Hitler and his God

“The Children of Wotan”

In the part of the globe which one may roughly call “the West”, the Christian era and its civilization were breaking up, and the West had become, since the Renaissance, a world in transition. “As the Christian view of the world loses its authority, the more menacingly will the ‘blond beast’ be heard prowling about in its underground prison, ready at any moment to burst out with devastating consequences”, wrote C.G. Jung. “The memories of the old German religion have not been extinguished … We are always convinced that the modern world is a reasonable world, basing our opinions on economic, political and psychological factors. But if we may forget for a moment that we are living in the Year of Our Lord 1936 [the year in which these words were written] … we will find Wotan quite suitable as a causal hypothesis. In fact I venture the heretical suggestion that the unfathomable depths of Wotan’s character explain more of National Socialism than all reasonable factors put together.” 1095

In an earlier chapter of our story we have heard about Wotan, the one-eyed God with the green hat who rides at the head of his wild hunters, and who possesses the berserkers with his force and invulnerability. Nazism took pride in this revival of the ruthless Germanic warrior spirit. The Hitler Youth sang: “If all the world lies in ruins, / What the devil do we care? / We will still go on marching, / For today Germany belongs to us, / And tomorrow the world.” And the SS-magazine Das Schwarze Korps saw, in 1940, the burning English cities as gigantic bonfires to celebrate the summer solstice; for it was the god Thor whose lightning (the exploding bombs) was taking revenge on Germany’s enemies. 1096

This elementary force line in Hitler and Nazism has been sufficiently dealt with in our story to interpret Sri Aurobindo’s poem: “The Children of Wotan (1940)”. The date, part of the title, is relevant because at that time the further complexities and the outcome of the war still lay in an uncertain future and the destiny of humanity hung in the balance. It makes this forceful poem, written at that critical juncture of history by an Indian spiritual Master, all the more pregnant.

“Where is the end of your armoured march, O children of Wotan?

Earth shudders with fear at your tread, the death-flame laughs in your eyes.”

“We have seen the sign of Thor and the hammer of new creation,

A seed of blood on the soil, a flower of blood in the skies.

We march to make of earth a hell and call it heaven.

The heart of mankind we have smitten with the whip of the sorrows seven;

The Mother of God lies bleeding in our black and gold sunrise.”

“I hear the cry of a broken world, O children of Wotan.”

“Question the volcano when it burns, chide the fire and bitumen!

Suffering is the food of our strength and torture the bliss of our entrails.

We are pitiless, mighty and glad, the gods fear our laughter inhuman.

Our hearts are heroic and hard; we wear the belt of Orion;

Our will has the edge of the thunderbolt, our acts the claws of the lion.

We rejoice in the pain we create as a man in the kiss of a woman.”

“Have you seen your fate in the scales of God, O children of Wotan,

And the tail of the Dragon lashing the foam of far-off seas?”

“We mock at God, we have silenced the mutter of priests at his altar.

Our leader is master of Fate, medium of her mysteries.

We have made the mind a cipher, we have strangled Thought with a cord;

Dead now are pity and honour, strength only is Nature’s lord.

We build a new world-order; our bombs shout Wotan’s peace.

“We are the javelins of Destiny, we are the children of Wotan,

We are the human Titans, the supermen dreamed by the sage.

A cross of the beast and demoniac with the godhead of power and will,

We are born in humanity’s sunset, to the Night is our pilgrimage.

On the bodies of perishing nations, mid the cry of the cataclysm coming,

To a presto of bomb and shell and the aeroplanes’ fatal humming,

We march, lit by Truth’s death-pyre, to the world’s satanic age.” 1097