Part 4 of 4
The Fuhrer might be Himmler -- but he is referred to elsewhere in the same letter as the "Reichsfuhrer-SS" and it was always Hitler alone who was "the Fuhrer". Nor -- in view of Himmler's sending Cosmic Ice literature to prominent Nazis like Goring and Darre, which he did, in fact the month after the letter to Frau Gahr -- does it make sense for a Leiter of his personal staff to send anyone books in order to influence Himmler. If Hitler was in the habit of talking to Frau Gahr about Cosmic Ice, who was she?
Karoline Gahr at the period the letter was written kept a small workshop in Munich which occasionally turned out badges for the SS. [119] She was the widow of the goldsmith Otto Gahr, one of Hitler's early cronies in the Nazi party, who had designed the standards of the S. A. to Hitler's specification and had died in 1932. Both in Mein Kampf and in his 1942 conversations, Hitler talked fondly of Otto Gahr. It is not at all improbable for Hitler to have discussed a theory in which we know he believed with the widow of his old party comrade who was herself still helping the cause. Kurt Ludecke tells in his memoirs of a visit to Otto Gahr while the goldsmith was making the S.A. standards. The context in which he sets his visit is that of Hitler's custom in the early days of spending time talking to his humblest and most devoted followers. "They were men from the most modest homes, like his own, men who knew nothing of the great world beyond their own towns, but were sincere, enthusiastic, loyal, looking upon Hitler not only as a genius but as an inspired prophet. To understand these men was largely to understand Hitler and his power." [120]
If Adolf Hitler and Karoline Gahr had discussed the Theory of Cosmic Ice, where did they get it? There is no real way of telling, but one probable source is Edgar Dacque. Professor George Mosse has shown that a book "by a savant of Munich," which Hermann Rauschning mentions as attracting Hitler, was almost certainly Dacque's Urwelt, Sage und Menschheit. In this book Dacque uses the theory of Cosmic Ice to explain the flood. Moreover, Hitler admitted in January 1942 that he had once himself owned "a work on the origins of the human race. I used to think a lot about such matters." [121] Edgar Dacque (1878-1945) was a paleontologist who in 1915 became professor and custodian of the Bavarian State Paleontology Collection. By the publication of Urwelt, Sage und Menschheit in 1924 he began an attempt which was to occupy him for the rest of his life, "to forge together as best I can religion, science, and life." The influence of Schelling and Schopenhauer completed with that of Jakob Bohme and Meister Eckhart. An even stronger influence may well have been the Theosophical Society, for Dacque was one of those who signed an application for a charter from that organization to revive its dormant Munich section around the turn of the century.
Dacque's musings on the significance of revolution were undoubtedly influenced by Theosophical ideas. He prophesied the death of "the century of mechanistic tyranny" and the advent of the "magical viewpoint" (the source of "creative culture"). By 1938 Dacque's picture of "magical paganism" had been somewhat overlaid with a Christian gloss, but the mysticism that remains has analogies with that of Klages and Schuler. [122]
If Dacque was the source of first instance for Hitler's knowledge of Horbiger, the Nazi leader could not have come across the theory until the year of his imprisonment in the Landsberg jail. We do not know when he discussed Cosmic Ice with Frau Gahr, but there is a tortuous connection, which may show that Horbiger became known quite early in volkisch circles. An "old friend" of Hanns Horbiger was Ottokar Prohaszka, Prince-Bishop of Szekesfehervar in Hungary, who is said to have been heavily influenced by Horbiger. [123] Prohaszka (1858-1927) played a leading part in the counterrevolution after the Hungarian uprising of Bela Kun. He was a convinced anti-Semite who saw Jews and Freemasons at the bottom of all the disturbances of 1918-19. Prohaszka's principles eventually became the ideology of the right-wing Arrow Cross Party's "Group of National Reconstruction," and for a 'brief period the bishop was president of the Hungarian majority Party of Christian Union. When Kurt Ludecke was sent by Hitler to attend a congress of Hungarian Nationalists in Budapest at Christmas 1924, his address was scheduled between Prohaszka and the extreme racist Julius Gombos (who had been in touch with Hitler since the end of the previous year). Prohaszka appeared as the hero of an article in the Volkischer Beobachter as early as September 1920; and his essay "The Jewish Question in Hungary," first published in 1920, was printed in German in 1921 in the Hamburg journal Hammerschlage. [124] Because Horbiger is found almost invariably with a racist implication attached, because his supporters without exception praise him as a "really German" spirit, because he called one of his sons by the archaic name of Attila, there is a distinct chance that the Horbiger-Prohaszka connection and the popularity of Cosmic Ice among the Volkische coincide with the conjunction of Hungarian and Bavarian anti-Semitism in the early 1920s. But further than this it is impossible to go.
