"I've always liked to travel to Celtic lands like Ireland or Scotland." "I'm not only attracted by the scenery, but also by the relaxed relationship the people have to their legends and centers of cult worship." "The word "Celtic" sounds different than Germanic." "It hasn't been burdened by a disgraceful past." "You can approach it without a bad conscience and discover traces of a nature religion which vanished in Europe at the onset of Christianity." "Presumably there were similar traditions in Germany." "But following the Nazis Germanic obsession, this has become a dark terrain overloaded with taboos - a subject for specialized academics and culture nerds only." "Perhaps it was no coincidence that, while in Ireland, I came across a book by the English historian Goodrick-Clarke ..." "My first impression was amazement." "I had hardly known anything about runes and nothing about esoterics and Grail experts in the SS or the influence of northern legends on Hitler and Himmler." "German historians have apparently ignored that bizarre foundation." "Have they avoided a controversial topic, or are myths, symbols and fantasies too trivial for their research?" "The topic began to fascinate me, and I started to investigate." "On reading books and magazines from the first 40 years of this century," "I discovered an unknown world." "I was struck by recurring pictures:" "the rebirth of Germany, the emergence of light, an awakening, a dawning." "THE SUN" "LET THERE BE LIGHT" "In Germany there was a strange feeling of revival, a mixture of dissatisfaction and fervent pathos." "Paintings by Fidus hung in many living rooms and gave a fitting expression to people's longings." "People came together in small groups and sought mystical experiences out beyond the large cities." "This was taken from a nationalist magazine from 1924." "The gods we previously kneeled down to are dethroned." "Capitalism and socialism have declared their moral bankruptcy." "Hedonism has left our souls unmoved." "It drearily moves through every pleasure." "People of all classes feel a strong yearning to free themselves from the rational world and to be placed in a world of immediacy." "They see today s civilization as cold and dark." "The religion they are being offered is nothing but a system of thoughts they can view in many different ways." "A few years later Heinrich Himmler said of Hitler:" "He emerged from utter desperation at a time when the German people had come to a standstill." "He is one of those bright figures formed by Germanic culture whenever it is driven to physical, mental and emotional despair." "He has been predestined by the Germanic karma to lead the battle against the East and to save the world's Germanic culture." "One of the greatest figures of light has found in him its reincarnation." "While reading sentences like that I was reminded of the present, the increasing interest in esoterics, mysticism and magic, the growing number of sects and psycho-groups," "the upsurge of religious fundamentalism throughout the world." "My historical analysis raised questions that extend to the present day:" "Where do legends expand our thinking, and where do they bury it?" "When does spiritual pursuit suddenly turn into fanaticism and violence?" "These questions will accompany my investigation." "BLACK SUN" "The Mythological Background of National Socialism." "During the 2nd half of the last century a woman traveled on her own through vast regions of Asia." "To avoid attracting attention, she wore men's clothing and smoked cigarillos." "Her straightforwardness helped her come in contact with native populations and spiritual teachers." "The person in question is Helena Blavatsky, a Russian occultist, known as a charlatan by her critics and as an initiate by her followers." "Her claim to have gone to Tibet still remains unproven today." "Yet her legends about mysterious monasteries and occult writings created a myth about the roof of the world which extends to the present-day esoteric scene." "While Darwinism described to the West how humans evolved from apes," "Blavatsky talked about secret writings which recalled quite another evolution." "In remote libraries in Tibet, she claimed to have found chronicles of lost civilizations said to have existed thousands of years before ancient Egypt." "Hyperborea and Atlantis, two empires celebrated by Greeks, were realities, she said, with a highly developed people who had stepped down from heaven at the North Pole as the shadows of the gods." "Blavatsky saw the gigantic structures at Stonehenge and on the Easter Islands as memories of Atlantis enormous beings who fell victim to natural disasters after abusing their supernatural powers." "After long migrations to other regions of the world, some of the survivors passed on their magical knowledge and founded the so-called Aryan Race, she claimed in her important book, "The Secret Doctrine"." "She founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 to investigate those ideas which also attracted racist esoterics." "The swastika in their seal was seen as a symbol of inpending spiritual renewal." "Blavatsky was no forerunner of the Nazis, but the ambiguity of her secret teachings, taken from myths and visions, was the source of widespread abuse." "Obscure theories about former races of demigods became the fuel for conflict at a time when the breakdown of society's old order and hierarchies was causing uncertainty and fear among many people." "Blavatsky's comments about the feeble-minded Africans or the spiritual degeneration of the