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Armanism and Ariosophy are
esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
ideological systems that were developed largely by
Guido von List Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List (5 October 1848 – 17 May 1919), was an Austrians, Austrian occultism, occultist, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He expounded a Modern Paganism, modern Pagan new religious movement kno ...
and
Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels Adolf Josef Lanz (19 July 1874 – 22 April 1954), also known under his pseudonym as Fascism, fascist agitator Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, was an Austrian political and racial theorist and occultist, who was a pioneer of Ariosophy. He was a former ...
respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term 'Ariosophy', which means the wisdom of the
Aryans Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...
, was invented by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, and during the 1920s it became the name of his doctrine. For research of the topic, such as
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (15 January 195329 August 2012) was a British historian and professor of Western esotericism at the University of Exeter, best known for his authorship of several scholarly books on the history of Germany between the W ...
's book ''
The Occult Roots of Nazism ''The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935'' is a book about Nazi occultism and Ariosophy by historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who traces some of its roots back to Esotericism in Germany and Austria betwe ...
'', the term 'Ariosophy' is used generically to describe the Aryan/esoteric theories of a subset of the ' Völkische Bewegung'. This broader use of the word is retrospective and it was not generally current among the esotericists themselves. List actually called his doctrine 'Armanism', while Lanz used the terms 'Theozoology' and 'Ario-Christianity' before the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The ideas of Von List and Lanz von Liebenfels were part of a general occult revival that occurred in Austria and Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; a revival that was loosely inspired by
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
, historical
Germanic paganism Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...
, and holistic philosophy, as well as by esoteric concepts that were influenced by
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
and
Theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...
. The connection between this form of Germanic mysticism and historical Germanic culture is evident in the mystics' fascination with
runes Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...
, in the form of Guido von List's Armanen runes.


Overview

The ideology regarding the
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...
(in the sense of Indo-Europeans, runic symbols, the
swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
, and sometimes occultism) are important elements of Ariosophy. By 1899 at the earliest or by 1900 at the latest, esoteric notions entered Guido List's thoughts. In April 1903, he sent his manuscript, proposing what Goodrick-Clarke calls a "monumental pseudoscience" concerning the ancient German faith, to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna onwards. These Ariosophic ideas (together with, and influenced by,
Theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...
) contributed significantly to an occult counterculture in Germany and Austria. A historic interest in this topic has stemmed from the ideological relationship between Ariosophy and
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, and it is obvious in such book titles as: *''
The Occult Roots of Nazism ''The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935'' is a book about Nazi occultism and Ariosophy by historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who traces some of its roots back to Esotericism in Germany and Austria betwe ...
'' by
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (15 January 195329 August 2012) was a British historian and professor of Western esotericism at the University of Exeter, best known for his authorship of several scholarly books on the history of Germany between the W ...
*''Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab'' (''The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas''), Wilfried Daim's biography of Lanz von Liebenfels However, Goodrick-Clarke's comprehensive study finds little evidence of direct influence, except in the case of the highly idiosyncratic ancient-German mythos that was elaborated by the "clairvoyant" '' SS-
Brigadeführer ''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between the years of 1932 to 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as ''Untergruppenf ...
''
Karl Maria Wiligut Karl Maria Wiligut (alias Weisthor, Jarl Widar, Lobesam; 10 December 1866 – 3 January 1946) was an Austrian occultist and SS-Brigadeführer. Early life Wiligut was baptised a Roman Catholic in Vienna. At the age of 14, he joined the ''Kadetten ...
, of which the practical consequences were, first, the incorporation of Wiligut's symbolism into the ceremonies of an elite circle within the SS; and, secondly, the official censure of those occultists and runic magicians whom Wiligut stigmatized as heretics, which may have persuaded
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
to order the internment of several of them. The most notable other case is Himmler's ''
Ahnenerbe The Ahnenerbe (, ''ancestral heritage'') operated as a think tank in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. Heinrich Himmler, the ''Reichsführer-SS'' from 1929 onwards, established it in July 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promot ...
''. (For the debate on the direct relations to Nazi ideology, see
Religious aspects of Nazism Historians, political scientists and philosophers have studied Nazism with a specific focus on its religious and pseudoreligious, pseudo-religious aspects. It has been debated whether Nazism would constitute a political religion, and there has al ...
.) Goodrick-Clarke examines what evidence there is for influences on Hitler and other Nazis, but he concludes that "Ariosophy is a symptom of rather than an influence in the way that it anticipated Nazism".


