Occultism in Nazism

Nazi mysticism, sometimes called Esoteric Hitlerism by practitioners, is a philosophical undercurrent of Fascism and National Socialism. High ranking Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler are widely known to have been interested in mysticism and the paranormal. The role played by mysticism in the development of Nazism and its ideals was identified by outsiders at least as early as 1940, with the publication of Lewis Spence's Occult Causes of the Present War.

The concentration of Esoteric Hitlerism is on the National Socialists' race-specific pre-Christian (also contemporary Hindu) "pagan" mythologies, and the inclusion of Adolf Hitler in the network of these mythologies. The Nazi party saw the conscience as a false pseudoscientific term of Jewish origin.

Prayer to Hitler

Führer, mein Führer, von Gott mir gegeben, beschütz und erhalte noch lange mein Leben

Du hast Deutschland errettet aus tiefster Not, Dir verdank ich mein täglich Brot

Führer, mein Führer, mein Glaube, mein Licht

Führer mein Führer, verlasse mich nicht

This was a prayer offered to orphans at orphanages. This translates roughly to:

Führer, my Führer, given to me by God, protect me and I would yet receive a long life

you have rescued Germany out of its deepest need, to you I owe my daily bread

Führer, my Führer, my belief, my light

Führer my Führer, you would leave me not

Origin

The foundation of Esoteric Hitlerism was Heinrich Himmler, who, more than any other high official in the Third Reich (including Hitler) was fascinated by Aryan (and not just Germanic) racialism and Germanic Odinism. He supported a German expedition to Tibet to search for the origins of the Aryan race. To this end, the expedition leader, Ernst Schäfer, had his anthropologist Bruno Beger make face masks and skull and nose measurements. Giulio Evola, Benito Mussolini's ideologist who tried to move Mussolini (unsuccessfully) towards paganism and away from concord with the Vatican, was also an influence on postwar Esoteric Hitlerism in his idea that powerful men such as Mussolini and Hitler had discovered the secrets of power that would allow them to bring in the "culture of the future".

Early influences

In 1912 a group of highly anti-Semitic German mystics formed the Germanenorden (Order of the Teutons). The Germanenorden was a mystic society based on proof of Aryan ancestry. The biographer Ian Kershaw does not classify it as mystic society but as a "völkische" organization. Founding members of the order included Theodor Fritsch, Philipp Stauff (pupil of Guido von List) and Hermann Pohl (Pohl later formed the Walvater Teutonic Order of the Holy Grail in 1915). Many members of the Germanenorden would go on to achieve high-ranking positions within the Nazi party.

The Thule Society

In 1915, Pohl was joined by Rudolf Glauer. Glauer, also known as Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorf, came to Germany with a Turkish passport and was a practitioner of sufi meditation and astrology. Glauer is known to have been an admirer of the rabidly anti-semitic Lanz von Liebenfels and Guido von List. Glauer was a wealthy man (the source of his wealth is unknown) and quickly became a grand master of the Bavarian Order in 1918. Later that year, he founded the Thule Society with Pohl's approval.

The Thule Society had a number of highly positioned individuals in the Nazi party, although Hitler himself never became a member. However, it was a member of the Thule Society, dentist Dr. Friedrich Krohn, who designed the swastika flag of the Nazi party.

Perhaps the most significant Thule influence on Hitler came from Dietrich Eckart. Eckart was the wealthy publisher of the newspaper In Plain German. He was a committed occultist as well as a member of the Thule Society's inner circle. While no direct connection between Eckart and Hitler has been documented, he is believed to have taught Hitler a number of persuasive techniques (some possibly mystical in nature). So profound was the influence, that Mein Kampf was dedicated to Eckart. Ian Kershaw labels neither the Thule society nor Eckart as a mystical.

The Vril Society

The Vril Society, or Luminous Lodge, has no documented activities until 1915, but is believed to have been founded by Russian magician and metaphysician Gergor Ivanovich Gurdyev (also known as George Gurdjieff). The Vril Society was reportedly founded to explore the origins of the Aryan race. The Society taught exercises in concentration designed to awaken the forces of Vril. Members of the Vril Society are believed to have included Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring and Hitler's personal physician Dr. Theodor Morell. Vri Society was usually considered an inner core within the Thule Gesellschaft.

Some, however, argue no such Vril Society ever existed, and/or that such a society had no impact on National Socialism: Neither the extensive biography of Hitler by Ian Kershaw nor the one by Alan Bullock mentions this society, and the biography of Hermann Göring by Werner Maser does not mention the society nor is it mentioned in book about the history of the SS by Heinz Hoehne.

