Himmler’s Witches Library and Eric Kurlander talk Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich

Last year’s Hallows’ Eve special program, “Hitler’s Monsters” explored occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by Nazi Germany in the service of power.

“The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, and in reality the supernatural was an essential part of the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion.”

ERIC JURLANDER, HITLER’S MONSTERS: A SUPERNATURAL HISTORY OF THE THIRD REICH

Eric Kurlander, professor of history at Stetson University
and author of “Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich” 

THE ROOTS OF HIMMLER’S OCCULT INTERESTS AND THE WITCHES LIBRARY

Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo, influenced the Holocaust program and remained intensely interested in occult research. In the Czech Republic’s National Library exists a bulk collection of books, referred to as the “Witches Library,” on witches and their persecution in medieval Germany. Himmler desired to display his collection at the Black Camelot castle in western Germany, where the Shutzschffel knights were modeled on the folktales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Heinrich Himmler believed the Roman Catholic Church was trying to destroy the German race through witch hunts, and attempted to use this evidence on the Church. On the possibility of witchcraft in the geological tree of Heinrich Himmler, he had learned that one of his ancestors, Margareth Himbler from Markelsheim was burned in Morgentheim in 1629, which furled in him this animosity.

There was claimed to be a division dedicated to the collection of magic books known as Sonderkommando-H. Heydrich’s SS-Hauptamt section investigated or collected occult books. Heydrich wrote this letter to Himmler on Margareth Himbler in 1939.

THE THIRD REICH’S EXTREME MEASURES TO OUST FAITHS AND BAN BIBLE

Christians cannot attempt to create a narrative, that Hitler hated Christianity and favored Occultism, since Hitler and the Nazis also disfavored and suppressed Occult Orders. In National Socialism and Christianity: Bavarian Political Police Report on Hitler Speech in Augsburg, was Adolf Hitler merely pandering to German Christians as an act of demagoguery? Adolf Hitler refers to National Socialism as a racialist (or volkic) doctrine but contradicted this in Mein Kampf when he described National Socialism as a “Christian social movement.”

Adolf Hitler states in Mein Kampf, that:

“…the anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge”

MEIN KAMPF, VOL. CHAPTER 3

“…and so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord. Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work. I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

MEIN KAMPF, VOL. 1, CHAPTER 2

These very often contradictory views of Hitler on Christianity demonstrated, that the veracity of religion for Hitler did not matter more than its political usefulness.

The 700 Club with Gordon Robertson provides a further look at the connection between Christianity and Hitler.