Karl Maria Wiligut, Private Magus of Heinrich Himmler
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“Karl Maria Wiligut, private magus of Heinrich Himmler” Chapter 14 from: “Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology: Occult Roots of Nazism” © Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke 2004. Reprinted 2005. The pages 177-191 with 39 notes. Includes a Bibliography and Biographical Studies referring to KMW. THE Armanists, Ariosophists, and rune occultists we have encountered so far all conform to a certain sectarian stereotype. Their doctrines cited exalted and superhuman ancestors, whose ancient gnostic rule had brought the Aryans wisdom, power, and prosperity in a prehistoric age until it was supplanted by an alien and hostile culture. These ancestors were supposed to have encoded their salvation-bringing knowledge in cryptic forms (e.g. runes, myths, and traditions), which could be deciphered ultimately only by their spiritual heirs, the modern sectarians. List, Lanz von Liebenfels, Gorsleben, and others attracted disciples with the lure of such doctrines, which were intensively disseminated within the sect, while certain of their ideas and symbols filtered through to wider social groupings. These men thus contributed importantly to the mythological mood of the Nazi-Era, but they cannot be said to have directly influenced the actions of persons in positions of political power and responsibility. Karl Maria Wiligut (1866-1946), the so-called Rasputin of Himmler, did achieve such influence. By virtue of his alleged possession of ancestral memory and an inspired representation of archaic Germanic traditions, he became the favored mentor of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler on mythological subjects and was given an official assignment for prehistorical research in the SS between 1933 and 1939. During the period of his service he was promoted from SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) to SS- Brigadeführer (brigadier) upon the personal recommendation of Himmler. Consulted by his patron on a wide range of issues, Wiligut's influence extended to the design of the Totenkopfring (death's head ring) worn by members of the SS, the conception of the Wewelsburg as the order-castle of the SS, and the adoption of other ceremonial designed to bestow a traditional aura upon the SS ideology of élitism, racial purity, and territorial conquest. But who was Karl Maria Wiligut, and how did he come to exercise this extraordinary influence? The answer to the latter question reflects largely on the character of Himmler himself. Among the top leaders of the Third Reich, Himmler appears the most ambiguous personality, motivated simultaneously by a capacity for rational planning and by unreal fantasies. His zeal for order, punctuality, and administrative detail, and the pedantic impression of an 'intelligent primary school teacher', were seemingly belied by his enthusiasm for the utopian, the romantic and even the occult. 1 It was Himmler's idealistic imagination which led to a visionary conception of the SS and its future role: his blackuniformed troops would provide both the bloodstock of the future Aryan master-race and the ideological élite of an ever-expanding Greater Germanic Reich. Himmler busied himself from 1930 onwards with various projects designed to express the moral purpose and ideological mission of the SS. The marriage regulations of 1931,his plans for an SS officers' college at the Wewelsburg in 1933, and his close collaboration with Richard Walther Darré, the chief Nazi theorist of 'blood and soil', are representative of these projects. In 1935 he established with Darré the Ahnenerbe, an initially independent institute, with a mandate to pursue research into Germanic prehistory and archaeology. The Ahnenerbe was subsequently incorporated into the SS, its academic staff carrying SS rank and wearing SS uniform. 2 It is only within this context of Himmler's quest for Germanic roots to underpin his SS ideology that one can understand his patronage of the 66-year-old völkisch occultist Karl Maria Wiligut. Wiligut was born on 10 December 1866 in Vienna. 3 Both his father and his grandfather had served as officers in the Austrian army and the eldest son followed this family tradition. At the age of fourteen he began attending the imperial cadet school at Vienna- Breitensee and in December 1884 he joined the 99th infantry regiment at Mostar in Herzegovina. He was promoted second lieutenant in November 1888, lieutenant in 1892, and captain in 1903. During this early period of his military career, he served with the 99th, 88th and 47th infantry regiments in various parts of the Habsburg empire. As early as the turn of the century Wiligut had demonstrated some literary ambition with the publication of verse, typically characterized by the celebration of nature, mythological subjects, and regimental history. His treatment of mythology was explicitly nationalistic in Seyfrieds Runen (1903), a collection of poems devoted to the legends surrounding the Rabenstein at Znaim