A Collation of Sources
Scarlett and the Beast ch22
ENGLISH FREEMASONRY AND THE HITLER PROJECT
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ENGLISH FREEMASONRY AND THE HITLER PROJECT
Late in 1917 Sebottendorff was in Munich to begin organizing the ThuleEckart participated in a series of seances with Rosenberg and the infamous Russian occultist G.I. Gurdjieff.59 During these seances, Eckart was "told of the imminent appearance of the German messiah, a Lord Maitreya." Eckart was further instructed about his own destiny. He was "to prepare the vessel of the Anti-Christ, the man inspired by Lucifer to conquer the world and lead the Aryan race to glory.60
Society. With assistance from Golden Dawn members, on August
17, 1918, the Thule Society was officially founded.
53
Sebottendorff elevated himself to Grand Master, then recruited from among the
German noble families and aristocracy to use the Society as their counterrevolutionary headquarters. To his
later discredit and ultimate downfall, Sebottendorff published a list of the Thule Society's membership.
563
Sebottendorff claimed he had been sent to Germany by the Ascended Masters of Islam, who "had
entrusted him with the mission of illuminating Germany through the revelation of the secrets of advanced
magic and initiation into ancient oriental mysteries."
54
One of the mysteries Sebottendorff imparted to the Thule membership was the so-called revelation that the Jews were behind world revolution and therefore must be annihilated
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Nazi Magicians. Controversy: Enlightenment, 'Border Science,' and Occultism in the Third Reich by Eric Kurlander
file:///C:/Users/aa/Desktop/PDFdown/Esau/The_Nazi_Magicians_Controversy_Enlighten.pdf
Already in the 1920s, prominent esotericists such as Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, one of the progenitors of
the occult doctrine of ariosophy, and Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a leading astrologer and cofounder of the proto-Nazi Thule Society, argued that Nazi ideology and iconography, as well as the party apparatus, had emerged from the Wilhelmine occult milieu.6 In the 1930s, Hermann Rauschning, the Nazi Gauleiter-turned-Hitler-critic, likewise attributed the success
of National Socialism to the fact that ;every German has one foot in Atlantis, where he seeks a better fatherland.;7 The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung compared Hitler to a "truly mystic medicine man, a form of spiritual vessel, a demi-deity, who had managed to manipulate the 'unconscious of 78 million Germans.'" 8 In 1940, British journalist and esotericist Lewis Spence even published a book-length monograph, The Occult Causes of the Present War, which attributed the Nazi ideology
of conquest to a range of German occult fantasies and pagan religious traditions.9
In 1935, Hitler even sent a warm personal telegram to Hubert Korsch,
the president of the German Astrological Central Office (Astrologische Zentralstelle), congratulating
him on a successful congress of astrologers that had recently taken place in Wernigerode.27 The
theosophically-affiliated Esoteric Study Society (Esoterische Studiengesellschaft) in Leipzig was
allowed to continue promoting lectures on 'characterology, chirology, graphology, and occultism,' as long as the group indicated its 'solidarity with Hitler's antimaterialism, on the one
hand, and [his] aggressive nationalism, on the other. 28 Many Freemasons and anthroposophists
even joined the party with little trouble, following superficial reviews of their ideological loyalties.29 Provided that occult groups or individuals were deemed sufficiently supportive of the
Nazi 'racial community' (Volksgemeinschaft)i.e., non-sectarian, -the Third Reich appeared reluctant to carry out police actions against them.
As one professional debunker lamented in the pages of the Volkischer Beobachter in 1937, the Third Reich had permitted 'the proclivity for superstition and mysticism' to be 'systematically fomented,' leaving 'nearly 80 percent of Germans' still in some form susceptible to this nonsense.'
