Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia

Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia. Maria Theresa (1717-1780), German Empress, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria, a devout Roman Catholic, came to the throne of Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia in 1740. In 1736, she had married Francis, Duke of Lorraine, who had been made a Mason at The Hague in 1731 by Dr. Desaguliers of the Grand Lodge of London, and had received the Third Degree in England later that year. Although Francis became Co-Regent of Austria, he was unable to secure complete freedom from pers*cution for the Fraternity. There seems to have been a considerable number of Freemasons in Austria, but no lodge up to September 17, 1742, when Lodge of the Three Skulls at Breslau chartered the first lodge at Vienna under the name, Three Firing Glasses. It was closed, however, the following March, on which occasion, tradition informs us, Francis barely escaped the r*id by leaving the lodge through a back exit. The lodge continued to meet secretly and various other lodges were established in Austria by German bodies. It has been stated (Lawrie, History of Freemasonry, p. 131) that Freemasonry was introduced into Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia) in 1749, but there is no evidence of it. The Bull of Pope Benedict XIV in 1751 gave fresh impetus for the Catholic clergy to (comments removed) Freemasonry, but the Empress withheld severe action until 1764, when a royal decree was issued against the Freemasons in Austria. This was not enforced, however, possibly because the Emperor Francis was Master of the Lodge of Three Firing Glasses. In 1765, Francis died and was succeeded as Co-Regent by Joseph II, son of Francis and Maria Theresa, who was liberal-minded and actually accomplished more for freedom of personal conduct, including that of the Freemasons than Francis had been able to do.

The Jesuits were having troubles of their own at that time and Freemasonry had a breathing space. In 1771, the Strict Observance (q.v.) founded the Lodge of Three Eagles at Vienna and Zinnendorff (q.v.) placed one there in 1771 and another in 1775. By 1776, there were 4 lodges in Prague, Bohemia and, in 1775, the National Grand Lodge at Berlin established another at Prague and a Provincial Grand Lodge for Austria at Vienna. In 1780, Maria Theresa died and Joseph II became Emperor of Austria and allowed the Craft to prosper. By 1784, there were 6 Provincial Grand Lodges, with 45 lodges in the Empire, including Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia. In that year, 4 of these Provincials formed the National Grand Lodge of the Austrian States, with Count Dietrichstein as Grand Master. The National Grand Lodge at Berlin refused to acknowledge the new body and the Count was obliged to step down to Provincial Grand Master. Conditions changed rapidly, for in 1785, Joseph ordered the Austrian Grand Lodge to assert its independence of Berlin, so that the latter was compelled to acquiesce, and the other Provincial bodies appear to have joined the Grand Lodge.

Then came another surprise in the form of a decree issued Dec. 1, 1785 restricting the number of lodges in a city to 3, and closing all those in towns where there was no imperial court. In 1790, Joseph II d*ed and a new movement began to suppr*ss Freemasonry, which induced the Vienna lodges to close voluntarily in 1794. In 1795, an edict issued to suppr*ss the Craft throughout the Austrian States, and all lodges in the Empire were closed and remained closed in Hungary until 1867 and in Austria until 1918. The reason they could open in Hungary was that, in 1867, Austria and Hungary became two separate kingdoms in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But no anti-Masonic legislation had been adopted in Hungary, so that, on January 30, 1870, the National Grand Lodge of Hungary was formed by Unity Lodge and others. The Austrian lodges were converted into clubs which sometimes went over into Hungary and met as lodges. By 1918, there were as many as 14 lodges working under the Grand Lodge of Hungary.

After the fall of the Empire in W*rld W*r I, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) and Bosnia (Jugoslavia) all became separate nations, with governments of their own choosing. The Grand Lodge of Vienna was formed Dec. 8, 1919 and in the same year Grand Lodges were formed in Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia. The Nazi pers*cutions began in 1934. Paracelsus Lodge closed in that year, Pythagoras and Mozart in 1936, and Prometheus returned to its Mother Lodge. In March 1938, came the Nazi absorption (anschluss) of Austria. The lodge rooms were broken into and despoiled, Dr. Richard Schlesinger, Grand Master, was impris*ned and m*rdered. But, though W*rld W*r II liberated Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and other nations from the Nazis and Fascists, our politicians fumbled all the fruits of victory at the peace conferences and left all these countries and all of eastern Europe in the hands of the C*mmunists, so that Freemasonry in these areas is still suffering the same t*ranny though under a different name. For more complete details, see Transactions, Missouri Lodge of Research, Vol. 11, pp. 186-195; 213-221; 221-224.

Of the four countries discussed in this article Austria is the only one in which Freemasonry revived after the Nazi, the C*mmunists never gaining a foothold. The Grand Lodge of Austria is recognized by the Grand Lodges of the British Isles and by most of those in the United States.