What's Verbicide?

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The Spiritual Perils of Verbicide
Jared Selim | Feb 05, 2026
https://substack.com/home/post/p-185556609

How Murdered Words Lose Meaning—and How Logos Revives Them

L'histoire capétienne

Répliques Assorties : Publication et association, pas la même chose · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : L'histoire capétienne

Et puis et 3:42 puis on n'oublie pas surtout voilà, je 3:43 vous dis d'histoire capécienne, c'est 3:47 des paysans pauvres, des gens qui ont 3:49 qui ont crevé, c'est le servage, c'est 3:51 tous ces trucs-là.

Ainsi Antoine, NPA, en proteste contre un requiem pour Louis XVI. La vidéo, elle est déjà sur mon billet blog sur l'Action française.

des paysans pauvres

Jusqu'à trés récemment, il y a eu davantage de possibilité pour une société d'avoir 1/3 ou moins aisé et 2/3 ou plus pauvres. En Suède actuelle, on parle de l'inverse, 2/3 aisés, dont une poignée de riches, et 1/3 pauvres.

Quand la majorité est pauvre, et unie, elle est plus solidaire en elle-même que quand les pauvres sont des catégories très diverses qui s'ajoutent à 1/3. Au lieu d'être exploités ensemble, ils sont assistés séparément.

Et quand les paysans sont pauvres, ça veut dire que pas mal de fermes sont petits, les paysans sont nombreux.

des gens qui ont qui ont crevé

De temps en temps, dont les années 1788 et 1789.

Entre Henri IV et Louis XVI, la population des villes augmente, pour les soutenir, les paysans travaillent davantage de jours par an et bien entendu, ce qui crève est surtout une population citadine, faute de suffisamment de paysans.

c'est le servage

Le servage avait été adouci pendant le Moyen âge. Et ensuite durci pendant les siècles de hausse pour les villes. Comme les autres moyens par lesquels les paysans payaient la vie des non-paysans, des gens en dehors du secteur primaire.

Par contre, les serfs, s'il y en a encore à la veille de 1789, ça serait pas beaucoup :

Towards the end of the 9th century the serf-tenants were already proprietors of their holdings ; under the third dynasty they were rather subjects than tenants, and the dues they paid were rather taxes than rents ; they were, in short, vassals occupying the lowest round of the feudal ladder. Guérard enumerates as immediate causes which led to the liberation of serfs (besides the master’s voluntary gift or bequest) their flight,—with the prescription which arose after a certain interval of absence,—ordination, redemption by themselves or others, marriages with women of higher status, and the action of law in the case of certain wrongs inflicted by the master.

Je traduis :

Vers la fin du IXe S. les serfs / tenanciers étaient déjà propriétaires de leur lottements ; sous la troisième race, ils étaient plutôt des sujets que des tenanciers, et les redevances payées étaient plutôt des impôts que des loyers ; ils étaient, en bref, des vassaux qui occupaient l'échelon le plus bas de l'échelle féodale. Guérard énumère comme les causes immédiates qui menaient à la libération de serfs (à part les dons ou legs volontaires du maître) leur fuite,—avec la prescription après une certaine intervalle d'absence,—ordination, rachat par eux-mêmes ou autrui, mariages avec des femmes de statut plus haut, et l'action de la loi dans le cas de certains torts infligés par le maître.

La source :

1902 Encyclopedia > Slavery > Disappearance of Serfdom. France. England. Italy. Germany. Spain.
[More than 6,000 articles from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th and 10th editions]
https://www.1902encyclopedia.com/S/SLA/slavery-12.html

Depuis 1315 et 1318, il restait très peu de servage, localement, en France, jusqu'au 4 août 1789. Il s'agit des decrets de Louis X et de Philippe V.

M Guérard, Monsieur Guérard, c'est qui ?

Benjamin Guérard, né le 15 mars 1797 à Montbard (Côte-d'Or)[1], mort le 10 mars 1854 à Paris, est un bibliothécaire et historien français, particulièrement connu pour son édition de cartulaires d'abbayes de l'époque carolingienne.

Ah, c'est pour ça qu'il cite les libérations de serfs par St. Benoît d'Aniane !

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Dim. Sexagésima
8.II.2026

Pourquoi le secret maçonnique est-il mauvais ?

New blog on the kid : Pourquoi la Franc-Maçonnerie est-elle une secte ? · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Pourquoi le secret maçonnique est-il mauvais ?

