Thule Gesellschaft

Nazism and The New Age

Hitler and the Occult

The Thule-Gesellschaft (Thule Society) was founded August 17, 1918, by Rudolf von Sebottendorff. He had been schooled in occultism, Islamic mysticism, alchemy, Rosicrucianism and much else, in Turkey, where he had also been initiated into Freemasonry.

Its original name was Studiengruppe für Germanisches Altertum (Study Group for German Antiquity), but it soon started to disseminate anti-republican and anti-Semitic propaganda.

A movement to promote Thulian ideas among industrial workers and to offset Marxism, was formed in August 1918 - the Workers' Political Circle with Thulist Karl Harrer as chairman.

From this came the German Workers' Party in 1919.

A year later this became the NSDAP under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. It had members from the top echelons of the party, including Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg, though not Adolf Hitler. Serbottendorff stated, "Thule members were the people to whom Hitler first turned and who first allied themselves with Hitler."

The swastika flag adopted by the NSDAP was the brain-child of another Thulist, Dr Krohn.

Its press organ was the Münchner Beobachter (Munich Observer) which later became the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer). The Thule Society is known to be closely connected to the Germanenorden secret society.

The Germanenorden was a secret society in Germany early in the 20th century. Formed by several prominent German occultists in 1912, the order, whose symbol was a Swastika, had a hierarchical fraternal structure similar to freemasonry. It taught to its initiates nationalist ideologies of Nordic race superiority, anti-Semitism as well as occult, almost magical philosophies. Some say that the Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei (later the Nazi Party) when under the leadership of Adolf Hitler was a political front, and indeed the organization reflected many ideologies of the party, including the swastika symbol. The Thule Society, another secret society with similar ideologies and symbols was also closely linked to this.

With the victory of the Nazi Party, the occult tradition was carried on in the Third Reich mainly by the SS, who Reichsführer, Himmler, was an avid student of the occult. An SS occult research department, the Ahnernerbe (Ancestral Heritage) was established in 1935 with SS Colonel Wolfram von Sievers at its head. Occult research took SS researchers as far afield as Tibet. Sievers had the Tantrik prayer, the Bardo Thodol, read over his body after his execution at Nuremberg.

National Socialism and the Third Reich represented a major attempt by high esoteric Adepts to re-establish a Culture based on the Laws of Nature, against the entrenched forces of anti-Life. Nothing that ambitious had been tried since the founding of the American Republic by Masonic adepts.

The Thule Society inner circle beliefs:

Thule was a a legendary island in the far north, similar to Atlantis, supposedly the center of a lost, high-level civilization. But not all secrets of that civilization had been completely wiped out. Those that remained were being guarded by ancient, highly intelligent beings (similar to the "Masters" of Theosophy or the White Brotherhood).

The truly initiated could establish contact with these beings by means of magic-mystical rituals.

The "Masters" or "Ancients" allegedly would be able to endow the initiated with supernatural strength and energy. With the help of these energies the goal of the initiated was to create a race of Supermen of "Aryan" stock who would exterminate all "inferior" races.

Far from being a fringe secret society, the Thule Society had members that reached into the German Aristocracy. It essentially had all of the beliefs expounded by Rosenberg and was the group that Hitler first came to at the beginnings of his rise to power. The Thule society came into being during that tumultuous period after the first World War by Baron Rudolf Sebottendorff, who wrote about this in a book that was later banned by the Nazi’s Bevor Hitler Kam (Before Hitler Came). Indeed this book is quite important in tracing the early philosophical leanings of the party. The Thule Society was not open to the middle class or the workers of Germany.

It was exclusively a rich man’s society and drew its members from the upper echelons of Bavarian Society. Indeed one had to show pure Aryan lineage back to the 30 Years War in order to join, one could not be deformed or even be just plain old ‘ugly’, one had to be one of the ‘beautiful people’. It was at this time that the Prime Minister of the Bavarian government, Kurt Eisner (a Jew) was assassinated by a disgruntled young count Anton Graf Arco, who had been refused admission to the Thule Society, presumably because he was of Jewish decent. One of the prime suspects that the police questioned was the Thule Society’s leader. Here we can understand that elitism and racism was an important part of the belief systems of those who formulated the early Nazi doctrine. The assassination transpired in an atmosphere of general fear among the Bavarian elite that Bolsheivism (communism, and with it wealth confiscation) was making important inroads at the end of the war and that there was too much ‘Jewish influence’. This was ‘confirmed’ by the election of the Jewish socialist, Kurt Eisner.

Sebottendorff, the leader of the Thule society, was known as an adept at astrology, alchemy divining rods and other occult practices and it was his belief that the Jews were really in control of the Freemasonic lodges that probably led to their eventual seizure and closure when the Nazi’s took power. Indeed, the whole idea of brotherhood that typified freemasonic beliefs was at odds with what the Thulists believed. Indeed Sebottendorff went so far as to say that ‘equality is death’. Thus, freemasons were also singled out by the Nazi’s. He spread his propaganda through Der Münchener Beobachter a newspaper that he purchased because he needed an avenue with which to spread his profane doctrine.

As conditions in Germany worsened, it became clear that much of the population was ready for a change. Food had become very scarce and most Germans were hungry and some were even starving. People were reduced to eating dog biscuits and horsemeat. The mark had lost most of its value and discontent was spreading. It was in this atmosphere in which many began to long for and fanaticize for a better world and fundamental change in Germany. There were fights in the streets and beer halls as well as fights between occult and political groups. Of note, the Thule society had disputes with other groups and Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society broke into two groups over some obscure doctrinal dispute during these turbulent years.