What, then, is the relationship between Nazism, the occult, and the concept of "illuminated politics"? The Occult Revival had expressed itself in peculiar forms in Germany and the volkisch movement drew much inspiration from the resurrection of mystical ideas. The trio of Eckart, Feder, and Rosenberg, which was so influential at the birth of the Nazi party, displays the illuminated characteristics that in a more extreme form were shown by the less significant Thule Society. Because the Nazi party was founded during a period of anxiety in an area which was exceptionally open both to inherited volkisch irrationalism and an influx of Slav-inspired conspiracy theories, it naturally bore upward with it idealistic, irrationalist, and occult ideas from the Underground in which the party had its origin. Because of the demands of operating effective government, the irrationalists were almost by definition excluded from power. But in the private beliefs of Hitler, Himmler, and Rosenberg there remained much of the irrationalism of their earlier days, which they were generally able to separate from their exercise of power. The possibility should by no means be ruled out that Hitler, Himmler, and Rosenberg did want to put into practice some of their more occult beliefs; that Hitler did see his New Order as the next step in evolution, that Rosenberg did believe that his Myth could persuade people to study Meister Eckhart and submerge themselves in the Volk. As for Himmler, his vision of reality was quite obviously far removed from that of the rationalist universe -- often, as his indiscriminate patronage of rejected knowledge makes clear, almost deliberately. These were men of the twilight who brought twilight subjects with them into the sun; and in this lies their significance.
Karl Kautsky's famous analysis of the rise of Christianity might be applied to certain sections of the early Nazi movement: "the organization ... attained victory by surrendering its original aims and defending their opposite." [125] The lesson for illuminated politicians may be the old one of "power corrupts." The illuminates who were swept into Nazism and who ended in the SS or preaching a "new reality" to the universities probably really believed that they were effecting an "idealistic" revolution. In many ways the Nazi reality does represent illuminated politics in power, and thus transformed. Add a prolonged period of isolation, culminating in a total war -- what other sort of war could an illuminated government contemplate? -- and the self-created pressure of real and illusory enemies forced the Reich into a policy of external aggression and internal massacre. The Nazi reality became the only interpretation of experience from which the ordinary German could derive social support. There is material for psychological (rather than historical) studies in the fact that the Nazi organizations most responsible for carrying out the "Final Solution" were often-like certain sections of the SS and the Einsatzstab Rosenberg -- under the direction of or associated with illuminated elements. The extermination of the Jews marks the point at which some Germans proved in the most indisputable way that they had made a transition from an ill-defined but existing Established reality to a world whose values -- and no doubt whose subjective appearances -- were totally other.
The psychology of power and conquest is not the field of this book; but even here the driving force may to some extent have been derived from an imagined transcendental sanction. On the night of 12-13 January 1942, Hitler said to Bormann: "Mark my words, Bormann, I'm going to become very religious." Bormann replied: "You've always been very religious." [126] Hitler at once proceeded to indulge in fantasies about becoming the great khan of the Tartars. But it is not these that are significant so much as Bormann's reply.
In Dietrich Eckart's last fragmentary publication, Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin, Hitler's friend gave his particular version of the anti-Semitic gospel in the form of a dialogue between Hitler and himself. The views attributed to Hitler (while of course not certainly his) are probably an approximation of an Eckart-Hitler consensus. They include the theory -- put in the mouth of Hitler, and claimed as original -- that the Jews left Egypt because of an impending pogrom. We have already seen this idea expressed in that unpublished document of illuminated anti-Semitism, The Secret of the Jews.
"We want Germanity, true Christianity, order and planned breeding," says Eckart. There is never an enemy (the Hitler character is made to say) so implacable that we cannot obey Christ's instructions to love him -- but Christ never intended us to love mere animals. And then the characters in the dialogue mutually decide that "we are both Catholics." [127] There is also probably some significance -- beyond the obvious one for Catholic Bavaria -- in the number of articles in the early Volkischer Beobachter on the theme "Can a Catholic be an anti-Semite?"
The idea that the transcendental impulse can carry politicians and their followers into "other realities" must not be taken too far. It is certain that if Hitler was borne into the realms of occult belief by his irrationalist ideas, he also determined to use the appeal of the transcendental sanction as a weapon in a very concrete struggle for power. We have seen how both Hitler and Himmler admitted their reliance on the power of ritual. At lunch on 14 October 1941, these two illuminates discussed the question of religion. "The notion of divinity gives most men the opportunity to make concrete the feeling they have of supernatural realities," Hitler said. "Why should we destroy this wonderful power they have of incarnating the feeling for the divine that is within them?" But he also expressed his horror at the possibility that the Nazi movement would acquire a religious character and institute a form of worship. [128] This is not the opinion of the convinced irrationalist of popular superstition. Both belief and manipulation were present in variable quantities.
