Guido von List


Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List, was an Austrian occultist, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He expounded a modern Pagan new religious movement known as Wotanism, which he claimed was the revival of the religion of the ancient German race, and which included an inner set of Ariosophical teachings that he termed Armanism.
Born to a wealthy middle-class family in Vienna, List claimed that he abandoned his family's Roman Catholic faith in childhood, instead devoting himself to the pre-Christian god Wotan. Spending much time in the Austrian countryside, he engaged in rowing, hiking, and sketching the landscape. From 1877 he began a career as a journalist, primarily authoring articles on the Austrian countryside for nationalist newspapers and magazines. In these he placed a völkisch emphasis on the folk culture and customs of rural people, believing that many of them were survivals of pre-Christian, pagan religion. He published three novels, Carnuntum, Jung Diethers Heimkehr, and Pipara, each set among the German tribes of the Iron Age, as well as authoring several plays. During the 1890s he continued writing völkisch articles, now largely for the nationalist Ostdeutsche Rundschau newspaper, with his works taking on an anti-semitic dimension halfway through that decade. In 1893, he co-founded the Literarische Donaugesellschaft literary society, and involved himself in Austria's Pan-German nationalist movement, a milieu which sought the integration of Austria into the German Empire.
During an 11-month period of blindness in 1902, List became increasingly interested in occultism, in particular coming under the influence of the Theosophical Society, resulting in an expansion of his Wotanic beliefs to incorporate Runology and the Armanen Futharkh. The popularity of his work among the völkisch and nationalist communities resulted in the establishment of a List Society in 1908; attracting significant middle and upper-class support, the Society published List's writings and included an Ariosophist inner group, the High Armanen Order, over whom List presided as Grand Master.
Through these ventures he promoted the millenarian view that modern society was degenerate, but that it would be cleansed through an apocalyptic event resulting in the establishment of a new Pan-German Empire that would embrace Wotanism. After having erroneously prophesied that this empire would be established by victory for the Central Powers in World War I, List died on a visit to Berlin in 1919.
During his lifetime, List became a well-known figure among the nationalist and völkisch subcultures of Austria and Germany, influencing the work of many others operating in this milieu. His work, propagated through the List Society, influenced later völkisch groups such as the Reichshammerbund and Germanenorden, and through those exerted an influence on both the burgeoning Nazi Party, the SS and the German Faith Movement. After World War II his work continued to influence an array of Ariosophic and Heathen practitioners in Europe, Australia, and North America.

Biography

Early life: 1848–77

Guido Karl Anton List was born on 5 October 1848 in Vienna, then part of the Austrian Empire. Born to a prosperous middle-class family, he was the eldest son of Karl Anton List, a leather goods dealer who was the son of Karl List, a publican and vintner. Guido's mother, Marian List, was the daughter of builder's merchant Franz Anton Killian. List was raised in the city's second bezirk, on the eastern side of the Danube canal. Like most Austrians at the time, his family were members of the Roman Catholic denomination of Christianity, with List being christened into this faith at St Peter's Church in Vienna. Reflecting the family's wealth and bourgeoisie status, in 1851 a watercolour portrait of List was painted by the artist Anton von Anreiter.
Image:Carnuntum Heidentor.jpg|thumb|left|Heidentor, the Pagan Gate at Carnuntum where List buried wine bottles in 1875
Accounts suggest that List had a happy childhood. Developing a preference for rural areas rather than urban ones, he enjoyed family visits to the countryside of Lower Austria and Moravia, and - encouraged by his father - he began to sketch and paint the castles, prehistoric monuments, and natural scenery of these areas. According to his later account, he developed an early interest in the pre-Christian religions of Austria, coming to believe that the catacombs beneath St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna had once been a shrine devoted to a pagan deity. He claimed that on an 1862 visit to the catacombs with his father, he knelt before a ruined altar and swore that when he was an adult he would construct a temple to the ancient god Wotan.
Although List wanted to become an artist and scholar, he reluctantly agreed to his father's insistence that he enter the family's leather goods business. During his leisure time he devoted himself to writing and sketching as well as rambling, riding, or rowing in the countryside, becoming both a member of the Viennese rowing club Donauhort and the secretary of the Austrian Alpine Association. He was involved in both solitary and group expeditions into the Austrian Alps, and it was on one of the latter journeys that he left his mountaineering group to spend Midsummer night alone atop the Geiselberg hillfort. On 24 June 1875 he and four friends rowed down the Danube before camping for the night at the site of the ancient Roman fortification of Carnuntum to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the Battle of Carnuntum, in which Germanic tribes defeated the Roman Army. List later claimed that while his friends caroused, he celebrated the event with a fire and by burying eight bottles of wine in the shape of a swastika beneath the arch of the monument's Pagan Gate.

