The subject of the bizarre beliefs that helped shape the warped ideology of the Nazi party is both complex and convoluted. Although this article can do little more than scratch the surface, it may serve to shed some light on a strange, murky world allegedly mired in magic, hatred, blood, the occult and Satanism. As we shall also see, the mythos surrounding these beliefs transcended the purely spiritual, touching upon legendary artefacts and vanished civilisations giving access to supposed ancient technologies that almost beggar belief. It is perhaps inevitable that beliefs such as this blend magic, religion and politics in a seamless, amorphous mass used to justify any and all acts required to reinforce and perpetuate it. The article also raises other, more profound questions relating to the nature of evil itself and the implication that there may be overtly hostile, non-human entities extant in the universe. Is it conceivable that entities such as these seek suitable human hosts to create the correct conditions for their emergence into our realm? From the outset I must make it abundantly clear that I in no way intend to apologise for, glorify or promote the detestable ideology that framed and enshrined the Third Reich, nor indeed the Third Reich itself. Should the reader wish to continue with further research, I have included a list of suggested reading at the end of the article.
The Key Players
Adolph Hitler
It is appropriate that we spend some time examining the beliefs that were adopted by Adolph Hitler during the years prior to his rise to power, for they are part of the key to understanding his paradigm. In the years prior to the First World War, Hitler has studied various aspects of mysticism, namely, astrology, German mythology, hypnotism and other occult and esoteric practises. In 1909 he encountered one Dr. Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels who had formed the intensely racist ‘Order of the New Templars’ at the semi-ruined Werfenstein Castle near the Danube. Such was the fascination of this organisation, that it formed the inspiration behind Heinrich Himmler’s feared and admired SS.
Born plain Adolph Lanz, von Liebenfels, like many status seekers before and after him adopted the aristocratic term ‘von’, to further his credibility, which helped him gain a small but wealthy following. Lanz was also a follower of Guido von List, another self-styled esotericist with strong racist leanings. It is also of vital importance to recognise the burgeoning emergence of Pan-Germanism and the ultra-nationalistic ‘volkish’ movement during this period in German history. These concepts required that a sense of ‘specialness’ and uniqueness be bestowed upon the German nation, a genetic superiority that transcended the ordinary traits of the average human being, particularly the Semitic races. During one of Hitler’s early speeches he specifically referred to the Jewish people as a virus, a disease to be eradicated at all costs. The increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric in Germany did not emerge fully formed with Hitler and his inflammatory speech making, but can be traced back to 1906 when both Volkish and indeed Catholic publications defended such overtly racist propaganda, viewing their stance as merely healthy self-preservation. In the same year, a journal, the ‘Deutsche Tiroler Stimmen’ demanded the extermination of the Jewish race. Several years later in 1932 von Leibenfelz wrote the following to a colleague “Hitler is one of our pupils, you will one day experience that he, and through him we, will one day be victorious and will develop a movement that will make the world tremble.” This was a truly astonishing insight.
Shortly after being awarded the Iron Cross during military service in the First World War, Hitler was blinded by mustard gas and taken for treatment to Pasewalk military hospital. There he was (supposedly incorrectly) diagnosed as suffering from psychopathic hysteria, although one may be forgiven for believing that this was an uncannily accurate diagnosis, the symptoms were finally ascribed to the side effects of mustard gas. Resulting from the initial diagnosis, Hitler was placed under the care of hospital psychiatrist Dr. Edmund Forster. Precisely what treatment was given to him will never be known because; in 1933 the Gestapo seized all records relating to his treatment and destroyed them. Later that year the unfortunate Dr Forster conveniently and obligingly took his own life. According to Hitler’s own account, during this time he experienced a vision from ‘another world’ telling him that he could lead Germany back to glory. His virulent anti-Semitism that had originally developed during his early studies in Vienna also re-emerged during his treatment at Pasewalk.
According to author and researcher William Bramley, “In a shrewd piece of detective work published in the journal ‘History of Childhood Quarterly’, psychohistorian Dr. Rudolph Binion suggests that Hitler’s visions may have been deliberately induced by the psychiatrist, Edmund Forster, as a means of helping him recover from his blindness”. [William Bramley, The Gods of Eden’]. It is interesting to note that Hitler’s personal physician between 1935 and 1945, Dr Theodore Morel, was prescribing and administering to Adolph Hitler, powerful psychoactive and addictive drugs, including ‘Eukodal’, and ‘Pervitin’. The drug ‘Eucodal’ belongs to the same family as morphine and codeine and produces similar effects, viz. euphoria and dysphoria. ‘Pervitin’ is an amphetamine producing almost identical side effects with the addition of personality changes and psychosis. It has been observed that prior to his psychiatric treatment during the First World War, the ‘hate and pain’, characterising both Hitler’s speeches and his obsessive purpose after 1919 were not evident.
