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Hammer of the Gods: The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism
Public interest in Adolf Hitler and all aspects of the Third Reich continues to grow as new generations ponder the moral questions surrounding Nazi Germany and its historical legacy. One aspect of Nazism that has not received sufficient attention from historians of the Third Reich is the doctrine s origins in the Thule Society and its covert activities. A Munich occult group with a political agenda, the Thule Society was led by Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a German commoner who had been adopted by nobility during a sojourn in the Ottoman Empire. After returning to Europe, Sebottendorff embraced a form of theosophy that stressed the racial superiority of Aryans. The Thule Society attempted to establish an anti-Semitic, working-class front for disseminating its esoteric ideas and founded the German Workers Party, which Hitler would later transform into the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party. Several of the society s members eventually assumed prestigious posts in the Third Reich.David Luhrssen has written the first comprehensive study of the society s activities, its cultural roots, and its postwar ramifications in a historical-critical context. Both general readers and academics concerned with European cultural and intellectual history will find that "Hammer of the Gods" opens new perspectives on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe.
316 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2012
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June 18, 2012
Finally, someone has written a book exclusively on the Thule Society. Not only did David Luhrssen write a work on the relatively unknown völkisch group, but he also refrained from using any of the numerous pseudo-historical works on Nazi occultism as references. Naturally, Luhrssen cites the groundbreaking work "The Occult Roots of Nazism" by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke as one of his main sources. Although written in a fairly scholarly manner, "Hammer of the Gods", unlike a lot of Goodrick-Clarke's writings, is written in a surprisingly entertaining fashion. Luhrssen is also reasonably objective in his analysis and, for the most part, refrains from slinging around petty derogatory words typical of such works.
My favorite part of "Hammer of the Gods" is Luhrssen's biographical sketch of Rudolf von Sebottendorf. In fact, Luhrssen probably should have titled the book "Hammer of the Gods: Rudolf von Sebottendorf, The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism" as Herr Sebottendorf is the only individual that is discussed continuously throughout the book's entirety. For years, I have been trying to make sense of Sebottendorf and this book certainly helps to fill in a lot of the blanks. Although I seriously doubt it was his objective, Luhrssen reveals the men and women of the Thule Society to be heroes who, through a variety of intricate strategies, helped to dismantle the short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. Keep in mind that a number of these individuals were aristocrats and professionals who had nothing to gain by being involved with an 'unconventional' organization that sometimes engaged in less than legal means to get the result they desired. The Thule Society also actively attempted to unite the working-class with the rest of Germany via the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which eventually was taken over and reorganized by Uncle Adolf and renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), hence the imperative link between occultism and National Socialism.
Anyways, for those with even the slightest interest in the Thule Society, "Hammer of the Gods" makes for an insightful and entertaining reading.
My favorite part of "Hammer of the Gods" is Luhrssen's biographical sketch of Rudolf von Sebottendorf. In fact, Luhrssen probably should have titled the book "Hammer of the Gods: Rudolf von Sebottendorf, The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism" as Herr Sebottendorf is the only individual that is discussed continuously throughout the book's entirety. For years, I have been trying to make sense of Sebottendorf and this book certainly helps to fill in a lot of the blanks. Although I seriously doubt it was his objective, Luhrssen reveals the men and women of the Thule Society to be heroes who, through a variety of intricate strategies, helped to dismantle the short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. Keep in mind that a number of these individuals were aristocrats and professionals who had nothing to gain by being involved with an 'unconventional' organization that sometimes engaged in less than legal means to get the result they desired. The Thule Society also actively attempted to unite the working-class with the rest of Germany via the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which eventually was taken over and reorganized by Uncle Adolf and renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), hence the imperative link between occultism and National Socialism.
Anyways, for those with even the slightest interest in the Thule Society, "Hammer of the Gods" makes for an insightful and entertaining reading.
March 3, 2021
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This is a surprisingly interesting history about an extremely obscure moment in German history. Although the "occult" angle is titillating, what this history actually does is to draw the curtain back on the odd world of Volkisch Nationalism in the period prior to and immediately after World War I. In doing so, the author illuminates a lot of the culture of National Socialism.
