Chapter 2: Conservatism from East to West (1950-1956)

This chapter recounts the reactionary and conservative resurgence following World War II and the long wave of progressive resistance throughout the 1950s.

The Reactionary and Conservative Resurgence

The 1950s saw the rise of political conservative and reactionary impulses, spurred by significant international events. Chief among these were the escalating ideological tensions of the Cold War, notably between:

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (“Iosif Stalin”) – a renegade Freemason leading the Soviet bloc.
Harry Truman – a declared Freemason heading the Euro-American bloc.

Prominent Freemasons such as George Orwell (initiated by 1945), Walter Lippmann, and Bernard Baruch (in 1947) contributed to coining the term “Cold War” to describe the latent conflict between these superpowers and their satellites.

Key historical milestones included the 1948 Soviet Berlin Blockade, the 1949 establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) with Bonn as its capital, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) proclaimed in 1949, with Berlin East as capital. The erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 further codified the division.

Heraldic symbolism:

The West German emblem (Federal Republic) revived the traditional Teutonic single-headed eagle on a golden-yellow background, symbolic with alchemical and Masonic overtones.
The East German emblem (DDR) included a hammer (classic communist symbol) overlapped by a compass and square (Masonic symbols, revealing the infiltration of Masonic imagery in communist iconography).

Freemasons Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin

Both Angela Merkel (b. 1954) and Vladimir Putin (b. 1952) were initiated into Freemasonry (late 1980s) within the same Ur-Lodge operating in East Germany and West Germany.

This super lodge was initially called “Golden Eurasia”, renamed from 1967 “Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque” (Mirror of the East and West), symbolizing an anti-Soviet alliance with Ur-Lodge “Lux ad Orientem”, founded in 1967 by Freemason Zbigniew Brzezinski.

The lodge remains active, notably involved in complex geopolitical events such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

East-West Tensions and Military Alliances

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), established in 1949 under U.S. and Western powers’ auspices, featured esoteric symbolism such as an eight-pointed wind rose, reminiscent of the Masonic black-and-white checkered floor.
The Warsaw Pact (1955), dominated by the USSR and Eastern bloc, displayed the five-pointed star (a Masonic symbol associated with the second degree of Masonry (“craftsman”)) and a stylized Masonic handshake common in certain European and Asian Ur-Lodges.

Prominent East German leaders with concealed yet operational Masonic pasts included:

Otto Grotewohl (1894-1964) – SPD official and DDr Prime Minister (1949–64).
Wilhelm Pieck (1876-1960) – DDR President (1949–1960).
Walter Ulbricht (1893-1973) – Chairman and Party Secretary (1960–1973).

In West Germany:

Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) – Catholic and Christian-Democratic Freemason, Chancellor (1949–1963), member of various Vatican chivalric orders with Masonic presence.
Theodor Heuss (1884-1963) – Freemason and first President of the Federal Republic (1949–1959), from a longstanding liberal tradition.

The Bilderberg Club and Ditchley Foundation

Ditchley Foundation, founded by Freemason David Wills (1917-1999), had ties to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). The Wills family, originating in Bristol tobacco industry, included Freemasons William Day Wills and Henry Overton Wills.
The Bilderberg Group (established 1954) emerged from a collaboration of international Freemasons of note, including:
- Józef Hieronim Retinger (1888-1960)
- Bernhard van Lippe-Biesterfeld (1911-2004) – Prince consort of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands
- Henry John Heinz II (“Jack Heinz”, 1908-1987)
- David Rockefeller (b. 1915)
- Denis Healey (b. 1917)
- And others tied to political, economic, media, and cultural spheres, often connected to preexisting paramasonic societies like the Pilgrims Society, Chatham House, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

These bodies had a neo-oligarchic and conservative operational profile, camouflaged by their broad inclusion of figures across the political spectrum (excluding extremists).

