affairs to this day.
Indeed, it is somewhat ironic that the political system that identified the Jews as its scapegoat and moved with such barbarism against them should now be chosen by many conspiracy theorists as the scapegoat responsible for the machinations of a putative ‘New World Order’. It is quite possible that the concept of Nazi survival itself has survived to the present day because of the very extremity of the crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich. While it may be argued that our continuing interest in Nazi Germany constitutes an unhealthy fascination with the suffering and terror of an ultimate inhumanity, there is also a case for saying that this interest is born of a deep and despairing bafflement (see the Introduction). I believe it is not going too far to suggest that the elaborate conspiracy theory involving Nazi survival is born of a deeply ingrained suspicion that such wickedness could not have been completely defeated at the war’s end; this suspicion may well have been reinforced by the fact that the volkisch and Pan-German forerunners of the Nazi Party were influenced by occult and mythological belief systems, combined with the more generalised occult revival occurring throughout Europe in the postwar years.
Of course, conspiracy theories cannot survive without conspiratologists to conceive and propagate them. We shall now, therefore, turn our attention to the means by which the theory of Nazi survival has been developed.
Throughout the postwar period, material has been added constantly to the sinister mythological system built around the idea that the Third Reich continues its activities in a hidden location. This cabal of surviving Nazis is sometimes referred to as the Fourth Reich but more often as the ‘Black Order’. Those who contend that such a concept can have no place in a rational person’s world view are underestimating the subtle power exerted by the strange concepts contained within the field of popular occultism. The British writer Joscelyn Godwin has produced a splendid, highly informative study of this field in his book Arktos The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival, in which he maintains an admirably sceptical standpoint while acknowledging that the notions embodied in popular occultism must be treated with respect, if only for their powerful influence over the public mind. He also includes a pertinent quote from the German Pastor Ekkehard Hieronimus regarding popular beliefs:
What is going on in the lower reaches of society is probably very much more potent and effective than what happens in intellectual circles. We think, of course, that it is the intellectuals — now in the broadest sense of the term, in which I include the scientists — who define our life. But lately the intellectuals have been rather like a film of oil on a great puddle of water: it shines mischievously and thinks that it is the whole thing, but it is only one molecule thick. I can see quite definite things coming towards us. The things going on in the so-called cultural underground, or the so-called subculture, are very strange. (28)
Godwin then wryly offers an example of a product of this ‘subculture’, a report from the 16 April 1991 issue of the London newspaper the Sun, that claims that the ruins of Atlantis have been discovered in the Arctic by a joint French-Soviet research expedition. The ‘proof is a photomontage of some Doric columns rising from an icy landscape. While the vast majority of people seeing this would probably think it interesting but almost certainly spurious, the idea is nevertheless firmly embedded in their unconscious. As Godwin notes (and as we have discussed in earlier chapters), uncritical belief in the literal reality of certain occult concepts aided in no small degree the rise of National Socialism. ‘One has to be thankful that our tabloids are not proclaiming Aryan supremacy or describing Jewish ritual murder; but one may well ask what collective attitudes are being formed by the currents in the “great puddle” of popular occultism.’ (29)
It is one thing for a collective attitude to admit the possibility of visitation by alien spacecraft, or the existence of ghosts or relict hominids such as Bigfoot, the Yeti and so on; it is quite another to admit of the undying — perhaps supernatural — power of an ideology that has already irreparably demeaned humanity and could quite conceivably wreak havoc once again.
In 1971, Wilhelm Landig published a strange novel entitled Gotzen gegen Thule (Godlets Against Thule). In an echo of the nineteenth-century vogue for presenting fantasy as a ‘true story’, Landig subtitles his novel ‘a fiction full of facts’ and claims that it contains accurate information on the radical advances in aviation and weapons technology made in the years since the end of the war. Gotzen gegen Thule is fundamentally an adventure story that follows the exploits of two German airmen, Recke and Reimer (which Godwin translates as ‘Brave Warrior’ and ‘Poet’ respectively) (30), who are sent to a secret German base in the far north of Canada towards the end of the Second World War. This base, known as Point 103, is a large underground facility possessing highly advanced technology and supplied by powerful allies in the United States. Its occupants constitute a force opposed to the Third Reich, which is seen as a Satanic force.
