Draft:Nazi occultism

Nazi occultism or Nazi esotericism can refer to any of a number of ideas linking the ideology of the Hitler-era German Nazi Party or modern Neonazis with belief in the occult, paganism (especially Teutonic pagan revivalism), satanism, Wicca, Magick, and other esoteric religions and traditions. A similar term, ariosophy, refers to mystical theories about an Aryan race not necessarily associated with Nazism. In certain niche circles in the German-speaking world, there was a revival of interest in the occult in the late 19th and early 20th century, mixing widespread ideas like theosophy and interest in figures such as the Knights Templar, with more specifically Germanic ariosophy.

Occultism is associated with a few figures in and around the Party, some with important roles such as Heinrich Himmler, others like Herman Wirth being more fleeting party members. Many were connected to the Waffen-SS and its suborganisations such as the racist think-tank . Hitler occasionally mentioned the occult and paganism, but his spiritual beliefs despite being the subject of endless debate don't actually seem to have been very strong. Most prominent Nazis, either back in the Third Reich or since, didn't believe in any particularly strange religious or occult ideas; most of Hitler's circle were more or less lapsed or unobservant Christians (indeed, Nazism had its own churches and version of Christianity called Positive Christianity).

The idea that the Nazis were all master black magicians looking for the Holy Grail has become a popular trope in fiction but is itself pseudohistorical nonsense. Similarly, there have been various people proposing the idea that Hitler or other Nazis were possessed by demons, in league with Satan, the actual literal Antichrist, etc.

Aside from the Nazis' own occasional writings, the first proponent of a Nazi occult link was the British folklorist and eccentric Lewis Spence. He associated the Teutonic with malign influences corrupting Celtic Britain (which was descended from Atlantis), and set out his ideas in the book Occult Causes of the Present War in 1940. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, an academic writer on history and occult traditions, set out a more scholarly account of Nazi links to the occult in The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935 published in 1985.

Heinrich Himmler
Himmler is the most famous "occult Nazi," having been interested in the subject for most of his life. He was also the patron of almost all other occultists in the Nazi ranks. The SS symbol was derived from the Armanen runes, and the organization itself was run like a warrior-monastic order in the vein of the Teutonic Knights (popular with German nationalists for their eastward campaigns against the Slavs which Hitler would rather unsuccessfully attempt to replicate), just with the catholic symbolism rejected in favor of Neo-pagan rituals, even going so far as to have their own baptism and funeral ceremonies. He also thought getting rid of Christianity would eventually be necessary to the successful implementation of Nazism. His ideas were not necessarily mainstream Nazi doctrine, and according to his political foe within the party, Albert Speer, Hitler himself called this sort of mysticism "nonsense."

Herman Wirth
A co-founder of the SS-backed "think tank" Ahnenerbe, dedicated to promoting pseudo-science about the "racial history of the Aryans" and "ancestral German heritage", Wirth was a Dutch-German historian who fell in with German nationalism. This led him to work with the Nazis, becoming an associate of Himmler who was a fan of his "research" for obvious reasons. He claimed in his book Prehistory of the Atlantic Nordic Race that European civilization could be traced back to the lost continent of Atlantis, and that the Abrahamic faiths were "perversions" of the Atlantean religion. He would promote these ideas even after the fall of Nazism. He even nearly got a museum dedicated to his work, though public backlash quickly shut it down.

Karl Wiligut
One of the kookier Nazis (and oh boy is that saying something), Wiligut was a Brigadeführer in the SS. His worldview, Irminism, claims that Germany is the heir to a civilization founded in 228,000 BC when the earth had three suns and was inhabited by magical creatures. His ancestors were wizard-kings who fought in a great religious war between the followers of Krist and Wotan (From whom Christ and Odin are supposedly derived). Once again, this was not mainstream Nazi thought, though that it makes a similar amount of sense (none). His ideas were only influential in the strange microcosm of the SS, where he convinced Himmler that the 17th century castle Wewelsburg was an "ancient cult site" and helped design the infamous Totenkopfring.

Holy Lance and Holy Grail
There are various sensational theories associating relics of Christ, such as the Holy Lance and Holy Grail, with extraordinary amounts of mystical power, and from there it's a short step to the idea that as Nazis we should use those implements to enact a Thousand Year Reich. This is common in fiction but there have been some slightly more respectable writers on the topic. The Nazis did indeed take possession of one version of the alleged Holy Lance, the Reichskleinodien from Vienna, and had it moved to Nuremberg.

Nazi UFOs
The idea that the Nazis had leet UFO technology in itself isn't related to the occult but some of the wilder theories do link with other bizarre theories about hollow Earth, etc.

In fiction
The Indiana Jones film series is probably the layman example.

Superhumans or non-humans controlled by Nazis (or them controlling the Nazis) are a recurring trope, so much that they have a name of their own ("Ghostapo") on TV Tropes. One example is the comic book series by Kieron Gillen.