Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy

The Discovery Channel 2/22/98

(E=Expert)

The Nazis wanted to build a sinister New World Order led by a so-called race of Aryan supermen, spreading a reign of
terror unlike any the world had ever known. Many believe the Nazis conjured strange spirits and followed occult
practices that had lain dormant in Europe for thousands of years. Now documents prove that their beliefs were based
on a perversion of ancient pagan law; a twisting of mythic battles between forces of light and darkness and of a
terrifying journey into a world ruled by mystics, madmen and murderers.

The Himalayas of Tibet. In the 1930s, the Nazis began searching the top of the world for evidence of ancient high-
priests who they believed were their blood ancestors. The Nazi belief in these ancestors was to form the foundation of
Germany's new religion. A religion with Adolf Hitler as its high-priest. Inspiring Hitler's evil crusade, was a belief that
pure Aryan blood was being contaminated by so-called "inferior races" and that once rid of foreign elements, a new
race of Aryan supermen would rule the world. This was the Nazi interpretation of ancient myths and occult lore dating
back thousands of years.

To prove their superiority, the Nazis would leave no myth or religion unexplored. In effect, borrowing from any belief
they could adapt to the Aryan cause. As a foundation for this new faith, Hitler needed to eliminate competing religions.
To achieve absolute control, he not only used the power of myth, but co-opted Christian ritual. His inner circle who had
strong ties to the occult, would help him to accomplish this goal. Among them were: Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess,
whose correspondence reveals a devotion to astrology and forecasting by the stars; Nazi Commissioner for
Philosophy and Education, Alfred Rosenberg who wrote the book "Laying Out the Tenets of the Nazi Religion";
Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, whose diary records his use of astrological forecasts in planning
the war against the allies; and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and the Nazi death camps, whose personal papers
reveal that he was the master occultist of the Third Reich, and ultimately the architect of the new Nazi religion.

At the foundation of this new religion was an ancient occult legend that tells the story of a continent somewhere in the
north Atlantic. There lived a race of super-beings who'd fallen from grace through evil and vice. A great flood wiped
these beings off the face of the earth, but before they could all be destroyed, certain priests escaped by boat
eventually finding their way to India and the high peaks of Tibet. These escaped priests, believed by mystics to be the
original race of Aryan god-men, were said to be the ancestors of all Indian and European people. The land was called
Atlantis.

Certain German mystics claimed the Atlantis myth was actual history; their proof that Aryans were the chosen people
descended from the super-beings of Atlantis and that they had lost their powers by mating with mere mortals. In these
theories lay the seeds of Nazi doctrine.

Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, an extreme nationalist, made it his mission to prove that the Germanic peoples
were the descendants of the Atlantic master race.

E: "Nationalists, particularly those who believed in the superiority of the Aryan race, always had entertained a notion of
a vanished island, hidden world, some kind of utopia. Himmler may have thought it was in Tibet and that this master
race, the Atlantic master race as Himmler liked to call it, might have been in the Tibetan mountains and that their
descendants would still be alive."

Himmler believed the occult legend of Atlantis was true; that the mythical super-beings of Atlantis eventually made
their way from Tibet to northern Europe and that their descendants became the Nordic, or Aryan races.

Government funded expeditions under Himmler's direction were sent to Tibet searching for evidence of their
ancestors. To document this process, Nazi researchers took this film footage. In 1946, in a post-war interrogation by
the US Army, the SS scientist who led one of the Tibetan expeditions described his first meeting with Himmler. He
said: "Himmler mentioned his belief that the Nordic race did not evolve, but came directly down from heaven to settle
on the Atlantic continent and that ancient immigrants from Atlantis had founded a great civilization in central Asia."

E: "Although he was a very rational, calculating power broker, he was also a romantic idealist and he certainly
believed in these myths, otherwise he wouldn't have spent the money and the time and the energy he did sending
expeditions to Tibet."

In Tibet, villages were subjected to full body inspections by Nazi researchers looking for what the party called "Aryan
physical traits": narrow foreheads, long limbs and angular features.
E: "And this, of course, was stepped-up by the time the war was on in that by this time they were able to do
experiments of a rather still innocent type on the living object. What I'm talking about is measuring people's skulls, for
instance."

The quest to prove the superiority of the Aryan race soon moved into the criminal. The Nazis would begin killing
people and using their bodies for experiments. They believed that once they had proven that their ancestors were
gods it would be a simple step to recreate this race of Aryan god-men through selective breeding.

E: "That you could somehow force human evolution in a sort of hot-house environment by selecting the parents of a
child and then rebreeding their offspring until the day when eventually you managed to breed the superman who was
predicted by all their occult theories."

Hitler proclaimed, "Humanity accomplishes a step-up every 700 years and the ultimate aim is the coming of the sons
of God. All creative forces will be concentrated in a new species. It will be infinitely superior to modern man."

The breeding stock was Himmler's SS. He recruited only the strongest, best conditioned and what he considered the
best looking young men: tall, blond and blue-eyed. These future warriors had to be well educated and only from
families of pure Aryan heritage.

E: "The SS had been generally rather tall, well-made men/warriors. Himmler did decree this for the SS in so much that
they should all be 5'9" tall, Himmler was 5'9" tall. In addition to their size, they had to be of pure blood. For the officers,
they had to prove pure German ancestry without interbreeding back to 1750."

Himmler's SS, at one point three million strong, were encouraged to father as many children as possible regardless of
their marital status. The SS, he told them, had a sacred duty to their nation and to their Fuhrer to beget healthy Aryan
babies.

E: "One of Himmler's ideas concerned polygamy. The only way in which he could breed the master race ever faster
was by instituting the practice whereby SS men would be able to take more than one wife."

