Schiller Institute
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The Schiller Institute is a German-based political and economic think tank founded in 1984 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche,<ref name="The Times">Roger Boyes, "Blame the Jews" The Times Friday November 07 2003, 12.00am GMT archive links: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blame-the-jews-scr5svbhz0q https://archive.today/20210729100356/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blame-the-jews-scr5svbhz0q</ref> with stated members in 50 countries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is among the principal front organizations of the LaRouche movement.<ref name="Smith 2019 m697">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Osipovich 2020 u614">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="holocaustresearchproject.org 2003 e611">Template:Cite web</ref> The institute's stated aim is to apply the ideas of the poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to what it calls the "contemporary world crisis."Template:Cn The Independent describes it as "an extremist political think-tank linked to a right-wing conspiracy theorist, Lyndon LaRouche."<ref name="Taylor 2010 r571">Template:Cite web</ref> According to The Times, its aim is "to propagate [LaRouche's] increasingly wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories."<ref name="The Times"/>
The website of the Schiller Institute includes transcripts of conferences that the institute has sponsored, throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, to promote the idea of what it calls "peace through development". The discussion at these conferences centers around LaRouche's proposals for infrastructure projects such as the "Eurasian Land Bridge", and the "Oasis Plan", a Middle East peace agreement based on Arab-Israeli collaboration on major water projects, as well as proposals for debt relief and a sweeping reorganization of the world monetary system. The Institute opposes the "Clash of Civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington, counter-posing what it calls a "Dialogue of Cultures". It supports the Belt and Road Initiative, which it says provides "shared mutually beneficial and balanced development".Template:Cn
It publishes quarterly magazines, such as Fidelio, a Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft, and Ibykus, named after Schiller's poem "The Cranes of Ibykus."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
After the death of Jeremiah Duggan, a Jewish student, at one of its conferences in 2003, the Institute was accused of antisemitism and cult-like operation.<ref name="holocaustresearchproject.org 2003 e611"/>
Founding
The institute was founded at a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1984 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the German-born wife of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. Its stated aim is to seek to apply the ideas of poet, dramatist and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to the current global political situation. They emphasize Schiller's concept of the interdependence of classical artistic beauty and republican political freedom, as elaborated in his series of essays entitled Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man.
On November 26, 1984, the institute released a "Declaration of the Inalienable Rights of Man," which it describes as "the basis of the Institute's work and efforts worldwide." It states in part:
Zepp-LaRouche has explained the need for the Schiller Institute as follows:
Among the past and present members of the institute's board of directors are Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Webster Tarpley,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Civil rights leader Amelia Boynton Robinson, former South Carolina State Assemblyman Theo Mitchell, classical singer William Warfield, former Guyanese Foreign Minister Frederick Wills, physicist Winston H. Bostick, and former Borough President of Manhattan Hulan Jack.<ref name="Gilbert 2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Among the founding members of the institute were Hulan Jack and French Resistance leader Marie-Madeleine Fourcade.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Political activity
Template:Primary The Institute's constitution, adopted in 1984, opposes international financial institutions and other supranational bodies for causing a state of tyranny in the world, especially amongst developing nations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Primary inline
The Institute website includes transcripts of conferences that the institute has sponsored worldwide to promote the idea of what it calls "peace through development".<ref name="schillerinstitute1">Template:Cite web</ref> The discussion at these conferences has generally centered around LaRouche's proposals for infrastructure projects such as the "Eurasian Land Bridge", and the "Oasis Plan", a Middle East peace agreement based on Arab–Israeli collaboration on major water projects. The conferences also typically discuss proposals for debt relief and the "New Bretton Woods," a proposal for a sweeping reorganization of the world monetary system (see Political views of Lyndon LaRouche). The Institute strongly opposes the "Clash of Civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington, counterposing what it calls a "Dialogue of Cultures".Template:Cn
