The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology

304 Pages·2004·14.47 MB·English

by  Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

THE OCCULT ROOTS
OF NAZISM
Secret Aryan Cults and their
Influence on Nazi Ideology
NICHOLAS GOODRICK-CLARKE
TPP
TAURIS PARKE
PAPERBACKS
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is a specialist on Nazi ideology
and currently Research Fellow in the Western Esoteric
Tradition, University of Wales, Lampeter.
Reprinted in 2005
Published in 2004 by Tauris Parke Paperbacks
and imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke 1985, 1992, 2004.
The right of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 1 86064 973 4
EAN 978 1 86064 973 8
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin.
Contents
Page
Acknowledgements iv
Illustrations v
Author's Preface to 2004 Edition vi
Foreword ix
Introduction 1
PART 1: THE BACKGROUND
1. The Pan-German Vision
2. The Modern German Occult Revival 1880-1 9 10
PART 2: THE ARIOSOPHISTS OF VIENNA
3. Guido von List
4. Wotanism and Germanic Theosophy
5. The Armanenschaft
6. The Secret Heritage
7. The German Millennium
8. Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels and Theozoology
9. The Order of the New Templars
PART 3: ARIOSOPHY IN GERMANY
10. The Germanenorden
11 . Rudolf von Sebottendorff and the Thule Society
12. The Holy Runes and the Edda Society
13. Herbert Reichstein and Ariosophy
14. Karl Maria Wiligut: The Private Magus of
Heinrich Himmler
15. Ariosophy and Adolf Hitler
Appendix A: Genealogy of Lanz von Liebenfels
Appendix B: Genealogy of the Sebottendorff Family
Appendix C: The History of Ariosophy
Appendix D: New Templar Verse
Appendix E: The Modern Mythology of Nazi Occultism
Notes and References
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
SEVERAL individuals were kind enough to help me gather the rare
sources ofAriosophy and also offered valuable encouragement. Here
I would like to thank especially Mr Ellic Howe, Pastor Ekkehard
Hieronimus, Dr Annin Mohler, Professor Dr Helmut Moller, the late
Herr RudolfJ. Mund, Dr Reginald H. Phelps, and Dr Wilfried Daim.
Meetings and correspondence with Herren Hermann Gilbhard,
Gerhard Kurtz, Eckehard Lenthe, Arthur Lorber, Adolf Schleipfer,
Karlheinz Schwecht, Dr Johannes Kopf, and Dr Johannes von
Miillern-Schonhausen also furthered my quest in Germany and
Austria.
An earlier version of this work was submitted as a thesis for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Oxford and I
therefore wish to record my gratitude to my successive supervisors
who gave constructive criticism and support: Professor Norman
Cohn, Dr Bryan Wilson, and Professor Peter Pulzer. I am also grateful
to the German Historical Institute, London, for the award of a
travelling bursary in 1978.
I owe thanks to the libraries and staffs of the British Museum; the
Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Warburg Institute, University of
London; the Wiener Library, London; the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz;
the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; the Berlin Document
Center, and the ~sterreichischeN ationalbibliothek, Vienna.
I am finally grateful to Mr Leonard Baker for assisting me in the
correction of the proofs.
Illustrations
between pages 150 and 151
Guido von List 19 10
Freidrich Wannieck
Freidrich Oskar Wannieck
Blasius von Schemua
Philipp Stauff
Bernhard Koerrier
List, Das Geheimnis der Runen (1908)
List, Die Bilderschrift der An'o-Germanen (19 10)
Tarnhari, name-runes and occult coat-of-arms, c. 19 15
HA0 pilgrimage to Carnunturn, June 19 11
Funerary tumulus for F.O. Wannieck in Munich, 1914
Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels PONT
Flagstone showing knight and beast, excavated at Heiligenkreuz
Abbey in 1894
Ostara illustration, 1922
Burg Werfenstein
Werfenstein ex-libris
Templar Room at Burg Werfenstein
Marienkamp-Szt. Balazs
Staufen
Theodor Fritsch
Lodge ceremony for novices, c. 19 12
Founding meeting of Order at Leipzig, 24/25 May 19 12
Rudolf von Sebottendorff
Thule Society emblem, 19 19
Herbert Reichstein
Frodi lngolfson Wehrinann
Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch
Rudolf John Gorsleben
Werner von Bulow's 'world-rune-clock'
Karl Maria Wiligut in July 1945
Wiligut family seal, 1933
SS Totenkopfring design, 194 1
SS-Oberfuhrer Weisthor (K. M. Wiligut) in 1936
Author's Preface to 2004 Edition
AS WE witness the renewed growth of the far right across Europe,
America and the former East Bloc, ?he Occult Roots OfNazism helps illu-
minate its ideological foundations. By examining the occult ideas that
played midwife to the Hitler movement, the most destructive right-
wing ideology in history, we can better understand their implications
todav.
