View allAll Photos Tagged Externsteine
Die Externsteine sind eine markante Sandstein-Felsformation im Teutoburger Wald und als solche eine herausragende Natursehenswürdigkeit Deutschlands, die unter Natur- und Kulturdenkmalschutz steht. Die Felsen sind vom Wiembecketeich und von einer parkartigen Anlage umgeben. Die Externsteine liegen im Gebiet der Stadt Horn-Bad Meinberg im Kreis Lippe in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Ihnen werden besondere kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutungen zugeschrieben.
Die Deutung der Externsteine als ein germanisches Heiligtum, das von Karl dem Großen zerstört worden sei, durch Hermann Hamelmann im Jahr 1564 erlebte in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts mit dem allgemein aufkommenden Interesse an Vor- und Frühgeschichte einen ersten Höhepunkt, um sich dann von den 1920er Jahren bis 1945 erneut großer Popularität zu erfreuen. Seitdem werden, vor allem in der heimatkundlichen Forschung, diese Ansätze immer wieder aufgegriffen, wobei die Interpretationen von Sternwarte bis hin zu Kultplatz reichen. In der esoterischen Literatur finden sich teils fantastische Deutungen. Ausgrabungen erbrachten jedoch keinen eindeutigen Nachweis einer kultischen Nutzung in ur- oder frühgeschichtlicher Zeit, sondern belegen menschliche Aktivitäten erst für das frühe Hochmittelalter.
Gesichert sind aus dem direkten Umfeld der Felsen archäologische Funde aus der Altsteinzeit (um 10.000 v. Chr.) und Mittelsteinzeit, insbesondere Feuerstein-Spitzen und -Abschläge, die allerdings nur belegen können, dass die damaligen Menschen die Steingruppe aufgesucht haben, – aus welchen Gründen, ist den Relikten nicht zu entnehmen. Keine gesicherten Belege aus Funden gibt es hingegen für menschliche Nutzungen in der Jungsteinzeit, der Bronze- und der Eisenzeit.
In unmittelbarer Umgebung der Steine befinden sich noch mehrere Hohlwege, darunter der Hohlweg Große Egge, die oft fälschlich als Reste von „Römerwegen“ bezeichnet werden. Die Ursprünge dieser Relikte historischer Verkehrsbeziehungen liegen aber mit Sicherheit nicht bei den Römern. Ob sie bereits in prähistorischer Zeit oder erst im Mittelalter entstanden, kann derzeit nicht entschieden werden.
Neuere Thermolumineszenzdatierungen durch die Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften ergaben eine Nutzung der ältesten beprobten Feuerstelle in der Kuppelgrotte mit einer hohen Wahrscheinlichkeit zu einem nicht näher bestimmbaren Zeitpunkt zwischen der Mitte des 6. und dem Beginn des 10. Jahrhunderts (735 ± 180 n. Chr.). Eine weitere Feuerstelle in derselben Grotte wurde im 9. bis 11. Jahrhundert (934 ± 94 n. Chr.) genutzt. Eine Probe aus der Nebengrotte ist jünger als 1025 ± 100 n. Chr. und zwei weitere Brandspuren in der Haupt- und Nebengrotte stammen erst aus dem Spätmittelalter (1325 ± 50 n. Chr. und 1425 ± 63 n. Chr.). Ältere Nutzungen dieser Feuerstellen können mit dieser Untersuchungsmethode weder ausgeschlossen werden noch sind sie zwingend anzunehmen. Damit kann die Nutzung der Grotten in prähistorischer Zeit durch diese Untersuchungen zwar nicht ausgeschlossen werden, aber es fehlen dafür weiterhin belastbare Belege.
Einige Astronomen haben dagegen auf eine mögliche vorchristliche Nutzung des Turmfelsens und anderer Partien der Externsteine zu Zwecken der Himmelsbeobachtung hingewiesen.
Eine moderne Auswertung der archäologischen Funde, insbesondere der Keramik und der Metallgüter, erbrachte eine Datierung der Fundobjekte vom späten 10. bis ins 19. Jahrhundert. Die daraus abgeleitete mindestens zeitweilige Anwesenheit von Menschen an der Felsengruppe passt zu einer Abdinghofer Urkunde, nach der die Externsteine 1093 von dem Paderborner Kloster gekauft worden sein sollen.
Das Arkosolium im Grabfelsen am Fuße des Felsens 1
Die Mönche umliegender Klöster, vielleicht auch aus Paderborn, waren höchstwahrscheinlich die Urheber architektonischer und gestalterischer Arbeiten an den Externsteinen und in ihrem Umfeld. Die nicht kunsthistorisch datierbaren Gebilde, wie z. B. des Felsengrabes (Arkosol) und der oberen Kapelle (Felsen 2), die in der kunsthistorischen Forschung oft, in Anlehnung an die Abdinghofer Besitzansprüche, als Nachbauten der Jerusalemer Passionsstätten interpretiert werden, sind vielleicht ebenfalls mittelalterlich und von Mönchen beauftragt. Die höhergelegene Kapelle mit Altar ist mit der Höhe Golgathas assoziiert. Die Höhlen in den Sandsteinfelsen wurden als Eremitage genutzt. In der Hauptgrotte, manchmal auch untere Kapelle genannt, findet sich eine Weihinschrift mit der Jahreszahl 1115. Auch ihre Echtheit ist nicht unbestritten geblieben.
