What+is+the+Holocaust?

The Holocaust is the most infamous hate crime to have ever been committed. Between the years 1933 and 1945 Adolf Hitler, along with the SS and other willing participants, were able to kill over 9 million people and convince an entire country that this act was justified. This 9 million included Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, opposing political party members and others who Hitler did not believe fit into his ideal society. After the first World War Germany sunk into a deep economic depression and all national pride seemed to have been lost after their humiliating defeat. Around this time a political party known as the National Socialist Party began to gain a large amount of support from Germans due to their anti-Semitic propaganda and their aggressive tactics. On January 30th 1933, [|Adolf Hitler] of the National Socialist party was appointed chancellor to Germany. Shortly after the Reichstag building was set on fire and Von Hindenburg was forced to invoke article 48 which suspended all individual and civil liberties. After this, decrees began to be issued stating that all acts were punishable by death; this included “Serious disturbance of the peace”. In this time of extreme desperation an enabling act was passed giving all dictatorial powers to Hitler. The official persecution of the Jews began on April 1st 1933; this was the day that the Nazis began to initiate a nation wide boycott of all Jewish businesses. Up until this point all anti-Semitic acts had been committed on certain individuals, this symbolized the campaign against the entire Jewish community. On May 10th all non-Jewish citizens were encouraged to gather all books considered “un-german” and participate in a nation wide book burning. Soon after on July 14th the National Socialist Party was announced to be the sole political party in Germany. By 1935 all German Jews had been stripped of their citizen ship and the Nuremburg laws were in place. The following year Heinrich Himmler, a known leader of the SS, became the chief of the German police. Himmler believed the concentration camps to not only be an effective political tool but also to be an important economic utility. During the same year, the Nazis began to establish much larger and permanent concentration camps through out Germany.

The Holocaust began as the loss of Jewish jobs and their ownership of many things such as property and their own identity as a person and race or religion. On the night of November 9, 1938 things really took a turn for the worst when the Nazis terrorized Jewish communities by burning books and synagogues. Many businesses were completely destroyed and there were many Jews that were killed. There was much vandalism and destruction caused on the night that has come to be known as [|Kristallnacht]or the “night of broken glass” which is exactly what it was. This event is what is said to have marked the final shattering of Jewish existence. But this was only the start.

On September 1st 1939, Germany invaded Poland and began World War II. A month later Hitler signed an authorization allowing his personal physician to kill those he thought unfit to live. This made way to the Euthanasia program which targeted the physically disabled, the mentally retarded and the emotionally disturbed. By this time many Jews had tried to emigrate to other countries, but were refused by various governments. Around 1941 the Nazis started to search for easier and more efficient ways to mass murder the Jews because they began to worry about the mental health of the Gestapo. They began to use mobile gas vans throughout the expanding nation and pump T-4 into the “showers” at certain concentration camps. The Nazis began to liquidate the ghettos of eastern Europe after the Wannasee Conference, which declared “[|The Final Solution]”, where the Nazi Party would kill all Jews if they wouldn't remove themselves from Europe. In April of 1943 a rebellion was formed in the Warsaw ghetto in an attempt to stop the Germans from sending its Jewish residents to various concentration camps. Unfortunately very few Gestapo were killed and the Ghetto was liquidated. By the end of summer in 1944 all of the residents of the eastern European ghettos have either been deported to concentration camps or murdered. When the allies began to close in on Hitler and his army, he started to panic and called for the mass extermination of all of the remaining Jews in the camps in order to cover up their inhumane treatment and genocide. Hitler’s ending death count read over 9 million civilians, 6 million of which were murdered for being Jewish. In May of 1945 the war had ended and the last concentration camps were liberated by the allies. Only few SS members were persecuted for their horrible acts, many of them retreated to other countries and remained comfortable for the rest of their lives, pleased with what they had accomplished.

Nicholas Richards

LIT-220w-FA110

10/18/10

**The Influence of the Occult on Nazism and 'The Final Solution'**

Few people know that the Nazi party and the idea of an Aryan super-race grew out of several occult groups that appeared in the late 19th century. After the first world war and the defeat of Germany at the hands of the Allies, these groups began to speak of the coming of a 'Messiah' who would restore Germany to glory. When a man named Hitler came onto the scene these occult groups believed their 'Messiah' had been found. This is the story of how racism became politics and how hate became religion.

