Aries – Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 20 (2020) 137–141 ARIES brill.com/arie

Response Article

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A Response to the Review of Hitler’s Monsters: A History of the Third Reich

Dear Editor,

I am grateful to the editors of Aries for commissioning a review essay of my recent book, Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. Given the provocative title, I can understand why scholars of western esotericism might approach the book with skepticism. That said, one expects a scholarly book review—even a critical review—to represent a book’s main arguments and evidence as carefully and accurately as possible. Professor Kingsepp’s review, “Scholarship as Simulacrum”, does not accomplish this task. In regard to the book’s argument, at no point does Hitler’s Monsters assert that Hitler (or any other Nazi) was a “practicing magician” (“Simulacrum”, Aries, 267). Besides the obvious point that “black magic” does not exist, the only reference to “black magic” I can find in the entire manuscript stems from a 1943 Nazi propaganda pamphlet titled, “The Jewish Vampire Brings Chaos to the World” (“he [the Jew] has propagated political and economic black magic for three millenia”, Hitler’s Monsters, 257). I am equally perplexed by Kingsepp’s assertion that: “The transnational, even cosmopolitan character of much fin-de-siècle esotericism is not visible anywhere as Kurlander cre- ates a world where even Theosophy becomes a predominantly German phe- nomenon” (“Simulacrum”, 267). Already in the first pages of the first chap- ter, Hitler’s Monsters states very clearly that: “Theosophy did not espouse a complete rejection of the Enlightenment or ‘flight from reason’, as some have argued. Typical of much fin-de-siècle occultism, it constituted a genuine at- tempt to combine natural science and supernaturalism, rationalism and mys- ticism, in a quintessentially modern answer to the spiritual dilemmas of the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/15700593-02001009 138 response article industrial age … Theosophists across Europe and North America were also committed to Indian independence, animal rights, vegetarianism, and sexual liberation—ideas not necessarily associated with conservative nationalism” (HM, 15–16). Indeed, since the review does not represent my argument accu- rately, here it is:

Taking the supernatural elements of Nazism seriously, as we will do throughout this book, does not mean resuscitating outdated arguments about German ‘peculiarity’. There was no inherent ‘special path’ between nineteenth-century occultism or paganism and National Socialism. As- trology, clairvoyance, and paranormal activity, Germanic mythology and fairy tales, pagan religious traditions and folk superstition, alternative healing practices and border science—all these cultural phenomena and practices were remarkably widespread in Germany. They were compati- ble with many aspects of modernity, mass politics, and consumerism, and never confined exclusively to the racist, proto-fascist right. This does not mean, however, that all European fascist movements were equally susceptible to or as likely to draw upon supernatural think- ing. Nor, in comparison to the Nazis, were German liberals, Socialists, or even Catholics as willing to exploit the ‘supernatural imaginary’ in propa- ganda or policy. In the end, the Nazi movement retained closer ties to the occult, völkisch-religious, and border scientific milieu than any other mass party of the Weimar era. If the Nazis sometimes appeared uncertain as to how to navigate supernatural belief and practices, it was because—for all their invocations of ‘enlightenment’ (Aufklärung) and disagreements about the proper role of science and religion in the Third Reich—they recog- nized the utility,indeed, the necessity,of appealing to post-war Germany’s longing for myth and desire for transcendence in making their amor- phous racial and imperial visions a reality. HM, xxii

The same problems apply to the reviewer’s discussion of sources and method- ology.Walter Wüst’s Indogermanisches Bekenntnis was reprinted by the Ahnen- erbe in 1943, which is why the text refers to a 1943 edition. The long quotation selected by the reviewer to indicate an example of “severe distortion” has noth- ing to do with “the German military defeat in early 1943” (“Simulacrum”, 277), but introduces a subsection titled “Border Science, War, and Racial Resettle- ment” (HM, 232), which begins with an analysis of “Blood, Soil, and Resettle- ment Fantasies Before 1939” and explicitly states that Wüst was “reviving the

Aries – Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 20 (2020) 137–141