, Nazi interest in occultism was nothing new. The NSDAP
had emerged, after all, from the occult-oriented Thule Society.88 Himmler and Hess both practiced
astrology and promoted border-scientific doctrines such as cosmobiology, pendulum dowsing, and
biodynamic agriculture throughout their careers. Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darre (the future
Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Hoss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied
ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, which
sought to (re)create a racially-pure, peasant-based Germanic utopia in eastern Europe, and promoted
a mystical blood-and-soil paganism.89 In 1932, Goebbels even gave the Weimar-era horror writer
and esotericist Hanns Heinz Ewers the responsibility of composing the official biography, and
speaking at the grave of the Nazi martyr Horst Wessel.90 Meanwhile, Hitler apparently read
and annotated at some point before 1933 the parapsychologist Ernst Schertel's book, Magic:
History, Theory, and Practice, hoping to glean insights into manipulating public opinion.91
As an antidote to 'Jewish' physics, Hitlerand Himmler sponsored Hans Horbiger's 'World Ice Theory,' which postulated, based on
'visions' Horbiger had had of prehistoric frost giants and of blocks of ice floating in space that all human history, mythology, geology, and physics could be explained by moons of ice hitting the Earth.96 \
file:///C:/Users/aa/Desktop/PDFdown/Esau/The_Nazi_Magicians_Controversy_Enlighten.pdf
Already in the 1920s, prominent esotericists such as Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, one of the progenitors of
the occult doctrine of ariosophy, and Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a leading astrologer and cofounder of the proto-Nazi Thule Society, argued that Nazi ideology and iconography, as well as the party apparatus, had emerged from the Wilhelmine occult milieu.6 In the 1930s, Hermann Rauschning, the Nazi Gauleiter-turned-Hitler-critic, likewise attributed the success
of National Socialism to the fact that ;every German has one foot in Atlantis, where he seeks a better fatherland.;7 The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung compared Hitler to a "truly mystic medicine man, a form of spiritual vessel, a demi-deity, who had managed to manipulate the 'unconscious of 78 million Germans.'" 8 In 1940, British journalist and esotericist Lewis Spence even published a book-length monograph, The Occult Causes of the Present War, which attributed the Nazi ideology
of conquest to a range of German occult fantasies and pagan religious traditions.9
In 1935, Hitler even sent a warm personal telegram to Hubert Korsch,
the president of the German Astrological Central Office (Astrologische Zentralstelle), congratulating
him on a successful congress of astrologers that had recently taken place in Wernigerode.27 The
theosophically-affiliated Esoteric Study Society (Esoterische Studiengesellschaft) in Leipzig was
allowed to continue promoting lectures on 'characterology, chirology, graphology, and occultism,' as long as the group indicated its 'solidarity with Hitler's antimaterialism, on the one
hand, and [his] aggressive nationalism, on the other. 28 Many Freemasons and anthroposophists
even joined the party with little trouble, following superficial reviews of their ideological loyalties.29 Provided that occult groups or individuals were deemed sufficiently supportive of the
Nazi 'racial community' (Volksgemeinschaft)i.e., non-sectarian, -the Third Reich appeared reluctant to carry out police actions against them.
As one professional debunker lamented in the pages of the Volkischer Beobachter in 1937, the Third Reich had permitted 'the proclivity for superstition and mysticism' to be 'systematically fomented,' leaving 'nearly 80 percent of Germans' still in some form susceptible to this nonsense.'
