Suppression of Freemasonry

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Some governments, mostly authoritarian, and virtually all totalitarian, regimes have treated Freemasonry as a potential source of opposition due to its secret nature and international connections. It has been alleged by Masonic scholars that the language used by the totalitarian regimes is similar to that used by some modern critics of Freemasonry.[1]

Contents

[edit] Papal states

In 1736 the Florentine Inquisition investigated a Masonic Lodge in Florence, Italy,[2] and the Lodge was condemned in June 1737. The lodge had originally been founded by English Masons, but accepted Italian members.

In 1738, Pope Clement XII issued Eminenti Apostolatus Specula, the first Papal prohibition on Freemasonry.

[edit] Hungary

In 1919, Béla Kun proclaimed the dictatorship of the proletariat in Hungary. This marked the start of raids by army officers on Masonic lodges[3] along with theft, and sometimes destruction, of Masonic libraries, records, archives, paraphernalia, and works of art. Several Masonic buildings were seized and used for anti-Masonic exhibitions. Masonry was outlawed by a decree in 1920.

In post war Hungary, lodges were described as "meeting places of the enemies of the people's democratic republic, of capitalistic elements, and of the adherents of Western imperialism."[1]

[edit] Eastern Europe

Freemasonry was suppressed throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Communist era.[4]

[edit] The Islamic world

After the condemnation of Freemasonry by Clement XII in 1738, Sultan Mahmut I followed suit outlawing the organization and since that time Freemasonry was equated with atheism in the Ottoman Empire and the broader Islamic world. [5] The opposition in the Islamic world has been reinforced by the anticlerical and perceived atheist slant of the Grand Orient of France. [5]

Perhaps the most influential entity interpreting Sharia, or Islamic law, the Islamic Jurisdictional College on July 15, 1978 issued an opinion regarding Freemasonry asseting that it is a "dangerous" and "clandestine" organization. [5]

Freemasonry is illegal in most of the Islamic world. It is prohibited in all Arab countries except Lebanon and Morocco. [5]

[edit] Iraq

There was a time when there existed a number of lodges in Iraq when the country was under British Mandate just after the First World War. However the position changed in July 1958 following the Revolution, with the abolition of the Monachy and Iraq being declared a republic, under General Quessiem. The licences permitting lodges to meet were rescinded and later laws were introduced banning any further meetings. This position was later reinforced under Saddam Hussein the death penalty was "prescribed" for those who "promote or acclaim Zionist principles, including freemasonry, or who associate [themselves] with Zionist organizations."[6]

[edit] Italy

Benito Mussolini decreed in 1924 that every member of his Fascist Party who was a Mason must abandon either one or the other organization, and in 1925, he dissolved Freemasonry in Italy, claiming that it was a political organisation. It is worth noting that General Cappello, one of the most prominent Fascists, and who had also been Deputy Grand Master of the Grande Oriente, Italy's leading Grand Lodge, gave up his membership in the Fascist Party rather than in Masonry. He was later arrested on false charges and sentenced to 30 years in jail.[7]

However as the membership list of the elite P2 Masonic Lodge revealed in 1981 many Italian Fascists and Black Shirt Members later became Freemasons. The Grand Master of P2, Lucio Gelli, was an intelligence officer with the Herman Goering Division and a fervent Mussolini supporter.[8]

[edit] Spain

Franco.
Franco.

It is claimed that the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera ordered the abolition of Freemasonry in Spain.[9] In September 1928, one of the two Grand Lodges in Spain was closed and many Masons were included among those arrested for allegedly plotting against the government.[citation needed] Under the dictator General Francisco Franco, Freemasonry was outlawed in Spain on 2 March 1940.[10] Being a Mason was automatically punishable by a jail term: up to six years for those holding degrees up to the 18th, and more for Masons with higher degrees.[10]

The suppression of Freemasons in Spain continued into the 1970's.[1]

[edit] Japan

In 1938, a Japanese representative to the Weltdienst congress stated, on behalf of Japan, that "Judeo-Masonry is forcing the Chinese to turn China into a spearhead for an attack on Japan, and thereby forcing Japan to defend herself against this threat. Japan is at war not with China but with Freemasonry, represented by General Chiang-Kai-shek, the successor of his master, the Freemason Sun-Yat-Sen." [1]

[edit] Other countries

Freemasonry was persecuted in all the communist countries,[4][1] but the organisation has survived in Cuba, allegedly providing safe haven for dissidents.[11]

[edit] Nazi Germany and occupied Europe

See also: Holocaust, Freemasonry, and Liberté chérie (Freemasonry)

The Nazis claimed that high degree Masons were willing members of "the Jewish conspiracy" and that Freemasonry was one of the causes of Germany's loss of the First World War. In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler writes that Freemasonry has "succumbed" to the Jews and has become an "excellent instrument" to fight for their aims and to use their "strings" to pull the upper strata of society into their alleged designs. He continues, "The general pacifistic paralysis of the national instinct of self-preservation begun by Freemasonry" is then transmitted to the masses of society by the press. [12] In 1933 Hermann Goering, the Reichstag President and one of the key figures in the process of Gleichschaltung ("synchronization"), states "..in National Socialist Germany, there is no place for Freemasonry." [13]

The Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz in German) was passed by Germany's parliament (the Reichstag) on March 23, 1933. Using the "Act", on January 8, 1934 the German Ministry of the Interior ordered the disbandment of Freemasonry, and confiscation of the property of all Lodges; stating that those who had been members of Lodges when Hitler came to power, in January 1933, were prohibited from holding office in the Nazi party or its paramilitary arms, and were ineligible for appointment in public service. [14] Consistently considered an ideological foe of Nazism in their world perception (Weltauffassung), special sections of the Security Service (SD) and later the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) were established to deal with the Freemasonry.[15] Freemasonic concentration camp inmates were graded as “Political” prisoners, and wore an inverted (point down) red triangle. [16]

In March 1935 According to Joseph Goebbels, the Soviet Union's recent inclusion in the League of Nations was engineered by 300 "members of the Jewish race and conspirators of Freemasonry." On August 8, 1935, as Führer and Chancellor, Adolf Hitler announced in the Nazi Party newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter, the final dissolution of all Masonic Lodges in Germany. The article accused a conspiracy of the Fraternity and “World Jewry” of seeking to create a “World Republic”.[17] In 1937 Joseph Goebbels inaugurated an "Anti-Masonic Exposition" to display objects seized by the state.[13] The Ministry of Defence forbid officers from becoming Freemasons, with officers who remained as Masons being sidelined.[1]

During the war, Freemasonry was banned by edict in all countries that were either allied with the Nazis or under Nazi control, including Norway and France. Anti-Masonic exhibitions were held in many occupied countries. Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus was denounced as a "High-grade Freemason" when he surrendered to the Soviet Union in 1943.[18]

The preserved records of the RSHA - Reichssicherheitshauptamt Office of the High Command of Security Service pursuing the racial objectives of the SS through Race and Resettlement Office, show the persecution of the Freemasons.[19] The number of Freemasons from Nazi occupied countries who were killed is not accurately known, but it is estimated that between 80,000 and 200,000 Freemasons were murdered under the Nazi regime.[20]

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d e f Paul M. Bessel (November 1994). Bigotry and the Murder of Freemasonry. Retrieved on 2007-10-22.
  2. ^ Fom the biography of Tommaso Crudeli on the website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
  3. ^ Famous Anti-Masons
  4. ^ a b " The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967) Soviet Russia outlawed Masonry in 1922. Freemasonry does not exist today in the Soviet Union, China, or other Communist states. Postwar revivals of Freemasonry in Czechoslovakia and Hungary were suppressed in 1950.
  5. ^ a b c d Layiktez, Cecil Freemasonry in the Islamic World Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry 1996
  6. ^ "Saddam to be formally charged", Washington Times, 1 July 2004. 
  7. ^ 'The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction', Alphonse Cerza, published by the Masonic Service Association, September 1967
  8. ^ BBC, Italian Press, In God's Name, Yallop, Inside the Brotherhood, Short
  9. ^ "In 1925, Spain's first dictator of this generation, General Primo de Rivera, ordered the abolition of Freemasonry in his country." The Anhilation of Freemasonry by Sven G. Lunden by The American Mercury Newspaper, 1941. Hosted by the Grand Lodge of Antient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland
  10. ^ a b "General Francisco Franco dictator of Spain from 1939 until 1975 in 1940 sentenced all Freemasons in his country automatically to ten years in prison. By the 1950s, even elements of the Catholic Church were opposing his totalitarian rule."[1]
  11. ^ Cuba's muzzled mavericks find haven among Masons, by Gary Marx, published April 14, 2005
  12. ^ A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pages 315 and 320.
  13. ^ a b "The Annihilation of Freemasonry", The American Mercury, February 1941. Retrieved on 2007-10-22. 
  14. ^ The Enabling Act Accessed February 23, 2006.
  15. ^ Documented evidence from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum pertaining to the persecution of the Freemasons accessed 21 May 2006
  16. ^ The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 2, page 531, citing Katz, Jews and Freemasons in Europe.
  17. ^ Bro. E Howe, Freemasonry in Germany, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No 2076 (UGLE), 1984 Yearbook.
  18. ^ Denslow, Freemasonry in the Eastern Hemisphere, at page 111, citing a letter from Dr. Otto Arnemann in 1947, cited as Note 22 in Bigotry and the Murder of Freemasonry by Paul M. Bessel
  19. ^ Documented evidence from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum pertaining to the persecution of the Freemasons accessed 21 May 2006
  20. ^ Freemasons for Dummies, by Christopher Hodapp, Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, 2005, p.85, sec. Hitler and the Nazi

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