The first thing to understand is that this is a well-researched work of scholarship. Rightwing nationalists may have had strange and eclectic beliefs, but their beliefs are part of the data and qualia of the historical record. Nothing in this book suggests in any way that the author holds these beliefs or expects the readers to give them any credence. Rather, author David Luhrssen approaches the subject as a combination of intellectual and political history.
The most surprising detail for me was how little I really knew about the Communist take-over of Munich in 1918-1919. Generally, this episode gets footnote treatment as an odd experiment that was quickly unraveled, but it is an event that winds its way through a lot of history. Thus, the future Pius XII had a run in with the Communists running Munich and Dietrich von Hildebrandt had to flee Communist Munich just as he would have to flee Nazi Germany twenty years later. For the people living through the event, Red Munich highlighted the threat that they were living under and demonstrated that an answer to the threat was violence and conspiracy.
Luhrssen begins his history in the concrete reality of the Communists executing six members of the Thule society. When we return to these executions many chapters later - after we trace the development of the Thule Society through its predecessors and personalities - we will learn that the Thule Society was establishing and funding the Freikorps that were attacking the Bolshevik state. Although it had Volkish interests, such as study societies devoted to deciphering rune, the Thule Society reached the zenith of its influence at this moment under the mercurial Rudolf von Sebottendorff, who is a character that a fantasy writer would be hard-pressed to invent - Luhrssen calls him "Munchausen incarnate" - by running an effective conspiracy that seemed to place its agents within the ranks of the Communists.
Luhrssen is an effective guide to the crazy quilt of groups and ideologies that made up part of the current that the Nazis grew out of. For example, I've often heard of Blavatsky's Theosophy, but never had any interest in learning about that subject. Apparently, it was a kind of pantheism, which is interesting in light of Richard Weikart's recent book that argues that Hitler's "religiosity" was "panentheist." According to Luhrssen, "Theosophy embodied a subversive countertendency in Western thought. It opposed the evils of Western materialism with an eclectic synthesis of ideas, many of them adopted from Hindu and Buddhist cosmology." (Weikart's observations about the popularity of Schopenhauer, who was similar influenced by Eastern ideas comes to mind. Luhrssen notes that "A stream of translations of the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred texts had already encouraged interest in faiths born in India.5 Prominent German thinkers such as Novalis, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer were fascinated by Indian philosophy, as were the New England circles of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.) Theosophy posited the existence of the "Aryan race" and gave rise to "Arisophy," which devoted interest in an imagined Western mystical tradition of runes and paganism. These influences also brought in the symbol of the swastika.
Theosophy also brought with a kind of idea of teleological evolution where the existing race would be supplanted by a "new race."
"Theosophy also taught that a new race would soon emerge to supplant the existing human genus. It was on the subject of race that mysticism intersected with the materialistic science of the day. Bigotry based on inherited physical characteristics has a long history. However, not until the height of the Enlightenment, in 1735, when Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus devised the modern system for classifying plants and animals, was a hierarchy of races proposed upon a scientific foundation. Even before Charles Darwin, evolutionists wondered whether certain races were better suited and adaptable than others to a wider scope of environments, and whether the world could be seen as populated by many races at different stages of evolution. Perhaps there were different human breeds, even breeds that scarcely deserved to be classed as human, such as the Pygmies of Equatorial Africa, whose humanity was often questioned. Rancorous debate erupted during the early nineteenth century between monogenists, who believed that homo sapiens descended from the same line, and polygenists, whose argument for the separate origin of various races undercut the Judeo-Christian brotherhood of man and its political corollary of universal human rights."
(I want to note that this debate is answered in Catholicism by Humani Generis which dogmatically holds for a single human origin.)
Luhrssen takes the reader through personalities like Guido von List whose pro-pagan, anti-Catholic books become popular in the late 19th century:
"With the publication of his historical novel Carnuntum (1888), a glorification of the ancient Aryans and their struggle with the Romans, List graduated from obscurity to celebrity among Pan-Germans. Carnuntum was not merely historical fiction but a metaphor of contemporary cultural politics. Like the Roman legions of old, the Roman Catholic Church was an alien intrusion to be repelled before a genuinely Teutonic civilization could be restored. In Carnuntum, the ancient Germans who dwelled in what became Austria spearheaded the reversal of Roman fortune that culminated in the sack of Rome, a notion that swelled the pride of German Austrians."