In 1935, Himmler created the SS Lebensraum, "Fountain of Life," Program. Lebensraum was designed to facilitate the
birth, housing and raising of as many pure Aryan babies as possible. Himmler's program was documented by actual
images of Lebensraum babies.

E: "The SS Lebensraum was providing conditions whereby young girls could in fact be served by SS studs. He
suggested that young Aryan girls in Germany who hadn't been able to find a boyfriend or a husband, need not forego
the pleasures of motherhood."

According to Lebensraum doctrine an illegitimate child was no disgrace as long as the mother was genetically fit.
Women were thought to have only one function, to breed the children whose offspring the Nazi party believed would
become gods. An estimated 11,000 Lebensraum babies were bred between 1935 and 1945. Most of these children
never knew their parents.

The SS weekly newspaper declared: "Only when the number of cradles constantly exceeds the number of coffins, can
we look forward with good cheer to a better future." The babies of the Lebensraum immediately became property of
the state. Some were raised at Lebensraum homes, while others were adopted and raised by SS families. During the
war, children with Aryan appearance were abducted from conquered nations and sent to Lebensraum homes in
Germany. Nazi records indicate that 200,000 Polish babies alone were kidnapped and placed in Lebensraum homes
where they received careful training in every aspect of Nazi culture and mythology.

Long before Hitler came to power, these beliefs were flourishing against an already racist backdrop. There were many
organizations in Germany and Austria around the turn of the century which blended racist ideology with occult
practices. But their ideas became popular only at the conclusion of World War I.

The once mighty empire of Germany had been disarmed and at the mercy of the victorious nations after the first world
war. In formerly wealthy cities, disabled veterans haunted the streets like ghosts from another lifetime.

E: "If somebody who grew up in Berlin in the 20s remembers anything, he remembers the urban landscape with
cripples from the first world war who, of course, had no pension, no nothing, who begged on the streets without legs
and arms, who remembered the great misery of what you might call the 'urban landscape.'"

Millions were unemployed; inflation was rampant; recession, starvation and poverty were everywhere.
E: "I saw many demonstrations before Hitler came to power, real demonstrations which arose from the suffering of the
people, the mass employment and the therefrom deriving poverty. They shouted slogans like 'give us bread, give us
work.'"

People looked for a scapegoat. Fear and distrust of foreigners intensified. Both ends of the political spectrum made a
bid for the loyalty of the German people.

After serving with distinction in the first world war, Hitler was stationed in Munich where it was his job to infiltrate left-
wing organizations for the army. One assignment changed the course of his life. He infiltrated an organization that was
a back-room political club called "The German Workers Party." But, far from being the communist organization that its
name implied, the party turned out to be extremely right-wing. Hitler liked what he heard, joined and eventually
became leader of the organization. Attending an early rally where Hitler spoke, was a disillusioned war veteran named
Rudolf Hess.

(Wolf Rudiger Hess, son of Rudolf Hess) "He came back taking three steps by one, jumping up and said 'I saw a man
this evening, he's going to bring back Germany to what it was before the war and this is the only man who is able to
do it.'"

Hess was convinced the dynamic orator he heard was the long-awaited messiah prophesied in German occult circles.
With racist philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, Hess was a supporter of one of the more prominent groups, the "Thule
Society," which actively sought a Germanic messiah and was dedicated to the revival of the so-called "Aryan master
race." Members practiced astrology, sun worship and other occult sciences thinking that this would help them reach
their goal. Their emblem was a dagger set against a curved swastika. With a membership that included some of
Munich's richest and most powerful citizens, the society financed Hitler's German Worker's Party. In 1920, Hitler's
party officially changed its name to the German National Socialist Worker's Party, the NSDAP or as it would soon
become known, the Nazi Party. With Hitler as its leader, the Nazi Party grew quickly, sweeping people up in a frenzy
of fear-mongering and fiery oratory. He gave them the strong, charismatic leader they'd yearned for since the war.

Like many Germans and Austrians of the time, Hitler lived in an environment that was already hostile to Judaism. He
would have easily found these ideas in popular publications such as Ostara, an overtly racist occult magazine written
by a renegade and ultimately defrocked monk and mystic named Lance von Liebenfelz (sp?).

E: "Ostara magazine was a good example of how Hitler would have picked up his racism and his antisemitism. He
even paid a visit to Lance's editorial office to obtain back numbers."

Immensely popular at the time, the journal preached that the Nordic or Aryan races had much to fear from people
darker than themselves and targeted Jews as the most threatening. The Ostara claimed that the Jews were
preventing the Aryans from taking their rightful place as rulers of the world, an eternal struggle dating back to Biblical
times. Headlines read, "Are you blond? Then you are in danger. You should therefore read Ostara. Publications for
blonds and the male rights movement." The publication outlined what would become the Nazi world view, racial
selection, Lebensraum, and even the Nazi death camps. With these ideas in place, Hitler's developing theories of race
were ready to be further influenced--this time by Thule Society supporter Alfred Rosenberg, the racist philosopher and
occultist who would eventually become the Fuhrer's voice in spiritual matters. In his book "The Myth of the Twentieth
Century," Rosenberg reinvented Germanic history and laid out the foundation for the new Nazi creed, "the religion of
the blood."

E: "He saw blood, particularly in a religious sense, as the determining factor. In other words, a church had to be a
church of the blood, rather than a church of faith or a church of belief. The blood tied together the Nordic races. So for
Rosenberg the blood, racial stock, racial identity, became the keynotes of this new ideology."

Rosenberg preached that the blood of the people carried the soul of the race.

