Hitler and his God

Convergences (continued)

During the Red revolution in Bavaria, the legal social-democratic Hoffmann government sought refuge in the town of Bamberg and remained there for some time even after Munich had been liberated in May 1919. This meant that the real authority in the federal state of Bavaria rested with the Reichswehr (as the post-war, reduced German defence forces were renamed), of which the commander was General Arnold von Möhl. This is one of the figures History has overlooked. For Möhl was a man with powerful connections not only in the higher command of the Army but also “with the Pan-Germans and especially with the Thule-Gesellschaft”. 999 Knitting all facts together it becomes obvious that the commander of the Bavarian Reichswehr was involved in a right-wing conspiracy to topple the social-democratic government.

Field Marshall Erich Ludendorff had regained his composure after Germany’s defeat in the war, and appeared in München, looking for support in an eventual coup. (He would soon be involved in the Berlin “Kapp Putsch”.) Captain Karl Mayr will later state that “Ludendorff and his friends were like talent spotters in Hollywood, looking for ‘loyal’ collaborators”, and that Ludendorff soon had discovered the DAP, the political circle founded by the Thule Society. The DAP will not have been very hard to find, for Ludendorff met with other nationalist stalwarts, including General von Möhl, “every Wednesday in the smaller conference room of the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten”, the seat of the Thule Society.

The high point of Thule’s activity was those critical months of 1918-19 in which the Society became a rallying centre of all rightists in the Bavarian capital. Under the direction of Rudolf von Sebottendorff it not only founded two Free Corps, the Kampfbund Thule and the Bund Oberland, it also kept up a continuous contact with the government in exile. The organizations of the ruling Left were run so amateurishly that the Thule could penetrate them at will, putting on red armbands and falsifying identification papers. Unfortunately, Thule’s organization was not much better protected, and its negligence will cause the death of several members.

It was General von Möhl who created the intelligence apparatus of Reichswehr-commando Group 4, camouflaged as the Reichswehr’s information and propaganda section, and who put Captain Karl Mayr in charge. “I selected some men who had stood out during the war. One of them was Hitler”, Mayr recollected later.⁴ We know that Hitler attended a meeting of the DAP on 12 September 1919 at the Sterneckerbräu on Mayr’s instigation, and that he soon will join this secret Thule circle with the intention to use it as a launching pad for the realization of the mission he had received. Mayr reported about Hitler in a letter to Wolfgang Kapp, saying that the corporal “had become a moving force” in the DAP, animated by “a glowing nationalism”. Hitler proved to be such an effective force that he was sent to Berlin, in Eckart’s care and in a plane of the Reichswehr, as soon as it was known that Kapp and his co-conspirators had tried to overthrow the government. Alas, Kapp’s bid for power was no more than a flash in the pan and they arrived too late.

It is a simple fact that the Reichswehr, the Pan-Germans and the Germanenorden, supported by the influential Wagner circle in Bayreuth, were conspiring all along to overthrow the social-democratic government. They will try again in November 1923, when Hitler hijacked the coup planned by the rather indecisive “three vons” in Munich. In the literature one discovers with amazement how closely all the rightist participants in this German power game were connected. They all knew each other because they were either related, had visited the same educational institutions or military academies, or had served in the same units during the war – if they were not brothers in the Germanenorden, fellow pan-Germans or accepted members of the Bayreuth circle.

Not less puzzling is the fact that the high-placed General von Möhl demanded that Hitler be introduced to him around the time of his first contacts with the DAP. The General “had wanted that ‘the Man’ be presented to him”, attested Mayr later. For a general in such a top position to meet at his own request a lowly and rather eccentric corporal, it must have been reported to him that there was something special about the man. It was also the general’s decision to keep Hitler in the Reichswehr, even after he had become a member of a political party, the DAP, and to pay him a stipend. 1000 All this took place only a short while after the lonesome Corporal had been feeding bread crumbs to the mice in his barracks.

The other important man who, in these months, joined his destiny with that of Adolf Hitler was of course Dietrich Eckart. It is remarkable how his reputation is improving among the younger German historians who at last begin to realize his crucial role in German history. Eckart is no longer seen as a “coffeehouse intellectual and drug addict”, but as “the éminence grise of the DAP” (Hesemann), “the founding father of the NSDAP” and “a respected member of the better society in Munich” (Bärsch).

