Schiller Institute

The Schiller Institute is an international political and economic thinktank, one of the primary organizations in the LaRouche movement, with headquarters in Germany and the United States. It was founded at a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1984 by Helga Zepp LaRouche, the German-born wife of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. Following the second conference, in Washington, D.C. in 1985, it has held conferences in a variety of international locations. Since 1992, it has published a quarterly magazine Fidelio, which it describes as a "Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft."

The Institute's stated aim is to seek to apply the ideas of poet, dramatist and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to what it calls the "contemporary world crisis."

The Schiller Institute has been described by the London Metropolitan Police as a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."

Connection with LaRouche

The Schiller Institute is closely tied to Lyndon LaRouche, describing the relationship as follows: "It is his work and his ideas, that 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." [4] LaRouche's writings are featured prominently in Schiller Institute communications, and he is the keynote speaker at most Schiller Institute conferences.

The LaRouche movement consists of an international network of think tanks, magazines, a political action committee, and a youth cadre. The movement has been associated in the mainstream media with violence against its political opponents, antisemitism, the fraudulent use of donations, aggressive recruiting techniques, and the dissemination of political conspiracy theories.

Its members insist the allegations against it are misrepresentations, and that LaRouche is a brilliant and widely misunderstood leader.

Stated aims

The Institute's 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 is modeled on the United States Declaration of Independence, but extends it to include all nations, especially those of the Third World. It states "...[t]hat all human beings on this planet have inalienable rights, which guarantee them life, freedom, material conditions worthy of man, and the right to develop fully all potentialities of their intellect and their souls. That, therefore, a change in the present economic and monetary order is necessary and urgent to establish justice among the peoples of the world." [5]

Need for the Schiller Institute

Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Zepp-LaRouche has explained the need for the Schiller Institute as follows:

We need a movement that can finally free Germany from the control of the Versailles and Yalta treaties, which have already tossed us from one catastrophe to another for an entire century." (Wir brauchen eine Bewegung, die Deutschland endlich aus der Kontrolle der Kräfte von Versailles und Jalta befreit, die uns schon ein ganzes Jahrhundert lang von einer Kastastrophe in die andere stürzt.

— Helga Zepp-LaRouche. [6]

Political activity

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". [7] The discussion at these conferences has generally centered around LaRouche's proposals for infrastructure projects such 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".

The March 18, 2007 internet edition of the Danish Paper Jyllands-Posten covers the Schiller Institute proposal for a national Maglev train system in that country. [8]

Mann-Chestnut hearings

Between August 31 and September 1, 1995, the Institute sponsored a serious of hearings, chaired by former congressman James R. Mann and Civil Rights attorney J. L. Chestnut. The purpose of the hearings was to investigate "rampant corruption inside the permanent bureaucracy at the U.S. DOJ."

The three primary areas of concern were:

• "[T]he harassment of African-American elected and public officials" ("Operation Fruehmenschen,") which was exposed in the U.S. Congress by Congressman Mervyn Dymally
• Alleged misconduct by the U.S. DOJ Office of Special Investigations
• The LaRouche case (United States v. LaRouche)

Allegations of antisemitism

The Schiller Institute has been criticized for allegedly spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. An internal London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) letter, obtained by the BBC's Newsnight during an investigation into the death of Jeremiah Duggan says: "The Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movememt ... 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 ideology."

In an interview with Newsnight, Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks right-wing movements, said: "The antisemitism at a meeting of the Schiller Institute would not be obvious at first. You would have to listen over time to a ... set of patterns, and you would begin to hear the echoes of the classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, in the way that Israel is talked about, in the way that Jews are talked about, in the way that the idea is put forward that the wars of America are somehow manipulated by Jewish lobbies and Israeli interests, and this really is an echo of the old classic antisemitic conspiracy theories. It's not that every criticism of Israel or American-Jewish lobby groups is antisemitic, but over time this pattern emerges."

LaRouche has condemned antisemitism. "Religious and racial hatred, such as anti-Semitism, or hatred against Islam, or, hatred of Christians, is, on record of known history, the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today."

Cult allegations and "psycho sessions"

The Institute is widely regarded as a cult, and has been described in an internal London Metropolitan Police memo as a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." According to the Berliner Zeitung, the LaRouche movement in Germany, operating as the Schiller Institute, LaRouche Youth Movement, Europäische Arbeiterpartei and Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität (BüSo), has around 300 followers, and "next to Scientology, is the cult soliciting most aggressively in German streets at this time."

The BBC's Newsnight has said the Institute places members under "psychological duress," during "so-called psycho sessions." Aglaja Beyes Corleis, a member of the Schiller Institute for 16 years, who left in the early 90s and wrote a book about the Institute, told the BBC:

When I speak with family members how I was then at that time, [they] tell me 'You were like from a different planet.' ... People tend to be drawn into it who did not want to be drawn into it, who did not want to join a cult or a sect or something like that ... I was freaked out and I experienced that other people freaked out. I saw other people who, members who, got out of their mind ... Sometimes Jewish members were put under special pressure. For instance, at a public meeting, the person was picked out and publicly attacked — 'your mother visited Israel'."

The girlfriend of Jeremiah Duggan, who died in disputed circumstances while attending a Schiller Institute conference and cadre school (see below), told the BBC that he had called her in distress shortly before his death:

He was talking very quietly. He said that they were doing experiments on humans with computers. The way he spoke was very agitated. He couldn't string a sentence together properly. I asked him who was doing these experiments, and he said the government. He said they were causing lots of pain to their arms and legs. I tried to find out where he was, but he wouldn't say.

