Nazi Occultism: The Myths And Symbols That Hitler Used
October 1940. Under the astonished gaze of a child of about eight years old (one of the main witnesses of the event), some Nazi officers appear at the Montserrat monastery, in the province of Barcelona. And they are not just any Nazis: among them is himself Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), one of the top leaders of the Nazi party and great interest in occultism
Father Andreu Ripol is the only monk who knows how to speak German, so it is his turn to host the strange visit. Somewhat in a hurry, he accompanies Himmler and his Nazis to the basilica and shows the Moreneta, which the German considers “very Aryan” and whose dark color he attributes to “candle smoke.” Father Ripol is still very surprised, but he only asks the Nazi to reveal himself before the Virgin, which Himmler does with some reluctance.
Finally, Himmler asks Father Ripol where the Holy Grail is located. The monk’s astonishment could not be greater. “There is no Grail here,” he answers. Apparently, in his occult frenzy, Himmler has confused the mountain of Montserrat with the Montsalvat of legends, which supposedly guards the Grail which, also according to the esoteric beliefs of the Nazis, grants power to whoever possesses it…
It seems like a plot straight out of a movie. Indiana Jones, but the truth is that all this really happened. And the Nazis were always very interested in occultism and esoteric phenomena, and even founded (with the sponsorship of Himmler) an entity, the Deutsche Ahnenerbe which, among other things, had the mission of “destroying Christianity” and reviving the pagan religion of the Aryans, as well as investigating all magical formulas that were a guarantee of strength and power.
The Ahnenerbe or the resurrection of the “Aryan culture”
The Ahnenerbe It was founded in July 1935, but its reason for existence had its roots much further back in time. Since the end of the 19th century, a growing exaltation of the German “race” was observed, which many pseudoscientists considered biologically superior. Jüng Lanz von Liebenfels (1874-1954), a strange German Cistercian monk, wrote in 1905 a crazy theory according to which the Germans had been created directly by the gods through electricity…
The Nazi theories about the emergence of what they considered the “Aryan” race or “superior” race are each more bizarre and astonishing. Some German pseudoscientists claimed that all European Neolithic technology came from the Aryans ; and when they were asked why there were no vestiges of such a “scientific revolution” in the German areas (and yes in Mesopotamia), the answer was that these primitive Aryans had left Europe and had moved to a mysterious island that, fortuitously, had disappeared… (Atlantis, perhaps?).
All the theories were few to “demonstrate” what the Nazi regime intended, which was nothing other than the supposed superiority of the Aryan race. This was originally the mission of the Ahnenerbe (in Spanish, “inheritance of the ancestors”), in charge of a series of studies that were intended to be serious and that aimed to promote German culture as the only culture of a superior nature.
The “destruction” of Christianity and the creation of a “Nazi religion”
Another of the missions that the Ahnenerbe had was the annihilation of Christianity or, rather, the suppression of any Jewish trace, as well as the gradual implementation of a pagan religion, inspired by the mythology of the ancient Germanic peoples. One of the projects was the elimination of Christmas and the return of the holiday of Sol Invictusas well as a complete renewal of the annual calendar that would contemplate various pagan rites that would be a kind of renewal of the loyalty of the SS with the Fuehrer.
To establish this entire artifact, Himmler had the help of Friedrich Hielscher (1902-1990), the great “master of the paranormal”, considered a kind of high priest and architect of the religious revolution and the return to the rites of paganism. Hielscher and his colleague Wolfgang Sievens (1902-1948), at that time the only member of the Ahnenerbe who was tried and convicted in Nuremberg, were at the head of the division of occult sciences, one of the forty-three departments into which the macabre association was divided.
The new Nazi religion also contemplated new rites for baptism, marriage and death José Lesta, co-author of the book The Nazi enigma (see bibliography), states that a film has recently been revealed in which a Nazi couple appears getting married under the rite of the new religion, which consisted, among other things, of the delivery of bread and salt as a symbol of fertility and the raising of a black flag with a runic symbol in the center.
The mysterious Wewelsburg Castle
It seems that this triangular castle (the only one with this feature in all of Germany) was rented in the 1930s by Heinrich Himmler for unexplained uses. Apparently, the Nazi leader’s intentions were to establish a stable headquarters for meetings of the SS, the paramilitary arm of the regime. Himmler’s great obsession with occultism and objects that, like the Grail, supposedly granted “invincible power” to whoever possessed them, facilitated the birth of countless rumors about what was really done in Wewelsburg Castle. Was it, perhaps, the center of esoteric operations for Himmler and his acolytes?
José Luis Cardero López, from the Complutense University of Madrid and author of The dark gods of Nazism, provides a masterful description of the castle. On the lower floor you can still see the holes in the wall, as well as a pit surrounded by a stone wall with remains of pipes that could have been used to carry gas, with the aim of keeping a fire always alive. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the intense worship that the Nazi “new religion” offered to fire, related to the old pagan cults But perhaps the most disturbing thing about this ground floor are the twelve seats that are distributed along the wall, whose use is unknown but which could have been used by the upper echelons of the SS to attend certain rites.
The middle floor of the castle presents a huge room with a circle of columns. In the center, on the ground, a set of 12 runic symbols forms a dark sun. Finally, the upper floor should have been crowned with a raised vault, but the war did not allow the work to be completed.
Would these rooms be related, as Cardero López points out, with ceremonies related to the immaterial Grail? What was happening within those walls…?
Some of the “occult” adventures of Himmler and company
Himmler’s esoteric madness had the approval of Hitler, who had been attracted to the paranormal since he was young. There are many “occult” adventures carried out by the Nazis, which later served as inspiration for filmmakers and novelists.
In addition to the Grail, Himmler’s eternal quest (we have already seen how it took him to Montserrat and how it perplexed Father Ripol and the child who accompanied him), the Nazis were also obsessed with the magical power of the spear. Longinus, the weapon that had pierced, according to the Bible, the side of Jesus on the cross In this case, however, they had her much closer to her, since she was supposedly in the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna.
Other clerics who were harassed by the Nazis were the monks of Montevergine, who were questioned about the whereabouts of the holy shroud. Although the abbey was searched, they were unable to find the relic, which returned to Turin after the end of the war.
Conclusions
The objective of the Nazi leaders to create a “New Order”, with the German Empire (and the Aryan race) at the head, was therefore supported by institutions such as the Ahnenerbe, which, in addition to “researching” about the roots of German folklore, he also dedicated himself to esoteric “studies” All of this was largely promoted by Heinrich Himmler and his excessive obsession with the occult, which led him to search diligently for the Holy Grail. Other theories of the time claimed that the Grail was nothing more than an immaterial supernatural force, and Wewelsburg Castle was supposedly intended for rituals related to it. There is still much legend and rumor about Nazi occultism, but the great role it had in the history of the Reich and its macabre plans to annex the world to the tyranny of the “single race” cannot be denied.