This was a feature of German nationalism. In my review of [[ASIN:0674065638 Fighting for the Soul of Germany: The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unification (Harvard Historical Studies)]], I noted:
"For their part, the nationalists are still drawing their support from university students and dueling societies and are positing a world where primitive Germanness - pagan Germanness - is better because it is more authentic, and it is more authentic because it is untainted by non-German, ultramontane, Roman influences. Leading Nazis such as Martin Bormann, Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg took the idea of a pagan Germany that was unsullied by Jewish/Christian influence, and in Rosenberg's case, Jewish-Catholic influences, and have made that an explicit part of how they define the good society they wanted to create."
Luhrssen notes that Rosenberg, Himmler and Hesse were all part of the Thule Society.
"List Societies" were formed to discuss the ideas of List. Out of the List Society, the Thule Society was formed to discuss the Eddas and Nordic mythology. In July of 1919, the Thule Society acquired control of a minor Munich weekly whose named he changed to the Münchener Beobachter und Sportblatt (Munich Observer and Sports Sheet). After publishing this newspaper for a time, it was eventually transferred to the fledgling Nazi party - actually to its leader Adolf Hitler - by way of a loan from Ernst Hanfstaengl, and, eventually, Alfred Rosenberg became its publisher. (Luhrssen says that "In December 1920 the German military under its Bavarian commander, Franz Ritter von Epp, using Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart as intermediary, covertly provided the rising National Socialist German Workers’ Party with funds to purchase the Beobachter.")
In addition, the Thule Society also set up a front organization, known as the Workers’ Circle under Karl Harrer, which quickly became the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) that Adolf Hitler joined in September 1919.
Hitler was surrounded by Thule Society members and influence. His mentor, Dietrich Eckart, was a Thule Society member as were many founding members of the DAP. Subsequently, Hitler distanced the NSDAP, as it became, from the Thule Society, presumably so that the myth that he had created it virtually by himelf could be developed. There is some debate about whether Hitler was a member of the Thule Society; although Hitler denied that he was, Sebottendorff claimed that Hitler was a member, and was imprisoned for that claim. Hitler may or may not have been formally a member of the Thule Society, but Luhrssen observes:
"Hitler did not undermine Thule’s leadership of the party before being influenced by members of the Society. The damp clay of prejudices and anxieties that constituted Hitler’s internal life when he returned to Munich after war’s end, much of it already molded by his encounter with Ariosophical publications and völkisch militants in Vienna, was given final shape by Thulists. Regardless of whether Hitler actually joined the Society as Sebottendorff stated, or if he merely came to the September 12 German Workers’ Party meeting with more knowledge than he later admitted, Hitler was by the fall of 1919 under the influence of Thulists and their confederates in the party’s membership, notably Eckart, Rosenberg, and Feder. Eckart’s impact on Hitler is undisputed. However, Eckart’s ties through Thule to Rosenberg, Feder, Drexler, and Harrer are overlooked by historians who concur with Hitler that only one or two individuals influenced him in postwar Munich, not a network of individuals linked to the Thule Society."