E: "I think if you look back down the esoteric traditions of the West you find that blood has always been considered as
a very important vehicle of the spirit. It is a sacred substance that contains more than just the physical life of each
person, but also the spiritual life."

Nordic myth replaced the Christian Bible as the foundation of the new Nazi religion. In a pageant orchestrated by
Rosenberg and captured on film, the Nazis celebrated their newly conceived version of Aryan culture and history.
Rosenberg wrote: "Today a new mythos is dawning, the mythos of the blood, the belief that the godly essence is to be
defended through the blood." Hitler took Rosenberg's idea further when he wrote: "The old beliefs will be brought back
to honor again. The whole secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the demonic. We will wash off the Christian
veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race."
As a symbol for the new religion, Hitler chose the swastika. The swastika can be found all over the world in many
different cultures throughout history. From earliest times, it was the symbol of good luck in China, and to this day it
remains a religious emblem in the Hindu and Buddhist faiths.

E: "It had been carried by knights on shields as a magical protection and it also had connections...it was non-Christian
in an overt sense. It represented the hammer of Thor and, of course, Thor was the god of thunder and power and so-
on; a macho patriarchal kind of god."

Among the Norseman the swastika was a reminder of the Arctic sun worshiped throughout pagan lore as a bearer of
life and good fortune. For Hitler, the swastika held a different meaning. He wrote: "In the swastika we see the mission
of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man."

Hitler's bid for power began on November 9, 1923 with an attempted overthrow of the Bavarian government. Leading
a private army called Storm Troopers, he launched a surprise attack on a beer hall where government leaders were
meeting. With Hess and Rosenberg at his side, Hitler brashly announced the formation of a new government, then
took to the streets, marching 3,000 Storm Troopers through Munich. They were confronted by police, shots were fired
and 16 of Hitler's men were killed. It was a failed coup, but in the ten years before Hitler seized power, the 16 would
become martyrs.

E: "At that time they were carrying a swastika flag and this sort of fell with the people and the blood of the dead got
upon it and a ritual arose whereby every new Nazi flag and banner was not empowered until Hitler had touched the
flag against this flag."

Nazi blood attained a sacred symbolic power, ritualized and sanctified in the ceremony known as "The Rite of the
Blood Flag."

E: "This sort of magical power of the blood of the dead Nazis was transmitted to each Nazi flag and it was consecrated
thereby."

The Blood Flag was the crucifix of Hitler's religion. It would come to symbolize his new reign. In 1933, Hitler
succeeded in becoming the Fuhrer, "the leader." A title which would come to resonate with religious connotations of
the anointed one, or even the messiah. Adolf Hitler's time had come. "The party is Hitler, Hitler is Germany and
Germany is Hitler."

With Hitler's elevation to leader, the blood religion became the undisputed religion of the Nazi party complete with holy
days and martyrs. Propaganda Minister Goebbels orchestrated a ritual in which the 16 Nazi heroes were honored as
martyrs of the Reich; the dead were resurrected then achieved eternal life. Goebbels assured that all Germans would
partake in the ceremony by broadcasting it over loudspeakers placed on street corners throughout the country. Part of
the message said: "The night of the dead, the dead march in. At midnight a mystical ceremonial play, the birth of the
Reich. They fight, die and are victorious just as the Third Reich was founded." According to Hitler, their blood was the
holy water of the Third Reich.

The first martyrs of the Reich became known as the "Sixteen Immortals." In Munich, the ritual began with a funeral
march down the very streets where the "Immortals" fell. At the front of the procession, they carried the "Blood Flag."
Along the route hung huge red flags bearing slanted Germanic runes, the ritual symbol of sacrifice from pagan lore.

E: "In a way, we can see this as a transfer of the Easter procession in Jerusalem up to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre through the stations of the cross. There is an obvious copying of Christian ritual."

The bodies of the 16 heroes were interred in a building known as the Feldenhalle or "Temple of Honor." It would
become a Nazi shrine. During this annual ceremony, the names of the 16 were called out with anonymous voices
answering the heroes' role-call as if the dead marched in spirit with the living.

With the rituals of his new religion in place, Hitler unleashed the next step of his plan. He wrote: "Force without
spiritual foundation is doomed to failure."

E: "It is a nationalism which determines everything, your whole lifestyle, your whole thoughts, everything. The
centerpiece of it, if you like, is that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for your Fatherland."

Indoctrination into the Nazi faith with Hitler as god began early and continued into adulthood. (children singing) "Adolf
Hitler is our saviour, our hero. He is the noblest being in the whole, wide world. For Hitler we live. For Hitler we die.
Hitler is our Lord."
In 1933, the party took over all Germany's youth organizations. For girls, the compulsory organization was the League
of German Maids where they were taught self-sacrifice, to marry young and that their bodies belonged to the nation.

Ten year-old boys became members of the Organization of Young German People. At 14, they joined the Hitler Youth
and at 18, the Nazi Party. At each stage they were taught the Nazi creed of sacred blood rituals, racial superiority and
total allegiance to Hitler, even to the death.

E: "I was in the Hitler Youth until I was 18. We were being taught and I believed in it, that it was great to fight for our
country and if necessary to die for our country."

This film shows one way the Nazis instilled this ideal. A war hero visits a Hitler Youth camp.

E: "It was great to be told that you belonged to the greatest race, the greatest nation on earth. I thought that because I
was a German, that German blood was running through my veins, that made me superior to all the others."

Hitler stated: "I want to see again in the eyes of youth, the gleam of the beast of prey." The Hitler Youth chanted a
song of death.

E: "We are rising up to face storms of battle, a heroes death is our right. In other words, saying that a 17 year-old
would be imbued with a notion that he can claim the right, it must be given to him, to lay down his life, to die, for
Fuhrer and Fatherland. You are nothing; your nation, your race is everything."

