The Bilderberg Group: Origins

By JURRIAAN MAESSEN | EXPLOSIVE REPORTS | MAY 30, 2012

Just a few days from now, the world’s economic, political and scientific elites (not to mention top media kingpins) will gather near Chantilly, Virginia to fine-tune an agenda that’s been long in the making. Its roots reach so far down in the soil of history, we’ll have to roll up our sleeves before we descend.

An Unholy Alliance

In 1943, while Europe was blindfolded by terror and death, a book was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons which carried the title The Thousand Year Conspiracy (part I & part II). In the book, the author Paul Winkler offers a fascinating insight into the people who are in the business of engineering financial crises and wars in Prussia from its very conception way back in the dark ages. In order to acquire at least some understanding about the origin and significance of this “Prusso-Teutonic” establishment, as Winkler calls it, let us follow the author down the ladder into his deep research. You may argue that the hour is late, producing a “review” of a book published well over 65 years ago, but the obscurity in which the book lay hidden all that time and its relevance to our own day, I think justifies an attempt. Pulled from underneath a large stack of wartime literature, cleared from a thick layer of dust, The Thousand Year Conspiracy should raise some eyebrows- not to say make you fall from your chair in sheer amazement. Around the time the book hit the stores in the U.S., few people understood the full implication of this manuscript. At that time all eyes were transfixed on the Fuhrer, who was barking a continuous stream of orders at trembling generals.

As one of the instruments in their well-planned push for world domination, the German aristocratic elite (Winkler calls them ‘Junkers’ throughout the book) created the biggest bully of them all, Adolf Hitler, to antagonize the world- and consequently clear the brushes for a two-man race between the East and the West in the decades thereafter. As far as the Junkers were concerned, Hitler was a dream come true as he was reaping havoc around the globe, thereby forcing his enemies to commence with a world government rising from the ruins of the War that ensued. Empires come and go, Winkler argues, tyrants rise and fall- but an unholy alliance holds firm throughout history, guiding the course of events as the world turns. The real controllers seldom appear out from the shadows. They rather stay out of sight: promoting, funding and supervising certain individuals who will do their bidding in the full light of day. As the muffled sound of planes was heard snoring overhead, Winkler set out to identify what he calls “the forces behind the forces”: an alignment of two powers that have dominated Germany from the 13th century onward.

Rise of the Hanseatic League

Around the year 1175, somewhere in the vast forests of Northern Germany, several Germanic merchants and noblemen were gathered in secret to discuss an idea that was already brewing for some time past. Although initially the plan was probably still as shapeless as the forest deities they praised, it slowly grew into more than just a plan that would eventually have great implications for Northern Europe in the centuries to come. Ancient trading guilds from all over Germany, Hansas as they were called, set out to build a great unified trade organization. This new organization was out to gather as many European towns under its wing as possible, offering all kinds of trading privileges along the Baltic and North Sea and in return demanding free access through all ports along the great inland rivers. Good news, it seemed, for the impoverished forts of the Low Countries in the west, for now they were able to trade more goods over longer distances. But the local riverside lords had unknowingly entered into an agreement with a cunning serpent. Over the next three centuries the League would dictate economic policy in Western Europe and therefore exert influence on the everyday politics of those days. Playing cities and counties off against each other, the organization held medieval North-West Europe in a tight economic stranglehold that would last for the better part of the Middle Ages. In the course of this time the number of towns that swore (or were forced to swear) allegiance to the League rose to a staggering 200. A bewildering number when we take into account we are still in the dirty depths of the Dark Ages. The League realized however that controlling and expanding her monopoly would require more than just relying on the weapon of economic boycott. The new trade organization would enforce its rule with the help of an industrious military arm, clearing the way for hanseatic settlements in the remotest of areas.

