[CTRL] [2b] The Thousand Year Conspiracy

[Kris Millegan]

-Caveat Lector-   <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-

The Thousand Year Conspiracy - Secret Germany Behind the Mask
Paul Winkler
Charles Scribner�s Sons�1943
New York
381 pps. � First Edition � Out-of-print
--[2b]--

Kotzebue describes as follows the oppression of the Krivitzians by the Order:

"What fate was in store for the enslaved remnants of the once mighty Krivitz
people? Where were their rulers, their nobles, their free-holders? What
status, what rights and religion, what property would be theirs? They were
treated in various manners by the victors. Prisoners, men, women and
children, with no hope of clemency, were forced to submit to cruel bondage.
The fact that they renounced Perkuna,* crossed themselves and sprinkled. holy
water on their heads, did not help them at all. It is true that the Order had
taken the position in 1249 that all men are free and equal and that only
unbelief leads to enslavement. Now, however, they managed to break their word
through the vile pretext that only those who, of their own will, welcomed the
cross and the beam on their shoulders might enjoy such privileges; but those
who have been forced into the fold of the Church at the point of a sword must
forever, and in slavery, atone for their past unbelief. [* The heathen god
the Krivitzians worshipped.]

"Less miserable was the fate of those princes and nobles who had curried
favor with the Order by betraying their fatherland. These were granted
estates which in many cases had belonged to them anyhow and which could not
very well be stolen from those who, of their own free will, submitted. But
where once they had been unrestrained masters of their estates, they now
obtained as a special grant whatever greater or lesser jurisdiction they
might have over their serfs and also the right�for both men and women�to
inherit. For all this they were obliged to pledge themselves for Knightly
service. If they were able to adjust themselves obediently under this new
yoke, if they helped to draw the net even tighter around their own brothers,
then the Order might occasionally condescend to give the rank of 'noble' to
the nobles; to decorate the heroes with a Knight's sword; and in place of the
traditional respectful title, Pan,' ('Sir') to bestow on them the empty
title, 'Miles.' Whether they were also Christians was of no concern to these
armor-clad missionaries."

Trickery

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Gedemin, Lithuanian Prince,
addressed himself to the Pope, demanding his protection against the Order.
Kotzebue says that his letter shows up the "black spirit" of the Order:

"Gedemin wanted to become a Christian. The pious Knights attempted to hinder
this, because for their own purposes of potential conquest, they would rather
have his lands remain heathen territory. Through royal grants Gedemin invited
all sorts of immigrants, artists, artisans and farmers to resettle in
Lithuania. To the Order this seemed a very serious matter. It appeared to
them a plundering of their own States, which had become depopulated through
unholy wars. Who would come to Prussia in the future, they concluded-with
reason�and there submit to their excesses, if these people had been promised
by a powerful ruler peaceful shelter, protection, justice and liberty? To
hinder this, the Knights had to utilize every means and practice every evil,
if necessary. They had before disrespectfully broken the seal of the Grand
Duke. Now they did not hesitate to intercept his letters, none of which, save
those to Rome, ever reached their destinations. So that posterity might some
day recognize their cunning and give them credit for their knavish trickery,
they were imprudent enough to file these letters in their archives instead of
destroying them. As it is, these letters, after 600 years, are so many
irrefutable witnesses against the Knights.

"In order to block the only secure road leading to Lithuania, they spread
slanderous rumors to the effect that Masovia had been cruelly razed by
Gedemin. Actually, Gedemin's letter described Duke Boleslas of Masovia as his
only friend, through whose country one might safely travel in the pilgrimage
to Lithuania. The difficulty with which letters were forwarded at this time
made this knavery possible; and their slander even found its way into
history. Such a circumstance appears less surprising when one takes into
account the great number of lies officially set in motion, unhindered because
no one dares to deny them-this even in our own times, despite all the means
at our disposal for disseminating truth.

"Thus is posterity deceived.

"The letters addressed to the Pope were not intercepted by the Order, either
because they did not dare to do so, or because their bearers escaped the
Knights' vigilance. That the pagan Grand Duke, rather than the Pope's own
warriors, sons of the Church and Knights of the Blessed Virgin, received the
protection of the Holy Father, is the best indication of how contemptible was
the Order's behavior. Despite the mask it wore so carefully, it can be
evaluated in its true light."

"Justice Was a Stranger in Prussia"

The Knights' abuses continued, even against the German secular clergy, and
against the monks of various orders. The Teutonic Brothers forced them out of
their churches. They imprisoned and poisoned Bishops. The peaceful German
bourgeoisie who lived in the seaside towns and in the cities of the
interior-where their ancestors had come in great numbers as artisans, at the
invitation of the Order-also had plenty of cause to complain bitterly of the
Order's corruption and immorality. Fierce battles were waged at various times
and notably in the fifteenth century, between the Order and the German city
bourgeoisie, who organized in a Bund against the Knights. The bourgeoisie
accused the Knights of crimes of all sorts. The most fundamental rights were
denied them by the Order, which was functioning as a theocracy, with absolute
power. Expropriation and other material usurpation were common. Owners of
land coveted by the Order were thrown into prison. Their wives and daughters
were seduced by members of the Order, who did not take their own vows of
chastity too seriously. H. Bauer (in Scbwert im Osten, 1932) writes: "In
accordance with the original regulations of the Order, it was forbidden for a
Knight to kiss even his mother or sister, but a common saying in Prussia now
advised the head of the house to keep his back door locked against the
Crusaders."