Members of these groups were not averse to using terrorism to gain their political aims and to put it as briefly as possible, the Thulists wanted to bring together all the anti-Semitic forces in Germany into forceful political action, both legal (elections) and illegal (terrorism).

While the Thule Society faded into history, its ideas and occult world view did not. Its elitism, of course melded in quite conveniently with economic interests of the German upper classes. They were vehemently anti-communist for fear of the wealth confiscation that went on in Russia and because their occult ideology claimed that communism was really a ‘Jewish conspiracy’, they turned against it and them.

The common theme of the more successful occult groups has always been to hold economic views in keeping with the politics and interests of the wealthier classes. In so doing wealthy patrons and converts can help finance the movement and give it an air of legitimacy. This was violently demonstrated when Hitler betrayed the S.A. who were the working class Germans that assisted Hitler on his way to power. The German elite as well as the SS wanted to rid themselves of this proletarian riff-raff and thus, during the night of the long Knives, the SA (or Brownshirts) was done away with by Hitler and the Elitist SS.

Of note here is the fact that Rudolf Hess had been with Hitler from the very earliest days. He was arrested with Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch and assisted Hitler with writing Mein Kampf. He was an ardent student of astrology, and other occult sciences. He was a signer of the Nuremburg laws that severely curtailed the rights of Jews in Germany. He was Deputy Führer and Hitler’s closest aid. He was probably one of the most ardent occultists in the Third Reich, with the possible exception of Himmler.

the occultist Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, the Gurdjeff disciple Karl Haushofer, the ace pilot Lothar Waisz, Prelate Gernot of the secret "Societas Templi Marcioni" (The Inheritors of the Knights Templar) and Maria Orsic, a transcendental medium from Zagreb met in Vienna. They all had extensively studied the "Golden Dawn", its teachings, rituals and especially its knowledge about Asian secret lodges. Sebottendorf and Haushofer were experienced travellers of India and Tibet and much influenced by the teachings and myths of those places. During the First World War Karl Haushofer had made contacts with one of the most influential secret societies of Asia, the Tibetan Yellow Hats" (dGe-lugs-pa). This sect was formed in 1409 by the Buddhist reformer Tsong-kha-pa. Haushofer was initiated and swore to commit suicide should his mission fail. The contacts between Haushofer and the Yellow Hats led in the Twenties to the formation of Tibetan colonies in Germany.

The four young people hoped that during these meetings in Vienna they would learn something about the secret revelatory texts of the Knights Templar and also about the secret fraternity Die Herren vom Schwarzen Stein ("The Lords of the Black Stone"). Prelate Gernot was of the "Inheritors of the Knights Templar", the only true Templar society. They are the descendants of the Templars of 1307 who passed on their secrets from father to son - until today. Prelate Gernot apparently told them about the advent of a new age - the change-over from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.

They discussed that our solar year - according to the twelve revolutions of the moon - was divided into twelve months and thus the revolution of our sun around the great central sun (the Black Sun of ancient myths) was also divided into twelve parts. Together with the precession of the cone-shaped proper movement of the Earth due to the inclination of the axis this determines the length of the world age. Such a "cosmic month" is then 2,155 years, the "cosmic year" 25,860 years long. According to the Templars the next change is not just an ordinary change of the age, but also the end of a cosmic year and the start of an absolutely new one.

The main part of the discussions dealt with the background of a section of the New Testament, Matthew 21:43. For there Jesus addressed the Jews:

Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

The complete original text that is kept in the archives of the "Societas Ternpli Marcioni" says it even more clearly. But the point is: In that text Jesus actually names the "people", He talks to Teutons serving in the Roman legion and he tells them that it is THEIR people that he had chosen. That was what Sebottendorf and his friends wanted to know for sure: That the Teutonic, i.e. the German, people were commissioned to form the realm of light upon Earth - in the "Land of the Midnight Mountain" (Germany). The place where the ray would meet the Earth was given as the Untersberg near Salzburg.

At the end of September 1917 Sebottendorf met with members of the "Lords of the Black Stone" at the Untersberg to receive the power of the "Black-Purple Stone" after which the secret society was named.

The "Lords of the Black Stone" who formed out of the Marcionite Templar societies in 1221 led by Hubertus Koch who had set as their aim the fight against evil and the building of Christ's realm of light.

A circle formed around Baron von Sebottendorf that via the "Teutonic Order" in 1918 in Bad Aibling became the "Thule Gesellschaft". The themes they tried to link to politics were scientific magic, astrology, occultism and Templar knowledge as well as "Golden Dawn" practices like Tantra, Yoga and Eastern meditation.

The Thule-Gesellschaft believed, following the Revelation of Isais, in a Coming Saviour (German: Heiland = the Holy One), the "Third Sargon" who would bring to Germany glory and a new Aryan culture.

Some of the most important teachings influencing the Thule-Gesellschaft was the Aryo-Germanic construction of religion (Wihinei) by the philosopher Guido von List, the Glacial Cosmology by Hans Hörbiger and a leaning towards the anti-Old Testament early Christianity of the Marcionites. The innermost circle at any rate had vowed to fight World Judaism and Freemasonry and its lodges.

Far from being a fringe secret society, the Thule society had members that reached into the German Aristocracy. It essentially had all of the beliefs expounded by Rosenberg and was the group that Hitler first came to at the beginnings of his rise to power. The Thule society came into being during that tumultuous period after the first World War by Baron Rudolf Sebottendorff, who wrote about this in a book that was later banned by the Nazi’s ‘Bevor Hitler Kam (Before Hitler Came). Indeed this book is quite important in tracing the early philosophical leanings of the party. The Thule Society was not open to the middle class or the workers of Germany.

