Nazi Occultism
In pre-Third Reich Germany, there was a growing interest in Germanic symbolic heritage that led to practices based on the occult.
During the formation of the Nazi ideological corpus, the search for a nationalist identity with Nordic roots gave way to the study of runes. Guido Von List (1848 -1919) proposed a simplified alphabet known as Futhark, since they always begin with the letters f-u-th-a-r-k. He founded the Armanen movement, being a pioneer of the theory of the Aryan race.
Armanism proposed the rejection of the Semitic heritage contained in Christianity towards a spirituality close to pagan, mostly "Aryan" Proto-Indo-European cultures. It was believed that Externsteine, a megalithic complex in the Teutonic forest, was a place of worship for populations prior to the arrival of Christianity. It was the German historian Wilhelm Teudt who, joining the Nazi party, proposed turning this area into a sacred forest, forming the "Externstein Foundation" together with Heinrich Himmler, which is currently a meeting point for fascist philosophies. It is said that there was also the Irminsul, a tree that connected heaven and earth for the Saxons who worshipped Irmin, related in turn to the Nordic Yggdrasil.
Another pioneer of the religious ideas that would form the backbone of Nazism came from J. Lanz Von Lienbenfels (1874 – 1954), who wrote in the Austrian magazine Ostara in a self-published form theological justifications for racial eugenics (with human farms for this purpose) or about misogyny (as the culprits of this), all around Germanic superiority.
However, there was a conflict between the growing völkisch movement that aspired to hegemonize a new German national feeling, while behind the scenes the secret society of the Germanenorden pushed its ideology into the agenda of the newly created Nazi Party, clashing with the Armanen who did not share its fascist precepts.
Although some followers tried to stimulate esotericism within the birth of the National Socialist Party, they were rejected by the attempt to politically hegemonize the German citizenship that saw these ideas as far removed from their needs.
Jakob Wilhelm Hauer tried to form the German Faith Movement with traits of Germanic paganism together with Nazi ideology, taking the swastika from Hinduism. They had the approval of Rudolf Hess, but did not win the favor of the rest of the followers.
It was Himmler (1900-1945), leader of the SS, who founded the Society for Research and Teaching on German Ancestral Heritage or Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage) to carry out pseudoscientific research based on anthropology and archaeology to defend his theories on racial superiority.
Their obsession led them to expeditions to Tibet to establish the point of origin of the Nordic race, as a meeting point between the Mongols and other barbarian tribes, as well as the search for Shamballa as a mystical kingdom hidden in Hindu tradition.
On the other hand, the extremists of the Thule Society tried to prove that the Aryan race came from a lost place, which they linked to Atlantis. Although their influence was marginal, it was they who imposed the Nazi swastika as the recognizable logo of the Hitlerian forces.
The belief in Vril as an infinite psychic energy at the core of the Earth and the Vril Society originated in a novel called "The Coming Race" written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1871. This work of fiction describes an underground civilization that used this energy to reach a higher state of existence. Although the novel was purely fictional, some people, including theosophists and historians, took the idea of Vril as an occult truth. This led to the belief in a secret society that possessed knowledge of this energy and sought to use it for its own purposes. The Vril Society was a concept that became part of occult mythology, especially during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe. Some occult movements, such as the Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in England, explored similar ideas about world change and transformation through mystical and esoteric practices, but without the racial charge that some groups linked to Nazism would later adopt. Aleister Crowley (1875 -1947), who was associated with the Golden Dawn before forming his own spiritual tradition, had visions of transformation and radical changes in society, but his focus was not on race, but rather on spiritual and personal evolution. The racial aspect and the search for a "new order" through mystical and esoteric practices were later mixed with Nazi ideology in Germany. Nazism distorted these ideas to promote its agenda of racial supremacy and control, adopting esoteric and mythological concepts to support their narrative of a "superior people" and the idea of a new order under their leadership.
In a desperate attempt to win the war, the National Socialist forces attempted to locate esoteric relics such as the Holy Grail by initiating the "Kulturkampf Project", which was the inspiration for works of fiction such as Indiana Jones, Wolfenstein or Full Metal Alchemist. In the video game Inscryption (SPOILER!), a cursed Kärnoffel deck (understood as a Germanic proto-tarot) in Adolf Hitler's possession at the time of his death ends up possessing the game itself.
All these occult ideas clashed with anthroposophy, the main competitor of the new fascist "religiosity". Rudolf Steiner gained strength against old religions as a secular belief opposing nationalism and anti-Semitism. Influenced at the same time by Hinduism and Buddhism, integrating all these currents of thought into its system.
Despite this, it continued to have Christ as the spiritual axis of the history of humanity.
At the same time that it tried to impose a new spirituality, it repressed thousands of Freemasons by comparing them to Jews and other intellectual groups such as the White Rose, in an anti-elite discourse similar to the "Judeo-Masonry" of Spanish Francoism and which in turn led to the well-known book burnings.
Nazism did not completely eliminate Christianity, although it sought to restrict its influence, promoting extreme nationalism through a paganism that would create tensions between both factions.
For the Nazis, occultism was a vital component of their worldview, influencing their decisions and actions by proclaiming the arrival of a new reality that led to a mobilization of the masses.
Its consequences led to racial eugenics with horrible experiments on anyone who rejected its proclamations.
Today, the rise of neopaganism has come dangerously close to neo-Nazism, as we have seen in the traditional lives proposed by the community in the film Midsommar, or in the recent news about neo-Nazi groups hidden under pagan organizations.
Although the relationship between occultism and politics is extensive, such as José López Rega in Argentina, Choi Soon-sil in Korea or Rasputin in Russia, this article serves as a reminder of the dangers of manipulating spirituality for political purposes.
Nuria Acquaviva - nacquavivaps@gmail.com
Bibliography:
- Flowers, S. (Ed.) The secret of the runes by Guido Von List, 1989
-González Gutiérrez, J. G. Magia, ocultismo y sociedades secretas en el Tercer Reich. Editorial Almuzara. 2020.
-Gazin-Schwart, A., Holtorf. C (Ed.) Archeology and Folklore, Routledge, Londres 1999
Related posts:
> 27-09-2023. Artgemeinschaft.Neopaganism as an ideological tool. The Asatru case.