'Ariosophic' writers and organisations

While a broad definition of the term 'Ariosophy' is useful for some purposes, various of the later authors, including Ellegaard Ellerbek,
Philipp Stauff Philipp Stauff (1876–1923) was a prominent German/Austrian journalist and publisher in Berlin. He was an enthusiastic Armanist, a close friend of Guido von List, and a founding member of the Guido-von-List-Society. He was also the obituarist f ...
and Günther Kirchoff, can more exactly be described as cultivating the Armanism of List. In a less broad approach, one could also treat ''rune occultism'' separately. Although the Armanen runes go back to List,
Rudolf John Gorsleben Rudolf John Gorsleben (16 March 1883 – 23 August 1930) was a German Ariosophist, Armanist (practitioner of the Armanen runes), journal editor and playwright. Life Gorsleben was born in Metz. During World War I, he fought in a German unit s ...
distinguished himself from other ''völkisch'' writers by making the esoteric importance of the runes central to his world view. Goodrick-Clarke therefore refers to the doctrine of Kummer and Gorsleben and his followers as rune occultism, a description that also fits the eclectic work of
Karl Spiesberger Karl Spiesberger (29 October 1904 – 1 January 1992) was a German mystic, occultist, Germanic revivalist and Runosophist. He is most well known for his revivalism and usage of the Sidereal Pendulum for divination and dowsing and for his anti- ...
. Highly practical systems of rune occultism, influenced mainly by List, were developed by
Friedrich Bernhard Marby Friedrich Bernhard Marby (10 May 1882 – 3 December 1966) was a German rune occultist and Germanic revivalist. He is best known for his revivalism and use of the Armanen runes. Marby was imprisoned during the Third Reich, which may have been ...
and
Siegfried Adolf Kummer Siegfried Adolf Kummer (born 24 September 1899 in Radeberg, died 1977 in Dresden) was a German mystic and Germanic revivalist. He is also most well known for his revivalism and use of the Armanen runes row. He, along with Friedrich Bernhard Ma ...
. Also worthy of mention are
Peryt Shou Peryt Shou (legal name Albert Christian Georg örgSchultz) (22 April 1873 - 24 October 1953) was a German mysticist and Germanic pagan revivalist. He is mentioned briefly by Goodrick-Clarke ('' The Occult Roots of Nazism'', 1985: 165) as a writ ...
, the occult novelist;
A. Frank Glahn A. Frank Glahn (1865–1941), was a German mysticist, Germanic revivalist and most notably a pendulum dowser. He was used by the German military in the Third Reich, not necessarily willingly. Glahn was mentioned greatly in the book ''Reveal the P ...
, noted more for his
pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the ...
dowsing Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Ge ...
; Rudolf von Sebottendorff and Walter Nauhaus, who built up the
Thule Society The Thule Society (; german: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the ''Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum'' ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was a German occultist and '' Völkisch'' group founded in Munich shortly after World War I, ...
; and Karl Maria Wiligut, who was the most notable occultist working for the SS. Organisations include: the ''Guido von List Society'', the ''High Armanen Order'', the Lumen Club, the ''Ordo Novi Templi'', the ''Germanenorden'' (in which a schism occurred) and the Thule Society.


Armanism

Guido von List elaborated a racial religion premised on the concept of renouncing the imposed Semitic creed of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and returning to the native religions of the ancient Indo-Europeans (List preferred the equivalent term ''Ario-Germanen'', or 'Aryo-Germanics'). List recognised the theoretical distinction between the
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
and its daughter
Proto-Germanic language Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
but frequently obscured it by his tendency to treat them as a single long-lived entity (although this framing is also used in linguistics as the
Germanic parent language In historical linguistics, the Germanic parent language (GPL) includes the reconstructed languages in the Germanic group referred to as Pre-Germanic Indo-European (PreGmc), Early Proto-Germanic (EPGmc), and Late Proto-Germanic (LPGmc), spoken in t ...
).. In this, he became strongly influenced by the Theosophical thought of Madame Blavatsky, which he blended however with his own highly original beliefs, founded upon Germanic paganism. Before he turned to occultism, Guido List had written articles for German Nationalist newspapers in Austria, as well as four historical novels and three plays, some of which were "set in tribal Germany" before the advent of Christianity. He also had written an anti-semitic essay in 1895. List adopted the aristocratic ''von'' between 1903 and 1907. List called his doctrine ''Armanism'' after the ''Armanen'', supposedly a body of priest-kings in the ancient Aryo-Germanic nation. He claimed that this German name had been Latinized into the tribal name ''
Herminones The Irminones, also referred to as Herminones or Hermiones ( grc, Ἑρμίονες), were a large group of early Germanic tribes settling in the Elbe watershed and by the first century AD expanding into Bavaria, Swabia and Bohemia. Notably thi ...
'' mentioned in
Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...
and that it actually meant the heirs of the sun-king: an estate of intellectuals who were organised into a priesthood called the ''Armanenschaft''. His conception of the original religion of the
Germanic tribes The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and e ...
was a form of sun worship, with its priest-kings (similar to the Icelandic ''
goði Gothi or (plural , fem. ; Old Norse: ) was a position of political and social prominence in the Icelandic Commonwealth. The term originally had a religious significance, referring to a pagan leader responsible for a religious structure and com ...
'') as legendary rulers of ancient Germany. Religious instruction was imparted on two levels. The esoteric doctrine (Armanism) was concerned with the secret mysteries of the
gnosis Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge ( γνῶσις, ''gnōsis'', f.). The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where it ...
, reserved for the initiated elite, while the exoteric doctrine (''Wotanism'') took the form of popular myths intended for the lower social classes. List believed that the transition from Wotanism to Christianity had proceeded smoothly under the direction of the skalds, so that native customs, festivals and names were preserved under a Christian veneer and only needed to be 'decoded' back into their heathen forms. This peaceful merging of the two religions had been disrupted by the forcible conversions under "bloody
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
– the Slaughterer of the
Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
". List claimed that the dominance of the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
constituted a continuing occupation of the Germanic tribes by the
Roman empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
, albeit now in a religious form, and a continuing persecution of the ancient religion of the Germanic peoples and
Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
. He also believed in the magical powers of the old
rune Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
s. From 1891 onwards he claimed that
heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...
was based on a system of encoded runes, so that heraldic devices conveyed a secret heritage in cryptic form. In April 1903, he submitted an article concerning the alleged Aryan
proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Its highlight was a mystical and occult interpretation of the runic alphabet, which became the cornerstone of his ideology. Although the article was rejected by the academy, it would later be expanded by List and grew into his final masterpiece, a comprehensive treatment of his linguistic and historical theories published in 1914 as ''Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache'' (''The Proto-Language of the Aryo-Germanics and their Mystery Language''). List's doctrine has been described as
gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
,
pantheist Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has e ...
and
deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
. At its core is the mystical union of God, man and nature. Wotanism teaches that God dwells within the individual human spirit as an inner source of magical power, but is also immanent within nature through the primal laws that govern the cycles of growth, decay and renewal. List explicitly rejects a Mind-body dualism of spirit versus matter or of God over or against nature. Humanity is therefore one with the universe, which entails an obligation to live in accordance with nature. But the individual human ego does not seek to merge with the cosmos. "Man is a separate agent, necessary to the completion or perfection of ‘God's work’". Being immortal, the ego passes through successive
reincarnation Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a ...
s until it overcomes all obstacles to its purpose. List foresaw the eventual consequences of this in a future
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
on earth, which he identified with the promised
Valhalla In Norse mythology Valhalla (;) is the anglicised name for non, Valhǫll ("hall of the slain").Orchard (1997:171–172) It is described as a majestic hall located in Asgard and presided over by the god Odin. Half of those who die in combat e ...
, a world of victorious heroes: List was familiar with the cyclical notion of time, which he encountered in
Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...
and in the theosophical adaptation of the Hindu time cycles. He had already made use of cosmic rhythms in his early journalism on natural landscapes.. In his later works List combined the cyclical concept of time with the "dualistic and linear time scheme" of western apocalyptic which counterposes a pessimism about the present world with an ultimate optimism regarding the future one. In ''Das Geheimnis der Runen'',. List addresses the seeming contradiction by explaining the final redemption of the linear time frame as an exoteric parable that stands for the esoteric truth of renewal in many future cycles and incarnations. However, in the original Norse myths and
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
, the cycle of destruction and creation is repeated indefinitely, thus offering no possibility of ultimate salvation.