It was exclusively a rich man’s society and drew its members from the upper echelons of Bavarian Society. Indeed one had to show pure Aryan lineage back to the 30 Years War in order to join, one could not be deformed or even be just plain old ‘ugly’, one had to be one of the ‘beautiful people’. It was at this time that the Prime Minister of the Bavarian government, Kurt Eisner (a Jew) was assassinated by a disgruntled young count Anton Graf Arco, who had been refused admission to the Thule Society, presumably because he was of Jewish decent. One of the prime suspects that the police questioned was the Thule Society’s leader. Here we can understand that elitism and racism was an important part of the belief systems of those who formulated the early Nazi doctrine. The assassination transpired in an atmosphere of general fear among the Bavarian elite that Bolsheivism (communism, and with it wealth confiscation) was making important inroads at the end of the war and that there was too much ‘Jewish influence’. This was ‘confirmed’ by the election of the Jewish socialist, Kurt Eisner.

Sebottendorff, the leader of the Thule society, was known as an adept at astrology, alchemy divining rods and other occult practices and it was his belief that the Jews were really in control of the Freemasonic lodges that probably led to their eventual seizure and closure when the Nazi’s took power. Indeed, the whole idea of brotherhood that typified freemasonic beliefs was at odds with what the Thulists believed. Indeed Sebottendorff went so far as to say that ‘equality is death’. Thus, freemasons were also singled out by the Naz’s. He spread his propaganda through Der Münchener Beobachter a newspaper that he purchased because he needed an avenue with which to spread his profane doctrine.

As conditions in Germany worsened, it became clear that much of the population was ready for a change. Food had become very scarce and most Germans were hungry and some were even starving. People were reduced to eating dog biscuits and horsemeat. The mark had lost most of its value and discontent was spreading. It was in this atmosphere in which many began to long for and fanaticize for a better world and fundamental change in Germany. There were fights in the streets and beer halls as well as fights between occult and political groups. Members of these groups were not averse to using terrorism to gain their political aims and to put it as briefly as possible, the Thulists wanted to bring together all the anti-Semitic forces in Germany into forceful political action, both legal (elections) and illegal (terrorism).

Dietrich Bronder ("Before Hitler Came") and E. R. Carmin ("Guru Hitler") named the leading members as follows:

1 Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, Grand Master of the Order
2. Guido von List, Master of the Order
3. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, Master of the Order
4. Adolf Hitler, "Führer", German Chancellor
5. Rudolf Hess, Vice Führer, and SS Obergruppenführer
6. Hermann Göring, Reichsmarschall and SS Obergruppenführer
7. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and Reichsminister
8. Alfred Rosenberg, Reichsminister and NS-Reichsleiter
9. Hans Franck, Dr. Dr. h. c., NS-Reichsleiter and Governor General of Poland
10. Julius Streicher, SA-Obergruppenführer and Gauleiter of Franken
11. Karl Haushofer, Prof. Dr., Major General ret.
12. Gottfried Feder, Prof. Dr., Secretary of State ret.
13. Dietrich Eckart, Editor in Chief of the "Völkischer Beobachter"
14. Bernhard Stempfle, father confessor and confidant of Hitler
15. Theo Morell, personal physician of Hitler
16. Franz Gurtner, president of the police, Munich
17. Rudolf Steiner, founder of the antroposophic teaching
18. W. 0. Schumann, Prof. Dr. at the Technical University Munich
19. Trebisch-Lincoln, occultist and traveller to the Himalayas
20. Countess Westrap

and many others

The common theme of the more successful occult groups has always been to hold economic views in keeping with the politics and interests of the wealthier classes. In so doing wealthy patrons and converts can help finance the movement and give it an air of legitimacy. This was violently demonstrated when Hitler betrayed the S.A. who were the working class Germans that assisted Hitler on his way to power. The German elite as well as the SS wanted to rid themselves of this proletarian riff-raff and thus, during the night of the long Knives, the SA (or Brownshirts) was done away with by Hitler and the Elitist SS.

Later the Thule-Gesellschaft split in two, the esoterics (Greek: esoteros = the inner), among which counted Rudolf Steiner, and the exoterics (Greek: exoteros = the outer), who later were led by Hitler. The Thule-Gesellschaft in its inner core was peaceful in nature, besides knowing about the Illuminati and El Shaddai. It was Hitler who became more radical. When Hitler had taken over the NSDAP, he prohibited the Thule and the Vril Gesellschaften after they had helped him to his position. Towards the end of the war he contacted them again, especially the Vril-Gesellschaft, because of their advanced technology and their special contacts.

While the Thule Society faded into history, its ideas and occult world view did not. Its elitism, of course melded in quite conveniently with economic interests of the German upper classes. They were vehemently anti-communist for fear of the wealth confiscation that went on in Russia and because their occult ideology claimed that communism was really a ‘Jewish conspiracy’, they turned against it and them.

Of note here is the fact that Rudolf Hess had been with Hitler from the very earliest days. He was arrested with Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch and assisted Hitler with writing Mein Kampf. He was an ardent student of astrology, and other occult sciences. He was a signer of the Nuremburg laws that severely curtailed the rights of Jews in Germany. He was Deputy Führer and Hitler’s closest aid. He was probably one of the most ardent occultists in the Third Reich, with the possible exception of Himmler.

On April 6, 1919 in Bavaria, left wing socialists and anarchists proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The brains of the revolution were a group of writers who had little idea of administration. Life in Munich grew chaotic. The counter-revolutionary forces, the whites, composed of various groups of decommissioned soldiers known as "Frei Korps", equipped and financed by the mysterious Thule Society, defeated the Bavarian Soviet within a matter of weeks.