Débutons avec Disney (qui descend des chevaliers normands d'Isigny, d'où le nom).

Dans le Manuel des Castors Juniors, Riri, Fifi et Loulou consultent des articles (qui au fur et mesure s'ajoutent à un volume de corpus comparable à la wikipédie) qui parfois ajoutent juste une petite correction, mais parfois donnent une info assez inédite ou encore très à propos. Dans un article sur Nicolas Flamel ils pourraient lire qu'il était réputé d'avoir trouvé la pierre philosophale, mais que celle-ci n'ait jamais été retrouvée après. Occasion pour eux de refouiller la chambre secrète dans le sous-sol de sa maison, que pour quelque raison les Oncles Scrooge et Donald auraient eu l'occasion d'accesser avec eux.

Trève de fiction, à part peut-être l'autofiction. Un certain Joseph Smith affirme s'être pour quelque raison doté d'accès à des plâques d'or, inscrites dans une langue que pour quelque raison il sera capable de déchiffrer, et il découvre une histoire qui finit dans le temps du prophète Moroni, entre 400 et 421 AD. Lui-même, il fait cette découverte le 22 septembre de 1823. Personne n'est capable de vérifier de sa mémoire d'avoir entendu du prophète Moroni, indépendamment, on est (entre les premiers Mormons) entièrement livré à faire confiance aveugle à Joseph Smith et aux plâques d'or.

Et Anderson, 1717 ? Il affirme que du passé, ça aurait été la règle de tous les franc-maçons de simplement suivre la religion du pays, mais qu'on venait de décider de se borner à la religion naturelle. La religion d'Angleterre (Anglicanisme), d'Écosse (Calvinisme), de France (Catholicisme) deviennent dès lors comparables à la partie déjà fouillée de la maison de Nicolas Flamel ou à la colline où l'on trouva les plâques d'or. Ou à l'enveloppe d'une lettre ou au papier d'emballage d'un cadeau. Inessentiel. L'essentiel devient alors de remplir le croquis de la religion naturelle. Car, pour un Catholique, ou encore un Anglican ou Calviniste, théologie naturelle et morale naturelle sont des croquis, mais Dieu les a remplis dans la religion Chrétienne — véritable (car il y a des copies fautives) en ajoutant des choses essentielles pour le salut que la simple connaissance de religion naturelle ignore totalement (Trinité, Incarnation, rédemption par Croix et Résurrection ...). Or, si le remplissage de Dieu devient du "papier d'emballage" ce sera aux membres de la loge de faire leur propre remplissage.

Et vu que les nouveaux membres de la loge d'Anderson, première grand-loge, se trouvent devant une affirmation sur l'histoire de la Franc-Maçonnerie qu'ils ne peuvent pas vérifier indépendamment, Anderson et Désaguiliers sont capables à profiter de la même confiance aveugle pour imposer, par exemple, de célébrer Galilée et Giordano Bruno, précurseurs de Newton, comme si "primauté pour les sciences sur la religion" faisait partie de la religion naturelle. Ce n'est pas le cas. Item, les vénérables de la loge sont capables à imposer licéité ou non de la sodomie, du divorce et remariage et j'en passe, parce qu'on leur fait une confiance aveugle.

"Et le Catholique n'aurait pas une confiance aveugle semblable ?" Non. Les règles sont simples :

• une vérité pour être telle doit avoir été déjà enseignée par le magistère ;
• et le magistère ne peut rien enseigner en secret.

Si d'ordinaire je laisse le souci à mon prêtre de vérifier leurs vérités chez les prédécesseurs, les prédécesseurs sont quand même déjà publiés. En principe, je peux le vérifier. Pour la Bible aussi, en principe je peux vérifier. C'est peut-être mal vu par certains, mais si je l'ignore, je peux. Pour les vénérables du passé, pour pas mal des choses, ma seule source accessible serait mon propre vénérable, en me posant dans la situation d'un initié.

Si je lis que Riri, Fifi et Loulou font de l'or avec la pierre philosophale, ce n'est pas grave. Je ne le crois pas, au moins pas après de poser la BD. Si je crois que l'église de Moroni ait survécu plus longtemps aux Amériques que l'église des Apôtres dans l'Ancien Monde, c'est pire, surtout si j'ajoute que, entre Moroni et Joseph Smith il y a 1400 ans. Et si je fais confiance à Joseph Smith que Dieu autorise, aussi dans la Nouvelle Alliance, la polygamie. Les deux ont une certaine connexion maçonnique. Walt Disney a probablement été un de Molay, pour son frère Roy, c'est probable qu'il ait été un franc-maçon, même (la maçonnerie propre se fait juste entre adultes et les de Molays sont du scoutisme pour jeunes dans l'esprit de la maçonnerie). Joseph Smith, avant d'être le premier Mormon, a été Franc-Maçon.

