Table Of ContentTHE 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
Description:Nearly half a century after the defeat of the Third Reich, Nazism remains a subject of extensive historical inquiry, general interest, and, alarmingly, a source of inspiration for resurgent fascism in Europe. This book provides the first serious account of the way in which Nazism was influenced by p