At the core of every German's indoctrination was Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf," or "My Struggle." In it, he
outlined the philosophy of the plans for a thousand year Nazi reign. Mein Kampf became the Nazi Bible.

E: "I thought it was the greatest book ever written, the Bible is nothing as compared with that and I still can quote from
it now and I read it more than 60 years ago."

In conjunction with Mein Kampf, the principles of the blood religion began to form the basis of Nazi policy. Forced
sterilization laws were enacted, even Aryans were investigated for hereditary diseases. Ailments ranging from
tuberculosis and epilepsy to alcoholism and depression were cause for automatic sterilization. Over 400,000 Germans
suffered this fate. Hitler rationalized, the demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally
defective offspring is a demand of clearest reason and if systematically executed, represents the most humane act of
mankind.

Children with health problems were registered at birth. If their problems persisted, Nazi doctors would secretly
administer lethal injections, telling their parents they died of natural causes. The euthanasia program was instituted for
the mentally and physically impaired. Propaganda films claimed these were acts of kindness, freeing trapped souls
from tormented bodies.

By 1935, Hitler had created the blood laws which made it a criminal act for a pure German to marry or even have sex
with a Jew. And German Jews were stripped of their rights as citizens. But the worst was still to come. Purifying the
Aryan bloodline was only half of Hitler's demonic plan. To finally clear the way for the last stage of human evolution
and assure the coming of the Aryan millennium, the Nazis felt that one obstacle remained. The very existence of non-
Aryans.

E: "So you began by sterilizing them, you then find that this was too slow and you ended by murdering them in gas
chambers which was quick and efficient and cheap."

Hitler wrote: "The greatest and most ruthless decisions will have to be made. A barbaric measure for the unfortunate
who is struck by it, but a blessing for his fellow man and posterity. The passing pain of a century can and will redeem
millenniums from sufferings."

The idea that the few should be sacrificed for the good of the many extended even to Hitler's SA, the Storm Troopers.
Eventually the SA, who were among Hitler's first supporters, became an obstacle, one that he had no qualms about
removing.

E: "Without the SA, probably, he would not have come to power because people were afraid of the SA. They were
rowdies and street fighters, they broke up demonstrations and they protected their own big meetings."

The middle-class and the army came to fear the SA. To the army the SS was a more acceptable organization, like
themselves, but members of the SS were from the German upper-class.
E: "The SS consisted very often of professional people, doctors, solicitors and so-on. They joined the SS while
ordinary working people were in the SA and they didn't like each other."

The military offered the Fuhrer a deal: their full support if Hitler would eliminate the SA. Hitler accepted and with
Himmler rid the Party of the Storm Troopers in one night.

E: "The 'Night of the Long Knives' that happened on the 30th of June in 1934 or so, I was 12 years old. I remember it.
The SA had a congress not far from Munich and they were all in bed at night when Hitler and the SS moved."

The SA leadership was rounded up and executed so quickly, so ruthlessly, many never knew why. It is reported some
were still shouting "Heil, Hitler" when they died. After the purge of the SA, Himmler transformed the SS into an elite
military order. In time, they would come to run the concentration camps where Jews and all other enemies of the state
were being executed.

But Himmler's vision of the SS was not yet complete. He planned to turn the SS into Germany's new aristocracy, the
new supermen prophesied by Hitler's religion of the blood.

E: "Himmler's conception of the SS was no less than the creation of a new blood stock elite for the Nazi order in
Europe. At every stage, the SS was constantly reminded that it was no less than a warrior elite whose values of
hardness and military valor were absolutely central to its existence. And more than that, that they were in fact ensuring
the survival of the race in this way."

Himmler was born a Catholic, but by the time he met Hitler, he was already a confirmed occultist.

E: "It's difficult for us afterwards to equate this man who certainly believed in a god and to link him up with a man who
was master of the killing machine in Germany, but actually the two things, of course, are linked because what he was
trying to do was to rout out the forces which he believed had corrupted Germany and get back to the pure blooded
forefathers."

Himmler brought a range of unlikely influences to his design for the SS including the Hindu religion. During the war he
reportedly traveled with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a holy book from the Hindu religion. It tells the story of a great
battle on the "Field of Righteousness" between the forces of good and evil. The Hindu belief in reincarnation and its
rigid caste system appealed to Himmler. It was a perfect model for a Nazi warrior elite which would rule the world.

Historians now say that Himmler was convinced that he was the reincarnation of King Heinrich, a German leader from
the middle ages who stopped the Slavs from invading Germany. As the Nazis prepared to march on eastern Europe,
Himmler believed he was on the path to realizing his karmic destiny, that his SS had returned to the Fatherland to fight
a similar holy war. Himmler modeled his SS on the 13th century order of Teutonic Knights who killed and enslaved the
people they conquered. The parallels with Nazi Germany's own practices were unmistakable.

The Reichsfuhrer SS attempted to reinstate the feudal system that the Knights had lived by. As new lands were
conquered, each SS officer was to take possession of a feudal estate. Local people were either killed or turned into
slave labor.