Et si votre loge prétend, avec Nicolas Notovitch, que Jésus soit, pas Dieu dans la Chair, mais adepte d'un monastère bouddhiste tibétain, c'est très grave. Nicolas était Juif, et comme pas mal, il trouvait peu populaire et un peu dangéreux de se tenir aux enseignements rabbiniques sur Jésus. Mais comme Juif, il ne voulait pas non plus croire l'Incarnation et la Trinité. Au Tibet, les monastères bouddhistes, comme le Bouddhisme tout cort, commencent bien plus tard que le 1^er Siècle. En plus, Max Müller, en correspondance avec le monastère, débusque une fraude derrière l'affirmation de Notovitch.

Et si, en plus, vous faites passer les Catholiques pour niais, parce que nous croyons la Divinité de Jésus, si entre vous ou face à un Catholique (que vous jugez) en train de déconstruire, vous faites passer "les études tibétaines de Jésus" comme le "fait" génial qui dénonce "l'erreur" des Catholiques, vous vous donnez une fausse assurance, doublée d'un mépris des Catholiques, en plus du blasphême.

Quand la version italienne de Quo Graviora parle de "sette clandestine" ou encore "sette clandestine di uomini nemici di Cristo" le mot "setta" (secta en latin et secte en français) est donc beacoup moins grave que "clandestina" (secrète en français), lui-même moins grave que "di uomini nemici di Cristo" (d'hommes ennemis du Christ).

Et le caractère ésotérique, initiatique ou secret de la Maçonnerie peut donner cette fausse sécurité aux membres de s'imaginer dans la présence d'une tradition vénérable, plus ancien que le Moyen âge et mêmes les Césars, tandis que le projet de reduire métaphysique et morale à "religion naturelle" naît en réalité comme fruit de la Guerre de Trente Ans, sur l'idée qu'on pourraît éviter les guerres religieuses en se posant sur un terrain neutre entre Catholiques et Protestants, et de fait on aura juste ajouté encore une religion à faire la guerre aux autres.

Le prédécesseur de la Franc-Maçonnerie, le Rosicrucianisme, a davantage de liens avec le Christianisme, et semble avoir été une version ésotérique du grand réveil. Et commence avec deux tracts anonymes, Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis ou ce n'est pas Jésus-Christ, mais bien un curé qui va en Orient pour se faire initier, et Confessio Fraternitatis qui déduit ce grand réveil de nouvelles étoiles vues dans les Serpentarius et le Cygne. Les livres apparaissent en 1610 et 1615, Cassel et Frankfurt. Bien que la Guerre de Trente Ans n'avait pas débuté, l'Allemagne avait une triste histoire de guerres réligieux, depuis la guerre de Smalkalde, celle-ci préparée par l'incendie d'Einbeck et les propos inflammatoires de Luther et d'autres pour mettre la faute aux Catholiques, comme si le feu avait été une incendie criminelle. Le Rosicrucianisme est donc Protestant, car il propose encore une Réformation. Il est sinon biaisé vers une loi naturelle à refaire, au moin à un Protestantisme aconfessionnel. S'il y ait eu des loges réels ou non, à cette époque, est incertain. La Société peut à ce moment avoir été autant une fiction que la ville dans la Civitas Solis, de Tommaso Campanella. À la fac de latin une autre étudiante fit une analyse sur Civitas Solis. Elle était elle-même plus charmante que la fiction disneyesque (moins l'humour) du Dominicain.

Entretemps, des vraies loges secrètes existent déjà. Et c'est un problème.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre BU
St. Blaise
3.II.2026

Sebaste, in Armenia, passio sancti Blasii, Episcopi et Martyris; qui, multorum patrator miraculorum, sub Agricolao Praeside, post diutinam caesionem, atque in ligno suspensionem, ubi ferreis pectinibus carnes ejus diruptae sunt, post teterrimum carcerem et in lacum demersionem, unde salvus exivit, tandem, jubente eodem Judice, una cum duobus pueris, capite truncatur. Ante ipsum vero septem mulieres, quae guttas sanguinis, ex ejusdem Martyris corpore defluentes, dum torqueretur, colligebant, propterea, deprehensae quod essent Christianae, omnes, post dira tormenta, gladio percussae sunt.