The Progressivist Masonic Wave

Despite conservative resurgence, a long wave of Masonic progressivism persisted throughout the 20th century, inspired by Rooseveltian and Keynesian paradigms, notably:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Maynard Keynes – Freemasons who guided economic policies emphasizing market economy enhanced by public investment and welfare.
George Catlett Marshall (1880-1959) – Freemason and U.S. Secretary of State, architect of the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), 1948-51.
William Beveridge (1879-1963) – Liberal Party Freemason, author of the 1942 Beveridge Report advocating social security and welfare.
Clement Attlee (1883-1967) – Labour Party Freemason, instrumental in establishing the British welfare state post-1945 election victory.

The Korean War and McCarthyism

Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China by Mao Zedong (communist), the Korean War (1950-1953) further solidified East-West tension.
The McCarthy era (1950-54), led by republican senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), represented a reactionary anti-communist crusade in the U.S., characterized by intimidation and persecution, including of prominent liberals and Freemasons:

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) – progressive Freemason, victim of blacklisting.
Prominent opponents of McCarthyism included:
Harry Truman – liberal Freemason who vetoed the civil liberties-curbing McCarran Act (1950), although ultimately overridden.
John Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) – conservative Freemason and FBI director, skeptical of McCarthy’s methods.
U.S. senators (all Freemasons) such as Robert Clymer Hendrickson, Wayne Morse, George Aiken, Irving Ives, Edward John Thye, and Ralph Edward Flanders.
Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) – progressive Freemason and CBS journalist who exposed McCarthyism leading to McCarthy’s Senate censure in 1954.
President Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969), a paramason, was also opposed to McCarthy’s excesses.

Freemasonry’s Grip on Europe in the 1950s

Conservatism focused not on preserving existing structures but on rejecting full deployment of egalitarian, rationalist, secular, relativistic, and libertarian democratic values.
Europe saw right-wing dominance:
- Spain under Francisco Franco (parafascist dictatorship)
- Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar (ditto)
- UK’s premiership return of conservative Freemason Winston Churchill (1951-1955).
West Germany, controlled institutionally by Freemasons Konrad Adenauer and Theodor Heuss, united conservatives, Christian democrats, and liberals.
Italy’s Christian Democracy (DC) party was supported by Freemasons in the US administration, including President Truman and his associates.
Influential Freemasons involved in Italian governance strategy included:
- Truman, Marshall, Myron Charles Taylor, Allen Welsh Dulles, director of OSS and CIA
- Dean Acheson, Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter, Walter Bedell Smith, John Foster Dulles, James Jesus Angleton, and others.
Conservative American diplomat Clare Boothe Luce (liberal Freemason) and her successor James David Zellerbach (Freemason) steered U.S. cultural influence in Italy.

Italian Freemasonry and the “Back Office” Model

Italian Freemasons, particularly within the Grande Oriente d’Italia (GOI), adapted a covert style, working behind the scenes, unlike more public Freemasonry in other countries.
The notorious Lodge Propaganda became the selective pinnacle of Masonic influence under leaders like Giuseppe Mazzoni and Adriano Lemmi in the 19th century.
Postwar, the shadowy Lodge P2 (Propaganda Due) emerged as the submerged apex of Italy’s clandestine Masonic influence, diverging from the tradition of open lodges.
Meanwhile, superloges or Ur-Lodges infiltrated media and secret services, especially in the USA where the CIA was founded by Freemason Harry Truman in 1947 under the National Security Act.
Important British intelligence heads in MI6, such as George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, Hugh Sinclair, Stewart Menzies, and John Alexander Sinclair, were also Freemasons.

Giorgio Napolitano and Eastern Bloc Freemasonry

Giorgio Napolitano (later Italian President), from an intrinsically Masonic family environment, was initiated in 1978 in Washington at the prestigious Ur-Lodge called “Three Architects” or “Three Eyes”, after a pre-initiation near Yale.
Napolitano affiliated with the same Masonic currents as Zbigniew Brzezinski (founder and first Master of Lux ad Orientem, 1967).
Early phase of Napolitano (1950s), pre-Masonic initiation, aligned with “philosoviet conservatism”, supporting Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
This mirrored a functional equivalence between Soviet bloc conservatism and Western anti-communist conservative tendencies (McCarthyism) in managing post-war governance elite power.

