The occult and the Third Reich:

The pseudoscience behind history’s bloodiest empire

For the Nazi Party was never merely a political party; it was always much more.  Hitler himself warned his critics that if they misunderstood National Socialism as a political party only, they were missing the point.[1]

by

Alan Skaggs

           When asked to describe Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, many images and descriptions come to mind: death, war, injustice, racist, horrendous, and evil are some of the most common descriptors.  However, there is one aspect in particular which played perhaps the most influential role in shaping the evolution and operations of the Nazi Party, yet is rarely mentioned in discussions of the Third Reich: the occult.  Through a close examination of the early occult roots of the Nazi Party, some of its central pseudoscientific beliefs and practices, and the influence these beliefs had on a handful of its highest ranking members, a clearer and more complete picture of the horror that was the Third Reich emerges, with pseudoscience as the driving force.

            You are a soldier returning from four long years of battle.  Your country has suffered a crushing and demoralizing defeat, and has been dealt further indignity by being made to sign an armistice demanding huge, almost unreasonable reparations be paid to the victorious Allies.  You return home without a job to find your beloved homeland in shambles.  The former ruler has abdicated and a provisional democratic government that is doomed to fail has been established in its place.  Various gangs roam the street dispensing martial law.  Inflation is skyrocketing.  A neighboring nation’s revolution is threatening to spill over into your country, bringing with it hated communism.  This is Munich in 1918 at the close of the “war to end all wars.”  This war, which was to have been an affair of great marches and rapid victories,[2] instead served to reduce Germany from a powerful industrialist nation to economic ruin.  The German people were dispirited and were desperate to latch onto anything, no matter how illogical or unfounded, that would lead them to believe that a brighter future was in store.  Clearly this was not a time when critical thinking was considered necessary.  This led to the increased popularity of several occult groups and acceptance of their pseudoscientific beliefs throughout Germany, which would eventually become the foundation of the Nazi Party.

            The first roots of Nazism can be traced back to 1900 when Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels founded a group called the Order of the New Templars.  Lanz’s Templars chose the swastika as their sign, and concerned themselves with topics such as race superiority, astrology, homeopathy, and nutrition.[3]  Immediately, we can see that good science is not a large factor in the majority of the group’s beliefs.  Astrology, which will be examined in further detail later, has never been shown to have any scientific support for its existence.  Homeopathy, the belief that the strength of certain medicines increases as the dosage decreases, also has never been proven.  In fact, there isn’t a single verified instance of any substance having a stronger effect the more diluted it becomes.  Even more damaging to the theory of homeopathy, there isn’t a single documented case of an extremely diluted solution (one in which not one molecule of the original substance remains) affecting any biological system![4]

In 1908, Guido von List, who had been a teacher of Lanz’s, founded an organization known as the Armanen.  List was the first popular writer to combine völkisch ideology (völkisch being an extreme German nationalist movement of the time) with occultism[5], and he thought of himself as the link with an ancient race of Germanic priests and wise men called the Armanen, whose holiest symbol had been the swastika.  List took the swastika, which to the Germanic people represented an occult symbol for the sun, and made it the symbol for his Armanen as well.  Members of the Armanen included the mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, and were taught runic occultism by List.[6]  Membership between the Order of the New Templars and the Armanen was often overlapping, and in 1912 members of both cults came together and founded the Germanen Orden. 

Following the close of WWI, the Germanen Orden joined forces with another occult society known as Thule.  The symbol of the Thule society was a curved swastika, with a dagger superimposed on top, which shows the clear link this society bore to both the Armanen and the Orden.  One of the most prominent members of Thule was a fellow who went by the self-styled name of Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff.  Sebottendorff was an authority on astrology and divining rods, and was happy to expound on these subjects.[7]  Again, it is clear that this is a cult that gives credence to pseudoscientific ideas such as dowsing—the notion that water can be found by merely holding a stick and walking around until a mysterious force begins to pull the stick down, indicating to the diviner where water can be found.  However, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that any paranormal forces are at work in dowsing!  More than likely the movement of the divining rod is caused by unconscious muscular activity in the dowser.  Additionally, underground water is generally prevalent, and can often be found simply by chance, further reducing the likelihood that paranormal forces are at work.[8] 