Early literary endeavours: 1877–1902

In 1877, List's father died. List soon abandoned the leather goods business that he inherited, intent on devoting himself to literary endeavours as a journalist, even if this meant a significant reduction in his income. On 26 September 1878 he married his first wife, Helene Förster-Peters. From 1877 to 1887 he wrote for the nationalist magazines Neue Welt, Heimat, Deutsche Zeitung, and the Neue Deutsche Alpenzeitung, with his articles being devoted to the Austrian countryside and the folk customs of its inhabitants. His interpretations emphasised what he believed were the pagan origins of Austrian place-names, customs, and legends, describing the landscape as being embodied by genius loci, and expressing clear German nationalist and völkisch sentiment.
In 1888, he published his first novel, Carnuntum, in two volumes. Set in the late fourth century CE, the narrative focused on a romance set against the background of the conflict between Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire around the area of the eponymous Roman fort. The novel established List as a recognised figure within Austria's Pan-German community, a movement of individuals unified in their belief that the majority German-speaking areas of the multi-linguistic and multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian state should cede and join with the newly established German Empire. The book also brought him to the attention of Friedrich Wannieck, a wealthy industrialist who was the chairman of both the Prague Iron Company and the First Brno Engineering Company. Wannieck was also president of the Verein 'Deutsches Haus', a nationalist organisation of linguistically German inhabitants of Brno who felt encircled by the largely Czech population of South Moravia. List and Wannieck began corresponding, resulting in a lifelong friendship between the two men. The Verein 'Deutsches Haus' subsequently published three of List's works in its series on German nationalist studies of history and literature.
List began regularly writing for a weekly newspaper, the Ostdeutsche Rundschau, which had been established in 1890 by the Austrian Pan-German parliamentary deputy Karl Wolf. In 1891, List anthologised many of the magazine articles that he had written over the previous decades in his book Deutsch-Mythologische Landschaftsbilder, extracts of which were then published in the Ostdeutsche Rundschau. Further völkisch articles on various topics pertaining to Austria's folk culture and to its ancient Germanic tribes followed during the 1890s, although midway through that decade his work took on an explicitly anti-semitic nature with articles such as "Die Juden als Staat und Nation". Other Austrian German nationalist newspapers which published his articles during this period included the Bote aus dem Waldviertel and Kyffhäuser.
Image:Deutsch Mythologische Landschaftsbilder2Page523.jpg|thumb|left|A scenic view of Höllental from List's Deutsch-Mythologische Landschaftsbilder
List began lecturing on these subjects; for instance, in February 1893 he spoke to the nationalist Verein 'Deutsches Geschichte' on the ancient priesthood of Wotan. He also worked as a playwright, and in December 1894 his play Der Wala Erweckung was premiered at an event organised by the Bund der Germanen which was devoted to the German nationalist cause, with Jews being explicitly banned from attending the event. Alongside his affiliation with the Bund, List was also a member of the Deutscher Turnverein, a strongly nationalistic group to whom he contributed literary works for their events.
In 1893, List and Fanny Wschiansky founded a belletristic society devoted to encouraging German nationalist and neo-romantic literature in Vienna, the Literarische Donaugesellschaft. The group was partly based upon the 15th-century Litteraria Sodalita Danubiana created by the Viennese humanist Conrad Celtes, about whom List authored a brief biography in 1893. He also authored two further novels during the 1890s, both of which were historical romances set in Iron Age Germany. The first appeared in 1894 as Jung Diethers Heimkehr, which told the story of a young Teuton living in the fifth century who has been forcefully converted to Christianity but who returns to his original solar cult. The second was Pipara, a two-volume story published in 1895 which told the story of an eponymous Quadi maiden who escaped captivity from the Romans to become an empress. In 1898, he then authored a catechism exhibiting a form of pagan deism titled Der Unbesiegbare.
List's activities had made him a celebrity within the Austrian Pan-German movement, with the editors of the Ostdeutsche Rundschau convening a Guido List evening in April 1895 and South Vienna's Wieden Singers' Club holding a List festival in April 1897. Having divorced his previous wife, in August 1899 List married Anna Wittek, who was from Stecky in Bohemia. Despite List's modern Pagan faith, the wedding was held in an evangelical Protestant church, reflecting the growing popularity of Protestantism among Austria's Pan-German community, who perceived it as a more authentically German form of Christianity than the Catholicism that was popular among Austria-Hungary's other ethnic and linguistic communities. Wittek had previously appeared in a performance of List's Der Wala Erweckung and had publicly recited some of his poetry. Following their marriage, List devoted himself fully to drama, authoring the plays König Vannius in 1899, Sommer-Sonnwend-Feuerzauber in 1901 and Das Goldstück in 1903. He also authored a pamphlet titled Der Wiederaufbau von Carnuntum in 1900, in which he called for the reconstruction of the ancient Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum as an open-air stage through which Wotanism could be promoted.