With God for Fatherland and Humanity is the first comprehensive study of the internationalism
of freemasons. It examines with a focus on Germany England France and Italy how European
masonic umbrella associations worked for or against a worldwide organisation of their
brotherhood. Against the backdrop of nation-state confrontation colonial expansion and
anti-masonic agitation camps and alliance systems gradually developed. The transnational
attempts at organization before and after the First World War intensified the contrasts that
they actually wanted to overcome. The main causes of controversy were the question of whether
freemasonry should have a religious or a secular-agnostic basis and which socio-political
concerns - such as peacekeeping or charity - freemasonry should devote itself to. The Masonic
form of internationalism thus appears as an exciting experimental field for civil society
cooperation and differentiation in Europe.