            Aside from occultist teachings, the main goal of Thule was to consolidate the various anti-Semitic organizations into militant action.  Toward this end, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartie (NSDAP—National Socialist German Workers’ Party) was established on January 18, 1919.[9]  In September of this year, Adolf Hitler, while working as an informer for the German army’s Political Department, was sent to spy on this small political group which was comprised of working class Germans and assembled for meetings in a beer hall.  However, once Hitler made his way into the group, he was hooked.  On October 16, 1919, only a month after initially infiltrating the group, Hitler addressed his first public meeting on the party’s behalf.  Hitler biographer Joachim Fest describes the important revelation of that night: “Wildly acclaimed by his audience, Hitler had discovered that he could wield ‘the magic power of the spoken word.”  Soon after this, as news of his oratorical abilities spread and the party began to draw more followers, Hitler took control of the party, and in 1920 changed its name to the National Socialists, which became abbreviated to the Nazis.[10]  On May 20, 1920, Hitler’s party unveiled to the public for the first time their party flag, which featured a black swastika in a white circle on a red background.[11]  The transformation from occult group to the Nazi party as we know it was complete. 

It is significant to note that several members of Thule would go on to become prominent Nazis.  Sebottendorff published the following list of Thule members and their subsequent Nazi positions: Max Amann, editor-in-chief of publications for the Nazi Party; Anton Drexler, founder of the NSDAP; Karl Fiehler, who takes part in the November 9, 1933 putsch with Hitler which secures control of Germany for the Nazi party; Rudolf Hess, who shared prison time with Hitler, helping him to write Mein Kampf, was Hitler’s minister of state and personal heir and widely considered to be Hitler’s closest friend; Alfred Rosenberg, head of ministry for the Nazi party; and Adolf Hitler himself, who belonged to the Thule Society as an “associate” or “visiting brother.”[12]

            Knowing that the Nazi party evolved from a series of occultist groups, and having an awareness of the environment that helped to encourage and foster its growth, it is then much easier to fathom how it was possible for such outlandish ideas to become the basis for the party that would take control of Germany and alter the course of the world.  However, regardless of the extenuating circumstances that nurtured the acceptance of these ideas by occultists or the general public, that doesn’t make them any more acceptable by scientific standards, as will be shown. 

            In our analysis of pseudoscientific beliefs we will start with the beginning.  The beginning of the universe that is.  Instead of the more commonly held creation theories of the big-bang, or creation by an omnipotent Being such as God, Hitler instead decided to adopt the more radical Welteislehre (World Ice Theory), presented by Austrian mining engineer Hans Hörbiger.  Perhaps the most obvious question that comes to mind is: how qualified is a mining engineer to propose theories on the origins of the universe?  Since Hörbiger most likely would have received absolutely no training whatsoever in the field of cosmology as he was trained as a mining engineer, we can already begin to cast doubt on any theories that he would put forth in this field.  As a boy, Hörbiger was fond of lying outdoors at night and gazing up at the sky, and the intuition came to him that the moon was an ocean of ice. He extended the vision as a young engineer, in the instant when he saw molten steel poured onto snow and the ground explode violently.  He took this as a microcosm for the kind of cataclysm that might have given birth to the universe.[13] 

In 1913 Hörbiger outlined his theory in his book Glazialkosmogonie, in which he argued that solar systems are formed by gigantic blocks of ice colliding with stars.  His theory argued that these blocks of ice followed a spiral path, eventually colliding with the star and causing an enormous explosion.  The star then ejects a molten mass of rotating matter, which forms a new solar system.  This theory ignores Kepler’s laws of motion, which state that orbiting bodies travel in ellipses.  Hörbiger’s belief that planets follow a spiral path led him to the conclusion that there were originally four moons orbiting the Earth, of which our present Moon is the only remaining one.  This caveat especially pleased the Nazis, as it was proposed that the most recent collision of a moon with the Earth, about 13,000 years ago, caused the disappearance of Atlantis—the continent that the Nazis believed was the original home of the “superior” Aryan race.[14]

            One of the biggest supporters of the World Ice theory was Adolf Hitler, who adopted the theory as the official cosmology of the Nazi party.  Aside from Nazi party members, other scientists, at first, stood their ground and attacked Hörbiger’s theories.  Gradually, however, as Hitler’s strongmen helped to swell his pseudoscience into a popular movement, they were silenced.  Hitler claimed that Hörbiger was not accepted by the scientific establishment because “the fact is, men do not wish to know.”[15]  However, the beauty of real science is that it is not dependent on whether or not we wish to know something.  The only theories or proposals that are to be believed or accepted are those that are borne out by the facts, which the World Ice theory clearly was not.  Indeed, just because you believe something to be true doesn’t mean that it is.  If believing something to be so made it so, the world would contain a lot fewer unfulfilled desires, unrealized ambitions, and unsuccessful projects than it does.[16]  Further reason to doubt Hörbiger’s theory is that it violates a very well established scientific theory, namely, Kepler’s laws of motion.  This is a clear and immediate clue that the theory in question is more likely pseudoscience rather than a well-researched and plausible scientific theory.  In general, the fewer well-established beliefs a hypothesis conflicts with, the more plausible it is.[17]  Regardless of all these grounds for doubt, Hitler embraced Hörbiger and his theory, declaring in 1942, “I shall have an observatory built on the other side of the Danube where the three great cosmological conceptions of history will be illustrated: that of Ptolemy, that of Copernicus, and that of Hörbiger.”[18]