Guido von List Society and High Armanen Order

Already in 1893 Guido List together with Fanny Wschiansky, had founded the ''
Literarische Donaugesellschaft The Literarische Donaugesellschaft ( Danubian Literary Society ) was an important literary association founded in 1893 by Guido von List Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List (5 October 1848 – 17 May 1919), was an Austrian oc ...
'', a
literary society A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newsle ...
. In 1908 the
Guido von List Society Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List (5 October 1848 – 17 May 1919), was an Austrian occultist, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He expounded a modern Pagan new religious movement known as Wotanism, which he claimed was t ...
(''Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft'') was founded primarily by the Wannieck family (
Friedrich Wannieck Friedrich Wannieck (1838 in Brno, Austrian Empire –1919) was a prominent and wealthy Austrian/German industrialist most notable for his successful business ventures and his enthusiastic support for the '' völkisch'' author, pioneer of Germanic ...
and his son Friedrich Oskar Wannieck being prominent and enthusiastic Armanists) as an
occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
'' völkisch'' organisation, with the purpose of financing and publishing List's research. The List Society was supported by many leading figures in Austrian and German politics, publishing, and occultism. Although one might suspect a ''völkisch'' organisation to be antisemitic, the society included at least two Jews among its members: Moritz Altschüler, a rabbinical scholar, and Ernst Wachler. The List Society published List's works under the series ''Guido-List-Bücherei'' (''GLB''). List had established exoteric and esoteric circles in his organisation. The High Armanen Order (''Hoher Armanen Orden'') was the inner circle of the Guido von List Society. Founded in midsummer 1911, it was set up as a magical order or lodge to support List's deeper and more practical work. The HAO conducted pilgrimages to what its members considered "holy Armanic sites",
Stephansdom St. Stephen's Cathedral (german: Stephansdom) is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, OP. The current Romanesque and Gothic form of the cathedral, ...
in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
,
Carnuntum Carnuntum ( according to Ptolemy) was a Roman legionary fortress ( la, castra legionis) and headquarters of the Roman navy, Pannonian fleet from 50 AD. After the 1st century, it was capital of the Pannonia Superior province. It also became ...
etc. They also had occasional meetings between 1911 and 1918, but the exact nature of these remains unknown. In his introduction to List's ''The Secret of the Runes'',
Stephen E. Flowers Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
notes: "The HAO never really crystallized in List's lifetime – although it seems possible that he developed a theoretical body of unpublished documents and rituals relevant to the HAO that have only been put into full practice in more recent years".


Listians under the Third Reich

List died on 17 May 1919, a few months before
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
joined a minor Bavarian political party and formed it into the
NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. After the Nazis had come to power, several advocates of Armanism fell victim to the suppression of esotericism in Nazi Germany. The main reason for the persecution of occultists was the Nazi policy of systematically closing down esoteric organisations (although Germanic paganism was still practised by some Nazis on an individual basis), but the instigator in certain cases was Himmler's personal occultist, Karl Maria Wiligut. Wiligut identified the monotheistic religion of Irminism as the true ancestral belief, claiming that Guido von List's Wotanism and runic row constituted a schismatic false religion . Among the Listians – Kummer and Marby are not mentioned by Goodrick-Clarke among the signatories who endorsed the List Society around 1905 but both men were indebted to "Listian" ideas – who were subjected to censure were the rune occultists Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer, both of whom were denounced by Wiligut in 1934 in a letter to Himmler.Karl-Maria Weisthor (i.e. Wiligut) to Himmler, 2 May 1934, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Himmler Nachlass 19, cited in Flowers writes: "The establishment of n'official NS
runology Runology is the study of the Runic alphabets, Runic inscriptions and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics. History Runology was initiated by Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), who was very interested in the lingu ...
' under Himmler, Wiligut, and others led directly to the need to suppress the rune-magical 'free agents' such as Marby". Despite having openly supported the Nazis, cited in Marby was arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 as an anti-Nazi occultist and was interned in
Welzheim Welzheim is a town in the Rems-Murr district, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located 35 km east of Stuttgart, and 15 km northwest of Schwäbisch Gmünd. Welzheim has 11,239 (2005) inhabitants and is located in the 'Welzheimer Wa ...
, Flossenbürg and Dachau
concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s. Kummer disappears from History after Wiligut's denunciation in 1934, and his fate is unknown. He may have died in a concentration camp. According to Rudgley, " substantiated rumours" have him fleeing Nazi Germany in exile to South America, but "it is more likely that he perished in one of the camps that Marby was to survive or died during the Allied bombing of
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
." Günter Kirchhoff, a List Society member whom Wiligut had recommended to Himmler on the strength of his researches into prehistory, is reported to have written that Wiligut by intrigue had ensured that Ernst Lauterer (a.k.a. "Tarnhari") – another List Society member, who claimed a secret clan tradition that rivalled Wiligut's own – was committed to a concentration camp as an "English agent". Flowers and Moynihan reproduce Kirchhoff's testimony as reported by both Adolf Schleipfer and researcher Manfred Lenz (but doubted by Wiligut's former secretary Gabriele Dechend).