Jews rounded off the picture." "Small groups of occultists developed into hotbeds for racist beliefs:" "Esoteric concepts like salvation and purification were transformed into ideological mottos against the supposedly depraved and impure." "While Blavatsky was lingering in Asia in 1870, a young Austrian began making extensive trips through the Austrian countryside." "He was also looking for spiritual roots at a time when society's old order was breaking down and the new order was not yet within reach." "The writer, Guido von List, studied the traces of Germanic mysticism in the forests of Austria." "On his long and lonely excursions he dreamed of being caught up in the magic of castles, forests and cult worship." "The picture of a dropout who no longer felt touched by big city life and Christianity and who sought the divine in the elements of nature." "For him, monumental boulders were old Germanic shrines, the last relicts of a Wotan religion which Christianity had wiped out." "We know little about our ancestors places of cult worship, but racist esoterics projected a great deal into those dark realms." "List thought that Nordic giants from Atlantis had arranged the massive boulders hundreds of thousands of years ago to make certain areas holy." "He spent entire nights at those places, and after several bottles of red wine he'd listen to the voices of gods in the trees." "He wrote books about it which impressed young Hitler, who later suggested similar book guides for German places of cult worship." "List usually went on his excursions alone, but one time his friends accompanied him." "At the ruins of Carnuntum, they wanted to celebrate the solstice by commemorating the battle in 400 A.D." "when Germanic tribes are said to have defeated the Romans." "Following a fire ritual, eight wine bottles were arranged as a swastika and buried under the ashes." "They consecrate the site to a place of resistance against the age-long domination of Germania by Roman legions and Christian missionaries." "Following an eye operation, List couldn't see for 11 months and lived in the semi-conscious state of a hallucinatory inner world." "At that time, he claimed to have grasped the mystical meaning of the runes and published his findings which were to have a great influence on racists." "For him, they symbolized insight into the invisible powers of nature." "He called them "signs of salvation"" "to support inner contemplation." "After the church had persecuted the Germanic religion, it was preserved in a hidden form by a few initiates, either in coats of arms or in symbols used by the cathedral masons." "List's interpretations were made up and are scientifically unverifiable." "We've asked a rune specialist what the symbols really mean." ""Rune" ... means letter." "It's a creation of the 17th century which we took over from Scandinavia." "In ancient times, runes were actually mentioned." "For example, a German inscription reads:" ""Boso tore the rune."" "So rune must mean letter." "But there also writings we know from the Gothic Bible." "in which the word runa is used for the Greek mysterion - secret, so we have a change in meaning." "Of course, we don't know which meaning is older, or if there were two similar sounding words with different meanings." "The second question you've asked, if the runes tell us anything about that people's way of life," "I'd agree." "You can examine the inscriptions we've had in rune letters since the second century: "What do they say?"" "We find the writer's personal data, the name of the owner, sometimes a link to death-related magic, something about their customs and about their way of life." "A second way to investigate is through the name attached to every rune." "They have been passed on since the ninth century." "And they describe a way of life where gods play a role and natural phenomena like ice and hail or human worries and joys, necessity, happiness and bliss and the forces of nature like the sun, ice and hail ..." "Despite their arbitrariness, List's occult interpretations had a big influence at the beginning of this century." "You find them in the Ramblers Association's catalogues thet praise rune jewelry as a sign of revival looking for power in the ancient Germanic symbols." "Sun Flight" " From God to God" "Even Iceland's collection of myths, the Edda, was abused by List for his racist fantasies." "Stimulated by Blavatsky, he saw it as ancient memories of the origin of the Aryan race from the north." "He saw the battles between giants and dwarves described in those legends as real wars between higher and lower races." "Natural mysticism and esoteric ideas were narrowed down to a racist ideology which demanded the liberation of the Germanic spirit from foreign influence." "For that purpose, List founded a society in 1908." "Numerous illustrious people in Vienna were members, including the anti-Semitic mayor Karl Lueger, later a model for young Hitler." "World War I was welcomed as an act of spiritual purification from supposed decadence." "which was caused by socialism, democracy and miscegenation." "List's writings picked up that feeling and enhanced it." "They were frequently read in trenches and field hospitals and were valued as a consolation in dark times." "In one of his final works he wrote:" "Once more shall the sparks fly from the Aryan-German-Austrian battleships." "Once more shall Donar's battle lightning strike out from the cannons of our dreadnoughts." "Once more shall our armies march south- and westward to put things in order again." "Parallel to