Rosenberg is a key element of this connection. Most histories tend to portray Rosenberg as a bit of a buffoon that Hitler mocked, but Rosenberg did win the first Nazi version of the Nobel prize, and he was given control of the NSDAP when Hitler was in prison, and Rosenberg was given control over Nazi ideological formation. Rosenberg was and remained a surprisingly key figure in Hitler's life, at least until the war, when the key figures became military figures. Luhrssen points out:
"Jewish conspiracy. It was a theme he repeated in issue after issue of Eckart’s paper, and in books and policy papers written after he became a Nazi.75 While no one disputes that Hitler was, to a large degree, Eckart’s apprentice at the beginning of their friendship, Rosenberg’s influence has been more controversial. Although it is now generally acknowledged that Hitler’s preoccupation with combating Bolshevism was “influenced above all by Alfred Rosenberg,”76 many historians have followed the path of those unable to take the Nazi Party’s chief philosopher seriously because of the strangeness of his ideas. From this perspective it is easy to pretend that Rosenberg was the butt of Hitler’s scorn in the inner sanctuary of Nazism. Support for this view rests uncomfortably on Hitler’s supposed statement that he read no more than a few pages of Rosenberg’s major philosophical tome, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, because it was too difficult to understand. 77 This statement comes from transcripts of Hitler’s private conversations, edited with an eye toward inclusion in some future Nazi archive, by one of Rosenberg’s opponents, party boss Martin Bormann. While it is likely that Hitler would eventually grow impatient with Rosenberg’s mediocre aptitude for leadership, eyewitness accounts contradict the notion that Hitler tolerated Rosenberg as a harmless eccentric. Hitler’s friend Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl abhorred Rosenberg but admitted, “I soon found that he [Hitler] was deeply under the spell of Rosenberg” and esteemed him highly as a writer and philosopher.78 Careful scrutiny of Hitler’s earliest recorded speeches shows the influence of Rosenberg’s ideas.79 In commenting on the Mythus, Hitler said, “That book contains much that is true, but it is not timely. It is not intended for the masses; it is rather ideological education for the intelligentsia.”80 When Rosenberg issued a veiled attack on Goebbels’s tolerance of modern art in the Völkischer Beobachter, his remarks “were incorporated almost verbatim” in Hitler’s speech on culture at the 1933 Nazi Party rally.81 Kurt Luedecke, a well-connected adventurer who joined the Nazi Party in the summer 1922 and became one of its major early financial donors, would later recount that Hitler told him to get to know Rosenberg: “Get on good terms with him. He’s the only man I always listen to. He is a thinker.”"
And:
"Although Hitler never publicly echoed the anti-Christianity of the Mythus, his personal hostility to Christian teaching was reflected in the book’s content and in private conversations recorded for posterity.92 Hitler’s silence on questions raised by the controversial book was a tactical maneuver to reassure German church leaders and the faithful. As the party’s ideological spokesman, Rosenberg would never have been permitted to publish the book had Hitler opposed its message. The Mythus would not have been imposed on the curriculum of German schools if Hitler had found it objectionable."
In summary, what you get from this book is a key piece of backstory, an insight into the place where things connect. These insights offer a different view of the Nazi error, even if all of that rune and occult stuff is mostly silly nonsense, but dangerous silly nonsense because some of these men who would become very dangerous believed bis and pieces of it.
All in all, I found this a fascinating read.
This is a surprisingly interesting history about an extremely obscure moment in German history. Although the "occult" angle is titillating, what this history actually does is to draw the curtain back on the odd world of Volkisch Nationalism in the period prior to and immediately after World War I. In doing so, the author illuminates a lot of the culture of National Socialism.
The first thing to understand is that this is a well-researched work of scholarship. Rightwing nationalists may have had strange and eclectic beliefs, but their beliefs are part of the data and qualia of the historical record. Nothing in this book suggests in any way that the author holds these beliefs or expects the readers to give them any credence. Rather, author David Luhrssen approaches the subject as a combination of intellectual and political history.
The most surprising detail for me was how little I really knew about the Communist take-over of Munich in 1918-1919. Generally, this episode gets footnote treatment as an odd experiment that was quickly unraveled, but it is an event that winds its way through a lot of history. Thus, the future Pius XII had a run in with the Communists running Munich and Dietrich von Hildebrandt had to flee Communist Munich just as he would have to flee Nazi Germany twenty years later. For the people living through the event, Red Munich highlighted the threat that they were living under and demonstrated that an answer to the threat was violence and conspiracy.
Luhrssen begins his history in the concrete reality of the Communists executing six members of the Thule society. When we return to these executions many chapters later - after we trace the development of the Thule Society through its predecessors and personalities - we will learn that the Thule Society was establishing and funding the Freikorps that were attacking the Bolshevik state. Although it had Volkish interests, such as study societies devoted to deciphering rune, the Thule Society reached the zenith of its influence at this moment under the mercurial Rudolf von Sebottendorff, who is a character that a fantasy writer would be hard-pressed to invent - Luhrssen calls him "Munchausen incarnate" - by running an effective conspiracy that seemed to place its agents within the ranks of the Communists.
