Encyclopedia
The
Thule Society , originally the
Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum 'Study Group for Germanic Antiquity', was a German occultist and Völkisch group in
Munich, notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which was later transformed by
Adolf Hitler into the
Nazi Party. Hitler, however, was never a member of the Thule Society.
Origins
The Thule Society was founded August 17, 1918 by Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a German occultist, as the Munich branch of the Germanenorden, a secret society a.k.a. the "Order of Teutons" .
Von Sebottendorff later claimed that he originally intended the Thule Society to be a vehicle for promoting his own occultist theories, but that the Germanenorden pressed him to emphasize political,
nationalist and
anti-Semitic themes. Since this claim was made while the Nazis were in power and von Sebottendorff had little to gain by denying anti-Semitism, it may well be true.
Beliefs
A primary focus of Thule-Gesellschaft was a claim concerning the origins of the
Aryan race. "Thule" was a land located by Greco-Roman
geographers in the furthest north. The society was named after "
Ultima Thule" — mentioned by the Roman poet Virgil in his epic poem
Aeneid : is a Latin [i] epic [i] written by Virgil [i] in the 1st century BC [i] th ...
, which was the far northern segment of Thule and is generally understood to mean
Scandinavia. Said by
Nazi mystics to be the capital of ancient Hyperborea, they placed Ultima Thule in the extreme
north near
Greenland or
Iceland.
The Thulists believed in the
hollow earth theory. The Thule Society counted among its goals the desire to prove that the
Aryan race came from a lost continent, perhaps
Atlantis.
The Thule-Gesellschaft maintained close contacts with followers of
Theosophy and the followers of
Helena Blavatsky, a famous Occultist during the second part of the
19th century.
Anthroposophical themes were common too, as the motto
Der Weg ist in Dir 'The Way is present in You' expresses. Self-realization and the supreme position of the human person were essential to the Thulists.
Activities
The Thule Society attracted about 250 followers in Munich and about 1,500 in greater
Bavaria. Its meetings were often held in the still existent Munich luxury hotel
Vier Jahreszeiten .
The followers of the Thule Society were, by von Sebottendorff's own admission, little interested in his occulist theories. They were more interested in
racism and combatting the Bavarian Soviet Republic, which they are said to have infiltrated. They are also said to have planned to kidnap the Communist leader,
Kurt Eisner. They also launched a coup attempt against the government of the Bavarian Soviet Republic on April 30, 1919. During this attempt, the Bavarian Soviet government took several members of the Thule Society hostage, and later executed them.
Münchener Beobachter newspaper
The Thule Society bought a local weekly newspaper, the
Münchener Beobachter , and changed its name to
Münchener Beobachter und Sportblatt in an attempt to improve its circulation. The
Münchener Beobachter later became the
Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party [i] from ...
, the main Nazi newspaper. It was edited by Karl Harrer.
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
In 1919, the Thule Society's
Anton Drexler, who had developed links between the Society and various extreme right workers' organizations in Munich, together with Karl Harrer established the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , or German Workers Party. Adolf Hitler joined this party in 1919. By April 1, 1920, the DAP had been reconstituted as the
National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , or National Socialist German Workers Party .
Von Sebottendorff had by then left the Thule Society, and never joined the DAP or the Nazi party. Many other members of the Thule Society and/or DAP were later prominent in Nazi Germany, including
Dietrich Eckart,
Gottfried Feder,
Hans Frank, Karl Harrer,
Rudolf Hess,
Alfred Rosenberg, and
Julius Streicher.
Dietrich Eckart, who coached Hitler on his public speaking skills, had
Mein Kampf is the signature work of Adolf Hitler [i], combining elements of autobiography [i] with ...
dedicated to him. Adolf Hitler was a member. It is quite clear that Hitler himself had little interest in, and made little time for, "esoteric" matters.
Other members were Karl Fiehler,
Wilhelm Frick, Michel Frank, Heinrich Jost, Wolfgang Pongratz, Wilhelm Laforce, Johann Ott, Hans Riemann, Max Seselmann, and Hans-Arnold Stadler. Two well-known aristocrats in the group were Countess Hella von Westarp, a young woman who functioned as secretary, and Prince Gustav von Thurn und Taxis .
Dissolution
After Hitler came to power, the Thule Society was one of many organizations suppressed. When von Sebottendorff returned to Germany and published a book about the Thule Society,
Bevor Hitler kam, he was arrested and the book prohibited.
Nonetheless, it has been argued that some Thule members and their ideas were incorporated into the
Third Reich. Some of the Thule Society's teachings were expressed in the books of Alfred Rosenberg. Also, many of the occult ideas found favour with
Heinrich Himmler who, like Hitler, had a great interest in mysticism.
Thule Society revived
A revived Thule Society is rumoured to have met during the time of the
Wagner festival in
Bayreuth in 1966. Among the participants was an American exchange student, Gene A. Statler, a distant relative of Gauleiter Hans-Arnold Stadler. Statler's account of that meeting is contained in unpublished diaries which later became the property of magazine editor Raymond Palmer.
Conspiracy Theories
Like the
Ahnenerbe section of the
SS, and due to its occult background, the Thule Society has become the center of many conspiracy theories concerning
Nazi Germany. Such theories include the creation of
spacecraft and secret weapons. Because the group helped Hitler with his speaking skills, some have even suggested that the society somehow granted him magic powers that contributed to his later success.
It is also claimed that Thule-Gesellschaft possessed a psychic named Maria Orsic, who convinced them that the Aryan race did not originate on the Earth, but came from
Aldebaran in Taurus — some sixty-five light years away.
It is further suggested that Vril, Thule-Gesellschaft, and DHvSS all joined together at some point . DHvSS is said to have worshipped a German mountain goddess "Isias" as well as the Schwarzer Stein .
See also
Literature
- Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology, New York University Press 1994, ISBN 0-8147-3060-4
- Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, Penguin Books Ltd 2001, ISBN 0-14-013363-1
- Hermann Gilbhard, Die Thule-Gesellschaft, Kiessling Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-930423-00-6
- D. Sklar, "The Nazis and the Occult", Dorset Press 1977, ISBN 0-88029-412-4
The Thule Society in popular culture
- Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is a novel [i] by Italian [i] novelist [i] and philosopher [i] Umberto Eco [i] ...
mentions the society perhaps half a dozen times as the three protagonists discuss ways that mysticism, Rosicrucianism, and ideas about the Knights Templar have interested modern conspiracy theorists.
- The Thule Society appears in the video game Bloodrayne.
External links