List, there was another man who later became his companion, an Austrian mystic who strongly influenced Hitler's ideas." "Fascinated by old knightly orders," "Adolf Lanz entered the Holy Cross Monastery near Vienna in 1893." "He regarded their traditions as the continuation of the legendary Templars." "In the quiet cloisters and gardens, he dreamed of medieval knights and noble heroes who fought for good and justice." "One day a memorial slab was found with a strange relief on the back side." "Lanz later compared the sight of that picture with an inspiration." "He interpreted the man standing on a mythological animal as a temple knight who was fighting off the threat of an inferior race." "Such races were created when Nordic god-men had intercourse with animals." "Mythological creatures in Assyrian temple reliefs were proof to him." "He called the chained creatures Sodom's apes and regarded them as a mixed race that had actually once existed." "They were the predecessors of the dark people in the south who couldn't wait to breed the white Aryan downhill." "Where do myths expand our thinking, and where do they bury it?" "Lanz reduced the ambiguity of pictures to one arbitrary meaning, a shallow interpretation of mythology as was common during the time before the 3rd Reich." "He took on a title of nobility and left the monastery in order to found a religious order and the magazine Ostara which was to inform people about his racial studies." "The Ancient Homeland and History of the Heroic Blond Race." "Sexuality and Love among Blonds and Dark-skinned People." "The Holy Grail as the Mystery of the Aryan-Christian Race Cult Religion." "His connections to rich industrialists in Vienna enabled him to buy a castle on the Danube which was converted into the New Templar Order place of worship." "The surrounding countryside, the Nibelungengau, was transfigured in songs and writings to the holy place of the chosen Germans." "There are still remnants of that left in the area." "Small right-wing publishing companies print copies of the Ostara." "Lanz declared Werfenstein Castle to be the center of an imminent cultural battle and organized lectures and concerts with hundreds of people sometimes attending." "A so-called Grail Room was reserved for special rituals of the inner circle." "In songs, they called upon God to annihilate the inferior races." "Even the Swedish writer August Strindberg took part in such rituals." "He strove for similar goals, and, following an emotional crisis, he sought security in that religious sect." "Lanz's writings were not only absurd daydreams." "They were specific plans for something the Nazis would later develop." "In 1932, he wrote to one of his religious brothers:" "Did you know that Hitler is one of our followers." "You will experience his victory, which will be our victory, too, and it will unleash a movement that will shake the world." "Beginning in 1909, Hitler lived in a shelter in Vienna where he began reading the Ostara writings." "Once he actually sought out Lanz to ask for some essays he couldn't find." "Lanz generously gave them to him." "They confirmed his own ideas and showed him a mythological empire of Nordic heroes who empassioned his youthful zeal." "As a child, he had devoured the Heroic German Legends, and in Vienna, the 20-year-old rarely missed a Wagnerian opera performance." "In his imagination, Wagner's heroes were linked to Lanz's main ideas:" "Chaste heroes against a world of decadence and impurity." "At the beginning of the century," "Hitler's Vienna was dominated by powerful social tensions." "Radiant wealth and repulsive poverty alternated abruptly." "Thousands of unemployed loitered in front of the Ring Road palaces." "And under the via triumphalis of an older Austria, the homeless dwelled in the shadows and the mud of the canals." "For hours, I could stand before the opera house." "For hours, I could admire the state house." "The entire Ring Road appeared to me like the magic from Ali Baba." "He fled from that reality into a dream world of the past." "In the Hofburg, the treasures of the Habsburg's reminded him of a magnificent tradition, thus kindling his imagination that longed for a rebirth of the German Empire." "Thanks to the efforts of the esoteric Rudolf von Sebottendorff yet another legend foreshadowed the coming of the Nazis:" "the legend of the Nordic kingdom of Thule." "In 1916, Sebottendorff came upon the ad of a so-called Germanic Order which adopted one of Moses warnings to the Jews as their own program:" "The Lord will send out a people against you, from faraway, from the end of the world, from midnight, a strong, large, powerful people that was the first people," "a people with a mysterious language, brutal and without mercy." "The magazine they published made no secret of their convictions either." "Rune comes from Raunen which means a secret message." "The Germanic spirit reveals itself in secret messages." "That is the secret of our lodge." "We don't need to hide it as do the secret societies run by Hebrews." "Sebottendorff joined the Germanic Order and formed the Munich Lodge into the so-called Thule Society in 1918 which met in the Four Seasons Hotel and included several influential members." "Thule dates back to a report by the Greek seafarer Pytheas of Marseille who claimed to have discovered a society of that name near Iceland in 340 B.C." "Sebottendorff, an eager reader of List's and Lanz's writings, believed that the remnants of the megalithic peoples corresponded to Thule and were evidence of the early existence of a