Cultural activity

Music

In 1988 the Schiller Institute initiated a campaign to return to the so-called "Verdi tuning" in the world of classical music, so-called because it was Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who originally waged a battle to stop the arbitrary rising of the pitch to which orchestras are tuned. The "Verdi tuning" is one where C=256HZ, or A=432HZ, as opposed to the common practice today of tuning to anywhere from A=440 to A in the 450+ range.

Many prominent singers and instrumentalists actively campaigned for the Schiller Institute's proposal, including several who performed recitals for the Institute to demonstrate the different quality of the Verdi tuning, compared with contemporary tuning. Beginning in 1988 the Institute starting circulating petitions calling for a change in pitch. [9] In 1999 the Institute circulated a petition calling for the establishment of a permanent orchestra in Verdi's childhood home, Busseto, Italy, employing the special tuning in order to mark the composer's centennial.[10] Signers of the petitions have included Norbert Brainin, former First Violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, and the following vocalists: William Warfield (baritone), Carlo Bergonzi (tenor), and Piero Cappuccilli (baritone). Other well known vocalists who endorsed the initiative include Shirley Verrett (soprano), Joan Sutherland (soprano), George Shirley (tenor), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), Sherrill Milne (baritone), Fedora Barbier (mezzosoprano), Grace Bumbry (soprano), Elly Ameling (soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Birgit Nilsson (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Kurt Moll (basso), Marilyn Horne (mezzosoprano), and Ruggero Raimondi (basso).

The tuning initiative is vigorously opposed by Stefan Zucker, billed as "the world's highest tenor" and creator of Opera Fanatic magazine in New York City. According to Zucker, the Schiller 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". [11]

In 1992, the Institute published A Manual on the Rudiments of Tuning and Registration: Book I: Introduction and Human Singing Voice. This book discusses the tuning issue from both the artistic and the scientific point of view.

Drama and poetry

The Schiller 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. In Germany, Institute members have organized public performances of Schiller's plays, including Wilhelm Tell.

Fidelio

The Schiller Institute has also published a quarterly magazine Fidelio since 1992, described as a "Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft." It was co-founded and edited by Kenneth Kronberg. 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 that the magazine was founded, Lyndon LaRouche was still in prison.

The Institute's published aim is to seek to apply the ideas of poet, dramatist and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to what it calls the "contemporary world crisis," emphasizing 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. Its issues include articles dealing with a range of topics, including Homer, Henry VII, Benjamin Franklin, Leibniz, the “Four Serious Songs” of Johannes Brahms, Vice President Richard Cheney, Paul Kreingold’s “I.L. Peretz, Father of the Yiddish Renaissance”, and reviews of books, art exhibits, and musical, and dramatic performances.[12]

Death of Jeremiah Duggan

Jeremiah Duggan died in disputed circumstances while attending a Schiller Institute conference and youth cadre.

For main article, see: Jeremiah Duggan

On November 6, 2003, a British inquest heard allegations that the Schiller Institute is an "antisemitic cult" that may have used controversial recruitment techniques on a 22-year-old British-Jewish student who died in March 2003 in disputed circumstances. Jeremiah Duggan had been attending a Schiller Institute conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. After six days in Wiesbaden, Duggan telephoned his mother to say he "wanted out" and was "in deep trouble." His body was found 45 minutes later on a busy road near the Schiller Institute's headquarters.

The German police decided that he had been struck by two vehicles and killed. [13] A British coroner rejected the German report of suicide. Two forensic reports commissioned by his mother in 2006 suggest that he was "battered to death with a blunt instrument as he tried desperately to defend himself."The forensic specialists found "no evidence that he had been struck by a vehicle." The Simon Wiesenthal Center has asked the German justice minister to determine whether Duggan's being Jewish played a role in his death, in light of Jeremiah's notes from the conference, which "apparently point[ed] to stereotyping and antisemitic conspiracy theories."

There has been criticism of the British response to the controversy. On April 19, 2007, the Wiesbadener Kurier wrote that "[f]our years after the suicide of British citizen Jeremiah Duggan, which was established beyond doubt, myths are being cultivated. A murder story is circulating. The British media in particular are accusing the German prosecution service." A spokesman for the German public prosecution service has suggested that the murder theories have developed because Duggan's mother cannot accept that her son committed suicide, and the Kurier called the theories a "conspiracy theory with more and more adherents, but no evidence."

A spokesperson for the LaRouche movement said the allegation of a connection between Duggan's death and the Schiller Institute was part of a "smear campaign" designed to prevent LaRouche from gaining the U.S. Democratic Party's 2004 presidential nomination.

Conferences

These are highlights of conferences from the Schiller Institute's 20-year history. [14]

• Nov. 1-3, 1985: "Saint Augustine, Father of European and African Civilization" — Rome, Italy
• Labor Day conference, 1986, featuring a performance of Mozart's Requiem at C=256HZ, with Schiller chorus and orchestra — Reston, Virginia, U.S.A.
• Nov. 22-23, 1990: "The Productive Triangle: Centerpiece of an All-Eurasian Infrastructure Program, Locomotive for a New, Just World Economic Order" — Berlin, Germany
• April 26-30, 1993: International conference on religions sponsored by the government of Sudan — Khartoum
• Aug. 7-14, 1994: Educational-cultural seminar for young musicians and artists, featuring Norbert Brainin, Lyndon LaRouche, and Helga Zepp LaRouche — Smolenice Castle, Slovakia
• July 17, 1997: Presentation by Dr. Jozef Miklosko, president of the Slovakian branch of the Schiller Institute and former vice premier of post-communist Czechoslovakia — Manila, Philippines
• Dec. 13, 2000: Memorial seminar for Russian Schiller Institute leader Taras V. Muranivsky — Moscow, Russia

Further reading

• Schiller Institute website
• Schiller Institute Board of Directors
• Schiller Institute international conferences