04/02/2026
Anti-Masonic nationalist propaganda in Germany: drinking blood, kissing a pug under the tail, murders of the undesirable, and revolutions.
(All revolutions begin with an innocent kiss of a dog’s backside.)
▪️“In the higher degrees of Freemasonry, initiates enter into a blood brotherhood with Jews, including Jews long deceased, whose blood is preserved for all time in wine and thus mixed with the blood of all new Masons of the same degree. This blood is then not consumed symbolically, but actually mixed with wine and drunk. Such is the bloody ritual of the higher degrees of Freemasonry.” (NSDAP pamphlet “Freemasons — Rebels — Jews…”, Berlin, 1937)
This week’s exhibits include several publications and documents reflecting the development of anti-Masonic ideas, fueled by antisemitism, from the beginning of the last century through 1945.
Already at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries we see an active antisemitic and conspiratorial movement across Europe: the Dreyfus Affair in France, the first publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Russia in 1905, German publications developing racial theories—all of this formed entire communities that regarded Judaism and Freemasonry as enemies of civilization.
Of course, the groundwork for these rumors had been laid much earlier. This line of thought found its clearest expression in Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism by Abbé Augustin Barruel, published in 1797. Barruel was the first to present the French Revolution as the result of a conspiracy by philosophers, Freemasons, and Bavarian Illuminati. The Jacobins, in his view, were merely the radical wing of a worldwide conspiracy aimed at destroying Christianity and monarchy.
In 1806, Barruel reported that he had received a letter from a certain Italian officer, Jean-Baptiste Simonini, who claimed that Freemasons and Illuminati were in fact controlled by Jews.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion develop the ideas of Barruel and later 19th-century conspiracy theorists. They assert that all revolutions are orchestrated by Freemasons controlled by Jews; that the destruction of aristocracy and monarchies is a means to establish a unified system of financial hierarchy. German antisemitic literature of the early 20th century fully embraced this viewpoint and elaborated on it, adding “vivid” details. Freemasons are depicted as murderers, perverts, enemies of states, and participants in bloody rites.
The pamphlet “Freemasons — Rebels — Jews…” (Freimaurer – Aufrührer – Juden…, Berlin, 1937), published with the support of the NSDAP, contains some of the most striking examples of such rhetoric. The foreword claims that in the ritual the Mason “dies as a Christian” and “is reborn as a Jew”; that in the higher degrees of Freemasonry there allegedly exists a “blood brotherhood” with Jews; and that the blood of the dead is “preserved in wine,” mixed with the blood of new initiates, and drunk during secret rites.
This is how it is illustrated in the pamphlet:
▪️”’Craft tools’ necessary for the bloody mystery. The triangular case on the left is made of brass and decorated with velvet; it served to store a vial containing wine mixed with the blood of Jews and Christians, which was then used in the ritual. A knife was also part of the equipment; it served for bloodletting among Freemasons of the higher degrees.”
Another NSDAP propaganda publication of the same period provides even more detail:
▪️“The candidate’s right arm is uncovered and an incision is made, after which he takes part in the rite. Drops of blood from all brothers who have attained this degree are stored in glass prisms. The bloody drops are dried. Wine is then poured into the glass prism so that the dried blood dissolves, and the drink is poured out. From this mixture of blood and wine the initiate must take a sip. Thus, it is claimed, he partakes of the blood of all his brothers who have reached this high degree. In one such glass prism, it is asserted, are stored drops of blood from the president of the Order of the Illuminati, the Jew Weishaupt, who prepared the French Revolution.”
(Exposed World Freemasonry, Berlin, 1937)
It should be noted that by the time these pamphlets appeared, there had already been no active Masonic lodges left for three years in territories under German control. And on August 8, 1935, Hi**er finally banned Freemasonry outright; lodge property was confiscated and tens of thousands of Freemasons were repressed. This is how the first pamphlet describes it:
▪️“The Inquisition; popes issued bulls anathematizing and excommunicating princes who began to patronize Freemasonry; the Evangelical Church repeatedly tried to create a front of resistance against Freemasonry. All this bore no fruit until Hi**er and Mussolini resolved the problem of Freemasonry in an expedient manner.”
The official reason, as already stated, was the danger Freemasonry posed to the state and the claim that “the entire spiritual orientation of Freemasonry is Jewish.” In Mein Kampf, Hi**er speaks of Freemasons as tools of the Jews, destroying racial, civic, and religious barriers.