General Karl Haushofer

General Karl Haushofer was a university professor and director of the Munich Institute of Geopolitics, as well as an avid student of Gurdjieff. He is believed to have studied Zen Buddhism and initiated at the hands of Tibetan lamas. Further, he worked closely with Hitler while he was imprisoned and working on Mein Kampf. Haushofer and Gurdjieff claimed to have had contact with secret Tibetan Lodges that possessed the secret of the "Superman," an idea that would become central to the eugenics movement of the Nazi party.

Suppression of secret societies

The Nazi party actively discouraged certain mystical secret societies, in fact executing a number of high-ranking mystics in Europe, particularly members of the Freemasons and Rosicrucians.

It is said that Aleister Crowley and Gurdjieff sought contact with Hitler, but actual contact is unconfirmed. Hitler would later go on to reject many German mystics, openly ridiculing them, particularly practitioners of Freemasonry, Theosophy and Anthrosophy.

Artur Dinter

In 1927 Hitler fired the Gauleiter of Thüringen, Artur Dinter from his function because he wanted to make too much a religion of Aryan racial purity. In 1928 Dinter was expelled from the party when he publicly attacked Hitler about this decision. [1]

Ahnenerbe

The Ahnenerbe Society, also referred to as the Nazi Occult Bureau, was dedicated primarily to the research of proving the superiority of the Aryan race but was also involved in occult practices. Founded in 1935 by Himmler, the Society became involved in searching for Atlantis and the Holy Grail (and is believed to be the basis for the Nazis in the Indiana Jones series of movies).

Hinduism

With the fall of the Third Reich, Esoteric Hitlerism took off as Hitler, who had died at the end of the war, was now able to be deified. Savitri Devi was the first major exponent of post-war Esoteric Hitlerism (see her Hitlerian Esotericism and the Tradition), and connected Hitler's Aryan ideology to that of the pro-independence Indians (specifically Hindus) such as Subhas Chandra Bose. For her, the swastika was an especially important symbol, as it symbolized the Aryan unity amongst the Hindus and Germans (and was also a symbol of good fortune for the Tibetans). Devi integrated Nazism into a broader cyclical framework of Hindu history, and called Hitler an avatar of Vishnu (preparing the way for Kalki) and the "Man against Time," having an ideal vision of returning his Aryan people to an earlier, more perfect time, and also having the practical wherewithal to fight the destructive forces forestalling his vision from fruition--a combination of the best traits of Akhenaton (a vision, but ineffectual) and Genghis Khan (violence, but senseless), without their faults.

Vril

The next major figure in Esoteric Hitlerism is Miguel Serrano, a Chilean diplomat. He wrote both The Golden Ribbon--Esoteric Hitlerism and Adolf Hitler, the Last Avatar.

He believed that Hitler was in Shambhala, an underground centre in Antarctica (formerly at the North Pole and Tibet), where he was in contact with the Hyperborean gods and from whence he would someday emerge with a fleet of UFOs to lead the forces of light (the Hyperboreans, sometimes associated with Vril) over the forces of darkness (inevitably including, for Serrano, the Jews) in a last battle and inaugurating a Fourth Reich.

He also connected the Aryans and their Hyperborean gods to the Sun and the Allies and the Jews to the Moon, and also had a special place in his ideology for the SS, who, in their quest to recreate the ancient race of Aryan god-men, he thought were above morality and therefore justified in their seemingly cruel deeds.

Mysticism in modern Neo-Nazism

Modern Neo-Nazism is often linked to Ásatrú, and the black metal scene. Mystic influences often appear in modern Nazi music, particularly references to artifacts such as the Spear of Longinus.

Modern Conspiracy Theories

Modern variations of the theory involve Hitler having escaped to the Antarctic, where he joined with a Subterranean dinosauroid master race, with whom he now travels inside of UFOs underground, generally beneath the South pole or throughout the center of the earth, but sometimes to a Nazi moon base as well. These Reptilian companions, sometimes seen to be Hyperboreans, are said to possess mighty "Vril" rods capable of easily defeating even modern armies.

The Yale fraternity Skull and Bones is linked to these stories by virtue of its alleged relationship to the Thule Society.

In Fiction

Occult-obsessed Nazis have been featured in the Indiana Jones films, and in the Hellboy comic books and movie.