Luhrssen is an effective guide to the crazy quilt of groups and ideologies that made up part of the current that the Nazis grew out of. For example, I've often heard of Blavatsky's Theosophy, but never had any interest in learning about that subject. Apparently, it was a kind of pantheism, which is interesting in light of Richard Weikart's recent book that argues that Hitler's "religiosity" was "panentheist." According to Luhrssen, "Theosophy embodied a subversive countertendency in Western thought. It opposed the evils of Western materialism with an eclectic synthesis of ideas, many of them adopted from Hindu and Buddhist cosmology." (Weikart's observations about the popularity of Schopenhauer, who was similar influenced by Eastern ideas comes to mind. Luhrssen notes that "A stream of translations of the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred texts had already encouraged interest in faiths born in India.5 Prominent German thinkers such as Novalis, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer were fascinated by Indian philosophy, as were the New England circles of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.) Theosophy posited the existence of the "Aryan race" and gave rise to "Arisophy," which devoted interest in an imagined Western mystical tradition of runes and paganism. These influences also brought in the symbol of the swastika.
Theosophy also brought with a kind of idea of teleological evolution where the existing race would be supplanted by a "new race."
"Theosophy also taught that a new race would soon emerge to supplant the existing human genus. It was on the subject of race that mysticism intersected with the materialistic science of the day. Bigotry based on inherited physical characteristics has a long history. However, not until the height of the Enlightenment, in 1735, when Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus devised the modern system for classifying plants and animals, was a hierarchy of races proposed upon a scientific foundation. Even before Charles Darwin, evolutionists wondered whether certain races were better suited and adaptable than others to a wider scope of environments, and whether the world could be seen as populated by many races at different stages of evolution. Perhaps there were different human breeds, even breeds that scarcely deserved to be classed as human, such as the Pygmies of Equatorial Africa, whose humanity was often questioned. Rancorous debate erupted during the early nineteenth century between monogenists, who believed that homo sapiens descended from the same line, and polygenists, whose argument for the separate origin of various races undercut the Judeo-Christian brotherhood of man and its political corollary of universal human rights."
(I want to note that this debate is answered in Catholicism by Humani Generis which dogmatically holds for a single human origin.)
Luhrssen takes the reader through personalities like Guido von List whose pro-pagan, anti-Catholic books become popular in the late 19th century:
"With the publication of his historical novel Carnuntum (1888), a glorification of the ancient Aryans and their struggle with the Romans, List graduated from obscurity to celebrity among Pan-Germans. Carnuntum was not merely historical fiction but a metaphor of contemporary cultural politics. Like the Roman legions of old, the Roman Catholic Church was an alien intrusion to be repelled before a genuinely Teutonic civilization could be restored. In Carnuntum, the ancient Germans who dwelled in what became Austria spearheaded the reversal of Roman fortune that culminated in the sack of Rome, a notion that swelled the pride of German Austrians."
This was a feature of German nationalism. In my review of [[ASIN:0674065638 Fighting for the Soul of Germany: The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unification (Harvard Historical Studies)]], I noted:
"For their part, the nationalists are still drawing their support from university students and dueling societies and are positing a world where primitive Germanness - pagan Germanness - is better because it is more authentic, and it is more authentic because it is untainted by non-German, ultramontane, Roman influences. Leading Nazis such as Martin Bormann, Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg took the idea of a pagan Germany that was unsullied by Jewish/Christian influence, and in Rosenberg's case, Jewish-Catholic influences, and have made that an explicit part of how they define the good society they wanted to create."
Luhrssen notes that Rosenberg, Himmler and Hesse were all part of the Thule Society.
"List Societies" were formed to discuss the ideas of List. Out of the List Society, the Thule Society was formed to discuss the Eddas and Nordic mythology. In July of 1919, the Thule Society acquired control of a minor Munich weekly whose named he changed to the Münchener Beobachter und Sportblatt (Munich Observer and Sports Sheet). After publishing this newspaper for a time, it was eventually transferred to the fledgling Nazi party - actually to its leader Adolf Hitler - by way of a loan from Ernst Hanfstaengl, and, eventually, Alfred Rosenberg became its publisher. (Luhrssen says that "In December 1920 the German military under its Bavarian commander, Franz Ritter von Epp, using Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart as intermediary, covertly provided the rising National Socialist German Workers’ Party with funds to purchase the Beobachter.")