According to the LaRouche movement's Executive Intelligence Review, LaRouche formed a group called the "Committee to Save the Presidency" to fight the international financiers who he said were behind an attempted coup against President Bill Clinton.<ref>Freeman 2004</ref> Schiller Institute collected petition signatures defending Clinton, and picketed the U.S. Capitol in 1999 with signs that said "Save the Presidency! Jail Kenneth 'Porno' Starr".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A Schiller Institute spokesperson said "This is a coup to overthrow the United States government and disenfranchise the American electorate".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The Institute proposed for a national Maglev train system in Denmark in 2007.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the 2007 Danish elections there were four candidates for parliament affiliated with the Institute. They received 197 votes nationwide (while at least 32,000 are needed for a local mandate). The candidates garnered press coverage, including an interview with Tom Gillesberg in Berlingske Tidende, which discussed the slogan of the LaRouche slate, "After the financial crash, Maglev over Kattegat.".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In March 2009, the Danish branch of the institute distributed flyers at a climate change conference in Copenhagen which asserted that "British Climate lies will lead to Genocide", stating that the Bush administration had been a puppet of the British Empire, that "solar activity, not human activity, is the main factor in the Earth's changing climate," and that "massive investment in windmills and solar panels" to combat climate change would create genocide by raising the price of food.<ref>"British Climate Lies will lead to Genocide" (PDF), Statement by Tom Gillesberg, chairman of The Schiller Institute in Denmark, March 10, 2009</ref><ref>"Climate Change Congress: Is it all a British plot?" Liz Kalaugher, environmentalresearchweb blog, March 10, 2009</ref>
In 2016, speakers at its conference in Australia included UK Labour Party MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Michael Meacher and UK Conservative Party activist Robert Oulds. Corbyn spoke on “the dangers embodied in NATO’s eastward expansion, the hideous aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and the impact of Britain’s al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia for the money flows in the Middle East, including those connected with terrorism”.<ref name="The Jewish Chronicle 2016 l270">Template:Cite web</ref>
The Institute supports for Donald Trump, who they said in 2019 was being ousted in a "seditious coup".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It supports Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Template:Cn
Cultural activity
Template:More citations needed section It held a conference on Saint Augustine in Rome in 1985. Its Labor Day conference in Reston, Virginia, 1986, featured a performance of Mozart's Requiem at C.<ref name="schillerinstitute1"/> In 1990 it held a conference on infrastructure in Berlin.<ref name="schillerinstitute1"/> In 1993 its Khartoum conference on religions was sponsored by the government of Sudan.<ref name="schillerinstitute1"/> In 1997, a conference in Manila featured Jozef Mikloško, president of the Slovakian branch of the Schiller Institute and former vice premier of Czechoslovakia.<ref name="schillerinstitute1"/> In 2000, it held a Memorial seminar for Russian Schiller Institute leader Taras V. Muranivsky in Moscow, Russia.<ref name="schillerinstitute1"/>
Fidelio
The institute has published its quarterly magazine, Fidelio, since 1992, described as a "Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft." It was co-founded and edited by Kenneth Kronberg.<ref>Fidelio Magazine masthead Accessed May 4, 2007</ref><ref name=WPostobit/> The magazine is named after Ludwig van Beethoven's opera, Fidelio, which tells the story of a political prisoner who is freed by the courage of his wife. At the time the magazine was founded, Lyndon LaRouche was still in prison.
Its issues have included articles on Homer, Henry VII, Benjamin Franklin, Gottfried Leibniz, the Vier ernste Gesänge of Johannes Brahms, Vice President Dick Cheney, Paul Kreingold's “I.L. Peretz, Father of the Yiddish Renaissance”, and reviews of books, art exhibits, and musical, and dramatic performances.
Verdi tuning
Template:Main In 1988, the institute initiated a campaign to establish "philosophical pitch" or "scientific pitch" as the classical music concert pitch standard.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This tuning system is based on middle C set at 256 Hz, making concert A 430.539 Hz rather than the most commonly used 440 Hz. The Schiller Institute calls this system "Verdi tuning" because it was Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who first sought to stop the increase in pitch to which orchestras are tuned.<ref>Letter from Verdi to Giulio Ricordi, Verdi's Aida, Giuseppe Verdi, Hans Busch</ref> However, Verdi used the French standard 435 Hz in writing his Requiem in 1874; later he indicated that 432 Hz was slightly more optimal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is this A=432 Hz standard that the Schiller Institute advocates, which aligns mathematically with their stated preference for C=256 Hz<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as long as Pythagorean tuning is used (in equal temperament or just intonation, A would be 430.541 Hz or 426.667 Hz, respectively).<ref>Renold, Maria. Intervals, Scales, Tones and the Concert Pitch c=128Hz. Temple Lodge Publishing, 2004. p.80.</ref> French acoustic physicist Joseph Sauveur first researched then proposed the philosophical pitch standard in 1713, more than a century before Verdi began leading orchestras. Sauveur was strongly resisted by the musicians he was working with, and the proposed standard was not adopted.