Das bekannte in den Grottenstein gemeißelte Kreuzabnahmerelief wird jedoch von der kunsthistorischen Forschung, nach der fälligen Neubewertung in den 1950er Jahren, an der sich Otto Schmitt, Fritz Saxl und Otto Gaul beteiligten, in die Zeit zwischen 1130 und 1160 datiert. wobei auch abweichende Datierungen existieren, so zum Beispiel in die karolingische Zeit, in der laut Walther Matthes in den Jahren 815 bis 822 die Externsteine der unbekannte Ort des Klosters Hethis, der Vorläufergründung von Corvey, gewesen sein soll. Dass das Relief erst im 16. Jahrhundert von Lucas Cranach d. Ä. geschaffen worden sei, ist angesichts der Arbeitsweise und des Stils unwahrscheinlich. Es gilt als die älteste aus massivem Fels gehauene Steinmetzplastik nördlich der Alpen. Für die oft behauptete hochmittelalterliche Nutzung der Felsen als Wallfahrtsort fehlen sowohl mittelalterliche Quellenbelege als auch eindeutige Indizien in den Fundmaterialien.
eit 1665 stand in unmittelbarer Nähe der Steine ein Forsthaus im Fachwerkstil, das auch eine Schankwirtschaft enthielt.
Im 17. Jahrhundert wurde unterhalb der Externsteine vom Lippischen Landesherrn Graf Hermann Adolf zu Lippe-Detmold, der nach der Reformation Besitzer des Platzes wurde, ein festungsartiges Lustschloss angelegt, das wohl auch der Kontrolle des Fernstraßenverkehrs diente, sonst jedoch nach kurzer Zeit fast ungenutzt blieb und verfiel. Es wurde auf Anweisung der lippischen Fürstin Pauline um 1810 wieder abgerissen, und das Gelände um die Externsteine wurde wieder in den Ursprungszustand versetzt.
1836 wurde aus romantisch-landschaftsästhetischen Gründen der unterhalb der Felsengruppe fließende Bach Wiembecke zum Wiembecketeich aufgestaut. Dieser künstliche Teich wurde zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus für Grabungszwecke und im Rahmen der Gestaltung des Areals abgelassen, nach 1945 aber wieder neu angelegt.
1855 kaufte der Förster und Pächter der Schankwirtschaft das Forst- und Gasthaus. Sein Sohn ließ 1867 daneben einen neogotischen Hotelbau errichten, der von Architekt Friedrich Gösling in großen Dimensionen entworfen wurde. Das Hotel Externsteine mit Restaurant bestimmte das Erscheinungsbild der Externsteine für die nächsten rund 100 Jahre.
1881 und 1888 fanden an den Externsteinen die ersten archäologischen Grabungskampagnen unter eher schlichten Bedingungen statt. Im Rückblick ist davon auszugehen, dass damals insgesamt mehr zerstört als entdeckt worden ist. 1932 wurde eine archäologische Sondierungsgrabung von einem Bodendenkmalpfleger im Auftrag des damaligen Freistaats Lippe vorgenommen.
Zur Verkehrssicherung wurde der Wackelstein, der alten Geschichten zufolge auf Feinde des Ortes herunterstürzen sollte, mit Eisenhaken befestigt.
Die jahrhundertealte Vorstellung von den Externsteinen als germanische Kultstätte griff die Völkische Bewegung auf. Kernthese dieser sonst uneinheitlichen Bewegung war die Annahme einer germanischen bzw. nordischen Hochkultur vor den antiken Hochkulturen des Mittelmeerraums, der sog. Germanenmythos. Belege dafür glaubten völkische Laienforscher in Steinsetzungen der Megalithkultur sowie in der Kunst der Völkerwanderungszeit und der Wikinger gefunden zu haben. So auch Wilhelm Teudt, der Mitte der 1920er-Jahre in den Externsteinen den Standort des vermeintlichen sächsischen Hauptheiligtums Irminsul entdeckt zu haben glaubte. Die Irminsul galt in völkischen und gilt in neuheidnischen Kreisen als Symbol des letzten Widerstandes der alten germanischen Religion, bevor sie von Karl dem Großen im Zuge der Christianisierung zerstört worden sei.
Teudt, der Mitglied zahlreicher völkischer Organisationen und ab 1. Mai 1933 Mitglied der NSDAP war, schlug den Nationalsozialisten nach ihrer Machtergreifung vor, die Externsteine in einen „Heiligen Hain“ zur Erinnerung an die Ahnen umzugestalten. Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler mit seiner Vorliebe für alles vermeintlich Germanische griff die Idee auf und gründete 1933 die Externstein-Stiftung; er selbst war ihr Vorsitzender.
1934 und 1935 wurden unter Leitung des Geologen und aktiven NSDAP-Mitglieds Julius Andree mit Hilfe des Reichsarbeitsdienstes umfangreiche archäologische Ausgrabungen durchgeführt, deren Dokumentation seit 1945 aber nur noch unvollständig ist. Erklärtes Ziel der Grabungen war das Auffinden von Belegen für eine vorchristliche germanische Kultstätte an den Steinen. Diese Grabungen werden von der heutigen wissenschaftlichen Archäologie in der Regel als „initiierte archäologische Zweckforschung“ angesehen. Ein Teil der Keramik- und Metallfunde der beiden Grabungen wird heute im Lippischen Landesmuseum Detmold aufbewahrt. Im Rahmen der Grabungen entdeckte und untersuchte Andree eine Wallanlage nordöstlich der Steine, die Immenburg auf dem gleichnamigen Flurstück.