Theozoology

In 1903–04, a
Viennese Viennese may refer to: * Vienna, the capital of Austria * Viennese people, List of people from Vienna * Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna * Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city * Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance * V ...
ex-
Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...
monk, Bible scholar and inventor named Jörg Lanz-Liebenfels (subsequently, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels) published a lengthy article under the Latin title "''Anthropozoon Biblicum''" ("The Biblical Man-Animal") in a journal for Biblical studies edited by Moritz Altschüler, a Jewish admirer of Guido von List. The author undertook a comparative survey of ancient
Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
ern cultures, in which he detected evidence from iconography and literature that seemed to point to the continued survival, into early historical times, of hominid ape-men similar to the dwarfish
Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...
men known from fossil remains in Europe, or the
Pithecanthropus The terms ''Anthropopithecus'' ( Blainville, 1839) and ''Pithecanthropus'' (Haeckel, 1868) are obsolete taxa describing either chimpanzees or archaic humans. Both are derived from Greek ἄνθρωπος (anthropos, "man") and πίθηκος (p ...
(now called ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'') from
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
. Furthermore, Lanz systematically analysed the
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
in the light of his hypothesis, identifying and interpreting coded references to the ape-men that substantiated an illicit practice of interbreeding between humans and "lower" species in antiquity. In 1905 he expanded these researches into a fundamental statement of doctrine titled ''Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron''. ("''Theozoology, or the Science of the Sodomite-Apelings and the Divine Electron''"). He claimed that "Aryan" peoples originated from interstellar deities (termed Theozoa) who bred by electricity, while "lower" races were a result of interbreeding between humans and ape-men (or Anthropozoa). The effects of racial crossing caused the atrophy of
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
powers inherited from the gods, but these could be restored by the selective breeding of pure Aryan lineages. The book relied on somewhat lurid sexual imagery, decrying the abuse of white women by ethnically inferior but sexually active men. Thus, Lanz advocated mass
castration Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceut ...
of racially "apelike" or otherwise "inferior" males. In the same year, Lanz commenced publication of the journal ''Ostara'' (named after a pagan Germanic goddess of spring) to promote his vision of racial purity.


Secret Society Order of the New Templars

On December 25, 1900, he founded the
fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
secret society
Order of the New Templars The Order of the New Templars – ''Ordo Novi Templi'' was a proto-fascist secret society in Germany founded by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (the code name of Fascist agitator Adolf Joseph Lanz) in 1900. Lanz used this order to spread his ide ...
(''Ordo Novi Templi'', or ONT) – a project to bring rightwing extremists together and mobilise them in favor of
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
in Germany by using
esotericism Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...
to justify violence such as castration of innocent people to establish
fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
in Germany and defend it against
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
. The ONT was modelled after the
catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
military order
Knight Templars The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon ( la, Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar, or simply the Templars, was a Catholic military order, o ...
and similar in its hierarchical structure as the
Order of Cistercians The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...
which was the group that trained the New Templars founder and political agitator Adolf Lanz. Members used
code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
s so that betrayal was difficult. The ideological association was headquartered at Burg Werfenstein, a castle in
Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, a ...
overlooking the river
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. Its declared aim was to use pseudo-science and religion to make people believe in racist concepts. Rituals were designed to beautify life in accordance with Aryan aesthetics, and to express the Order's theological system that Lanz called ''Ario-Christianity''. The Order was the first to use the
swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
in an "Aryan" meaning, displaying on its flag the device of a red swastika facing right, on a yellow-orange field and surrounded by four blue
fleurs-de-lys The fleur-de-lis, also spelled fleur-de-lys (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a lily (in French, and mean 'flower' and 'lily' respectively) that is used as a decorative design or symbol. The fleur-de-lis has been used in th ...
above, below, to the right and to the left. The ONT declined from the mid-1930s and – even though it had pioneered many ideas that the Nazis later adopted – it was suppressed by the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
in 1942. By this time it had established seven communities in Austria, Germany and Hungary. Though suspending its activities in the Greater German Reich, the ONT survived in Hungary until around the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. It went underground in Vienna after 1945, but was contacted in 1958 by a former
Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...
lieutenant, Rudolf Mund, who became Prior of the Order in 1979. Mund also wrote biographies of Lanz and Wiligut.