, Nazi interest in occultism was nothing new. The NSDAP
had emerged, after all, from the occult-oriented Thule Society.88 Himmler and Hess both practiced
astrology and promoted border-scientific doctrines such as cosmobiology, pendulum dowsing, and
biodynamic agriculture throughout their careers. Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darre (the future
Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Hoss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied
ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, which
sought to (re)create a racially-pure, peasant-based Germanic utopia in eastern Europe, and promoted
a mystical blood-and-soil paganism.89 In 1932, Goebbels even gave the Weimar-era horror writer
and esotericist Hanns Heinz Ewers the responsibility of composing the official biography, and
speaking at the grave of the Nazi martyr Horst Wessel.90 Meanwhile, Hitler apparently read
and annotated at some point before 1933 the parapsychologist Ernst Schertel's book, Magic:
History, Theory, and Practice, hoping to glean insights into manipulating public opinion.91
As an antidote to 'Jewish' physics, Hitlerand Himmler sponsored Hans Horbiger's 'World Ice Theory,' which postulated, based on
'visions' Horbiger had had of prehistoric frost giants and of blocks of ice floating in space that all human history, mythology, geology, and physics could be explained by moons of ice hitting the Earth.96 \
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hitler's Monsters: The Occult Roots of Nazism and the Emergence of the Nazi ' Supernatural Imaginary'* Eric Kurlander
file:///C:/Users/aa/Desktop/PDFdown/Esau/Hitlers_Monsters_The_Occult_Roots_of_Naz.pdf
Ariosophy prophesied the resurgence of the
ancient Indo-European Aryan race, now embodied by the Germanic people, through
adherence to a series of arcane pagan religious practices and strict racial purity. In
Liebenfels's case, these ideas were supplemented by his own occult doctrine of theozoology, which suggested the extraterrestrial origins of the original Aryan 'God Men'
and recommended the forced sterilization of the biologically inferior.5
We now know
that Hitler himself, like Nauhaus, read Lanz von Liebenfels' semi-pornographic, occult
magazine Ostara.
6
So when Hitler
in Mein Kampf dismisses 'racist German wandering scholars ... [who] rave about old
Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield', a clear reference to Thulists such as Nauhaus and Sebottendorff, one is compelled to take him at
his word.11
Hence, in
contrast to the esoteric 'secret doctrines', elitist social composition and obscure practices of Wilhelmine occultism, the Nazi 'supernatural imaginary' incorporated an eclectic array of popular mythologies and contradictory attitudes towards modernity
that helped define the party's appeal as a dynamic, mass movement.
It was Thule people to whom Hitler came in the very beginning; it was Thule people who first joined
forces with Hitler.
Rudolf von Sebottendorff, 193320
The fact
remains that Rudolf Hess, Hans Frank, Alfred Rosenberg, Dietrich Eckart, and the
co-founder and first chairman of the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or
DAP), Karl Harrer, were either frequent guests or outright Thule members.21 So too was
Sebottendorff, who organized the purchase in 1918 of the 'Munich Observer' (Munchener
Beobachter) as a vehicle for promoting the German Order's political programme.22
At the first joint meeting of the Thule Society and German
Order, which happened to be 9 November 1918, the day that Philipp Scheidemann
proclaimed Germany a Republic, Sebottendorff urged his colleagues to take up arms
against 'Juda'. A few weeks later, in December 1918, Sebottendorff devised a plan to
kidnap Kurt Eisner, the Jewish Socialist prime minister of the newly declared Bavarian
Republic, but it failed miserably. So did a scheme to infiltrate the civilian militia for
counterrevolutionary aims, which resulted in the arrest of multiple Thule members and
public denunciation in the regional parliament.24
The most sensational of these plots was an attempt to stage a coup against the
Bavarian Soviet Republic in April 1919. Despite having participated in multiple
right-wing putsch attempts over the previous four months, Sebottendorff somehow
obtained permission from Weimar's centre-left government to found his own paramilitary Free Corps, with which he planned to take power in Munich. Before Sebottendorff's putsch against the Communist authorities could be initiated, however, the Bavarian
'Red Army' uncovered the plot and arrested seven conspirators, including Walter
Nauhaus, who were summarily executed. The 'murder' of these seven 'hostages' raised
the Thule Society's profile in radical nationalist circles across Germany, but it also discredited Sebottendorff, who was blamed for leaking the names of the conspirators.25
Although the NSDAP cut its ties with Sebottendorff and company in 1920, the Thule
Society, - and Fritsch's occult German Order that preceded it, 'played an integral role
in the formation of the Nazi Party.33 From Anton Drexler, Dietrich Eckart and Alfred
Rosenberg, to Rudolf Hess and Hans Frank, 'almost all Hitler's early collaborators were connected with the Thule, even if they were not themselves members'.34 And despite
the Nazi Party's later persecution of many esoteric organizations and occult practitioners, the early DAP, its volkisch allies and its major press organ were dominated by
individuals with an abiding interest in elements of occultism. In fact, by the mid-1920s,
Hitler's NSDAP had managed to attract a number of former rivals, including 'volkisch
wandering scholars' such as Dinter, Fritsch and Wiligut. Hitler's NSDAP was a very
different animal from Nauhaus and Sebottendorff's Thule Society. But there is little
question that the party had its organizational roots in the Wilhelmine occult milieu.