Kotzebue found a vast amount of evidence in the archives of the Order which
permitted him to establish the extent of the abuses committed. This is what
he has to say concerning the morals of the Teutonic Knights in the fourteenth
century:

"Robbery and murder were every-day occurrences in Prussia, particularly on
the borders, along whose reaches cries and complaints could be heard
ceaselessly. In countries of the Order, some of the best known Knights were
to be seen robbing and ravishing in broad daylight. In Pomerania, despite the
orders of the Grand Master to the contrary, they behaved in the same fashion.
Some of the Superiors of the Order were themselves powerful robbers who would
spare none of their neighbors. When complaints reached the ears of the Grand
Master, his answer was invariably: 'We don't know anything about it' or 'We
are really sorry.' Help was always slow in coming. Even in foreign countries,
the Brothers transformed their official strongholds into robber castles, from
which the friendly neighboring princes were regularly attacked.

"Contempt for divine service; neglect of pious rituals; profaning sacred
ground; insulting official couriers; lust and raping of young girls-these
were some of the most common occurrences. Thieves escaped punishment because
of their respected kinfolk. Adulterers became bolder; in Marienburg * the
Order tolerated a public brothel."[ * In 1291, the three Knights' Orders were
routed from Acre, in the Holy Land, by the Arabs. The Teutonic Knights
transferred their seat to Venice at first and later to Marienburg in Prussia.
>From this time on they made themselves at home in a land belonging to them.
This contributed considerably to their independence from the Church.]

"We Are the Law"

Documents dating from 1436, as noted by Kotzebue, further confirm the
continuance of this deplorable state of affairs.

"Enraged by the prevailing disorder, the pious monk, Heinrich Boringer of the
Order of Carthausen, wrote to the Grand Master: 'Iniquitous administrators
and judges hold the power in the land, selling justice at a price; oppressing
the poor because their superiors are neglectful and no longer punish them.
>From the poor they have taken the tools and implements of work, through which
wives and children must be fed. The sweat of the poor has been spent.-Noble
Master, with much virtue and wisdom did you write three years ago, that every
complainant shall appear before you, so that you may correct all abuses. At
this even the infernal devil was frightened. Woe to him who would have
hindered you. But today it is only to Heaven above that the miserable can
cry; your sheep have been entrusted to wolves. When God shall finally demand
his reckoning from you, I shall not cry out as did St. John: "Woe is me!�for
I have remained silent." All these things are well known but they have been
carefully hidden and but few take them to heart. The heathen kings were much
more virtuous than the present-day Christian rulers. Holy laws are scorned by
these rulers, even though they themselves are men of the Church. And
concerning the common law of their subjects they jeer, saying: "What laws of
Culm? We are your laws." Representatives of the oppressed, who dare to speak
up, are threatened with the dungeon.

"'Particularly in the villages, and with full knowledge of the Knights, the
behavior of the foresters, overseers and compeers has been thoroughly vicious
on many occasions. Local judges are appointed who are forced to oppress the
poor, and for this they are rewarded by being seated at the communion table
of the Knights. Judges have revealed at confession that they were forced to
render unjust decisions. When someone has been injured or killed while at
work, these greedy Knights extort such enormous fines from the responsible
party that he can no longer compensate his victim or his family. Nor do they
tolerate friendly settlements; even where petty amounts are involved, one is
forced, unwillingly, to institute suit. They buy grain at low prices during
the winter and force the original vendor to repurchase it at a much higher
price in the spring. Whoever complains to the Master is thrown into chains
and often dispossessed from his home. Oppression and drudgery are intensified
from one year to the next. And this, they claim, is for the good of the
country! They [i.e., the officials of the Order], when their larders are
full, retire from their duties. When these "rulers" appoint an overseer, they
do not, from that moment on, pay him anything, but tell him: "Feed yourself
from your position." 0 Lord, how the poor people suffer then!

"'They carouse with women-they do as they please, the Master rarely
questioning them. While the priests sing in Church, the Knights run riot in
the taverns. No one wants to remain in the Abbey. They would much rather find
themselves an office elsewhere�in the wilderness if necessary�as far removed
from the Abbey as possible-�so that they may go their evil ways without
anybody disturbing them. The Prussians still cling to their heathen idolatry,
but no one is concerned about this. They are conscripted for work duty on
Holy days-the Knights, blinded by their avarice, desire only to rule and
exploit them, not to teach or convert them. Their freedom has been stolen.
They are supposed to be Christians, but all Christian rights have been denied
them. When a serf who has no son dies, his lands fall to the manor; that is
why the lands lie waste. No promise to the people is kept, and sworn oaths
are but a mere trifle. Sometimes good regulations will last for half a year,
but then they are trampled by the rulers. Usury, perjury and adultery are
commonplace, but they are no longer considered sinful since the Knights
themselves behave in the same way. At weddings and at carnivals during Lent,
the most fiendish behavior is witnessed. Murder occurs frequently, since a
man's life here is worth less than a horse's. It does not upset the rulers
because they can extort fines out of this. The cause for all this is in the
nightly debauchery in the taverns�and more and more taverns are being
licensed to make possible collection of the cursed taxes. Sharp gambling
prevails both among the higher Knights and their subordinates.

"'May the Lord and you be prevailed on: even the priests have to lead a life
more mundane than religious; they must farm their own fields and pay tithes.
Quod non tollit Christus, tollit fiscus. What they exact from priests helps
to gorge mercenaries. Whatever the Knights leave over may be taken by their
valets, only it would be preferable if they were not so uncivil in this. To
sum up, this is no Christian country, since God's commandments are followed
less by the Knights than they are by the Prussians."'