Grundsätzlich und vorwiegend beschäftigten sich in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus zwei verschiedene Organisationen mit der „Externsteinforschung“: die SS-Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe und das sogenannte Amt Rosenberg.
In den Jahren von 1964 bis 1966 wurde das Umfeld der Externsteine aufgewertet. Ein Großparkplatz und eine Gaststätte wurden außerhalb der direkten Sichtlinie zu den Steinen neu errichtet. Dafür wurde das Hotel Externsteine von 1867 abgerissen. Seitdem wirken die Externsteine trotz der großen Besucherzahlen ruhiger.
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 several tall, narrow columns of rock which rise abruptly from the surrounding wooded hills.
Horn Bad Meinberg - Germany, NRW, Ostwestfalen-Lippe, Externsteine
The autumn light was gave the best showdown ever during these mild warm days of late october and early november.
Mamiya Sekor 105 - 210 mm/ 4.0
Pentacon Six TL und ein Fuji Reala Iso 100. Negativscan. Rummelsnuff - Salutare (Pankow XII-G-XXII FM Remix): www.youtube.com/watch?v=GapioR7kUUI
Die markante Felsformation der Externsteine steht auf einer großen Lichtung im Teutoburger Wald, direkt an einem kleinen See. (Nicht nur) Im Sommer ist es hier sehr touristisch. Wenn man tagsüber hier unterwegs ist, muss man eine ungewohnte Perspektive suchen, warten oder in der Nachbearbeitung stempeln können. ;)
Agfa Isolette II 4.5/85mm, Ilford delta 100, HC-110
Every time I go there I take this shot, not very creative but it is a nice view nonetheless..
In 1917 the occultist Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, the Gurdjeff disciple Karl Haushofer, the ace pilot Lothar Waisz, Prelate Gernot of the secret "Societas Templi Marcioni" (The Inheritors of the Knights Templar) and Maria Orsic, a transcendental medium from Zagreb met in Vienna. They all had extensively studied the "Golden Dawn", its teachings, rituals and especially its knowledge about Asian secret lodges. Sebottendorf and Haushofer were experienced travellers of India and Tibet and much influenced by the teachings and myths of those places. During the First World War Karl Haushofer had made contacts with one of the most influential secret societies of Asia, the Tibetan Yellow Hats" (dGe-lugs-pa). This sect was formed in 1409 by the Buddhist reformer Tsong-kha-pa. Haushofer was initiated and swore to commit suicide should his mission fail. The contacts between Haushofer and the Yellow Hats led in the Twenties to the formation of Tibetan colonies in Germany.
The four young people hoped that during these meetings in Vienna they would learn something about the secret revelatory texts of the Knights Templar and also about the secret fraternity Die Herren vom Schwarzen Stein ("The Lords of the Black Stone"). Prelate Gernot was of the "Inheritors of the Knights Templar", the only true Templar society. They are the descendants of the Templars of 1307 who passed on their secrets from father to son - until today. Prelate Gernot apparently told them about the advent of a new age - the change-over from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.
They discussed that our solar year - according to the twelve revolutions of the moon - was divided into twelve months and thus the revolution of our sun around the great central sun (the Black Sun of ancient myths) was also divided into twelve parts. Together with the precession of the cone-shaped proper movement of the Earth due to the inclination of the axis this determines the length of the world age. Such a "cosmic month" is then 2,155 years, the "cosmic year" 25,860 years long. According to the Templars the next change is not just an ordinary change of the age, but also the end of a cosmic year and the start of an absolutely new one.
The main part of the discussions dealt with the background of a section of the New Testament, Matthew 21:43. For there Jesus addressed the Jews:
Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.
The complete original text that is kept in the archives of the "Societas Ternpli Marcioni" says it even more clearly. But the point is: In that text Jesus actually names the "people", He talks to Teutons serving in the Roman legion and he tells them that it is THEIR people that he had chosen. That was what Sebottendorf and his friends wanted to know for sure: That the Teutonic, i.e. the German, people were commissioned to form the realm of light upon Earth - in the "Land of the Midnight Mountain" (Germany). The place where the ray would meet the Earth was given as the Untersberg near Salzburg.
What was the legend of the Untersberg mountain, at which Hitler spent many hours gazing from his study in the Berghof? Historians guess that, like King Arthur, Frederick Barbarossa is buried there, waiting for a call to arise from the dead to come to his country's aid in its hour of need. That is not the legend of the Untersberg, though.
In 1220, Templar Komtur Hubertus Koch, returning with a small party from the Crusades, passed through Mesopotamia, and near the old city of Nineveh in modern Iraq, received an apparition of the goddess Isais (first child of goddess Isis and god Set). She told him to withdraw to the Untersberg mountain, build a house there and await her next apparition.