Ariosophy

The term "Ariosophy" (wisdom concerning the Aryans) was coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, with "Theozoology" describing its Genesis and "Ario-Christianity" as the label for the overall doctrine in the 1920s. This terminology was taken up by a group of occultists, formed in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
around 1920 and referred to by one of its main figures, Ernst Issberner-Haldane, as the 'Swastika-Circle'. Lanz's publisher, Herbert Reichstein, made contact with the group in 1925 and formed it into an institute with himself as director. This association was named the Ariosophical Society in 1926, renamed the ''Neue Kalandsgesellschaft'' (from ''Kaland'', Guido von List's term for a secret lodge or conventicle) in 1928, and renamed again as the ''Ariosophische Kulturzentrale'' in 1931, the year in which it opened an Ariosophical School at
Pressbaum Pressbaum is a town in the district of St. Pölten-Land in the Austrian state of Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in t ...
that offered courses and lectures in
runic Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
lore,
biorhythms The biorhythm theory is the pseudoscientific idea that our daily lives are significantly affected by rhythmic cycles with periods of exactly 23, 28 and 33 days,. typically a 23-day physical cycle, a 28-day emotional cycle, and a 33-day intellec ...
,
yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...
and
Qabalah Hermetic Qabalah () is a Western esoteric tradition involving mysticism and the occult. It is the underlying philosophy and framework for magical societies such as the Golden Dawn, Thelemic orders, mystical-religious societies such as the Bu ...
. The institute maintained a friendly collaboration with Lanz, its guiding intellect and inspiration, but also acknowledged an indebtedness to List, declaring itself as the successor to the ''Armanen'' priest-kings and their
hierophant A hierophant ( grc, ἱεροφάντης) is a person who brings religious congregants into the presence of that which is deemed ''holy''. As such, a hierophant is an interpreter of sacred mysteries and wikt:arcane, arcane principles. The word ...
ic tradition. Reichstein's circle therefore establishes the historical precedent for a broad conception that was followed by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke in 1985 when he redefined Ariosophy as a general term to describe Aryan-centric occult theories and hermetic practices, including both Lanz's Ario-Christianity and the earlier Armanism of List, as well as later derivatives of either or both systems. If the term is employed in this extended sense, then Guido von List, and not Lanz von Liebenfels, was the founder of Ariosophy. The justification for the broad definition is that List and Lanz were mutually influencing. The two men joined one another's societies; List figures in Lanz's pedigree of initiated predecessors; and Lanz is cited several times by List in ''The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric'' (1910).


Germanenorden

Although List had been concerned "to awaken German nationalist consciousness", the High Armanen Order had addressed itself to the upper and middle class Germans in Austria, and here List had preferred the "role of the mystagogue" over political activism. List's disciples, however, became active in the ''
Reichshammerbund Reichshammerbund (Reich Hammer League) was a German anti-Semitic movement founded in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch. Based on ''The Hammer'', a journal founded by Fritsch in 1902, the Bund argued that Jewish influences had contaminated Germany and attemp ...
'' and the ''Germanenorden'', two "historically significant", "virulently antisemitic groups" in Germany. Both groups were organized by the political activist
Theodor Fritsch Theodor Fritsch (born Emil Theodor Fritsche; 28 October 1852 – 8 September 1933), was a German publisher and journalist. His antisemitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th c ...
, a major figure in German antisemitism. Fritsch, born 1852, was the son of Saxon peasants, and he was concerned about the "small tradesmen and craftsmen" and their threat from what he perceived to be the large 'Jewish' industry. The List-inspired Germanenorden (Germanic Order or Teutonic Order, not to be confused with the medieval German order of the
Teutonic Knights The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...
) was a ''völkisch'' secret society in early 20th-century Germany. It was founded in Berlin in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch and several prominent German occultists including Philipp Stauff, who held office in the List Society and High Armanen Order as well as
Hermann Pohl Hermann or Herrmann may refer to: * Hermann (name), list of people with this name * Arminius, chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe in the 1st century, known as Hermann in the German language * Éditions Hermann, French publisher * Hermann, Miss ...
, who became the Germanenorden's first leader. The group was a clandestine movement aimed at the upper echelons of society and was a sister movement to the more mainstream Reichshammerbund. The order, whose symbol was a swastika, had a hierarchical fraternal structure similar to
Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
. Local groups of the sect met to celebrate the summer
solstice A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countr ...
, an important neopagan festivity in ''völkisch'' circles (and later in Nazi Germany), and more regularly to read the
Eddas "Edda" (; Old Norse ''Edda'', plural ''Eddur'') is an Old Norse term that has been attributed by modern scholars to the collective of two Medieval Icelandic literary works: what is now known as the ''Prose Edda'' and an older collection of poems ...
as well as some of the
German mystic The Friends of God (German: Gottesfreunde; or gotesvriunde) was a medieval mystical group of both ecclesiastical and lay persons within the Catholic Church (though it nearly became a separate sect) and a center of German mysticism. It was founde ...
s. In addition to occult and magical philosophies, it taught to its initiates nationalist ideologies of Nordic racial superiority and antisemitism, then rising throughout the Western world. As was becoming increasingly typical of ''völkisch'' organisations, it required its candidates to prove that they had no non-Aryan bloodlines and required from each a promise to maintain purity of his stock in marriage. In 1916, during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the Germanenorden split into two parts.
Eberhard von Brockhusen Eberhard von Brockhusen, (1869-1939), was a patron of the List society who lived at in Brandenburg, Germany. Guido von List was travelling to his manor house when he died in the spring of 1919. He was the Grand Master of the Germanenorden The ...
became the Grand Master of the "loyalist" Germanenorden. Pohl, previously the order's Chancellor, founded a schismatic offshoot: the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail. He was joined in the same year by Rudolf von Sebottendorff (formerly Rudolf Glauer), a wealthy adventurer with wide-ranging occult and mystical interests. A Freemason and a practitioner of
sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...
and
astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...
, Sebottendorff was also an admirer of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels. Convinced that the Islamic and Germanic mystical systems shared a common Aryan root, he was attracted by Pohl's runic lore and became the Master of the Walvater's Bavarian province late in 1917. Charged with reviving the province's fortunes, Sebottendorff increased membership from about a hundred in 1917 to 1500 by the autumn of the following year.


