Nazi Occultism

bandshell

Grand High Witch
Ran a search and couldn't find much more than a few posts on this. Just been watching Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy and thought there might be a few people on here with something to say on the subject.


Fascinating stuff. Covered the supposed Aryan/Atlantis link, runes, astrology, the Blutfahne, Nostradamus, the search for the Holy Grail and various other things. Seems like they cobbled together bits of anything they could twist to suit their own ends.

Never realised it ran so deep (or at least that's how it seemed from this documentary, I dunno how accurate it is). Obviously I'd seen Indiana Jones and whatnot but I'd always assumed the majority of it was bollocks.

Anyone able to recommend any reading material / documentaries?

Edit: I would have put this in the 'suggest a book...' thread but I was hoping for some sort of discussion.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
Himmler was obsessed with this stuff and Hindu mysticism too, though I'm not sure how far it penetrated mainstream Nazi thinking. Certainly can't imagine Goering or Goebbels and an amateur expert on the era I once interviewed told me Hitler was far too self-obsessed to have any God but himself.

This is great and has a good deal on the ideological roots of Nazism, from pre-unification and German romanticism onwards. But not a fat lot on the occult, as I recall, which I guess says something in itself.

So although I can't recommend one particular book, follow Himmler is my advice.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
this is right on topic. (but just between you and me i think the author took a few liberties)
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In the wake of the Second World War, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm--occult investigator and guardian of the infant Hellboy--founded the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense to investigate and defuse the remains of the Axis's sophisticated occult warfare projects and potential Soviet threats. Now, with the help of a handful of war-weary American soldiers and their erstwhile Soviet allies, Bruttenholm unravels the mystery of the Nazi Occult Bureau's greatest and most threatening initiatives: Project Vampir Sturm.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not something I know too much about myself, but yeah, totally fascinating. I think Himmler and Hess were the main dudes for this among the senior Party members; Hitler himself had very little time for it and at best tolerated it as an eccentricity in his subordinates.

What's amazing is how utterly promiscuous the historiography of Nazi occultism is, in terms of figures, organisations, philosophical influences...Atlantis, Hyperborea, Tibet, Hollow Earth theories, the perennial 'Nazi flying saucer' myth, Theosophists, Blavatsky, Crowley et al, the Holy Grail (c.f. Last Crusade, of course), the Round Table, Carl Jung, the Thule Society, runes, 'Odinism', the Black Sun, Gnostics, Cathars, the Externsteine...of course a lot of these things really were of interest to the Nazis, or at least some of them. The whole thing is like Dan Brown's wet dream.

I quite like the utter ridiculousness of a lot of it...

 
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bandshell

Grand High Witch
Aye. It feels like something out of a graphic novel rather than something that actually happened.

The skulls just cap it all off...

I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D on a battered old computer. Hitler armed with chainguns in a mech suit as a boss was a stroke of genius.

hitler-wolfenstein-3d.jpg
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Goodrick-Clarke is the main man on this. Another closely-related, and fascinating topic, is post-Third Reich ratlines and Aryan communes, Nazi-hunters and neo-fascist occultists. It was Goodrick-Clarke who first alerted me to the fact that Nick Griffin is a Julius Evola acolyte.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Another vote for Goodrick-Clarke's "Occult Roots of Nazism" here. Well researched, comprehensive and a nice dry sense of humour from what I can recall.

Also his more recent "Black Sun – Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity"

There are some truly awful books on the subject as well - Trevor Ravenscroft's "Spear of Destiny" is completely fucking bonkers from what I can remember, and includes swathes of detail about the "revelations" some no-mark received when off their nut on magic mushrooms.

Some other books I can't remember the titles of because I sold them seemed largely based on Goodrick-Clarke but completely over-emphasised the importance of the occult. Certainly it's all in there in terms of the aesthetics and also as justification for all the untermensch philosophy, but once the ball is rolling it's all about state and military bureaucracy, not wearing uniforms and chanting.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
A nice counter-balance to all this is Ellic Howe's "Astrology and psychological warfare during World War II"

This is largely about the Allies' exploitation of the 3rd Reich's tolerance of mumbo jumbo. For example using astrological charts in their propaganda to show that military defeat was inevitable, or that key nazis were losers.

But it also includes some detail on various astrologers and occultists who were active before the nazis rose to power (even supporting them in some instances) and how many of them ended up being imprisoned when Hitler came to power.

I think this is important because some contemporary occultniks seem to think that fascism would be ok because their incredible enlightenment and power would obviously recognised and rewarded (finally, lol). But actually this bunch of goth losers would probably end up being locked up along with the rest of us deviants.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
What is the enduring fascination with this stuff? I mean, I find it kind of fascinating as well, but rationally I can't see why it's more interesting than any other bit of 'weird' history...
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
It's a good question. I think the answer is probably similar to why horror movies are still popular?

Extreme Evil + Extreme Spookiness + Looks Cool = RAD.

I think also some people like the occult stuff because it proves that all the nazis were either mental or controlled by sinister spiritual forces. So, "not like you and me".

And some people dig it because they are into this shit and it's proof that their amazing occult powers are actually good for CONTROLLING ZE WORLD!

It's a bit adolescent tho, really. Lots of scope for a very shallow analysis of history.
 

bandshell

Grand High Witch
This is fairly interesting. Again, I don't know how accurate it is. There are a couple of amusing quotes attributed to Hitler by Speer.

http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/himmler.htm

Architect, construction supremo, and armaments minister Albert Speer reports Hitler as saying of Himmler:

"What nonsense! Here we have a last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind it, and now he wants to start all over again. We might just as well have stayed with the church ... To think that I may some day be turned into an SS saint! I would turn over in my grave..."[Speer]

Indeed, so sparse and unimpressive were the finds from some of the pivotal sites in these grand landscape schemes that the evidence had to be manipulated or just plain invented. Hitler was rather embarrassed by Himmler's obsession with the past:

"Why do we call the whole world's attention to the fact that we have no past? It isn't enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up these villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds. All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture. We really should do our best to keep quiet about this past. Instead Himmler makes a great fuss about it all. The present-day Romans must be having a laugh at these relegations." [Speer]
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I only really watch Raiders and Last Crusade. The other two films I'm not so keen on.

Temple of Doom loses points for not having Nazis, but it does have *that* chase scene. And chilled monkey brains and 'snake surprise'. And the hat-grabbing scene. All good stuff. :)

And come on, whichever of the three original films you consider the weakest, there's no way you can bracket it with Kingdom of the Crystal Meth (to judge from what Spielberg must have been smoking when he directed the fucking thing - or maybe that was more just Lucas's malign influence...gah).
 
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jenks

thread death
Seem to remember guru of this board - Meades - had a film on this, i think it was called Jerry Building but it's certainly an area he has visited more than once - tying it in with Camelot myths and all sorts.
 
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