Rune Might: The Secret Practices of the German Rune Magicians - Edred Thorsson 2018
The Swastika and the Runes
Background
(1933—1945)
Much has been made of the supposed occult connections of the leading members of the National Socialist movement. By far the best general account of this subject is Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s The Occult Roots of Nazism, while one of the only in-depth studies presenting actual documents in English translation is the aforementioned book The Secret King by Flowers and Moynihan. It is always a difficult task to unravel the threads of historical fact from those of fiction and propaganda when the subject concerns magical or esoteric orders. This difficulty is doubly increased when the world of power politics is thrown into the mix. What is clear is that the leaders of the National Socialist movement were themselves as much shaped by the current of völkisch politics and neo-Romantic mysticism, with its heavy admixture of Germanic myth and magic, as they were shapers and re-shapers of that great mass movement in central Europe in the years following the First World War. They took what was essentially a diffuse mass mood and a set of predilections that were just beginning to gel into a coherent cultural movement and channeled them into a specific, politically partisan institution: the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). If we may pause for a moment and consider “Germanticism” as a product, then it could be said that the Nazis schemed to get a corner on the market and, eventually, to monopolize it. This only became possible with the full force of a government at their command.
As soon as the Nazis came to power in 1933, esoteric lodges and organizations began to be banned and suppressed. Laws that were passed in 1935 eventually forced almost all unofficial esoteric organizations to disband. The groups with a Germanic orientation were in some cases better treated in the beginning—that is, unless they had direct links to the NSDAP, such as the Thule Society, of which many of the early members of the party were a part. The earliest book detailing the occult-Nazi connection was written by one of the Thule Society’s members, Rudolf von Sebottendorff, and titled Bevor Hitler kam (Before Hitler Came). In this book, Sebottendorff made exaggerated claims regarding the level of the party’s involvement with his own esoteric ideas. The book was promptly banned and burned. Sebottendorff also produced an interesting volume on alphabetic magic in the traditions of the Baktashi Sufis, which has been published in translation as Secret Practices of the Sufi Freemasons (Inner Traditions, 2013).
Other men and organizations were allowed to continue their work until the outbreak of the war in 1939. For example, Werner von Bülow continued to publish Hagal, the official organ of the Edda Society, until that year. However, it was far more typical for the bureaucracy eventually to catch up to the groups and put an end to their activities. This was the fate of Friedrich Bernhard Marby, which I have already detailed.
The study of the runes themselves was complex and multifaceted during the years of the Third Reich. There were essentially three levels to this study: (1) the purely academic-scientific, (2) the lay scientific, and (3) the esoteric. The scholars who were involved in academic circles received more attention than ever before but were largely left unencumbered by politics to pursue their scientific ends. This fact shows that on one level the Nazis realized that these studies had some validity. However, they also installed men who had formerly been lay investigators (self-appointed, self-taught “experts” without academic credentials) in academic posts. The details of this phase of the work of the infamous Ahnenerbe (“Ancestral Heritage”) office of the SS and of the Institut für Runenforschung (Institute for Runic Research) are to be found in Ulrich Hunger’s Die Runenkunde im Dritten Reich (Runology in the Third Reich, 1984). But it is the third, or esoteric, level of study that interests us most here. This information was very limited and highly sensitive, even within the confines of party politics, and therefore quite secret.
Here I want to introduce a basic theory of how actual Nazi “magic” worked. All of this and related topics will be discussed in much greater detail in my forthcoming book, tentatively titled Nazi Occultism. The National Socialists were masters of what we today call “branding” and other modalities of meta-communication identified with marketing and advertising. No one whose eyes are open today can deny the magically operative principles of these forms of mass communication and their abilities to shape human behavior, thoughts, and motivations. The ideas the Nazis were “selling” were identity, solidarity, and empowerment. They used a complex of symbols and rituals (the latter often taking the form of large-scale public ceremonies), which subtly communicated to the German people that they belonged to an ancient race, that they were one, and that they were powerful. The development and wielding of these symbols fell under the direction of a number of significant offices within the NSDAP. Techniques of this sort of operative sorcery were pioneered by the Nazis, and runes were a significant part of it. Although similar techniques have been absorbed by various interests today, and the theories are presented in harmless terms such as “imaging,” “branding,” and “advertising,” at the time the Nazis discovered and implemented the techniques on a wide scale they were still linked to certain occult theories. The runes and other archaic and arcane symbols—chiefly the swastika, or Hakenkreuz—were important instruments of the new kind of sorcery. The style and branding aspects of National Socialist culture are also responsible for the continuing spell of fascination that Nazi imagery seems to cast over subsequent history and, indeed, the contemporary world.
The men who actually implemented this sorcery in a practical way were political operatives such as Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer, Alfred Rosenberg, and Joseph Goebbels, but a certain group of more obscure researchers worked in a theoretical realm behind the scenes and often in quasi-academic circles. Writers such as Herman Wirth, Karl Theodor Weigel, Karl Maria Wiligut, Joseph Otto Plassmann, Karl Konrad A. Ruppel, and many others all belong to this category.
