Founded in London in 1717 by artisans and small merchants, the Grand Lodge was rapidly taken over from 1721 by aristocrats and the landed gentry, who transformed it into an instrument of elite socialization and networking. Critics argue that Freemasonry operates as a club of mutual favors, using members' positions in politics, the judiciary, and the economy to benefit fellow Masons, acting as a state within a state whose secret rituals and lodge oaths take precedence over national laws and democratic scrutiny. The text reproduces material from a 1939 Training Bulletin of the National Socialist Party and the German Labor Front. That material, whose contents include contributions by Dr. Goebbels and Mussolini, asserts that the Jew, seeking to tear down racial and civic barriers, employs Freemasonry, which has fallen entirely under his dominion, as an instrument to ensnare governing circles and the upper strata of the political and economic bourgeoisie through Masonic threads. The reader is invited to assess this material and form an independent, well-founded opinion.