superior Nordic race." "6,000 years ago, when India, Egypt and Mesopotamia were still in darkness, our ancestors measured the stars with stone circles at Stonehenge and Udry and determined the years and the celebrations." "The Ice Age brought forth the Aryan, the white and wise man of the North who was to bring culture to the world." "JEWISH PARADISE or the German State" "That legend fostered the spiritual basis for fighting the Jews." "According to the Thule Society, they were to blame for the subversive spirit of democracy and socialism." "A rootless, envious race that wanted to infiltrate Germanic culture." "ARREST THE JEWS Then peace will come to our country." "1918 was the beginning of restless days in Munich." "The Jewish journalist Kurt Eisner and his social democratic followers spellbound 100,000 people including the King's royal army." "The Wittelsbacher were overthrown without any bloodshed, and King Ludwig III was exiled together with his family." "So-called worker and soldier councils were established, and a temporary National Council was formed with Eisner as the governor." "In a vehement speech, Sebottendorff appealed to the Thule to fight." "Yesterday we witnessed the collapse of everything we value and cherish." "Our blood-related princes have been replaced by our arch-enemy:" "Juda." "We don't know what will develop from this chaos." "As long as I hold the iron hammer, I am determined to send Thule into battle." "Our order is a Germanic order, and loyalty is Germanic." "Our God is Walvather." "His rune is the Aa-Rune." "The Aa-Rune means Aryan, original fire, sun, eagle ..." "From now on, the eagle will be our symbol." "It will remind us that we have to experience death in order to live." "The attempt to kidnap Eisner failed, but a vigilante group, the Thule Force, was armed to overthrow the detested council government by fighting in the streets." "Even young RudoIf Heß, who became Hitler's deputy, enthusiastically joined in the fighting." "Hitler was only a guest at Thule and probably listened to a few lectures." "In 1920, he founded the Nazi Party from a branch of the Thule Society." "The writer Dietrich Eckart served as an important model for him." "He wrote about Nordic mythology and fostered metaphysical anti-Semitism." "Eckart belittled Judaism as a religion only concerned with this world, a religion that didn't believe in life after death, one that devoted itself to all earthly and material goods, a conception that knew nothing of the Jews age-old mystical tradition." "Hitler's sketches from that time show how he derived the final emblem for his party from supposed runes." "He changed the rounded sign of the Thule Society to a square swastika by viewing an ancient Germanic symbol as the sun's rise from night and darkness." "Nordic legends and symbols triggered racist fantasies during that restless time." "Long before 1933, spiritual preparations had been made for the coming of a Messianic leader who would defend the Aryan light against the Jewish-Bolshevist darkness." "It's still impossible to explain today how the Nazis succeeded in stirring up such enthusiasm among the masses." "Was it just enough to create jobs and engage in propaganda?" "Wasn't something else at work which was more deeply rooted?" "The rest of the world remained idle and, to an extent, even admired that strange country where suddenly symbols, cult celebrations and storms of enthusiasm sprang up and could not be explained with traditional political explanations." "The Nazis used big mythological pictures and appealed to archaic levels of the subconscious." "A newspaper article about the 1937 Reich Party Convention described a ritual of an almost religious nature." "As Adolf Hitler enters Zeppelin Field, 150 air force lights are turned on." "They have been placed around the field and canopy the night with light." "The surprise is too great." "No one has ever seen the likes of it." "The vast field looks like a huge Gothic cathedral made of light." "There must be 140,000 people who can't break away from that sight." "The song of oath rises in the endless beam of light." "Followers of the Order sing it." "It is like a huge religious service we are all attending to gather new strength." "Yes, it is: a religious service protected by a sea of light against the darkness outside." "Many people experienced that time as dark" "Suddenly ancient symbols were recalled," "buried traditions," "hidden signs of strength." "Ernst Bloch once said," "If the humanists had created more impressive pictures, the Nazis would never have come to power." "A society that doesn't take archetypes, myths and symbols seriously will possibly be jumped by jumped by them from behind." "Nuremberg's cathedral of light was not a Gothic cathedral." "It was the distorted image of a heathen temple:" "an over-dimensional Stonehenge made of ice." "An eyewitness reported hearing strange animal noises from above during the spectacle." "On looking into the nighttime sky, he saw dozens of blinded birds which had been caught in the focal point of the huge floodlights and were unable to free themselves." "A touch of physical truth amidst all that suggestion of majesty." "That creation of light in Nuremberg was later supposed to be formed in real stone." "The Third Reich's architectural concept was to erect monumental buildings which by right of their size alone could claim to be eternal." "The individual should be absorbed by the atmosphere of holy places, temples of death and halls of prayer which served to transfigure an exalted worship of