Whether that is true or not, in 1221, Koch erected his first Komturei at the foot of Ettenberg near Markt Schellenberg. A second, larger structure followed. It is believed that over the next few years, underground galleries were excavated into various areas of the Untersberg, and in one of them a temple to Isais was built.
A second apparition occurred in 1226 and were repeated on occasions until 1238. During this period the Templars received Die Isais Offenbarung, a series of prophesies (recently published) and information concerning the Holy Grail. The Templars at Jerusalem had knowledge of these visitations, over which the Church drew a veil of silence. What follows is only tradition, but may be of interest.
It is the German tradition that the Templars were ordered to form a secret scientific sect in southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy to be known as "Die Herren vom Schwarzen Stein" - The Lords of the Black Stone - or DHvSS for short, and this is said to be the true, hidden meaning of SS.
The Holy Grail ("Ghral" is holy stone, Persian-Arabic) was said to be a black-violet crystal, half quartz, half amethyst, through which Higher Powers communicated with humanity. It was given into the safe-keeping of the Cathars, and smuggled out of the last stronghold at Montsegur, France, and hidden, by four Cathar women on the night of 14 March 1244. There is a Cathar legend that 700 years after the destruction of the Cathar religion the Holy Grail would be returned to its rightful holders, DHvSS, or the SS?
Ruins of Montsegur
the "Teehaus"
It may be of interest to note in this connection that the Tea House designed by Hitler and built atop the Mooslahnerkopf at Obersalzberg, the stone pavillion still standing today, bears a striking resemblance to Montsegur when viewed at certain angles from the foot of the great rocky outcrop. Whether this was a coincidence remains in the mind of the beholder.
At the end of September 1917 Sebottendorf met with members of the "Lords of the Black Stone" at the Untersberg to receive the power of the "Black-Purple Stone" after which the secret society was named.
The "Lords of the Black Stone" who formed out of the Marcionite Templar societies in 1221 led by Hubertus Koch who had set as their aim the fight against evil and the building of Christ's realm of light.
A circle formed around Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, who wrote about this in a book that was later banned by the Nazi’s Bevor Hitler Kam (Before Hitler Came), that via the "Teutonic Order" in 1918 in Bad Aibling became the "Thule Gesellschaft".
The themes they tried to link to politics were scientific magic, astrology, occultism and Templar knowledge as well as "Golden Dawn" practices like Tantra, Yoga and Eastern meditation.
The Thule-Gesellschaft believed, following the Revelation of Isais, in a Coming Saviour (German: Heiland = the Holy One), the "Third Sargon" who would bring to Germany glory and a new Aryan culture.
Guido von List (1905)
Some of the most important teachings influencing the Thule-Gesellschaft was the Aryo-Germanic construction of religion (Wihinei) by the philosopher Guido von List, the Glacial Cosmology by Hans Hörbiger and a leaning towards the anti-Old Testament early Christianity of the Marcionites. The innermost circle at any rate had vowed to fight World Judaism and Freemasonry and its lodges.
In the eyes of the Thule Gesellschaft, from which later emerged the DAP (German Workers' Party), the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party), the SS (Schutzstaffel), the Jewish people who had been charged by the Old Testament god JAHVEH to "raise havoc on Earth" were the reason why the world was always caught up in war and discord.
Far from being a fringe secret society, the Thule Gesellschaft had members that reached into the German Aristocracy. It essentially had all of the beliefs expounded by Rosenberg and was the group that Hitler first came to at the beginnings of his rise to power.
It was exclusively a rich man’s society and drew its members from the upper echelons of Bavarian Society, and was not open to the middle class or the workers of Germany
Indeed one had to show pure Aryan lineage back to the 30 Years War in order to join, one could not be deformed or even be just plain old ‘ugly’, one had to be one of the ‘beautiful people’. It was at this time that the Prime Minister of the Bavarian government, Kurt Eisner (a Jew) was assassinated by a disgruntled young count Anton Graf Arco, who had been refused admission to the Thule Society, presumably because he was of Jewish decent. One of the prime suspects that the police questioned was the Society’s leader. Here we can understand that elitism and racism was an important part of the belief systems of those who formulated the early Nazi doctrine. The assassination transpired in an atmosphere of general fear among the Bavarian elite that Bolsheivism (communism, and with it wealth confiscation) was making important inroads at the end of the war and that there was too much ‘Jewish influence’. This was ‘confirmed’ by the election of the Jewish socialist, Kurt Eisner.
Sebottendorff, the leader of the Thule society, was known as an adept at astrology, alchemy divining rods and other occult practices and it was his belief that the Jews were really in control of the Freemasonic lodges that probably led to their eventual seizure and closure when the Nazi’s took power. Indeed, the whole idea of brotherhood that typified freemasonic beliefs was at odds with what the Thulists believed. Indeed Sebottendorff went so far as to say that ‘equality is death’; Thus, freemasons were also singled out by the Nazi’s. He spread his propaganda through Der Münchener Beobachtera newspaper that he purchased because he needed an avenue with which to spread his profane doctrine.
As conditions in Germany worsened, it became clear that much of the population was ready for a change. Food had become very scarce and most Germans were hungry and some were even starving. People were reduced to eating dog biscuits and horsemeat. The mark had lost most of its value and discontent was spreading. It was in this atmosphere in which many began to long for and fanaticize for a better world and fundamental change in Germany. There were fights in the streets and beer halls as well as fights between occult and political groups.