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1999, the institute circulated a petition calling for the establishment of a permanent orchestra in Verdi's childhood home in Busseto, Italy, employing the special tuning in order to mark the composer's centennial.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The tuning initiative is opposed by Stefan Zucker. According to Zucker, the Institute offered a bill in Italy to impose the Verdi tuning on state-sponsored musicians that included provisions for fines and confiscation of non-Verdi tuning forks. Zucker has written that he believes the claims about the Verdi tuning are historically inaccurate. Institute followers are reported by Tim Page of Newsday to have stood outside concert halls with petitions to ban the music of Vivaldi and even to have disrupted a concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin in order to pass out pamphlets titled "Leonard Slatkin Serves Satan."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Other music initiatives
In 1992, the institute published A Manual on the Rudiments of Tuning and Registration: Book I: Introduction and Human Singing Voice, which discusses the tuning issue from the artistic and the scientific point of view. The Institute asserts the Bel Canto method of singing is "one of the best examples of mankind's ability to discover an existing physical principle, and to use that discovery to create new works of science and art, which then increase humanity's power to build civilization." They also assert that composers such as J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Giuseppe Verdi all wrote with the distinct vocal registers of the Bel Canto system in mind, and that their compositions intentionally exploit the different tone colors that these registers produce.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2010, 25 LaRouche supporters protesting a new production of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen presented by the Los Angeles Opera carried signs that said, "Wagner: Loved by Nazis, Rejected by Humans" and "L.A. County: $14 Million to promote Nazi Wagner, Layoffs for Music Teachers". They distributed flyers from the Schiller Institute which asked "Does Los Angeles County have nothing better to do ... than bail out L.A. Opera, so that it can celebrate the monstrous sexual fantasies, and the cult of violence, of that vile anti-Semite, Wagner?"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The Schiller Institute presented a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, on January 19, 2014, the 50th anniversary of the performance of Mozart's Requiem and pontifical mass for John F. Kennedy which was held at the Cathedral. Remarks were made by Ambassador Ray Flynn, and a letter was read from Irish President Michael D. Higgins. Recordings of speeches by President Kennedy were also featured.<ref>Eiseman, Lee, "JFK Remembered in Musical Tribute," The Boston Musical Intelligencer, January 20, 2014</ref>
Drama and poetry
The institute has published a four-volume series of English translations of the works of Friedrich Schiller, entitled Poet of Freedom, as well as some translations into other languages.Template:Citation needed
Ties to the LaRouche movement
Template:Main The Schiller Institute is closely tied to Lyndon LaRouche. The institute's website states that "[i]t is his work and his ideas, [which] inspired the creation of the international Schiller Institute, as well as his intellectual and moral leadership that continue to set the standard for the policies and activity of the movement."<ref>Meet Lyndon LaRouche Schiller Institute</ref> LaRouche's writings are featured prominently in Schiller Institute communications.<ref name="Taylor 2010 r571"/> Before his death in 2019, LaRouche was the keynote speaker at most of the Schiller Institute's conferences.Template:Cn
Criticism and controversies
Death of Jeremiah Duggan
Template:Main In 2003, Jeremiah Duggan, a student who had been attending a Schiller Institute conference in Germany, died. Duggan had been attending a Schiller Institute conference and LaRouche Youth Movement cadre school in Wiesbaden, Germany, at which Lyndon LaRouche spoke.<ref name="Taylor 2010 r571"/> Duggan died after running onto a busy road. The German police investigation found that he had committed suicide.<ref name=Degen>Degen, Wolfgang, "Nur die Legende hat ein langes Leben" Template:Webarchive, Wiesbadener Kurier, April 19, 2007.</ref> A British inquest rejected that verdict after hearing testimony about the nature of the Schiller Institute.<ref name=autogenerated1>Townsend, Mark & Doward, Jamie. "New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death", The Observer, March 25, 2007.</ref><ref name=Muir>Muir, Hugh. "British student did not commit suicide, says coroner", The Guardian, November 5, 2003.</ref><ref name="Youle 2015 a193">Template:Cite web</ref>
Allegations of antisemitism
Following Duggan's death, the Schiller Institute was accused of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. According to Duggan's mother,
In Jerry's notes on the five days he spent there, Mrs Duggan discovered that her son had become aware of the anti-Semitic agenda of many LaRouche followers and had spoken out against them. "There were a lot of comments blaming the Jews for Iraq and he got up to say that he was Jewish and he didn't support the war," she said. "Whatever happened it's clear he fell out with these people very quickly."<ref name="Taylor 2010 r571"/>