One of the cofounders of the Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe (Research Community for the German Ahnenerbe) was the Dutch scholar Herman Wirth (1885—1981). He received his Ph.D. from Leipzig in 1910 and was involved with völkisch causes from at least 1919. He drifted in and out of National Socialism over the years: he joined the party in 1925, resigned a few years later, and then rejoined in 1933. When he rejoined, he received his old membership number back, awarded by Hitler himself. Within the Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage), an organization often falsely called an occult bureau, Wirth concentrated on the study of symbols. His great works were Der Aufgang der Menschheit (The Rise of Humanity, 1928) and Die heilige Urschrift der Menschheit (The Holy Primordial Script of Humanity, 1931—1936). These are monumental volumes in which he sought to trace writing back to the Stone Age, eventually linking runes to these extremely ancient signs. He would record symbols such as:
From such signs he would attempt to derive the runes. This kind of theory would find a great deal of resonance with neopagans and esoteric runologists over the years. Wirth was also a proponent of a matriarchal theory of antiquity, and he harbored certain pacifistic tendencies. These aspects of his thought brought him into conflict with Heinrich Himmler to such a degree that he had to leave his position in the Ahnenerbe in 1938. He did, however, continue to receive government funding until very near the end of WWII. Following the end of the war he was imprisoned for two years. After that he lived for a while in Sweden before returning to Germany in 1954. He lived in the university town of Marburg. In his later years he enjoyed a revival of some popularity among ecologically oriented neopagans of contemporary Germany.
Another important symbologist who worked within the Ahnenerbe during the Nazi years was Karl Theodor Weigel (1892—1953). Weigel studied architecture before becoming involved with the Wandervogel—a nationalistic back-to-nature organization that undertook long-distance hiking adventures and emphasized freedom, self-reliance, and Germanic roots. At that time he read works by Guido von List and Philipp Stauff, which impressed him deeply. He traveled the countryside with a sketchbook and camera collecting images of symbols and runic shapes in architectural features, and he wrote on folkloristic topics for regional newspapers. In 1927 he met the archaeologist Hans Hahne, and in 1929 he joined the Freunde germanischer Vorgeschichte (Friends of Germanic Prehistory) association founded by Wilhelm Teudt, where he also made the acquaintance of Herman Wirth. Teudt was a leading völkisch expert on the mysterious site called the Externsteine (see appendix E), an artificially modified natural rock formation near Detmold and widely thought to have had religious and mystical significance for the ancient Germanic peoples living in the area in pre-Christian times. Weigel entered the Ahnenerbe in 1937. He led almost daily tours of the Externsteine for visiting SS dignitaries. In 1943 he was moved to the university town of Göttingen to have his work of collecting examples of ancient and medieval folkloristic symbols archived and combined with the more academic runic studies program there. These endeavors were melded into the Lehr- und Forschungsstelle für Runenund Sinnbildkunde (Teaching and Research Position for Runology and Symbology). Weigel’s vast collection of images of symbols and signs is still stored in the symbol archive in Göttingen. After the war he was arrested and sentenced to two years. Following his release he worked near his beloved Externsteine at the Lippische Landeszeitung newspaper as a freelance writer until his death. The iconographic approach to runic mysticism promoted by men such as Wirth and Weigel is treated in some more detail in appendix C.
Essentially, the truly magical or esoteric applications of the runes and rune magic as such seems to have been one of the main interests of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler. For a time his chief adviser in this pursuit was the mysterious Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor)—sometimes called Himmler’s Rasputin or the Secret King. Among other things, Wiligut was the designer of the runic Death’s Head Rings worn by SS officers (see the figure below) and the main adviser for the acquisition and planning of the Wewelsburg citadel—a secret headquarters of the SS that was officially designated as one of its officers’ colleges.
But who was this Wiligut, who called himself Weisthor (“Wise Thor”), and where did he come from? This information was obscured at the time, and intentionally so. Karl Maria Wiligut (born December 10, 1866, in Vienna; died January 3, 1946, in Arolsen) was also known as Jarl Widar and Lobesam (“praiseworthy, laudable”). He had been active in esoteric runic circles in Germany and Austria beginning about the time of his retirement from the Austrian army in 1919. In fact, Wiligut’s career in the world of mysticism had started much earlier with the publication of his book titled Seyfrids Runen (1903), which seems to have been influenced by the early ideas of Guido von List.
Most of the known esoteric texts published by Wiligut, as well as a more comprehensive introduction to his life and thought, can be found in Flowers and Moynihan, The Secret King.
