Otto Sigfrid Reuter

Otto Sigfrid Reuter (2 September 1876 – 5 April 1945) was a German writer and organiser who was central in the neopagan current within the völkisch movement. He had a career in telecommunications and began his völkisch-religious activities with the 1910 pamphlet Sigfrid oder Christus?! He founded some of the earliest organisations for Germanic neopaganism, which adhered to the racial ideologies of the völkisch movement. Reuter promoted a decentralised version of pagan practice without priests, in contrast to the hierarchically structured of Ludwig Fahrenkrog. Reuter's theories have been described as parascientific. His major theoretical work Germanische Himmelskunde is about the Germanic star map.

Early life and career Otto Theodor Ludwig Sigfrid Reuter was born on 2 September 1876 in Leer, East Frisia. His father Wilhelm Reuter was a merchant captain and director of the naval school in Leer. His mother Emma was the daughter of the pastor and theologian Friedrich Armknecht. Reuter was a half brother of Ernst Reuter who became the Governing Mayor of Berlin.

After passing his in Leer in 1894, Reuter worked as a telegraphist in Oldenburg, Cologne and Bonn. From 1901 he studied history and law in Bonn. Having passed a in 1905, he worked in Berlin and Elberfeld, and from 1917 in Bremen as a telegraph director and head of the telephone system. His career in telecommunications ended in 1924 due to staff reductions and his activities as a agitator. The pamphlet was well received within the pagan-leaning faction of the emerging völkisch-religious movement.

Reuter's activities became tied to two organisations he founded in 1911: the and the Deutschreligiösen Gemeinschaft . They were among the earliest formally organised groups within Germanic neopaganism and tied to the racial ideologies of the völkisch movement. Members were required to show an Aryan certificate provided by , editor of the Deutsches Geschlechterbuch.

Reuter's group was contemporaneous with the of Ludwig Fahrenkrog. They were to some extent competitors but also had mutual members. A major difference was Reuter's promotion of a decentralised pagan practice, without priests and formalised rituals, in contrast to Fahrenkrog's preference for a hierarchical organisational structure. Several short-lived attempts were made to unify the early Germanic neopagans in an umbrella organisation. A notable example was the Nordische Glaubensgemeinschaft , which was founded by Reuter and Norbert Seibertz in 1927 but was dissolved in 1928 when the co-founders fell out. Reuter's own organisations were dissolved in 1933. He was involved in the establishment of the German Faith Movement of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer.

Within the völkisch-religious movement, Reuter's primary contributions were as a theoretician. Especially after his professional career, he conducted research into Germanic subjects, held contact with the scholars Gustav Neckel and Gustaf Kossinna, and formulated a foundation for the movement's worldview which the historian describes as parascientific. Reuter's most ambitious work was the book Germanische Himmelskunde , published in 1934 with support from the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft. Taking inspiration from Kossinna's work on astronomy and mythology, Reuter argued for the existence of an advanced and specifically Germanic star map.

Reuter was a member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Vorgeschichte from 1922 and received its Gustaf-Kossinna-Preis in 1936. In 1938 he was made an honorary member of the . He received an honorary doctorate from the Leipzig University in 1939 through the support of scholars such as Franz Josef Hopmann, Otto Reche, Konstantin Reichardt and . He became a member of the Nazi Party in 1939 and was in contact with the Ahnenerbe. Puschner, a historian who specialises in the völkisch movement, describes Reuter as a major ideologue of the pagan faction within the völkisch-religious current, with continuing impact in contemporary times, and as one of the many who contributed to an ideologisation of science through his ability to create a bridge between a scientific and a völkisch worldview.

Personal life Reuter married his wife Gertrud in 1923. They had two sons and one daughter. He died in Bremen's district in a bomb raid on 5 April 1945.

Publications Bibliography adapted from the Neue Deutsche Biographie Heilwig Rennenberg, Schauspiel in vier Aufzügen, 1905. Hero Onkens Ausfahrt und Heimkehr, 1909. Sigfrid oder Christus?! Kampfruf an die germanischen Völker zur Jahrtausendwende. Von einem Deutschen, 1910. Anonymous. Das Rätsel der Edda und der arische Urglaube (2 volumes), 1921–1923. Aus arischer Vorzeit, 1925. Germanische Himmelskunde. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Geistes, 1934. Der Himmel über den Germanen, 1936; in English 1982 as Skylore of the North. Gestalten und Gedanken im Nibelungenlied, 1979.