            The next pseudoscientific belief of the Nazis that will be examined is the practice of and belief in astrology, which is still a closely held belief for a large number of people worldwide to this day.  Astrology originated in ancient Babylon about 1000 BC, where it was first theorized that omens could be read by examining the motions of the planets.  In the first or second century AD, the Greeks had expanded astrology to include natal astrology.[19]  This differed from the Babylonians’ version in that it made specific predictions for individuals, instead of only foretelling of great events relating to the entire world.  Natal astrology involves utilizing the position of the sun, moon, and planets relative to the location and time of a child’s birth to predict the child’s future, and uses a complex, scientific looking natal chart to record this information.  A natal chart for Adolf Hitler is included in the Appendix of this paper to show just how many minute, seemingly obscure bits of information are required, allowing the chart to appear quite scientific.  The truly pseudoscientific part of astrology comes when people then attempt to make predictions based on these bits of information. 

            Prior to World War I, astrology had not yet managed to become widely popular with the public.  However, it is once again possible to cite postwar conditions as helping to increase the popularity of this bit of pseudoscience, especially in war-torn Germany.  The trauma of the war had been the obvious catalyst: suffering military, psychological, and economic defeat, Germans were desperately seeking assurances and signs of hope.  Faith in the prewar systems and methods had gone, leaving many to look to the stars for signs not only of a better personal future for themselves, but for their country as well.[20]  In fact, so popular did astrology become to the German people, it was claimed that there were more practicing astrologers per square kilometer in Germany than anywhere else in the world![21] 

            Nevertheless, the scientific support for astrology at the time was non-existent, as it remains to this very day.  When subjected to the rigors of “good science,” astrology performs miserably.  Ever since its origins in ancient Babylon, astrologers have relied on the position of all the known planets to forecast events.  However, the planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were not discovered until 1781, 1846, and 1930, respectively.[22]  This poses the interesting question of whether or not all horoscopes made before 1930 were incorrect, because they did not account for all the planets of our solar system.  Additionally, if astrology were correct, then every astrologer should be able to read the stars and planets at the same time and come up with the same predictions.  But, this is clearly not the case, as every day multiple horoscopes can be found in different newspapers and magazines, which make radically different predictions for the same groups of people.  Finally, perhaps the most damning bit of evidence against astrology comes when examining the lives of twins.  Since these children are born at the same time (give or take less than an hour in most cases), and in the same place (give or take less than a meter), it stands to reason that if astrology were correct, then these two children would go on to lead nearly identical lives; yet almost everyone can recall meeting a set of twins who are nothing alike! All this evidence seems to refute the proposal of astrology as an accurate prediction of events.  Accepting astrology would mean rejecting much in the fields of physics, astronomy, biology, and psychology.  When faced with such conflicts, the appropriate action to take is to proportion our belief to the evidence, which in the case of astrology is none, meaning astrology should not warrant any belief on our part.[23]

            Despite all this evidence, astrology still managed to play a major role in the Nazi party.  The man possibly most greatly affected by his belief in astrology during World War II was Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Führer of the Nazi party.   A professor of Hess’ at the University of Munich described Hess thusly: “He was very dependent on emotions and passionately liked to pursue fantastic ideas.  He was only influenced by arguments of no importance at the very limits of human knowledge and superstition; he also believed in the influence of the stars on his personal and political life.”[24]  Indeed, this description of Hess perfectly portrays a man who could be convinced that the celestial bodies held the secrets to his future.  This belief would lead to one of the strangest and most puzzling acts of World War II – one that is still not fully understood to this very day.  On May 10, 1941, Hess set out on a solo flight to Great Britain to meet with the Duke of Hamilton to discuss a possible peace treaty between Germany and England, preventing the Nazis from fighting the two fronted war (England on the West, and the Soviet Union on the East) into which Hitler was so fearful to enter.  However, Hess’ plane crashed in a field in the middle of a farm in Scotland, where an uninjured Hess was promptly arrested by the British and taken into custody for the remainder of the war.  The reason Hess chose to make his fateful flight on May 10?  His close friend and personal astrologer, Ernst Schulte Strathaus, advised Hess that on May 10, 1941, there would be an arrangement of six planets in Taurus, and a full moon directly opposite Taurus.  This auspicious arrangement was to signal important and long-lasting changes in the world, which Hess construed to mean the allying of England and Germany, inevitably turning the tide of war heavily in Germany’s favor.