To some extent the illuminated attitude and an affection for rejected knowledge are found in other Fascist movements. This is clear enough in Belgian, Hungarian, and Romanian Fascism, to say nothing of the more well-known brands in France, Italy, or Spain. The Marxist explanation that "reactionary" forces naturally allied with each other against the inevitable rise of the proletariat has influenced our writing of history much more than is explicitly admitted. There is obviously some truth in it; but on occasion the really important factor may well have been the need for a transcendental sanction felt by illuminated politicians. In Italy the interesting and mysterious figure of Giulio Alessandre Evola wrote on the Hermetic tradition, preached an "imperialism of the blood," and had some influence on the ideology of Italian Fascism. [129] In Norway, Vidkun Quisling emerged from the lunatic fringe of politics with his Nasjonal Sammlung's ideology of blood and soil. Quisling's philosophy seems to have been based on a "Universalism" not unlike Hackel's monism or the universalism of Othmar Spann. In 1929 he published a pamphlet on the significance of the existence of life on other worlds -- a preoccupation in at least one German volkisch sect -- and after his conviction for treason, he repeated the statement that the universe was controlled by "a divine power connected with the inhabited planets." Quisling seems to have been convinced that he was engaged in a struggle between the powers of light and darkness -- and some of his statements to this effect read very like those of Ungern-Sternberg! According to a former editor of the British Church Times, Quisling was one of Frank Buchman's converts to Moral Rearmament -- which secured some of its greatest successes in the Scandinavian areas. [130] Whether or not this was the case, the similarity of approach between the two opponents of "moral Bolshevism" -- the phrase was actually used by Buchman -- is significant from the point of view of the effect of the transcendental impulse. It is probably this common search for a divine sanction that led to Buchman's relatively insignificant contact with the Nazis and the rumor recorded by Fritz Thyssen that Himmler was a member of the Oxford Groups. [131]
And as always, the man on the street or the Strasse was interested in other things. Even in the SS there were complaints that the "educational" sessions were poorly attended. [132] But something of the transcendental attitude did surface briefly in Germany, and with it some illuminates. Those who became converts to the Nazi ethic, however, were usually of a very definite type: irrationalists in the most derogatory sense of the word, undiscriminating and ill-educated in the processes of rational thought. Yet such people were not the only products of the night from reason. Men and women of the greatest sophistication also reacted against the materialist-rationalist interpretation of life. From their deliberations have come some valuable -- and even dominating -- elements of modern culture.
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Notes:
1. George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology (London, 1966). Cf. his earlier essay "The Mystical Origins of National Socialism" in Journal of the History of Ideas (January-March 1961), pp. 81 ff. to see how he has modified an earlier thesis, which remains significant.
2. Mosse, Crisis, pp. 40 ff.
3. Mosse, Crisis, pp. 52-63.
4. Laqueur, Young Germany, pp. 32-37.
5. On Fidus, see Masse, Crisis, pp. 84-86.
6. Landmann, Monte Verita.
7. Mosse, Crisis, pp. 108 ff, for German Utopians.
8. Steiner, Story of My Life, p. 134.
9. See R. d'O. Butler, The Roots of National Socialism (London, 1941).
10. Ransom, Theosophical Society, p. 188.
11. See Johann Baltzli, Guido von List (Leipzig, 1917).
12. Guido von List, Deutsch-Mythologische Landschaftsbilder (Berlin, 1891).
13. Von List, Der Unbesiegbare (Leipzig, 1898).
14. Baltzli, Von List, pp. 45-46.
15. Wannieck to von List, 12 December 1914, quoted in Baltzli, Von List, pp. 184-85.
16. Baltzli, Von List, pp. 47, 185.
17. See von List, Die Religion der Ario-Germanen in ihrer Esoterik und Exoterik, reissued in Deutsche Wiedergeburt, Band III, (Berlin, 1921); and Der Ubergang vom Wuotanismus zum Christentum, Band V (n.d.).
18. Baltzli, Von List, pp. 50, 55.
19. On Lanz see Wilfried Daim, Der Mann; Daim, Der Mann, p. 271.
20. Lanz von Liebenfels, Meister Amalrich, and Meister Archibald, Die ariosophiische Kabbalistik von Name und Ortlichkeit (Ariosophische Bibiliothek, Heft 15), p. I; Daim, Der Mann, pp. 180, 120-21.
21. Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, Die Theosophie und die assyrischen Menschentiere (Bibeldokumente, Heft H), p. 5.
22. Von Liebenfels, Die Theosophie, p. 26. See passage quoted in The Occult Underground, p. 92.
23. Daim, Der Mann, pp. 159-60. For Issberner-Haldane see Howe, Urania's Children, pp. 111-12. For Gorsleben see this chapter below.