Thule Society

In 1918 Sebottendorff made contact with Walter Nauhaus, a member of the Germanenorden who headed a "Germanic study group" called the ''Thule Gesellschaft'' (
Thule Society The Thule Society (; german: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the ''Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum'' ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was a German occultist and '' Völkisch'' group founded in Munich shortly after World War I, ...
). The name of Nauhaus's original Thule Society was adopted as a cover-name for Sebottendorff's Munich lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater when it was formally dedicated on August 18, 1918, with Pohl's assistance and approval. Sebottendorff states that the group was run jointly by himself and Nauhaus. Deriving elements of its ideology and membership from earlier occult groups founded by List (Guido von List Society, established 1908) and by Lanz von Liebenfels (the Order of the New Templars, established 1907), the Thule Society was dedicated to the triune god Walvater, identified with Wotan in triple form. For the Society's emblem Sebottendorff selected the oak leaves, dagger and swastika. The name
Thule Thule ( grc-gre, Θούλη, Thoúlē; la, Thūlē) is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek and Latin literature, Roman literature and cartography. Modern interpretations have included Orkney, Shet ...
(an island located by Greek geographers at the northernmost extremity of the world) was chosen for its significance in the works of Guido von List. According to Thule Society mythology, Thule was the capital of
Hyperborea In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans ( grc, Ὑπερβόρε(ι)οι, ; la, Hyperborei) were a mythical people who lived in the far northern part of the known world. Their name appears to derive from the Greek , "beyond Boreas" (the God of ...
, a legendary country supposedly in the far North polar regions, originally mentioned by
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
, citing (among other sources) Egyptian ones. In 1679, Olaf Rudbeck equated the Hyperboreans with the survivors of
Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
, who were first mentioned by
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, again following Egyptian sources.
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
(1844–1900) began his work ''Der Antichrist'' ( ''The Antichrist'') in 1895 with, "Let us see ourselves for what we are. We are Hyperboreans." From a historian's perspective, the importance of the Thule Society lies in its organising the discussion circle that led to the
German Workers' Party The German Workers' Party (german: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) was a short-lived far-right political party established in Weimar Germany after World War I. It was the precursor of the Nazi Party, which was officially known as the National Soc ...
(''Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei'', or DAP), founded in January 1919. The Thule Society's
Karl Harrer Karl Harrer (8 October 1890 – 5 September 1926) was a German journalist and politician, one of the founding members of the ''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' ( German Workers' Party, DAP) in January 1919, the predecessor to the ''Nationalsozialistische ...
was a co-founder, along with
Anton Drexler Anton Drexler (13 June 1884 – 24 February 1942) was a German far-right political agitator for the Völkisch movement in the 1920s. He founded the pan-German and anti-Semitic German Workers' Party (DAP), the antecedent of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) ...
(the party's first chairman). Later the same year,
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
joined the DAP, which was renamed as the
National Socialist German Workers' Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
( de , Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) or
Nazi party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, registered from 20 February 1920) on April 1, 1920. Some conspiracy-theorists argue that the NSDAP, when under Hitler's
leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets view ...
, was a political front for the Thule Society. However, against this theory stands Harrer's and Drexler's resistance to Hitler. After unsuccessful challenges to his growing power, both men resigned from the party, Harrer in 1920 and Drexler in 1923. Speculative authors assert that a number of high Nazi Party officials had been members of the Thule Society (including such prominent figures as Max Amann,
Dietrich Eckart Dietrich Eckart (; 23 March 1868 – 26 December 1923) was a German '' völkisch'' poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party. Eckart ...
,
Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...
,
Alfred Rosenberg Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head of ...
and
Gottfried Feder Gottfried Feder (27 January 1883 – 24 September 1941) was a German civil engineer, a self-taught economist, and one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and its economic theoretician. It was one of his lectures, delivered in 1919, that d ...
). Eckart, the wealthy publisher of the newspaper ''Auf gut Deutsch'' (''In Plain German''), has been represented as a committed occultist and the most significant Thule influence on Hitler. He is believed to have taught Hitler a number of persuasive techniques, and so profound was his influence that the second volume of Hitler's book ''
Mein Kampf (; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
'' was dedicated to him. However, although Eckart attended Thule Society meetings, he was not a member and there is nothing to indicate that he trained Hitler in techniques of a mystical nature. Examining the membership lists, Goodrick-Clarke notes that Hess, Rosenberg and Feder were – like Eckart – guests of the Thule Society in 1918 but not actual members. He also describes a Thule Society membership roll including
Hans Frank Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party ...
and
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
as "spurious". There is no evidence that Hitler himself had any connection with the Society, even as an associate or visitor. However, a member of the Thule Society, dentist Dr. Friedrich Krohn, did choose the
swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
symbol for the Nazi party (although the design was revised at Hitler's insistence). In 1923, Sebottendorff was expelled from Germany as an undesirable alien; around 1925, the Thule Society disbanded. In 1933, Sebottendorff returned to Germany and published ''Bevor Hitler kam: Urkundliches aus der Frühzeit der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung von Rudolf von Sebottendorff''. The book was banned by the
Bavarian Political Police The Bavarian Political Police (german: Bayerische Politische Polizei), BPP, was a police force in the German state of Bavaria, active from 1933 to 1936. It served as a forerunner of the Gestapo in Bavaria, the secret police during the Nazi era, an ...
on March 1, 1934; Sebottendorff was arrested by the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
, interned in a concentration camp, then expelled to Turkey yet again, where he committed suicide by drowning in the
Bosphorus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
on May 9, 1945, as the Nazis surrendered to the Allies.


