Friedrich Hielscher

Friedrich Hielscher (31 May 1902, Plauen, Vogtland or biologist denition of the German nation, emphasizing
6 March 1990, Furtwangen) was a German intellec- the cultural and spiritual character of his vision in contrast
tual involved in the Conservative Revolutionary move- to the Blut und Boden ideology in vlkisch nationalism.
ment during the Weimar Republic and in the German
resistance during the Nazi era. He was the founder of
an esoteric or Neopagan movement, the Unabhngige 3 Theology
Freikirche (UFK, Independent Free Church), which he
headed from 1933 until his death.
Hielscher was a member of the Evangelical Church in
Germany until 1924. In 1933, he founded the Unabhngige Freikirche (Independent Free Church, UFK),
1 Early life
a non-Christian religious institution designed to put
into practice his theological ideas. The UFK comHielscher was born to Fritz Hielscher and Gertrud bined panentheism with paganism and nationalism. In
Hielscher ne Erdmenger in Plauen, Vogtland, at the time Hielschers theology, God is external to the universe,
part of the Kingdom of Saxony. Baptized Fritz Johannes, or the universe contained within God. Within the unihe later changed his name to Hans Friedrich and nally verse are the Twelve Divine Messengers (zwlf gttliche
Boten), six male and six female, identied with the pato Friedrich.
gan deities, specically with the gods of Germanic paganHielscher joined a Freikorps in 1919. He left his unit in ism. Hielscher elaborates the personality of three out of
1920 due to his refusal to participate in the 1920 Kapp- these twelve deities in particular, describing them as diPutsch. From 1920 he studied law in Berlin, where he vine couple, also king and queen, named Wode and
joined the schlagende Corps Normania Berlin and became Frigga, and the god of Easter (Ostergott), named Fro.
politically active in the German Peoples Party.
The remaining nine Messengers are treated much more
briey, or not at all; they include Freya, Loki and Sigyn.
The principles of his religious system are elaborated in
2 Conservative
Revolutionary twelve pamphlets (Leitbriefe) written in 1956/1957 and
distributed to his adherents. This pagan catechism of
movement
Hielschers were edited by Bahn (2009). The religious
doctrine of Hielschers UFK consists of a syncretism of
Hielschers rst publication was a 1926 essay in Ernst monotheistic Christianity, panentheism as advocated by
Jnger's nationalist journal Standarte-Arminius. His dis- Goethe, and polytheistic reconstruction related to other
sertation in law was about the term Selbstherrlichkeit in currents of Germanic mysticism at the time (such as
German legal tradition, accepted in 1928. Impressed by the groups led by Jakob Wilhelm Hauer and Ludwig
The Decline of the West, he contacted Oswald Spengler Fahrenkrog).
but was rejected. Beginning in 1928, Hielscher gathered
a circle of followers around his person. He took over the
editorship of Der Vormarsch from Jnger in 1928, a post 4 Resistance movement
he abandoned in the summer of 1929 in order to launch
a journal of his own, titled Das Reich, which appeared Like other conservative thinkers of 1920s Germany,
from 1930 until 1933.
Hielscher was opposed to Nazism its biologistic racial
theories. While his early writings were openly nationalist, he moved away from German nationalism after 1933
and participated in the underground German resistance.

Hielschers concept of Reich was inspired by Stefan

George's belief in a Secret Germany (Geheimes
Deutschland), a mystical and ethnic essentialist argument
for a spiritual and cultural potential held by the German
people and a German nation which existed in potentia but
which had been prevented from realization in the history
of the Holy Roman Empire.

Under the Nazi regime of 1933 to 1945, he advocated a

clandestine approach to resistance, attempting to place
his adherents in key positions where they could contribute to the ultimate downfall of the regime. Hielschers
Hielscher published his vision of an ethnic German Reich UFK was not itself a cell of the German resistance, but
in a monograph in 1931. Here he argues against a racial several of its members were at the same time active
1

8 SEE ALSO

in such. Via Franz Maria Liedig and August Winnig,

the UFK was well-connected with the wider resistance
movement. Hielscher convinced several of his followers to seek positions within the regime, including intelligence (Abwehr), military command, Ahnenerbe and police (SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt), from which positions
they managed to protect some of those persecuted by the
Nazi regime.
Hielscher was arrested in 1944 in connection with the
failed 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. He was released
after Ahnenerbe director Wolfram Sievers interceded on
his behalf.
When Sievers was accused of war crimes at the Doctors
Trial at Nuremberg, Hielscher in turn interceded for him,
stating that Sievers was part of his clandestine resistance.
Sievers was nevertheless condemned to death and executed in 1948.
Hielscher was criticized by his own followers for his leadership, the failure of his concept of clandestine resistance,
and his attempts to defend Sievers. Disillusioned, and
disappointed with his failure to save Sievers from execution, Hielscher publicly announced his retirement from all
political activities, resolving to restrict his eorts to the
purely religious.

Life after 1945

After the war, Hielscher retired from all public oce. He

lived with his wife Gertrud in Marburg and Mnnerstadt
and from 1964 at the secluded Rimprechtshof near
Schnwald in the Black Forest. He was the editor of the
Deutsche Corpszeitung during the 1960s, where he published a number of essays on academic fencing. Hielscher
continued to lead the UFK until his death in 1990.

Bibliography
1928, Die Selbstherrlichkeit:
Versuch einer
Darsterstellung des deutschen Rechtsgrundbegris,
Vormarsch-Verlag, Berlin.
1931, Das Reich, Hermann & Schulze, Leipzig.
1954, Fnfzig Jahre unter Deutschen, Rowohlt,
Hamburg 1954 (autobiography)
1959, Zuucht der Snder, Dionysos-Verlag Thulcke & Schulze, Berlin.
Peter Bahn (ed.), Die Leitbriefe der Unabhngigen
Freikirche, Telesma, Schwielowsee, 2009 (online recension).
Ernst Jnger / Friedrich Hielscher. Briefwechsel,
Klett-Cotta, 2005, ISBN 3-608-93617-3 (edition of
correspondence with Ernst Jnger).

7 References
Ina Schmidt, Der Herr des Feuers. Friedrich
Hielscher und sein Kreis zwischen Heidentum, neuem
Nationalismus und Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus. SH-Verlag, Kln 2004, ISBN 3-89498135-0.
Peter Bahn, Friedrich Hielscher 1902 - 1990. Einfhrung in Leben und Werk, Verlag Siegfried
Bublies, Schnellbach 2004, ISBN 3-926584-85-8.
Peter Bahn, The Friedrich Hielscher Legend: The
Founding of a Twentieth-Century Panentheistic
Church: and Its Subsequent Misinterpretations in
Moynihan and Buckley (eds), TYR, vol. 2 (2004),
pp. 243262.

8 See also
Esotericism in Germany and Austria

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