Occultism has been important in many belief systems and movements throughout history, including Nazism. While much of Nazi ideology is based on racial superiority and nationalism, a lesser-known aspect of the movement delves into the occult.
The Nazis held a number of mystical and esoteric beliefs, such as the existence of ancient Aryan civilizations, the power of symbolism and ritual, and the ability to communicate with supernatural entities. In this post, we will look at the role of occultism in Nazism and how these beliefs influenced the Nazi regime’s ideology and actions.
How Nazis Drew Inspiration from the Occult?
The link of Nazism with occultism appears in a wide range of hypotheses, conjecture, and research into Nazism’s origins and possible relationship with various occult traditions. Such concepts have been a part of popular culture since at least the early 1940s (during World War II), and have received renewed traction since the 1960s. Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke examined the matter in his 1985 book The Occult Roots of Nazism, arguing that there were parallels between some Ariosophy principles and Nazi philosophy.
He also examined the flaws in the numerous popular occult historical books published. Goodrick-Clarke attempted to disentangle empiricism and sociology from the modern mythology of Nazi occultism seen in numerous publications that “have represented the Nazi phenomenon as the product of arcane and demonic influence.” Most Nazi occult literature published between 1960 and 1975 was deemed “sensational and under-researched” by him.
“The Occult Roots of Nazism” Book
The Occult Roots of Nazism, a 1985 book by historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, investigates the potential linkages between the occult and Nazi ideology. The racist-occult movement of Ariosophy, a key stream of nationalist esotericism in Germany and Austria during the 1800s and early 1900s, is the book’s main focus. He describes his work as “an underground history, concerned with the myths, symbols, and fantasies that bear on the development of reactionary, authoritarian, and Nazi styles of thinking,” claiming that “fantasies can achieve a causal status once they have been institutionalized in beliefs, values, and social groups.”
According to Goodrick-Clarke, the Ariosophist movement built on the earlier ideas of the Völkisch movement, a traditionalist, pan-German response to industrialization and urbanization, but it specifically associated modernism’s problems with the alleged misdeeds of Freemasonry, Kabbalism, and Rosicrucianism in order to “prove the modern world was based on false and evil principles.”
“Ideas and symbols from the Ariosophist filtered through to several anti-semitic and Nationalist groups in late Wilhelmina Germany, from which the early Nazi Party emerged in Munich after the First World War.” He established connections between the two Ariosophists and Heinrich Himmler.
Historiography concerning The Occult Roots of Nazism Book
“The Occult Roots of Nazism” is a work that scholars have praised for its ability to debunk the fantastical and unsupported claims made about Nazi occultism in modern depictions. The book carefully examines the relationship between Ariosophy, a form of esotericism rooted in certain Germanic cultures, and the actual agency of the Nazi hierarchy.
Historians such as Martyn Housden and Jeremy Noakes commend the author, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, for his thorough and definitive account of the influence of Ariosophy on Nazism and the fascinating insights it provides into the intellectual climate of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Goodrick-Clarke’s work raises important questions about the efficacy and purpose of possible occult practices by Nazi leaders and the impact of modern notions and applications of occultism on appropriate scholarship.
Peter Merkl’s “Political Violence under the Swastika” further explores the linkages between Ariosophy and German society, highlighting the intense German nationalism favored by certain members of the society. The book debunks several modern myths about Nazi occultism, including the rumor that Adolf Hitler encountered an Austrian monk and antisemitic publicist at a young age.
Overall, “The Occult Roots of Nazism” provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the relationship between Ariosophy and the Nazi regime, shedding light on a fascinating and little-known aspect of Nazi ideology.
Occult Symbols in Nazism
In Nazi Germany, there were several key occult symbols, some of which were adapted or co-opted from pre-existing esoteric traditions, while others were created or modified specifically for Nazi propaganda purposes.
One of the most well-known symbols is the swastika, which has been used for thousands of years in various cultures and religions but was appropriated by the Nazi party as a symbol of Aryan identity and power. The black sun, a sun wheel symbol, was also associated with the mythical city of Thule in Nazi occultism.
The SS also used the double lightning bolt, or Siegrune, to represent victory and strength. As a symbol of their feared reputation, the SS also used the death’s head symbol, a skull with crossed bones. The Wolfsangel, a stylized wolf trap, symbolized the Werewolf resistance movement. The Black Sun and Wolfsangel are two symbols that modern neo-Nazi groups have appropriated.
While these symbols and the associated occultism were undoubtedly present in Nazi Germany, historians disagree about their influence on Nazi policies and actions.
Demonic possession of Hitler
Hermann Rauschning’s Hitler Speaks is cited as a source of Hitler’s demonic influence. However, most modern scholars do not believe Rauschning to be trustworthy. (As Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke puts it, “Recent scholarship has almost certainly proven that Rauschning’s conversations were mostly made up.”
Similarly to Rauschning, August Kubizek, one of Hitler’s closest friends since childhood, claims that Hitler once spoke to him about “returning Germany to its former glory” when he was 17 years old; August said of this comment, “It was as if another being spoke out of his body, and moved him as much as it did me.”
Timothy Ryback’s article “Hitler’s Forgotten Library,” published in The Atlantic (May 2003), mentions a book from Hitler’s private library authored by Ernst Schertel. Schertel, whose interests included flagellation, dance, occultism, nudism, and BDSM, was also a sexual liberation activist prior to 1933.