The Teutonic Order

Founded in 1189 on the shores of the Holy Land, the Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary’s hospital in Jerusalem was forced into being under the sails of the seafaring tradesmen. In order to legitimize this new military arm it was cleverly streamlined with the lucrative crusades in the Holy Land that were already in full swing around the time of its founding. To have taken part in the Holy War meant an enormous boost in prestige back home in Europe; and besides, conducting operations under the papal seal enabled the Teutonic swordsmen to go ahead with their real business of interest: setting up a military system not in pagan-infested Outremer, but in North-West Europe along the trading routes of their sister organization, the Hanseatic League. But first they had to present themselves on the battlefield, though somewhat reluctantly and not exactly in solidarity with the Holy War or with the armies waging it (Teutonic Knights were not very idealistic, nor were they particularly religiously motivated). After receiving the required stripes the “fighting monks” quickly lowered their flag and scurried off back to Germany, leaving the doomed Templars to do the fighting in their stead. Back in the heimat the Order wasted no time doing what it had intended to do from the very start: to become the Hanseatic League’s iron hand, enforcing its trading monopoly wherever it was needed and effectively setting up a military dictatorship to suppress potential rivals lurking in the background. This time, the Teutonic knights were summoned to secure important strategic areas in the east, where unyielding Prussian tribes blocked the trading routes that the League had set its sights on. The Order contrived a great converting with the bloody sword of Christendom as a pretext to go in- which they did as soon as the approval from Rome came through. Without having to worry about overzealous cardinals interfering, the slaughter began. In a series of heavily subsidized manhunts, the Teutonic knights butchered thousands of Prussians and installed themselves as sovereign rulers. At the same time the Order gave a heads-up to the Hanseatic League in their wake to sail on in and trade away. The continent had not seen such a coordinated and confident effort of a military and economic order since the Roman Empire had evaporated almost a millennium earlier.

To capture the true meaning of this medieval order of “fighting monks”, the author convincingly points out that the Teutonic knights have very early on in history aligned themselves with the  other dominant power – the Hanseatic League- consisting of ancient European- especially German nobility. The historic significance of this partnership can hardly be exaggerated. Winkler asserts that the original intentions of the German crusaders to the Holy Land had nothing whatsoever to do with some vague ideology to liberate the Holy Land, but rather with a hidden agenda the German aristocratic elite had prepared long before it even considered taking up the sword to drive out the evil pagans:

“The Order itself had among its secret aims that of serving as a “Hospital” for German nobility.(…) The Knights used the term “Hospital” in a symbolic sense (…) and concealed behind it one of the aims of the Order- “conspiracy to promote the interests of a caste.”’

The Order State

To project its confidence to their enemies and adequately install fear into their hearts, both the Order and the League printed a black double headed eagle firmly on their respective banners. The chosen symbol could not have been more fitting: one body, symbolizing a common purpose, from which two heads peered greedily eastward and westward, depicting the two divisions with which to accomplish that purpose. The eagle would later evolve into the black cross of the Prussian Order state- a symbol that would ultimately survive as the black swastika within a white circle: the black sun of the Nazis. It is no coincidence that the failed architect from Braunau often invoked the lebensraum-philosophy of his Teutonic predecessors to explain his ambitious policies to a mesmerized German people.

At the beginning of the 15th century the lands formerly inhabited by the conquered Prussian tribes were ruthlessly transformed into the Teutonic Order State, better known as Prussia. Looking at a map of Northern Europe around that time, we see a red stain filling up the space, expanding in all directions with blood dripping off the edges. Although the Holy Roman Empire was not at all generous when it came to competing forces rising up in the neighborhood, the new Order State was clearly the exception to the rule as it was feared like a snake but treated like a king. Whenever the Order State required a favor, the Empire granted it without debate. Several royal families such as the Hohenzollerns- long time members of both the League and the Order- were appointed by the double headed eagle to rule the new Order State in the east and rule it mercilessly. The west was brought under the control of the German house of Nassau and the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s. It is no coincidence that these very same families appear prominently on the membership list of Bilderberg. Needless to say they rarely miss a meeting.

Consolidating Power

In short: while the German aristocracy spun an economic web around Northern Europe with the help of the German Hanseatic League, the Teutonic Order consolidated power militarily. When these two forces joined, the tectonic energy that was released created the “Prusso-Teutonic” alliance.

“Under the protection of the Order, Winkler writes, “a cast of nobles, enjoying the favour and complicity of the Knights, settled in the conquered countries. These “Junkers” in turn tried to appropriate for their exclusive advantage the very aims and traditions which the Order itself had carried down from the Germano-Roman emperors.”

Under the header “The “New Order” is an Old Order”, the author expands further on this strange no-man’s-land between light and shadow in which the “Junkers” usually operate. Winkler:

“The Prusso-Teutonics know that military occupation of France cannot last forever. Besides, they have probably considered the possibility of a German defeat which would bring about the fall of the Nazi regime.”

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