, 1994. ISBN 3-451-04278-9
- ^ British Inquest: Coroner's Court transcript, Justice for Jeremiah website, undated, retrieved March 26, 2007.
- ^ Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, October 24, 2004.
- ^ March 2003 conference attended by Duggan
- ^ Muir, Hugh. "British student did not commit suicide, says coroner", The Guardian, November 5, 2003.
- ^ Degen, Wolfgang, "Nur die Legende hat ein langes Leben", Wiesbadener Kurier, April 19, 2007.
- ^ Nicholas F. Benton. Rt. 28 Suicide Jumper Was Long-Time Associate of LaRouche, Falls Church News-Press, April 19, 2007.
- ^ Avi Klein. "Publish and Perish: The Mysterious Death of Lyndon LaRouche's Printer" Washington Monthly, November 2007.