He had been imprisoned for seven months in Nazi Germany, and his doctorate had been revoked. He is said to have sent Hitler a personalized copy of his 1923 book Magic: History, Theory, and Practice sometime in the mid-1920s. Hitler is said to have highlighted numerous passages, including one that says, “He who does not have the demonic seed within himself will never give birth to a magical world.”
During World War II, theosophist Alice A. Bailey claimed that Adolf Hitler was possessed by what she referred to as the Dark Forces. According to her follower Benjamin Creme, the energies of the Antichrist, which according to theosophical teachings is not an individual person but forces of destruction, were released through Hitler (and a group of equally evil men around him in Nazi Germany, as well as a group of militarists in Japan and a further group around Mussolini in Italy).
Dietrich Eckhart
Hitler’s mentor, Dietrich Eckhart (to whom Hitler dedicates Mein Kampf), wrote to a friend in 1923, according to James Herbert Brennan in his book Occult Reich: “Follow Hitler! He will dance, but I have chosen the music. We’ve provided him with the means of communication’ with Them. Do not lament my passing; I will have influenced history more than any other German.
“New World Order Conspiracy theorists frequently identify German National Socialism as a precursor of the New World Order, among other things.”
In terms of Hitler’s later ambition to impose the Nazi regime throughout Europe, Nazi propaganda used the term Neuordnung (often mistranslated as “the New Order,” but actually referring to the “re-structurization” of state borders on the European map and the resulting post-war economic hegemony of Greater Germany), so one could probably say that the Nazis pursued a new world order in terms of politics. However, the claim that Hitler and the Thule Society conspired to establish a New World Order (a conspiracy theory advanced on some websites) is completely false.
Aleister Crowley, an occultist.
There are also unsubstantiated rumors that occultist Aleister Crowley attempted to contact Hitler during World War II. Despite several allegations and speculations to the contrary, there is no evidence of such an encounter. One of Crowley’s literary executors, John Symonds, published The Medusa’s Head or Conversations Between Aleister Crowley and Adolf Hitler in 1991, definitively proven to be literary fiction. The fact that this book’s edition was limited to 350 copies added to the mystery surrounding the subject. A letter from René Guénon to Julius Evola dated October 29, 1949, also mentions a contact between Crowley and Hitler, but without providing any sources or evidence.
Hanussen, Erik Jan
Hitler “seemed endowed with even greater authority and charisma” after resuming public speaking in March 1927, according to the documentary Hitler and the Occult. According to the narrator, “this may have been due to the influence” of clairvoyant performer and publicist Erik Jan Hanussen. “Hanussen helped Hitler perfect a series of exaggerated poses,” which were useful when speaking in front of a large crowd. The documentary then interviews Dusty Sklar about Hitler’s contact with Hanussen, and the narrator mentions “occult techniques of mind control and crowd domination.”
It’s unclear whether Hitler ever met Hanussen. Other sources about Hanussen do not confirm that he met him before March 1927. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hanussen made political predictions in his own newspaper, Hanussens Bunte Wochenschau, that gradually began to favor Hitler, but these predictions varied until late 1932. Hanussen predicted in 1929, for example, that Wilhelm II would return to Germany in 1930 and that the unemployment problem would be solved in 1931.
Nazi occultism, mysticism, and science fiction
Manfred Nagl’s article “SF (Science Fiction), Occult Sciences, and Nazi Myths,” published in Science Fiction Studies, expands on Nazi mysticism in German culture.
Nagl writes in it that the racial narratives described in contemporary German Science Fiction stories, such as Edmund Kiss’s The Last Queen of Atlantis, provide further notions of racial superiority under the auspices of Ariosophy, Aryanism, and alleged historic racial Mysticism, implying that writings associated with possible Occultism, Ariosophy, or Aryanism were products intended to influence and justify in a socio
The stories themselves dealt with “…heroes, charismatic leader types, (who) have been chosen by fate—with the resources of a sophisticated and extremely powerful technology”.Nagl believes that science fiction works like Atlantis fueled the violent persuasion of Nazi leaders like Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, providing further justification for a “Nazi elite (imagining) for itself in occupied East European territories.”
This, according to Nagl, resulted in “a tremendous turning back of culture, away from the age of reason and consciousness, toward the age of sleepwalking certainty,’ the age of supra-rational magic.”
Books on crypto-history
H. T. Hakl, an Austrian publisher of esoteric works, traces the origins of the speculation about Nazism and Occultism back to several works from the early 1940s in the essay included in the German edition of The Occult Roots… Unknown sources: National Socialism and the Occult, translated by Goodrick-Clarke, was also based on his research. Hitler was described as a “demonic personality” by a pseudonymous Kurt van Emsen in 1933, but his work was quickly forgotten.
René Kopp, a French Christian esotericist, made the first allusions to Hitler being directed by occult forces, which later authors picked up. He attempts to attribute Hitler’s power to supernatural forces in two articles published in the monthly esoteric journal Le Chariot in June 1934 and April 1939.
“L’Enigme du Hitler” was the title of the second article. Hakl could not find similar hints in other French esoteric journals from the 1930s. Another French author, Edouard Saby, published Hitler et les Forces Occultes in 1939. Saby has already brought up Hanussen and Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln.
Hakl even implies that Edouard Saby would own the myth of Nazi occultism. However, Hermann Rauschning’s Hitler Speaks, published in 1939, is a more well-known book. It is stated there (in the chapter “Black and White Magic”) that “Hitler surrendered himself to forces that carried him away… He turned himself over to a spell, which can, with good reason and not simply as a figurative analogy, be described as demonic magic.” The chapter “Hitler in Private” is even more dramatic, and it was omitted from the German edition published in 1940.