Members of these groups were not averse to using terrorism to gain their political aims and to put it as briefly as possible, the Thulists wanted to bring together all the anti-Semitic forces in Germany into forceful political action, both legal (elections) and illegal (terrorism).
The common theme of the more successful occult groups has always been to hold economic views in keeping with the politics and interests of the wealthier classes. In so doing wealthy patrons and converts can help finance the movement and give it an air of legitimacy. This was violently demonstrated when Hitler betrayed the S.A. who were the working class Germans that assisted Hitler on his way to power. The German elite as well as the SS wanted to rid themselves of this proletarian riff-raff and thus, during the night of the long Knives, the SA (or Brownshirts) was done away with by Hitler and the Elitist SS.
It all started with the Thule Gesellschaft, pagan, anti-Semitic, right-wing aristocratic society founded by a Freemason and Eastern mystic named Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff. They met every Saturday in Munich’s Four Season’s Hotel to discuss things like runes (an old German alphabet), racial evolution, Nordic mythology and German nationalism. Registered under the name "Thule Gesellschaft" as a "literary-cultural society", in order to fool the communist Red Army now controlling Munich, this group had originally been known as the Germanenorden, or the German Order of the Holy Grail.
The Germanenorden had an impressive series of initiatory rituals, replete with knights in shining armor, wise kings, mystical bards and forest nymphs, including a Masonic-style program of secrecy, initiation and mutual cooperation. But they were not copying the ideological aspects of Freemasonry. What the Germanenorden became was, essentially, an anti-Masonry: a Masonic-style society dedicated to the eradication of Freemasonry itself. Their symbol was a Swastika on top of a long dagger, and their beliefs had been influenced largely by the writings of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels.
Liebenfels had founded the neo-pagan, Sswastika-waving "Order of the New Templars" on Christmas Day, 1907, along similar ideological lines. In that same year, occult researcher Guido von List began The List Society, part of a then-developing "völkish" (folkish) movement extolling the virtues of Norse heritage, heritage which could be traced by reading the Edda, a compilation of Icelandic legends which Hitler would later take great interest in. The völkish movement itself was based in part on the ideas of Madame Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society famous for her books Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. She wrote that humanity was descendant from a series of imperfect races which had once ruled the earth, and which all had a common Atlantean origin dating back millions of years, culminating in the Aryan race, which had at one point possessed supernatural powers but had since lost them. She also romanticized about the occult significance of the Swastika, of Lucifer, "The Light-Bearer", and of a cabal of spiritual "Hidden Masters" called the Great White Brotherhood, who guided human evolution from their abode in the Himalayas and who Blavatsky herself purported to channel during her many self-induced trances.
And the philosophy of List and Liebenfels took this a bit further, to the extent that the Aryan race was the only "True" humanity, and that the Jews, along with a host of other undesirables, or "minderwertigen" ("beings of inferior value") were sapping the race of its strength and purity through the evil machination of Christianity, Freemasonry, capitalism and Communism. They believed that the Aryan race had come from a place called Thule, the north pole, where there was an entrance to a vast underground area populated by giants. Among the völkish cults it was believed that - as soon as the Germans had purified the planet of the pollution of the inferior races - these Hidden Masters, these Supermen from Thule, would make themselves known, and the link which had been lost between Man and God would be forged anew.
These were the beliefs of the members of the Thule Gesellschaft when they met on November 9, 1918 to discuss something of immediate concern; The Communist control of Munich. After a rousing speech by Sebottendorf, the Thule Society began to prepare for a counter-revolution, stockpiling weapons and forming alliances with other like-minded groups, such as the Pan-Germans, the German School Bund and the Hammerbund.
The following year, on April 7, a Bavarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Munich, causing the Prime Minister of Bavaria to run off to Bamberg in order to prevent a total Communist take-over of the government. Six days later the Thule-Organized Palm Sunday Putsch failed to overcome the Communists in Munich, and now the Thule members were on the Red Army’s Most Wanted list. Sebottendorf got busy organizing an army of Freikorps (Freekorps) to counter-attack. (One of the units of the Freikorps, the Ehrhardt Brigade, later became part of the German Army, and eventually, part of the S.S.)
On April 26, the Red Army raided Thule headquarters and began making arrests, including the well-connected Prince von Thurn und Taxis. On April 30, Walpurgisnacht, they were executed in the Luitpold High School courtyard. The following day, their obituaries were published in Sebottendorf’s newspaper Münchener Beobachter (which would evolve one year later in to the official Nazi publication, Völkischer Beobachter.)
The citizens of Munich became outraged.
The Thule Society organized a citizen rebellion, which was joined by the 20,000-member Freikorps, and together they marched, "beneath a Swastika flag, with Swastikas painted on their helmets, singing a Swastika hymn." By May 3, after much bloodshed and destruction, the Communists in Munich were defeated. But there was much work to be done. The Soviet threat was still very real.
With the help of the local police and military, the Thule began organizing a more full-scale national revolt, using connections with societies of wealthy intellectuals. They also began recruiting among Germany’s working class, by forming a group called the German Worker’s Party, which met regularly in beer halls to discuss the threat of Jews, Communists, and Freemasons. This group would later become the National Socialist German Workers’ Party - The Nazi Party, and in November 1923, they would make their first attempt at national takeover, the failed Beer Hall Putsch, led by a man who had originally been sent by the German Army to spy on them - Adolf Hitler.