ancestors." "Hitler's architect Albert Speer was told to use granite for every building and to even make sketches of their future ruins." "A huge 220-meter-high dome was planned for Berlin which would hold 180,000 people," "a sacred cult monument glorifying the Nordic race which, to Hitler, was the oldest and most majestic race in the world." "He saw the Aryans origin in ancient and advanced cultures that had collapsed and now lived on only in myths and legends." "The gigantic buildings were to recall the huge God-men of Atlantis or Thule who Hitler secretly believed in just like List, Lanz or Sebottendorff." "Similar convictions were held by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazis chief ideologist who came from the Thule Society and wrote about Atlantis as the ancient home of the Germans." "Also by Heinrich Himmler, who had been interested in mythology and esoterics since his adolescence." "The head of the SS founded his own research institute in 1935, Ancestral Heritage, to prove that the first spiritual impulses of mankind didn't come from the Orient but from the North." "For the film Germans versus Pharoahs they reconstructed complicated models of Stonehenge in order to show how far advanced the technology and astronomy of the Nordic races was in ancient times." "The purpose of this construction for the culture of the ancient Nordic people is of special value." "Far beyond its design as the tomb of a Nordic king, it is also a place of cult worship, a calendar and an astronomical observatory." "After the long winter nights, the sun, the origin of all earthly existence, rose behind the milestone far to the southeast." "Then the scholarly astronomer-priest proclaimed to his Nordic people the rebirth of the sun." "He proclaimed that the sun would begin to rise again, and it would soon triumph over the harsh winter." "It was the time of winter solstice." "When the sun rose on its annual journey beyond the large milestone in the lane and cast its light on the altar stone, he proclaimed the time of midsummer, the climax of the year with ist profound meaning for all of life." "Hermann Wirth, one of the co-founders of Ancestral Heritage, regarded the builders of Stonehenge to be descendants of legendary Atlantis, thought to have existed in the North thousands of years ago." "To him, the Swedish rock paintings at Bohuslän stemmed from that epoch, and he investigated them." "He interpreted them as religious documents of the world's oldest race that carried the first cultural impulses throughout the world by ship." "Instead of approaching these impressive remnants of the Bronze Age realistically" "Wirth abused them for the megalomaniac and patriotic goals of the Third Reich." "The same goes for Karl Maria Wiligut, one of the most baffling figures within the SS." "As one of Himmler's close advisors, he had his own department which dealt with mythological and esoteric questions." "Wiligut believed he stemmed from an ancient Gothic clan, the Viligots, and that he possessed the so-called hereditary memory which enabled him to plunge into the long history of the Nordic races like a clairvoyant." "His grandfather had given him special occult training in reviving hidden memory levels of his subconscious." "He actually went on trips for the SS to document the missing pieces of an age-old Germanic religion" "which he believed to recognize in stone sculptures, runic inscriptions and places of cult worship." "In southern German massifs, he believed he had found ancient fortifications from the days of Atlantis, and saw it as proof of the superior stone masonry of our Nordic ancestors." "Certainly there were traces of a pre-Christian faith in Germany in churches, places of cult worship, fairy tales and legends, but the Nazis arrogance has hindered people from dealing with those topics." "Himmler thought that traces of Atlantis could be found in Tibet and Peru, because the survivors of the great floods had fled to the high plateaus there." "An SS expedition in 1939 was supposed to substantiate those theories, but the earnest scientist in charge, Ernst Schäfer, denied that intention." "Yet he took a race specialist along to check if there were any traces of ancient Nordic immigrants." "Size of feet, length of arm and hand, eye and skin color:" "Everything is written down." "The natives soon trusted us to the extent that they even let us make molds of their faces." "A soft, sap-like mixture, that doesn't hinder breathing, is applied." "Thus a lifelike mask is formed." "But in the moments of helpless darkness, the ancient fear of demons descends on their naive faces like a nightmare." "The mixture soon becomes hard." "It's a big moment for everyone involved when the mask is finally removed." "Piece by piece our collection of upper Asian racial types developed." "Himmler's ideas about the origin of the Aryan race in Atlantis were also influenced by Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels." "Wiligut's view of the world showed similarities to those of von List whom he knew personally," "while Richard Anders, another SS esoteric, was a member of Lanz's New Templar Order." "At Germanic places of cult worship Anders photographed so-called stone sculptures in which he saw heads of animals or humans: relicts of an allegedly ancient religion from which every other culture was said to have stemmed." "Those allegedly ancient monuments were supposed to remind Germany that it was being summoned to take over the earth's spiritual leadership again." "The SS focused its main research on the Extern