Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism

278 Pages·2000·4.67 MB·English

by  Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

HITLER’S PRIESTESS

NICHOLAS GOODRICK-CLARKE
HITLER’S
PRIESTESS
Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth,
and Neo-Nazism
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
NEW YORK UNIVERSITYPRESS
New York and London
Copyright (cid:1) 1998 by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarkehas assertedhis right
to be identifiedas the author of this work.
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData
Goodrick-Clarke,Nicholas.
Hitler’s priestess : SavitriDevi, the Hindu-Aryanmyth, and neo-
Nazism / Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references(p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8147-3110-4 (acid-freepaper)
1. Neo-Nazism. 2. SavitriDevi. I. Title.
JC481.G57 1998
320.53'3'092—dc21 97-45407
CIP
New York UniversityPress books are printed on acid-freepaper,
and their binding materialsare chosen for strengthand durability.
Manufacturedin the UnitedStatesof America
10987654321
C O N T E N T S
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS APPEAR AS AN INSERT FOLLOWING
PAGE 80.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
INTRODUCTION: ‘‘Discovered Alive in India:
Hitler’s Guru!’’ 1
1. Hellas and Judah 7
2. Aryavarta 26
3. Hindu Nationalism 43
4. The Nazi Brahmin 64
5. The Duce of Bengal 77
6. Akhnaton and Animal Rights 92
7. The Hitler Avatar 109
8. Defiance 126
9. Pilgrimage 147
10. The ODESSA Connection 169
11. Inside the Neo-Nazi International 187
12. Last Years and Legacy: Nazis, Greens, and the
New Age 210
v
vi CONTENTS
NOTES AND REFERENCES 233
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 251
INDEX 255
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 269
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
When writing the biography of an underground figure, one can only
benefit from the help of persons in the milieu. Here I would like to
thank Ernst Zu¨ndel for initially drawing my attention to Savitri Devi
in 1982 and sending me a copy of The Lightning and the Sun. I also
wish to acknowledge Samisdat Publishers of Toronto for allowing me
to quote at length from Savitri Devi’s books.
FormercomradesofSavitriDeviweregenerouswiththeirmemories,
as well as with the loan of books and photographs. I am grateful to
Beryl Cheetham, Lotte Asmus, Matt Koehl, and Colin Jordan. My re-
searches were greatly aided by Muriel Gantry, at whose Essex cottage
Savitri Devi died en route for America in 1982. A friend since 1946,
her nonpartisanmemoirsoverseveraldecadesrevealedmuchofSavitri
Devi’s personality, as well as providing amusing anecdotes. I am much
indebted to Miguel Serrano, who kindly sent me books and transla-
tions, and his correspondence with Savitri Devi, andotherwiseclarified
the nature of his ‘‘Esoteric Hitlerism.’’
This study has also benefited from scholarly encouragementandde-
bate. Warm thanks are due to my friends Professor Joscelyn Godwin
and Dr. Hans Thomas Hakl for their generous help with sources and
leads. An earlier review of Savitri Devi and her Hitler cult was the
subject of my plenary lecture at the ninth international conference of
CESNUR (Centre for Studies of New Religions, Turin) held at the
University of Rome in May 1995.
I owe thanks to the librarians and staffs of the British Library; the
India Office Library and Records, London; the Bodleian Library, Ox-
ford; the Taylor Institution Library, Oxford; and Indian Institute Li-
brary, Oxford.
vii

I N T R O D U C T I O N
‘‘Discovered Alive in India: Hitler’s Guru!’’
The young German sat on the threadbare sofa listening to the words
of the old woman before him. Through windows opening onto a bal-
cony, shafts of dust-flecked sunlight shone into the darkened space of
her humble, spartanly furnished room. Outside the strange, heady tu-
multofIndiaresoundedinthefullglareofthemiddayheat.Allaround
he could hear the street sounds and raucous, bustling squalor of this
back alley in Delhi. Occasionally, her narrative was interrupted by the
songs of the exotic birds she kept in her room and the young manwas
distracted by the sudden darting movement of the many cats, her in-
separable companions, that lay at her feet or dozed out on the balcony
in the warm air.
His attention fixed on the worn and crinkled face of the old woman
as she carefully chose her words to tell the story of her life. She was
dressed in the fashion ofIndianwomen,wearingaloosewhitesariand
a thin cotton shift over her shoulders. Soft gray hair framed her high
forehead and wasgatheredbehindherears.Whileherbrowwasbarely
lined, her cheeks, chin, and neck blurred in a mass of furrows and
wrinkles. Her lips were thin, and her mouth looked twisted, pointing
downward at the right side. But it was her eyes that held him. Her
eyes burned with a strange luminous quality, the light of inner vision
and missionary zeal. But he also noticed that the left eye stared with
a pained expression, while the right appeared tired and liquid, and he
remembered with a start that she was now almost blind withcataracts.
The old woman’s name was Savitri Devi and the young man had
traveled all the way from Frankfurt to find her in thissmallbareroom
in old India and to hear in her own words the story of her sacred
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