Eckart was after all a well-known playwright, personally acquainted with William II, and the editor and publisher of In Plain German, which counted practically all prominent nationalist authors among its collaborators. He was, moreover, immensely influential in Berlin as well as in Munich through his wide circle of acquaintances, something which would not have been possible if he had been nothing more than a drunk and a morphine addict. The misinterpretation of Eckart’s personality rests apparently with non-German historical scholars who had no understanding of the Munich “beer culture” – still very much alive – in which one can drink big mugs of the golden brew through the night and still be a respectable citizen.

Hitler’s “fatherly friend” was deeply interested in mysticism. He was in fact one of the foremost promoters of the idea that God was not the property of any Church but had to be found in the heart. As he wrote in one of his poems: “Awake, and you will feel that you have become God.”

You are like one who sleeps and dreams by day,
Without suspecting that the brightest light surrounds you.

You forget yourself in this world, like in the illusion of a dream,
Without perceiving that another world enfolds you.

Do understand at last: the other world is there already
And was already there before your spirit met this world. 1001

One would not expect to read such lines from Hitler’s mentor. But, as shown before, at the time there lived in many Germans a sincere longing for something more true and profound than what a confusing European culture-in-transition had to offer.

Regrettably, this purest and most soul-felt of urges was distorted by the general egocentric feeling of being the superior race. In this, Eckart was not only not different, he was an active advocate of the idea. “The mission of the German people ends – this is my rock-solid conviction – at the last hour of humanity”, for the German people have “to fulfil their destiny which consists in the salvation of the world … The German power and strength and magnificence are needed to cure the world!” 1002 And then follows an odd syllogism: “The soul is by nature Christian”; only the German people have a soul; therefore to be German and to be Christian is one and the same. And from this follows: “God-like – Christian – German” is the antithesis of “devilish – Jewish – anti-German”. 1003

Fundamentally, Eckart saw himself as the champion of a new spirituality which would lead to a new man and a new world, as opposed to the materialistic world, which was how he (and the whole völkisch movement) experienced the world around him. The worthy champions of the new spirituality were the Germans; the selfishly scheming promoters of materialism were the Jews. The latter had no idea of true spirituality, or of a soul, or of another world. Voltaire had written it long ago: “What is very singular is that in all the laws of god’s people there is not a word about the spirituality and the immortality of the soul … It is quite certain, it is indubitable that Moses nowhere promised the Jews rewards and punishments in another life, that he never talked to them about the immortality of their souls, that he never held out hopes of heaven, that he did not threaten them with hell: all is temporal.” 1004

Eckart supported the DAP before 12 September 1919, for he had already given several talks in this “workers’ circle” of the Thule Society. He also knew Hitler before that date, for it was he, Eckart, who was scheduled to give another talk on that day; being prevented by illness he had himself replaced by Gottfried Feder and delegated Dr Gutberlet to report on the first appearance of the Austrian corporal outside the Reichswehr. Eckart’s initial encounters with Hitler must therefore have taken place before 12 September and after the first days of June, when Hitler was following the special course for Reichswehr propagandists at Munich University. The probable link was Captain Mayr; he knew Eckart personally, for he bought copies from him of In Plain German and distributed them clandestinely in the Reichswehr. Mayr, like many other military officers, had also connections with the Thule Society.

The point is that this leaves very little time for Eckart to coach the man whom he called “my Adolf” and with whom he developed “a very personal and intimate relation” (Bärsch), as it also left little time for a preparation of the resolute way in which Hitler took up the challenge. We know that Hitler had no doubts from the start about his vocation as the Leader of the German people, and that he entered the DAP with the explicit intention to use it for the realization of his ambitions. Eckart’s writings and the historical information about him indicate that he saw his pupil from the very beginning as “the man who will make Germany great again”, which was the way in which he would soon introduce him to his circle of well-heeled acquaintances.

Captain Mayr’s respectful address of his lowly subordinate, General von Möhl’s special interest in the Austrian corporal, Eckart’s support for “a man from nowhere” whom he had known only shortly, and his introduction to a branch of the Thule Society with far-reaching albeit hidden ambitions, plus Hitler’s career as “the fulfilment of the task which Destiny has given to me” – all this adds up to the conclusion that in those summer months something decisive must have happened behind the scenes. The only explanation covering all these pointers is that Hitler must have been revealed as “the Man” during séances of spiritism.