Steine in the Teutoburger Wood." "To Wiligut and Himmler, its cult status also dated back to the days of Atlantis." "Be quiet at this holy shrine of our ancestors!" "The SS carried out excavations in the thirties to prove the existence of a Germanic shrine, but their efforts were in vain." "Despite the missing archeological evidence, they claimed that in ancient times a Nordic sun cult had existed there." "The cavern was seen as a cult cave for the winter solstice, although it was probably a place of meditation for Christian hermits." "The sign on the wall was seen as a rune." "A gallows is more likely, because the Extern Rocks were used for executions during the Middle Ages." "A chamber at the top was thought to have been used for the summer solstice, because the sun appears there behind a round opening on June 21st." "But the masonry technique used for the altar was unknown to Germanic tribes and indicates that it was made by early Christian cults." "The same goes for the medieval relief of the descent from the cross." "Neo-heathens see the bent world ash as a sign of the Christian victory over Wotan's religion." "The Extern Steine continue to draw a large spectrum of people who want to experience Germanic mysticism despite the missing evidence." "Every year on June 21st, neo-heathens, post-hippies, esoterics and right-wingers gather to celebrate summer solstice." "Following heated disputes, the right-wingers have withdrawn and now celebrate in secret." "What is it that attracts young people to this place?" "And what do they know about its connection to the Third Reich?" "We're dressed in Germanic clothing." "I'm wearing things from the Vikings." "We're from the Germanic Brotherhood in Berlin, and we're here for midsummer." "Biarka is a witch." "Tell them yourself what you do." "We deal with magic and celebrate the full moon." "In Berlin, too?" " Yes, in Berlin." "It's a nice place." "I think it really has a mystical atmosphere, but it's positive it depends on the people." "They create a positive or a negative atmosphere." "I just think it's a place that brings out strong emotions, because it forms a very impressive backdrop." "This here is ... the place where the last non-Christian resistance against Christianity was stamped out in about the year 700." "Truly a place of rebellion or disaster." "My horn is filled with mead." "I don't want to get into Germanic stuff, but it's the proper drink." "It warms you up, it gets you drunk, it tastes good and it's easy to digest." "I bought the horn at a market once." "I like it." "But it's actually from Africa." "It isn't from here, because we don't have cattle like that anymore." "There are very few right-wingers here." "People often try to label this group of people as right wing, too." "That is absolutely incorrect." "If you see more than three or four right-wingers here today, then I'll treat you to a mead." "Nothing like that takes place here." "Everybody is absolutely peaceful." "And if the Externsteine ... are understandably connected to the Germanic people, they shouldn't be seen in connection with the last 50, 60, 70 years." "Of course, they kept Germanic traditions alive, but our history isn't only 50, 60, 70 years old." "It is a bit older." "Our past history wasn't only full of darkness." "No, the rocks are older than we can imagine or comprehend." "What they express has nothing to do with German culture." "The rocks have been here longer than Germany or Germania or anything else." "Back then I don't think there were any ... large cultural circles in that sense." "They were important but not large." "I've been dealing with Germanic mythology." "In a sweathouse we experienced that the runes are covered with mud, because their past was disgraceful." "The runes are efficient tools for me for connecting powers." "What they effect, the way they work depends on how they're used." "That's why I see it as a big problem to work with runes here or to deal with Germanic myths and rituals in general because of the way the Nazis abused them." "It's difficult to get through all that to use the runes differently." "At the Externsteine a lot is said about roots and mystical traditions." "and about mystical traditions." "Who cares if there's no proof that this was a Germanic place of worship." "Young people who are not attracted to Christianity dream their way back to a heathen world in primeval times and satisfy their longing for mysticism, ecstasy and community." "Instead of looking for real knowledge about Germanic religious practices, people have transformed this place into a legend itself by projecting all of their own wishes into it." "They prefer the appeal of a nebulous and dreamy state than to consciously examine the archaic picture world of the past." "Himmler not only believed that places of cult worship harbored ancestral traces." "He also saw himself as the incarnation of King Heinrich I, who protected the Germanic people from the Eastern threat 1,000 years ago." "Quedlinburg Cathedral, where he was buried in 936, was seen as one of the Black Order's main places of cult worship, as well." "The SS took over the church, removed the altar and the pews and proclaimed it to be a holy place of the Nazis." "Every year the date of the King's death was celebrated with lavish performances attended by prominent Nazis." "The deceased was praised as a hero, a true Germanic personality." "Himmler claimed that the King appeared to him when he was asleep and gave him advice for his difficult mission." "After the official celebration, the SS Reichsführer