Many other decommissioned soldiers waited out the turbulence in barracks, Pfc Adolph Hitler among them. After the Bavarian Republic had been defeated by the Whites, in May, Hitler's superiors put him to work in the post revolution investigating commission. His indictments injected ruthless efficiency into the kangaroo courts as he fingered hundreds of noncommissioned officers and enlisted men who had sympathized with the communist and anarchists. He was subsequently sent to attend special anticommunist training courses and seminars at the University which were financed by the Reichswehr administration and by private donors from the Thule Society.

This led to an assignment in the intelligence division of the postwar German army, to infiltrate groups that could organize the working classes while the communists were weak. On a September evening, 1919, Hitler turned up in the Sternecker Beer Hall where members and friends of the budding German Workers Party had gathered. He quietly listened to the presentation by engineer Gottfried Feder, a Thule Society member, who talked about Jewish control over lending capital. When one of the other group members called for Bavaria to break away from the rest of Germany,

Hitler sprang into action. The astonished audience stood by while his highly aggressive remarks and compelling oratory swept through the room. After Hitler had finished his harangue, party chairman and founder, Anton Drexler, immediately asked him to a meeting of the party's steering committee held a few days later. He was asked to join the committee as its seventh member, responsible for advertising and propaganda.

Back in 1912, several German occultists with radical anti-Semitic inclinations decided to form a "magic" lodge, which they named the Order of Teutons. the main founders were Theodor Fritsch, a publisher of an anti-Semitic journal; Philipp Stauff, pupil of the racist Guido Von List, and Hermann Pohl, the order's chancellor. (Pohl would drop out three years later to found his own bizarre lodge, the Walvater Teutonic Order of the Holy Grail.) The Order of Teutons was organized along the lines of the Free Masons or the Rosicrucians, having differing degrees of initiation, only persons who could fully document that they were of pure "Aryan" ancestry were allowed to join.

In 1915, Pohl was joined by Rudolf Blauer, who held a Turkish passport and practiced Sufi meditation. He also dabbled in astrology and was an admirer of Lanz Von Liebenfels and Guido Von List, both pathologically anti-Semitic. Blauer went by the name of Rudolf Freiherr Von Seboottendorf. He was very wealthy, although the origin of his fortune is unknown. He became the Grand Master of the Bavarian Order and he founded the Thule Society, with Pohl's approval, in 1918.

After the Bavarian communist revolution of 1918, the Thule Society became a center of the counterrevolutionary subculture. An espionage network and arms caches were organized. The Thule Club rooms became a nest of resistance to the revolution and the Munich Soviet Republic.

Journalist Karl Harrer was given the job of founding a political "worker circle". He realized that the workers would reject any program that was presented to them by a member of the conservative "privileged" class. Harrer knew that the mechanic Anton Drexler, who was working for the railroads, was a well-known anti-semite, chauvinist and proletarian. With Drexler as nominal chairman, Harrer founded the German Workers Party in January 1919

The German Workers Party was only one of many associations founded and controlled by the Thule Society. The Thule was the Mother to the German Socialist Party, led by Julius Streicher, and the right-wing radical Oberland Free Corps. It published the Munich Observer, which later became the National Observer. Hitler became the most prominent personality in the party. He caused Harrer to drop out, and he pushed Drexler, the nominal chairman, to the sidelines. He filled key positions with his own friends from the Thule Society and the Army. During the summer of 1920, upon his suggestion, the party was renamed the National Socialist German Worker Party (NASDAP). The new name was intended to equally attract nationalists and proletarians.

To go along with the new name his mass movement also required a flag with a powerful symbol. Among many designs under consideration, Hitler picked the one suggested by Thule member Dr. Krohn: a red cloth with a white circle in the middle containing a black swastika.

Hitler wanted to turn the German Workers Party into a mass-conscious fighting party, but Harrer and Drexler were hesitant, due in part to their woeful financial situation. The Thule Society was not yet supplying very much money and no one seemed to know how to build up a mass party. Hitler arranged two public meetings in obscure beer halls, and he drafted leaflets and posters, but there was no real breakthrough.

All of this changed dramatically at the end of the 1919 when Hitler met Dietrich Eckart. Most biographers have underestimated the influence that Eckart exerted on Hitler. He was the wealthy publisher and editor-in-chief of an anti-Semitic journal which he called In Plain German. Eckart was also a committed occultist and a master of magic. As an initiate, Eckart belonged to the inner circle of the Thule Society as well as other esoteric orders.

There can be no doubt that Eckart - who had been alerted to Hitler by other Thulists - trained Hitler in techniques of self confidence, self projection, persuasive oratory, body language and discursive sophistry. With these tools, in a short period of time he was able to move the obscure workers party from the club and beer hall atmosphere to a mass movement. The emotion charged lay speaker became an expert orator, capable of mesmerizing a vast audience.

One should not underestimate occultism's influence on Hitler. His subsequent rejection of Free Masons and esoteric movements, of Theosophy, of Anthrosophy, does not necessarily mean otherwise. Occult circles have long been known as covers for espionage and influence peddling.

Hitler's spy apparatus under Canaris and Heydrich were well aware of these conduits, particularly from the direction of Britain which had within its MI5 intelligence agency a department known as the Occult Bureau. That these potential sources of trouble were purged from Nazi life should not be taken to mean that Hitler and the Nazi secret societies were not influenced by mystical and occult writers such as Madame Blavatsky, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Guido Von List, Lanz Von Liebenfels, Rudolf Steiner, George Gurdjieff, Karl Haushofer and Theodor Fritsch. Although Hitler later denounced and ridiculed many of them, he did dedicate his book Mein Kampf to his teacher Dietrich Eckart.

