In an age of nationalism, colonialism and culture wars, how should the ideal of a universal brotherhood of mankind be realised? In his talk, Joachim Berger will explore how Masonic national associations promoted or opposed the formation of a worldwide organisation of their 'brotherhood'.  Ultimately, the transnational efforts before and after the First World War ended up amplifying the differences they set out to overcome. The main causes of controversy were whether freemasonry should have a religious or secular basis, and what socio-political causes, such as charity or peacekeeping, it should support.

Joachim Berger is a research coordinator at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, and is currently on secondment to the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. He published a European history of masonic internationalism (2020) and initiated the online compendium EGO: European History Online at the IEG