Nazism and Occultism - The Modern Mythology of Nazi Occultism

The Modern Mythology of Nazi Occultism

"There is a persistent idea, widely canvassed in a sensational genre of literature, that the Nazis were principally inspired and directed by occult agencies from 1920 to 1945".

Appendix E of Goodrick-Clarke's book is entitled "The Modern Mythology of Nazi Occultism". In it, he gives a highly critical view of much of the popular literature on the topic. In his words, these books describe Hitler & the Nazis as being controlled by a "hidden power . . . characterized either as a discarnate entity (e.g. 'black forces', 'invisible hierarchies', 'unknown superiors') or as a magical elite in a remote age or distant location". He referred to the writers of this genre as "crypto-historians". The works of the genre, he wrote,

"were typically sensational and under-researched. A complete ignorance of the primary sources was common to most authors and inaccuracies and wild claims were repeated by each newcomer to the genre until an abundant literature existed, based on wholly spurious 'facts' concerning the powerful Thule Society, the Nazi links with the East, and Hitler's occult initiation."

In a new preface for the 2004 edition of The Occult Roots... Goodrick-Clarke comments that in 1985, when his book first appeared, "Nazi 'black magic' was regarded as a topic for sensational authors in pursuit of strong sales."

In his 2002 work Black Sun, which was originally intended to trace the survival of "occult Nazi themes" in the postwar period, Goodrick-Clarke considered it necessary to readdress the topic. He devotes one Chapter of the book to "the Nazi mysteries", as he terms the field of Nazi occultism there. Other reliable summaries of the development of the genre have been written by German historians. The German edition of The Occult Roots... includes an essay "Nationalsozialismus und Okkultismus" ("National Socialism and Occultism"), which traces the origins of the speculation about Nazi occultism back to publications from the late 1930s, and which was subsequently translated by Goodrick-Clarke into English. The German historian Michael Rißmann has also included a longer "excursus" about "Nationalsozialismus und Okkultismus" in his acclaimed book on Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs.

According to Goodricke-Clarke the speculation of Nazi occultism originated from "post-war fascination with Nazism"; The "horrid fascination" of Nazism upon the Western mind emerges from the "uncanny interlude in modern history" that it presents to an observer a few decades later. The idolization of Hitler in Nazi Germany, its short lived dominion on the European continent and Nazism's extreme antisemitism set it apart from other periods of modern history. "Outside a purely secular frame of reference, Nazism was felt to be the embodiment of evil in a modern twentieth-century regime, a monstrous pagan relapse in the Christian community of Europe."

By the early 1960s, "one could now clearly detect a mystique of Nazism." A sensationalistic and fanciful presentation of its figures and symbols, shorn of all political and historical contexts" gained ground with thrillers, non-fiction books and films and permeated "the milieu of popular culture."

Some of this modern mythology even touches Goodrick-Clarke's topic directly. The rumor that Adolf Hitler had encountered the Austrian monk and anti-semitic publicist, Lanz von Liebenfels already at the age of 8, at Heilgenkreuz abbey, goes back to Les mystiques du soleil (1971) by Michel-Jean Angbert. "This episode is wholly imaginary."

Nevertheless, Michel-Jean Angbert and the other authors discussed by Goodrick-Clarke present their accounts as real, so that this modern mythology has led to several legends that resemble conspiracy theories, concerning, for example, the Vril Society or rumours about Karl Haushofer's connection to the occult. The most influential books were Trevor Ravenscroft's The Spear of Destiny and The Morning of the Magicians by Pauwels and Bergier.

In Ravenscroft's book a specific interest of Hitler concerning the Spear of Destiny is alleged. With the annexation of Austria in 1938, the Hofburg Spear, a relic stored in Vienna, had actually come into the possession of the Third Reich and Hitler subsequently had it moved to Nuremberg in Germany. It was returned to Austria after the war.