It has been shown elsewhere in our story that shortly after the war spiritism was a very common practice in Germany, not only because so many people wanted to keep the contact with their fallen near and dear ones, but also out of intellectual and spiritual interest. We recall that the Thule was a secret society whose founder, Rudolf von Sebottendorff, was a many-sided and reputed occultist. The reading of his right hand man, Walter Nauhaus, “ranged from Guido von List’s researches to astrology, chiromancy and the writings of Peryt Shou. In a letter to List he admitted to an interest in the Cabbala, and in Hindu and Egyptian beliefs. Like Sebottendorff, Nauhaus was fascinated by the mystical ideologies of ancient theocracies and secret cults.” 1005 Bronder characterizes the Thule as a secret loge with, as its esoteric core, “a magic circle in which secret sciences were practised”. What the public knew as the Thule Society was only its “exoteric circle”. 1006

There can be no doubt about the role of Dietrich Eckart as Hitler’s “fatherly friend”, or more accurately as his “godfatherly friend”. There was Hitler’s reverence for him, even after Eckart’s premature death and after “his Adolf” had become Chancellor of Germany. Eckart’s wide circle of notable acquaintances may have been the result of his fame as a writer, but also of his standing in the spiritist network. The way he had access to circles like the Bruckmanns, Bechsteins, Lehmanns and the Wagner family, as well as to the officer corps of the Reichswehr, tells of the emanation of an undeniable authority or “charisma” from his person in spite of a delicate constitution. Eckart was the only one who really knew what was driving his pupil, and what Hitler never disclosed to anybody else (except perhaps to Hess).

Are there any indications of connections between Hitler and spiritism? When Timothy Ryback examined the books left over from Hitler’s library, he was surprised by Hitler’s “serious exploration of spiritual matters” and his interest in occultism. He found books about Nostradamus, Nordic runes, the swastika and the Grail. And then there were books like The Dead are Alive. Hesemann mentions also About Ghosts above and under the Earth; Death and Immortality in the World View of Indogermanic Thinkers (a Christmas present from Heinrich Himmler); and *The Secret of Inspiration: From the Marvellous Realm of the Creative Power. For Subtle and Intelligent People of Genius Who are in Contact with the Genies and Intelligences, and with the Realm of the Spirit and the Spiritual Hosts.* 1007

“Most scholars dismiss the notion that Hitler seriously entertained the ideas of these cults”, writes Ryback, “but the marginalia in several of his books confirm at least an intellectual engagement in the substance of Weimar-era occultism … One of the most heavily marked books is Magic: History, Theory and Practice (1923), by Ernst Schertel … Hitler’s copy of Magic bears a handwritten dedication from Schertel, scrawled on the title page in pencil. A 170-page softcover in large format, the book has been thoroughly read and its margins scored repeatedly. I found a particularly thick pencil line beside the passage ‘He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world’ …

“In the Fichte volumes given to him by [Leni] Riefenstahl”, continues Ryback, “I encountered a veritable blizzard of underlines, question marks, exclamation points and marginal strikes that sweeps across a hundred pages of dense theological prose … As I trace the pencilled notations, I realized that Hitler was seeking a path to the divine that lead to just one place. Fichte asked: ‘Where did Jesus derive the power that has held his followers for all eternity?’ Hitler drew a dense line beneath the answer: ‘Through his absolute identification with God’. At another point Hitler highlighted a brief but revealing paragraph: ‘God and I are One. Expressed simply in two identical sentences – His life is mine; my life is his. My work is his work, and his work is my work’.” This reminds Ryback of a saying of Hitler’s in December 1941: “If there is a God, then he gives us not only life but also consciousness and awareness. If I live my life according to my God-given insights, then I cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know I have acted in good faith.” 1008

Hesemann quotes, with reservations, Josef Greiner, a former companion of Hitler at the men’s hostel in Vienna. “Hitler troubled his head about the fakirs and yogis in India, who can perform incredible wonders of human will power by turning away their senses from the outside world through concentration of the thought inwards and through self-punishment.” According to Greiner, Hitler also attended several talks about occultism and was extremely interested in all kinds of occult phenomena. 1009 Such interests would have been consistent with Hitler’s religious adulation of Wagner’s operas, which are peopled with beings from immaterial planes and in which the supernatural is the common way of experiencing reality.