            Conversely, instead of increasing Germany’s odds of victory, it merely created more turmoil for the Third Reich.  Hitler was deprived of his close friend and second in command, and was forced to declare his actions, which may have appeared as a defection to some, as those of a lone madman who had lost his faith in the Reich.  As a direct consequence of this event, Hitler, blaming the failure of Hess on the advice of his astrologer, issued the Aktion Hess, which forbade the public practice of all occult “sciences,” including astrology.  This edict resulted in all the prominent astrologers in Germany being rounded up and arrested (although those who were already officially employed by the Nazi party were released and allowed to continue working).[25] 

            Further proof of the prevalence of pseudoscience in the Third Reich lies in the Nazis’ use of pendulum dowsing during the Second World War.  As the war progressed, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) began to suffer huge losses at the hands of the British.  It seemed to the Germans as though the British were able to pinpoint the exact locations of their U-boats (submarines) and were then able to destroy them at an alarming rate.  It is important to remember that at this time, there were no satellites or AWACS (airborne warning and control system aircraft) to aid in locating enemy convoys, meaning the only reliable method for locating them was physically to see them (at which point it was usually too late to do anything about it).[26]  This led the Germans to believe that the British were able to divine the locations of German U-boats simply by sitting in an office in London and swinging a pendulum over a map, noticing when the pendulum would begin to rotate, and radioing a message to British destroyers telling them the exact location of the German ships.  The German response to this “discovery” was to have their people do the same thing to locate the British ships.[27] 

            Indeed, the British were able to pinpoint the exact location of German submarines without the use of satellites, military aircraft, or even paranormal forces.  The British had actually succeeded in breaking the secret German code system.  This was by no means a small feat, as the Germans were using the Enigma cipher machine, the most formidable encryption system ever invented up to that time, to encode their messages.  It was made even more impressive by the fact that the Kriegsmarine in particular used a more sophisticated version of the Enigma machine than the other branches of the German military.[28]  Regardless, it was still markedly less astonishing than if paranormal forces had been at work aiding the British in locating German U-boats. 

            In this instance Hume’s Maxim would have been an excellent aid to the Nazis in attempting to explain the incredible losses their naval fleet was sustaining.  The Scottish philosopher David Hume provided a nearly foolproof method of analysis for miraculous claims.  Hume argued that “When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.  I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle.”[29]  Hume is essentially saying that when attempting to determine which explanation for an event is more likely to be correct, the more miraculous explanation is the one that should be rejected.  Clearly, if the Nazis had entertained the alternate hypothesis that their code system had been broken, as unlikely as it may have been, and used Hume’s Maxim as their rule of thumb, they would have had to reject the hypothesis that the British were using pendulum dowsing to discover the location of the U-boats, as it was certainly the more miraculous possibility of the two.

            Throughout World War II, the Nazis were more than willing to use any and all resources available to them to advance their own cause.  Perhaps no other example embodies this spirit and attitude better than the fact that the Nazis were willing to send Nostradamus to war for them. 

            Around the outset of the war, Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister for the Third Reich, happened to develop an interest in Nostradamus, the renowned French prophet.  Goebbels realized that Nostradamus’ predictions would be a perfect source of propaganda for the Nazi party.  In order to find several of Nostradamus’ predictions that could be convincingly claimed to be predictions of Germany’s victory, Goebbels employed Karl Ernst Krafft, an astrologer who was extremely well versed in Nostradamus, and was an enthusiastic Nazi party supporter.  When writing the 966 predictions found in his 1555 book Centuries, Nostradamus had been deliberately obscure, to keep his secrets from being understood by any but the initiated.  Thus the infinite number of interpretations left Krafft with an overwhelming supply from which to choose.  Krafft believed that the following quatrain predicted the birth of the Nazi party:

In Germany will be born diverse sects,

approaching very near happy paganism.

The heart captive and receipts small;

they will return to paying the true tithe.[30]

He also truly believed that this passage predicted great misfortune for Great Britain:

In the islands shall be so horrid tumults,

That nothing shall be heard but a warlike surprise,

So great shall be the insult of the robbers,

That everyone shall shelter himself under the great look.[31]

            These passages are both so ambiguous that the interpretation is heavily dependent on the interpreter and their expectation of the results.  This phenomenon is known as the Forer effect, and is a hallmark of “bad science.”  When the result of an observation is dependent on the observer, that is a subjective result, and “good science” is only concerned with objective results.  Since Krafft was a fervent Nazi supporter looking for evidence of a prediction of German victory, he was able to find it.

