I
will post information about the German Occult Group known as The Thule Society
from Wikipedia and other links.
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Thule
Society
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Thule
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German name
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Thule Gesellschaft
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Abbreviation
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Thuleorden
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Leader
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Founder
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Rudolf von Sebottendorf
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Slogan
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Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum
("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity")
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Founded
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1918
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Dissolved
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prior to 1930
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Preceded by
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Headquarters
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Newspaper
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itself
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Student wing
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itself
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Membership
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Colors
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836809 FF0000
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Anthem
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none
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Election
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The
Thule Society (/ˈθjuːliː/; German: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the Studiengruppe für
germanisches Altertum ("Study Group for Germanic Antiquity"), was
a German occultist and völkisch group in Munich, named after a
mythical northern country from Greek legend. The Society is notable chiefly as
the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which was
later reorganized by Adolf Hitler into the National Socialist German
Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party). According to Hitler biographer Ian
Kershaw, the organization's "membership list... reads like a Who's Who of
early Nazi sympathizers and leading figures in Munich", including Rudolf Hess, Alfred
Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Julius
Lehmann, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich
Eckart, and Karl Harrer. However, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke contends that
Hans Frank and Rudolf Hess had been Thule members, but other leading Nazis had
only been invited to speak at Thule meetings or were entirely unconnected with
it. The ideology of the Thule Society and that of Hitler's regime agreed in
philosophy but, according to Johannes Hering, "There is no evidence that
Hitler ever attended the Thule Society."
Origins
The
Thule Society was originally a "German study group" headed by Walter Nauhaus, a wounded World War
I veteran turned art student from Berlin who had
become a keeper of pedigrees for the Germanenorden
(or "Order of Teutons"), a secret
society founded in 1911 and formally named in the following year. In 1917,
Nauhaus moved to Munich; his Thule Society was to be a cover-name for
the Munich branch of the Germanenorden, but events developed differently as a
result of a schism in the Order. In 1918, Nauhaus was contacted in Munich by Rudolf von Sebottendorf (or von
Sebottendorff), an occultist and newly elected head of the Bavarian province of
the schismatic offshoot known as the Germanenorden Walvater of the
Holy Grail. The two men became associates in a recruitment campaign, and
Sebottendorff adopted Nauhaus's Thule Society as a cover-name for his Munich
lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater at its formal dedication on 18 August 1918.
Beliefs
A
primary focus of the Thule Society was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. In 1917,
people who wanted to join the "Germanic Order", out of which the
Thule Society developed in 1918, had to sign a special "blood declaration
of faith" concerning their lineage:
"The signer hereby swears to the best of his knowledge and belief that no Jewish or coloured blood flows in either his or in his wife's veins, and that among their ancestors are no members of the coloured races."
"Thule" ((Greek):
Θούλη) was a land located by Greco-Roman geographers
in the farthest north (often displayed as Iceland). The term "Ultima
Thule" ((Latin): most distant Thule) is also
mentioned by Roman poet Virgil in his pastoral poems called the Georgics.
Thule originally was probably the name for Scandinavia,
although Virgil simply uses it as a proverbial expression for the edge of the
known world, and his mention should not be taken as a substantial reference to Scandinavia.
The
Thule Society identified Ultima Thule as a lost ancient landmass in the extreme
north, near Greenland
or Iceland,
said by Nazi mystics to be the capital of ancient Hyperborea.
These ideas were derived from earlier speculation by Ignatius L. Donnelly that a lost landmass had
once existed in the Atlantic, and that it was the home of the Aryan race,
a theory which he supported by reference to the distribution of swastika
motifs. He identified this with Plato's Atlantis, a
theory further developed by Helena
Blavatsky, an occultist during the second part of the 19th century.
Activities
The
Thule Society attracted about 250 followers in Munich and about 1,500 elsewhere
in Bavaria. Its meetings were often held in
the luxury Hotel Vierjahreszeiten ((German):
Four Seasons Hotel) in Munich.
The
followers of the Thule Society were very interested in racial theory and, in
particular, in combating Jews and Communists. Sebottendorff planned but
failed to kidnap Bavarian socialist prime minister Kurt Eisner in December 1918. During the Bavarian
revolution of April 1919, Thulists were accused of trying to infiltrate
its government and of attempting a coup. On 26 April, the Communist government
in Munich raided the Society's premises and took seven of its members into
custody, executing them on 30 April. Amongst them were Walter Nauhaus and four
well-known aristocrats, including Countess Heila
von Westarp who functioned as the group's secretary, and Prince
Gustav of Thurn and Taxis who was related to several European royal
families. In response, the Thule organised a citizens' uprising as White troops
entered the city on 1 May.
Münchener Beobachter newspaper
In
1918, the Thule Society bought a local weekly newspaper, the Münchener
Beobachter (Munich Observer), and changed its name to Münchener
Beobachter und Sportblatt (Munich Observer and Sports Paper) in an attempt
to improve its circulation. The Münchener Beobachter later became the Völkischer
Beobachter ((German):
People's Observer), the main Nazi newspaper. It was edited by Karl Harrer.