Like the Teutonic Knights, Himmler transformed a series of ancient castles into SS training schools that were both
military and religious centers. Here, recruits were initiated...(missing portion)...they gathered the twelve most
chivalrous knights in a great hall. In Himmler's version, he created the Hall of SS supreme leaders in a room above the
crypt. Here he would meet with his twelve highest ranking SS officers. A large sun wheel adorned the floor. This radial
pattern was made up of symbols from the ancient Nordic alphabet. Himmler tried to create a replica of the Grail
Chapel from the Arthurian legend. A mystical chalice, the grail was said to have contained sacred blood. To Himmler,
the sacred blood of the grail legend was pure Aryan blood. He believed it possessed a magical quality. His closest
advisor on grail law was archeologist Otto Rahn. Also obsessed with the grail legend, Rahn believed it was hidden in
the caves of southern France. Himmler was drawn to Rahn's knowledge of the occult and his life-long pursuit of the
grail. Once in Himmler's inner circle, Rahn would continue his quest for the holy grail, only now as a knight of the Nazi
Party. Himmler personally funded Rahn's expeditions, several in Southern France. There stood the sight of the great
fortress of the Cathars, the heretical sect accused of devil worship and wiped out by the church in the 13th century.

E: "There was a very strong tradition, as there indeed still is, that the Cathars had possessed the secret of the grail,
that just before the castle of Montsigore (sp?) fell, the three knights of the Cathar order escaped over the walls and
took something with them, something of great value. Tradition later said that this was the grail or that it was the secret
of the grail and that they hid it in a whole warren of caves."

Rahn's expeditions also took place in Germany. A letter on file from Rahn to SS headquarters, suggests that he
believed he was close to realizing his life-long dream. "To bring my work to a successful conclusion, I must personally
inspect the sites. First, I have to go to the Wildenberg ruins, the German castle of the holy grail. There are currently
digs under way. Heil, Hitler."

But, Rahn was never able to secure the ultimate prize--the sacred chalice itself. In 1939, Otto Rahn mysteriously
resigned from the SS. Many believed Himmler issued orders to have Rahn killed once it was clear his quest for the
grail had failed. Two months later, he was found dead in the Austrian Alps. The cause of his death remains
unexplained.

In his continued quest to prove the superiority of the Aryan race, Himmler created a research institute called the
"Ancestral Heritage Organization." In addition to conducting medical experiments on human beings and checking
bloodlines to ensure racial purity, the organization's mission was to resurrect and reinterpret occult practices, ancient
Germanic myths and pagan lore. This Nazi film shows one such ritual--young girls dancing around a Nordic pagan
symbol of war and divine order.

To control all occult knowledge, Himmler confiscated the libraries and artifacts of any occult society that was not
associated with him. This included secret societies such as the Freemasons, who the Nazis believed were an occult
organization created by the Jews to conspire against the Germanic people.

While Himmler suppressed certain occultists, he also advanced the careers of others, such as Karl Villigut (sp?). In
Villigut, Himmler believed he'd found the key to popularizing the ancient pagan tradition in modern Germany. The
mystic became a high ranking SS officer and one of Himmler's prized possessions.

E: "The interesting thing about Villigut, is that he is really perhaps the leading example of an occultist in the immediate
circle and service of Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler."

Villigut believed he was a direct descendant of the Norse god, Thor. Copies of his papers, found in Himmler's personal
file, reveal that Villigut believed he possessed extrasensory powers. One document entitled the "Nine Commandments
of God" was signed by Villigut and initialed by Himmler. Written in both modern German and the runic alphabet, it
suggests that Villigut thought he was using his powers to rediscover the ancient rites and rituals of Germany's pagan
past.

According to Nordic legend, the runic alphabet used by Villigut was given to mankind by Odin, the supreme god in
Norse mythology. This sacred alphabet was his gift to mankind.

E: "The runes were derived probably from a mixture of ancient signs that were carved on stone in pre-literate times
and these alphabets actually had meanings, each letter has a meaning."

The HAR-GAL (sp?) rune, protection of the bearer against his enemies, the O-DAL (sp?) rune, one's connection to the
clan or tribe. The TIER (sp?) rune, victory and world order, the SIG (sp?) rune, the sun or conquering energy. These
symbols appeared throughout the Nordic world on such objects as Viking ships, battle spears and shields. The
alphabet of ancient priests and magicians, runes were believed to be mystical tools for fortune telling, casting spells
and invoking magical spirits.

E: "You cast the runes, somewhat analogist to a tarot layout, you throw them and then you read the particular
combinations of runes that arise. It has got [sic] the reputation of being an extraordinarily powerful, magical system."

As Germany's warrior elite, members of the SS were taught the meaning of the runes. A photograph that survived the
war shows an SS officer at a blackboard teaching the runes to a class of SS recruits.

E: "Many organizations within the Third Reich had their own special rune. The SS, perhaps the best known, of course,
used the double SIG rune."

These mysterious figures were worn on the shoulders and helmets of all SS uniforms. The Hitler Youth used a single
SIG rune. These ancient mystical symbols were seemingly everywhere. Serving as a constant reminder to Germans
of their pagan past.

E: "After the SS recruit had passed his training and taken the oath, if he was an officer he was then given the SS
dagger which was a sort of hunting knife with a black handle, the SS runes on it, the swastika and a wreath and a
German eagle. This was a very prized possession."

Engraved into the dagger were the words "my honour is called trust." SS men received the dagger in a solemn
ceremony. Every member of the SS wore the SS signet ring, but for his inner circle the elite of the elite, Himmler
personally handed out the death's head ring. A former high-ranking SS officer, Wilhelm Hoetl, still remembers the
ceremonious occasion.

(Hoetl) "The ring was engraved with your name. Mine for example, 'To my dear Hoetl, Heinrich Himmler.' That was
inside the ring around a death head that was supposed to symbolize the close connection to the SS and to Himmler."

In a speech given to SS officers stationed at Dachau, Himmler stated: "Never forget. We are a knightly order from
which one cannot withdraw, to which one is recruited by blood and within which one remains body and soul."

Borrowing from Germany's pagan past and his own Catholic upbringing, Himmler invaded SS family rituals from the
moment of birth.