locked himself in the crypt at midnight to commune with his former incarnation." "Such holy places were used to place the SS in a long line of ancestors who would give every individual member confidence and strength." "The Saxony Grove in Verden on the Aller served a similar purpose:" "As a memorial to the 4,500 Germanic chieftains who Charlemagne had executed," "Himmler had the same number of boulders grouped to a circular walk." "Himmler consecrated the grounds at a nocturnal celebration in June 1935 and declared the place to be an SS training center." "Accompanied by old Germanic trumpets copied from the originals, a large bonfire was lit, and everyone sang Rise Up, Flames." "Courage to battle the powers of darkness was summoned up from the solstice fires." "The ego was consumed by an allegedly greater idea." "The ancestral souls were sensed in the fire, eternal and indestructible, the spirit from which they had come and to which they would return." "The connection to ancient traditions was supported by archaic signs and symbols." "For that purpose, they fell back on old Germanic runes and utilized their aura of strength and secrecy." "Himmler saw them as the world's oldest form of letters and made them a part of the SS's ideological training." "A rune ring, Oswald Pohl sent his son on his 18th birthday shows how high-ranking SS generals were affected by this:" "My son, in this magnificent German spring initiated by our Führer Adolf Hitler, the buried source of a Germanic spirit, a Germanic view of life is opening its blossoms." "Our motto today:" "Believe in that which is natural and genuine." "Form your life from that spirit." "For that reason, my son, I assert my inherent right as a Germanic father to solemnly pronounce you an independent member of your ancestral clan." "Karl Maria Wiligut designed the skull ring to honor certain SS members." "The meaning of the four rune symbols stem from Guido von List:" "The creative spirit must triumph." "Man is one with God the Eternal." "The power of your spirit will free you." "Embrace the universe in you, and you will control the universe." "The skull itself symbolized the annihilation of the individual will for the cause of a higher mission." "After Himmler discovered in 1939 that Wiligut had been treated in a mental hospital for delusions, he had to dismiss him from the SS." "Privately, however, he stayed in contact with him continuing to ask his advice regarding mythological questions." "During the war they corresponded about which rune was best suited for SS graves to express the homeward journey of the dead soldiers on their way to the Germanic heaven." "Besides Atlantis, places of cult worship and runes, Himmler also converted the legend of the Holy Grail to prove Aryan superiority." "For that purpose in 1936, he got a man to join the SS who had done research on that topic for years." "Young Otto Rahn had sought the Castle of the Grail in the Pyrenees, the castle mentioned by Wolfram von Eschenbach in his Parzival." "Certain geographical hints led him to suspect it in Montségur's ruins." "It was the final refuge of the Cathars, a heretical sect that was wiped out by the Inquisition." "Rahn saw them as the Round Table of the Holy Grail, a counter-movement to the Roman Church which had formed from Celtic traditions." "The Cathars had hidden from their pursers in the caves of the Pyrenees." "Rahn examined the caves, looking for lost symbols and esoteric documents." "Rahn was fascinated by their high-lying fortresses which, to him, were an expression of the cult's extreme belief in purity:" "The idea of living as close to God as possible, high above the lowly spheres." "He led a strange double life:" "Out of the public eye, he found fulfilment in his homosexuality, and, at the same time, he sought spiritual purification which he saw embodied in the Grail." "According to Wolfram von Eschenbach, this was a stone of light which once fell upon the earth from heavenly spheres." "Around it a choice band of knights drew strength from its light to wage the battle against evil." "Himmler enjoyed this legend, because the SS was a holy order to him, that should protect the Aryan light from the Jewish-Bolshevist darkness." "How did Rahn become an SS member?" "Rahn was only devoted to one person in the SS, and that was Himmler." "Himmler had taken him into his own personal staff which partly consisted of nut-cases, weirdos and a few intelligent people." "So he became a member of the elite troop." "He felt secure." "He got his money, a uniform, recognition ..." "To him, Himmler was a saint, and he protected him." "Even at the end of Rahn's life when he had to work in concentration camps to toughen up ..." "He kept saying, Himmler doesn't know all this." "It was like an illness." "At first, Himmler supported Rahn's research in mythology." "But when his homosexuality became known in the SS, his life took a tragic turn:" "Denunciations and intrigues began to put a strain on him and his work." "In order to toughen him up, he was sent to be a guard at Dachau and Buchenwald which emotionally shattered him." "He requested to be dismissed from the SS, and Himmler consented." "After that he began a journey to the south, seemingly on the run." "Physically emaciated, emotionally exhausted and afraid of SS persecution, he fled to the mountainous landscape of Tirol." "Children found him lying dead in a creek bed in March 1939." "It was over there in the creek, under a tree." "My brother and I found him." "He was already covered with bugs." "And his skin was taut." "So