A frequent visitor to Landsberg Prison where Hitler was writing Mein Kampf with the help of Rudolf Hess, was General Karl Haushofer, a university professor and director of the Munich Institute of Geopolitics. Haushofer, Hitler, and Hess had long conversations together. Hess also kept records of these conversations. Hitler's demands for German "Living Space" in the east at the expense of the Slavic nations were based on the geopolitical theories of the learned professor.

Haushofer was also inclined toward the esoteric. as military attaché in Japan, he had studied Zen-Buddhism. He had also gone through initiations at the hands of Tibetan Lamas. He became Hitler's second "esoteric mentor", replacing Dietrich Eckart. In Berlin, Haushofer had founded the Luminous Lodge or the Vril Society. The lodge's objective was to explore the origins of the Aryan race and to perform exercises in concentration to awaken the forces of "Vril". Haushofer was a student of the Russian magician and metaphysician Gregor Ivanovich Gurdyev (George Gurdjieff).

Both Gurdjeiff and Haushofer maintained that they had contacts with secret Tibetan Lodges that possessed the secret of the "Superman". The lodge included Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, Himmler, Göring, and Hitler's subsequent personal physician Dr. Morell. It is also known that Aleister Crowley and Gurdjieff sought contact with Hitler. Hitler's unusual powers of suggestion become more understandable if one keeps in mind that he had access to the "secret" psychological techniques of the esoteric lodges. Haushofer taught him the techniques of Gurdjieff which, in turn, were based on the teachings of the Sufis and the Tibetan Lamas and familiarized him with the Zen teaching of the Japanese Society of the Green Dragon.

In the latter half of the previous century, intriguing hints about Tibetan secret teachings had been carried to the west by Helena Blavatsky, who claimed initiation at the hands of the Holy Lamas themselves.

Blavatsky taught that her Hidden Masters and Secret Chiefs had their earthly residence in the Himalayan region.

As soon as the Nazi movement had sufficient funds, it began to organize a number of expeditions to Tibet and these succeeded one another practically without interruption until 1943. One of the most tangible expressions of Nazi interest in Tibet was the party’s adoption of its deepest and most mystical of symbols - the Swastika.

The swastika is one of mankind's oldest symbols, and apart from the cross and the circle, probably the most widely distributed. It is shown on pottery fragments from Greece dating back to the eighth century B.C. It was used in ancient Egypt, India and China. The Navaho Indians of North America have a traditional swastika pattern. Arab-Islamic sorcerers used it. In more recent times, it was incorporated in the flags of certain Baltic states.

The idea for the use of the swastika by the Nazis came from a dentist named Dr. Friedrich Krohn who was a member of the secret Germanen order. Krohn produced the design for the actual form in which the Nazis came to use the symbol, that is reversed, spinning in an anti-clockwise direction. As a solar symbol, the swastika is properly thought of as spinning, and the Buddhists have always believed the symbol attracted luck.

The Sanskrit word svastika means good fortune and well being. According to Cabbalistic lore and occult theory, chaotic force can be evoked by reversing the symbol. And so the symbol appeared as the flag of Nazi Germany and the insignia of the Nazi party, an indication for those who had eyes to see, as to the occult nature of the Third Reich.

-The Unknown Hitler, Wulf Schwartzwaller

THE THULE SOCIETY & NWO

THE MAGICKAL ROOTS OF NAZISM

The History

It all started with the Thule Gesellschaft, a pagan, anti-Semitic, right-wing aristocratic society founded by a Freemason and Eastern mystic named Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff. They met every Saturday in Munich’s Four Season’s Hotel to discuss things like runes (an old German alphabet), racial evolution, Nordic mythology and German nationalism. Registered under the name "Thule Gesellschaft" as a "literary-cultural society", in order to fool the communist Red Army now controlling Munich, this group had originally been known as the Germanenorden, or the German Order of the Holy Grail. The Germanenorden had an impressive series of initiatory rituals, replete with knights in shining armor, wise kings, mystical bards and forest nymphs, including a Masonic-style program of secrecy, initiation and mutual cooperation. But they were not copying the ideological aspects of Freemasonry. What the Germanenorden became was, essentially, an anti-Masonry: a Masonic-style society dedicated to the eradication of Freemasonry itself. Their symbol was a Swastika on top of a long dagger on top of a swastika, and their beliefs had been influenced largely by the writings of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels.

Liebenfels had founded the neo-pagan, Sswastika-waving "Order of the New Templars" on Christmas Day, 1907, along similar ideological lines. In that same year, occult researcher Guido von List began The List Society, part of a then-developing "völkish" (folkish) movement extolling the virtues of Norse heritage, heritage which could be traced by reading the Edda, a compilation of Icelandic legends which Hitler would later take great interest in. The völkish movement itself was based in part on the ideas of Madame Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society famous for her books Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. She wrote that humanity was descendant from a series of imperfect races which had once ruled the earth, and which all had a common Atlantean origin dating back millions of years, culminating in the Aryan race, which had at one point possessed supernatural powers but had since lost them. She also romanticized about the occult significance of the swastika, of Lucifer, "The Light-Bearer", and of a cabal of spiritual "Hidden Masters" called the Great White Brotherhood, who guided human evolution from their abode in the Himalayas and who Blavatsky herself purported to channel during her many self-induced trances. And the philosophy of List and Liebenfels took this a bit further, to the extent that the Aryan race was the only "True" humanity, and that the Jews, along with a host of other undesirables, or "minderwertigen" ("beings of inferior value") were sapping the race of its strength and purity through the evil machination of Christianity, Freemasonry, capitalism and Communism. They believed that the Aryan race had come from a place called Thule, the north pole, where there was an entrance to a vast underground area populated by giants. Among the völkish cults it was believed that -- as soon as the Germans had purified the planet of the pollution of the inferior races -- these Hidden Masters, these Supermen from Thule, would make themselves known, and the link which had been lost between Man and God would be forged anew.