E: "One picture we have shows a full tableau of such a sort of Nazi, or Hitler shrine for the purpose of baptism of
infants, an SS altar in place of a crucifix, a picture of Hitler and the babe would have been presented, if you like, into
the community of Germanic warriors through this kind of tableau."

The marriage ceremony also became an SS ritual. Mimicking ancient Germanic tribes, SS officers took on the role of
the clan leader who presided over marriages. Himmler himself officiated at one such ceremony. This rare footage
shows one of his SS officers marrying Gretl, the sister of Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. Rings were exchanged, as well
as bread and salt, the ancient pagan symbols for fertility and purity of the soil.

E: "These ritual activities would take place to imply the pagan community of which every SS man and his bride was
now a part."

The Nazi year was marked with celebrations taken from the ancient Germanic calendar. The May-Pole Festival,
initially accepted as a celebration of fertility, was transformed into a show of nationalism and military strength. Hitler
said: "And so it is that this day the first of May, the land is filled with celebrations of the resurrection of the German
people out of eternal inner strife."

E: "People need festivals to mark the year and they tried to substitute the pagan festivals for the Christian festivals
and shaped them in their own image."

Nazis even began to restore ancient pagan temples like EX-TERN-SCHTEIN which was dedicated to a solar deity. At
EX-TERN-SCHTEIN, during the summer solstice, a shaft of light shines through a window and lines up with a point on
the altar. While EX-TERN-SCHTEIN was considered a holy place for Germanic tribes, it is far from unique among
ancient temples in tracking the sun's movements. Himmler was convinced, however, that it was proof of the superior
intellect of prehistoric Germanic priests.

In Nazi Germany, the festival at the summer solstice would be turned into a fascist rite. Traditionally, summer solstice
festivals were a celebration of life and of the sun's powers. Dramatically staged and carefully choreographed,
speeches were given preaching self-sacrifice and heroism. In this particular ritual, Propaganda Minister Goebbels
gave the speech. In ancient times, the bonfire represented the ritual relighting of the sun. In Nazi Germany, they were
tributes to the Fuhrer. In the largest of these rituals, torch-bearing troops created symbolic patterns in the night.

At the end of the year, the long night of the winter solstice honored Germany's dead. Himmler explains in his Dachau
speech: "The winter solstice is not just the end of the year, but it is also the festival on which one thought of the
ancestors and of the past, on which the individual is clear that he is nothing--an atom to be wiped away at any time
while linked in the eternal chain of his lineage by a true humility."

The full calendar of rituals culminated with the rally at Nuremburg where the vows between party and people were
renewed year after year. Tens of thousands of uniformed Nazis joined forces. The week long rally was orchestrated to
sweep people up in a spectacle of sheer power.

E: "Every religion has its ritual and the Nazis had their ritual, their mass rituals, yes? And what did it give the people,
these mass meetings? When the merchant leaves his lonely shop and joins in the crowd in action then he feels one,
and he is happy--one with the others. He's lost his loneliness."

E: "Oh, it was great to go to a rally, all the uniforms and there was an electric atmosphere already before it all started.
There was singing going on and then suddenly it was announced, 'The Fuhrer comes, the Fuhrer is coming' and we
saw him walking up to the stage and there was shouting of 'Heil, heil, heil, heil.'"
As the Nazi frenzy swept Germany, Hitler made clear what he expected from the nation. "The Party is the selecting
ground for German political leaders. It's doctrine will be unchangeable. It's organizations will be as hard as steel. It's
total image, however, will be like a holy order."

The Nazi mass rallies were carefully orchestrated to build to an overwhelming emotional epiphany that evoked a
religious fervor. At the center of this ritual was Hitler. Everything was constructed to make Hitler look like divinity, a
messiah.

Having won the unquestioning support of the German people, Hitler was now ready to dominate the world. From the
onset of the war in 1939, country after country fell to the Nazis. By the winter of 1942, however, the tide turned and the
Nazis began to experience what they thought was impossible--defeat. As the Nazi war effort grew more and more
desperate, they expanded their use of the occult sciences. From research and ritual to a basis for making military
decisions. Certain members of the German naval command became convinced that the allies were already employing
mystical forces to wage war against Germany. They believed that the British successes of locating and destroying
German u-boats had been achieved through occult means and that the best way to combat this was also by using the
occult as a weapon.

This led Himmler to establish a top secret institute dedicated to the ancient occult practice of pendulum dousing. Over
maps of the North Atlantic, clairvoyants would swing an object suspended from a string attempting to locate the
position of allied convoys. German u-boat missions were dispatched based on the results. In this letter written by
Himmler dated January 12, 1943, he refers to dousing research and training having made great progress during the
year.

Still, the most common occult arts employed by the Nazis were astrology and prophecy although they were
approached in two distinctly different ways. Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler genuinely believed in the occult and
used it for making political decisions. But Joseph Goebbels, head of the Propaganda Ministry, wanted to use the
occult purely for propaganda purposes, to manipulate people and undermine allied morale. Goebbels soon became
aware of a great source of mystical knowledge, the predictions of Nostradamus one of the most celebrated visionaries
of all time. Nostradamus completed his masterpiece of prophesy in 1555. The book contains subtle references to a
crisis in Britain and Poland in the year 1939, the year Nazi Germany invaded Poland, nearly 400 years after
Nostradamus wrote his book. For Goebbels, Nostradamus was a perfect propaganda tool who's work could be
interpreted as predicting a great victory in Germany's future.

E: "Nostradamus' prophesies are written in four line poems called quatrains and they're so dense and esoteric that
you can interpret them in many different ways."