In the first quatrain, there is a specific reference to Germany, and although the Nazi Party did adopt and modify many of the practices of paganism, one of the most inflexible beliefs held by the Nazis was the necessity for the members to be Aryan and homogeneous.  This seems to contradict the first line stating that there will be “diverse sects.” 

            The second quatrain is even more vague than the first.  The only part which can be easily related to Great Britain is the mention of “islands” in the first line, as Great Britain is indeed an island nation, but the rest is left open to interpretation.  This quatrain could seemingly just as easily have been applied to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, or to any other attack or other misfortune occurring on an island.

            Goebbels put these verses to use by ordering the printing of leaflets containing the Nazi version of Nostradamus’ prophecies.  These leaflets were then dropped out of German aircraft over France in advance of the military, serving to demoralize both the French army and the civilians.[32] This cunning strategy had the effect of reducing the resistance faced from the now downtrodden French by the invading German army. 

            This would not be the last appearance of Nostradamus in World War II however. When the British learned of the Nazi tactics being employed, they quickly went to work producing their own set of 50 false Nostradamus prophecies, which foretold of British victory. These prophecies were subsequently printed and dispersed throughout the Nazi occupied territories.

            One final, glaring example of the questionable beliefs present behind the scenes in the Nazi ranks involves Heinrich Himmler, creator and unequivocal leader (Reichsführer) of the SS (Schutzstaffel), which was the notoriously ruthless and dreaded paramilitary branch of the Nazi party.  Furthermore, after Rudolf Hess’ failed mission to England in 1941 landed him in prison for the duration of the war, Himmler then became second in command of the Third Reich.  This position, along with the trust and support of the Führer himself allowed Himmler to become perhaps the single most feared man of the 20^th century.  However, it did not protect him from some extremely curious beliefs.

            Himmler believed, as do most occultists, in the theory of reincarnation.  At a speech made in Dachau in 1936, Himmler informed high-ranking SS officers that they had all met before, in previous lives, and that after their present lives had ended, they would meet again.  Himmler believed that he personally was the reincarnation of the ninth-century German king Heinrich I the Fowler, with whom Himmler held long nighttime conversations.[33]  So enamored with this idea was Himmler, that on the 1000^th anniversary of King Heinrich’s death, Himmler organized a sacred reburial of the monarch’s remains, and proceeded to eulogize the man he believed he had been in a past life![34]  This presents a uniquely paradoxical situation.  What are we to make of a man who believes he can talk to the spirit of his former self?  How does one rectify the seeming contradiction of speaking at one’s own funeral?   These are not questions that can be answered easily by most while managing to keep a straight face.  The situation itself is a logical impossibility, allowing us easily to reject any chance of this being a belief founded in science.

           So, by closely tracking the development of the Nazi party from its humble origins as an obscure cult group, to its height as the ruling party over the majority of Europe, and applying a scientific analysis to some of the Nazis’ most important beliefs, it is clear what a critical role pseudoscience played in both the rise and fall of one of history’s most notorious empires.

Appendix

Natal Chart for Adolf Hitler

Source: Ravenscroft p 353.

References:

1. http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/stinebring/astro100/Classes/Astrology/

2. http://www.physics.smu.edu/~jcotton/ph3333/

3. Anderson, Ken. Hitler and the Occult. Prometheus Books: Amherst, New York 1995.

4. Angebert, Jean-Michel. The Occult and the Third Reich. Macmillan: New York 1974.

5. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The occult roots of Nazism. Aquarian Press: Wellingborough, Northamptonshire 1985.

6. Levenda, Peter. Unholy Alliance. Continuum: New York 2002 2^nd Ed.

7. Ravenscroft, Trevor. Spear of Destiny. Putnam: New York 1973.

8. Schick Jr., Theodore & Lewis Vaughn. How to Think About Weird Things. McGraw

Hill: St Louis 2002 3^rd Ed.

9. Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things. Henry Holt and Company: New York 2002.

10. Singh, Simon. The Code Book. Random House: New York 2000.

11. Sklar, Dusty. Gods and Beasts. T.Y. Crowell: New York 1977.

12. Suster, Gerald. Hitler, the occult messiah. St. Martin’s Press: New York 1981.

13. [videorecording] Nazis: the occult conspiracy.  Produced by Cinnabar Pictures for Discovery Channel. Distributed by BMG Video: New York 1998.

Citations: