[0:00]A Lamancha Presentation.
[0:40]The Occult History of the Third Reich. The Enigma of the Swastika.
[0:57]Berlin, 1936.
[2:10]Nazi Germany, 1936. A state which will sterilize, enslave, and systematically murder millions of men, women, and children. Entire peoples are to be swept from the face of the planet. Whole populations are to be scientifically reduced, those who remain preserved only for their value as slaves.
[2:42]The world is to be subject to a new order.
[3:10]To foreign observers of 1930s Germany, National Socialism is an enigma. No conventional political explanation seems sufficient to account for such an alien phenomenon. A whole world of strange rituals and beliefs seems to have risen from nowhere to mesmerize millions of Germans.
[3:40]Over the whole extraordinary spectacle of pageantry and military might, presides the Messianic figure of Adolf Hitler. And everywhere, there is a mysterious and ever-present symbol, the emblem of the swastika.
[4:20]The great rallies at Nuremberg consummate the mystical unity of the party, the people, and their leader.
[4:45]A foreign reporter finds himself overawed by the force of the spectacle he is witnessing. Hitler, he writes, is restoring pageantry and mysticism to the drab lives of the 20th century.
[5:01]The rally has the mystical and religious fervor of an Easter Mass in a great Gothic cathedral.
[5:54]The ranks of the Hitler Youth sing of their newfound faith. No evil priest can prevent us from feeling that we are the children of Hitler. Away with incense and holy water. The swastika brings salvation on Earth.
[6:16]The symbol of the swastika will win the devotion of millions. Its rise will chart the growth of a strange and terrifying creed.
[6:25]The doctrine of National Socialism. A doctrine born in the world of the occult.
[6:39]The mission of Aryan man.
[6:45]The mystery of the blood.
[6:50]The soul of the race. These dogmas, fundamental to the Nazi vision, will lead Europe into the realms of nightmare. Their symbol is the swastika.
[7:09]The swastika was adopted by the Nazi Party in 1920. But it was neither the party's invention nor its discovery. Since the end of the 19th century, the swastika had been spreading amongst the peoples of Europe. And everywhere, it was a sign of a new and powerful force. A deepening fascination with the arcane, the esoteric, and the occult.
[7:41]The revival of the occult in Europe has its roots deep in the trauma of the Industrial Revolution.
[7:52]By the dawn of the 20th century, the lives of millions have been changed out of all recognition. Cities, the traditional centers of commerce and fashionable life, have been transformed into sprawling industrial slums.
[8:10]Yet everywhere, the catchphrase is progress. There is a widespread belief that a new world is coming. A world in which the ills of the past will be cured by science, by technology, and by democracy.
[8:36]Many, far from welcoming the dawn of a new age, are deeply disturbed. With the Industrial Revolution, had come a decline in the power of traditional authority. The political power of the landowner is waning in favor of a new class of industrialists and financiers. Hierarchy is being threatened by democracy.
[9:05]It appears to many as if the world of beauty and order is disintegrating before their very eyes. Worst of all, religion itself seems in mortal danger.
[9:20]Cherished beliefs accepted as true for all time, are being questioned by science.
[9:43]The ancient Himalayan kingdom of Tibet. From the late 19th century, Tibet is the mysterious and forbidding destination of a steady stream of travelers from the industrialized world.
[9:59]Many, disillusioned with the certainties of science, come in search of another deeper knowledge.
[10:09]One such traveler is a Russian adventuress and self-proclaimed telepath, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. In 1888, Madame Blavatsky publishes a book, The Secret Doctrine, in which she claims that deep in an underground Himalayan monastery, she has been shown an ancient occult text. In it were revealed the mystical secrets of the universe and the future course of human history. In the Secret Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky describes the universe as having fallen from pure spirit into base matter, darkness, and chaos. But soon, it will rise once more to reach the pinnacle of spirituality.
[10:56]Madame Blavatsky claims that this knowledge and more, she has learned through initiation into the mysteries of seven esoteric symbols. Of these seven symbols, one she believed to be more potent than any other. The symbol is the swastika. In Tibetan mythology, the swastika is the sign of Agni, the God of the Sun, of fire, and of creation.
[11:25]And always, whether clockwise or anti-clockwise, whether curved or straight-armed, it is the symbol of good fortune.
[11:37]For Madame Blavatsky, each cycle of creation has associated with it seven stages of human evolution.
[11:47]Stages she calls root races. The race which will begin once more, the ascent from darkness to the light of the spirit she names, Aryan. In the occult teachings of Madame Blavatsky, the sign of the Aryan is the swastika.
[12:10]The Nuremberg rally of 1934 has as its theme a mystical concept. The triumph of the will.
[12:42]In the world of National Socialism, the race of light, of order, and of the spirit is the Aryan race. Decades before the swastika was adopted by the Nazi Party, a periodical published in Germany by an American occult society, became the first German publication to carry a swastika on its cover. The Society's founder was Madame Helena Blavatsky. It would be the followers of Madame Blavatsky who would introduce to the peoples of Germany and Austria, the occult doctrine of the Aryan.
[13:32]The Prussian-Austrian War of 1866, had left German-speaking Austrians an isolated minority in a predominantly Slavic Austria-Hungary. By the early 20th century, an intense longing has grown for unification with Germany.
[13:55]Hundreds of German-Austrian societies are founded, committed to the romantic revival of ancient Germanic mythology.
[14:06]A folk federation with a membership of over 100,000, calling itself the Germananbund, holds festivals, founds a Germanic calendar, revives ancient rituals, and appeals for unity in a new spiritual German nationhood. The Germananbund was inspired by the writings of an Austrian mystic.
[14:30]Guido von List, born in Vienna in 1848. Claimed to have psychic visions of the past, in which he was initiated into the secrets of the ancient Teutonic tribes.
[14:49]List's visions told him of a Germanic religion, the worship of the God Wotan. His dream is to rediscover the occult heritage of its long-vanished priesthood.
[15:06]According to Norse legend, the God Magician Wotan, leader of the dead heroes of Valhalla, had won by suffering a priceless store of esoteric knowledge. He had discovered the secret of the runes.
[15:22]List knew that the runes were the alphabet of a primitive system of writing, but to Germanic peoples from the 2nd century to the Middle Ages, they were also magical symbols. Symbols which List believed possessed a deep esoteric meaning. Fehu, the rune of wealth, wandering, and destruction. Uruz, the rune of wild oxen, regeneration, and sacrifice. Nauthiz, the compulsion of fate. Sieg, the rune of the Sun, and of victory.
[16:05]To Guido von List, runes were the key to the occult knowledge of the ancient Germanic peoples. Within a decade of his death in 1919, the runes would have become elements in a new language, the language of National Socialism. The Sieg, Victory Rune, emblem of the Hitler Youth. The double Sieg, emblem of the Schutzstaffel, the SS.
[16:40]The Apfelrune, symbol of Richard Walter Darre's Ministry of Agriculture, the rune of inheritance, the rune of German soil.
[16:53]The Man rune, the rune of death, which in time will replace the cross in the graveyards of the SS. Study of the runes is required of all SS officers. Of the many strange and mystical symbols which have found a place in the new order of National Socialism, one dominates all others. The swastika.
[17:35]Guido von List called the swastika the twice-high holy secret of constant generation. He recounts a Nordic tale in which the God Mundilfari whisks the cosmos into being. The swastika is the fire whisk, the very act of creation.
[47:39]Written and Directed by Dave Flitton. Narrated by Patrick Allen. Edited by Justin McCarthy (No.10, Post Production) Neil McLauchlan. John Hogg. Production Assistants: Wendy Smith, Alison Kerr, Alexandra Aikman. Rostrum Camera: Neil McLauchlan. Additional Research: Bob Bryden, Lindsey Bowditch, Jennifer Renton. Title Sequence: John Hogg. Title Music: Andrew Redman. Series Consultant: Prof. John Erickson. Produced by David McWhinnie. A Lamancha / Castle Co-production. Copyright Lamancha / Castle 1991.