We all know what the Nazi party went on to accomplish. What most people do not know is the extent to which those actions were inspired by the occult beliefs of their perpetrators. The most extreme aims of the Thule Society would all eventually become official policy of the Third Reich, while its purely metaphysical and occult characteristics were adopted wholeheartedly by the S.S.
Hitler himself was fascinated by the occult. While he was a college student he began reading Von Liebenfels’ magazine, Ostara. Later in 1909, while he was living in poverty in a men’s dormitory and hawking his paintings on the street, Hitler actually met Liebenfels in his office, looking "so distraught and so impoverished that the New Templar himself gave Hitler free copies of Ostara and bus fare back home."
Hitler’s friend Josef Greiner recalls in his memoirs how obsessed young Adolf was with astrology, religion, occultism, magic and yoga. Hitler loved Wagner, as we know, especially The Ring Cycle, Parsifal, Lohengrin and Rienzi. It was from Wagner that Hitler gained his affinity for knighthood, chivalry, and the Quest of the Holy Grail, a pagan, Teutonic Grail. In 1915, Hitler was at war, and while in the trenches, wrote a poem, one which "sings the praises of Wotan, the Teutonic Father God, and of runic letters, magic spells, and magic formulas." So there is no doubt that Hitler’s interest in occultism and paganism ran deep. There is doubt, however, as to whether or not Hitler actually performed any magical operations himself. Tthis was not in his nature, a nature inclined towards action, doing stuff, accomplishing things here on Earth, in the 3rd dimension. He did not have the time and the patience necessary for real spiritual endeavors. Hitler was a paranoid and the occult holds special attractions for the paranoid. But Hitler as a cultist? As a black-robed, ritual-performing, invocation-chanting priest of Satan? Probably not.
But Hitler as a tool of other cultists? Probably so.
In fact, a number of people deeply involved in the occult would have great influence on him and play essential roles in the development of the Third Reich. It would do us well to examine them one by one.
Dietrich Eckart
Hitler, while working as the leader of the German Worker’s Party, became friends with Thulist Dietrich Eckart, who published a newspaper called Auf Gut Deutsch (In Good German), which ranks with the Völkischer Beobachter as a racist sheet with intellectual pretensions. Eckart had a tremendous effect on Hitler, and it was he who first introduced Hitler to all the wealthy and powerful people he needed make his crusade possible, including Henry Ford, who would later contribute "vital financial support" to the Nazi party. From Eckart, Hitler learned a great deal about the esoteric sciences, and it is said that they occasionally attended seances and talked to ghosts. Eckart, who died after the Beer Hall Putsch, is quoted as saying, "Hitler will dance, but it is I who play the tune."
Alfred Rosenberg
Eckart protegé, and soon Hitler’s as well, was Alfred Rosenberg, a man who would later become one of the architects of official Nazi policies. One of these policies was that all of the Masonic temples in all of the Nazis occupied territories were to be raided, and the goods shipped back to Rosenberg himself. This was done by Franz Six and Otto Ohlendorf, both occultists. Rosenberg was also friends with another occultist named Walther Darré, who became agricultural minister of the Third Reich. Together they ran around the nation drumming up support for an official state religion based on the worship of the Old Gods, a religion that included purifying the Aryan race of elements that were in the process of polluting it and diluting the strength of its blood.
Erik Jan Hanussen
In 1932, after his Nazi Party had lost much ground in the Reichstag, and his mistress Eva Braun had shot herself on Halloween Night, Hitler turned to his friend Erik Jan Hanussen, a well-known astrologer and occultist whom he had met back in 1926. Hanusen is supposed to have taught Hitler a number of exaggerated gestures to use in public speaking, ones which could be seen and understood from far away, and which would communicate a message through body language even if a person could not hear what he was saying. Hanussen had never read Hitler’s stars before, but on this occasion in 1932, upon request, he drew up an astrological chart for the future Führer, and told Hitler that his troubles stemmed from an evil hex that someone had cast on him. Furthermore, he said, the only way to get rid of it was for someone to go to a butcher’s backyard located in Hitler’s hometown -- at midnight, on a full moon -- and pull a mandrake out of the ground.
For those who don’t know, a mandrake is a "man-shaped" root with supposed medicinal properties which, according to European folklore, will emit an ear-shattering scream upon being uprooted. Sometime a dog would be sent on a suicide mission to pull the root while the magician plugged his own ears.
Hanussen performed the ritual himself, and on January 1st of 1933 came to Hitler predicting that he would return to power on the 30th of that month, a date roughly equivalent to the pagan sabbat of Oimelc. Of course, as is known to history, that is exactly what happened. A few weeks later, during a seance held on February 26, Hanussen predicted that the Communists would make another attempt at revolution in Germany, one that would begin by setting an important government building on fire. The next day the Reichstag was in flames and Hitler had all the excuse he needed to go from Chancellor of Germany to Führer of the Third Reich. Six weeks later, Hanussen was mysteriously murdered.