As a conclusion, the complaining monk swears that he has told the open and
honest truth, that he has composed his letter in the privacy of his home, and
has revealed its contents to no one.

"Friends of the Order," says Kotzebue, "tried in vain to explain away these
serious charges levelled at the organization, as exaggerated and
pre-fabricated lies. But it is not the chroniclers alone who support the
charges. Authenticated facts speak here. The Comthur * of Tauchel, to satisfy
his unnatural lust, had a nine-year-old girl carried off by his servant. When
her parents complained, this poor violated girl was sent home. When she was
grown older, the girl was married to a local mayor, bearing him a son and
living with him in peaceful wedlock for sixteen years. When her husband died,
the Order seized her property on the vile pretext that her marriage had been
illegal, since she had at one time lain with the servant of the Comthur.[
*Local and regional commanders of the Teutonic Knights were referred to as
"Comthur" or "Komtur."]

"Even peasant women working in the open fields could not be certain of their
honor-their very life. They were frequently dragged off to the woods, where
after being lustfully defiled, they were left to hang by their feet.

"Freemen were tricked out of evidence of loans given by them, and this was
immediately destroyed. Furthermore the victims had to suffer violence and
were driven out of their homes. Money was extorted from the rich by threats
but the victims dared not lament this before wife and child, and dared even
less to complain to the Grand Master. When two men quarrelled and a third
attempted to reconcile them in friendly manner, the mediator would be
punished by the Order's officials because he was depriving the tribunal of a
welcome fine.

"Without a hearing, without a conviction, many had to accept corporal and
financial punishment. A peasant passing by a window and seeing through it a
Brother's bed-companion, would pay dearly if he dared to make a humorous
remark. If one of these Knights of the Blessed Virgin succeeded in seducing
an honorable woman, he would openly boast of his conquest, and of the woman's
consent. Handsome wives were torn away from their husbands and locked up in
castles. Daughters of wealthy burghers, already engaged to worthy journeymen,
would be forced into marriage to proteges of the Order, against their own and
their parents' wills. Complaints by the parents or the fiance' would lead to
imprisonment, and often their lips would be sealed in death. A burgher could
no longer travel in safety to the annual fair, now that the Brothers
themselves had become tradesmen: they bought or extorted goods at half their
value; transported them by boat elsewhere; returned with expensive
commodities obtained in exchange, not bothering to pay the vessel's owner and
crew, and throwing those who demanded payment into the dungeon.

"Bloody street battles were common occurrences. If a burgher was injured,
that was considered fitting. Should he be the victor, however, he would be for
ced to flee the country."

"We Are God's Creatures"

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the rugged Samaites addressed
their complaints to the Pope and the King of Rome, pleading for protection in
these words:

"Hear, hear, ye princes, spiritual and temporal! Receive charitably the
propositions of the afflicted, listen to the cry of the oppressed. We are of
free, noble descent and the Order wishes to deprive us of our inherited
rights. It has not tried to win our souls for the true God; it has only tried
to win for itself our lands and our inheritances. We are obliged to be&
steal, rob and kill in order to preserve our sorry lives.

"How do they dare call themselves Brothers? How can they baptize? He who is
to wash others must first be clean himself. To be sure, the Prussians are
baptized, but they know as little of the true faith as they did before. When
the Brothers invade foreign lands they send the Prussians before them, to
shed human blood. These Prussians need no urging; they bum churches, carry on
worse than Turks; and the worse their behavior, the more pleased is the
Order. For this reason we have refused to be baptized-we do not wish to
become like the Prussians.

"The evil began with us slowly, but it grows daily. The Brothers have taken
all our fruit and beehives from us; have set the yoke of degrading work upon
our necks which once were free; have laid intolerable burdens on our
servants, serfs, peasants, and tenants; have taken our hunting and fishing
away, and have forbidden us to trade with neighboring countries.

"Hardest of all to bear was the fact that they carried off our children each
year as hostages; but not being satisfied after taking away 200 such
children, showing no human compassion, they dragged our wives away from us.

"We plead with you�hear us! hear, you who love justice! We would sooner weep
than talk. They have bound the most powerful among us in chains and taken
them to Prussia as serfs; some they have burned with their wives for refusing
to part with their children. These men of the Cross have abducted our sisters
and young daughters by force and-we say it with bitter sorrow-have defiled
them; this is manifest and we can prove it. For a man named Kircutis, one of
the mightiest boyars of our land, had a very beautiful daughter, whom these
same Brothers maliciously abducted. The girl's brother could not endure this,
and when he was obliged to see how one of the Order violated his sister, he
ran him through with his sword. A great and noble boyar named Wyssygynn,
along with his wife and children, were dragged to Prussia where all were
killed. They burned the boyar Swolken's house and village and killed the
inhabitants; he himself barely escaped. But another, Sungalo, they beheaded,
and forced his whole family into slavery.

"Hear, you Christian princes! We have nothing to look forward to but death by
murder and that their swords will become red with our blood. They have
postponed our baptisms, have built no churches in our country and have
appointed no priests. Only the noble princes Witold and Jagello have, in
friendly manner, instructed some of our people in the Christian faith. Take
pity on us! We beg to be baptized. But remember that we are human beings, not
dumb beasts which are given away, bought and sold; we are God's creatures
whom He formed in His image and in the freedom of the children of God; and
this freedom we want to preserve and use. Therefore, we pray to our heavenly
Father that he receive us through the Polish bishops, into the bosom of the
Church. For we wish to be baptized, but not with blood." *[* As quoted by
Kotzebue.]