24. Fuchs, Sturm und Drang, p. 82.
25. Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner, "Zwischen Rilke und Hitler-Alfred Schuler," in Zeitschrift fur Religions-und Geistes-geschichte, Band XIX (1967), p. 336. See Carl Albrecht Bernouilli, Johann Jakoh Bachofen und das Natursymbol (Basel, 1924), which is dedicated to Klages; Joseph Campbell, introduction to Helen Diner, Mothers and Amazons (New York and London, 1965). E. K. Winter, "Bachofen-Renaissance" in Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, Band 85 (1928), pp. 316 ff.; see Helen Diner, Mothers and Amazons, "Sir Galahad," Die Kagelschnitte Gottes (Munich, 1921), and Bertha Eckstein-Diener, Idiotenfuhrer durch die Russische Literatur (Munich, 1925); Eckstein-Diener, Idiotenfuhrer, p. 116.
26. Alfred Rosenberg, Dietrich Eckart, ein Vermachtnis (4th ed., Munich, 1937), pp. 13-14; Albert Reich, Dietrich Eckart (Munich, 1933), pp. 22-62.
27. Rosenberg, Eckart. p. 16; Wilhelm Grun, Dietrich Eckart als Publizist (Munich, 1941), p. 44.
28. Reich, Eckart, p. 52; Rosenberg, Eckart, p. 21.
29. Adolf Dresler, Dietrich Eckart (Munich, 1938), p. 36.
30. Rosenberg, Eckart, pp. 22-23, 32; Grun, Eckart. pp. 42-48, 69; Dresler, Eckart, pp. 15 ff.; Eckart, "Der Adler des Jupiters" in Auf gut Deutsch. 12 December 1919, p. 668.
31. Fuchs, Sturm und Drang, p. 100.
32. See Helen B5hlau, Das Recht der Mutter (Berlin, 1896), and Friedrich Ulrich Zillman, Helen Bohlau (Leipzig, n.d. but c. 1919); Helen von Racowitza, An Autobiography (tr. Cecil Marr, London, 1910), p. 415; Steiner, The Anthroposophic Movement. p. 143.
33. Volkischer Beobachter, 17 May 1919; Eckart joined the Thule some time in 1919; Eckart, "Ein eigentumlicher Theosoph," in Auf gut Deutsch (11 July 1919), p. 222.
34. Wachsmuth, Steiner, pp. 315-18; Saint-Yves d' Alveydre, Mission des ouvriers (3rd ed., Paris, 1884); Rudolf Steiner, The Threefold State (London, 1920), and Papus, Anarchie. indolence et synarchie (Paris, 1884).
35. E.g., Kully, Die Wahrheit, p. 206; Wachsmuth, Steiner. pp. 356 ff. Steiner, 29 August 1922, quoted Savitch, Marie von Sivers p. 133; Kully, Die Wahrheit, pp. 206-9.
36. For this hostility, see Rittelmeyer, Steiner, p. 117, and Wachsmuth, Steiner, pp. 397-98 for Steiner's lecturing to those involved in the Saar Plebiscite. Cf. Kully, Die Wahrheit, p. 209; see, e.g., Wachsmuth, Steiner. pp. 242-43; Eckart, "Der Adler des Jupiters," p. 327; Eckart, "Ein eigentumlicher Theosoph," p. 671; Howe, Urania's Children. pp. 81 ff.
37. The Guildsman, June 1920. "There are some good ideas in his book and we shall make haste to steal them."
38. See H. W. Schomerus, Die Anthroposophie Steiners und Indien (Leipzig, Erlangen, n.d.); Christian Gahr, Die Anthroposophie Steiners (Erlangen, 1929), pp. 38-39; Steiner, The Soul of the People (London, 1936). Originally lectures delivered in Berlin in November 1914. These were sent to Prince Max of Baden together with the theory of the Threefold Commonwealth. See Wachsmuth, Steiner, p. 357.
39. Richard Euringer, Dietrich Eckart (2nd ed., Hamburg, 1938), p. 15; Eckart, "Mittendurch," in Volkischer Beobachter (3 February 1923), p. 5; Eckart, Das ist der Jude (Munich, 1920); "Ein Volkischer Beobachter in England" (9 June 1920). See Grin, Eckart. bibliography for 1920; Eckart, "Jewry Uber Alles," in Auf gut Deutsch (26 November 1920); Hansjorg Maurer, "Versammlung im Zirkus Krone," Volkischer Beobachter (24 January 1923), pp. 2-3; Franz-Willing, Hitlerbewegung. p. 131; also short note in school text, Nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung (ed. Martin Iskraut, Leipzig, 1934), pp. vii-viii.
