Hitler and his God

Rudolf von Sebottendorff

Adam Glauer, alias Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorff von der Rose, was born in 1875 as the son of a locomotive driver. Machinery and all kinds of technical gadgets interested the son as much as the father, for Adam became a skilled technician; he even undertook engineering studies but never brought them to a successful end. He wanted to see the world and signed on for various technical jobs on ships with destination New York, Naples and Australia. He did not hesitate to desert one ship for another if he found the new destination more alluring. In Australia, in the year 1900, he even went on an adventurous search for gold, but had to abandon the project because of the sudden death of his partner. Soon Glauer found a new job on a ship which took him to Egypt. And it was in Cairo that a new leaf in the book of his life was turned over: in the presence of the pyramids he became interested in the reality behind the surface of things, in matters which are called by the generic name “occultism”.

“Glauer began a serious study of occultism”, writes Goodrick-Clarke. “His interest in exotic religions had been kindled when he saw the Mevlevi sect of whirling dervishes and visited the Cheops pyramid at El-Giza in July 1900. His companion Ibrahim told him of the cosmological and numerological significance of the pyramids and aroused Glauer’s curiosity about the occult gnosis of ancient theocracies. Hussein Pasha, his wealthy and learned host, practiced a form of Sufism and discussed these matters with Glauer. At Bursa he made the acquaintance of the Termudi family … Old Termudi had retired from business to devote himself to a study of the Cabbala and collecting alchemical and Rosicrucian texts … The Termudis were Freemasons … Glauer was initiated into the lodge by old Termudi and subsequently inherited his occult library. In one of these books Glauer discovered a note from Hussein Pasha, describing the secret mystical exercises of traditional Islamic alchemists, still practised by the Baktashi sect of dervishes.” 47

In 1902 Glauer was back in Germany, but Turkey remained on his mind, the more so because his marriage and some financial matters did not turn out well. By the end of 1908 he was back in Turkey, where he “continued to study Islamic mysticism, which in his opinion shared a common Aryan source with the Germanic runes”. One result of his study was an essay on the Baktashi dervishes, “an antinomian mystical order widely spread and influential in Turkey and connected by legend with the origin of the Janissaries.” 48 The secret organization of the Baktashi resembled that of the Freemasons; they played an important role in the transition from Ottoman absolutism to a modern Turkish state, for the revolution of the Young Turks had now established a constitutional monarchy and the rule of parliament. Glauer was, according to his own attestation, naturalized as a Turkish citizen in 1911 and adopted by a German baron who lived in Turkey, Heinrich von Sebottendorff von der Rose, whose name he would wear.

Sebottendorff returned to Germany in 1913, a year before the outbreak of the First World War. What he found there “was a materialistic land without any orientation, and that seemed to be on the verge of spiritual collapse … the disappearance of the former simple manners and customs, seeking consolation in consumption, empty churches from which nobody drew any confirmation of his faith anymore, the venom of jealousy and hatred … a boom of false prophets and spiritist circles where ‘hysterical women’ and ‘anaemic men’ desperately looked for help, but became the victims of nothing but cheats. ‘Nothing was too stupid not to be believed.’ …” 49

What was it that made Sebottendorff a fervent German nationalist and anti-Semite – he who had been steeped into the occult tradition of the Near East? Maybe it was the very discipline of inner values, of concentration and the awareness of an invisible but elementary hierarchy, peculiar to all true spiritual exploration. In his reaction to the superficial Western way of living and his rejection of it, Sebottendorff actually joined the mentality of the adherents of the völkisch movement, turning back towards the past and concentrating inwardly on the glow of “the German soul”. “Sebottendorff’s political views were primarily inspired by a religious orientation: the anti-materialism of pan-Ottoman mysticism, alchemy, and Rosicrucianism, combined with a post-war hatred of Bolchevism, which he identified as the acme of materialism, led him to embrace anti-democratic ideas.” 50 It was this kind of mental make-up which rendered Sebottendorff receptive to the writings of Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (whose actual names were Guido List, without the ennobling “von”, and Georg Lanz, tout court).

Sebottendorff, like List, was fascinated by the runes. Knowledgeable people write that the phonetic runic alphabet dates from the first centuries CE, and that it may be derived from the Etruscan script. Yet numerous runic inscriptions from prehistoric times have been found, especially in Scandinavia. “Prehistorians generally accept that the runes had possessed a symbolism over and above their phonetic value and use in writing, so that they were accordingly used for divination, the casting of lots, magical invocations, and the preparation of amulets and charms.” 51 List had written extensively on the runes and declared them to be sacred glyphs of the Armanen, the Ario-Germanic initiates and godmen of yore. It was this subject that brought Sebottendorff together with Philipp Stauff, a Listian and, as we have seen, since recently Grand Master of the Germanenorden-Walvater.

We have now an idea of the credentials which made Stauff place Sebottendorff at the head of the Bavarian province of the Order. Sebottendorff would go on to write two semi-autobiographical novels and no less than seven astrological text-books between 1921 and 1923. He was one of the most looked up to astrologers at a time that “Germany counted more astrologers per square mile than anywhere else in the world.” If one adds to these publications his essay on the Baktashi dervishes and his articles in the publications under his supervision, then one cannot but conclude that Sebottendorff was a person out of the ordinary. This is confirmed by the fact that so many prominent members of Munich society joined the Germanenorden. In this light one takes with a pinch of salt statements like: “[Sebottendorff] was a political adventurer with a rather unsavoury past” (Fest 52) and Detlev Rose’s title of his chapter on Sebottendorff: “The Adventurer from Hoyerswerda” 53 (the name of his birthplace). Such partial statements put a label on Sebottendorff which hampers understanding him. Goodrick-Clarke’s conclusion is much more objective, because better informed, when he writes: “Without this man it is likely that the Germanenorden and Ariosophy would have been condemned to oblivion.” 54