Origins of the Aryan Oddly, the idea of an Aryan superman was first conceived by a Russian woman. In 1888, Madame Helena Blavatsky, a former Russian aristocrat who had moved to London, wrote an alternate history of the world, based on a mixture of astrology, mysticism, and pagan myth. In her writings she told of a race of super-humans, called the Aryans, who were descended from giants who had once lived on the lost continent of Atlantis. Even though this story was made up from a mixture of myth and Blavatsky's own imagination, many people were willing to believe it. Recently, Charles Darwin had challenged the origins of history, as laid out in the Bible, with his theory of evolution. With many people now questioning the literal truth of the gospel, a book offering an alternate version of history and a new origin of humanity seemed to have arrived at just the right time. The story of the Aryan would be taken a step further by an Austrian writer and occultist by the name of Guido Von List. Wanting to 'German-ize' the Aryan he claims that they made their civilization in Northern Europe, rather than Persia as Blavatsky had stated in her book, and that the Norse people were their descendants (this was the origin of the Aryans being described as having blond hair and blue eyes). To validate his claims List looked for a connection between the Aryans and German history. He believed he found one in an extinct German alphabet that's commonly referred to as 'Runes'. The story of the Aryan seemed complete, but one question still remained. If the Germans were descended from these god-like beings then why were they themselves not god-like? The answer would be supplied by a defrocked Austrian monk named Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfels. Von Liebenfels claimed that all of history could be summed up as a struggle between 'noble' races and lower races (among these were the Jews). The lower races, he claimed, were sources of racial pollution and through their interbreeding with higher races had brought those races down. He begins to advocate a racial purification program, extermination through sterilization and castration, in order to restore the Aryan to a state of perfection. He publishes his ideas in a magazine named after the ancient German goddess of spring, Ostara, and circulates them around the streets of Vienna. Among Ostara's readers was a down and out failed art student named Adolf Hitler.

