I have been asked if I can provide a figure for the number of Freemasons executed during the Holocaust. The Red Triangle is an attempt to give some idea of the extent of anti-Masonic prejudice that exists by examining the history of Masonophobia. In the course of researching for the book I discovered that Adolf Eichmann’s first job at the Gestapo was not to ‘deal’ with the Jews but was to ‘deal’ with the Freemasons of Germany. That first job was to create a card index system of all Freemasons in Germany.

His administrative abilities were soon recognised and the Nazi hierarchy moved him to the section that had been set up to deal with the Jews. At the time this was probably a demotion as the Gestapo section devoted to Freemasonry was much larger than that for the Jews. His experience in creating a card index system to indentify, and track, German Freemasons was applied to the German Jewish population.

This is far from the usual ridicule directed at Freemasonry – the rolled-up trouser leg, funny handshakes etc. Accepting and adopting that kind of prejudice, based on erroneous perception, sent many thousands of Freemasons to the gas chamber. The figure of 80,000 is generally accepted as a conservative estimate for the whole of Europe. They died only because they were Freemasons.