Wilhelm Gutberlet
There was also another astrologer, a shareholder in the Völkischer Beobachter who had been Hitler’s close friend since the days of the German Worker’s Party in 1919. In the memoirs of Walter Schellenberg he is described as "a Munich physician who belonged to the intimate circle around Hitler". Gutberlet believed in the ‘sidereal pendulum’, an astrological contraption, and claimed that this had given him the power to sense at once the presence of any Jews or persons of partial Jewish ancestry, and to pick them out in any group of people. Hitler availed himself of Gutberlet’s mystic power and had many discussions with him on racial questions.
Rudolf Hess
A friend of Hitler’s from way back, he had been arrested at the Beer Hall Putsch with him in 1923, and had transcribed Hitler’s Mein Kampf (originally titled Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) while they were both in prison. He later became Hitler’s Deputy Führer. He was an "intimate" of the Thule Society and was way into the occult. Hess introduced Hitler to one of his professors, Karl Haushofter, a man with an interest in astrology who claimed clairvoyance. Haushoffer later came to wield considerable power in Germany by founding the Deutsche Akadamie, and by heading the University of Munich’s Institute Geopolitik -- "A kind of think tank-cum-intelligence agency", according to Levenda. He was vital in forming the Nazi alliances with Japan and South America, and was responsible for the adoption of the Lebensraum ("Living Space") policy, which stated that "a sovereign nation, to ensure the survival of its people, had a right to annex the territory of other sovereign nations to feed and house itself."
Himmler and the S.S.
The S.S. (Schutzstaffel) was originally formed as a personal bodyguard to Hitler, and numbered around 300 when Heinrich Himmler joined. But when he rose to its leadership in 1929, things changed a bit. Four years later, membership had soared to 52,000. He established headquarters at a medieval castle called Wewelsburg, where his secret inner order met once a year. According to Walther Schellenberg’s memoirs:
Each member had his own armchair with an engraved silver nameplate, and each had to devote himself to a ritual of spiritual exercises aimed mainly at mental concentration. The focal point of Wewelsburg, evidently owing much to the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, was a great dining hall with an oak table to seat twelve picked from the senior Gruppenführers. The walls were to be adorned with their coats of arms.
Underneath this dining hall there was kept a so-called "realm of the dead", a circular well in which these coats of arms would be burnt and the ashes worshipped after the "knight" had died. (There are tales of Himmler using the severed heads of deceased S.S. officers to communicate with ascended masters). In addition to this, each knight had his own room, "decorated in accordance with one of the great ancestors of Aryan majesty." Himmler’s own room was dedicated to a Saxon King Henry the Fowler, whose ghost Himmler sometimes conversed with.
Outside of the inner order, SS officers were discouraged from participating in Christian ceremonies, including weddings and christenings, and celebrated the Winter Solstice instead of Christmas. The traditional day of gift exchange was switched to the day of the summer solstice celebration. These ceremonies were replete with sacred fires, torchlit processions, and invocations of Teutonic deities, all performed by files of young blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan supermen. Although Himmler admired the ceremonial nature of Catholicism and modeled the S.S. partially on the Order of the Jesuits, he also despised Christianity for what he considered its weak, masochistic nature. He held further resentment because of the persecution of German witches during the Inquisition.
Himmler, along with Richard Darré, was responsible for absorbing The Ahnenerbe Society "a kind of seminary and teaching college for the future leaders of the Thousand Year Reich", into the S.S. The Ahenenerbe was devoted to some odd völkish studies, each of which had a subdivision dedicated to it: Celtic Studies, Externsteine (near Wewelsburg), where the world-tree Yggdrasil was supposed to reside, Icelandic research; Tibetan research, Runic studies; a strange new twist on physics called the "World Ice Theory", an archeological research in an effort to find evidence of past Aryan presence in remote locations all over the world, such as South America, giving rise to "Aryans discovered America" stories.
Another theory propounded by Himmler was that babies that had been conceived in cemeteries would inherit the spirits of whoever was buried there, and actually published lists of cemeteries that were good for breeding because of the Teutonic heroes resting therein. Himmler was obsessed with the concept of the Holy Grail, and hired researchers to try and prove that the Grail was actually a Nordic pagan artifact.
The Allied Occult Offense
Himler was obsessed by the idea that British Intelligence was being run by the Rosicrucian order, and that occult adepts were in charge of MI5. Whether or not that was true, the Germans were certainly not the only participants in the war using the power of magick to their advantage. Levenda provides the details of a "Cult Counterstrike" organized by the intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Britain, an effort centering around the "most evil man in the world", the Great Beast 666, Aleister Crowley.
Crowley had gone to live in New York during WWI after being rejected for military service by the British government, and began writing "pro-German propaganda" for a magazine called The Fatherland, published by George Viereck. Crowley took over as editor. He later claimed that he had really been working for British Intelligence, because his articles were so outlandish that the journal was reduced to absurdity, a caricature of serious political discussion, which would help the British cause more than harm it.
There is some evidence to suggest that Crowley was working for MI5 during this time, spying on his fellow OTO initiate Karl Germer, a German intelligence agent, so perhaps his excuse for working for The Fatherland is sound. Whatever the case, he was definitely hired by MI5 during WWII.