It was during this period that Hitler met Dietrich Eckhart, an experienced believer in the occult and a self proclaimed magician. As we shall see, Eckhart was also a member of various esoteric organisations including the influential Thule society. In
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The Third Reich and the Occult
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common with Hitler, Eckhart used psychoactive drugs, notably peyote, to achieve transcendence in neopagan rituals. He also believed himself to be the re-incarnation of a ninth century character, Bernard of Barcelona, a black magician who, notoriously, betrayed Christianity to the Arabs and used magic to stall Carolinginan armies in Spain. The experimental use of peyote became popular in German esoteric circles following publication of research into its effects in 1886 carried out by pharmacologist Ludwig Lewin. While the evidence is still far from unanimous, there are indications that the use of specific hallucinogens can actually induce the separation of ‘mind’ and therefore consciousness from the confines of the body. Therefore it cannot be ruled out that Eckhart and others did achieve a subtle form of contact with alternate realities. This is certainly true of shamans and others who use these substances (and other techniques) to induce ‘journeys’ and
visions of beings and animal entities with whom they converse and interact, normally for the benefit of the people they serve. The difference here being that while shamanic contact is (generally) positive, the contact established by Eckhart served a far darker and sinister purpose.
For all these displays of occult fervour, there are three lines of thought in particular that typify Nazism, Racial Purity, Theosophy and the teaching and philosophy of Nietzsche. Another trend, Theosophy, the system of belief founded by Helena Blavatsky, also included ideas vital to Nazi belief in the reality and separateness of the Aryan race. Blavatsky taught that there were six ‘Root Races’, Astral, Atlantean, Aryan, Lemurian, Hyperborean, and the ‘Coming Race’, which would be an amalgamation of all the other races, in effect a mutation. Although accepting some of these mystical beliefs, the Nazis closed virtually all the Theosophical lodges in Germany and also proscribed the Freemasons and other so-called secret societies. The reference to ‘The Coming Race’ reflects a novel of the same name published in 1891 and written by English aristocrat, Lord Edward Bulward Lyton. The novel describes the discovery of an underground civilisation of super beings called the ‘Vril-Ya’, who’s existence revolves around the use and control of a mysterious energy called ‘Vril’. From the description in the novel, Vril appears to a fundamental force that surrounds the very ‘building blocks of creation’ itself. We shall examine belief in both Vril and Thule among other societies later in this article.
Upon reflection it now appears that Bulward Lyton, like many writers of fiction, particularly science fiction, was far in advance of his time. Current researches into alternative energy sources do indeed suggest a ‘presence’ surrounding the building blocks of creation; it is called ‘Zero Point Energy or ZPE’. This allegedly limitless source of energy is present throughout the universe at a quantum level; even at minus 375 degrees Celsius or absolute zero where no motion should exist, it is both present and fundamental to our existence. The concept of a Hollow Earth with entries at the North and South Poles was also current at the time and its inclusion in Lyton’s book struck a responsive chord in the mind of the public, so much so that even today it is still suggested that the work is actually fact disguised as fiction. Other beliefs reflecting the possibility of underground races appear in legends of ‘Agartha’ and ‘Shambhala,’ mythical civilisations located deep beneath the Himalayas, their entry points known only to high initiates of Tibetan Buddhism.
Other powerful influences on Hitler include two other purveyors of racist mystical mythology, Rudolph von Sebottendorff, (also known as Glauer) and Alfred Rosenberg. These two in concert with Dietrich Eckhart allegedly conducted seances where they contacted the spirits of seven members of the Thule society murdered by communists in 1919. These spirits supposedly prophesied that Hitler would seize the Spear of Longinus, (the spear that was supposedly plunged as an act of mercy by the Roman Centurion, Gaius Cassius, into the still living body of the crucified Christ), and lead the world in to a horrific conflagration. Like many alleged ‘prophecies,’
this piece of information only emerged long after Hitler and the Hell on Earth that he created erupted over the world stage. Although there is no conclusive evidence that Hitler actively dabbled in the occult or took part in occult or satanic rituals in person, the same cannot be said of the fearsome architect of the SS, Reichsfuerer Heinrich Himmler.