One
of the co-founders of Ariosophy, Lanz von Liebenfels, his postwar publisher, Herbert
Reichstein, and Sebottendorff himself all insisted that Nazi ideology was a clear expression of their Austro-German Ariosophist views.36 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke also finds
a number of ideological affinities between Ariosophists such as Liebenfels, List and
Hitler, although he describes Ariosophy as 'more a symptom than a cause in the way
that it anticipated Nazism'.37
Indeed, Hitler
referred to Christianity at least as often as he cited German mythology or the occult.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes hundreds of references to the Old and New Testaments,
occasionally complimenting Jesus and early Christianity.42 Hitler also had a tendency
to invoke 'providence' and divine intervention in his speeches and conversations,
which is why some historians have argued for the profoundly Christian (or at least
pseudo-Christian) elements that suffused Hitler and other Nazis' ideology.43
3 In
rejecting religion and 'mystical knowledge' outright, liberals and Marxists had clearly
misread the German people. Attacking Christianity merely alienated the well-meaning
peasants 'behind whose Christianity hides an authentic faith that is rooted in nature
and the blood'.54
Hitler himself defended
fantastical 'world ice' theories suggesting that the events in the Bible were caused by
giant blocks of ice colliding with earth.55
Hitler also repeatedly compares Jews to
vampires and bloodsuckers, a common trop among Nazi leaders
Though radical antisemites and proponents of Nordic
racial superiority, both List and Liebenfels studied the origins of Korean, Japanese and
Polynesian symbols, believed in Hindu reincarnation and karma, and dabbled in the
Kabbalah (oddly, a common theme among otherwise radical antisemites).67 Liebenfels,
Sebottendorff, Nauhaus and other Ariosophists were also affiliated with the Masonic
Templar Order of the Orient (OTO), which drew explicitly on the Hindu, Chinese,
Islamic and Kabbalistic practices in their initiations and liturgy. In fact Sebottendorff
had moved to Istanbul before the First World War, obtained Turkish citizenship, and
immersed himself in Islamic studies, eastern astrological practices and the Kabbalah,
which he studied with a Turkish Jew.68
Dietrich Eckart was undoubtedly the most important influence on
Hitler in the early days of the Nazi Party (he is supposed to have said on his deathbed
in 1923, 'Hitler will dance, but it is I who play the tune'). Despite his keen intellect
and Machiavellian approach to politics, Eckart was a connoisseur of interwar esotericism and embraced, like Hitler and Himmler, pseudo-scientific doctrines such as World
Ice Theory. Fascinated by Buddhism as well as Christianity, Eckart was also a strong
believer in the power of mythology as a motivational tool and impressed these ideas
on Hitler.78
Rudolf Hess, was a lifelong devotee of
the occult sciences. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, he had thought of becoming an astronomer before volunteering in the First World War and then going off to study history
and geopolitics under the Munich Japanologist and possible Thule Society associate,
Karl Haushofer.91 Unlike his more bourgeois colleagues in the Thule Society, whose
esoteric proclivities he shared, Hess had reservations about the [group's] relative conservatism and elitism. Indeed, after hearing Hitler speak for the first time in early
1920, he withdrew from the Thule Society and shifted his loyalty to the NSDAP.92
Inspired by Sebottendorff and Haushofer, however, Hess remained a devoted student
of Ariosophy, eastern spirituality and astrology until his ill-advised flight to England
in May 1941.93
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
file:///C:/Users/aa/Desktop/PDFdown/Esau/Hitlers_Monsters_The_Occult_Roots_of_Naz.pdf
Ariosophy prophesied the resurgence of the
ancient Indo-European Aryan race, now embodied by the Germanic people, through
adherence to a series of arcane pagan religious practices and strict racial purity. In
Liebenfels's case, these ideas were supplemented by his own occult doctrine of theozoology, which suggested the extraterrestrial origins of the original Aryan 'God Men'
and recommended the forced sterilization of the biologically inferior.5
We now know
that Hitler himself, like Nauhaus, read Lanz von Liebenfels' semi-pornographic, occult
magazine Ostara.
