transhuman powers, in order to secure the domination of the planet by the Third Reich. While conventional historians are contemptuous of this notion, it nevertheless holds some attraction for those struggling with the terrible mystery at the heart of Nazism, who have come to believe that only a supernatural explanation can possibly shed light on the movement’s origins and deeds. Goodrick-Clarke, one of the very few serious historians to have explored the subject of the occult inspiration behind Nazism, stresses that although volkisch occultists such as Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels undoubtedly contributed to the ‘mythological mood of the Nazi era’ (with its bizarre notions of prehistoric Aryan superhumans inhabiting vanished continents), ‘they cannot be said to have directly influenced the actions of persons in positions of political power and responsibility’. (1)
As Goodrick-Clarke concedes, however, the one exception is a man named Karl Maria Wiligut (1866–1946), who exerted a profound influence upon Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Before turning our attention to the SS itself, therefore, we must pause to examine the life and thought of Wiligut, and the reasons for his intellectual hold over the leader of the most powerful organisation in the Third Reich.
Wiligut was born in Vienna into a military family and followed his grandfather and father into the Austrian army, joining the 99th Infantry at Mostar, Herzegovina in late 1884 and reaching the rank of captain by the time he was 37. Throughout his years in the army, he maintained his interest in literature and folklore, writing poetry with a distinctly nationalistic flavour. In 1903, a book of his poems entitled Seyfrieds Runen was published by Friedrich Schalk, who had also published Guido von List. Although his studies in mythology had led him to join a quasi- Masonic lodge called the Schlarraffia in 1889, Wiligut does not seem to have been active in the volkisch or Pan- German nationalist movements at this time. (2)
During the First World War, Wiligut saw action against the Russians in the Carpathians and was later transferred to the Italian front; by the summer of 1917, he had reached the rank of colonel. Decorated for bravery and highly thought of by his superiors, Wiligut was discharged from the army in January 1919, after nearly 35 years of exemplary service.
At around this time, the Viennese occult underground began to buzz with rumours concerning Wiligut and his alleged possession of an ‘ancestral memory’ that allowed him to recall the history of the Teutonic people all the way back to the year 228,000 BC. According to Wiligut, his astonishing clairvoyant ability was the result of an uninterrupted family lineage extending thousands of years into the past. He claimed to have been initiated into the secrets of his family by his father in 1890. Goodrick-Clarke has identified the source of this information about Wiligut as Theodor Czepl, who knew of Wiligut through his occult connections in Vienna, which included Wiligut’s cousin, Willy Thaler, and various members of the Order of the New Templars (ONT). Czepl paid several visits to Wiligut at his Salzburg home in the winter of 1920, and it was during these visits that Wiligut claimed that the Bible had been written in Germany, and that the Germanic god Krist had been appropriated by Christianity. (3)
According to Wiligut’s view of prehistory, the Earth was originally lit by three suns and was inhabited by various mythological beings, including giants and dwarves. For many tens of thousands of years, the world was convulsed with warfare until Wiligut’s ancestors, the Adler-Wiligoten, brought peace with the foundation of the ‘second Boso culture’ and the city of Arual-Joruvallas (Goslar, the chief shrine of ancient Germany) in 78,000 BC. The following millennia saw yet more conflicts involving various now-lost civilisations, until 12,500 BC, when the religion of Krist was established. Three thousand years later, an opposing group of Wotanists challenged this hitherto universal Germanic faith, and crucified the prophet of Krist, Baldur-Chrestos, who nevertheless managed to escape to Asia. The Wotanists destroyed Goslar in 1200 BC, forcing the followers of Krist to establish a new temple at Exsternsteine, near Detmold. (4)
The Wiligut family itself was originally the result of a mating between the gods of air and water, and in later centuries fled from persecution at the hands of Charlemagne, first to the Faroe Islands and then to Russia. Wiligut claimed that his family line included such heroic Germanic figures as Armin the Cherusker and Wittukind. As Goodrick-Clarke notes: ‘It will be evident from this epic account of putative genealogy and family history that Wiligut’s prehistorical speculations primarily served as a stage upon which he could project the experiences and importance of his own ancestors.’ (5) In addition, Peter Levenda makes the salient point that Wiligut’s ‘cross-eyed thesis’ was based on a spurious amalgamation of genuine cultural traditions (such as those described in the Eddas) and Theosophical belief systems that have little or no provenance in the actual history of mythology. (6)
In Wiligut’s view, the victimisation of his family that had been going on for tens of thousands of years was continuing at the hands of the Catholic Church, the Freemasons and the Jews, all of whom he held responsible for Germany’s defeat in the First World War. His already somewhat precarious mental health was further undermined when his infant son died, thus destroying the male line of the family. This placed a great strain on his relationship with his wife, Malwine, who in any event was not particularly impressed with his claims of prehistoric greatness for his family. His home life continued to deteriorate, until his violence, threats to kill Malwine and bizarre occult interests resulted in his being committed to the mental asylum at Salzburg in November 1924. Certified insane, he was confined there until 1927.
