"The Jesuit: The Obscurantist without a Homeland." A Propaganda Pamphlet by Hubert Hermanns (1933) The Nazis declared the Catholic order of the Jesuits "public vermin" [Volksschädlingen] – the same term it used to describe the Freemasons. Its members were persecuted, interned, and sometimes murdered. Conspiracy theories about the Jesuits had circulated since the seventeenth century, and the order had already been banned repeatedly. During the Nazi regime, these conspiracy theories were put in the service of the goal of reducing the influence of the Jesuits, who ran secondary schools and engaged in youth work. Entitled "The Jesuit: The Obscurantist without a Homeland," this propaganda pamphlet by Hubert Hermann warned against the Jesuits' "dark power" and "mysterious intentions."