Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail

When Steven Spielberg made a movie about an intrepid archaeologist’s fight to keep a precious and powerful artifact — the Holy Grail — out of the hands of the Nazis, it was not widely known that the tale was based on truth. There really was a Nazi archaeological unit and it did send teams across the world to try to find the Grail.

History meets Indiana Jones in HITLER’S SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL, a one-hour documentary airing on PBS Monday, November 27, 2000, 10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings). Host Michael Wood (IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT) explores how history was used as a political tool and how the theories of the Nazi historical department provided the ideology used by the SS (Schutzstaffel – "protection squadron") to justify genocide.

The program outlines how the racialist theories of the SS were drawn from archaeology, myth and legend, as well as selected history. Nazi ideas about "Aryans" and the "master race" came out of historical and ethnic fantasies in which legends such as the Holy Grail and the lost city of Atlantis — supposed to be a home of the Aryan race — played their part.

HITLER’S SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL contains rare and previously unseen footage, including

* color film of the Nazi expedition to Antarctica;
* film of the Nazi expeditions across the world, from the Baltic to Venezuela;
* footage of the 1938 expedition to Tibet, with the measuring of skulls of Tibetans;
* documentary evidence for expeditions to Peru, Iceland and Iran, and footage of SS chief Heinrich Himmler at archaeological sites.

The film conjures the eerie world that permeated the thoughts of key members of the Nazi leadership, especially Himmler, and shows how top scholars, some of them still alive, collaborated in this project.

HITLER’S SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL includes interviews with a former member of Himmler’s personal staff and the wife of a top SS commander, who give unique and unrepentant insight into the mentality of the Nazi inner circle. The program also includes a dramatic recording of the Nuremburg trial of Wolfram Sievers, the head of the SS Ahnenerbe ("Ancestral Heritage Society"), Himmler’s archaeological and historical unit. The Ahnenerbe’s task, according to Himmler, was "to restore the German people to the everlasting godly cycle of ancestors, the living and the descendants."

Himmler was a member of the Thule Society, an extreme nationalist group named after one of the mythical homes of the German people. It was the society’s almost mystical belief in the greatness of the German past — to which Himmler subscribed with fanatical devotion — that was to provide the intellectual ballast to Nazi belief in race and destiny.

The chief administrator of the Ahnenerbe, Dr. Wolfram Sievers, had been heavily involved in the criminal medical experiments that were carried out on Jews in concentration camps, all to prove racial differences and the superiority of the Aryan race. After Germany’s defeat in 1945, Sievers was brought before a war crimes tribunal, found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed on June 2, 1948. The archaeological world of the Ahnenerbe died with Hitler, Himmler and Sievers; the Ahnenerbe, too, melted away. Many of its top archaeologists, however, returned, unpunished, to university life, only to re-emerge as leading academics in postwar Germany.

Underwriters: Public Television Viewers and PBS. Producer: Maya Vision. Producer: Rebecca Dobbs. Director: Kevin Sim. Format: CC STEREO TV Calendar PBS Previews PBS Picks Telstar/C-band Schedule Primestar, Dish Network & DirecTV Schedule PBS KIDS Channel PBS YOU Schedule

Available from the History Channel:

Hitler and the Occult

The Nazi party grew out of several occult groups that sprung up in the late 19th century as a reaction to the advanced materialism and technology of the era. These groups spoke of the coming of a new Messiah that would save Germany. Young Adolf Hitler developed the notion that perhaps he was the chosen one to save the German people.

The political parties created in the wake of the country's defeat in World War I combined nationalistic sentiment and occultist practices to forge an image of a superior German people. Hitler's imprisonment after the failed 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch would make him a national hero for his defense of a strong German state, convincing him that he was the Messiah who could save Germany.

Hitler appropriated Christian religious symbols such as the Spear of Destiny and the Holy Grail for his own purposes. He adopted the swastika, which contained occult significance from earlier cultures, as the symbol of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler's rise was the product of forces and events connecting him, his associates and the occult. Was Hitler influenced by supernatural ideas or was he just the embodiment of pure hate and evil? Examine the importance of symbols of the occult, religion and astrology to Hitler's concept of world domination.

Item Number: AAE-40199

The rise of Hitler occured concurrent with the rise of the technology of television. Hitler was also the first world leader to make knowledgable use of television. However, the fact that Hitler had TV does not mean that's what gave him power. There are other, more mundane, things that led Hitler to power without reliance upon either the occult or TV.

Actually, it was concurrent with radio. If you believe in Marshal McLuhan's theories about "hot" and "cold" media, it was the "hot" medium of radio that gave the persuasive power to the messages espoused by leaders in the thirties and forties. TV is a "cold" medium, and the rise of our cynical and suspicious attitude towards politicians coincides with the rise of TV. If high-def TV takes off, maybe we can have a new generation of despots.

At any rate, with TV Hitler would have had to get a better haircut and loose the ridiculous mustache.

Movies are also a "hot" medium, at least as produced by Leni Riefenstahl.