Hitler's Rise and The Occult Although born in Austria, Hitler had always felt a strong allegiance to Germany, a country he felt was racially pure. When WWI broke out Hitler signed up to fight for Germany. While fighting on the front lines he began to believe that he was being personally protected by a 'greater power'. Years later he would recount a narrow escape as he ate dinner with his comrades in the trenches, “Suddenly a voice seemed to be saying to me, 'Get up and go over there'. It was so clear and insistent that I obeyed automatically, as if it had been a military order. Hardly had I done so when a flash and deafening report come from the part of the trench I had just left. A stray shell had burst over the group in which I had been sitting, and every member of it was killed.” Near the end of the war Hitler was wounded in combat and needed to be hospitalized. It was during this time that Germany surrendered to the Allies, a humiliation that Hitler couldn't bear. He is not the only one. Most Germans believed that the war had been going well and felt that they should have won. Defeat is so shocking that a myth is conceived to explain it, called 'dolchstosslegende' (meaning 'stabbed in the back'). The only reason they could have lost was because someone had 'knifed them' when they weren't looking. Who wielded the knife, socialists and the enemy of the Aryan occult doctrine, the Jews. In this atmosphere a band of antisemites form an exclusive club called the Thule, named after the legendary homeland of the Aryans. It's members gather in high end pubs and beer halls to debate the topics of the day, politics, the occult, and the Jews. In 1919 a Thule member forms the forerunner of the Nazis: The German Workers' Party. Suspicious of the loyalties of this new party, the German Army sends an embittered soldier to spy on them, Adolf Hitler. Liking what he hears at the meeting, Hitler ultimately ends up joining the party. Soon after, the group renames itself The National Socialist German Workers' Party, Nazi for short. Among its leaders is a man named Dietrich Eckart. A journalist, drug addict, and occultist, Eckart becomes the 'spiritual guru' of the Nazi party. Taking Hitler under his wing, he grooms him for political power and instills in him even greater antisemitism then he already had, which was already immense. In 1923, on his deathbed, Eckart allegedly said of Hitler, “Hitler will dance, but it is I who plays the tune. Do not mourn for me, for I will have influenced history more than any other German.” Germany owed the Allies billions in war reparations. In order to pay off it's debt, and partly out of spite, the German Government begins to print money with nothing to back it, causing hyperinflation. German money became so worthless that a wheel barrel of it could only buy one loaf of bread. The German economy sinks to a new all time low, as does the popularity of the current government. It is at this time that Hitler sees an opportunity to take power. On November 9th, 1923, Hitler and the Nazis' private army, the Storm Troopers, marched on the Munich Town Hall in an attempt to seize power. It was intended to be the start of a national revolution, but it ends with sixteen party members dead and Hitler in jail. Although ultimately convicted of treason and imprisoned, the trial provided Hitler with a national political platform. From there, he declared Germany had been betrayed by the Jews and that he and the Nazi Party could restore Germany's prestige. Hitler emerged a patriot, the leader of a holy cause. He is released from prison in December of 1924 and returns to managing the Nazis. The Nazi party gradually grew in power. An election in 1930 establishes it as a major party. However, soon after Hitler would suffer a number of personal and public setbacks. In November of 1932, Hitler's lover, 20-year-old Eva Braun makes a failed attempt to commit suicide. Within that same week the Nazis lose seats in the Reichstag, the German congress. The Nazis' Storm Troopers were becoming rowdy and unmanageable. It seemed that the Nazis were going to lose everything they had gained. Everything was falling apart. On several occasions Hitler broke down in tears in public. It is at this time he begins to talk about the possibility of suicide. Then Hitler met a mysterious figure named Erik Jan Hanussen, a professional stage magician who was also known as a seer and psychic. Most historians agree that it was Hanussen who taught Hitler the art of showmanship for his speeches and helped him perfect a series of exaggerated poses, especially effective when mass audiences could not see a speaker at close range. Some believe that Hanussen may have also taught Hitler occult techniques of mind control and crowd domination. The power of Hitler's voice was so great that even a young Jewish man would later state, “I myself when I was 15, I went out of the house illegally – my family wouldn't have approved of it – and went to a Hitler meeting, and I was carried with it. I was carried with it because, first of all, you are in a crowd which all do the same things. They raise their arm, they shout the slogans, and you are caught up by that, yes? And second of all, he had this kind of charisma. You can't explain it. I won't explain it. It's impossible to explain, but he had this kind of charisma.” Professor George Mosse – University of Wisconsin, Madison. However, few individuals know of the extent of Erik Jan Hanussen's influence on Hitler. At the time in November of 1932 when all seemed lost for the Nazis, Hanussen predicted that within 30 days there would be a turning point and that Hitler would gain great power. In order to ensure that this prediction would come true Hanussen told Hitler that he must go back to the town of his birth and find a mandrake root (a man-shaped root said to possess medicinal properties). Hitler sends Hanussen to find the root for him. On January 1st, 1933, Hanussen presents the mandrake to Hitler. From a wire around its neck hung a capsule, within it was a note written by Hanussen describing a 'bond' between him, the mandrake, and Hitler. So long as Hitler held true to this bond he would gain power and good fortune. But if the bond was ever broken all would go down in flames within twelve years. As odd as this all seems there was actually a Vienna newspaper at the time which showed an image of Hitler with the mandrake. It is a fact however that within 30 days of this Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Hanussen's prediction had come true to the day. Whether Hanussen had seen the future, or had an inside tip, no one can say for sure. Once in power the Nazis set out to eliminate political rivals and any potentially scandalous links to Hitler's past. On June 30th, 1934, the Nazis targeted nearly 200 people for death in what will come to be known as the 'Night of the Long Knives'. Among the casualties was Erik Jan Hanussen. The bond had been broken.

