Does the Frommel Cult Get Away with Sexual Abuse?
It seems that in Germany the book on ritual sexual abuse in Wolfgang Frommel’s cult Castrum Peregrini has been closed. The horrifying story was in May 2018 laid out in a piece by Julia Encke in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung with the title, Das Ende des geheimen Deutschlands. It won her the Culture Journalist of the Year Award 2018 in Germany. Her piece and the discussions that followed, disrupted most of the festivities around the 150th birthday of the inspirator of Frommel’s ideology and practice, the poet Stefan George. The question whether George was a child abuser as well, was intensly discussed in academic circles and beyond. About Frommel’s involvement in rampant sexual abuse was no discussion at all. A report by the Dutch Commission Bauduin form May 2019 showed a litany of abuse cases by Frommel and his many followers.
Two recent pieces in leading German language newspapers show how the Frommel-abuse since is ignored. One is from Gina Thomas in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the newspaper indeed that broke the very scandal. It is a personal essay on the reception of Dante in her elderly home: Dantes Verse: Kompass fürs Exil. That home was the home of Castrum cult member and Gina Thomas’ father Ulrich. Frommel is shown in a favourable light, as a Dante admirer and by association as a supporter of a European Humanism. Not only is in the piece not a word to be found on sexual abuse, there is no mention either that Frommel’s book Der Dritte Humanismus from 1932 had nothing to do with some noble European ideal, but was grounded in a conservative nationalism that was initially well received in Nazi circles. There is of course nothing on Ulrich Thomas’ active involvement in the Castrum circle.
The other piece was published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung last year: Luitpold Frommel wird Ehrenbürger der Stadt Rom. It is a portrait of Luitpold Frommel, nephew of Wolfgang Frommel, who became honorary citizen of Rome, because of his work as director of the venerable German Max-Planck-Institute for Art History, the Hertziana. It has the header: ‘Lässt man sich auf das Prinzip der Schönheit einmal ein, gilt es fürs ganze Leben’, which translates roughly: ‘Once you surrender to the principle of beauty, it will rule your whole life’. Those who know a bit of Stefan George and Wolfgang Frommel will immediately see that this quote reflects the ideology of the Castrum cult. The rest of the portrait shows this elitist conservative worldview clearly as well.
But also in this NZZ piece not a word on Wolfgang Frommel, who was not just the uncle of Luitpold Frommel, but also — in Castrumspeak — his ‘older friend’ who recruited the later titan as a young man. Luitpold Frommel was a very prominent member of the abusive Castrum cult. He published a book on Michelangelo in Castrum’s publishing house. His former wife Joke Haverkorn van Rijsewijk was in 2013 the first who wrote about Frommel as a sexual abuser in Entfernte Erinnerungen an W. Can a journalist write a portrait of a man, how great he might have been in his work, and leave out the story that was fundamental to his life and — seemingly — his life’s work? Can a serious newspaper print a portrait like this?
The question should not only be whether these men were involved in the ritiualized sexual abuse that was the essence in the constitution of this circle. There is more that has to be considered. These men were both highly successful and highgly regarded members of society. Ulrich Thomas’ and Luitpold Frommel’s association with Castrum gave Wolfgang Frommel and his cult the societal status it needed to be able to recruit new boys first, but also to hide and cover its abuse. From my Dutch perspective I would call it the Gisèle d’Ailly effect, named after the chique, quirky and rich noblewoman and artist, who housed Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam and paid the bills. How could such a woman, who was married to an elegant former mayor of Amsterdam allow such abuse under her roof? Unthinkable! And she exactly did that and and with her man Arnold d’Ailly took care of a Frommel abuse case with a Maroccan child, that was bound to become a public scandel.
And even more, in the context of these two recent publications, the high status of these men gives them even now so much privilege that their connection with and involvement in what since the Bauduin Report can be defined as a criminal organization, can be ignored in the best newspapers in the German speaking world.