According to The Times, "Seminar participants were told that the war had been concocted by a tightly knit group of Jewish bankers with immense political influence over the US Administration."<ref name="The Times"/> An internal London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) letter, obtained by the BBC's Newsnight during a British investigation into the death says: "The Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movement... blames the Jewish people for the Iraq war and all the other problems in the world. Jeremiah's lecture notes and bulletins showed the antisemitic nature of [the] ideology."<ref name=Newsnight>Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," Newsnight, 12 February 2004.</ref>
In an interview with Newsnight, Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks right-wing movements, said: Template:Blockquote
The German newspaper Berliner Zeitung also categorizes the Schiller Institute as antisemitic.<ref>Template:Cite news Article title in English is "Death on the Streets".</ref>
The Schiller Institute issued a statement in response to the controversy, calling it "a politically motivated smear job" based on "conspiracy theories," and alleged that the Institute was being targeted because of its opposition to the Iraq War.<ref>British Press and Officials Caught Lying in Duggan Affair, Schiller Institute, September 2007</ref>
A 2008 academic publication by Matthew Feldman, a researcher on the far right, described the "role of the Schiller Institute in disseminating ‘revisionism’, essentially coded anti-Semitic Holocaust denial, incitement to racial hatred, and radical right propaganda more broadly."<ref name="holocaustresearchproject.org 2003 e611"/>
Cult allegations
Following the 2003 death of Duggan, cult allegations were made.<ref name=Townsend2>Townsend, Mark & Doward, Jammie. "New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death", The Observer, March 25, 2007.</ref><ref name=Minz>Minz, John. "Ideological Odyssey: From Old Left to Far Right", The Washington Post, January 14, 1985.</ref><ref name="Nordhausen">Nordhausen, Frank. "Ermittlungen einer Mutter" ("A Mother's Investigations"), Berliner Zeitung, April 4, 2007, page 3. Template:Cbignore</ref><ref name=Townsend>Townsend, Mark. "The student, the shadowy cult and a mother's fight for justice", The Observer, October 31, 2004.</ref><ref name="DugganInquest-01">British Inquest: Coroner's Court transcript Template:Webarchive, Justice for Jeremiah website, undated, retrieved March 26, 2007.</ref> According to the Berliner Zeitung, the LaRouche movement in Germany, operating as the Schiller Institute, LaRouche Youth Movement, Europäische Arbeiterpartei and Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität (BüSo), had around 300 followers in 2007, and "next to Scientology, [was] the cult soliciting most aggressively in German streets at [that] time."<ref name="Nordhausen"/>
The BBC's Newsnight has said the institute places members under "psychological duress," during "so-called psycho sessions."<ref name=Newsnight/> Aglaja Beyes Corleis, a member of the Schiller Institute for 16 years, who left in the early 1990s and wrote a book about the Institute,<ref>Beyes-Corleis, Aglaja. Verirrt: Mein Leben in einer radikalen Politorganisation (Lost: My life in a radical political organization). Herder/Spektrum, 1994. Template:ISBN</ref> told the BBC: Template:Blockquote
On November 6, 2003, a British inquest heard allegations that the Schiller Institute is a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."<ref name="Townsend"/><ref name="DugganInquest-01"/> which may have used controversial recruitment techniques on Duggan.<ref name=Witt>Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, October 24, 2004.</ref>
Death of Kenneth Kronberg
Template:Main Kenneth Kronberg, co-founder and editor of the Schiller Institute's magazine, Fidelio, and the president of a LaRouche movement printing business, committed suicide in April 2007.<ref name=WPostobit>"Kenneth L. Kronberg Sterling Businessman", The Washington Post, May 1, 2007.</ref> According to Nicholas F. Benton, a former member of the LaRouche movement, Kronberg killed himself on the day that a so-called "morning briefing" (published daily by the LaRouche movement) heavily criticized Kronberg's printing business.<ref name=Benton>Nicholas F. Benton. Rt. 28 Suicide Jumper Was Long-Time Associate of LaRouche, Falls Church News-Press, April 19, 2007.</ref> Kronberg's printing business was also reported to be in financial trouble, the Washington Monthly described the companies finances as being "in perilous shape. Various LaRouche organizations owed Kronberg hundreds of thousands of dollars. When the IRS and Virginia tax authorities came calling over withholding payments, Ken knew he was in serious trouble."<ref>Avi Klein. "Publish and Perish: The Mysterious Death of Lyndon LaRouche's Printer" Washington Monthly, November 2007. Template:Webarchive</ref>
Russian invasion of Ukraine
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Schiller Institute held an international discussion which concluded that "the confrontation with Russia is detrimental to Germany and the EU". The Ukrainian government Center for Countering Disinformation said the conclusion was "an attempt by Russia to impose their point of view on the world".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
"Zepp-LaRouche often resorts to distorting facts from history."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Notes
Further reading
- Helmut Lorscheid, Leo A Mueller: Deckname: Schiller : die deutschen Patrioten des Lyndon LaRouche (in German). Rowohlt, 1986. Template:ISBN Template:ISBN