The publication “Freemasons — Rebels — Jews…” formulates it this way:
▪️“Everywhere—whether in France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Spain, Mexico, Cuba, in Central or North America, in the East or the West, in Europe or in Asia—Freemasons are present at every uprising, at every rebellion.”
It is hard to avoid long quotations in the following three examples from Der Angriff, Goebbels’s newspaper.
▪️“The Spanish revolution of 1931, which forced King Alfonso to abdicate, was a victory of Jewish-Freemasonic elements.”
▪️“Entire volumes have been written about the activity of Freemasonry in Serbia, since the Grand Lodge of that country is blamed for carrying out the assassination in Sarajevo and thus giving the signal for a world war.”
▪️“After Russia had been sufficiently bled dry, Freemasons forced the Tsar to abdicate. (…) The Grand Orient of France ordered that before Bolshevism another phase be inserted: the regime of the Freemasons Milyukov and Kerensky (the February period). They once again hurled Russian troops into a monstrous but senseless assault against German positions, especially in Lithuania and Galicia. The best divisions were mercilessly destroyed; tens of thousands were mowed down by German machine guns. (…) This was a Jewish-Masonic mass murder. ‘One corps, however, was deliberately spared: the Latvians. Why? Because they later formed the core of the punitive detachments of the Soviets—the Red Guard!’ (…) Only after Brother Milyukov had fulfilled his mission and good governments had been destroyed did the Grand Orient of France put its ‘best horse’ in the stable: now appeared the anarchist and revolutionary Lenin!! ‘Mecklenburger Logenblätter’ in Rostock—that is, Freemasonry in Germany—called Lenin in 1917 ‘the most consistent representative of the political ideals of international Freemasonry in the new Russia.’ The sun of Moscow is red with criminally shed blood; Bolshevism is the consistent realization of Masonic ideals.”
▪️“The Serbian bomber and Freemason Gavrinovich said: ‘In Freemasonry it is permitted to kill,’ and: ‘Franz Ferdinand was sentenced to death by Freemasons.’”
(Freimaurer, Der Angriff (Goebbels’s newspaper), NSDAP organ in Berlin), October 20, 1934.
Moreover, anti-Masonic propaganda, in order to enliven rather monotonous general political accusations, used vivid details from Masonic rituals and biographies to attract attention and evoke physical revulsion in readers.
For example, the aforementioned booklet contains the following passage:
▪️“There existed Masonic societies in which brothers were compelled to kiss the backside of a porcelain doll. The Order had a so-called ‘Porcelain Lodge’ in Salzburg, in which a margravine acted as Grand Master. A very piquant ritual of this order is described. One custom consisted of brothers bowing to a certain porcelain doll, which fully corresponded to the spirit of the Protocol.”
Here it must be acknowledged that in the early 1740s, the Order of Pugs existed in Germany, which practiced comical rituals, including kissing a dog figurine under the tail. However—and this is the most important point—the Order of Pugs was not Masonic. If anything, it was an anti-Masonic parody, as stated in the primary source of these rumors:
▪️“After Clement XII excommunicated the Freemasons in 1736, many German Catholics, frightened by the papal bull, abandoned the idea of joining their Society. But, unable to reconcile themselves to the loss of the advantages they hoped to find there, they conceived the idea of founding another lodge which, without exposing them to condemnation by the Vatican, would provide the same benefits as the first.”
(L’ordre des Francs-Maçons Trahi et le Secret des Mopses, Amsterdam, 1745).
The publication is also supplied with an engraving depicting this rite—we present this illustration from our museum’s collection.
Naturally, in order to paint a grim picture, propaganda turns into outright falsehood, substituting meanings of rituals and Masonic symbols and not even disdaining from false translations.
“In one of the secret degrees the master wears an apron bearing a double-headed eagle, and above it the motto ordo ab chao—which in good German translation means: ‘We desire chaos, disintegration, revolution, and in the ruins of this time of collapse we want to build a new order on a Masonic basis’ (world war—world revolution).” (Exposed World Freemasonry, Berlin, 1937)
Or consider this interpretation of the Masonic sign of St. Andrew lodges, with the image of Saint Andrew crucified:
▪️“This is the order of German masters of the lodges. They proudly wear it at secret meetings of Freemasons—in windowless, dark lodges, behind guarded doors. They wear it on a green ribbon.
Green is the color of the Jewish scepter, the acacia branch, or the ‘staff of Moses,’ with whose help Jewry establishes its dominion over all peoples.
On the obverse of the order is depicted a man of German blood, nailed alive to the cross.
Could the aim of Freemasonry—binding and disarming German strength—be more vividly revealed? (…)
From court proceedings it is known that Jewish refugees, in their degenerate sexual depravity, tied German women to such a ‘slaughter cross.’ (…)
But now look at the reverse side of the image, and you will recognize that here truly a Jewish symbolic act is taking place.
On the reverse of the order, that is, in the hidden part, you see the Kabbalistic seal of Jehovah: an equilateral triangle with the word ‘Jehovah’ in the center.
This seal of Jehovah indicates that violence against a living German on the slaughter cross is committed under the sign of Jehovah, that is, by his command.
Now you will recognize the secret meaning of this St. Andrew order: the binding and disarming of the German, the bleeding and impoverishment of the German people through slaughter and the preparation of the German for the transfer of power to the Jewish people.”
(Disgraceful Secrets of the Higher Degrees, by Erich Ludendorff, Munich, 1932)
These texts do not merely demonize Freemasonry—they deliberately transfer onto it the archetypal fears of medieval Europe: legends of ritual murder, “bloody conspiracies,” secret cults devouring peoples. Freemasonry is portrayed as a metaphysical enemy, acting not only in history but also “beyond it,” in a world of magic and demons.
In other publications of the same circle—pamphlets, compilations, newspaper series distributed through party structures—the same motifs recur:
Freemasons are “tools of the Jewish spirit,”
their lodges are “schools of destruction,”
their rituals are “perverted forms of initiation requiring blood,”
their goals are “the undermining of the state and the people’s order.”
Here Freemasonry serves as a kind of “glue” binding the enemies of the Reich to Judaism, whose danger supposedly no longer requires proof in nationalist propaganda. If the enemy is not Jewish, then he is certainly a Freemason; and the worst of all is the Jewish Freemason.
A distinctive feature of this propaganda is that it does not limit itself to journalism. It claims documentary status, quotes “rituals,” “internal instructions,” and “testimonies of former Freemasons,” creating the illusion of exposure. Masonic symbolism is torn from its context and interpreted as direct evidence of a cult of death.
Against this background, authentic internal Masonic documents from the late 1930s, which we display alongside these publications, are especially significant. In them there is no language of conspiracy, but the language of anxiety.
One circular from a German lodge, composed less than a year before the complete ban on Freemasonry in the Third Reich, in 1932, states:
▪️“Brothers must be extremely cautious in correspondence and personal contacts.
Keeping lodge documents outside specially designated locations is inadmissible.
Any meetings are possible only in a narrow circle and under the guise of private gatherings.
It must be assumed that we are under observation.”
Another document says:
▪️“It is necessary to be prepared for the immediate cessation of work.
Archives are to be destroyed in the event of the threat of a search.
Every brother must understand: the existence of the Order is in question.”
These lines were written not by enemies of Freemasonry, but by the brothers themselves. This is the voice of people caught inside the machinery of a totalitarian state, where myth became law and fantasy the basis for repression.
In 1935–1937, Freemasonry in Germany was definitively banned. Lodges were closed, property confiscated, archives seized or destroyed, and many brothers persecuted. The documents we display were created literally on the eve of this end—in a space of mounting fear and hopelessness.
Anti-Masonic literature of the Third Reich demonstrates how conspiratorial fantasies are turned into state ideology. From Barruel to the Protocols, from the Protocols to NSDAP party pamphlets, from pamphlets to laws and bans, then to arrests, pogroms, and executions. At each stage the myth becomes more “concrete,” more “bloody,” and more suitable for political application.
Nevertheless, any totalitarian state system is finite. It collapses, destroying the state and dragging along countless victims—both real and imagined enemies.
This is especially important to understand today, in light of a new surge in the development of nationalist political cells in the civilized world and the emergence of new, more sophisticated conspiracy theories. The history of anti-Masonic propaganda in Germany shows that the path from fantasy to catastrophe can be frighteningly short.
This overview can be concluded with Hi**er’s own words from Mein Kampf:
▪️“No authoritarian state wishing to secure its existence can tolerate Freemasonry in any form whatsoever.”
There is nothing to add.