on the Austrian-Moravian border. Wiligut's introduction referred to the 'Germanic origin' of place-names and reflected the mood of contemporary folklore studies by Franz Kiessling and Guido List. The book was published by Friedrich Schalk, who had also issued some of List's early work. At this time Wiligut was described in his military files as having good social connections, which may be a reference to his membership in the Schlarraffia, a quasi-masonic lodge which he had joined at Görz in 1889, attaining the grade of Knight and office of Chancellor prior to his resignation in 1909. His lodge-name was Lobesam which also appeared on the title-page of his book. However, there is no evidence that this lodge was allied to the Pan-German movement, nor does Wiligut appear to have been associated with any other nationalist organization in imperial Austria. In May 1912 Wiligut was promoted to major and was still serving with the 47th infantry regiment at the outbreak of war. In October 1914 he became a staff officer in the 30th infantry regiment, witnessing action against the Russian army in the Carpathians along the northeastern flank of the empire. Following an exhausting campaign during which he was either in battle or on long night-marches, Wiligut was promoted to lieutenant- colonel and transferred back to Graz to organize reinforcements for the 14th and 49th infantry regiments. He was then posted to the Italian front, where he held a succession of commands between June 1915 and the following spring. In June 1916 he was appointed commanding officer of the Salzburg district reserves and promoted to the rank of colonel in August 1917. In the course of the war he was decorated for bravery and highly commended by his senior officers. Field Marshal Daniel described him as 'a sterling character ... an extremely skilful, conscientious officer ... suitable for regimental command', a judgement shared by other high-ranking commanders. In May 1918 Wiligut was recalled from the front in South Tyrol and placed in command of camps for returned soldiers at Zolkiew, north of Lemberg (L'vov) in the Ukraine. After nearly forty years' professional military service he was discharged on 1 January 1919 and he retired to Salzburg.4 Wiligut's subsequent importance to völkisch groups and the SS rested on his reputation as the last descendant of a long line of Germanic sages, the Uiligotis of the Asa-Uana- Sippe, which dated back to a remote prehistoric era. Wiligut claimed to possess ancestral clairvoyant memory, which enabled him to recall the history and experiences of his tribe over thousands of years. It is difficult to establish when Wiligut first identified with this tradition as pre-war documents are scarce. He claimed that he received instruction on the runes from his grandfather Karl Wiligut (1794-1883), and dated his formal initiation into the family secrets by his father from 1890;5 a series of nine pagan commandments was supposedly written by him as early as July 1908. The only source for Wiligut's pre-war pagan tradition is Theodor Czepl of the Order of the New Templars who evidently knew of Wiligut around 1908 through an occult circle in Vienna, whose members included Willy Thaler, a cousin of Wiligut, his wife Marie Thaler, the well- known actress, and several ONT brothers. 6 It was on the basis of this former acquaintance that Lanz von Liebenfels gave Czepl the assignment of making renewed contact with Wiligut after the war, since by this time rumours of his 'secret German kingship' were current in the völkisch subculture. Czepl accordingly visited Wiligut on three occasions, once spending as long as seven weeks at his Salzburg home in the winter of 1920-1. He recorded his experiences with Wiligut in an extensive memorandum prepared for the ONT. 7 Wiligut told Czepl that he was the bearer of a secret line of German royalty and showed him tomes on heraldry and his own coat-of-arms and family seal as proof of this claim. He obliquely stated that 'his crown lay in the imperial palace at Goslar and his sword in a stone grave at Steinamanger'. On the basis of his ancestral-clairvoyantmemory he described the religious practices, military organization, and constitutional arrangements of the ancient Germans in terms that also closely resembled the earlier revelations of Guido von List. But Wiligut also maintained that the Bible had been originally written in Germany; he evidently identified with an Irminist religion, which was distinct from and the opponent of Wotanism, celebrating a Germanic god Krist, which the Christian religion had later bowdlerized and appropriated as its own saviour. Wiligut also welcomed Lanz's intended publication of a second Ostara series for the light this might throw on the real Aryan origins of Christianity. Wiligut presented Czepl at his departure with a poem entitled 'German Faith', which fused mystical pietism with hopes of national redemption. From this meeting with Czepl it may be deduced that Wiligut's doctrine blended the Teutonic archaism of List with the Ario-Christianity of Lanz, albeit in a novel form.