Mathilde Ludendorff
Encyclopedia
Mathilde Friederike Karoline Ludendorff (born Mathilde Spiess on October 4, 1877 in Wiesbaden
–died June 24, 1966 in Tutzing
) was a German
teacher and doctor. She was the second wife of Erich Ludendorff
- he was her third husband - as well as a leading figure in the Völkisch movement
, where she was known for her esoteric and conspiratorial ideas. Together with Ludendorff, she founded the Bund für Gotteserkenntnis (Society for the Knowledge of God), a small and rather obscure esoterical
society of Theists
that although banned from 1961-77, survives to this day.
in central Germany, the daughter of Bernhard Spiess, a Lutheran minister. After initially training as a girls' school teacher she went on to achieve a PhD
degree in neurology
and became a strong critic of the religions in existence in the Germany of her time. She officially left Lutheranism in 1913. She married lecturer Gustav Adolf von Kemnitz in 1904 before graduating in 1913 with a thesis examining the hereditary nature of mental differences between the genders. Widowed in 1917, she married Edmund Georg Kleine in 1919 and divorced him two years later. She got to know Erich Ludendorff through Gottfried Feder
before marrying him in Tutzing.
and in doing so attempted a synthesis of philosophy
and science
which would underpin much of her later work. This was the case in her The Origin and Nature of the Soul, a book in three volumes: History of Creation, which traces the soul
from its beginnings and the emergence of the universe; Soul of Man, which explains the soul as a will and a consciousness; and Self Creation, which suggests ways of remodelling the soul.
A later work, Der Seele Wirken und Gestalten (The Action of the Soul and its Effect), dealt with similar themes and was also split up into three books: The Soul of the Child and the Parent's Duty, a study in pedagogy; The Soul of the Nation and the Molders of its Power, which argued that the Volk was an indivisible unit and was shaped by its leaders so that bad leadership could kill off a group; The God-Story of the Nations, which claimed that culture was more important to any people than civilisation and that it was tied in to their will to creation itself.
She was also an advocate of women's rights
and gender equality
, although such issues did not form a central part of the wider political platform with which she would become associated.
at Munich
alongside Emil Kraepelin
and in the course of her study developed a strong opposition to the occult
, attacking the work of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
and arguing that occult practices had been responsible for the development of mental illness in a number of her patients. This topic was dealt with at length in her work Insanity Induced Through Occult Teachings.
She went on to launch a number of attacks on astrology
, arguing that it had always been a Jewish perversion of astronomy
and that it was being used to enslave the Germans and dull their reasoning. The title of her main work on the subject, Fraud of Astrology, indicated her position succinctly.
Anthroposophy
was also a target for Ludendorff, notably in her 1933 essay The Miracle of Marne. She argued that General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger
had lost the First Battle of the Marne
because he had come under the control of Lisbeth Seidler, a devotee of Rudolf Steiner
. As a consequence of these writings Ludendorff added occultists to the Stab-in-the-back legend.
She also attacked the works of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer
, an Indologist who supported völkisch ideas but emphasised the Indo-European
origins of the Germans. She criticized the lack of depth and tendency towards jargon in his seminal 1932 work Der Yoga als Heilweg and further argued that the teachings of Krishna
and Buddha
had in fact been adopted by the writers of the Old
and New Testament
s, making India
n religion off-limits given her aversion to Christianity. Hauer, fearing the power wielded by Luddendorf in völkisch circles given her body of work and her influential husband, would de-emphasise the Indian aspects of his ideas in subsequent writings.
On a personal level, Ludendorff's hatred of the occult also stemmed from her support for the völkisch movement and her desire to construct a new specifically German religion. As such she feared that if Germany was won away from Christianity
it would fall instead into existing occult practices, which she felt were no more German in origin than the Christian faith. She believed that the Dalai Lama
was controlling the Jews in their supposed attempts to destroy Germany through Marxism
, Roman Catholicism, capitalism and Freemasonry
.
However, in spite of her personal hatred of occultism, her involvement in the völkisch movement and Germanic cultural identity meant that she co-operated with a number of devotees of occult practices. This was notably the case in the Edda Society of Rudolf John Gorsleben
, of which she was a member and whose other members included Friedrich Schaefer, a follower of Karl Maria Wiligut
, and Otto Sigfried Reuter, a strong believer in the astrology which she so roundly condemned.
, feeling that Christian beliefs could never be reconciled to the Aryan ideal that she believed in. Her 1931 book, Erlösung von Jesu Christo (Redemption from Jesus Christ), underlined this by portraying Jesus as a Jewish alcoholic who had not died on the cross. She represented the Bible
as a fraud and instead called for a pantheism
rooted in blood and soil
rhetoric in which the soul of God
permeated the land as a whole.