J'ai utilisé d'articles de la wikipédie, pas juste pour Campanella, mais aussi pour les frères Disney (mais aussi d'autres recherches) et pour le Rosicrucianisme et la F...M...erie./HGL

"There are those who want to control the narrative ..." — Oh, really? Perhaps not like you think.

This video features:

• Uruk had between 40 000 and 80 000 inhabitants in 2800 BC;
• and the Kings' List includes a female ruler.
• This was discovered in 2013, btw. Anthropologist Guillermo Algaze.

Here's the video, of the type youtube calls a "short":

@mruink
A Shocking Truth About the Ancient Sumerians
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J8lju2oC9xE

Now, the video ends with a question and offers an answer: Why haven't we heard of this before? The truth is, there are those who want to control the narrative.

The colloquial expression I might use about this is a matter that can be used as fertiliser most of the world and in India, when dried, is also used as fire fuel. I don't want to be too vulgar and spell it out.

First, I'm far from certain that we never heard of any of this before. I hear of this now, nearly 13 years after 2013. Some may have heard of it before Algaze stepped in. In fact, he had written about similar things before, in an article called The Sumerian Takeoff. It's from 2005 and same year it got a critique:

Critique of Guillermo Algaze’s “The Sumerian Takeoff”
2005, Adams, Robert McC.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5m8043vf

I cite the first paragraph after the absstract:

My discomfort with this article is primarily with its didactic, positivistic tone, rather than its ably argued, if somewhat too narrowly focused, contents. We are informed already in the Abstract, on the authority of “economic geographers” without knowledge of the ancient Near Eastern background, that “regional variations in economic activity and population agglomeration are always the result of self-reinforcing processes of resource production, accumulation, exchange, and innovation.” And again, “that emergence of early cities in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium must be understood in terms of, both, the unique ecological conditions that existed across the region during the fourth millennium… and the enduring geographical framework…” (emphases added).

Sounds like Algaze (born in Cuba, working in Chicago, by the way) is himself a man who wants to control the narrative.

But apart from this, there is an omission of a way more obvious reason. Around 100 AD, both Sumerian and Akkadian were extinct languages. Not "dead" in the sense that Classic languages like Latin, Greek or Sanskrit are sometimes called "dead" for lack of native speakers. No, they had been that already in the time of Alexander. But extinct. No one able to study them any more. The study of Cuneiform writing was rebooted from scratch, first by deciphering Old Persian Cuneiform between 1802 and 1836, then by extending the study to Elamite and Akkadian (Babylonian dialect) over the Behistun trilingual, which was partly copied in 1835 as to the Old Persian stuff, but Elamite and Akkadian had to wait till 1847. It was only later than that, that it was discovered that part of the text was missing due to dissolution of the limestone it was carved in, part was missing due to limestone covering it.

In 1938, the inscription became of interest to the Nazi German think tank Ahnenerbe, although research plans were cancelled due to the onset of World War II.

From the Behistun material, copied and published in 1849, one continued to learn Akadian:

By 1851, Hincks and Rawlinson could read 200 Akkadian signs. They were soon joined by two other decipherers: young German-born scholar Julius Oppert, and versatile British Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. In 1857, the four men were requested to take part in a famous experiment to test the accuracy of their decipherments. Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. A jury of experts was impaneled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. In all essential points, the translations produced by the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another. There were, of course, some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert's translation contained a few doubtful passages which the jury politely ascribed to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks' and Rawlinson's versions corresponded remarkably closely in many respects. The jury declared itself satisfied, and the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli.

And only then did one start learning Sumerian. This is by the way a reason why Hislop's book The Two Babylons from 1853 is nonsense. Learning an ancient culture in accurate detail takes time. Lorenzo Valla already knew Latin when he started a work of bettering the understanding of ancient Roman culture (he made a work on its coinage, which hadn't been understood, De Asse et partibus eius). He died in 1457. The work of getting to know Ancient Rome and Greece is still not finished. Understanding Old (Classic) Babylon and prior cities like Ur and Uruk, like Nippur and Lagash could only take off after 1851, by then they had far less to go on than Valla had had.

This is the reason why this hasn't been known earlier. Not that someone has been keeping it secret to control the narrative.

As a side note, the carbon date 2800 BC would in my Biblical recalibration calibrate to 1700 BC, around the time when Joseph's pharao Djoser died. Except that for Djoser's burial ship, the date 2800 BC or so is a raw date and is calibrated to 2600 sth, by Uniformitarians, conventional archaeologists, so, this 2800 BC would be a calibrated 2800 BC, earlier than 1700 BC.

As a side note within the side note, I examplify the distance between raw date and calibration in an essay from last year:

As 1950 is 75 years ago, the carbon date BP wouldn't be 500, but 425. However, the raw carbon age for 420 BP seems to correspond to 1460 rather than to 1525, according to the fine calibration.

Raw date is the mathematically accurate deduction from remaining carbon 14, assuming the original content was 100 pmC and that the halflife was 5730 years. Calibration involves taking other age indicators into account, which give a slightly (or in my case, when we go back far enough, radically) different age, and which theoretically can be explained by assuming the original carbon 14 content was slightly (or in my case, when we go back far enough, radically) different.

So, in Joseph's time, presuming he's the one recalled as Imhotep and his pharao was Djoser, or a little earlier, this would be the real time period for this expansion of Uruk, which spoke mainly Sumerian, and the Classic city Babylon, which spoke mainly Akkadian, was founded later. There is no direct continuity of settlement between Nimrod's and Nebuchadnezzar's cities. They are not historically, even if they are theologically, one city. And before you use this as an alibi for saying Hislop was correct about the theology of Göbekli Tepe, which is also geographically distant from Nebuchadnezzar's city, that was not even discovered in his time, it was discovered in 1963 and excavated from 1995.

Anyway, the people who want to control the narrative are less good at keeping secrets than often presumed, and better at insisting on one interpretation (like excluding my Biblical recalibration). Algaze did not rescue facts from dungeons where someone was shutting them up.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Septuagesima LD
1.II.2026

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Algaze

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decipherment_of_cuneiform

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Schmidt_(archaeologist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe

Creation vs. Evolution: So, You Think Another Biblical Chronology is Right than Mine? Here is What You Can Do ... for Carbon Dates
dimanche 16 mars 2025 | Publié par Hans Georg Lundahl à 07:17
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2025/03/so-you-think-another-biblical.html

Non, l'Austrofascisme n'a pas stérilisé des gens de force

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Non, l'Austrofascisme n'a pas stérilisé des gens de force · New blog on the kid : "La loi reflète l'évolution des mentalités"

Pour des Austrofascistes, en des coins reculés, je ne suis pas sûr, des crimes sont des crimes. Mais pour le régime austrofasciste, la réponse est non :

Legalised non-consensual sterilisation - Eugenics put into practice before 1945, and the aftermath. Part 2: Europe.
Jean-Jacques Amy and Sam Rowlands
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/30595/3/Forced%20sterilisation-EJCRHC-MS-Part%202%20SR%20comments%20addressed%20JJA.pdf

3. Switzerland 1928
4. Denmark 1929
5. Germany 1933
6. Norway 1934
7. Sweden 1934 and 1941
8. Finland 1935
9. Estonia 1937
10. Iceland 1938
11. Austria 1940

The Nazi ‘Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring’ was enforced in Austria in 1940, two years after the country’s annexation (‘Anschluss’) by Germany. The first coerced sterilisations were done in the spring of 1940. ... After annexation by Germany, deaf people in Austria faced forced sterilisation, internment, deportation and euthanasia; pregnant deaf women were coerced to obtain an abortion.

En d'autres mots, le régime Austrofasciste a respecté les droits humains (sur ce compte au moins) et respecté Casti Connubii.

En Suisse, le canton historiquement francophone protestant Vaud franche le premier pas.

Depuis la Guerre du Sonderbund, les cantons catholiques sont plutôt dominés par les cantons protestants.

Danemark, Norvège, Suède, Finlande, Estonie, Islande, tous des pays luthériens. Protestants. Aujourd'hui, d'ailleurs, tous assez sécularistes.

L'Allemagne, un pays à l'époque majoritairement protestant (environ 1/3 étaient Catholiques).

Autriche, le seul pays à majorité catholique de faire ceci, et il ne l'a pas fait qu'après l'occupation par un pays ... protestant. Notons, l'Italie, l'Espagne et le Portugal absentent.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
IIIe dim. après l'Épiphanie
25.I.2026

What Words did Job Repent Of?

And the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind, said Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and do thou tell me Wilt thou make void my judgment: and condemn me, that thou mayst be justified
[Job 40:1-3]

Then Job answered the Lord, and said I know that thou canst do all things, and no thought is hid from thee Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have spoken unwisely, and things that above measure exceeded my knowledge Hear, and I will speak: I will ask thee, and do thou tell me With the hearing of the ear, I have heard thee, but now my eye seeth thee Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance in dust and ashes
[Job 42:1-6]

I find only two possibilities.

a) The words Job regrets are things he said that aren't in the book of Job even if he said them. Because, as writer, he censored out his bad words. However, if so, this must be after this exchange:

And he said to her: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women: if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? In all these things Job did not sin with his lips.
[Job 2:10]

or b) The words Job regrets were indeed spoken, but only in his heart, not across his lips. He said "no thought is hid from thee" and Job 2 kind of underlines he did not sin "with his lips".

Also, he calls his words basically foolish. However, Psalm 13 doesn't say the fool is an outspoken atheist, it says he has said in his heart "there is no God." God saw something in Job's heart that did not match his words. If God hadn't showed up in a whirlwind, Eliphaz and the rest would have never known that. Even if they may have guessed right, they had no right to guess.

I am the Lord who search the heart and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices
[Jeremias (Jeremiah) 17:10]

Sounds like an echo of sth in Deuteronomy 32 which St. Paul cites:

Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord
[Romans 12:19]

It would seem, then, the same applies to analysis. But how do we know that Job didn't mean any of the actual words said to those around him?

Take unto you therefore seven oxen, and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer for yourselves a holocaust: and my servant Job shall pray for you: his face I will accept, that folly be not imputed to you: for you have not spoken right things before me, as my servant Job hath
[Job 42:8]

Dear St. Job, pray for us!

Can One be Austro-Fascist and Bona Fide Catholic?

New blog on the kid: Can One Be a National Socialist and a Bona Fide Catholic? · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Can One be Austro-Fascist and Bona Fide Catholic?

Some things are to modern sympathisers off the table, simply because the situation was different. In both cases.

Like, liking Austro-Fascism now doesn't imply shooting on Social Democrats, because Social Democrats aren't trying to make an insurrection and succeeding in killing innocent bystanders, as the case was in February 1934.

Or, given that Czechs residing in Austria aren't uniformy factory workers (celibate men or men away from wives) taking Austrian jobs and promoting Communism, or that both Czechia and Austria are EU members, one need not support the idea of arresting Czechs, let them wait till a busload is full and then get them to the frontier, for instance to Gmünd (one of the border crossings).

I think most Neo-Nazis with German sympathies (overlapping but not identic categories) would not like to open hostilities with Poland, either.

But let's take what's applicable and see if it's acceptable.

In the NSDAP governed German Reich, you had forced sterilisations, and you had people being shut into disciplinary facilities (not so facile or easy-going on them, but on their captors) for being beggars. In Austria, prior to 1938 and Anschluss, you did not have forced sterilisations, and you did not shut up people in most of Austria (only in Upper Austria) for begging, and when you did, the facility was not meant to force them to change their lifestyle, but to give them an opportunity to work themselves up from the situation. Wages were lower than normal, but that has been the case with some Swedish social measures as well, that I've tasted. Those refusing to work were not punished.

I think a very major difference is the attitude to Jews.

Magnus Hirschfeld was, for the nature of his research, much safer in the Weimar Republic than in Austria under Dollfuss or Schuschnigg. When von Papen made a coup, within Prussia, Berlin became less safe for Hirschfeld. He ended up in Paris and in Nice.

However, 1933, another Jew from Germany (Hamburg this time) who didn't feel safe in Germany, had no problem when moving to Austria, except in 1938, when Austro-Fascism fell, Henry Winterfeld had to move again.

Austro-Fascism didn't make Jews pay for the Magnus Hirschfelds.

Again, Austro-Fascism didn't ban Jews from exercising intellectual work (provided it wasn't of the Hirschfeld school). Heinrich Schenker was piano teacher, possibly composer, certainly music theorician, and died in 1935 under Schuschnigg. He had no legal problems teaching music theory to for instance Felix Salzer (a nephew of the Wittgenstein). His widow was less lucky, she died in Theresienstadt. Since Felix Salzer (through the grandfather Karl Wittgenstein, at least) had Jewish ancestry, he is listed among "Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States" on wikipedia.