Prussia and the "New Germany"

Even Treitschke�although he still finds inspiration for his neo-Prussian zeal
in the history of early Prussia-must acknowledge:

"The non-Germanic people are prevented from receiving an education. Balthasar
Ruessow complains that, of a thousand peasants, hardly one can repeat the
Lord's Prayer by heart. The children scream and dogs slink away when a German
enters the smoke-filled hut of the Esthonian. In the clear nights of the
short but hot summer, these miserable people sit under the birch, the
favorite tree of their dull poetry, and sing stealthily a song of hatred for
these Gernian wolves: 'You Germans�swell yourselves up before all peoples of
the world; nothing we poor Esthonians do suits you; therefore down with you
to deepest Hell.' For centuries such hatred on the part of the vassals and
such severity on the part of the masters continued;  only during the period
of Russian rule did the German nobility decide to free the peasants from
these yokes which tied them to the land."

But Treitschke adds, without seeming to condemn such behavior: "By these
examples we can estimate the significance of the Germanization of Old
Prussia."

This sentence characterizes, moreover, the entire attitude of the Prussian
historical school on the subject of cruelty inflicted, or abuses committed in
any epoch of Prussian history. These writers adopt a nonchalant manner; and
are not concerned with moral considerations. They insinuate that the sort of
behavior for which the ancestors of present-day Prussianism are criticized
should be considered perfectly legitimate, in the past as well as the future;
for such behavior can be explained as a sort of "Spartan harshness" which is
indispensable to the welfare of the Order, or to the welfare of its
successor, the State. It would not have been proper for these Knights to
become weakened in the pursuit of their fixed aims by such idle
considerations as charity, fairness, gratitude or humanity.

In discussing the revolt of the oppressed Borussians (around 1260) who, for
some ten years, seemed to have been triumphant, Treitschke says:

"After ten years, during which the German domination over the Borussians was
almost destroyed, the days of victory again came to the Order through the
determined efforts of Landmarshal Konrad von Thierberg . . . and during the
next ten years, the supremacy of the Germans was established through death
and destruction. . . . Having once learned their lesson from this dreadful
experience, the Order was henceforth to adopt a new and harsher policy
towards those whom they subjugated."

The "dreadful experience" to which Treitschke refers was the almost complete
destruction of German domination. To prevent recurrence of this, which
Treitschke considers the worst of all eventualities, a "harsh policy" seemed
indispensable. This was, perhaps, regrettable, but what could one do if there
was no other way out?

"Having previously been extolled as the propagator-as the rock-of Christian
faith and as an instrument of Peace, Prussia has now become worthy of the
name of the New Germany," says Treitschke (Note that Treitschke thus
designates the Order's State of 1260.) Actually, Treitschke might better have
said that the Teutonic Order, having until then been successful in
camouflaging itself as a Christian Order, was henceforth obliged, under the
pressure of events, to show its true face, and to proceed with all the
ruthlessness and selfishness inherent in its basic principles-the principles
with which it had been endowed by Frederick II and Hermann von Salza. In this
manner, it was in future centuries to become what Treitschke, writing in
1886, has designated as the "New Germany"�which name it still bears as part
of its present-day mask.

The greater part of the Order's political innovations and attitudes have
survived until our time.

Eventually the Borussians of the thirteenth century dared to revolt against
their "masters." "The Prussians [Borussians] had forfeited all their rights
through revolt," says Treitschke. "Peace treaties with the conquered were now
a thing of the past; in their place came subjugation and the imposition of
terms dictated entirely by the degree of guilt and by military
considerations. The majority of Prussian nobles were reduced to a state of
serfdom but the German peasants and those Prussians who had remained
faithful, including the serfs, enjoyed great privileges. The Order had entire
townships resettled in regions where they might be less threatening. Just as
the entire Order's State appears to us as a later-day 'March" in the
Carolingian tradition so the duties it imposed on the conquered served the
highest purposes of the State . . ."

Of the German philosophers and theoreticians of the nineteenth century who
were referred to in the first chapter, some produced what were apparently
original ideas. Others cited Machiavelli for justification. But actually all
these ideas can be clearly discerned three centuries before Machiavelli in
the activities of the Teutonic Knights of the thirteenth century. And this
last quotation from Treitschke which describes the basic methods of the
Teutonic Knights is like a blueprint for present-day Hitlerian conquest.

The Junker Caste

We shall not go into details concerning the formation of the Prussian State
by the Teutonic Knights, nor the ups and downs of the wars which they
conducted. We are simply concerned here with showing the origins and
evolution of that spirit which characterized the Pan-Prussians of the
nineteenth century and of the beginning of the twentieth century-the spirit
which still characterizes the Germany of today, regardless of the names by
which it has been called.

But the tradition we are discussing here does not belong exclusively to the
realm of ideas. We are also facing a powerful combination of actual economic
interests established, in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
among the followers of the Knights, and which may be traced right down to our
time. Behind its front, which has been changed frequently in the course of
centuries, this combination of interests represented an important motive
force for keeping alive those ideas of grandeur of the State and devotion to
it which have been propagated in Prussia from the times of the Knights down
to the present.

