Page 36 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Hitler’s Occult War

Himmler’s state-within-a-state was filled with
outlandish occultists and projects

Heinrich Himmler’s political upbringing in the
esoteric Artaman League permeated his many Join the Ahnenerbe, see the world!
endeavours. Once he was handed control of the They didn’t just go to Tibet, they travelled the globe in the name of ancestral research
Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad) responsible for
the security of the party’s elite in 1929, he set
about transforming the SS from bloody-knuckled,
Weimar-era street brawlers into a militant order ICELAND (1938)
inspired by the Teutonic Knights who brought Linguist Bruno Schweizer
led an expedition looking for
Germanic sword and fire to the dark forests and shrines to Odin and Thor. He
mountains of the Baltic. found the Icelandic government
While most of Himmler’s occult predilections uncooperative and complained
to Himmler that the Icelandic
initially played out behind closed doors, in one people had abandoned their
way at least it was worn on his sleeve. SS insignia, traditional crafts and legends.
from the infamous double lightning flash to the
emblems of various units and formations, came FINLAND (1936)
Finnish anthropologist Yrjö von
from Guido von List’s runic alphabet. Grönhagen led a joint German-
As wider German society became steadily hostile Finnish voyage through the
to the more maverick mystics, Himmler welcomed remote region of Karelia to
record the chants of witches.
them with open arms and set them to work. The
Ahnenerbe — more properly the Forschungsund
Lehrgemeinshaft das Ahnenerbe (Ancestral
Research and Teaching Society) — was formed
under a different name in 1935, before being
gradually absorbed into the SS. CANARY ISLANDS (1939)
Concerned with research into the mythic Historian Herman Wirth thought vintage
accounts of Canary Islanders with blonde hair
origins of Aryans and recovering or recreating made the island a possible contender for Thule.
their knowledge, the Ahnenerbe ballooned into The trip was called off when war was declared.
a vast apparatus with departments covering
research areas as niche as Hausmarken und
Sippenzeichen (House Brands and Family Marks),
Wurtenforschung (Dwelling Mound Research),
Indogermanische Rechtsgeschichte (Indogermanic
Historical jurisprudence) and Volkserzählung, BOLIVIA (1939)
Märchen und Sagenkunde (Folktales, Fairytales Another expedition canned
by war, archaeologist ANTARCTICA (1938-39)
and Myths). Unsurprisingly, its manager Wolfram Edmund Kiss believed the Fuel for conspiracy theorists, the Ahnenerbe
Sievers was a veteran of the Artaman League. ruined temples of the Andes were sent to the remote German-claimed
Perhaps its most sensationalist endeavour, were similar to European New Swabia to drop swastika flags against a
structures, suggesting Norwegian claim.
though, was the 1938-39 expedition to Tibet. A that they were the work of
fact-finding trip into the spurious shared heritage ancient Aryans.
of the other ‘pure’ Aryan culture to have
survived the catastrophic sinking of Atlantis/
Thule, its leader, the square-jawed Bear Grylls
of Nazi Germany Ernst Schäfer, consulted
Himmler’s mystic mentor Karl Maria Wiligut
before his departure. He left convinced that
Wiligut had read his mind using techniques The Rasputin of the Reich
only known to the Tibetan lamas.
The expedition was a masterpiece in By Himmler’s side from late 1933 to his Along with the ancient rites he had
retirement in summer 1939 aged 72 was Karl inherited from his father and his father’s
confirmation bias as Schäfer’s team — who
Maria Wiligut. A one-time Austrian asylum father, Wiligut boasted of a “clairvoyant
held a winter solstice rite when they arrived patient, although the SS kept records of his memory” that allowed him to channel ancestral
— returned laden down with artefacts and mental health tightly under wraps lest they wisdom. In one particularly lurid incident, he
holy books, convinced of the shared Aryan expose their boss to ridicule, Wiligut claimed was driving with Himmler when suddenly he
heritage of National Socialism and the direct descent from a line of prehistoric began to fit. Foaming at the mouth, he lurched
German sages created by a coupling of Asen from the car and into a nearby field. Lucid
Tibetan Buddhism.
(air) and Wanen (water) gods — the Aesir and again, Wiligut announced that this was a site
So pleased was Himmler with the scope Vanir in Norse mythology. sacred to the ancient Germans.
and scale of his organisation’s output that
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