Mihen the book first appeared, popular literature on the link
between Hitler, Nazi ideology, occultism and Tibetan mysteries had
proliferated since the 1960s and Nazi "black magic" was regarded as a
topic for sensational authors in pursuit of strong sales. The very exist-
ence of this sort of literature tended to inhibit serious historical enquiry
into the religious and occult aspects of German National Socialism.
Before the 1980s only a few serious writers, including Raymond
Aron, Albert Camus, Romano Guardini, Denis de Rougemeont, Eric
Voegelin, George Mosse, Klaus Vondung and Friedrich Heer had
alluded to the religious aspects of National Socialism. This neglect was
all the more surprising since commentators during the Third Reich had
already noted its cultic appeal. A wider understanding of Nazi religios-
ity awaited the scholarly examination of the pre-Nazi volkisch ideology.
?he Occult Roots of Nazism documents the lives, doctrines and cult
activities of the Arioso~hists of Vienna and their successors in
Germany, who combined uolkisch German nationalism and Aryan
racial theories with occultism. They articulated a defensive ideology of
German identity and illiberalism, since they were especially concerned
with the political emergence of the subject nationalities of multi-ethnic
Austria-Hungary after 1900. Since their ideas in respect of ancient
Aryan homelands (Hyperborea and Atlantis), suppressed pagan priest-
hoods, Germanic religion and runic wisdom later filtered through to
THE OCCULT ROOTS OF NAZISM
Heinrich Himmler and his SS research departments, Ariosophy pro-
vided a model case-study in Nazi religiosity. The continuity of such
beliefs through the Third Reich, with its eschatological vision of geno-
cide, clearly demonstrated the irrelevance of a Marxist analysis based
on a critique of capitalism, economic factors and class interest. Only
religious beliefs and myth could explain the success of an ideology
concerned with special racial and esoteric knowledge, the belief in a
nefarious world-conspiracy of scheming Jews and other racial in-
feriors, and the apocalyptic promise of group salvation in a millenarian
apotheosis of the German nation. These ideas all derived from pre-
rational and pre-modern traditions.
The first publication of Tht Occult Roots ofNazism stimulated a wider
scholarly appreciation of the religious and cultic aspects of National
Socialism. Several German books were subsequently published on the
volkisch movement, now with special reference to the Ariosophists;
British and American historians gave increased attention to the import-
ance of religious and millenariaielements in Nazi ideology.
But there is a further compelling reason why Tht Occult Roots of
Nazism is increasingly read and noted. The widening scholarly aware-
ness and treatment of Nazism as a political religion is in a re-
sponse to the growing role of religion in politics today. The end of the
Cold War also concluded the twentieth-centurv "ideolog.ica1 wars" of
"
fascism, liberalism and communism. Idealistic visions of political order
have given way to ideologies of cultural identity, in which religion plays
a major part. The rapid growth and impact of Islamic militancy,
Hindu nationalism and Christian fundamentalism in the 1990s have
sharply reminded us that beliefs and myths can provide a dynamic
and often destructive form of political expression. The re-emergence
of these forms of political religiosity makes it much easier to under-
stand the extraordinary appeal of myth, religious imagery and political
idealism that animated Nazism in its own era.