In spite of this, Wiligut maintained contact with his colleagues in various occult circles, including the ONT and the Edda Society. Five years after his release from the asylum, Wiligut decided to move to Germany and settled in Munich. There he was feted by German occultists as a fount of priceless information on the remote and glorious history of the Germanic people.
Wiligut’s introduction to Heinrich Himmler came about through the former’s friend Richard Anders, who had contributed to the Edda Society’s Hagal magazine and who was now an officer in the SS. Himmler was greatly impressed with the old man’s ancestral memory, which implied a racial purity going back much further than 1750 (the year to which SS recruits had to be able to prove their Aryan family history). (7) Wiligut joined the SS in September 1933, using the name ‘Karl Maria Weisthor’. He was made head of the Department for Pre-and Early History in the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Munich, where he was charged with the task of recording on paper the events he clairvoyantly recalled. His work evidently met with the satisfaction of the Reichsfuhrer-SS, who promoted him to SS-Oberfuhrer (lieutenant-brigadier) in November 1934. (8)
As if his own ravings were not enough, Weisthor introduced Himmler to another occultist, a German crypto- historian and List Society member named Gunther Kirchhoff (1892–1975) who believed in the existence of energy lines crossing the face of the Earth. Weisthor took it upon himself to forward a number of Kirchhoff’s essays and dissertations on ancient Germanic tradition to Himmler, who gave instructions to the Ahnenerbe (the SS Association for Research and Teaching on Heredity) to study them. One such dissertation concerned a detailed survey undertaken by Kirchhoff and Weisthor in the region of the Murg Valley near Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. After exhaustively examining ‘old half-timbered houses, architectural ornament (including sculpture, coats-of-arms, runes, and other symbols), crosses, inscriptions, and natural and man-made rock formations in the forest’, (9) the two occultists concluded that the region had been a prehistoric centre of the Krist religion.
Unfortunately for Kirchhoff, even the Ahnenerbe came to think of him as a crackpot who understood nothing of scholarly prehistorical research (quite an indictment, coming from that particular organisation). When Kirchhoff accused them, along with the Catholic Church, of conspiring against him, the Ahnenerbe responded by describing his work as ‘rubbish’ and him as a ‘fantasist of the worst kind’. (10) In spite of this, Himmler continued to instruct the Ahnenerbe to take seriously Kirchhoff’s unscholarly rantings, until the outbreak of the Second World War forced him firmly into the background.
Weisthor, on the other hand, would make one further important contribution to Himmler’s SS. While travelling through Westphalia during the Nazi electoral campaign of January 1933, Himmler was profoundly affected by the atmosphere of the region, with its romantic castles and the mist- (and myth-) shrouded Teutoburger Forest. After deciding to take over a castle for SS use, he returned to Westphalia in November and viewed the Wewelsburg castle, which he appropriated in August 1934 with the intention of turning it into an ideological-education college for SS officers. Although at first belonging to the Race and Settlement Main Office, the Wewelsburg castle was placed under the control of Himmler’s Personal Staff in February 1935.
It is likely that Himmler’s view of the Wewelsburg castle was influenced by Weisthor’s assertion that it ‘was destined to become a magical German strongpoint in a future conflict between Europe and Asia’. (11) Weisthor’s inspiration for this prediction was a Westphalian legend regarding a titanic future battle between East and West. Himmler found this particularly interesting, in view of his own conviction that a major confrontation between East and West was inevitable — even if it were still a century or more in the future. In addition, it was Weisthor who influenced the development of SS ritual (which we shall examine later in this chapter) and who designed the SS Totenkopfring that symbolised membership of the order. The ring design was based on a death’s head, and included
