Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels
Austrian publicist (1874–1954)
Adolf Josef Lanz (19 July 1874 – 22 April 1954), also known under his pseudonym as Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, was an Austrian political and racial theorist and occultist, who was a pioneer of Ariosophy. He was a former Cistercian monk and the founder of the magazine Ostara, in which he published antisemitic and völkisch theories.
Early life
He was born on 19 July 1874 in the Penzing district of Vienna in what was then Austria-Hungary, as the son of schoolmaster Johann Lanz and his wife Katharina, née Hoffenreich. His maternal grandfather Samuel Hoffenreich (later known as Josef Hoffenreich) was born in 1815 in Holíč, Slovakia, and was the son of a Jewish merchant.
His parents were middle class, and his father's ancestors had been burghers in Vienna since the early 18th century. Consequently, he claimed to be the son of Baron Johannes Lancz de Liebenfels and began to call himself "Baron Adolf Georg (Jörg) Lanz Von Liebenfels Ph.D."
As a young boy, he was fascinated by Arthurian legends about the Holy Grail.
Liebenfels became a monk in the Cistercian Order in 1893, assuming the name Georg and living in the Heiligenkreuz Abbey. In 1894, he claimed to have become "enlightened" after finding the tombstone of a Knight Templar, and began developing his theories of "blue-blond Aryanism" and "lower races". In 1899, he left the Cistercian Order.
Work with Theozoology
In 1905, he published his book Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron (lit. 'Theozoology, or the Science of the Sodomite-Apelings and the Divine Electron') in which he advocated sterilization of the sick and the "lower races" as well as forced labour for "castrated chandals", and glorified the "Aryan race" as "Gottmenschen" (lit. 'god-men').
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