In addition, the Thule Society also set up a front organization, known as the Workers’ Circle under Karl Harrer, which quickly became the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) that Adolf Hitler joined in September 1919.
Hitler was surrounded by Thule Society members and influence. His mentor, Dietrich Eckart, was a Thule Society member as were many founding members of the DAP. Subsequently, Hitler distanced the NSDAP, as it became, from the Thule Society, presumably so that the myth that he had created it virtually by himelf could be developed. There is some debate about whether Hitler was a member of the Thule Society; although Hitler denied that he was, Sebottendorff claimed that Hitler was a member, and was imprisoned for that claim. Hitler may or may not have been formally a member of the Thule Society, but Luhrssen observes:
"Hitler did not undermine Thule’s leadership of the party before being influenced by members of the Society. The damp clay of prejudices and anxieties that constituted Hitler’s internal life when he returned to Munich after war’s end, much of it already molded by his encounter with Ariosophical publications and völkisch militants in Vienna, was given final shape by Thulists. Regardless of whether Hitler actually joined the Society as Sebottendorff stated, or if he merely came to the September 12 German Workers’ Party meeting with more knowledge than he later admitted, Hitler was by the fall of 1919 under the influence of Thulists and their confederates in the party’s membership, notably Eckart, Rosenberg, and Feder. Eckart’s impact on Hitler is undisputed. However, Eckart’s ties through Thule to Rosenberg, Feder, Drexler, and Harrer are overlooked by historians who concur with Hitler that only one or two individuals influenced him in postwar Munich, not a network of individuals linked to the Thule Society."
Rosenberg is a key element of this connection. Most histories tend to portray Rosenberg as a bit of a buffoon that Hitler mocked, but Rosenberg did win the first Nazi version of the Nobel prize, and he was given control of the NSDAP when Hitler was in prison, and Rosenberg was given control over Nazi ideological formation. Rosenberg was and remained a surprisingly key figure in Hitler's life, at least until the war, when the key figures became military figures. Luhrssen points out:
"Jewish conspiracy. It was a theme he repeated in issue after issue of Eckart’s paper, and in books and policy papers written after he became a Nazi.75 While no one disputes that Hitler was, to a large degree, Eckart’s apprentice at the beginning of their friendship, Rosenberg’s influence has been more controversial. Although it is now generally acknowledged that Hitler’s preoccupation with combating Bolshevism was “influenced above all by Alfred Rosenberg,”76 many historians have followed the path of those unable to take the Nazi Party’s chief philosopher seriously because of the strangeness of his ideas. From this perspective it is easy to pretend that Rosenberg was the butt of Hitler’s scorn in the inner sanctuary of Nazism. Support for this view rests uncomfortably on Hitler’s supposed statement that he read no more than a few pages of Rosenberg’s major philosophical tome, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, because it was too difficult to understand. 77 This statement comes from transcripts of Hitler’s private conversations, edited with an eye toward inclusion in some future Nazi archive, by one of Rosenberg’s opponents, party boss Martin Bormann. While it is likely that Hitler would eventually grow impatient with Rosenberg’s mediocre aptitude for leadership, eyewitness accounts contradict the notion that Hitler tolerated Rosenberg as a harmless eccentric. Hitler’s friend Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl abhorred Rosenberg but admitted, “I soon found that he [Hitler] was deeply under the spell of Rosenberg” and esteemed him highly as a writer and philosopher.78 Careful scrutiny of Hitler’s earliest recorded speeches shows the influence of Rosenberg’s ideas.79 In commenting on the Mythus, Hitler said, “That book contains much that is true, but it is not timely. It is not intended for the masses; it is rather ideological education for the intelligentsia.”80 When Rosenberg issued a veiled attack on Goebbels’s tolerance of modern art in the Völkischer Beobachter, his remarks “were incorporated almost verbatim” in Hitler’s speech on culture at the 1933 Nazi Party rally.81 Kurt Luedecke, a well-connected adventurer who joined the Nazi Party in the summer 1922 and became one of its major early financial donors, would later recount that Hitler told him to get to know Rosenberg: “Get on good terms with him. He’s the only man I always listen to. He is a thinker.”"
