How important was the occult in terms of the Third Reich?
>>1289807
Not at all, Wolfenstein is not a WW2 documentary. Himmler was into that sort of thing but very few people supported him.
>>1289820
To be fair though, Hitler was into the occult himself apparently. Wasn't the inner circle of the NSDAP basically the same as in the Thule-Society?
The Thule Society (1918) does predate Hitler's political action (1919-onwards).
Before the Thule Society was, I would recommend looking up Ariosophy and Madam Blavatsky as occult precursors of race theory and believers of quite the insane shit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariosophy
On a somewhat more political, practical side, the Völkisch movement has earlier roots still, all the way back into the 19th Century
The Mein Kampf is dedicated to Dietrich Eckart, who was involved in the Thule Society even if not fully a member.
The thing is, even if Hitler was precociously identified by the Thule Society as a German messianic figure, the very one they were waiting for, Hitler is less the sorcerer certain moviemakers would like you to think, and more of a practical man with little patience for paganism and mysticism. The so-called Positive Christianity would have been ideal for Hitler, as opposed to start over.
The Thule Society dissolved before 1930, but the various figures mentioned so far in the thread (Evola, Savitri Devi, Himmler) would continue.
Himmler and others founded the Ahnenerbe in 1935, which did all manner of crazy archaeological expeditions driven by that man's obsession with occultism and race, which include the expedition to Tibet. Hitler was well aware of the funding the institute received.
Evola and Savitri Devi kept writing long after WW2.
The Occult Roots of Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke connects the dots all the way to 1935
>>1289838
Again on the subject of Hitler himself, Mattias Gardell writes:
In documentaries portraying the Third Reich, Hitler is cast as a master magician; these documentaries typically include scenes in which Hitler is speaking at huge mass meetings. [...] Cuts mix Hitler screaming with regiments marching under the sign of the swastika. Instead of providing a translation of his verbal crescendos, the sequence is overlaid with a speaker talking about something different. All this combines to demonize Hitler as an evil wizard spellbinding an unwitting German people to become his zombified servants until they are liberated from the spell by the Allied victory after which, suddenly, there were no German Nazis left among the populace. How convenient it would be if this image were correct. National socialism could be defeated with garlic. Watchdog groups could be replaced with a few vampire killers, and resources being directed into anti-racist community programs could be directed at something else. [...]
The truth, however, is that millions of ordinary German workers, farmers and businessmen supported the national socialist program. [...] They were people who probably considered themselves good citizens, which is far more frightening than had they merely been demons.
Goodrick-Clarke dedicates an appendix of The Occult Roots to debunk some 60s-70s books who are full of similar sensationalist bullshit.
I understand /his/'s frustration with separating the bullshit from the truth on this particular subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93German_Conspiracy_Trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Committee
The Berlin Committee was disbanded in 1918, but before that:
>Following the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, Pratap's Government is known to have corresponded with the nascent Soviet Government. In 1918, Pratap met the Russian leader Leon Trotsky in Petrograd before meeting the Kaiser in Berlin; he urged both to mobillise against British India.
So it's WWI history and we're dealing with socialists, but there's a very interesting connection with the Nazis, the Indische Legion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Legion
However what would become the "Indian Volunteer Legion of the Waffen-SS" is 1942-1945 material.
Before that, the Indian National Army was the most famous and successful force to fight with the Axis, it was also established in '42.
Connecting the Berlin Committee with the SS is difficult for two reasons:
- in its last days the Berlin Committee contacted Trotsky and the Communists
- there's a 24 year gap to fill between the end of the Berlin Committee and the rise of respected, pro-Axis fighting forces made of Hindus in both Europe and India
One of the Germans listed in the people involved with the Hindu-German Conspiracy is Franz von Papen.
>Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination. However, Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives, during which some of his confidantes were killed by the Nazis.
All other Germans I could find didn't really like Hitler, Werner Otto von Hentig criticized the Nazis and their anti-semitic riots.
Another is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_von_Niedermayer
A superspy, friend of Himmler, arrested and charged with advocating defeatism, not released until WW2 was over.
>>1289844
To sum things up, I would say that:
0. The British Indian Army was ordered to fight on the Western Front in WWI. If pacifism is enough of a big deal to Hinduism, it's easy to imagine some Hindus resenting the British for this.
1. High-ranking Germans were sympathetic to Hindu dreams of independence well before the Third Reich existed, and cooperated with Hindus living in Germany @ the Berlin Commitee. This would culminate into the Hindu-German conspiracy.
2. This Hindu-German sympathy is bipartisan: the would-be communists would see the Hindus as a poor, oppressed people and the British as their capitalist exploiters, the would-be nazis could also see them as a people in need of self-determination that shares their Aryan ancestry and possibly even their destiny.
3. This sympathy is also independent from occultism and race ideals.
4. Race would become a factor as soon as the SS researchers on culture and race get their hands on the Vedas and start looking Eastward.
