Lanz von Liebenfels

Adolf Josef Lanz (aka Jörg Lanz), who called himself Lanz von Liebenfels (July 19 1874 - April 22, 1954) was a former monk and the founder of the right-wing magazine Ostara, in which he published anti-semitic and folkish theories.

He was born on July 19, 1874 in the Penzing district of Vienna in what was then Austria-Hungary, as the son of schoolmaster Johann Lanz and his wife Katharina, née Hoffenreich. His parents were middle class, and his fathers ancestors had been burghers in Vienna since the early 18th century.

Lanz became a monk in the Cistercian order in 1893, assuming the name Georg and living in the Heiligenkreuz monastery. In 1894, he claimed to have been "enlightened" after finding the tombstone of a knight templar, and began developing his theories of "blue-blond aryanism" and "lower races". He left the monastery in 1899; although Lanz claimed that this was due to "growing nervousness", the official documents recorded "carnal love" as the reason, something that may have contributed to his later anti-feminism.

In 1904, he published his book "Theozoologie" ("theozoology") in which he advocated sterilization of the sick and the "lower races" as well as forced labour for "castrated chandals", and glorified the "aryan race" as "Gottmenschen" ("god men"). Lanz justified his neognostic racial ideology by attempting to give it a biblical foundation; according to him, Eve, which he described as initially being divine, involved herself with a demon and gave birth to the "lower races" in the process. Furthermore, he claimed that this led to blonde women being attracted primarily to "dark men", something that only could be stopped by "racial demixing" so that the "aryan-christian master humans" could "once again rule the dark-skinned beastmen" and ultimately achieve "divinity". A copy of this book was sent to Swedish poet August Strindberg, from who Lanz received an enthusiastic reply in which he was described as a "prophetic voice".

One year later, in 1905, he founded the magazine "Ostara, Briefbücherei der Blonden und Mannesrechtler", of which he became the sole author and editor in 1908. Lanz himself claimed to have up to 100,000 subscribers, but it is generally agreed on that this figure is grossly exaggerated. Readers of this publication included Adolf Hitler and Dietrich Eckart, among others. Lanz, according to his own testimony, was once visisted by the young Hitler, whom he supplied with two missing issues of the magazine.

As a student of Guido von List, Lanz further expanded his theories; other influences included Otto Weininger, of whom Lanz was a fervent follower.

Lanz also founded the "Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft" ("Guido von List society") in 1905 and the "Ordo novi templi" ("Order of the New Templars") in 1907, which were supposed to "further the racial self-confidence by doing pedigree and racial research, beauty contests and the founding of racist future sites in underdeveloped parts of the Earth" ("das Rassebewusstsein durch Stammbaum- und Rassekundeforschung, Schönheitswettbewerbe und die Gründung rassistischer Zukunftsstätten in unterentwickelten Teilen der Erde zu fördern") and for which he bought the Werfenstein castle ruins in Austria. Neither organization really managed to attract a large member base, though; it is estimated that the order had around 300 members, the most prominent of which was the poet Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando. Lanz' claim that the organization was already founded prior to 1900 and that he met with August Strindberg in 1896 and managed to convince him to join the order have been shown to be fabricated.

After Hitler's rise to prominence in the 1920s, Lanz tried to be recognized as one of the ideological precursors to Adolf Hitler. After Austria had been annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, Lanz hoped for Hitler's patronage, but Hitler rather wanted to cloak the origin of some of his ideas and possibly was embarrassed by this early connection. Hence, Lanz was banned from publishing his writings. Most notably copies of Ostara were removed from circulation. After the war, Lanz accused Hitler of having not only stolen but corrupted his idea and also of being of "inferior racial stock". An alternative view is that Hitler was simply embarrassed by Liebenfels himself; there is no strong evidence that Hitler had ever had more than a casual interest in Liebenfels' work.

In his publications, Lanz mixed folkish and anti-semitic ideas with aryanism, racism and esotericism. The following is a partial list of Lanz's publications:

Katholizismus wider Jesuitismus ("Catholicism versus Jesuitism"), Frankfurt, 1903
Anthropozoon biblicum, in Vjschr. für Bibelkunde 1, 1903/1904
Zur Theologie der gotischen Bibel ("Regarding the Theology of the Gothic Bible") in Vjschr. für Bibelkunde 1, 1903/1904
Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron ("Theozoology or the account of the Sodom apelings and the God-electron"), Vienna, (1905)
Das Breve "Dominus ac redemptor noster", Frankfurt, 1905
Der Taxilschwindel. Ein welthistorischer Ulk, Frankfurt, 1905
Ostara (magazine), 89 issues, Rodaun and Mödling, 1905-1917 (38 issues were republished in Vienna between 1926 and 1931)
Kraus und das Rassenproblem ("Kraus and the race problem"), in Der Brenner 4, 1913/1914
Weltende und Weltwende, ("World's End and World's Turn"), Lorch, 1923
Grundriss der ariosophischen Geheimlehre ("Outline of the Aryosophic Secret Teachings"), Oestrich, 1925
Der Weltkrieg als Rassenkampf der Dunklen gegen die Blonden ("The World War as a Race Fight Between the Dark and the Blondes"), Vienna, 1927
Bibliomystikon oder die Geheimbibel der Eingeweihten ("Bibliomystikon or the secret bible of the initiated"), 10 volumes, Pforzheim and elsewhere, 1929 - 1934
Praktisch-empirisches Handbuch der ariosophischen Astrologie ("Practical-empirical Handbook of Aryosophic Astrology"), Düsseldorf, 1926 - 1934

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