Edda Society

Rudolf John Gorsleben was associated with the Thule Society during the
Bavarian Soviet Republic The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic (german: Räterepublik Baiern, Münchner Räterepublik),Hollander, Neil (2013) ''Elusive Dove: The Search for Peace During World War I''. McFarland. p.283, note 269. was a short-lived unre ...
of 1919 and, along with Dietrich Eckart, he was taken prisoner by the Communists, narrowly escaping execution. He threw himself into the ferment of Bavaria's ''völkisch'' politics and formed a close working relationship with the local Germanenorden before devoting himself to literary pursuits. On 29 November 1925, Gorsleben founded the Edda Society (''Edda-Gesellschaft''), a mystic study group, at
Dinkelsbühl Dinkelsbühl () is a historic town in Central Franconia, a region of Germany that is now part of the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Dinkelsbühl is a former free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. In local government terms, Dinkelsb ...
in
Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...
. He himself was Chancellor of the Society and published its periodical ''Deutsche Freiheit'' (''German Freedom''), later renamed ''Arische Freiheit'' (''Aryan Freedom''). Assisted by learned contributors to his study-group, Gorsleben developed an original and eclectic
mystery religion Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates ''(mystai)''. The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy as ...
founded in part upon the Armanism of List, whom he quoted with approval. Grand Master of the Society was Werner von Bülow (1870–1947). The treasurer was Friedrich Schaefer from
Mühlhausen Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen. Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...
, whose wife, Käthe, kept open house for another occult-''völkisch'' circle (the 'Free Sons of the North and Baltic Seas') that gathered around Karl Maria Wiligut in the early 1930s. Mathilde von Kemnitz, a prolific ''völkisch'' writer who married General
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. ...
in 1926, was an active member of the Edda Society. When Rudolf John Gorsleben died from heart disease in August 1930, the Edda Society was taken over by Bülow who had designed a 'world-rune-clock' that illustrated the correspondences between the runes, the gods and the
zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the Sun path, apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. ...
, as well as colours and numbers. Bülow also took over the running of Gorsleben's periodical and changed its name from ''Arische Freiheit'' to ''Hag All All Hag'', and then '' Hagal''.


Modern organisations

In the later 20th century, Germanic neopagan movements oriented themselves more towards
polytheistic reconstructionism Polytheistic reconstructionism (or simply Reconstructionism) is an approach to modern paganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, which gathered momentum starting in the 1990s. Reconstructionism attempts to re-establish genuine poly ...
, turning away from theosophic and occult elements, but elements of Ariosophical mysticism continue to play a role in some
white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
organizations. Alleged mystical or shamanic aspects of historical pre-Christian Germanic culture, summarized as seidr are also practiced in
Odinism Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th cent ...
(
Freya Aswynn Elizabeth Hooijschuur (born November 1949), known by her pen name Freya Aswynn, is a Dutch writer and musician, primarily known for her activities related to modern paganism in the United Kingdom. She was an early exponent of a form of Germanic ne ...
,
Nigel Pennick Nigel Campbell Pennick (born 1946 in Guildford, Surrey, England) is a marine biologist, who has also published on occultism, magic, natural magic, divination, subterranea, rural folk customs, traditional performance and Celtic art as well as ...
,
Karl Spiesberger Karl Spiesberger (29 October 1904 – 1 January 1992) was a German mystic, occultist, Germanic revivalist and Runosophist. He is most well known for his revivalism and usage of the Sidereal Pendulum for divination and dowsing and for his anti- ...
, see also
Germanic Runic Astrology There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from the earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to the Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and th ...
, '' The Book of Blotar'').


Armanen-Orden

The Guido von List Society was re-established in the late 1960s through contacts between the German/Austrian occultist Adolf Schleipfer (1947–) and the still-living last president of the Society, Hanns Bierbach. Schleipfer had discovered some of List's works in an antique bookstore in the mid-1960s, and was inspired to found the runic and Armanist magazine '' Irminsul'' in hopes of attracting suitable people for a revived Listian order. He was appointed the new president and continued to publish ''Irminsul'' as the ''"Voice of the Guido von List Society."'' Schleipfer also attended meetings of a related organisation, the ''Gode-Orden'' (
Gothi Gothi or (plural , fem. ; Old Norse: ) was a position of political and social prominence in the Icelandic Commonwealth. The term originally had a religious significance, referring to a pagan leader responsible for a religious structure and c ...
-Order), which propagated a similar mixture of occult ''völkisch'' thinking. There he met his wife ''Sigrun Schleipfer'', née Hammerbacher (1940–2009), daughter of the ''völkisch'' writer and former NSDAP district leader, Dr. ''Hans Wilhelm Hammerbacher''. In 1976 the Schleipfers founded the ''Armanen-Orden'' (Armanen Order) as the reorganised Guido von List Society. Since then, Adolf and Sigrun have served as the Grandmasters of the Order, although they have divorced and Sigrun now refers to herself as "Sigrun von Schlichting" or "Sigrun Freifrau von Schlichting". They also revived the High Armanen Order (HAO) and brought it to "an unprecedented level of activity". The Armanen-Orden is a neopagan
esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
society and religious order reviving the occult teachings of Guido von List. Its internal structure is organized in nine grades, inspired by
Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
. The order is modelled on, but not limited to, the precepts of List, and its principles as formulated in its brochures are as follows: The Armanen-Orden celebrates seasonal festivities in a similar fashion as Odinist groups do and invites interested people to these events. The highlights are three 'Things' at Ostara (Easter), Midsummer and Fall (Wotan's sacrificial death), which are mostly celebrated at castles close to sacred places, such as the
Externsteine The Externsteine () is a distinctive sandstone rock formation located in the Teutoburg Forest, near the town of Horn-Bad Meinberg in the Lippe district of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The formation is a tor consisting of severa ...
. The author Stefanie von Schnurbein attended a Fall Thing in 1990 and gives the following report in '' Religion als Kulturkritik'' (''Religion and Cultural Criticism''): In 1977 Sigrun Schleipfer founded the ''Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung der Burgen'' (Society for the Conservation of Castles), which proclaims castles to be among the "last paradises of the romantic era" in this cold modern age and had as its primary aim the purchase and restoration of a castle for the Order. In 1995, the society finally acquired the castle of Rothenhorn in
Szlichtyngowa Szlichtyngowa (German: ''Schlichtingsheim'') is a town in western Poland, in the Wschowa County of the Lubuskie Voivodship, near the Oder river. The population as of 2019 was 1,278. History The town was founded in 1644 by a Polish Protestant ...
(
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
), a run-down structure dating back to the 12th century, though most of the complex dates from the 16th century. Over many years, Adolf and Sigrun have republished all of List's works (and many others relating to the Armanen runes) in their original German. Adolf Schleipfer has also contributed an article to ''The Secret King'', a study of Karl Maria Wiligut by Stephen Flowers and Michael Moynihan, in which he points out the differences between Wiligut's beliefs and those that are accepted within Odinism or Armanism.