we ran home and told everybody." "And my sister went to the police station in Söll." "And they came with a coffin." "He had two bottles lying next to him." "One was empty and one was half-empty." "I assume he poisoned himself." "A laconic SS death notice said:" "During a snowstorm in the mountains, SS Obersturmführer Otto Rahn lost his life in a tragic accident." "We mourn the death of a respectable SS man and the author of excellent historical works." "Rahn's ideas about Castles and Orders of the Holy Grail certainly influenced the reconstruction of Wewel Castle which Himmler made into a cult and training center for the SS in 1934." "For construction purposes, he set up a concentration camp nearby." "A college of leadership was planned for SS officers with courses in history, mythology, archaeology and art." "The library contained about 16,000 books, magazines and old manuscripts dealing with those topics." "High-ranking SS generals had their own studies decorated with runes and with names like King Arthur, Widukind, or Henry the Lion." "Occasionally conferences took place like the one in June 1941 when Himmler announced the necessary decimation of the Slavs by 30 million." "Two cult rooms built by prisoners of the concentration camp were designed to foster the spirit of the order in a fitting atmosphere, for example, the Obergruppenführer Hall that was framed by 12 pillars." "A sun wheel in the middle of the floor with 12 spokes:" "stylized sig-runes symbolizing victory and spiritual awakening for the SS." "Today right-wing groups call this sign the Black Sun, and it appears in publications that transfigure the SS into a mystical elite whose mission is still relevant." "In those publications, the Black Sun symbolizes the pure light of the North and the superior knowledge of Thule which Europe should call to mind in times of decadence and materialism in order to draw strength from its origins." "Directly under the Obergruppenführer Hall is the crypt, a vaulted, tomb-like room designed for cult celebrations." "The atmosphere is reminiscent of rituals to eliminate the individual personality in which a man becomes an empty vessel for ecstatic feelings of superiority." "This room also attracts occult right-wing groups who sometimes break in at night to perform mystical rituals." "On Christmas Day, 1992, we saw the room had been broken into," "and white cloths with printed runes were lying on the 12 rostrums." "We never found out who actually did that, but we know from our contact to visitors and groups that the tower is known as a place where people like to hold black masses or similar ceremonies, and they keep trying to persuade our doorkeeper to give them the key" "or to let them into that room at unusual times for all kinds of reasons." "We really have to develop an attitude in order to prevent things like that." "One group actually wrote, Yes, we celebrated a black baptism, an intiation ceremony into our order." "Thank you." "Himmler planned to make the Wewelsburg into a religious and ideological center for the time following the final victory." "Models show to what extent the building complex was to be expanded." "Surrounding the cult rooms, the so-called center of the earth, huge building complexes were going to be erected which would extend the sun's rays in every direction." "The villages below the castle were to be evacuated, in order to flood the entire valley." "Was it to create a clear view to the north, to the ancient home of Atlantis where, according to Himmler, Aryan beings had stepped on the earth to overtake a special mission." "The Ancestral Heritage was not only concerned with mythology and esoterics." "It also carried out human experiments with prisoners of war." "Himmler's work quota included such contrary activities:" "Grail research in the morning and in the afternoon, the supervision of most brutal experiments." "The director of the Ancestral Heritage Wolfram Sievers, was sentenced to death in Nuremberg for his part in the experiments." "Shortly before his execution, he cited once again the greater mission which the SS had to carry out," "I ve always wanted to die for the Empire of the Heavenly." "There is no guilt, no matter how great it is, that can go through the timeless time of fire without being completely atoned." "Do I want to speak of my innocence in front of the prosecutor?" "..." "No!" "Of course not." "I'd simply place myself at the level of the others." "I'll give my regards to our homeland, yours and mine, our homeland, the divine empire waiting for me, and, in the name of God, I'll set out on that journey." "Our journey is over." "But there are still questions remaining." "Didn't the Nazis abuse of mythology perhaps do more damage than we're aware of at first glance?" "The Third Reich offered a substitute religion at a time of a spiritual void," "and it promised to satisfy desires that went beyond the purely material ones." "After the disaster, people sought refuge among new gods:" "prosperity and technology, music and movies from other countries dream factories." "They banned their own myths and traditions to a realm of shades, and they thought they were free of them." "The Nazis megalomania has placed a taboo on Germany's great feelings, ideals and visions which still exists today, but people seem to need more than just filled refrigerators and cold logic." "A new search has begun for salvation, spiritual leaders and inspiration." "Have we learned in the meantime how to differentiate more carefully than they did at the beginning of this century?"