Temple Society
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Christian Hoffmann and Georg David Hardegg founded the Temple Society (not to be confused with the Knights of the Templars) at Kirschenhardthof near Ludwigsburg in 1861. This religious society has its roots in the Pietism within the Lutheran Church in the State of Württemberg. Called "Deutscher Tempel" by its founders, their aim was to promote spiritual cooperation to advance the rebuild of the Temple in the Holy Land (Palestine of the time) In the belief that their foundation promotes the second coming of Christ. On their course to achieve that goal, their contributions towards raising the standards of agriculture, crafts, scientific research, business and building in an undeveloped province under Turkish rule were significant. Many see them as an indispensable helping force in the early establishment of the Yishuv, and perhaps a role model for the Zionist Movement of the time.
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Beginning of Palestine settlement
Hoffman and Hardegg proceeded to purchase lands at the base of Mount Carmel, the downtown of today's Haifa, and in 1868 broke ground and started building a colony. At the time, Haifa was a town of 4,000 people. The Templars are just one of the groups credited with Haifa's development at the time. It was around this time that the Bahá'u'lláh, (founder of the Bahá'í Faith) arrived in Haifa. The colony's main street was one of the most beautiful streets built during that era and was cause for much admiration. The street was 30 meters wide and had trees on both sides. The houses were built of stone, under the supervision of the architect Jakob Schumacher and boasted red-shingled roofs, a rare combination of style and color for the area at the time. The work of those pioneering settlers took a high toll, harsh mideastern weather and epidemics claimed the lives of many of them before the examplary colony was erect and self-sustaining.
The Templars purchased land that was far from the city and set out to build the first planned agricultural community in the Holy Land. Hardegg stayed and established the community in Haifa, while Hoffman established the second Templar community in Jaffa a year later, Followed by the German Colony of Jerusalem.
The first agricaltural colony was Sarona (commonly pronounced Sharona, est. 1871) on the road from Jaffa to Nablus, The colony's oranges where the first to carry a "Jaffa orange" brand, one of the better known agricultural brand in Europe, used to market the fruits to this day (though no longer connected to Jaffa for over a century, at times not even originating from Israel!).
Second wave of settlers
After the 1899 visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, a second wave of pioneer settlers founded Wilhelma (1902) near Lod, Valhalla (1903) near the original Jaffa colony, followed by Bethlehem (1906) and Waldheim (1907). At its height, the Templar community in Palestine was 2,200 people strong.
Affiliation with the third Reich
During the 1930s, with the rise of the Nazi party to power, the colonies were also registered as supporters of the new rule. Nazi youth movement activities were popular and the plans to open schools based on Nazi ideologies turned the once-friendly Jewish Yishuv away and the Templars' produces were boycotted.
As all male German citizens, the Templars too enlisted with the German army. With the break of World War II, some of the colonies were turned by the British authorities into concentration camps and in 1939 many of the settlers were deported by the authorities to Australia under charges of aiding the enemy, though a few were exchanged for Jewish prisoners from the death camp of Bergen-Belsen. In 1947, the rest of the community was deported to Australia as well, via Cyprus. The saga came to an end, when in 1962, the State of Israel payed 54 million Deutsche Marks in severance fees to the deportees.
More information
- Temple Society Australia (http://home.vicnet.net.au/~tempsoc/) - Where the community exists today.he:טמפלרים (תנועה)