6
So when Hitler
in Mein Kampf dismisses 'racist German wandering scholars ... [who] rave about old
Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield', a clear reference to Thulists such as Nauhaus and Sebottendorff, one is compelled to take him at
his word.11
Hence, in
contrast to the esoteric 'secret doctrines', elitist social composition and obscure practices of Wilhelmine occultism, the Nazi 'supernatural imaginary' incorporated an eclectic array of popular mythologies and contradictory attitudes towards modernity
that helped define the party's appeal as a dynamic, mass movement.
It was Thule people to whom Hitler came in the very beginning; it was Thule people who first joined
forces with Hitler.
Rudolf von Sebottendorff, 193320
The fact
remains that Rudolf Hess, Hans Frank, Alfred Rosenberg, Dietrich Eckart, and the
co-founder and first chairman of the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or
DAP), Karl Harrer, were either frequent guests or outright Thule members.21 So too was
Sebottendorff, who organized the purchase in 1918 of the 'Munich Observer' (Munchener
Beobachter) as a vehicle for promoting the German Order's political programme.22
At the first joint meeting of the Thule Society and German
Order, which happened to be 9 November 1918, the day that Philipp Scheidemann
proclaimed Germany a Republic, Sebottendorff urged his colleagues to take up arms
against 'Juda'. A few weeks later, in December 1918, Sebottendorff devised a plan to
kidnap Kurt Eisner, the Jewish Socialist prime minister of the newly declared Bavarian
Republic, but it failed miserably. So did a scheme to infiltrate the civilian militia for
counterrevolutionary aims, which resulted in the arrest of multiple Thule members and
public denunciation in the regional parliament.24
The most sensational of these plots was an attempt to stage a coup against the
Bavarian Soviet Republic in April 1919. Despite having participated in multiple
right-wing putsch attempts over the previous four months, Sebottendorff somehow
obtained permission from Weimar's centre-left government to found his own paramilitary Free Corps, with which he planned to take power in Munich. Before Sebottendorff's putsch against the Communist authorities could be initiated, however, the Bavarian
'Red Army' uncovered the plot and arrested seven conspirators, including Walter
Nauhaus, who were summarily executed. The 'murder' of these seven 'hostages' raised
the Thule Society's profile in radical nationalist circles across Germany, but it also discredited Sebottendorff, who was blamed for leaking the names of the conspirators.25
Although the NSDAP cut its ties with Sebottendorff and company in 1920, the Thule
Society, - and Fritsch's occult German Order that preceded it, 'played an integral role
in the formation of the Nazi Party.33 From Anton Drexler, Dietrich Eckart and Alfred
Rosenberg, to Rudolf Hess and Hans Frank, 'almost all Hitler's early collaborators were connected with the Thule, even if they were not themselves members'.34 And despite
the Nazi Party's later persecution of many esoteric organizations and occult practitioners, the early DAP, its volkisch allies and its major press organ were dominated by
individuals with an abiding interest in elements of occultism. In fact, by the mid-1920s,
Hitler's NSDAP had managed to attract a number of former rivals, including 'volkisch
wandering scholars' such as Dinter, Fritsch and Wiligut. Hitler's NSDAP was a very
different animal from Nauhaus and Sebottendorff's Thule Society. But there is little
question that the party had its organizational roots in the Wilhelmine occult milieu.
