The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 9 (1863) pp. 26-27

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The Jews and Freemasons.

Dr. Münkel reports the following about the influence that the Jews and Freemasons have finally gained on all public affairs in Europe in his Neues Zeitblatt of Oct. 3. of last year.

“A Berlin Freemason has issued a cry of distress, to which the elections of April and May of this year for the Prussian Chamber of Deputies have urged him. He reports that in Berlin 217 Jews were elected as electors, and in two districts only Jews were elected. This is an alarming event, since every Jew is a born progressive or a democrat who necessarily works toward the overthrow of princely power because it stands in the way of the Jews’ penetration of the highest offices of state. The Jews would not have achieved such successes if they had not been used and pushed forward by the rapidly growing Progressive Party in order to shake the religious and political foundations of the state.

The threads of the connection between Jews and progressives are joined in the Masonic lodges. For in these lodges, progress reigns in a frightening manner, as the Berlin elections once again prove. The nine Progressives who were elected as deputies with the help of the Jewish electors are all Freemasons, and from the 23 Berlin lodges at least three quarters of the Freemasons voted for them. ‘Practically the same ratio is in Breslau, Magdeburg, Stettin and all cities where lodges and Freemasons are widely distributed, wherefore they wrote in their secret writing: Wherever our union flourishes, it has become a power against which no one is able to do anything, which will triumph over everything and everyone.’ This means that the Federation will eventually give birth to the Free State without the Church.

The Jews are welcome collaborators in this association. Even if they were temporarily excluded from some lodges, they are now generally accepted in all lodges of the world. Only in Berlin, for the sake of the King, no Jews are accepted, but they are accepted through a back door, by admitting them as brothers as soon as they have been accepted elsewhere. The Jew, however, knows how to help himself even better, he profits from a certain peculiar feature of Freemasonry. Three masons are allowed to make someone a mason, and in doing so they have the right to communicate the masonic secrets outside the lodges without the usual ceremonies. The Jews use this to draw their co-religionists into the secrets of the Order and to establish an Order next to the Order, in which bribery and speculative arts do their work. ‘While no Christian lodge is any longer inaccessible to the Jews, there exist Jewish lodges where admission is absolutely denied to any non-Jew. In London, where, as is well known, the real hearth of the revolution is under the Grand Master Palmerston, there are two Jewish lodges where no Christian ever finds admission, or is even allowed over the threshold. The threads of all revolutionary elements that are in Christian lodges lead into these lodges. Such a Jewish lodge is now the highest revolutionary tribunal in Rome. In Leipzig, at mass time, there is always a secret Jewish lodge which, strangely enough, never opens itself to a Christian mason.’ If the lodges work for general progress, then of course the Jewish lodges work for Jewish progress; the one uses the other, and the cleverest robs the other blind. But, crucify, crucify! resounds from both regarding the church.

The Berlin Freemason concludes: ‘O would that the All-Gracious would mitigate for the nobles and princes the severe trials now befalling them as a result of their indulgence and guilelessness towards the actual “hypocrites” and let them come to a clear understanding of the aspirations of the revolutionary “works” hidden in the Masonic League.’ Yes, if only! Even Von Bennigsen, as Grand Master of the German Eclectic Masonic League and President of the National Association, delivered a good piece of work, of which the procedure of catechesis is the crown. The King of Prussia’s eyes are said to have opened somewhat at this writing, and he is said to have found the ‘hypocrites’ where he did not look for them at the beginning of his reign. Hopefully he has not found them too late!

The Order of Masons is, by the way, a mere vessel which the tendencies of the age make use of in their own way, as well as of the Jews. Accordingly, it is sometimes more, sometimes less dangerous. But the secrecy of an inaccessible covenant must always cause concern, because it can serve as a hiding place as well as a vehicle for dangerous machinations. Bishop Ketteler of Mainz is therefore right to demand that the federation be made public at a time when publicity is the law everywhere in all proceedings. But this would be the end of the Masonic Order, and not the end of secret orders. For if a certain party wants to rule the world and have everything controlled by its strings, it must demand that everything in state and church be drawn into the light of publicity, in order to be able to treat it with the arrows of suspicion or the protection of vociferous praise, while the party itself does undisturbed mole work in the dark. The Berlin Freemason should not complain if his brethren take his whole hand after he has offered them his finger.”