Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens
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Edited by:
Reinhard Markner
Ever since it was banned by the Bavarian government in 1784/85 the secret society of the Illuminati has been the object both of fantastic speculations and of intensive historical research. For its contemporaries it represented a prime example of 'Enlightenment despotism' and political conspiracy. The opening of the freemasons' archives now makes it possible to take a fresh look at the activities of the Illuminati as reflected in the correspondence that has come down to us.
The first volume received positive critical attention: Der Spiegel attested that the editors have shed light on the atmospheres and struggles within the legendary secret society as precisely as no one before. The correspondence, wrote Der Spiegel, opens up a fascinating, yet very German story: a tragic comedy, made up of high aims, imaginations of power and loss of reality.
This volume assembles letters from the period of the secret society's headlong growth in the first six years of its existence.
The fight for supremacy in the German and European Freemasonry is one of the central topics of this second volume of the correspondences of the Order of Illuminati. Another key element is the discord between the ‘Ordensgeneral’ Adam Weishaupt and his most important colleague Adolph Freiherr von Knigge. All of the letters are comprehensively annotated and indexed; most of them are now being published for the first time.
The first volume received positive critical attention: Der Spiegel attested that the editors have shed light on the atmospheres and struggles within the legendary secret society as precisely as no one before. The correspondence, wrote Der Spiegel, opens up a fascinating, yet very German story: a tragic comedy, made up of high aims, imaginations of power and loss of reality.
