Page 35 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Hitler and the Occult

“Goebbels began building

MARTIN a team of astrologers who
BORMANN
Secretary to the Deputy could inluence public
Führer (1933-41)
Despite being subordinate to Hess on paper, Chief of the Party opinion on his behalf”
Bormann managed everything from the Führer’s personal Chancellery
finances to civil service appointments within the German (1941-45)
government. He was an immensely influential political
operator who controlled access to Hitler and had little
patience for the occult. This antipathy to both astrology
and his increasingly irrelevant boss led him to spur on the Predict
Hess Action of 1941.
for victory

Defying the ban on predictions involving the Reich
leadership, the Swiss-born astrologer Karl Krafft sent an
urgent letter to a friend with SS connections warning that
Hitler’s life was in danger between 7 and 10 November 1939.
ADOLF When the Führer narrowly escaped a bomb by minutes
JOSEPH
on 8 November, Krafft was hauled in by the Gestapo as
HITLER GOEBBELS a potential accomplice. Eventually they released him,
convinced his apparent foreknowledge was nothing sinister.
Minister of Public
Goebbels, though, was fascinated. Seeing that the British
Chancellor of Enlightenment and had begun broadcasting bogus horoscopes to erode the
Germany Propaganda confidence of the German public, Goebbels began building
(1933-45) Though sympathetic to the power of (1933-45) a team of astrologers who could influence public opinion
superstition to make or break a leader,
on his behalf. Krafft took centre stage as work began on
Hitler claimed to have no interest pamphlets based around reinterpreting the 16th-century
in astrology. Speaking in July 1942, prophecies of Nostradamus to trumpet a preordained
the Führer observed: “Although an German victory and spread them across Europe.
oracle’s prophecies may be wrong The pragmatic propaganda Goebbels was delighted, writing triumphantly of the
a hundred times (when they are minister banned publishing fatalism that his work was inspiring in France, but Krafft’s
promptly forgotten), it suffices for one horoscopes of prominent self-respect was bruised. He grew increasingly belligerent
prophecy to be fortuitously confirmed political figures outright and and was unwilling to toe the line and compromise on
by subsequent events, for it to be later banned public fortune his craft, as he saw it. He resigned, although his work
believed, cherished and handed down telling, but he understood the continued to be printed regardless, and Goebbels’ team of
from generation to generation.” value of astrology in shaping tame astrologers produced hundreds of books, pamphlets
opinion. Ever the arch-cynic, and radio broadcasts until 1943, falsely convinced that
Goebbels published anti- the British public were as enthralled by astrology as their
occultist literature on the one German counterparts.
hand, but eventually recruited Out from under the protection of the Ministry of Public
his own astrologers to churn Enlightenment and Propaganda, Krafft fell firmly back under
ALFRED Hitler’s ideological Rottweiler, out politically sanctioned the crosshairs of the Gestapo and, unable to keep his mouth
ROSENBERG Rosenberg was responsible for the prophecy on the other. shut about the Third Reich’s chances as the stars relayed
them to him, he was picked up in the Hess Action. In
letter of Nazi doctrine in matters of
Commissar for Supervision culture. Although the depth of his and out of prison and concentration camps for
of Intellectual and occult interests rivalled Hess and the rest of the war, Krafft eventually died
Ideological Education of typhus on 8 January 1945 while in a
of the NSDAP Himmler, he had no tolerance for belief boxcar to Buchenwald.
(1934-45) systems that countered the letter of
National Socialist writ and regularly
fought turf wars with Himmler.

REINHARD
Heydrich was tasked with shutting down sects, HEYDRICH
mystics and fortune tellers who represented a
threat to Nazi orthodoxy, a mission made more Director of the Gestapo
(1934-39)
complex by Himmler, who encouraged him to police Director of the Reich
the arbitrary distinction between “scientific” and Main Security Office
“fraudulent astrologers”. Many of those pursued (1939-42)
by the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence wing
of the SS) or Gestapo would find protection under
Himmler or, from late 1939, Goebbels.

SCEPTICS

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