These were the beliefs of the members of the Thule Gesellschaft when they met on November 9, 1918 to discuss something of immediate concern; The Communist control of Munich. After a rousing speech by Sebottendorf, the Thule Society began to prepare for a counter-revolution, stockpiling weapons and forming alliances with other like-minded groups, such and the Pan-Germans, the German School Bund and the Hammerbund. The following year, on April 7, a Bavarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Munich, causing the Prime Minister of Bavaria to run off to Bamberg in order to prevent a total Communist take-over of the government. Six days later the Thule-Organized Palm Sunday Putsch failed to overcome the Communists in Munich, and now the Thule members were on the Red Army’s Most Wanted list. Sebottendorf got busy organizing an army of Freikorps (Freekorps) to counter-attack. (One of the units of the Freikorps, the Ehrhardt Brigade, later became part of the German Army, and eventually, part of the S.S.) On April 26, the Red Army raided Thule headquarters and began making arrests, including the well-connected Prince von Thurn und Taxis. On April 30, Walpurgisnacht, they were executed in the Luitpold High School courtyard. The following day, their obituaries were published in Sebottendorf’s newspaper Münchener Beobachter (which would evolve one year later in to the official Nazi publication, Völkischer Beobachter.) The citizens of Munich became outraged. The Thule Society organized a citizen rebellion, which was joined by the 20,000-member Freikorps, and together they marched, "beneath a swastika flag, with swastikas painted on their helmets, singing a swastika hymn." By May 3, after much bloodshed and destruction, the Communists in Munich were defeated. But there was much work to be done. The Soviet threat was still very real. With the help of the local police and military, the Thule began organizing a more full-scale national revolt, using connections with societies of wealthy intellectuals. They also began recruiting among Germany’s working class, by forming a group called the German Worker’s Party, which met regularly in beer halls to discuss the threat of Jews, Communists, and Freemasons. This group would later become the National Socialist German Workers’ Party -- The Nazi Party, and in November 1923, they would make their first attempt at national takeover, the failed Beer Hall Putsch, led by a man who had originally been sent by the German Army to spy on them -- Adolf Hitler.

We all know what the Nazi party went on to accomplish. What most people do not know is the extent to which those actions were inspired by the occult beliefs of their perpetrators. The most extreme aims of the Thule Society would all eventually become official policy of the Third Reich, while its purely metaphysical and occult characteristics were adopted wholeheartedly by the S.S. Hitler himself was fascinated by the occult. While he was a college student he began reading Von Liebenfels’ magazine, Ostara. Later in 1909, while he was living in poverty in a men’s dormitory and hawking his paintings on the street, Hitler actually met Liebenfels in his office, looking "so distraught and so impoverished that the New Templar himself gave Hitler free copies of Ostara and bus fare back home." Hitler’s friend Josef Greiner recalls in his memoirs how obsessed young Adolf was with astrology, religion, occultism, magic and yoga. Hitler loved Wagner, as we know, especially The Ring Cycle, Parsifal, Lohengrin and Rienzi. It was from Wagner that Hitler gained his affinity for knighthood, chivalry, and the Quest of the Holy Grail, a pagan, Teutonic Grail. In 1915, Hitler was at war, and while in the trenches, wrote a poem, one which "sings the praises of Wotan, the Teutonic Father God, and of runic letters, magic spells, and magic formulas." So there is no doubt that Hitler’s interest in occultism and paganism ran deep. There is doubt, however, as to whether or not Hitler actually performed any magical operations himself. Tthis was not in his nature, a nature inclined towards action, doing stuff, accomplishing things here on Earth, in the 3rd dimension. He did not have the time and the patience necessary for real spiritual endeavors. Hitler was a paranoid and the occult holds special attractions for the paranoid. But Hitler as a cultist? As a black-robed, ritual-performing, invocation-chanting priest of Satan? Probably not.

But Hitler as a tool of other cultists? Probably so.

In fact, a number of people deeply involved in the occult would have great influence on him and play essential roles in the development of the Third Reich. It would do us well to examine them one by one.

Dietrich Eckart

Hitler, while working as the leader of the German Worker’s Party, became friends with Thulist Dietrich Eckart, who published a newspaper called Auf Gut Deutsch ("In Good German"), which ranks with the Völkischer Beobachter as a racist sheet with intellectual pretensions. Eckart had a tremendous effect on Hitler, and was he who first introduced Hitler to all the wealthy and powerful people he needed make his crusade possible, including Henry Ford, who would later contribute "vital financial support" to the Nazi party. From Eckart, Hitler learned a great deal about the esoteric sciences, and it is said that they occasionally attended seances and talked to ghosts. Eckart, who died after the Beer Hall Putsch, is quoted as saying, "Hitler will dance, but it is I who plays the tune."

Alfred Rosenburg

Eckart protegé, and soon Hitler’s as well, was Alfred Rosenberg, a man who would later become one of the architects of official Nazi policies. One of these policies was that all of the Masonic temples in all of the Nazi’s occupied territories were to be raided, and the goods shipped back to Rosenberg himself. This was done by Franz Six and Otto Ohlendorf, both occultists. Rosenberg was also friends with another occultist named Walther Darré, who became agricultural minister of the Third Reich. Together they ran around the nation drumming up support for an official state religion based on the worship of the Old Gods, a religion that included purifying the Aryan race of elements that were in the process of polluting it and diluting the strength of its blood.