One
of the co-founders of Ariosophy, Lanz von Liebenfels, his postwar publisher, Herbert
Reichstein, and Sebottendorff himself all insisted that Nazi ideology was a clear expression of their Austro-German Ariosophist views.36 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke also finds
a number of ideological affinities between Ariosophists such as Liebenfels, List and
Hitler, although he describes Ariosophy as 'more a symptom than a cause in the way
that it anticipated Nazism'.37
Indeed, Hitler
referred to Christianity at least as often as he cited German mythology or the occult.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes hundreds of references to the Old and New Testaments,
occasionally complimenting Jesus and early Christianity.42 Hitler also had a tendency
to invoke 'providence' and divine intervention in his speeches and conversations,
which is why some historians have argued for the profoundly Christian (or at least
pseudo-Christian) elements that suffused Hitler and other Nazis' ideology.43
3 In
rejecting religion and 'mystical knowledge' outright, liberals and Marxists had clearly
misread the German people. Attacking Christianity merely alienated the well-meaning
peasants 'behind whose Christianity hides an authentic faith that is rooted in nature
and the blood'.54
Hitler himself defended
fantastical 'world ice' theories suggesting that the events in the Bible were caused by
giant blocks of ice colliding with earth.55
Hitler also repeatedly compares Jews to
vampires and bloodsuckers, a common trop among Nazi leaders
Though radical antisemites and proponents of Nordic
racial superiority, both List and Liebenfels studied the origins of Korean, Japanese and
Polynesian symbols, believed in Hindu reincarnation and karma, and dabbled in the
Kabbalah (oddly, a common theme among otherwise radical antisemites).67 Liebenfels,
Sebottendorff, Nauhaus and other Ariosophists were also affiliated with the Masonic
Templar Order of the Orient (OTO), which drew explicitly on the Hindu, Chinese,
Islamic and Kabbalistic practices in their initiations and liturgy. In fact Sebottendorff
had moved to Istanbul before the First World War, obtained Turkish citizenship, and
immersed himself in Islamic studies, eastern astrological practices and the Kabbalah,
which he studied with a Turkish Jew.68
Dietrich Eckart was undoubtedly the most important influence on
Hitler in the early days of the Nazi Party (he is supposed to have said on his deathbed
in 1923, 'Hitler will dance, but it is I who play the tune'). Despite his keen intellect
and Machiavellian approach to politics, Eckart was a connoisseur of interwar esotericism and embraced, like Hitler and Himmler, pseudo-scientific doctrines such as World
Ice Theory. Fascinated by Buddhism as well as Christianity, Eckart was also a strong
believer in the power of mythology as a motivational tool and impressed these ideas
on Hitler.78
Rudolf Hess, was a lifelong devotee of
the occult sciences. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, he had thought of becoming an astronomer before volunteering in the First World War and then going off to study history
and geopolitics under the Munich Japanologist and possible Thule Society associate,
Karl Haushofer.91 Unlike his more bourgeois colleagues in the Thule Society, whose
esoteric proclivities he shared, Hess had reservations about the [group's] relative conservatism and elitism. Indeed, after hearing Hitler speak for the first time in early
1920, he withdrew from the Thule Society and shifted his loyalty to the NSDAP.92
Inspired by Sebottendorff and Haushofer, however, Hess remained a devoted student
of Ariosophy, eastern spirituality and astrology until his ill-advised flight to England
in May 1941.93
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Was Hitler a Darwinian?