To interpret the French prophet, Goebbels recruited renowned astrologer and Nostradamus expert, Karl Ernst Kraft
(sp?). A particular quatrain that Goebbels seized on, seemed to refer directly to Hitler and quickly became part of the
Nazi leader's mystic.

E: "There's a very famous quatrain which has got the word Hister in it which everyone was bandying around and
saying that that was Hitler."

In Goebbels' diary, he expressed his excitement when a member of his staff began to formulate a plan to use the
prophesy. May 19, 1942: "Burndt (sp?) handed in a plan for the occultist propaganda to be carried on by us. We are
getting somewhere. The Americans and English fall easily to this kind of propaganda. We are, therefore, pressing into
service all star witnesses of occult prophesy. Nostradamus must once again submit to being quoted."

The creation of fake prophecies and fraudulent mysticism to influence the enemy became known as "black
propaganda."

E: "Yes, they made up a flier of the Nostradamus prophecies and threw them all over France--that France would be
destroyed if it did not capitulate."

British intelligence discovered the deception and recognizing its propaganda potential, began to wage their own
Nostradamus campaign.

E: "The British actually picked up on this, they produced a volume of 50 fake Nostradamus prophecies which forecast
British victory on the war."

Just as the Nazis had flooded France with fake Nostradamus prophecies, the allies smuggled their own "black
propaganda" into Germany. The "black propaganda" campaign in England soon took a new turn with the arrival of
Hungarian-Jewish emigre and astrologer, Louis DeValle (sp?). Recruited by British intelligence, DeValle was assigned
to work with master counterfeiter, Elik Howe (sp?).
E: "Elik's great skill was as a forger, forging documents, forging magazines, forging Nostradamus quatrains."

Howe and DeValle decided to create a counterfeit version of Germany's leading astrological magazine, Zenit.

E: "They produced two issues in 1943. In these, they would try and make forecasts which would undermine German
morale. They would for example, say watch out for June the 30th. It's the anniversary of the "night of the long knives."
The purpose behind this forecast was to somehow plant in the minds of the Germans the fact that the SS might now
be disloyal to Hitler."

But Howe's master stroke came with a so-called special edition of Der Zenit dated April, 1943. He cleverly waited until
July to publish an April edition, thus seemingly being able to predict events he knew would come true.

E: "What Howe and his colleagues did, was to look at the sinking of German submarines, record the dates and then in
producing the April edition, produced these dates as if they were forecasts."

British intelligence believed that if these predictions were picked up by the crews of German u-boats, the result would
be a loss of morale and possibly even mutiny. The British counterfeit Der Zenit, however, contained one glaring error.
They incorrectly titled the magazine Der Zenit instead of the actual title Zenit.

Astrology and espionage would soon collide again in what is still considered by many to be the most bizarre incident
of the second World War. When Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer and one of Hitler's closest friends and advisors,
made an astonishing solo flight to Scotland. Hess's idea to make the flight began with his belief that the British, a
Nordic race, would be made sympathetic to the Aryan cause and could even be persuaded to side with the Germans if
only Churchill could be overthrown. One of Hess's mentors, Karl Haushofer, reinforced this idea by telling Hess about
a dream he had. In it he saw Hess walking through a Scottish castle with tapestries hanging from the walls, bringing
peace between Germany and Great Britain. In addition to prophesy, astrology would also come to play a role in
Hess's decision to make the flight.

E: "Rudolf Hess along with Himmler was probably the leading Nazi most interested in astrology. He accepted it
totally."

Astrologer and close friend, Ernst Schulte-Strathaus, cast a horoscope for the Deputy Fuhrer that revealed an
auspicious arrangement of the planets.

E: "On May 10, 1941 there was a particularly powerful astronomical line-up. Basically there were six planets in Taurus
and a full moon exactly on the opposite side of the zodiac in Scorpio. According to astrological tradition, when you get
such a line-up you'll get a major shift in global affairs and, therefore, it was fair to assume that May 10, 1941 could
provide the turning point in the war."

There has always been some doubt whether Hess flew to Scotland based upon astrological advice. However, recently
discovered documents written by Hess from prison in England, include a letter to his mother. In it he asked her to have
two documents notarized: a record of Karl Haushofer's dream and the horoscope cast by Schulte-Strathaus.

Before Hess made the flight, some believe he conferred with the Fuhrer.

(Wolf Rudiger Hess, son of Rudolf Hess) "Six days before my father flew, there was a discussion between Hitler and
my father which lasted four hours. Nobody knows what they were talking about, but one knows that when the four
hours were over, my father came from the room and Hitler had his arm around the shoulder of my father and said
'Yes, you have always been and are still a very stubborn chap.' This was a very friendly good-bye."

Whatever words passed between Hitler and Hess, at 5:45 pm on May 10, 1941, Hess climbed into a Messerschmidt
fighter and set off for Scotland. His plan was to meet with the Duke of Hamilton, a man he'd met through Karl
Haushofer. Hess hoped to use the Duke to bypass Churchill and attempt to make peace directly with the King of
England. Having written the Duke several letters in advance of his mission, Hess was expecting a warm welcome.

(Angus Douglas-Hamilton, present Duke of Hamilton) "The letters he sent my father were, of course, all intercepted by
the Secret Service."

Instead of a greeting party, when Hess entered British airspace, he was shot down by the RAF and forced to bail out.

E: "Hitler's reaction to Hess's flight was one of his major acting performances. He made a tremendous performance of
surprise, shock, horror and everything else. When it appeared that Hess's mission had failed, of course, then all
propaganda came out that Hess was a lone madman."
Hitler blamed the entire Hess affair on the advice of Hess's astrologers. In response, the Nazi Propaganda Ministry
issued an edict called "Action Hess" that forbade the public practice of any occult sciences including astrology.