Himmler, The Holocaust, and Breeding a 'Master Race' Adolf Hitler ultimately denounced occultism when it appeared that it could be a political liability. However, his inner circle contained a number of occult fanatics. Possibly the most extreme in his occult beliefs was a former chicken farmer who became the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was very much involved in the occult and believed things that border on and even surpass the insane. He believed that he was the reincarnation of a ancient German king, Henry the Fowler. That children conceived in Nordic cemeteries inherited the spirits of the Aryan heroes supposedly buried there (he later published lists of suitable cemeteries for breeding). One of the most bizarre was a story from the Nuremberg Trials of Himmler taking 'fine specimens' of SS men and beheading them so that he could use their heads to try to communicate with divine spirits, presumably. Consumed by Aryan myth, Himmler required SS officers to prove that they were of pure Aryan descent, that dated back at least 175 years. The training of the SS was steeped in secret rituals conducted at Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia. The design of the main hall was based on the legend of King Arthur and the Round Table. Beneath one of the castle's towers was a crypt that Himmler envisioned would one day contain twelve pedestals to support urns, filled with the ashes of SS heroes destined for worship. The Thousand Year Reich would have Wewelsburg as it's Vatican City. One of Himmler's most trusted advisors on the occult was a major general in the SS, Karl Maria Wiligut. A veteran of WWI, an avid student of Runes, and once diagnosed as a schizophrenic and megalomaniac, he convinced Himmler that he had a psychic connection with the ancient Aryans. Himmler made Wiligut his 'high priest' of Wewelsburg. Exactly how much did Hitler know about Himmler's involvement in the occult? Many historians believe the two of them had a “don't ask, don't tell” policy of sorts. Although it has been recently discovered that Hitler did mock some of Himmler's 'projects' around other members of his inner circle. However, Hitler was willing to turn a blind eye to most of what Himmler did because the man was fiercely loyal and he needed him to carry out 'The Final Solution'. Himmler was the chief orchestrator of 'The Final Solution'. He was in charge of the organization of the concentration camps and the extermination of 6 million Jews and perhaps between 9 and 10 million others individuals by some estimate (no exact number is known). As well as killing, they would also conduct horrible medical experiments on human beings at Dachau, Auschwitz, and other places; all under the agents of the SS and Himmler's Occult Research Division. Not only did Himmler experiment on the victims of the concentration camps, but he also had a breeding program that was being conducted on the citizens of Germany. Known as Lebensborn, German for 'Source of Life', the project was an attempt to breed Aryans back into a race of super-humans. Woman of pure Aryan descent were encouraged to marry SS men, or other men of proven Aryan descent, and have large families. Unwed mothers, who could prove the the race of their child's father, were able to give their babies to the Lebensborn program, where they would then be adopted out to a 'good' Aryan German family. The Lebensborn program even went as far as kidnapping children in occupied countries where people met the Aryan ideal. Not counting the kidnappings, the program is estimated to have produced as many as 20,000 babies.

Hanussen's Curse On April 30th, 1945, as the Russians stormed the streets of Berlin, Hitler and his new bride, Eva Braun, commited suicide rather than be taken alive. Coincidentally, or perhaps by design, this date also holds great significants in the occult. Hitler came to power the night of January 30th to 31st which is a pagan holiday and one of the eight pagan Sabbaths. He committed suicide on another pagan Sabbath, April 30th, called Beltane; also known as Walpurgisnacht (the 'Night of Witches') in Germany. Walpurgisnacht is also believed by some occultist to be the most important holiday in Satanism. In effect, Hitler was handing himself over to the powers of darkness. Another occult connection to the date of Hitler's death was that it twelve years prior that Erik Jan Hanussen was killed by Hitler's orders. Three weeks after Hitler's suicide, in British captivity, Heinrich Himmler, disguised as a low ranking soldier, swallowed a cyanide capsule. The man who believed he was once a king died in a private's uniform.

With the fall of the Third Reich it seemed as if the German people were released from a spell. Years later many of them could still find no way to explain why they had followed Hitler into barbarism and mass murder. Could it be that he had some sort of supernatural hold over the nation. Or was he merely a man who understood human nature and knew how to bring out the darkness that can be found within all of us.

“Can't you see the strength of his personality, how he swept people off their feet? If Hitler were to walk into my cell and say, do this, even now, I would do it.” Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop – Nuremberg, 1946.

__**Sources:**__ [|“The World Must Know” by Michael Berenbaum] [|“Nazis - The Occult Conspiracy” Documentary] [|“The Occult History of the Third Reich” Documentary] History Channel's “Hitler and the Occult” History Channel's “History's Mysteries – Hitler's Perfect Children” History Channel's “The Private Voice of Hitler” History Channel's “Night of the Long Knives – Hitler's Murderous Coup” History Channel's “Decoding the Past – Nazi Prophesies” National Geographic Channel's “Hitler and the Occult”