40. Gottfried Feder, Kampf gegen die Hochfinanz (2nd ed., Munich, 1933), p. 12; Feder, "Das Manifest zur Brechnung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes" in Kampf, p. 51; see Munchener Beobachter, 9 August 1919, p. 2 and Feder, Kampf, p. 111.
41. Feder, Kampf, p. 97; Reich, Eckart, pp. 69-71; Eckart and Feder, "An alle Werktatigen," in Feder, Kampf, pp. 96 ff.; see also Feder, Die Juden (Munich, 1933), and in Das neue Deutschland und die Judenfrage (Leipzig, 1933).
42. "Aus der Bewegung," Volkischer Beobachter (29 May 1920), p. 4; Feder on 4 December 1930, in Kampf, p. 282.
43. On the Baits see Laqueur, Russia and Germany. pp. 30 ff.
44. H. J. Schmierescott, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck und der revolutionare Nationalismus in der Weimarer Republik (Gottingen, 1967), pp. 127-28.
45. Reinhold Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner (Stuttgart, 1970), pp. 21, 256 note 32.
46. Rosenberg (ed. Serge Lang and Ernst von Schrenck), Portrat eines Menschheitsverbrechers (St. Gallen, 1947), p. 33; Gunter Schubert, Anfange nationalsozialistischer Aussenpolitik (Cologne, 1963), pp. 11-12, 167-69. Cf. F. Th. Hart, Alfred Rosenberg (Munich, 1933), pp. 36-37; for this development see Cohn, Warrant, pp. 138 ff., Laqueur, Russia and Germany, pp. 50-125.
47. See A. Netchvolodov, L'Empereur Nicolas II et les Juifs (Paris, 1924), and Nikolaus Markov, Der Kampf der dunklen Machte (Erfurt, 1935).
48. See A. Tcherep-Spiridovitch, Vers la debacle (Paris, 1914) and The Secret World Government (New York, 1926).
49. Laqueur, Russia and Germany, pp. 122-25. See Bostunitch, "Der letzte Theologe," p. 67, where he quotes Heinrich Lhotsky on the Baits: "Vergiss nie, dass du Arier bist und Sonnenwege wandeln musst." Both Lhotsky and Johannes Muller may have absorbed anti-Semitic influences while with the Mission to the Jews in Russia.
50. Laqueur, Russia and Germany, pp. 58 ff. for Scheubner-Richter and cf. also Paul Leverkuhn, Posten auf ewiger Wache (Essen, 1938), pp. 184 ff. For Rosenberg in Munich, see Laqueur, Russia and Germany, pp. 68 ff. and Bollmus, Amt Rosenberg, pp. 18 ff.
51. Eckart, "Jewry uber alles," p. 42.
52. Howe, Urania's Children, p. 86. Mr. Howe's forthcoming Lunatic Fringe will enlighten us as to the elusive Freiherr and his associates. Meanwhile, see Reginald H. Phelps, "Before Hitler Came: Thule Society and Germanen Orden" in Journal of Modern History (March-December 1963), pp. 245 ff.; Phelps, Journal. pp. 250-51.
53. See "E.H.," "In eigener Sache" in Munchener Beobachter (1919, no. 4), p. 3, and Philip Stauff in Munchener Beobachter, 24 May 1919.
54. Rudolf von Sebottendorff, Geschichte der Astrologie Band I (Leipzig, 1923), p. 37; Sebottendorff, Die Praxis der alter Turkischen Freimaurerei (Leipzig, 1924).
55. Sebottendorff, Bevor Hitler kam (Munich, 1933), pp. 222-23, 260. N.B. the strictures of Howe, Urania's Children, p. 86 on this book: Volkischer Beobachter (23 August 1919), p. 1.
56. Franz-Willing, Hitler Bewegung, pp. 64-66. Cf. Sebottendorff, Bevor Hitler kam, p. 73.
57. For verdicts on Greiner's unreliability, see Franz Jetzinger, Hitler's Youth (London, 1958), p. 11, 136 note 1, 143; Werner Maser, Die Fruhgeschichte der NSDA P (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1965), pp. 8, 67 note 92; also Maser's Hitler's Mein Kampf (tr. R. H. Barry, London, 1970), pp. 61, 209. But cf. Maser passim, and Konrad Heiden, Der Fuhrer (tr. Ralph Manheim, London, 1944), p. 55. Cf. Alan Bullock, Hitler, a Study in Tyranny (rev. ed., London, 1962), p. 35.
58. Joseph Greiner, Das Ende der Hitler-Mythos (Zurich, Leipzig, Vienna, 1947), pp. 86-94,
59. Daim, Der Mann, pp. 15-23.
60. Mosse, Crisis, p. 77, pp. 31 ff., 246-47.
61. Kaltenbrunner, "Zwischen Rilke und Hitler," p. 163; Boehringer, Stefan Georg, p. 109; Mosse, Crisis, p. 76, Salin, Stefan Georg, p. 194.
