Adolf Josef Lanz (19 July 1874 â 22 April 1954), also known under his pseudonym as Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, was an Austrian political and racial theorist and occultist, who was a pioneer of Ariosophy. He was a former Cistercian monk and the founder of the magazine Ostara, in which he published anti-semitic and völkisch theories.
He was born on 19 July 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 father's ancestors had been burghers in Vienna since the early 18th century. His mother was believed to have been of Jewish ancestry, making him fail his own racial criteria. Consequently, he claimed to be the son of Baron Johannes Lancz de Liebenfels and began to call himself "Baron Adolf Georg (Jörg) Lanz Von Liebenfels Ph.D."
As a young boy, he was fascinated by Arthurian legends about the Holy Grail.
Liebenfels became a monk in the Cistercian Order in 1893, assuming the name Georg and living in the Heiligenkreuz Abbey. In 1894, he claimed to have become "enlightened" after finding the tombstone of a Knight Templar, and began developing his theories of "blue-blond Aryanism" and "lower races". In 1899, he left the Cistercian Order.
In 1905, he published his book () 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 "'" (). Liebenfels justified his esoteric racial ideology by attempting to give it a Biblical foundation; according to him, Eve, whom he described as initially being divine, involved herself with a demon and gave birth to the "lower races" in the process. One year later, in 1905, Liebenfels founded the magazine , of which he became the sole author and editor in 1908. Liebenfels himself claimed to have up to 100,000 subscribers, but it is generally agreed that this figure is grossly exaggerated. Readers of this publication included Adolf Hitler, Dietrich Eckart and the British Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener among others. Liebenfels claimed he was visited by the young Hitler in 1909, whom he supplied with two missing issues of the magazine.
As a student of Guido von List, Liebenfels further expanded his theories; other influences included Otto Weininger, of whom Liebenfels was a fervent follower, and Helena Blavatsky.
The Order of the New Templars â (ONT) was a proto-fascist secret society in Germany founded by Lanz in 1900. It was modelled after the catholic military order the Knights Templar and similar in its hierarchical structure to the Order of Cistercians, of which Lanz had been a member.
Members used code names so that betrayal was difficult.
Lanz functioned as ideologue and agitator of the group, justifying violence and punishments such as castration in order to establish a fascist state in Germany and defend it against communism.
In 1905 Liebenfels and some 50 other supporters of List signed a declaration endorsing the proposed Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft (Guido von List Society), which was officially founded in 1908. He also founded his own esoteric organisation, the Ordo Novi Templi (Order of the New Templars) in 1907. These movements 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" (). To further this agenda, he purchased the ruins of on the Danube in Austria. Neither organization managed to attract a large member base; though, it is estimated that the order had around 300 members, most prominent of which was the poet Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando. LiebenfelsâÂÂs 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, Liebenfels tried to be recognized as one of his ideological precursors. In the preface of issue one in the 3rd series of Ostara, c. 1927, he wrote:
In his publications, Liebenfels mixed völkisch and anti-semitic ideas with Aryanism, racism and esotericism. The following is a partial list of LiebenfelsâÂÂs publications: