Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail

PBS ^ | 11/30/01 | PBS

[Aquinasfan]

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.

Day & time: check with your local station

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[Aquinasfan]

Looks like I missed it, although local affiliates may air it at a later date or rebroadcast it. Anyone see it? I saw a similar fascinating story regarding Hitler, the occult and the Holy Grail on the History Channel recently.

[Doctor Doom]

"Nazis. I hate these guys."
-Henry Jones, Jr., Ph.D.

[Aquinasfan]

The Occult Roots of Nazism seems to be the best scholarship on the subject.

[freedomlover]

Didn't Jake Elwood have a similar quote?

[Doctor Doom]

"Illinois Nazis. I hate Illinois Nazis." :)

[skeeter]

A pretty good documentary, revealing a bizarre side to nazism I was totally unfamiliar with. More proof the leadership was utterly nuts.

I don't know if I agree with the assertion that the nazis' archeologists should have been punished, however. 'Committed' would be more appropriate.

[catonsville]

There was a large occult presence in Nazi ideology. including astrology ( later refuted by Hitler who began sending astrologists to Concentration Camps).

I have even read that Hitler conjured up the Devil and made the deal of his life. The Devil apparently reneged though.

[Marc Poor]

bump

[damnlimey]

"There really was a Nazi archaeological unit and it did send teams across the world to try to find the Grail. "
I heard there was also a nazi horticultural unit that sent teams across the world to look for a shrubbery.

[Darth Reagan]

ni

[buccaneer81]

"There really was a Nazi archaeological unit and it did send teams across the world to try to find the Grail. " I heard there was also a nazi horticultural unit that sent teams across the world to look for a shrubbery.

LOL! Don't forget the Nazi comedy writing unit that came up with the joke that killed.

[freedomcrusader]

Hmmmm...crazy totalitarian leader searches for Holy Grail and later his reign falls apart. Where have I heard that before? LOL!

Although King Arthur wasn't evil like Hitler...

[Thinkin' Gal]

Now who would have an old [antique] sword like Orion?

Or the Spear of Longinus, as it were.

[Cicero]

Ah, there seems to be some confusion here. The Holy Grail was the chalice Jesus used at the Last Supper, which was thought to have been brought by Joseph of Arimathaea to England or Wales, probably to Glastonbury. The object found by Indiana Jones was the Ark of the Covenant, probably removed from the Temple of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus when he destroyed the Temple in 70 AD. Two quite different objects, one Jewish--as would be appropriate to Spielberg--the other Christian. Hitler, of course, was essentially what we would now call a New Age pagan, although he had been raised as a Catholic (education that obviously never took). Whatever he was looking for, he thought of as essentially a magical means to gain power, not as the goal of a religious quest.

[Doctor Doom]

You didn't see "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?"

The Grail is precisely what he went after.

Well, that and the hot Nazi blonde chick.

[freedomcrusader]

Yeah, but the third Indian Jones movie was about him looking for the Grail. Although I don't remember the Nazi's playing as prominent a role as in the first movie.

[Fighting Falcons]

...revealing a bizarre side to nazism I was totally unfamiliar with.

Sort of like the Bohemian Grove Club our Pols go to.

[Aquinasfan]

Whatever he was looking for, he thought of as essentially a magical means to gain power, not as the goal of a religious quest.

Right. What I found most interesting in the History Channel special was the assertion that Hitler and his inner circle of 12 SS men "channeled" on a regular basis in Wertzberg (sp?) Castle.

The photo of the circular, basilica-like meeting room with a round central stone table and twelve stone chairs was truly eerie.

There seems to be hard evidence that Himmler was deeply involved with the occult. There doesn't seem to be any direct evidence conclusively linking Hitler with specific occult practices, although it's not hard to imagine.

[Doctor Doom]

There was also a rebirth of the Thule cult among the inner circle of the SS in their nasty little haven in Bavaria, and some degree of the revival of the Hollow Earth theories.

Them Nazis were sooo crazy.

[Aquinasfan]

The History Channel special also showed the original architectural drawings for the planned church-like building that was to house the Grail; the idea being to "harness the power" of the Grail.