Meanwhile. the radical right itself has resurfaced in the Western
"
democracies. From the mid-1980s onwards, Western countries wit-
nessed the rise of the radical right, pushing for political space on the
margins of liberal society. By the early 1990s, the increasing numbers
and political assertion of immigrant and ethnic minorities in advanced
industrial states. led the United States. Britain and other states still with
predominantly white populations to embrace the idea of a multi-
cultural society. The end of the Soviet empire and its erstwhile im-
~ermeableb orders across central and eastern Euro~eth en unleashed
a further movement of economic migrants, refugees and so-called
vii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO 2004 EDITION
asylum-seekers across Asia. By the early 2000s Europe and North
America had become the favoured d~stinationfo r migrant population
flows from the developing world, often placing an unsustainable burden
on local housing, education and health services. Skyrocketing immigra-
tion figures, coupled with liberal demands for multi-culturalism, have
recreated similar political circumstances to those which gave rise to far-
right neo-Nazi ~artieisn the United States and Britain in the 1960s. in
u
response to civil rights legislation and non-white immigration. Once
again, far right parties have re-emerged, with the British National Party
winning a number of local council ward seats in urban areas of mixed
ethnic settlement. Fuelled by these issues, populist parties have
achieved a high profile in other European states.
However, the expression of right-wing radicalism is by no means
limited to the populist parties that seek electoral success in Britain,
France, Austria. Germanv, Holland and Denmark. Racial nationalism
, ,
escalates in numerous underground groupuscules, which communicate
through small magazines available from PO box addresses or on the
internet, through white power rock music groups and concerts. In this
'cultic milieu' one discovers the ideological heirs of the pre-Nazi volkisch
movement. This milieu and its mentors are examined in my successor
volume Black Sun: Ay~anC ults, Esoteric Nazjsm and the Politics $Identity.
Such groupuscules coin esoteric symbols of white racial identity, facili-
tate discourses of resistance to the coloured invasion of the West, and
embrace a rich plethora of conspiracy theories and occult ideas involv-
ing the mystique of the blood, Nazi-Tibetan connections and even
Nazi-manned UFOs. The names of the Ariosophists, Guido von List,
Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, Rudolf John Gorsleben and Karl Maria
Wiligut ('Himmler's Rasputin') have themselves become current in this
milieu, thereby underlining the direct line of descent between
Ariosophy in the 1920s and 1930s and the re-emergence of a cultic far
right today.
This new edition of 7he Occult Roots gJVa.5:i.m appears at a time when
the cultic far right has increased its range and impact further by focus-
ing resentment against big government and the growth of regulatory
bureaucracy, affirmative action and the race relations industry, and
massive increases in third-world immigration. It is highly significant
that today's multi-culturalism also recapitulates the special circum-
stances in multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary before 19 14. The example of
the Ariosophists, definitively documented in this volume, resonates no
less strongly today in the context of globalization, mass immigration
and religious nationalism.
viii
Foreword
I HAVE no claim to be an occultist but I welcome this opportunity to
write a word at the inception of Dr Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's telling
study of the occult roots of national socialism. When I wrote The Roots of
National Socialism Adolf Hitler was ill power. At that time it had become
the fashion, in England certainly, to regard the Nazis as hardly more
than a bunch of gangsters who had by some economic or propagandist
trick won the following of the liberal-minded bulk of the Gcrnman
people. I wrote to suggest that a deeper explanation might be sought
in a German tradition of political thought which was liable to promote
an outlook on society in some sympathy with aspects of national
socialism. Thus, my book proved to be initially controvcrsial.
As the Second World War progressed, however, it became in-
creasingly evident that something more, even, than fear had been
needed to keep alarge majority ofthe German people loyal to the Nazi
Third Reich through thick and thin, displaying remarkable courage
and endurance almost to the bitter end. After the war this was
recognized by the Rhineland statesman who began to lead the
Germans of the Federal Republic into the light again and into the great
combination of the western nations in defence of freedom. Dr Konrad
Adenauer wrote: 'National socialism could not have come to power in
Germany if it had not found, in broad strata of the population, soil
prepared for its sowing of poison. I stress, in broad strata of the
population. It is not accurate to say that the high military or the great
industrialists alone bear the guilt. . . Broad strata ofthe people, of the
peasants, middle classes, workers and intellectuals did not have the
right intellectual attitude.'
Since the publication of my book (now reprinted in the United
States) a formidable amount of further research into the ideology and
practice of national socialism, much of it untranslated from the
~erman,h as added to our stock of facts and theories. I have
sometimes wondered whether the gain in fresh insights has been
commensurate. No such doubt arose in reading The Occult Roots of
Nazism.
ix