5. Things really go occult when Evola, Himmler and ultimately Savitri Devi, who spied the Allies in India, introduce Eastern religious concepts to the nazis, beginning with the cycles of history (i.e. Kali-Yuga, etc.).
>>1289840
>I understand /his/'s frustration with separating the bullshit from the truth on this particular subject.
I don't remember where I read it, but there was a story about a SS guy I think who was supposed to be interrogated by Himmler and other higher ups. Supposedly he was invited into a room where Himmler and other SS officers sat in a circle concentrating all their will power onto the guy in order 'force' him to tell the truth.
Anyhow, long story short, this reminded me a little of 'The Men Who Stare at Goats'. Not in the sense that I believe they had actual supernatural powers, but it being a weird mix of ideology and woo. Like that one general who tried to walk through walls unsuccessfully, over and over again.
Besides that I'm against mystifying the Third Reich because I think turning it into something extraordinary makes it seem like it can't happen again. That said, 'The Man Who Stare at Goats' shows similar stuff still happens. Not to the extent of Nazi Germany, but it seems like the seed is there.
>>1289845
Do you think they had contact to secret societies in other western countries? Like the Golden Dawn and stuff like that?
>>1289868
>The Theosophical Society was officially formed in New York City, United States, on 17 November 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and others.
After Helena Blavatsky's death in 1891, the Society's leaders seemed at first to work together peacefully. This did not last long. Judge was accused by Olcott and then prominent Theosophist Annie Besant of forging letters from the Mahatmas; he ended his association with Olcott and Besant in 1895 and took most of the Society's American Section with him. The original organisation led by Olcott and Besant remains today based in India and is known as the Theosophical Society - Adyar. The group led by Judge further splintered into a faction led by Katherine Tingley, and another associated with Judge's secretary Ernest Temple Hargrove. While Hargrove's faction no longer survives, the faction led by Tingley is today known as the Theosophical Society with the clarifying statement, "International Headquarters, Pasadena, California". A third organization, the United Lodge of Theosophists or ULT, in 1909 split off from the latter organization.
In 1902, Rudolf Steiner became General Secretary of the German/Austrian division of the Theosophical Society. He maintained a Western-oriented course, relatively independent from the Adyar headquarters.[9][10] After serious philosophical conflicts with Annie Besant and other members of the International leadership on the spiritual significance of Christ and on the status of the young boy Jiddu Krishnamurti (see section below), most of the German and Austrian members split off in 1913 and formed the Anthroposophical Society. The latter remains active today and has branches in several countries, including the US and Canada.
>>1289901
The English headquarters are at 50 Gloucester Place, London.
The Theosophical Society in Ireland [3] based in Pembroke Road, Dublin, is a wholly independent organisation which claims to have received its charter directly from Helena Blavatsky. The original group contained (among others) George W. Russell (A.E.) poet and mystic, and the leadership role later fell to Russell's friend P.G. Bowen, (author and teacher of practical occultism) and later still to Bowen's long time student Dorothy Emerson. The current leadership of this group were students of Emerson. The independent Dublin organisation should not be confused with a similarly named group affiliated to Adyar which is based in Belfast but claims an all-Ireland jurisdiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society
>>1289903
But the biggest question is: what exactly happened to the Thule Society once formally disbanded?
>>1289901
However, the nazis hated Rudolf Steiner:
>Towards the end of his life and after his death, massive defamatory press attacks against Steiner were undertaken by early National Socialist leaders (including Adolf Hitler) and by other right-wing nationalists. These criticized Steiner's thought and Anthroposophy as being incompatible with National Socialist racial ideology and charged both that Steiner was influenced by his close connections with Jews and that he was himself Jewish.[40][146]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner#Judaism
>>1289807
>How important was the occult in terms of the Third Reich?
Not important at all.
I think part of the confusion stems from a misrepresentation of what 19th century secret societies actually were. In many empires and kingdoms, since there was no democratic process, there were no political parties. Even after constitutional monarchy in England and the French Revolution (and similar events), secret socities continued to exist as people were uncertain of the stability of their new political rights.
There's a good essay in "The Revolutionary Internationals of 1864-1943" on the effect Secret Societies had on the International Workingmen's Association (the First International). Marx and a variety of Trade Unions and Socialist Parties were firmly against the secret organizing of Mikhail Bakunin, who founded many secret societies with the aim of insurrection and revolution against the national states of europe. This conflict between public political parties/unions and secret anarchist socities (born out of psuedo-free masonry) is what led to the collapse of the first International.
tldr: Don't read too much into 19th century secret societies. It was the culturally normative mode of organizing, in systems of governing (monarchy, empire, feudalism) that did not want association of citizens in groups independent of the ruler. These secret societies very naturally gave way to political parties and revolutionary cells.