62. Greiner, Hitler-Mythos, pp. 84-86.
63. Franz-Willing, Hitler Bewegung, pp. 67-73, p. 78, p. 82; Maser, Fruhgeschichte, p. 149.
64. Hitler, Mein Kampf, tr. James Murphy (London, 1939), pp. 302, 318.
65. Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (New York, 1965), pp, 412-15.
66. Erich Ludendorff in Mathilde Ludendorff Ihr Werk und Wirken (Munich, 1937), pp. 40-41.
67. Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years (London, 1957), pp. 84-85.
68. Feder, "Das Weibes Kulturtat" in V6lkischer Beobachter (9 December 1920), p. 3. Cf. Ludendorff, Mathilde Ludendorff, p. 110 ff.
69. For these sources see Johannes Hertel, Von neuen Trug zur Rellung des Alten (Berlin, 1932), and Louis Jacolliot, The Bible in India (London, 1870), For the biography of Mathilde von Kemnitz, see Erich Ludendorff, Mathilde Ludendorff, pp. 178 ff. and Hertel, Von neuen Trug. For Mathilde von Kemnitz and occultism, see her Moderne Mediumforschung (Munich, 1914), and her Der Trug des Astrologie (Munich, 1932).
70. Erich Ludendorff, Mathilde Ludendorff, pp. 43 ff.
71. See Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff, Die Judenmacht: ihr Wesen und Ende (Munich, 1930); Ilse Hess, Prisoner of Peace (London, 1954), p. 54; J. R. Rees (ed.), The Case of Rudolf Hess (London, 1947), p. 35.
72. James Douglas-Hamilton, Motive for a Mission (London, 1971), p. 125.
73. For Scheubner-Richter's role in coordinating the activities of Russians and Germans see Laqueur, Russia and Germany, pp. 62-68, 105 ff. Cf. also Volkmann, Emigration.
74. Adolf Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944 (London, 1953), p. 252.
75. Feder, Kampf, pp. 150-54.
76. Franz Neumann, Behemoth (London, 1942), pp. 187 ff. on Spann, see D. Vikor, Economic Romanticism in the 20th Century (London, 1932). Spann's complete works are published from Graz; see in particular the Fundament der Volkswirtschaftslehre (Gesamtausgabe, Band 3, 1967) and Der wahre Staat (4th ed., Vienna, 1938). Cf. Erkenne dich selbst (Gesamtausgabe Band 14) for the mystical premises on which Spann based his theories. Within the ambit of this sort of economic speculation the English Guildsmen found a hearing. A series of "Schriften der Englischen Gildenbewegung" was published at Tiibingen and at least two university theses were devoted to Guildsmen after the Nazis came to power. See Feder, Die neue Stadt (Berlin, 1939).
77. Albert Reich and O. R. Achenbach, Vom 9 November, 1918 zum 9 November, 1923 (Munich, 1933), p. 20; Fritz von Trutzschler, Armes Volkstum (Berlin, 1920); Howe, Urania's Children, p. 87 note 1; quoted in Phelps, "Before Hitler came," p. 261.
78. Artur Dinter, Die Sunde wider den Geist (Leipzig, 1921), pp. 235-44; Dinter, Die Sunde wider die Liebe (Leipzig, 1922), p. 329; Peter Huttenberger, Die Gauleiter (Stuttgart, 1969), pp. 13-14 and pp. 42-46. Cf. Dinter, Die Deutsche Volkskirche (Leipzig, 1934).
79. See documents printed in J. S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches (London, 1968), pp. 370-74, listing sects banned up till December, 1938, pp. 370-74; 378-82; Howe, Urania's Children, pp. 192 ff.
80. Hitler, Table Talk, p. 251; Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 191; Hanfstaengl, Hitler, p. 41; Kurt Ludecke, I Knew Hitler (London, 1938), pp. 195-96, Hitler, Table Talk, pp. 231, 442-43, 572.
81. Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, pp. 240-42.
82. Bollmus, A mt Rosenberg, pp. 54 ff., 113 ff., 25-26, 39, 255 note 27.
83. Rosenberg, Der My thus des 20 Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1934), pp. 25-27.
84. See Spengler, Fruhzeit der Weltgeschichte, ed. M. Schroter and A. M. Koktanek (Munich, 1966), pp. 210 ff.; A Bessinertiny, Das Atlantisratsel (Leipzig, 1932), p. 147; Bessinertiny with Ernst Uehli, Atlantis und das Ratsel der Eiszeitkunst (Stuttgart, 1930).
85. Albert Herrmann, Unsere Ahnen und Atlantis (Berlin, 1934); Karl Georg Zschaetzsch, Die Arier (Berlin, 1920).
86. Rosenberg, My thus, p. 88; Lang and Schrenck, Menschheitsverbrechers, pp. 111-12; Rosenberg, My thus, pp. 220 ff., 251, 259.