Research on Ariosophy

After the war, Lanz von Liebenfels was first brought to a wider (and scholarly) attention with Wilfried Daim's book ''Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab'' (''The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas'') (1957). Although the book was not always taken seriously within
academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
, for some time Lanz was seen as one of the most important influences on Hitler. Since the 1990s, however, historians have cast doubt on Lanz' significance. The historian
Brigitte Hamann Brigitte Hamann (; 26 July 1940 – 4 October 2016) was a German-Austrian author and historian based in Vienna. Biography Born in Essen, Germany, Hamann studied history in Münster and Vienna. She worked as a journalist in her native Essen for ...
, who has written '' Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship'', is of the view that Lanz partly influenced Hitler's diction, but had only marginal influences on Adolf Hitler's religious views.


The occult roots of Nazism

Some of Lanz's proposals for racial purification anticipate the Nazis. The sterilisation of those deemed to be genetically "unfit" was in fact implemented under the
Nazi eugenics Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany, composed of various pseudoscientific ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of ...
policies, but its basis lay in the theories of scientific racial hygienists. The Nazi eugenics programme has no proven connection with Lanz's mystical rationale. Eugenic ideas were widespread in his lifetime, whereas he himself was banned from publishing in the
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and his writings were suppressed. Following Goodrick-Clarke's caution in assessing the relation between the two,, (preface by Rohan Butler).
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
cannot be considered a pupil of Lanz von Liebenfels, as Lanz himself had claimed. However, it has been suggested with some evidential basis that the young Hitler did read and collect Lanz's ''Ostara'' magazine while living in Vienna: Nevertheless: "It also remains a fact that Hitler never mentioned the name of Lanz in any recorded conversation, speech, or document. If Hitler had been importantly influenced by
anz ANZ may refer to: People * Anz (musician), a British DJ and electronic musician Banks * ANZ (bank), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, the fourth-largest bank in Australia ** ANZ Bank New Zealand, the largest bank in New Zealand ** ...
he cannot be said to have ever acknowledged this debt".


See also

*
Black Sun (occult symbol) The Black Sun (german: Schwarze Sonne) is a type of sun wheel (German: ) symbol originating in Nazi Germany and later employed by neo-Nazis and other far-right individuals and groups. The symbol's design consists of twelve radial ''sig'' rune ...
*
Fylfot The fylfot or fylfot cross ( ) and its mirror image, the gammadion are a type of swastika associated with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture. It is a cross with perpendicular extensions, usually at 90° or close angles, radiating in the same direc ...
*
Neopaganism in German-speaking Europe Since its emergence in the 1970s, Neopaganism (') in German-speaking Europe has diversified into a wide array of traditions, particularly during the New Age boom of the 1980s. Schmid (2006) distinguishes four main currents: * Germanic neopaganis ...
*
Ludwig Fahrenkrog Ludwig Fahrenkrog (20 October 1867 – 27 October 1952) was a German painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer. He was born in Rendsburg, Prussia, in 1867. He started his career as an artist in his youth, and attended the Berlin Royal Art A ...
*
Julius Evola Giulio Cesare Andrea "Julius" Evola (; 19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974) was an Italian philosopher, poet, painter, esotericist, and radical-right ideologue. Evola regarded his values as aristocratic, masculine, traditionalist, heroic, and defiantly ...
*
René Guénon René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as ''Abdalwâhid Yahiâ'' (; ''ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā'') was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having writte ...
* Glossary of Germanic mysticism *
Sig Rune Sig used as a name may refer to: * Sig (given name) *Sig, Algeria, a city on the banks of the Sig River * Sig Alert, an alert for traffic congestion in California, named after Loyd Sigmon *Sig River, a river of Algeria also known as Mekerra sig ( ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * (paperback) and (hardcover). Revised and expanded edition of * Republished as ) and as * * * * * * (Republished as ) * * * * * * * In Originally published in * * * * {{Authority control Germanic mysticism Germanic neopaganism Guido von List 19th-century modern paganism fr:Ariosophie