According to the – trustworthy – Rudolf Olden, Hitler would have come into contact with spiritism after having arrived in Munich from the hospital in Pasewalk. “A Swedish countess would have introduced Hitler into a spiritist circle.” Who might find this nutty ignores the fact that Carin von Kantzow – the first wife of Hermann Göring who was quasi canonized in Naziland after her untimely death – was also of Swedish nobility, and that there was a chapel at her family’s castle dedicated to the spiritist religion and where séances were held. 1010 “Among the spiritists, there were army officers.” This too is probable, for we will see that Rudolf Hess, himself a lieutenant, was introduced to spiritist circles by officers from Karl Haushofer’s former regiment. (During the first world war there were also Masonic “field lodges”.) And Olden concludes: “It cannot be doubted that the disposition to receive inspiration from above was present in Hitler. But the facts, at present, are no more than rumours, as all tracks have been carefully wiped out” 1011 – by the Nazi regime, that is.

If all this is rather vague, the following facts are historical. As we remember, in one of Hitler’s books which survived the war, a German translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nationalism, a dedication was written. It went as follows: “20.04.21. logapore, wodan wigiponar. Herrn Adolf Hitler, meinem lieben Armanenbruder. B. Steininger.” The last sentence, the one usually quoted, means: “To Mr Adolf Hitler, my dear Armanen-brother”. The Armanen were Guido von List’s present-day Edelmenschen, or supermen. “Logapore, wodan wigiponare” was an inscription in old Germanic on a precious stone found at Nordendorf, in Bavaria, and meant: “Logapore and Wotan, give divine protection”. Babette Steininger has been identified as one of the first members of the NSDAP in Munich. 1012

“That she explicitly calls Hitler ‘my dear Armanen-brother’ can only mean that both Hitler and Steininger belonged to a chapter of a secret List society, or were closely connected with it, even when no further indications are available”, writes Michael Hesemann. The Germanenorden, the Thule Society and societies like the Armanen took their oath of secrecy seriously. It is also relevant that the principal occult inspiration behind these secret societies was Guido von List, who relied for his revelations on clairvoyance and spiritism, and that several of their promoters were known spiritists.

The suicide of Geli Raubal, Hitler’s niece, on 18 September 1931, is one of the most commented upon facts in his life and remains an unsolved mystery. Geli was the one passionate love in his life. (Eva Braun was much more a pleasant and steady companion.) The “vibrant, attractive young woman, who lived such an enviable life at the side of her famous uncle”, is supposed to have taken Hitler’s gun from a drawer on an impulse and fired a bullet into her chest after Hitler had left on a propaganda tour. “Buried beneath the layers of analysis are Hitler’s own words that day to Detective Sauer”, in his recorded testimony after a hurried return: “Some time ago, after she had in a certain circle participated in table turning [i.e. spiritism], she confided to me that she would not die a natural death.” 1013 No wonder that Ron Rosenbaum, who also mentions this document, adds that “this remark struck Archivist Weber as very strange”. 1014 The jealous Hitler always had the activities of the girl closely watched and did not allow her to do anything without his knowledge. These words of his, spoken during an unprepared first testimony, do at least indicate that there were in his personal entourage some goings on of the table turning kind.

“The great world change is taking place now”, Rauschning writes; “this was a theme which time and again cropped up in [Hitler’s] conversations: a turnabout which we, ignorant people, were unable to comprehend in its full extent. On such occasions Hitler spoke like a seer and an initiate … To acquire the ‘magic vision’ appeared to him the goal of human evolution. Personally, he felt that he had already reached the threshold of this magic knowledge, and he ascribed his successes and his future significance to it. A Munich savant had written, besides specialized works, some remarkable things about the primal world and the sagas of humanity, about humanity’s capacity of dream-vision in olden times, about a way of knowledge and a to us supernatural power over the rational laws of nature. There had been the eye of the Cyclops, the eye in the middle of the forehead, which was the organ of a magical perception of the All that had degenerated into the pineal gland. Such ideas fascinated Hitler. Sometimes he loved to investigate them passionately. He saw his own wondrous life as the confirmation of hidden powers.” 1015