87. John Macready, Der Aufgang des Abendlandes (Leipzig, 1926), p. 632. See the analysis of Ernest Seilliere in Morales et religions nouvelles en Allemagne (Paris, 1927), pp. 126 ff.
88. Josef Ackermann, Heinrich Himmler als Ideologue (Gottingen, Zurich, and Frankfurt, 1970), pp. 34 ff. This is invaluable in showing the possible extent of Nazi mysticism. Cf. Werner Angriss and B. F. Smith, "Diaries of Heinrich Himmler's Early Years" in Journal of Modern History (September 1959); C. A. Bernouilli, Bachofen, p. 456.
89. Josef Ackermann, Himmler, pp. 196-99; Mosse, Crisis, pp. 116-20; Heinz Hahne, The Order of the Death's Head (tr. Richard Barry, London), pp. 48-49.
90. Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs (London, 1956), pp. 38-39,151-52; Josef Ackermann, Himmler. pp. 63 note 132, 64, 68-69 and note 166. See Karl August Eckhardt, Irdische Unsterblichkeit. (Weimar, 1937). Eckhardt was associated with Ernst Krieck and Walter Wust -- see this chapter; speech printed in Josef Ackermann, Himmler, p. 245.
91. Speech quoted Ackermann, Himmler, p. 101. See Heinrich Himmler, Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewitstische Kampforganisation (Munich, 1936).
92. Himmler, Die Schutzstaffel. p. 27. "Ich halte ihn fur uberheblich, grossenwahnsinnig und dumm; er ist nicht fur uns geeignet"; Himmler, Die Schutzstaffel. pp. 101-07; Kersten, Memoirs, p. 29; Rauschning, Hitler Speaks. p. 237.
93. Hahne, Death's Head, p. 152.
94. Document from Amt Schulung in Bundesarchiv Koblenz, file no. NS 15/51 neu; see Hubert Schrade, Das Deutsche Nationaldenkmal (Munich, 1934) and Bauten des Dritten Reiches (Leipzig, 1939); Richard von Kienle, Germanische Gemeinschaftsleben (Stuttgart 1939), which was published by the Ahnenerbe. See Wilhelm Grau, Die Judenfragen in das deutschen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1937); K. G. Kuhn also wrote on the "Jewish question." Julius Andree, Die Externsteine (Munster, 1936) is a typical example of Externsteine literature.
95. Alfred Baumler (ed.), Was bedeutst Hermann Wirth fur die Wissenschaft? (Leipzig, 1932), pp. 92-93; see Hermann Wirth, Der A ufgang der Menschheit (Jena, 1928), and Albert Hermann, Ahnen und Atlantis. pp. 23 ff.; Friedrich Hielscher, Funfzig Jahre unter Deutschen (Hamburg, 1954), p. 288.
96. Michael H. Kater, Das Ahnenerbe. die Forschungs-und Lehrgemeinschaft in der SS, thesis presented to Heidelberg University, 1966. A vital piece of research for those seeking to understand Nazi irrationalism.
97. Hielscher, Funfzig Jahre, passim, esp. p. v.
98. "Forschungs- und Lehrgemeinschaft 'Das Ahnenerbe' Tagebuch 1944 gefuhrt von Reichsgeschaftsfuhrer SS Standartenfuhrer Sievers." Bundesarchiv Koblenz file NS/21/Vol II.
99. Correspondence in Koblenz file NS2l /409 /G /81/2, in particular letters of unidentified Scharfuhrer, 18 July 1937 and 29 August 1937; and Obersturmbannfuhrer to Reichsfuhrer SS. 14 August 1937.
100. Stromer von Reichenbach, Was ist Weltgeschichte? (Ludwigshafen, 1919), and Max Kemmerich, Das Kausalgesetz der Weltgeschichte (2 vols., Munich, 1913-14.
101. Stromer von Reichenbach, Was wird? (Ludwigshafen, 1919), and also Erfullte Voraussagen der Hislorionomie (n.d., n.p.).
102. Howe, Urania's Children, p. 192 note 2, quoting Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein Reichinstitut fur Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands (1966).
103. See letter of Reichsleitung Rosenberg to Wendorff of Amt Wissenschaft in Bundersarchiv file NS 15/219 neu. For Koresh, see Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York, 1957), pp. 22-27.
104. Georg Hinzpeter, Der Sieg der Welteislehre (Bres1au, 1936), pp. 180-88.
105. Chiefly from H. S. Bellamy, Moons Myths and Man (2nd ed., London, 1949). I do not recommend any of the German works, for reasons which should be clear; but those interested might try Philipp Fauth, Der Mond in Horbigers Welteislehre (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1938).