Erik Jan Hanussen

In 1932, after his Nazi Party had lost much ground in the Reichstag, and his mistress Eva Braun had shot herself on Halloween Night, Hitler turned to his friend Erik Jan Hanussen, a well-known astrologer and occultist whom he had met back in 1926. Hanusen is supposed to have taught Hitler a number of exaggerated gestures to use in public speaking, ones which could be seen and understood from far away, and which would communicate a message through body language even if a person could not hear what he was saying. Hanussen had never read Hitler’s stars before, but on this occasion in 1932, upon request, he drew up an astrological chart for the future Führer, and told Hitler that his troubles stemmed from an evil hex that someone had cast on him. Furthermore, he said, the only way to get rid of it was for someone to go to a butcher’s backyard located in Hitler’s hometown -- at midnight, on a full moon -- and pull a mandrake out of the ground. For those who don’t know, a mandrake is a "man-shaped" root with supposed medicinal properties which, according to European folklore, will emit an ear-shattering scream upon being uprooted. Sometime a dog would be sent on a suicide mission to pull the root while the magician plugged his own ears. Hanussen performed the ritual himself, and on January 1st of 1933 came to Hitler predicting that he would return to power on the 30th of that month, a date roughly equivalent to the pagan sabbat of Oimelc. Of course, as is known to history, that is exactly what happened. A few weeks later, during a seance held on February 26, Hanussen predicted that the Communists would make another attempt at revolution in Germany, one that would begin by setting an important government building on fire. The next day the Reichstag was in flames and Hitler had all the excuse he needed to go from Chancellor of Germany to Führer of the Third Reich. Six weeks later, Hanussen was mysteriously murdered.

Wilhelm Gutberlet

There was also another astrologer, a shareholder in the Völkischer Beobachter who had been Hitler’s close friend since the days of the German Worker’s Party in 1919. In the memoirs of Walter Schellenberg he is described as "a Munich physician who belonged to the intimate circle around Hitler. Gutberlet believed in the ‘sidereal pendulum’, an astrological contraption, and claimed that this had given him the power to sense at once the presence of any Jews or persons of partial Jewish ancestry, and to pick them out in any group of people. Hitler availed himself of Gutberlet’s mystic power and had many discussions with him on racial questions.

Rudolf Hess

A friend of Hitler’s from way back, he had been arrested at the Beer Hall Putsch with him in 1923, and had transcribed Hitler’s Mein Kampf (originally titled Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) while they were both in prison. He later became Hitler’s Deputy Führer. He was an "intimate" of the Thule Society and was way into the occult. Hess introduced Hitler to one of his professors, Karl Haushofter, a man with an interest in astrology who claimed clairvoyance. Haushoffer later came to wield considerable power in Germany by founding the Deutsche Akadamie, and by heading the University of Munich’s Institute Geopolitik -- "A kind of think tank-cum-intelligence agency", according to Levenda. He was vital in forming the Nazi alliances with Japan and South America, and was responsible for the adoption of the Lebensraum ("Living Space") policy, which stated that "a sovereign nation, to ensure the survival of its people, had a right to annex the territory of other sovereign nations to feed and house itself."

Himmler and the S.S.

The S.S. (Schutzstaffel) was originally formed as a personal bodyguard to Hitler, and numbered around 300 when Heinrich Himmler joined. But when he rose to its leadership in 1929, things changed a bit. Four years later, membership had soared to 52,000. He established headquarters at a medieval castle called Wewelsburg, where his secret inner order met once a year. According to Walther Schellenberg’s memoirs:

Each member had his own armchair with an engraved silver nameplate, and each had to devote himself to a ritual of spiritual exercises aimed mainly at mental concentration. The focal point of Wewelsburg, evidently owing much to the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, was a great dining hall with an oak table to seat twelve picked from the senior Gruppenführers. The walls were to be adorned with their coats of arms.

Underneath this dining hall there was kept a so-called "realm of the dead", a circular well in which these coats of arms would be burnt and the ashes worshipped after the "knight" had died. (There are tales of Himmler using the severed heads of deceased S.S. officers to communicate with ascended masters). In addition to this, each knight had his own room, "decorated in accordance with one of the great ancestors of Aryan majesty." Himmler’s own room was dedicated to a Saxon King Henry the Fowler, whose ghost Himmler sometimes conversed with.

Outside of the inner order, SS officers were discouraged from participating in Christian ceremonies, including weddings and christenings, and celebrated the Winter Solstice instead of Christmas. The traditional day of gift exchange was switched to the day of the summer solstice celebration. These ceremonies were replete with sacred fires, torchlit processions, and invocations of Teutonic deities, all performed by files of young blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan supermen. Although Himmler admired the ceremonial nature of Catholicism and modeled the S.S. partially on the Order of the Jesuits, he also despised Christianity for what he considered its weak, masochistic nature. He held further resentment because of the persecution of German witches during the Inquisition.

Himmler, along with Richard Darré, was responsible for absorbing The Ahnenerbe Society "a kind of seminary and teaching college for the future leaders of the Thousand Year Reich", into the S.S. The Ahenenerbe was devoted to some odd völkish studies, each of which had a subdivision dedicated to it: "Celtic Studies", Externsteine (near Wewelsburg), where the world-tree Yggdrasil was supposed to reside, Icelandic research; Tibetan research, runic studies; a strange new twist on physics called the "World Ice Theory", an archeological research in an effort to find evidence of past Aryan presence in remote locations all over the world, such as South America, giving rise to "Aryans discovered America" stories. Another theory propounded by Himmler was that babies that had been conceived in cemeteries would inherit the spirits of whoever was buried there, and actually published lists of cemeteries that were good for breeding because of the Teutonic heroes resting therein. Himmler was obsessed with the concept of the Holy Grail, and hired researchers to try and prove that the Grail was actually a Nordic pagan artifact.