The Power of the Ur-Lodges

The powerful secretive Ur-Lodges influencing 1950s conservatism included:

“Rosa-Stella Ventorum” or “Compass Star-Rose”
“Pan-Europa”
“Three Architects” (“Three Eyes”)
“Lux ad Orientem”
“Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque” / “Golden Eurasia”
These Ur-Lodges are supra-national super-lodges, transcending traditional national Freemasonry (e.g., United Grand Lodge of England, Grande Oriente di Francia, and GOI), admitting men and women on equal terms.
Historically, progressive Freemasons such as George Orwell (alias Eric Arthur Blair) and John Maynard Keynes belonged to exclusive Ur-Lodges pushing democratization and social transformation agendas.

Paramasonic Associations and Reactionary Drift

Early post-war paramasonic groups include:
Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), founded 1947 in Switzerland, with prominent Freemason founders influencing later socio-economic policies.
Other paramasonic entities established from the late 19th century onwards, with often variegated political-economic orientations, include:

Fabian Society (1884) – early social-democratic Masonic influence
Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA or Chatham House) (1920)
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (1921)
B’nai B’rith (1843) – ethnic paramasonic organization reserved for Jews
Pilgrims Society (UK 1902, US 1903)
Bohemian Club (1872, San Francisco)
Tavistock Institute (est. 1947)
Bilderberg Group (1954)
Ditchley Foundation (1958)
Trilateral Commission (1973)
Group of Thirty (1978)
Bruegel (2005)
Spinelli Group (2010)

Paramasonry Defined

Paramasonry is distinguished by involving non-Masons (“profane useful”) in semi-Masonic clubs and organizations, with full power reserved to initiated Freemasons.
These groups undertake political, diplomatic, economic, cultural activities beyond formal lodge limits.

The “Gruppo di Ur” and Extra-Masonic Esoteric Circles

Reactionary esoteric groups like the Gruppo di Ur formed in Italy in the late 1920s by Freemasons Arturo Reghini, Giulio Parise, and Julius Evola, sought influence over fascism with anti-modern, neopagan, anti-Christian agendas.

The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations

Founded officially 1947, successor to Tavistock Clinic (1920), a pioneering psychiatric and social psychology center in London.
Early founders and frequent Freemasonry or paramasonic associations include:

Cyril Burt (1883-1971) – psychologist
Hugh Crichton-Miller (1877-1959) – psychiatrist
Herbrand Russell (1858-1940) – 11th Duke of Bedford (donated facility)
John Rawlings Rees (1890-1969) – psychiatrist and wartime psychological warfare leader
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) – psychologist specializing in group dynamics
George Pratt Shultz (b. 1920) – economist and US statesman
Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) – political scientist and diplomat
John Jay McCloy (1895-1989) – lawyer, banking and government official
William Paley (1901-1990) – CBS media magnate and psychological warfare expert
Others including Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Ignatz Bubis, Gregory Bateson, Andrew Shonfield, Ronald David Laing, Jacques Attali, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
The institute developed techniques in social psychiatry, mass behavior, psychological warfare, and social engineering, collaborating with intelligence agencies and influential foundations like Rockefeller and Ford.
While often criticized for alleged manipulative social engineering, the Tavistock Institute has multiple facets, including scientific and therapeutic aims.

Internal Divisions Within Freemasonry and Paramasonry

The Masonic-Paramasonic world is plural and fragmented, encompassing liberal, conservative, progressive, and radical elements.
Complexity often eludes simplistic conspiracy theories which conflate all factions as a monolithic evil.
Freemasonry historically has led the democratization overthrow of Ancien Régime and embraces pluralism, liberty, and secularism, opposing dogmatic, authoritarian traditions.

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Massoni | 2- Post-War Period