Nazis masonic treasure trove returns !

Russians return artefacts plundered from European Lodges during war.

That was the interesting headline in Scotland on Sunday newspaper

on 23rd. June 2002. 

Bro. Bob Cooper, Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland museum is helping to co-ordinate the return of thousands of documents and artefacts looted from Lodges in Europe (some with strong Scottish roots) by the Nazis during the second world war. 

The Russian government has delivered 750 crates full of precious objects

such as hand embroidered aprons, medals and wall hangings to the masonic headquarters in Paris.

The goods were plundered from European Lodges (including English Lodges in the occupied Channel Islands) during the Nazis brutal persecution of the order, which saw more than 80,000 people sent to concentration camps. It is thought significant amounts of the material , which languished in Berlin until it was taken by the Russians after the war, belongs to Lodges set up by Scots in the 18th. century. Bob Cooper said that "For masons in Scotland, as well as historians, the new development is very exciting. Perhaps we will see artefacts that we presumed had been destroyed over the years." 

"The systematic persecution of the masons was terrible. Hopefully this will bring masons together and help them come to terms with the atrocities that happened during the war. Ironically it is because the Germans and Russians kept safe what they took from the Lodges that we have a chance of piecing parts of history back together today."

One of the most interesting discoveries are letters exchanged  between

Lodges in France and Scotland which could throw up evidence to support

a theory that Bonnie Prince Charlie was a Freemason.

Despite their hatred of the Freemasons for some reason the Nazis did

not destroy the material. After the war the vaults were broken into

and their contents shipped to Moscow by the Russians. Hundreds of

the stolen masonic artefacts were stacked in vaults in the centre

of Moscow while documents were kept at the  Russian Military Archives - and there they were left, and forgotten about for over 60 years. However 10 years ago an American researcher working in Moscow discovered the masonic archives and treasures and wrote an essay on the subject. 

Last year the Russian government agreed to return much of what was taken. It is part of a wider move to return goods stolen during the Second World War to their rightful owners.   

Persecution in Europe. 

Nazis in Italy and Germany had a passionate hatred for Freemasonry, which they saw as a dangerous secret organisation dominated by Jews. In the summer of 1925, Benito Mussolini set about their persecution, dissolving the Lodges and sending Blackshirt squads to loot the homes of well known Masons in Milan, Florence and other cities, murdering at least 100 in the process. Hitler ordered Freemasons to declare their membership and also dissolved the Grand Lodges of Germany, sending prominent members of the order to concentration camps.

The Gestapo seized their membership lists and looted Lodge libraries

and collections of masonic objects. Much of this loot was then exhibited

in an "Anti-Masonic Exposition" inaugurated in 1937 by Joseph Goebbels

in Munich. In total, about 80,000 German Masons whose names were on

the membership lists were put to death. Around 5,000 whose names had

not yet been entered in the books of the Grand Lodge escaped persecution.

Hitler repeated the process in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and every other country invaded, including the English Lodges which operated

in the captured Channel Islands. In Vichy France the government caused

the two masonic bodies of France, the Grand Orient and The Grand Lodge

to be dissolved and their property seized.

Freemasons in concentration camps wore a black triangle to distinguish

them just as Jews wore the star of David on their prison clothes.