The Nazis have been accused of some pretty brutal and strange occult practices. None can be more strange and sick, than the one that I heard about the other day. It is said that Himmler would sometimes take young SS officers, that were in very good shape and cut off their heads and use the heads to try and contact the spirits. This was stated on none other than the History Channel, during one of those shows about the Nazi occult. One thing that it said, that was a sort of a surprise, was that Hitler himself didn't believe in the occult and put up with his officers that did believe in it. The show even stated that Rudolph Hess, the deputy fuehrer, flew to Scotland because he thought that the planets were aligned in his favor and that the British would listen to him and sign a truce. Hitler's comment was that this guy was demented and driven crazy by all those astrologers that he listened to.

Did you ever wonder why the Nazis used the Goosestep? In case you don't know what I am talking about, that is when the military lifts one leg high in the air without bending the knee and when it comes down they do the same thing with the other leg. The Goosestep was adopted by many nations for ceremonial marching and especially by those in cold climates. It is said that this strenuous type of marching helps maintain the heat of the marchers. Sig Heil was a mass exclamation of "Hail To Victory". A lot of people have wondered what the skull symbol was on the caps of the SS. Most thought that it was to show that they would kill without thinking. Actually it meant loyalty beyond death and had been used previously by the Prussians. We talked about how the book, "The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity", claimed that the Nazis were Christians, but there is much evidence that shows that they were not Christians, but pagans. They were very interested in their historical roots and were trying to get back to them and as most of us know, they were even sending out expeditions all over the place, trying to find the first Aryans. Many of them believed in the runes, an ancient system of casting bones and stones that had symbols on them to find out the future.

There is another part to this that most people don't know about. This has to do with Erik Jan Hanussen. Hanussen was a clairvoyant, occultist, astrologer and mentalist. The odd part of the story is that he was believed to be Jewish. He said that he was an aristocrat of Danish descent, but it was said that he was really a Czech Jew and his real name was Hermann Steinschneider and his father took care of a synagogue part time and he did some work as an actor. He tutored Hitler in public speaking and showed him how to keep a crowd riveted on his every word. He was a successful teacher, since Hitler was able to almost hypnotize his audience. He predicted the Reichstag fire and was then assassinated in 1933. this prediction was probably based more on inside information than clairvoyance. Here is the really strange part, some people think that this person was able to do something to Hitler's personality, or even to his spirit. They claim that he was responsible for turning Hitler into the man that he became. They accuse him of using some form of mind control. If this was the case, which I don't believe for a second, why didn't he have Hitler protect him? I think that people love to talk about mystical things and this guy was very strange and fits the bill.

Himmler wanted to prove that the Aryan race was superior. He created a research institute called the Ancestral Heritage Organization. One of the things that it was charged with was resurrecting occult practices. What I don't understand about Himmler and Hitler himself, is that neither looked very Aryan themselves, so why did they keep pushing this idea? One of the things the institute did was conduct horrible medical experiments on humans. Himmler had confiscated all occult libraries, that were not part of the SS. This included the library of the Free Masons. The Nazis believed that this was an organization created by the Jews to conspire against them. Himmler would advance the careers of those occultists that he believed served his purpose, the others had better have run for their lives. Some SS troops had to attend class and were taught the meaning of runes. The symbol of the SS was not two Ss, but the double Sig Rune. The Hitler youth used a single Sig Rune as it's symbol. This shows that Nazi occult symbols were everywhere and yet, most of us never noticed. Why would we, the large majority of us have no idea what an occult symbol looks like?

There are some curious coincidences that occurred. When Hitler was young, he lived in Vienna. It is said that he was homeless for many years and lived off the charity of people, many of who were Jews. He became friends with Walter Johannes Stein, and during World War II, Dr. Stein became an advisor to Winston Churchill. This has been denied by other people who say that Stein never met Hitler. It is said that Hitler also became friends with Ernst Petzsche in Vienna. He was a man obsessed with the idea of an Aryan super race and it is believed that is where Hitler got many of the ideas about Aryans, that he stated during his rule. It is also said however, that Hitler never believed in what Himmler was doing. I am referring to the expeditions that he sent out to find Aryan roots. He didn't stop him, but it is said that he only put up with it. The SS had what was known as an occult center and that was Wewelsburg Castle. It is said that Himmler had authorized a search for the Holy Grail. It has also been said and with good reason, that the most twisted person in the entire Third Reich was Himmler and that he was even more twisted than Hitler himself.

Sometimes some the the Nazi SS units that were also occult units were charged with tasks and one such unit named the Order Of The Black Sun, was charged with researching alternate forms of energy, because fuel oil was very scarce. They had successfully developed alternative engines and fuels. As with everything Nazi, people today credit them with developing some incredible stuff, things that they never had anything to do with. This does make it difficult to affirm some of the things that they did invent. Having said this, we do know that they developed a way of converting coal into liquid gasoline. As for some of the other claims, such as anti-gravity engines, it is almost a certainty that while they did work on trying to develop one, they never succeeded.

Wewelsburg Castle
Photo Source - "GNU Free Documentation license".

Why did the Nazis put so much energy into resurrecting occult practices? It might have been for social reasons. Some say that they wanted to replace religion with these practices and that this would hold the population together under their rule. Others felt that the Nazis were looking for some sort of magical advantage over everyone else in the world. Why would intelligent people ever believe this? That is a great question and I think that it will be debated for hundreds of years to come and there will never be a satisfactory answer. The Nazi interest in the occult and pagan ceremonies. is one of the great mysteries of the world. Maybe this might make an interesting theme for some of those ghost hunting programs. They could investigate some of the Nazi hangouts still standing?