Heinrich Himmler and the SS
Such was his belief in the occult and its potential power that Reichsfuerer Heinrich Himmler, like Adolph Hitler a former Roman Catholic, ordered the construction of a spiritual Valhalla deep below his SS fortress at Wewelsberg in Westphalia. To glorify his vision of perfection he purchased this former ruin in 1934 and had it rebuilt over a number of years at a cost of some 13 million marks, (hundreds of millions of pounds in today’s values). Blueprints found at the end of the war show that there were plans for a town to be constructed around the fortress laid out in the form of a spear with the tip pointing at the fortress itself, a clear invocation of the ‘Spear of Destiny’. One of the early influences on this frighteningly deceptive bookish and shy man was Austrian born Karl Maria Willigut. Willigut’s chief claim to fame was his ‘racial memory’ that could allegedly trace the origins of the Teutonic peoples to 228,000 BC. He also claimed that the bible had been written in Germany and the Germanic god ‘Krist’ had been adopted by Christianity.
This claim is not as spurious as it might seem at first glance as it has been ably demonstrated that the name, Jesus, has been extant in various forms for millennia before the founding of the Christian church. Likewise, the story of the virgin birth and the eventual crucifixion is not confined to the story of Jesus Christ, but was also found in sun worshiping cults such as ‘Sol Invictus’ and the stories of Krishna and Mithras among several other historical and semi-mythical entities. Willigut also alleged that in prehistoric times, three suns provided the earth with light and the planet was inhabited by a host of mythological creatures that were eventually subdued by his ancestors. Bearing these theories in mind, in 1935, Himmler was also
responsible for the creation of the ‘Ahnenerbe’ or the Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society, an organisation run by Richard Darre and dedicated to researching ancient Germanic historical and occult mysticism. In 1940 the organisation, which was originally independent, was wholly subsumed by the SS and the staff given SS rank. The organisation was frequently used to find, but subsequently often invent, legitimacy for many of Himmler’s racial ideals and policies. Although his concept of the tall, muscular, blond, blue eyed Aryan superman was hardly in keeping with his own physical attributes, (Himmler was of average height, myopic and physically weak), he
had several other compensating attributes. These included a near photographic memory, meticulous attention to detail and a near psychopathic hatred of the ‘Untermensch’ or non-Aryan races. Such was the inherent malice of the man, it is claimed that the only person in Germany not in fear of him was Adolph Hitler himself.
Because Wewelsberg was dedicated to the cult and belief system of the SS, the Teutonic Knights and other mystical/occult doctrines, when he founded the SS he did so on lines reflecting (although hardly emulating) certain values of two disciplined religious orders, the Knights Templar and the Jesuits. Indeed Adolph Hitler often referred to Himmler as his ‘Little Loyola’ after Ignatius Loyola founder of the Jesuit order. Below the castle’s elaborate main banqueting hall he ordered the construction of a ‘Hall of the Dead’, supposedly to house urns containing the ashes and crests of his twelve closest ‘disciples’ when they died. This consisted of a circular chamber with twelve low stone platforms around its walls. In the centre of the room, in a circular depression accessed by three steps, was a form of altar, which was the focal point of the room. One school of thought suggests that any attempt to invoke whatever dark and mystical powers lay within the ‘Black Sun’; (another segment of occult belief extant at the time and assumed to be the source of ‘Vril power’ which we shall discuss later) would be carried out here. Certain of these ceremonies required human blood sacrifice, which presented no difficulty since the concentration camps and prisons were full of them. A small group of victims was allegedly kept at the fortress for this purpose. There is no hard evidence that any dark powers were actually released during these hellish rituals, or even if they were performed at all, but
depending on your religious persuasion and how one views the conduct of the war, perhaps they were. One thing is certain; given the beliefs held by Himmler, Hitler and their inner circle, if they were not it wasn’t for the lack of trying. The emblem of the ‘Black Sun’ is essentially an elaborate mandalla, like a spoked wheel surrounded by runic symbols. It is, even today, forbidden to belong to this order or even display the insignia in Germany.
© Brian Allan 2003
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