Robert J. Richards
file:///C:/Users/aa/Desktop/Old%20Firefox%20Data/Downloads/Was_Hitler_a_Darwinian.pdf
It is not certain to what book on human origins Hitler might have been referring in the conversation during that late January evening. But after his rejection of descent theory, he immediately discussed the 'world-ice theory' (Welteislehre) of Hanns Horbiger (1860-1931). Horbiger was an engineer and amateur astronomer who, in his book Glazial-Kosmogonie (1913), concocted a theory, which came to him in a vision, whereby an icy, dead star fell into a larger one, resulting in the creation of several planetary systems, of which ours was one. The earth, so the theory went, had a number of icy moons that periodically crashed into it causing a series of catastrophes. About ten thousand years ago, another moon spiraled into the earth causing the last global ice-age.88 As these ideas were elaborated by other catastrophists, they included beliefs that an original Aryan civilization existed before ours and that after the impact of that last icy moon, the saved remnants retreated to the high plateaus of Tibet. When things warmed up, these individuals came down from the mountains and eventually reestablish culture. SS chief Heinrich Himmler even sent a research team to Tibet to recover the remains of that Aryan civilization.89 Karl Rode, professor of geology and paleontology at Breslau, urged that world-ice theory was not merely a cosmological hypothesis but an urgermanic 'world view' (Welt-Anschauung) complementary to that of National Socialism.90 Hitler, for his part, contended that world-ice theory was the only assumption that made sense of the sophistication of Greek and Egyptian civilizations, and he even planned a museum that would celebrate Horbiger, along with Ptolemy and Kepler.91
Hitler added that
as a child he was confronted with similar contradictions between science and religion.
He contended that while it was not incorrect to regard God as creator of the lightning bolt, one should not take that literally; rather it would be more profoundly pious (tiefinnerlich fromm sein) to find God in everything (im Gesamten).94
Reflecting the warnings of Gobineau and Chamberlain, Hitler specified the extreme danger of miscegenation for the race of
higher culture:
Historical experience offers numerous examples. It shows in awful clarity that with every mingling of blood of Aryans with lower peoples, the resulting consequence is the end of the culture bearers.99
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Robert J. Richards
file:///C:/Users/aa/Desktop/Old%20Firefox%20Data/Downloads/Was_Hitler_a_Darwinian.pdf
It is not certain to what book on human origins Hitler might have been referring in the conversation during that late January evening. But after his rejection of descent theory, he immediately discussed the 'world-ice theory' (Welteislehre) of Hanns Horbiger (1860-1931). Horbiger was an engineer and amateur astronomer who, in his book Glazial-Kosmogonie (1913), concocted a theory, which came to him in a vision, whereby an icy, dead star fell into a larger one, resulting in the creation of several planetary systems, of which ours was one. The earth, so the theory went, had a number of icy moons that periodically crashed into it causing a series of catastrophes. About ten thousand years ago, another moon spiraled into the earth causing the last global ice-age.88 As these ideas were elaborated by other catastrophists, they included beliefs that an original Aryan civilization existed before ours and that after the impact of that last icy moon, the saved remnants retreated to the high plateaus of Tibet. When things warmed up, these individuals came down from the mountains and eventually reestablish culture. SS chief Heinrich Himmler even sent a research team to Tibet to recover the remains of that Aryan civilization.89 Karl Rode, professor of geology and paleontology at Breslau, urged that world-ice theory was not merely a cosmological hypothesis but an urgermanic 'world view' (Welt-Anschauung) complementary to that of National Socialism.90 Hitler, for his part, contended that world-ice theory was the only assumption that made sense of the sophistication of Greek and Egyptian civilizations, and he even planned a museum that would celebrate Horbiger, along with Ptolemy and Kepler.91
Hitler added that
as a child he was confronted with similar contradictions between science and religion.
He contended that while it was not incorrect to regard God as creator of the lightning bolt, one should not take that literally; rather it would be more profoundly pious (tiefinnerlich fromm sein) to find God in everything (im Gesamten).94
Reflecting the warnings of Gobineau and Chamberlain, Hitler specified the extreme danger of miscegenation for the race of
higher culture:
Historical experience offers numerous examples. It shows in awful clarity that with every mingling of blood of Aryans with lower peoples, the resulting consequence is the end of the culture bearers.99
^^^^^^^^^^^^^