Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft
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Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft (Germanic Faith-Community) is a German Germanic Neopagan society. They claim to be the oldest Germanic Neopagan organisation still operational.
It was founded in 1907 by professor Ludwig Fahrenkrog (1867-1952) in Germany. In the 1930s they were heavily suppressed by the Nazis. In 1933, Rudolf von Sebottendorf was arrested and exiled. The Nazis banned works of Odinist writers, for instance Lanz von Liebenfels, Ernst Issberner-Haldane and Reinhold Ebertin. Being a current or former member of an Odinist organisation disqualified anyone from holding rank or office within NSDAP. In 1936 the runemaster Friedrich Bernhard Marby, a follower of Guido von List, was arrested and sent to a concentration camp at Flossenberg. He was released from the Dachau concentration camp in 1945. Many other members ended up in the concentration camps, and at least one member was killed therein.
The full focus of the state was not aimed at religious minorities until the June 9, 1941 when Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the security police, banned a large number of spiritual practices, among them followers of Rudolf Steiner, Guido von List and traditional Odinists. The organisations were dissolved, their property confiscated, and many of their leaders arrested. [1]
In 1952, Ludwig Dessel succeeded Fahrenkrog as president. The society remained active until 1957, and in 1964, it was deleted from the official registers, most members being dead.
In 1991 it was reactivated by Géza von Neményi, who had received the society archives from Dessel as the result of a hostile split of the Heidnische Gemeinschaft which von Neményi had founded in 1985.
Subsequently, the GGG successfully sued the Artgemeinschaft which also claimed to be the legal successor of Fahrenkrog's organization. On the other hand, in 1995 the GGG denied to be a continuation of Fahrenkrog's organization. After 1997, they again claimed to have been founded in 1907. The GGG claim to be unpolitical; they have, however, denounced the Federal Republic of Germany as "undemocratic", and the suspicion has been voiced (Schnurbein, 1993) that the GGG does not take a clear position with regard to völkisch currents in Neopaganism with the purpose of maximizing their influence on all parts of the Neopagan spectrum. The GGG displays emphatic hostility towards the Christian church, denouncing church officials as "Inquisitors", and on the occasion of the papal visit of 1996 to Germany, von Neményi called for resistance, the realization of which in the event was apparently restricted to magical means.
