Digging for Hitler: The Nazi Archaeologists Search for an Aryan Past

308 Pages·2016·8.45 MB·English

by  David Barrowclough

Fonthill Media Language Policy
Fonthill Media publishes in the international English language market. One language edition is published
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English and British English, a policy is necessary to define which form of English to use. The Fonthill
Policy is to use the form of English native to the author. David Barrowclough was born and educated in
England and now lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom; British English has therefore been adopted in this
publication.
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First published in the United Kingdom and the United States of America 2016
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Copyright © David Barrowclough 2016
ISBN 978-1-78155-500-2
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Typeset in 10.5pt on 13pt Sabon
Typeset in 10.5pt on 13pt Sabon
Printed and bound in England
Preface
I first had the idea for this book when an undergraduate at Cambridge in the
1990s. I was frustrated that lecturers would often refer to the appropriation of
archaeological science by the Nazis without being able to refer students to a
confirmatory text. The Indiana Jones franchise, for all its value as entertainment,
only served to enhance those frustrations with its confusing mix of historical fact
and contemporary fiction. Thus was the seed sown for the production of this
volume, which it is hoped goes some way to explaining how and why the Nazis
looked to archaeology and anthropology during the Third Reich.
In writing this book, I have had support and assistance from a number of
academics, institutions and friends. I would like to thank Dr Francisco Garcia
Alonso, Prof Heinrich Härke, Pippa Payne, Dr Sarah Ralph, Prof Thomas
Schneider, Prof Oebele Vries, and Prof Robert Williams for their contribution to
the text, helpful conversations and access to images in their private archives and
libraries. Access to original documents and secondary texts was given by the
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Bundesachiv, Berlin; Federal
Archives, Koblenz; Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich; Library of Congress,
National Archives, Washington; Lancashire County Library Service; Oriental
and India Office Collections, British Library; and the Public Record Office,
Kew. Finally, I would like to thank my publisher and family for their support.
Responsibility for any omissions or errors is my own.
Since the first stirrings of the idea for this book, things have moved forward
somewhat, and the appearance of Heather Pringle’s excellent The Master Plan
(2006) and Christopher Hale’s Himmler’s Crusade (2006) are particularly
welcome additions to the corpus. I recommend both, having drawn from them in
writing this text. I have also found Léon Poliakov’s The Aryan Myth (1974),
Peter Levanda’s Unholy Alliance (2010), Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s Occult
Roots of Nazism, and Robert Bowen’s Universal Ice (1993) very useful
secondary texts when writing what follows. For anyone wishing to follow up the
themes discussed in the following chapters, they make an ideal starting point.
Many of the primary sources that underpin the text are now available online, and
where possible I have indicated their location in the Endnotes.
Contents
Preface
1 Indiana Jones and Nazi Archaeology
2 Ideology: Aryans, Anti-Semitism and Racism
3 The Nazis in South America and the Search for the First Aryans of Atlantis
4 Tibet and the Search for the Aryan Homeland
5 Icelandic Sagas: Germanic Myths and Legends
6 Reading the Runes in Scandinavia
7 Finland: In the ‘Land of Heroes’
8 Spies in the Caves
9 Greece: The Gates of Hades and the Delphi Treasure
10 Symbols of Power in the New Germania
11 Claiming the Past
12 The Quest for the Holy Grail
13 Conclusion: A Warning from the Past
Endnotes
Bibliography