Founder: Oskar Ernst Bernhardt (b. 1875; d. 1941) (Alias Abd-ru-shin)
Oskar Ernst Bernhardt (1875-1941) was born in Bischofswerda, Germany, in 1875. Having travelled extensively, he published several novels and other works under the pen name of Abd-rushin (‘Son of Light’ in the Parsi language). In 1923, he circulated the first parts of The Grail Message, the publication of which continued through to 1937. A complicated esoteric work, which includes a history of the universe partially derived from the Theosophical Society (see Theosophy), and hinting at Berhnardt’s own messianic role, it found interested readers within the esoteric milieu (see Esoteric Movements). Bernhardt decided to settle in Austria, at the Vomperberg (Tyrol), together with a handful of followers of what later became known as the Grail Movement. In 1938, Austria was occupied by Nazi Germany, the movement was banned, and Abd-ru-shin arrested. Released from jail in September 1938, he was banished firstly to Schlauroth, and then to Kipsdorf, where he died in 1941. After World War Two, the Vomperberg centre was re-opened and the Movement re-established under the leadership of Maria Kauffer Freyer (nee Taubert, and later adopted into the wealthy Kauffer family: 18871957), who had been Bernhardt’s second wife. Maria’s three children by her first marriage (Irmgard (1908-90), Alexander (1911-68) and Elizabeth (1912-2002) Freyer) also legally changed their surname from Freyer to Bernhardt. Maria died in 1957, and was succeeded first by Alexander and then by Irmgard (who signed herself as ‘Irmingard’). The successions of Maria’s children to her position were never recognized by a substantial part of the large Brazilian constituency of the movement which, under the leadership of Roselis von Sass (1906-97), created a splinter group under the name Ordem do Graal na Terra. Additional schisms also took place later in what is now the Czech Republic.
On her death in 1990, Irmingard left the Grail properties, including the Vomperberg, to Claudia-Maria (+1999), a natural child of Irmingard’s adopted daughter Marga (both Claudia-Maria and her husband Siegfried (b. 1955) legally adopted the Bernhardt surname with Irmingard’s blessing), while she bequeathed the copyrights on the Grail literature to an International Grail Foundation, led by Herbert Vollmann (1903-99, the husband of Irmingard’s younger sister Elizabeth). Although Irmingard hoped that the Movement and the Foundation would peacefully cooperate, their co-existence was always uneasy and they finally split in 1999. The Foundation remains the owner of the copyright on the founder’s writings, and controls both the publishing house Stiftung Graalsbotschaf and the trademark ‘International Grail Movement’ in most English-speaking countries, where it operates under this name. This creates a certain amount of confusion with the rival International Grail Movement led by Siegfried Bernhardt from the Vomperberg, which legally controls the name outside of the English-speaking world. The total membership of the two main branches of the Grail Movement is currently 20,000. The international readership of The Grail Message is certainly much larger.
