Esotericism in Germany and Austria

This article gives an overview of esoteric movements in Germany and Austria between 1880 and 1945, presenting Theosophy, Anthroposophy and Ariosophy, among others, against the influences of earlier European esotericism.

The original Knights Templar, founded around 1119, had been a crusading military order, that, at some time, had established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. In 1307, King Philip IV of France mounted a "slanderous campaign" to strip the Order of its economic and political influence. The Templars were accused of satanic practices, perversions and blasphemy and ruthlessly suppressed; Its leaders were burned on March 18, 1314. The circumstances of their suppression gave rise to legends surrounding the Knights Templar. In Germany, "where the growth of deviant masonic rites was greatest," the Templar heritage was adopted for irregular Freemasonry. (Freemasonry had been officially founded in England in 1717.)

The idea of chivalric Freemasonry first occurred ca. 1737 in France. In 1775 Baron Gotthelf von Hund (1722–76) founded the Order of Strict Observance, claiming the possession of secret Templar documents which allegedly prove that his order represented the legal Templar succession.

In the 17th century and 18th century, Rosicrucian ideas flourished in varying degrees. Rosicrucianism goes back to the beginning of the 17th century, when three works by Johann Valentin Andreae where printed at Kassel. One of these works, the Chymische Hochzeit, appears to be an alchemical tract, while the other two (for which the authorship of Valentin Andreae is not finally proven) announce the existence of the Rosicrucian Order, which desires an "universal and general reformation of the whole world". Putatively this order was founded by Christian Rosenkreutz, who is supposed to have lived from 1378 to 1484.

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