The only one I was aware of was the bomb attempt that was foiled at the last minute when someone at the table moved the bomb-containing briefcase to the wrong side of the oak table leg.

That was July 20, 1944, Count (Graf) Claus Shenk von Staufenberg. He lost an eye and hand in Africa, yet was the only one with access to the briefing room who would dare to make the attempt. He was also head of the coup back in Berlin. There were generals with divisions ready to support the coup, but it started falling apart since Hitler survived.

The best chance for a coup was in 1938. The order to march into Czechoslovakia was to be the cover for the coup. Clever. However, Hitler and Chamberlain reached an agreement. Over time, Hitler put more and more of his guys into key positions. But it was basically the same idea used in July 1944.

The plotters were shocked that the bomb disguised as a gift of Cointreau did not go off. It was not easy to get a bomb onto Hitler's personal aircraft, remember . . . It had an altitude detonator as I recall. Someone had to retreive it from the intended recipient!

One young officer recruited by the resistance volunteered to have a bomb on his person, and was planning to hug Hitler during a review of uniforms and equipment. Problem is, Hitler did not get close enough to the officer . . . This was not an easy decision for a young officer to make, not believing in suicide but having to come up with some way to assassinate Hitler . . .

I disagree that the attempts were poorly planned. These men were serious military planners, and personally heroic. Von Staufenberg was shot on July 20. About 5,000 were arrested in the following sweep (including his wife, who had their last child in prison). Some of those Hitler had killed in very gruesome ways were made known to him by the Brits. They had information from the resistance as to who would be in the new government after the coup, and announced it on the radio. The only good German is a dead one, remember . . . Some of these people were listed to be approached for various departments in the new government, but were not in on the plot, which had to be kept as closely held as possible for security reasons . . .

Wm. Casey, Reagan's CIA director, had been in special services in WW II and concluded that even the Normandy invasions would not have been necessary, if the Allies had used the available opportunities to work with the German resistance. These were not dictators in waiting, but some really good men who wanted a decent government for Germany. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but a lot of people died because the resistance was not successful in taking out Hitler . . .

humans do not need assistance from the great beyond for acts of good or evil. We are quite capable on our own, thank you.

People have free will, thus, are capable of good or evil "on their own." No argument there. . .

People such as Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden, etc., are capable of GREAT evil and harm to others. Much of this can be explained by the predeliction of man for power, etc. BUT they are greatly tempted to great evil, and it does not seem necessary to disregard that they could be tempted in their human foibles by an evil ONE. . .

A temptation they could, nonetheless, choose to reject . . .

The implication being explored is also whether or not demonic power could have helped Hitler to achieve his great evil . . . speaking from a statistical standpoint, were the odds of his coming to power and staying alive greater than those of chance and human action alone? We will never know with scientific certainty. But that does not mean that those who leave open that possibility are unenlightened, benighted, etc. . . . We are not, after all, ignoring the laws of physical nature and human reason and will in the process of evaluating the events . . .As good observers using the scientific method, what is wrong with acknowledging other variables as yet unexplained? I don't think psychology, psychiatry, sociology, etc. claim to adequately explain the behavior of a Hitler with a scientific model . . .So Occam's Razor does not apply. There is no simple adequate scientific explanation available . . .

The same goes for doing good: we model the behavior we admire, and von Staufenberg, for example, modeled the Christian and noblise oblige worldview. He had the soul of a philosopher, the courage of a military hero. He could have chosen not to risk his life in an attempt to save Germany and save others. The psychologists, etc., can't scientifically model him, either. He sought counsel from a confessor the night before the attempt. (Going from memory here.) One could argue: He was trained for this type of response -- yet so many others raised in similar backgrounds did NOT do what he did. (Although there were more of them than most of us are aware of.) His religious and philosophic heritage certainly motivated him (and his brother and uncle) to take action and helped him to have the courage to go through with it.

Beamer prayed before he said "Let's Roll" -- how can you say that he would have had the courage and RESOLVE to do what he did without prayer? It is possible, I'd warrant, and some have done so. However, I would also posit that it is easier to do with prayer and supernatural grace. Thus, more good is done in a world open to prayer and grace than by human powers alone. Bush himself no doubt obtains his RESOLVE to fight this EVIL of terrorism from his faith, aided by the strength obtained by prayer. OK, don't believe it if you don't want to. I admire people who try to do the good and moral and right thing, without help from God. That's trying to do it the hard way!

You would probably enjoy Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus. You can read the analogies either way: as a literary device (echoing the well-known tradition of Goethe's Faust, the epic poem about selling one's soul to the devil for temporal power). Or, you might possibly "hear" in the roar of the flames of Berlin in those final hours, the laughter of demons celebrating their masterful achievement . . . death, fire, destruction. Oh, they had no love for Hitler, either. His death, in time, was all to their liking, too. But look how much evil was accomplished by his uncanny ability to stay alive for so long . . .

Aquinasfan, bump me if you start a good vs. evil/power of the demonic thread with the implications raised by Goethe and Mann! Much food for thought . . . The literary aspects alone are phenomenal, even for those who do not believe in the literal power of the demonic . . .

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