The Allied Occult Offense

Himmler was obsessed by the idea that British Intelligence was being run by the Rosicrucian order, and that occult adepts were in charge of MI5. Whether or not that was true, the Germans were certainly not the only participants in the war using the power of magick to their advantage. Levenda provides the details of a "Cult Counterstrike" organized by the intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Britain, an effort centering around the "most evil man in the world", the Great Beast 666, Aleister Crowley.

Crowley had gone to live in New York during WWI after being rejected for military service by the British government, and began writing "pro-German propaganda" for a magazine called The Fatherland, published by George Viereck. Crowley took over as editor. He later claimed that he had really been working for British Intelligence, because his articles were so outlandish that the journal was reduced to absurdity, a caricature of serious political discussion, which would help the British cause more than harm it. There is some evidence to suggest that Crowley was working for MI5 during this time, spying on his fellow OTO initiate Karl Germer, a German intelligence agent, so perhaps his excuse for working for The Fatherland is sound. Whatever the case, he was definitely hired by MI5 during WWII. Crowley had become friends with author Dennis Wheatley, well-known for a number of fiction and non-fiction books based on the occult who had once worked for Winston Churchill’s Joint Planning Staff. He had been introduced to Crowley by a journalist named Tom Driberg, who would later become a spy for MI5 as well, and who would come into possession of Crowley’s diaries shortly after his death in 1947. Wheatley also introduced Crowley to yet another MI5 agent, Maxwell Knight. Knight was the real historical figure behind the fictional character "M" in all the James Bond novels, written by Knight’s friend in the Department of Naval Intelligence, Ian Fleming. Crowley met Knight for dinner at Wheatley’s house, and it was there that Crowley agreed to take them both on as magick students. Later, Ian Fleming dreamed up a way to use Crowley’s expertise in a scheme against the Germans. The scheme involved an Anglo-German organization known as "The Link", a supposed "cultural society" which had once been under the leadership of Sir Barry Domville, Director of Naval Intelligence from 1927 to 1930. The Link had been investigated by Maxwell Knight in the 1930s because of its involvement in German spy operations, and was soon dissolved after much incriminating evidence was found. As Levenda describes, Fleming "thought that the Nazis could be made to believe that the The Link was still in existence, they could use it as bait for the Nazi leadership. The point was to convince the Nazis that The Link had sufficient influence to overthrow the Churchill government and thereby to install a more pliable British government, one which would gladly negotiate a separate peace with Hitler." The suggestion came in the form of fake astrological advice passed on to the gullible Rudolf Hess, who was already under the delusion that only he could talk the British into peace with Germany, and that it was his destiny to do so. One of his staff astrologers, Dr. Ernst Schulte-Strathaus, under British employ, encouraged Hess to make his mission to England on May 10, 1941 a significant date because of a rare conjunction of six planets in the sign of Taurus. The Duke of Hamilton was also enlisted to let Hess know that he would be happy to entertain him should he plan to go through with such an endeavor. So Hess, a trained pilot, embarked on a rather dangerous solo flight to the British Isles, parachuting into Scotland donned in various occult symbols, where he was immediately arrested by the waiting Brits. Fleming tried to obtain permission for Crowley to debrief Hess in order to develop intelligence on the occult scene in the Third Reich and particularly the Nazi leadership. But this permission was denied, and Hess spent the rest of his days in prison not being much use to anybody. What could have been a major propaganda coup against the Nazis went utterly wasted, as if by tacit agreement on both sides.

After Hess’ arrest, Hitler denounced him as a crazed madman, and began persecuting astrologers and occultists in his own domains more so than ever before. Crowley continued trying to help the Allied cause, but most of his ideas were rejected. One, however, while initially dismissed, was later implemented. This involved dropping occult pamphlets on the German countryside that predicted a dire outcome for the war and depicted the Nazi leadership as Satanic. A forgery of a popular German astrological magazine called Zenit was created and dropped onto enemy battlefields. It was set for full-scale distribution, but the delivery was intercepted by the Gestapo before it could be completed.

Besides Crowley, there were other occultists involved in the fight against the Third Reich. One of Crowley’s protegés, Jack Parsons, who was the Head of the Agapé O.T.O. Lodge in California as well as a charter member of both Cal-Tech and the Jet propulsion Laboratory, invented the "Greek Fire" rocket propellant which was widely used by the United State Navy between 1944 and 1945. It was a solution that could have only come from someone with a working knowledge of the arcane lore of alchemy and magic. (Parsons later killed himself in an accident involving fulminate of mercury. He had been driven crazy and proclaimed himself the Anti-Christ after becoming involved with one "Frater H", who was actually a spy sent by Naval Intelligence to infiltrate the O.T.O. That spy’s name was L. Ron Hubbard!) There was also a Golden dawn initiate named Sam Untermyer, an attorney and wealthy philanthropist once called a "Satanist" by a British newspaper. Untermyer started the "Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights" and the "World-Anti-Nazi Council, which both promoted the boycott of German products. He also donated money to the hunt for Nazi agents coming into New York. And with the help of a man named Richard Rollins, he started a secret society called "the Board" which engaged in counterespionage against Nazi groups who were recruiting in the United States.

World War II was a magick war, and a holy war, a war in which both sides consider themselves to be fighting the forces of evil. It was a war operated behind the scenes by mystical adepts using their esoteric knowledge of symbolism, astrology, meditation, astral travel, clairvoyance, and mind control against the enemy. A war inspired by age-old beliefs in the Elder Gods of Europe’s ancient past.