As part of her dual assault on Christianity and the occult, Ludendorff drew on her interpretation of science to develop her own religion, Gotterkenntnis or 'God Knowledge', which emphasised notions of racial inheritance, culture, economy and justice. The faith became the religion of the Tannenbergbund
, a conspiratorial organisation founded by her and her husband in 1925, which briefly claimed as many as 100,000 followers before losing out to the NSDAP.
She also published The Secret Power of the Jesuits and Its Decline with her husband, although this work revealed many of the prejudices still latent in the old general. Whilst Mathilde Ludendorff despised Christianity, Erich, despite his conversion to Gotterkenntnis, retained a strong sense of German Protestantism
, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church
was a much stronger threat to the couple's völkisch ideals; even though avowedly non-Christian, he was seen as a Protestant crusader by both the arch-conservatives of the Protestant League and their opponents in organised Catholicism.
had long since broken from the general. She continued to express anti-Semitic ideas after the war and was found guilty during the Denazification
process, although her judgement was lessened in 1951.
In 1955 she founded a Schule für Gotterkenntnis to propagate her religious beliefs, although the related Bund für Gotterkenntnis was ordered dissolved in 1961 after being judged unconstitutional. The latter movement, the origins of which could be traced back to 1951, had as many as 12,000 members before the judgement of the Bavaria
n Administrative Court banned it. She died five years after the judgement. In 1977 due to procedural errors the ban was lifted though it remains under observation of several constitutional protection agencies. In a reduced form it survives to this day.
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
–died June 24, 1966 in Tutzing
Tutzing
Tutzing is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany and is situated on the west bank of the Starnberger See south of Munich...
) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
teacher and doctor. She was the second wife of Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...
- he was her third husband - as well as a leading figure in the Völkisch movement
Völkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
, where she was known for her esoteric and conspiratorial ideas. Together with Ludendorff, she founded the Bund für Gotteserkenntnis (Society for the Knowledge of God), a small and rather obscure esoterical
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
society of Theists
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
that although banned from 1961-77, survives to this day.
Background
Mathilde Spiess was born in HesseHesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
in central Germany, the daughter of Bernhard Spiess, a Lutheran minister. After initially training as a girls' school teacher she went on to achieve a PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
degree in neurology
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
and became a strong critic of the religions in existence in the Germany of her time. She officially left Lutheranism in 1913. She married lecturer Gustav Adolf von Kemnitz in 1904 before graduating in 1913 with a thesis examining the hereditary nature of mental differences between the genders. Widowed in 1917, she married Edmund Georg Kleine in 1919 and divorced him two years later. She got to know Erich Ludendorff through Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder was an economist and one of the early key members of the Nazi party. He was their economic theoretician. Initially, it was his lecture in 1919 that drew Hitler into the party.- Biography :...
before marrying him in Tutzing.
Philosophy and science
Her 1921 work Triumph des Unsterblichkeitwillens (Triumph of the Will for Immortality) examined the desire in humans for immortalityImmortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
and in doing so attempted a synthesis of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
which would underpin much of her later work. This was the case in her The Origin and Nature of the Soul, a book in three volumes: History of Creation, which traces the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
from its beginnings and the emergence of the universe; Soul of Man, which explains the soul as a will and a consciousness; and Self Creation, which suggests ways of remodelling the soul.
A later work, Der Seele Wirken und Gestalten (The Action of the Soul and its Effect), dealt with similar themes and was also split up into three books: The Soul of the Child and the Parent's Duty, a study in pedagogy; The Soul of the Nation and the Molders of its Power, which argued that the Volk was an indivisible unit and was shaped by its leaders so that bad leadership could kill off a group; The God-Story of the Nations, which claimed that culture was more important to any people than civilisation and that it was tied in to their will to creation itself.
She was also an advocate of women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
and gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
, although such issues did not form a central part of the wider political platform with which she would become associated.
Attacks on the occult
She trained in psychiatryPsychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
at Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
alongside Emil Kraepelin
Emil Kraepelin
Emil Kraepelin was a German psychiatrist. H.J. Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics. Kraepelin believed the chief origin of psychiatric disease to be biological and genetic...
and in the course of her study developed a strong opposition to the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
, attacking the work of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
Albert von Schrenck-Notzing
Albert Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing was a German physician, psychiatrist and notable psychic researcher, who devoted his time to the study of paranormal events connected with mediumship, hypnotism and telepathy...
and arguing that occult practices had been responsible for the development of mental illness in a number of her patients. This topic was dealt with at length in her work Insanity Induced Through Occult Teachings.
She went on to launch a number of attacks on astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, arguing that it had always been a Jewish perversion of astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
and that it was being used to enslave the Germans and dull their reasoning. The title of her main work on the subject, Fraud of Astrology, indicated her position succinctly.
Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development...
was also a target for Ludendorff, notably in her 1933 essay The Miracle of Marne. She argued that General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger
Helmuth von Moltke the Younger
Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke , also known as Moltke the Younger, was a nephew of Field Marshal Count Moltke and served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914. The two are often differentiated as Moltke the Elder and Moltke the Younger...
had lost the First Battle of the Marne
First Battle of the Marne
The Battle of the Marne was a First World War battle fought between 5 and 12 September 1914. It resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army under Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The battle effectively ended the month long German offensive that opened the war and had...
because he had come under the control of Lisbeth Seidler, a devotee of Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
. As a consequence of these writings Ludendorff added occultists to the Stab-in-the-back legend.
She also attacked the works of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer
Jakob Wilhelm Hauer
Jakob Wilhelm Hauer was a German Indologist and religious studies writer. He was the founder of the German Faith Movement.-Biography:...
, an Indologist who supported völkisch ideas but emphasised the Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
origins of the Germans. She criticized the lack of depth and tendency towards jargon in his seminal 1932 work Der Yoga als Heilweg and further argued that the teachings of Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...
and Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
had in fact been adopted by the writers of the Old
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
s, making India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n religion off-limits given her aversion to Christianity. Hauer, fearing the power wielded by Luddendorf in völkisch circles given her body of work and her influential husband, would de-emphasise the Indian aspects of his ideas in subsequent writings.
On a personal level, Ludendorff's hatred of the occult also stemmed from her support for the völkisch movement and her desire to construct a new specifically German religion. As such she feared that if Germany was won away from Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
it would fall instead into existing occult practices, which she felt were no more German in origin than the Christian faith. She believed that the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
was controlling the Jews in their supposed attempts to destroy Germany through Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, Roman Catholicism, capitalism and Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
.
However, in spite of her personal hatred of occultism, her involvement in the völkisch movement and Germanic cultural identity meant that she co-operated with a number of devotees of occult practices. This was notably the case in the Edda Society of Rudolf John Gorsleben
Rudolf John Gorsleben
Rudolf John Gorsleben was a German Ariosophist, Armanist , journal editor and playwright.-Life:...
, of which she was a member and whose other members included Friedrich Schaefer, a follower of Karl Maria Wiligut
Karl Maria Wiligut
Karl Maria Wiligut was an Austrian Ariosophist- Biography :...
, and Otto Sigfried Reuter, a strong believer in the astrology which she so roundly condemned.
Politico-religious activity
Ludendorff had no truck with the ideas of Positive ChristianityPositive Christianity
Positive Christianity was a slogan of Nazi propaganda adopted at the NSDAP congress 1920 to express a worldview which is Christian, non-confessional, vigorously opposed to the spirit of "Jewish Materialism", and oriented to the principle of voluntary association of those with a common...
, feeling that Christian beliefs could never be reconciled to the Aryan ideal that she believed in. Her 1931 book, Erlösung von Jesu Christo (Redemption from Jesus Christ), underlined this by portraying Jesus as a Jewish alcoholic who had not died on the cross. She represented the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
as a fraud and instead called for a pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
rooted in blood and soil
Blood and soil
Blood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
rhetoric in which the soul of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
permeated the land as a whole.
As part of her dual assault on Christianity and the occult, Ludendorff drew on her interpretation of science to develop her own religion, Gotterkenntnis or 'God Knowledge', which emphasised notions of racial inheritance, culture, economy and justice. The faith became the religion of the Tannenbergbund
Tannenbergbund
The Tannenbergbund was a far right German political society founded by the German Army general Erich Ludendorff in 1925.-Founding:Ludendorff had been a leading member of the National Socialist German Workers Party in the early 1920s and ran for the party in the 1925 Presidential election during...
, a conspiratorial organisation founded by her and her husband in 1925, which briefly claimed as many as 100,000 followers before losing out to the NSDAP.
She also published The Secret Power of the Jesuits and Its Decline with her husband, although this work revealed many of the prejudices still latent in the old general. Whilst Mathilde Ludendorff despised Christianity, Erich, despite his conversion to Gotterkenntnis, retained a strong sense of German Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
was a much stronger threat to the couple's völkisch ideals; even though avowedly non-Christian, he was seen as a Protestant crusader by both the arch-conservatives of the Protestant League and their opponents in organised Catholicism.
Post-war activity
Ludendorff was largely sidelined after her husband's 1937 death, as Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had long since broken from the general. She continued to express anti-Semitic ideas after the war and was found guilty during the Denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
process, although her judgement was lessened in 1951.
In 1955 she founded a Schule für Gotterkenntnis to propagate her religious beliefs, although the related Bund für Gotterkenntnis was ordered dissolved in 1961 after being judged unconstitutional. The latter movement, the origins of which could be traced back to 1951, had as many as 12,000 members before the judgement of the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n Administrative Court banned it. She died five years after the judgement. In 1977 due to procedural errors the ban was lifted though it remains under observation of several constitutional protection agencies. In a reduced form it survives to this day.