The Knights benefited-personally and as an Order-more than all others in the
conquest of Prussian territory. But thousands of nobles soon came from
various sections of Germany and settled near the Knights. We can consider
these nobles the second most favored of all the groups which gained by the
conquest. They were for the most part adventurers lured by profits to these
lands where a Crusader was granted every liberty. Here these sons of
noblemen�whether they had not yet come into their inheritances, or had
squandered them recklessly�might hope to make their fortunes in short order.
For some years they served in the armies of the Order without actually taking
the Order's vows. Then, thanks to the connections they had made in the Order,
they were able to seize estates owned by Borussians or by other native
people. They used the whip on the native peasants to compel�the cultivation
of their lands and treated them as slaves.

These adventurers arrived in the Borussian territory without possessions,
practically beggars. They were called the "Betteljunker" (beggar squires).

Still others were in the group surrounding the Order. There were former
members of the Order who had deserted it to marry. There were brothers and
cousins of affluent Knights who came to settle where they might profit by
their close connections. Then, too, many of the Borussian nobility, now
Germanized and ready to accept the most humiliating conditions in order to
save their estates, allied themselves with the Betteljunkers during the three
centuries referred to above *�which were the "Golden Age" of the Teutonic
Order. All these groups intermarried and formed thousands of intermingling
ties among themselves, to protect through the complicity of the Order the
privileges by which all of them profited. It is the descendants of these
groups�the Betteljunkers, the defrocked Knight-friars, the relatives of the
Knights, and the Germanized Borussians�who later formed the caste of Prussian
Junkers which was to have so great an influence on the affairs of Germany
down to our time.[ *Thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.]


>From the monastic austerity of the Order stemmed what became known later as
"Prussian discipline." Despite this austerity, rigorously imposed wherever
relations between Knights or the Order's interests were concerned, an
extraordinary laxity of morals prevailed among the Knights in Prussia. The
behavior of the Landjunkers, who were not directly under monastic discipline,
was largely responsible for the abuses flourishing in the Order's State. This
contradictory situation, Spartan discipline intermingled with flagrant abuse,
reflected the lasting alliance between representatives of two ideas of life
to the advantage of each. It was to remain characteristic of Prussia until
the present, and more recently (since 1870), of Germany dominated by Prussia.

In a work published in 1904 (Geschichte des deutschen Ordens) the German
writer, Carl Lampens, characterizes as follows the behavior of these
ancestors of the Junkers:

"Instead of treating the natives with Christian love, the Order permitted the
tyranny of the Landjunkers, as well as that of their own local regents in the
newly conquered lands. In a town where the populace had reverted to
heathenism, one of these regents, Hermann von Altenburg, had the village
exits locked, and slowly burned to death all the inhabitants. . . . The
Landjunkers wanted to live only at the expense of the natives, whom they
intended to make their personal slaves. When we realize how these Junkers
carry on today, in those very provinces, we can well imagine what it must
have been like at that time, when there was no opposition press, nor an
opposition parliamentary group which might defend the rights of the
oppressed." This was written in 1904 when there were, we may say, per
interim, an opposition press and parliamentary group in Prussia.

The Borussian Strain

Attempts have often been made to determine whether or not the Borussian
heritage runs deep in the blood of present-day Prussians, and particularly
the Junker Prussians. It would be no easier to gauge exactly the ethnic
contribution of the Borussians to the present-day Prussian group than to
evaluate, for example, the precise contribution of the Saxon, as compared
with the Norman, to the English of the twentieth century. But we do not need
precise, statistical figures to form a general idea of the result of the
mingling of Teutonic with Slavic elements in the Prussians.

Despite strict monastic rule over the inner life of the Order, the Knights,
in their outside behavior, more nearly resembled the barbaric Teutons of
Tacitus than the founders of the Church which preached Charity: pre-Christian
elements survived among both the Teutonic Knights and those who surrounded
them-the ancestors of the Junkers. The examples set daily by the savage
Borussians to the Germans and the marriages between the German Junkers and
the Borussian Christian proselytes (who never really understood the moral
teachings of the Church) emphasized pre-Christian traits in the Prussianism
born of this curious fusion. If we bear in mind that their descent from these
pre-Christian or, if we prefer, "barbarous" ancestors is relatively recent,
we can better understand the peculiar behavior of the twentiethcentury
Junkers-for example the cruel methods of the Fehme in the period after the
first World War. Only six centuries have passed since Borussian wives were
obliged to render absolute obedience to their husbands, failing which they
were burned alive. Lampens tells of the following incident which occurred
during the wars between the Knights and Borussians:

"The High Priest invoked the Gods; whereupon the Holy Oracle of Romowe
promised the heathens victory, on condition that a German Christian woman
offer of her own free will to be burned in sacrifice�a tribute to their Gods.
The heathens actually found such a woman who, after becoming satiate with all
the pleasures of debauchery, climbed up on the funeral pyre. And now the
Prussians arose in their united strength."

The immediate descendants of these Borussians married the daughters of the
Betteljunkers and contributed to the formation of a caste which may in many
respects be considered a survival of the darkest Middle Ages. The primitive
virtues of these uncivilized people were destroyed, but their traditions of
cruelty merged, by a sort of 'osmosis, with the harshness and arrogance of
the German Knights. Kotzebue says about this:

"All the moral practices and customs of these people, including,
unfortunately, its virtues, were later to suffer various mutations, because
they were unhappily fused with the superstition and blasphemy of the German
Christians. . . . They believed in evil spirits, who would drive the
possessed to jump into the water and flames. Along the Baltic seacoast, men
fishing for amber would be harassed by ghosts on horseback. Sorcerers carried
on their weird business. Pagan rites were still being celebrated in the black
of night. The churches remained empty."

