they have
continued without a break since the days of the Tugendbund and have
always preserved their masonic and "illuminized" character. But since
the beginning of the Great War, and still more since the Armistice,
their numbers have increased until in 1921 they were estimated to run
into three figures. Moreover, as in the time of Weishaupt, Bavaria is
still a centre for secret-society intrigue, and it was here that
Escherich founded the _Einwohnerwehr_ sometimes known as the _Orgesch_
or Organization Escherich, with Munich as its headquarters. The Orgesch
was followed by the formidable murder club known to all the world as the
Organization C or "Consul," named after its founder, the famous Captain
Ehrhardt, whose nickname was "_der Herr Consul_." During the year 1921
no less than 400 political assassinations were reported in Germany and
said to be the work of secret societies. Amongst the crimes attributed
to the initiative of Organization C were the murders of Herr Erzberger
and the attempt on the life of Herr Scheidemann. Eighty persons arrested
for complicity in the murder of Herr Rathenau were also said to be
members of the same society.[796]

But as in the case of all secret societies, the visible leaders were not
the real hierarchy; behind this active body there existed an inner
circle organised on masonic lines, the Druidenorden, a name unknown to
the public, and behind this again another and still more secret circle
which appears to be nameless. It is these inner rings which, whilst
remaining Monarchist in Germany, work for other ends abroad, and are
connected with the world-revolutionary movement.

This alliance between the two extremes of ardent Monarchism and
revolutionary Socialism existed at the beginning of the war or even
earlier, and, as is now well known, it was the Jewish Social Democrat,
Israel Lazarewitch, alias Helphandt alias Parvus, who arranged with the
German General Staff for the passage of Lenin from Switzerland to
Russia, accompanied by Karl Radek, the Austrian Jew deserter, and a
number of other Jews.

Now, Switzerland has been for hundreds of years a centre of
revolutionary and secret-society intrigue. As early as the sixteenth
century the Pope, writing to the Kings of France and Spain, warned them
that Geneva was "un foyer eternel de revolution," and Joseph de Maistre,
quoting this letter in 1817, declared Geneva to be the metropolis of the
revolutionaries, whose art of deception he d