Crowley had become friends with author Dennis Wheatley, well-known for a number of fiction and non-fiction books based on the occult who had once worked for Winston Churchill’s Joint Planning Staff. He had been introduced to Crowley by a journalist named Tom Driberg, who would later become a spy for MI5 as well, and who would come into possession of Crowley’s diaries shortly after his death in 1947. Wheatley also introduced Crowley to yet another MI5 agent, Maxwell Knight.
Knight was the real historical figure behind the fictional character "M" in all the James Bond novels, written by Knight’s friend in the Department of Naval Intelligence, Ian Fleming. Crowley met Knight for dinner at Wheatley’s house, and it was there that Crowley agreed to take them both on as magick students. Later, Ian Fleming dreamed up a way to use Crowley’s expertise in a scheme against the Germans.
The scheme involved an Anglo-German organization known as "The Link", a supposed "cultural society" which had once been under the leadership of Sir Barry Domville, Director of Naval Intelligence from 1927 to 1930. The Link had been investigated by Maxwell Knight in the 1930s because of its involvement in German spy operations, and was soon dissolved after much incriminating evidence was found.
As Levenda describes, Fleming "thought that the Nazis could be made to believe that the The Link was still in existence, they could use it as bait for the Nazi leadership. The point was to convince the Nazis that The Link had sufficient influence to overthrow the Churchill government and thereby to install a more pliable British government, one which would gladly negotiate a separate peace with Hitler."
The suggestion came in the form of fake astrological advice passed on to the gullible Rudolf Hess, who was already under the delusion that only he could talk the British into peace with Germany, and that it was his destiny to do so. One of his staff astrologers, Dr. Ernst Schulte-Strathaus, under British employ, encouraged Hess to make his mission to England on May 10, 1941 a significant date because of a rare conjunction of six planets in the sign of Taurus. The Duke of Hamilton was also enlisted to let Hess know that he would be happy to entertain him should he plan to go through with such an endeavor.
So Hess, a trained pilot, embarked on a rather dangerous solo flight to the British Isles, parachuting into Scotland donned in various occult symbols, where he was immediately arrested by the waiting Brits.
Fleming tried to obtain permission for Crowley to debrief Hess in order to develop intelligence on the occult scene in the Third Reich and particularly the Nazi leadership. But this permission was denied, and Hess spent the rest of his days in prison not being much use to anybody. What could have been a major propaganda coup against the Nazis went utterly wasted, as if by tacit agreement on both sides.
After Hess’ arrest, Hitler denounced him as a crazed madman, and began persecuting astrologers and occultists in his own domains more so than ever before. Crowley continued trying to help the Allied cause, but most of his ideas were rejected.
One, however, while initially dismissed, was later implemented. This involved dropping occult pamphlets on the German countryside that predicted a dire outcome for the war and depicted the Nazi leadership as Satanic. A forgery of a popular German astrological magazine called Zenit was created and dropped onto enemy battlefields. It was set for full-scale distribution, but the delivery was intercepted by the Gestapo before it could be completed.
Besides Crowley, there were other occultists involved in the fight against the Third Reich. One of Crowley’s protegés, Jack Parsons, who was the Head of the Agapé O.T.O. Lodge in California as well as a charter member of both Cal-Tech and the Jet propulsion Laboratory, invented the "Greek Fire" rocket propellant which was widely used by the United State Navy between 1944 and 1945. It was a solution that could have only come from someone with a working knowledge of the arcane lore of alchemy and magic.
[Parsons later killed himself in an accident involving fulminate of mercury. He had been driven crazy and proclaimed himself the Anti-Christ after becoming involved with one "Frater H", who was actually a spy sent by Naval Intelligence to infiltrate the O.T.O. That spy’s name was L. Ron Hubbard!]
There was also a Golden dawn initiate named Sam Untermyer, an attorney and wealthy philanthropist once called a "Satanist" by a British newspaper. Untermyer started the "Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights" and the "World-Anti-Nazi Council", which both promoted the boycott of German products. He also donated money to the hunt for Nazi agents coming into New York. And with the help of a man named Richard Rollins, he started a secret society called "the Board" which engaged in counterespionage against Nazi groups who were recruiting in the United States.
World War II was a magick war, and a holy war, a war in which both sides consider themselves to be fighting the forces of evil. It was a war operated behind the scenes by mystical adepts using their esoteric knowledge of symbolism, astrology, meditation, astral travel, clairvoyance, and mind control against the enemy. A war inspired by age-old beliefs in the Elder Gods of Europe’s ancient past.
Heute geht der Start meines neuen Instagram Profil los und das ist auch gleich der Startschuss für eine neue Abteilung in meinem Shop. Jedes neue Bild was auf Instagram oder hierbei Facebook gepostet wird ist dann auch als Print verfügbar. Also bleibt schön auf dem laufenden was es neues gibt.
Instagram: www.instagram.com/daniel_pankoke/
Shop: www.pictrs.com/danielpankoke/6276845/shop-of-instagram?l=de
Dieses Bild ist gerade mal eine Woche alt. Zusammen mit meiner Freundin Lisa Westerhoff und unserem Hund haben wir die Externsteine besucht.
Einst. der Kamera: @14mm 2.8 1/15sek iso3200
Pentacon Six TL und ein Fuji Reala Iso 100. Negativscan. Rummelsnuff - Salutare (Pankow XII-G-XXII FM Remix): www.youtube.com/watch?v=GapioR7kUUI