Wiligut claimed to be the descendant and/or reincarnation of the king of the ancient Asa-Uana clan (Ger. Sippe), to have been initiated into the secrets of his family traditions in 1890, and to have written the “Nine Commandments of Gôt” in 1908. Wiligut held that there were traditions far older and deeper than those found in the Edda and that there was actually a sort of antagonistic relationship between the Irminist tradition, which he represented, and the more conventional religion of Wotanism. Again, this secret doctrine betrays a close relationship to the teachings of Theosophy as first expounded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her followers.
Design of the Death’s Head Ring by Wiligut
The “Nine Commandments of Gôt” are
1. Gôt is Al-unity!
2. Gôt is “spirit and matter,” the dyad. He brings duality, and is, nevertheless, unity and purity.
3. Gôt is a triad: spirit, energy, and matter. Gôt-spirit, Gôt-Ur, Gôt-being, or Sun-light and Work, the dyad.
4. Eternal is Gôt—as time, space, energy, and matter in his circulating current.
5. Gôt is cause and effect. Therefore, out of Gôt flows right, might, duty, and happiness.
6. Gôt is eternally generating. The matter, energy, and light of Gôt are that which carry this along.
7. Gôt—beyond the concepts of good and evil—is that which carries the seven epochs of human history.
8. Rulership in the circulation of the current carries along the Highness—the secret tribunal.
9. Gôt is beginning without end—the Al. He is completion in nothingness and, nevertheless, Al in the three times threefold realization of all things. He closes the circle at N-Yule, at nothingness, out of the conscious in to the unconscious, so that this may again become conscious.
Here the unusual spellings of Gôt for German Gott (God),*2 and Al for “All,” reflect the peculiarities of Wiligut’s own usages. Wiligut claimed that these were the commandments that had been transmitted along family lines within the Asa-Uana clan for twelve thousand years.
From his retirement home in Salzburg, Wiligut developed a following of students of his traditions in the early 1920s. His teachings from this time remained private and secret, but they have been to some extent documented by several students. However, Wiligut’s unorthodox beliefs, coupled with marital problems and some bad business deals, seem to have resulted in his family having him declared mentally incompetent, and from 1924 to 1927 he was involuntarily confined to a mental institution. After his release Wiligut found his way to Germany and eventually became the focus of a runic study circle near Munich. Wiligut now used the name Karl Maria Weisthor and wrote under the name Jarl Widar in an apparent attempt to conceal his embarrassing past. When the Nazis came to power, one of Wiligut’s students, Richard Anders, introduced him to Heinrich Himmler, and Wiligut subsequently was inducted into the SS in September of 1933. From that time up until August of 1939, “Weisthor” was Himmler’s chief adviser on esoteric and magical matters. Unfortunately for Weisthor, his past was eventually discovered by those below Himmler. Although Himmler himself certainly knew the facts of the matter and had helped to cover them up, the political pressure was sufficient that Wiligut was forced to resign his office in the SS. The elderly Wiligut was cared for in his retirement by the SS, but he succumbed to the physical strains imposed by conditions right after the end of the war.
Wiligut may have been simultaneously instrumental in the suppression of other runic magicians in Germany (such as Kummer and Marby) and in the protection of the Edda Society (of which he was a member). The bulk of Wiligut’s written record is largely philosophical and cosmological/meta-historical. In this regard his work is closely akin to that of Guido von List, but, as it does not directly relate to the subject of practical magic, we must leave it aside for now.
In conclusion, it can be summarized that for the most part the runes were used in a less magical way by the NSDAP—that is, they were used as emotionally loaded symbols and signs that appealed to the mass of the Germanophilic population and perhaps repelled and terrorized the Germanophobic. Of course, the swastika itself belongs to this group of symbols. Guido von List had already identified the eighteenth rune, Gibor , as a “concealed swastika” long before the swastika was adopted, at the suggestion of Adolf Hitler himself, as the official insignia of the NSDAP in 1920. Although the Nazis never developed an official National Socialist runology, certain features are evident. The Sig-rune was the rune of “victory” (Ger. Sieg); the Tyr-rune was the rune of the “struggle” (Ger. Kampf ); the Othil-rune was the symbol of “blood and soil”; and the Hagal-rune was that of “salvation” (or racial purity).
Here a note must also added that not all of the German runologists working during the time of the Nazi regime were intellectually compromised by the propagandistic demands of the party. Most prominent among these is Wolfgang Krause (1895—1970), who had a position in the Ahnenerbe and was a professor at the university in Göttingen. In the early 1980s I had the distinct personal good fortune of being able to spend a year in Göttingen with Krause’s old work room serving as my private office. Another great runologist of the period, Helmut Arntz, had his academic career curtailed due to the fact that he had some Jewish ancestry.
The National Socialist episode in the history of the runic revival is a clear example of the inherent power of the runes and how that power, which is essentially rooted in the soul of the folk, will eventually resist any attempts to force it to conform to any partisan cause other than that for which the runes stand: the well-being of the folk and the seeking of wisdom. It is clear from the results of history that the NSDAP ended up violating these principles on both counts.