E: "The result was a further clamp-down on the activities of astrologers who were eventually all rounded-up in the
'Action Hess' a month after Hess's flight. They arrested all the prominent astrologers that they knew about and took
them away for interrogation."

Karl Kraft, the man who provided Goebbels with the powerful reinterpretations of Nostradamus as well as strikingly
accurate astrological predictions, would suffer the ultimate punishment according to a former colleague. Eduard Calic
was a political prisoner who became friends with Kraft during their time in a concentration camp together.

(Eduard Calic) "He said, Eduard, you will survive but they will kill me because I know too many secrets. He went to
Buchenwald and he said, 'They will kill me there' and he was killed there."

The astrologers who were arrested under the "Action Hess" were treated in different ways depending on their use to
the Reich. Those already working for Himmler were released immediately and allowed to continue their work. During
this time, Himmler came into contact with one of Germany's leading astrologers, Wilhelm Wulff.

E: "He was arrested along with all the other astrologers. Wulff, himself, said that he used to tell the guards about their
horoscopes. Wulff then started casting horoscopes for General Schellinberg who was head of counterintelligence
under Himmler."

E: "Walter Schellinberg was the chief of the political secret service which was part of the SS; he was my chief and my
friend. Schellinberg did not believe in astrology but he made use of it. When Schellinberg wanted to discuss some
matter with Himmler, he would explain that an astrologer had predicted this matter."

In 1943, Wulff predicted that Hitler would survive a great danger on the 20th of July, 1944, that he would fall ill in
November of 1944 and die a mysterious death before the 7th of May, 1945. On the basis of these predictions, Wulff
became Himmler's personal astrologer and one of his most trusted aides. All of these predictions came to pass.

In a post-war interrogation by the allies, Schellinberg admitted using Wulff to advance his own position. He believed
that Wulff's influence would carry great weight with Himmler.

E: "When I was still in prison with Schellinberg during the proceedings at Nuremburg, we still talked about it and
Schellinberg was very proud that through Wulff he could influence Himmler."

According to Schellinberg's interrogation, during the final weeks of the war Himmler became obsessed with the
astrology of a coup when the stars suggested that he might successfully overthrow the Fuhrer.

E: "It was late April, 1945 when Soviet troops already were entering the outskirts of Berlin, so the war was pretty well
lost. Himmler remembered a conversation he'd had earlier with Wulff in which Wulff told him that it looked as if there
would be disaster for Germany until 1945."

Reading Hitler's chart, Wulff saw planetary arrangements that indicated a downfall. Wulff and Schellinberg continued
to urge Himmler to overthrow Hitler and install himself as the leader of the waning Reich.

E: "Both Schellinberg and Himmler tried to curry favor with the allies and intriguingly in the last days of the war, a
meeting between Himmler and a representative of the World Jewish Congress in which Wulff as Himmler's astrologer
was present, Himmler apparently agreed that there should be no more exterminations of Jews."

Despite Hitler's order to continue the exterminations to the end, Wulff was instrumental in convincing Himmler to
temporarily stop the killing. Having taken this action, it appeared that Himmler was ready to launch his coup. But
ultimately, his fear and loyalty to the Fuhrer prevented him from seizing power. Himmler remained hopeful that some
mystical force of destiny would alter the defeat that was clearly at hand.

E: "Himmler was also very interested in historical parallels between the situation in the mid 40s and previous historical
periods. Himmler looked back to a previous great German war with Russia, the Seven Years War, fought between
Frederick the Great of Prussia and the Russians. Fortunes were said to have turned then when the Russian Tsarina
Elizabeth died. In April, 1945 President Roosevelt died and Himmler took this as a sign that history was about to
repeat itself and Germany was going to be saved."

Two weeks later, Goebbels and his entire family descended with Adolf Hitler into the Fuhrer's private bunker. On April
30th, Adolf Hitler and his bride Eva Braun committed suicide. Goebbels poisoned his six children, then shot his wife
and himself. Dressed as a common German soldier, Heinrich Himmler almost managed to escape. He was arrested
by the British but during a physical examination crushed a cyanide capsule he kept in his mouth. At 11:04 pm on the
23rd of May, the Reichsfuhrer who had summoned occult forces in the service of Aryan glory was dead.

In November, 1945 several top Nazis were brought to trial by the allies at Nuremburg. Rudolf Hess was sentenced to
life in prison. He died there at the age of 93. Occultist Alfred Rosenberg was found guilty of crimes against humanity
and hanged in October, 1946.

The Third Reich which was to have lasted over a thousand years ended after only twelve. Nearly 50 million had died.
Ironically among them were the first generation of Hitler's so-called "master race" who were to father further
generations of Aryan supermen.

Throughout history, mythology has had a powerful influence on the human mind. All cultures have been mythically
driven. However, in Nazi Germany, the linking of political aims to a corrupted mythology led to an evil unparalleled in
history.

Experts in order of appearance:

Dr. Michael Kater, Professor of History

Peter Radfield, Historian
J. H. Brennan, Author of "The Occult Reich"
Dr. George Mosse, Professor of History
Henry Metelmann, Former Member Hitler Youth
Wolf Rudiger Hess, Son of Rudolf Hess
Mark Weitzman, Director Simon Weisanthal Center
John Matthews, Author on Grail Mythology
Nigel Pennick, Author on Page Lore
Richard Grunberger, German Historian
Charles Harvey, Astrologer
Eduard Calic, Concentration Camp Survivor
Nick Campion, President British Astrology Association
Angus Douglas-Hamilton, Present Duke of Hamilton