106. See William A. Jones, Blavatsky and Horbiger (London, 1950).
107. Friedell, Kulturgeschichte Agyptens. pp. 46-49; Cultural History of the Modern Age, vol. III, pp. 463-65.
108. Edmund Kiss, Die kosmische Ursachen der Volkerwanderung (Leipzig, 1934). Cf. A. G. Hogbom "Die Atlantislitteratur unserer Zeit" in Bulletin of the Geographical Institute of the University of Upsala (1941), pp. 46 ff.
109. Rudolf John Gorsleben "Hochzeit der Menschheit" in Illustrietre Beobachter (1937), Folge 3. Wilhelm Asendorpf, Die Edda als Welteislehre (Krefeld, 1933). On Gorsleben, see Dietrich Eckart, Das is der Jude, p. 54 note 2; Hans Wolfgang Behm, Horbigers Welteislehre (Leipzig, 1938), p. 219.
110. Kater, Ahnenerbe, pp. 63-64, 351-53. Josef Ackermann, Himmler, pp. 46-67.
111. The "Pyrmont Protocol" in Bundesarchiv Koblenz file NS 21/Vol 716.
112. See Hans Fischer, Rhythmus des kosmischen Lebens: Das Buch vom Pulsschlag der Welt (Leipzig, 1925).
113. Hans Fischer to Reichsfuhrer-SS, 21 August 1936 in Koblenz NS 21/Vol 716. The connection of the younger Horbiger with the Druid Order leads to the speculation that Lewis Spence -- thought to have belonged to a Druid Order and who wrote copiously on the related Atlantis problem -- may have belonged to this organization.
114. One of the two Viennese Horbiger societies was liquidated by the Nazis; another survived under the chairmanship of Manfred Rieffenstein. The only member of the committee of the Berlin Society to survive was Hinzpeter, still alive in 1949. See The Research Centre Group. fly sheet issued by Egerton Sykes (London, 1949).
115. Scultetus to Reichsfuhrer-SS 18 August 1936 (via Bruno Galke) 13 September 1937. In Koblenz files NS 21/Vol. 714 and 716.
116. Rudolf von Elmayer-Vestenbrugg, Ratsel des Weltgeschehens (Munich, 1937). This is almost identical to his Die Welteislehre (Leipzig, 1938). The author also used the name "Elimar Vinibert von Rudolf." Quite possibly both are fictitious.
117. Hitler, Table Talk, pp. 248-50, 324, 445.
118. Galke to Frau Gahr 3 February 1937 in Koblenz file NS 21/Vol. 715/G. Df. letter printed by Helmut Heiber, Reichsfuhrerl (Stuttgart, 1968), p.47.
119. Franz-Willing, Hitlerbewegung. p. 86 note 47.
120. Ludecke, I Knew Hitler (London, 1938), p. 93.
121. Mosse, Crisis, pp. 306, 356 note 32; Edgar Dacque, Urwelt Sagen und Menschheit (Munich and Berlin, 1928), pp. 158 ff. for Welteislehre. and Hitler, Table Talk, p. 248.
122. See The Vahan; Dacque, Urwelt. Sagen und Menschheit, Natur und Seele (Munich and Berlin, 1926), esp. pp. 21-22 and Das verlorene Paradies (Munich and Berlin, 1938).
123. Hinzpeter, Welteislehre. p. 189.
124. On Prohaszka, see William Juhasz, "The Development of Catholicism in Hungary in Modern Times" in Church and Society 1789-1950 (ed. Joseph N. Moody, New York, 1953) and C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth (2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1961), pp. 28-32, 498. See, also Prohaszka, The Jewish Question in Hungary (The Hague, 1920) and Friedrich Heer, God's First Love (tr. Geoffrey Shelton, London, 1970), p. 339. Ludecke, Hitler, p. 243 and Volkischer Beobachter. 23 September 1920, "Ein antisemitischer Bischoff," p. 4.
125. Karl Kautsky, Foundations of Christianity (London, 1925), p. 461.
126. Hitler, Table Talk, pp. 203-4.
127. Eckart, Bolschevismus von Moses bis Lenin (Munich, 1922), esp. pp. 22-23 and pp. 30 ff.
128. Hitler, Table Talk, p. 61.
129. Nolte, Three Faces, pp. 321, 630 note 17. Cf. chapter VIII.
130. See Hans-Dietrich Loock, Quisling, Rosenberg und Terboven (Stuttgart, 1970); Ralph Heims, Quisling (London, 1965); E.g., Quisling's article "A Nordic World Federation," in British Union Quarterly, vol. I, no. 1 (January-April 1937); Sidney Dark, Not Such a Bad Life (London, 1941), p. 230.
131. Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler (London, 1940), p. 189-90.
132. Hohne, Death's Head, pp. 154-55.