Page 39 - All About History - Issue 56-17
P. 39
Hitler and the Occult
Some of the most headline-
grabbing projects attributed to
the Nazis are simply nonsense
Treaty of Versailles and he
a secret map to the
ubert and Jan van felt it rightfully belonged
HEyck’s 15th-century sacred vessel. to the Reich.
Hitler’s interest in
Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb, often referred to the Ghent
Altarpiece was
as the Ghent Altarpiece
for its pride of place at political as
well as artistic.
Ghent Cathedral, is one
of the most important Aside from
being a work
pieces of Christian artwork urely acts that murderous Schertel’s Magic: History, Theory
in Europe and Hitler had he hugely Scould only come from Lucifer and Practice.
admired, it
to have it. One key panel was one of himself? Former far-right politician Rauschning embellished his
shows a lamb bleeding the artworks Hermann Rauschning’s 1939 contact with Hitler considerably,
into the Holy Grail, returned to biography of the Führer paints a publishing his book to meet the
signifying the elaborate Belgium in the troubling portrait of a man plagued growing interest in Germany’s new
polyptych’s true role — by demonic voices. Hitler himself master. As for the “demon seed”,
underlined “He who does not have
Hitler’s enthusiasm for Schertel was
the demonic seed within himself
purely symbolic — a magician was
will never give birth to a magical
someone who changed the world
world” in his personal copy of Ernst
through sheer force of will.
he fabled Spear of
TLonginus, reputed
to have pierced the
side of Christ at the
Crucifixion, was seized
from Vienna’s treasury
by the Nazis during the
Anschluss. Hitler used rowley’s magical
its otherworldly powers, Cmanifesto The
harnessed by the great Book of the Law was
German warrior kings of translated into German
the past, to steamroller in 1925, catching the
most of Europe. eye of Adolf Hitler.
The story surfaced in Translator Martha
a 1972 book by Trevor Küntzel observed the
Ravenscroft, who similarities between the
claimed to have studied text and Hitler’s own
under Austrian occultist declaration of dark faith,
and Grail writer Walter Mein Kampf. Crowley
Stein. It later transpired tried to contact Hitler
the two had never around 1930 to induct
met and Ravenscroft him into Thelema and
contacted Stein after he annotated a copy
his death in a seance. of Küntzel’s 1939 book
Meanwhile, Vienna’s Hitler Speaks with the
Hofsburg Spear dates commonalities.
from the 7th century CE
— well after its cameo In reality, this bromance was all rather one-sided. There’s no
time The Book of the Law was released in Germany, the future
in the New Testament. evidence that Hitler was aware of Crowley’s writings, and by the © Alamy, Getty
Führer’s worldview was firmly established.
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