The "Two" Germanies

The pure virtues of the city bourgeoisie and their strict adherence to the
principles of Christian morality were in curious contrast to the very
peculiar moral conceptions of the Teutonic Knights and their entourage.
Already, at this point,
 we can distinguish between "good" and "bad" Germany, but the latter had not
yet achieved the preponderance it was to assume in the future. Kotzebue says
the following on this subject:

"To the shame of the noble monks, the bourgeoisie remained firm in their
morality and order. In the cities, schools were flourishing. Each guild
complied with the laws, which assured them peace, decency and virtue. No one
could come armed to morning services. While merry-making, 'none must behave
in a manner disgraceful to the sight or sound' on penalty of one pound of
wax. 'None shall lack respect for the aged, nor shall one offend his neighbor
by calling him by an evil name.' They had already formed a club at this time
known as the Companye, whose rules, if broken in word or deed, imposed a fine
on the violator of one barrel of honey. Similar fines were levied on
drunkards. Only after vesper bells had rung would gatherings be permitted,
and taverns had to be shut at nine o'clock. No carnivals or fairs except
during Shrovetide; women to visit their suitors only during certain limited
hours; journeymen not to be allowed time off on the morning following a Feast
Day.

"And thus Prussia offered the curious spectacle wherein the immorality of the
leaders did not corrupt their subjects and where integrity had fled from the
Knight's castle to the burgher's cottage."

This opposition between two contradictory approaches to life was the same in
all sections of Germany, where the Teutonic Knights, reaching out from their
Prussian fief, had succeeded in establishing a local command in the principal
cities. The Order was everywhere detested by the bourgeoisie, and conflicts
were frequent. Contrast between them was not confined to the differences in
their personal standards but included their social behavior as well. The
bourgeoisie could not forgive the numerous broken promises of the Order and
others of its acts-inspired alternately by cynicism and hypocrisy which were
striking affronts to their own understanding of good and evil.

Here we see before us two contradictory Germanic developments which occurred
independently of one another until the middle of the nineteenth century. The
one, characterizing the greater part of Germany, was essentially Christian,
and formed part of what we call "Western civilization." The other, proceeding
in a direct line from the ambitious Germano-Roman emperors, was localized in
Prussia. Representatives of the latter tendency recognized no rights but
their own, and regarded with great disdain the cooperative, altruistic spirit
prevailing in other German States. They described this spirit as the result
of "degeneration" and patiently awaited the moment when they could annihilate
it in their domination over the rest of Germany. The moment was to come under
Bismarck.

The Assassinations of Danzig

The assassination by the Order of the burgomasters of Danzig in 1411 was an
event long recalled by the city bourgeoisie. Following the battle of 1410, in
which the Knights had suffered the most crushing defeat in their history at
the hands of the Poles, the Chief Burgomaster of Danzig, Konrad Lezkau,
disguised as a Polish beggar, succeeded in passing through the Polish lines.
He managed to warn the Margrave of Brandenburg and other German princes, who
hurriedly dispatched considerable reinforcements to the Knights. In the
Order's tradition gratitude befitted only the weak; so the Knights imposed
heavy taxes and restrictions on the city of Danzig, and when their erstwhile
benefactor, Konrad Lezkau, protested bitterly against such behavior, the full
rage of the local Comthur was unleashed against him. Upset and unhappy at
such a state of affairs, Konrad and the city councillors tried to appease the
Knights and a solemn reconciliation took place before the church altar, where
both the councillors and the Comthur of the Order promised to forget their
differences and to live in peace with one another in the future.

Pretending to celebrate this reconciliation, the Comthur invited Konrad and
his colleagues to a great banquet to be given in their honor at the Knights'
castle on Palm Sunday. Lezkau, two other burgomasters, and a councillor
accepted the invitation. On their way to the castle they met the Comthur's
jester, who said to them jokingly: "If you knew what they were cooking, you
might not come to eat." One of Lezkau's colleagues was frightened at these
words and returned home. The others, under the exhortations of the worthy
Konrad, whose honest soul could never suspect the villainy of the Knights,
entered the castle and were immediately seized. Brought before the Comthur
and his Knights, violent insults assailed them from all sides, but they had
the courage to keep calm. Thereupon the Comthur summoned the hangman of
Elbing, a neighboring city, and ordered him to execute the three prisoners.
The hangman refused, saying that it was not his custom to execute men unless
there were legally constituted judgments. He was severely whipped for his
insolence and the Knights decided to do this work themselves, and first
celebrated their decision in drink for several hours. The prisoners were then
brought in. The Knights "leaped at them like mad dogs" (say the chroniclers)
and killed them with knives and swords. Lezkau suffered ten wounds and his
throat was cut, while one of his colleagues suffered sixteen wounds, and the
third seventeen.

For several days thereafter the Order tried to keep secret what had happened,
and they even had their guards accept the daily provisions brought each day
by the wives of the three men. The wives were told what foods their husbands
supposedly would like to eat on the following day, so that they might bring
it. Finally, in response to the demands of the municipality, protesting
against the Order's right to with hold their leaders arbitrarily, the Comthur
had the bodies of the three burgomasters thrown in front of the castle gates.
The citizenry, speechless with sorrow, brought back the bodies and buried
them.

One might think that the Grand Master, having learned of these events, would
perhaps have decided to punish the Danzig Knights, so that the Order might
not be identified with such procedures. He did nothing of the sort. On the
contrary, the wives and children of the assassinated burgomasters were driven
from the city, and all their goods were confiscated.