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
Anton
Drexler had developed links between the Thule Society and various extreme
right workers' organizations in Munich. He established the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), or
German Workers' Party, on 5 January 1919, together with the Thule Society's
Karl Harrer. Adolf Hitler joined this party in September the same year. By the
end of February 1920, the DAP had been reconstituted as the Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), or National Socialist German Workers'
Party, often referred to as the Nazi Party.
Sebottendorff
by then had left the Thule Society, and never joined the DAP or the Nazi Party.
Dietrich Bronder (Bevor Hitler kam, 1964) alleged that other members of
the Thule Society were later prominent in Nazi Germany: the list includes Dietrich Eckart (who coached Hitler on his public
speaking skills, along with Erik
Jan Hanussen, and had Mein Kampf dedicated to him), as well as Gottfried
Feder, Hans Frank, Hermann Göring, Karl
Haushofer, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and Alfred Rosenberg. Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has described
this membership roll and similar claims as "spurious" and
"fanciful", noting that Feder, Eckart, and Rosenberg were never more
than guests to whom the Thule Society extended hospitality during the Bavarian revolution of 1918, although he
has more recently acknowledged that Hess and Frank were members of the Society
before they came to prominence in the Nazi Party. It has also been claimed that
Adolf Hitler himself was a member. Evidence on the contrary shows that he never
attended a meeting, as attested to by Johannes Hering's diary of Society
meetings. It is quite clear that Hitler himself had little interest in, and
made little time for, "esoteric" matters. (See also Hitler's
Nuremberg speech of 6 September 1938 on his disapproval of occultism.)
Wilhelm Laforce and Max Sesselmann (staff on the Münchener
Beobachter) were Thule members who later joined the NSDAP.
Dissolution
Early
in 1920, Karl Harrer was forced out of the DAP as Hitler moved to sever the
party's link with the Thule Society, which subsequently fell into decline and
was dissolved about five years later, well before Hitler came to power.
Rudolf von
Sebottendorff had withdrawn from the Thule Society in 1919, but he
returned to Germany in 1933 in the hope of reviving it. In that year, he
published a book entitled Bevor Hitler kam ((German): Before Hitler Came), in which
he claimed that the Thule Society had paved the way for the Führer:
"Thulers were the ones to whom Hitler first came, and Thulers were the
first to unite themselves with Hitler." This claim was not favourably
received by the Nazi authorities: after 1933, esoteric organisations were
suppressed (including völkisch occultists), many closed down by anti-Masonic legislation in 1935.
Sebottendorff's book was prohibited and he himself was arrested and imprisoned
for a short period in 1934, afterwards departing into exile in Turkey.
Nonetheless,
it has been argued that some Thule members and their ideas were incorporated
into the Third Reich. Some of the Thule Society's
teachings were expressed in the books of Alfred Rosenberg. Many occult ideas
found favour with Heinrich Himmler, who had a great interest in mysticism,
unlike Hitler, but the Schutzstaffel (SS)
under Himmler emulated the structure of Ignatius Loyola's Jesuit order rather than the Thule Society,
according to Hohne.
Conspiracy theories
The
Thule Society has become the center of many conspiracy theories concerning Nazi
Germany, due to its occult background (like the Ahnenerbe
section of the SS). Such theories include the creation of vril-powered Nazi UFOs.
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The 16 Nazi Martyrs of the Beer Hall Putsch
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/307089268314516096/]
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Popular culture
In
popular culture, references to the Thule Society have included the 2013 season
8 episode "Everybody Hates Hitler" of The CW series Supernatural, in which a group of
Society members seek out a lost ledger containing information about their
experiments with necromancy.
The
Thule Society play a major role in the Fullmetal
Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, a movie set after the ending of
the 2003 anime of the same name.
In
the film Hellboy, Professor Bruttenholm refers to Adolf
Hitler having joined the Thule Society in 1937, describing them as "a
group of German aristocrats obsessed with the occult." The Thule Society,
along with Rasputin, were responsible for opening the portal which allowed the
titular Hellboy into our world.
The
Thule Society is referenced in several of Charles
Stross's Laundry Files novels and short stories.
In
the Area 51 novels, the Society is mentioned as
being the occult force behind the Nazi Party.
The
Thule plays a part in the Wolfenstein video game series.
In
the Secret World Chronicles
by Mercedes Lackey, the Thule Society is behind the
attacks on Echo facilities on February 15, 2004.
The
Thule Society also feature in the video game Clive Barker's Jericho.
The
Thule Society plays a role in the Marvel Comics series, "Fear Itself". In the story, the Thule
Society are under the guidance and leadership of the Red Skull,
which he uses to protect the Hammer of Skadi when it is summoned to the earth.
The
Thule Society appears in Steve Gerber's brief run on Marvel's Cloak and Dagger.
The
Loyalists of Thule, a group dedicated to the hunting of supernatural creatures,
is based on the remnants of the Thule Society in Hunter:
The Vigil by White Wolf Publishing
The
Thule Society is present in the eroge/anime 11eyes as a hermetic society of dark magick practitioners
aiding Nazi Germany against the Vatican.
The
Thule Society is mentioned in the paranormal novel "Night
Journey" by Goldie Browning.
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