Again, Jewish capitalism. National Socialism deprived William Meinhardt (deutscher Artikel) of his ownership in OSRAM because Meinhardt was Jewish. But the National Socialists did not reverse the policy of the Phoebus cartell, the real moral trouble with OSRAM, whether Meinhardt was or wasn't involved in that deal. NS also deprived Julius Fromm of his ownership, but allowed the immoral production to continue (desiring to keep this blog child friendly, I'm not entering into the details, it's possible to look up wiki). Julius Fromm's house, after his exile, became a Judenhaus, meaning a kind of ghetto, to which Jews were forced to move. This, I think, resumes the NSDAP attitude pretty well.

Austria had a different take. The fear was Jewish monopolies or oligopolies, the solution was a) to treat Jews as an ethnic minority (like Slovenes and Croatians) and b) to make a numerus clausus or percentage number on how much of a sector could be owned by an ethnic minority. If a Jew (or Croatian or Slovene) wanted to start a business in Vienna, in a sector which already had more than proportionally Jewish (or Croatian or Slovene) owners, he was not allowed to open it. That's the extent of laws targetting Jews. Ghettos (so to speak) existed, from old habit. Not from state force. Leopoldsstadt, II city district of Vienna, is known for the Prater and for having the top percentage of Jewish inhabitants of any city district (there were 21 such before the Anschluss).

In Leopoldsstadt, you had Israelitische Kulturgemeinde Wien. In 1933, the president of that association was one (quoting their list) not unknown:

Dr. DESIDER FRIEDMANN (in Auschwitz ermordet) 1933 –

On the day of the Anschluss, he was in London as a Minister in Austria and an emissary to British wealth (which had backed Nazi Germany more than Austria). On his return, he was arrested, because his gesture was disloyal to the German Reich.

But the most striking difference may be the mutual relations with the Catholic Church.

In NS ruled Germany, a Catholic bishop of Dresden Meissen lost his driving licence over speeding when trying to bring the sacraments to a dying man. Der Stürmer was, famously, toxic against Jews, but not much less against Catholics. The German bishops had excommunicated any person joining the NSDAP, at the Konkordat, this was limited to high ranking members (so, one reason Pius XII didn't excommunicate Hitler was, he was already excommunicated). In Vienna, a nun made a lampoon in verse against Hitler ... she was offered to be released if she renounced her religious vocation, as she refused, Sister Maria Restituta Kafka was executed (all the career of the White Rose existance from start to execution of the Scholl siblings was while she waited for her own death).

In Austria, the régime supported Catholicism (sometimes over the top, like an interview with a psychiatrist if you wanted to leave the Catholic Church, which was however not totally illegal either). And the régime based their actions, notably about workers' unions, employer's unions and independents' unions or farmers' unions, on the Church Domcument QUADRAGESIMO ANNO and on the writings of the Reverend Ignaz Seipel whose (in the taste of some) probably woke and social justice warrior like work Ethical Teachings on Economics of the Church Fathers (Wirtschaftsethische Lehre der Kirchenväter) from 1907 remains on my list of to-read books. Dito for his obviously Christian Nationalist work Nation und Staat from 1916.

A certain Jew feared Ignaz Seipel and warned for his antisemitism in "Die Stadt ohne Juden" (the city without Jews). But Bettauer (Protestant, formerly Jew) didn't die by an Austrofascist. His killer Otto Rothstock was a National Socialist. Just like Dollfuss' killer Otto Planetta.

Both the NS régime and the Austro-Fascist régime prosecuted abortion. Neither of them allowed the girl of 14 to be in the kind of pickle she would be now. But the NS solution was Lebensborn. In Austria, 14 remained a legal age for a girl to marry, if her parents agreed (and if she was pregnant, why wouldn't they, usually?). When I was a teen, of 13 / 14, I admired the idea of Lebensborn. Today I understand the Catholic critique, it promoted immorality, and promote the Catholic alternative: allowing teens to actually get married. Unlike Lebensborn, Austrian legislation was neither racist nor eugenicist, so Austro-Fascism didn't commit the same crimes, while also keeping abortion illegal (it was illegal in Germany too, but NS strengthened the prosecution and prevention efforts, one bonus point for them, but that it was needed is a minus point for the Weimar Republic).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
II L.D. after Epiphany
18.I.2026