Point 103 is, in fact, solidly anti-racist, as evidenced by one scene in which a conference there is attended by ‘a Tibetan lama, Japanese, Chinese, and American officers, Indians, a Black Ethiopian, Arabs, Persians, a Brazilian officer, a Venezuelan, a Siamese, and a full-blooded Mexican Indian’. (31) Travel to and from this remote and ultra- secret facility is by a highly advanced aircraft called the V7, which is shaped like a sphere with a rotating circular wing containing jet turbines. Interestingly enough, even the responsible and sceptical Godwin is willing to concede that this part of Landig’s novel may well have a basis in fact (see Chapter Eight).
The two airmen are sent on a mission to Prague to prevent the disc-plane technology from falling into Allied hands; following the end of the war and the defeat of Nazi Germany, Point 103 declares itself independent and continues with its pursuit of Thulean ideals. These ideals are explained by another character, an ex-Waffen-SS officer named Gutmann (‘Good man’). Godwin provides a summary of the Thulean philosophy:
The light of Thule comes not from the East but from the North. Its tradition is ‘Uranian,’ being derived from Uranos, lord of the cosmic world order and of the primordial Paradise of the Aryan Race, situated at the North Pole. It was Uranos’s usurping son Saturn who brought upon this originally happy and unified humanity the dubious gift of the egoic state. The temptations consequent upon this change in the human constitution lead to the loss of primeval unity and, eventually, the destruction of Saturn’s realm, Atlantis. Thereupon the warm climate of the secret island of the Hyperboreans was suddenly replaced by bitter winter. The primordial races of the Arctic and of the Nordic Atlantis both lost their homes, and were forced to migrate southwards. Wherever they settled — in Europe, Persia, India, and elsewhere — they tried to remake their lost Paradise, and in their myths and legends cherished the memory of it. (32)
As Godwin notes, Uranos and Saturn seem to be personifications of events in remote antiquity; however, the Thulean religion included an unmanifested God beyond space and time, and a Son through whom the will of the Father operates and who is identified with the laws of nature. Landig himself identifies the legend of Thule (which in geographical terms is located close to Point 103) with that of the spiritual centre of the world, sometimes called Shambhala. The reader will recall Nicholas Roerich’s encounter with a golden flying disc, described in Chapter Four, and how his guide stated that the UFO represented the beneficent influence of Rigden-Jyepo, the King of the World, who was watching over them. Through another character, a French collaborator named Belisse (‘from Belisane, sun god of the Gauls’), (33) Landig describes in elaborate detail the nature of this phenomenon, which he calls ‘Manisolas’. They are living, intelligent bio-mechanical entities with a complex life cycle that begins as a circle of light and continues through a metallic form before reaching the reproductive stage. Through a regenerative process, a new Manisola grows within the womb of the adult.
The regenerated part is expelled by the remaining mother-nucleus as a new energetic circle of light, corresponding to a birthing technique. This new circle enters on the same seven developmental stages, while the expelling maternal element rolls itself into a ball, which then explodes. The metallic remains contain particles of copper. The optical impressions that eyewitnesses of these Manisolas have had up to now are basically quite uniform. In the daytime they display an extremely bright gold or silver luminescence, sometimes with traces of rose-colored smoke which then often condense into grayish-white trails. At night the disks shine in glowing or glossy colors, showing on occasion long flames at the edges and red and blue sparks, which can grow so strong as to wreathe them in fire. Most remarkable is their power of reaction against pursuers, like that of a rational creature, far exceeding any possible electronic self-steering or radio control. (34)
Landig goes on to describe how, throughout the ages, all mythologies refer in one way or another to the Manisolas, which are seen as symbols of spiritual potency, unity and love. Although Point 103 is claimed to be a non-racist society, the Thuleans nevertheless consider Israel to be in eternal opposition to their ideals, and remember the time when their ancestors, the Nordic Atlanteans, were held in slavery by Semitic sorcerers.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Ark of the Covenant is brought into this bizarre occult adventure and is described