>From Order to Duchy

In the fifteenth century occurred the events which weakened the Teutonic
Order and finally led to the creation of the Prussian secular State.

In order to defend themselves against the abuses and autocracy of the Order,
the bourgeoisie in the Prussian cities formed a protective "Bund" in 1438, whi
ch was named the "Marienwerder Bund," for the site of the place where the
organization was formed. The spirit of decency and cooperation was rising
against the principles of exploitation and narrow egoism. In the German
cities, the Hansa's traditions were in full flower. This league of merchant
cities, the Hansa, found both its function and its prosperity in the
exchange, rather than the usurpation of other people's goods. United, the
members of the Bund considered themselves sufficiently strong to oppose the
Order�this vulture which terrorized them.

At first the Bund protested simply against the exactions of the Order. But in
1453 the Emperor upheld the Knights, and severely reprimanded the Bund. The
latter, enraged, declared war against the Order in 1454. The Knights
trembled, knowing very well the strength of the cities. The fortified "burgs"
of the Knights, those detested strongholds which had been dominating the
cities from their outskirts, soon fell, one by one, into the hands of the
revolting bourgeoisie. At the end of a few weeks the latter had seized
fifty-six of these burgs. The war lasted for thirteen years and claimed heavy
casualties on both sides. The cities asked assistance of the King of Poland,
whom they invited to extend his reign over Prussia -"this country originally
evolved from the 'crown of Poland."' The burghers who, for the most part,
were German-speaking made this request because they were convinced that all
their misfortunes dated from the time of the Knights' reign over their
country, and that the Polish kings would show much greater respect for their
rights and traditions.

The Knights finally realized that they could no longer continue the struggle.
Their army, which had totaled 71,000 men at the beginning of the war, had now
decreased to 1700 men. The peace treaty that was signed at Thorn in 1466
represented a complete defeat for the Order. The countries of Culm, Michelau
and Pomerania-Minor, with their principal cities of Thom, Danzig, Elbing,
Marienburg and the bishopric of Ermeland, came under Polish rule. The Order
was allowed to retain the rest of its territory, but the Grand Master, as a
"Duke of Poland," was now obliged to yield to the King. Half the officials of
the Order, in the lands under its administration, would from now on be Poles.
The cities were to be protected, and it was forbidden for the Order to burden
them with any new laws or taxes. Following the signing of the treaty, the
Grand Master humbled himself on bended knee before King Casimir. The latter
quickly helped him to his feet, tears in his eyes.

The only German prince who had aided the Order was the Margrave of
Brandenburg, Frederick von Hohenzollern.* [*The Hohenzollerns, natives of
Swabia (which was part of Bavaria), were the "Burgraves" (local rulers) of Nur
emberg. In 1411 they were raised to the rank of Margrave of Brandenburg by
Emperor Sigismund in exchange for a loan of 100,000 Hungarian florins, a loan
greatly appreciated by the Emperor, who was constantly in need of money.]

The Margrave and the Order had concluded an unusual pact, promising to give
mutual aid to one another against the subjects of each. It was the Margrave
who, in 1466, acting in the name of the Order, negotiated the peace with the
King of Poland for the Knights.

Relations between the Order and the Hohenzollcrns were now excellent. It is
understandable then, that the Knights considered it useful in 1511 to elect
Albert of Hohenzollern and Brandenburg to the dignity of Grand Master of the
Order, which post he filled with full understanding of the Order's traditions
and aims.

Nevertheless, it was Albert who was responsible for the secularization of the
Order's State. Actually the Teutonic Knights for some time now had been much
more a caste controlling a State, than a Monk's Order serving religious ends.
The Knight-officials were most influential, and directed everything for the
benefit of the Order, of themselves, and of the Junkers, with whom they were
united by bonds of kinship, friendship and complicity. A very small minority
of the Knights were still faithful to the religious traditions, but they had
no influence on the Order. Albert did nothing but give official status to an
existing condition, when in 1525 he transformed the Order's State into the
hereditary Duchy of Prussia (with approval of the King of Poland, who
remained suzerain of the Duchy as he had been of the Order's State).

The occasion for this act was the Reformation, the ideas of which Albert
allowed to penetrate deeply into the Order. This had curious consequences,
for it was possible for some time to witness the strange spectacle of an
Order of Monks, of whom some were Catholic but the majority Lutheran; an
Order having two initiation rituals with slight differences between them�one
for the Catholic Brothers and the other for the Lutheran disciples. In
reality there was nothing astonishing in this evolution, for, as we have
seen, the allegedly religious Order had been German above all from the very
time of its origin. Its function had never been spiritual, but was inspired
exclusively by imperialistic purposes.

A "Hospital" for German Nobility

The transformation from the Order's State to Duchy did not at all change the
internal organization of the State. The former Knights retained their
positions, but from now on it was possible for them to marry legally. Thus
they found themselves on the same level as their allies, the Junkers. The few
remaining Knights who were still faithful to the traditions of a closed and
monastic Order emigrated to Mergentheim, there to continue as a living
anachronism shorn of every purpose and function. Finally in 1809, Napoleon
dissolved this phantom Order,* but he did not shatter the forces of the true
Teutonic Order, which, secularized and hiding behind a variety of masks,
survived in the Prussian State.[ * It continued its existence in Austria and
was officially reestablished in Prussia at the end of the nineteenth century
by Wilhelm Il.]

All sorts of organizations served as disguises. Secret societies had been
functioning in the shadow of the Teutonic Order. The Junkers were not
directly subject to rules of the Order. They had found it useful to form
bonds among themselves, under protection of which they could further their
own interests and pursue ends similar to those of the Order. As far back as
1397 there had been created a secret Junker society known as the "Society of
Lizards"�Eidechsengesellschaft�a name whose symbolic significance may have
been that its members' intention was to creep in among the fissures of the
Order's State. Certain Grand Masters tolerated these activities while others
were more strict, as much toward the members of the Order as toward the
Junkers, their accomplices. Lampens, lenient toward the Order and speaking
from a distinctly German point of view, comments as follows on the
Eidechsengesellschaft (Geschichte des deutschen Ordens, 1904):

"The Landjunkers, in their inconsiderate exploitation of the peasantry, faced
constant obstacles from the officers of the Order. Now a-section of the
Landjunkers formed an apparently harmless but actually most treacherous
association-the EldechsengescUschaft�claiming, as it is often said today,
that its purpose was 'the protection of their own interests!' According to
the secret rules of this Association the Landjunkers were to support
patriotic German interests only if this were to their own advantage. And
already at that time they found their advantage only in the ruin of the rest
of humanity. The entire country existed for them alone, to be exploited and
abused by them."

Kotzebue claims that the "Society of Lizards" eventually became the real
cause of the replacement of the Order by the Prussian State . . . . .. Their
foundation charter referred to the Grand Masters with respect and gave no
hint that they would challenge the authority of the latter. Nevertheless they
showed no hesitation later in declaring that if justice were denied them they
would take self-protective measures. And so even at this time, the seed had
developed which after half a century was to push the strong roots of the
'Order-Oak' out from the blood-soaked earth."

The Order was eliminated from Prussia by the Junkers because the Junkers
wanted to monopolize the supreme power of the State for their own advantage.
When the Grand Master, Albert von Hohenzollern, transformed the Order's State
into a Duchy he was acting most probably, under the influence of this Society
of Lizards. The Junkers had imagined, and correctly, that they could have a
more direct hold on the affairs of a political State than on those of a
closed Order. The strictness of the Order had often proved an annoying obstacl
e to outside influences, even those as powerful as the Junkers. From favored
servants, they became lord and master almost overnight. Henceforth they could
say, as Louis XIV: "I am the State". If this State, by virtue of an ancient
tradition, was destined to carry forward a world mission, they intended to
execute this mission-since they themselves were now to be the beneficiaries
of all advantages.

The Order itself had among its secret aims that of serving as a "Hospital"
for German nobility. We have seen that the Order of the Teutonic Knights was
founded originally for the purpose of creating a hospital for the German
crusaders in the Holy Land. The Knights used the term "Hospital" in a
symbolic sense (another example of the symbolism common in the Middle Ages)
and concealed behind it one of the aims of the Order�"conspiracy to promote
the interests of a caste." This aspect of the Order definitely existed along
with the imperialistic aspects so clearly defined in the Bull of Rimini, the
true Charter of the Order. Kotzebue relates that when the Grand Master begged
for the help of the Margrave Of Brandenburg, the former reminded him "that
the Order had always been a Hospital for the Getman nobility." "The most apt
one-word description," adds Kotzebue, "which could possibly define this
unnatural organization�the Order."

>From the time of its founding, the Order had a "secret" or "secrets." These
secrets are mentioned frequently, and in the rules of the Grand Master Konrad
von Ehrlichshausen, it is clearly stated that "the Order's secrets must never
be revealed before laymen or before the servants." This cannot be a reference
to the Order's statutes as they were known to every one. The "secrets," then,
can concern only a more detailed statement of the aims of expansion and
conquest than was originally contained in the intentionally vague Bull of
Rimini; or they might be related to the aim of protecting, in the Order's
capacity as a hospital, the caste interests of the German nobility. This
latter aim was recognized but cleverly masked in the official name of the
Order: "Order of the German Brothers of the Hospital of Jerusalem." Only with
this double purpose of the Order in mind can we understand all of the Order's
attitudes and methods, frequently contradictory, as well as those of Prussia,
and of Germany dominated by Prussia, at a later time.

It is this double motive which explains the pursuit in a most ruthless manner
of a mad plan for imperialism by the impersonal entity which was the Order
and which today is the State. This "general interest" shouldered out all
private interests except where the interests of the German nobility were
concerned�or rather of those German nobles who in the course of centuries had
come to form the caste of Prussian Junkers. Their welfare was the supreme yet
rarely acknowledged goal of the Order.

The same double purpose which was pursued centuries ago by the Order is
carried on today by the Junker organizations. The "secrets" were the same in
the thirteenth as in the twentieth century.

C. J. Weber, in a work published in 1835 (Das Ritter-Wesen) which we
mentioned before is surprised that the partisans of the Order were capable of
describing it as a "National Institute for the Nobility." This is the natural
surprise of the enlightened man who, in the face of evidence, does not dare
to believe that atavistic morality still exists. On one occasion when the
Order was severely criticized, this name, "the National Institute for the
Nobility," was cited as an argument in its defense. Weber says of this, "It
is almost comical. . . . Would it not be shameful for an enlightened nation
which knows its rights (I am dreaming here of the Germans as a nation) to
tolerate such a National Institute for the Nobility? And would this not be a
discrimination against other citizens of the State?"

That was precisely the case.

pps. 26-83
-----
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All My Relations.
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Amen.
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