And:
"Although Hitler never publicly echoed the anti-Christianity of the Mythus, his personal hostility to Christian teaching was reflected in the book’s content and in private conversations recorded for posterity.92 Hitler’s silence on questions raised by the controversial book was a tactical maneuver to reassure German church leaders and the faithful. As the party’s ideological spokesman, Rosenberg would never have been permitted to publish the book had Hitler opposed its message. The Mythus would not have been imposed on the curriculum of German schools if Hitler had found it objectionable."
In summary, what you get from this book is a key piece of backstory, an insight into the place where things connect. These insights offer a different view of the Nazi error, even if all of that rune and occult stuff is mostly silly nonsense, but dangerous silly nonsense because some of these men who would become very dangerous believed bis and pieces of it.
All in all, I found this a fascinating read.
May 27, 2019
This one is very interesting book that shows how easy it is to place dangerous ideas into the minds of people that are living through difficult times.
Started as a weird offshoot of Theosophical society (in itself more than weird new-age movement) Ariosophy strengthened the main tenants of race, racial memory and uplifting and - as can be suspected from the start - put the Germanic people as true heirs to Aryan race. It was just a small step to move into the secret society milieu by forming Thule Society - although this was just a public front; Thule Society entered and influenced almost all of the political parties in pre-WW1/WW1/post-WW1 Germany. It was like they decided to play all the cards and see which one actually works.
In itself above does not sound much but take into account very difficult situation for most of the people in the world at the time - with industrialization came also poverty and lots of people lived endured great difficulties in cities that saw massive influx of people and expansion. And for this you need to blame somebody - right? So you put some social policies that will bring the masses to you (boo to the existing economic system [capitalism] and its supporting religious element (all Christian churches)), add some mystique (ever mysterious Orient, especially India and mix it up with old Nordic religions and say - see this is the link!) and chose somebody to blame for everything (at the time everybody chose Jews).
Now put the nationalism into the equation together with pseudo-scientific approach to Darwin's theory of evolution and ever present ideas of race supremacy/predestination and you end up with the pretty solid powder keg.
Then it only takes few people in esteemed enough positions in society to fire up the keg and you end up with Nazism (or equivalent). And this is important thing to note - this is not a time with social media and knowledge available everywhere. First groups that fell enamored with Thule Society were educated people, people who were members of high society, the very intelligentsia (although they wanted to clear their name later).
Now imagine the danger of this type of demagogues in our society where every story has its own spin (as our marketing experts like to say) and majority is susceptible to everything and lazy to do any research on their own. What a horror that would be.
I wont get into the details - book provides enough of it in a very readable manner - especially not about Theosophy (which seems to be still alive and kicking and wants [oh it ever so wants] to separate itself from the Ariosophy and likes) and nebulous statements on race suitability to further evolve - for a very reason that even today we have nebulous stands against science that people do follow with a lot of zeal (take flat Earth theory for example).
Book is also relevant to our times because it shows how easy can masses be manipulated when they need a vent - they do not even need to believe into whatever is served to them but they follow the flock.
Only thing that caused Thule Society to dissolve (although whether or not they truly dissolved is something that for me is still not defined) was the choice of a man they thought to use as a sort of front (Hitler). They thought to control man with serious personal disorders who thought of himself to be a messiah of sorts and who did not like any other religious movements (and Thule Society was first and foremost quasi-religious group) because he wanted his religion where he will be treated as godlike creature (which again is dream of every dictator). So in that view one can say that Thule Society's madness was halted by another - more gruesome, bloody - madness but nevertheless madness they gave birth to and nurtured.
Very interesting book. One of those that show how real world events can be much weirder than the fantasy.
Recommended to all history fans.
Started as a weird offshoot of Theosophical society (in itself more than weird new-age movement) Ariosophy strengthened the main tenants of race, racial memory and uplifting and - as can be suspected from the start - put the Germanic people as true heirs to Aryan race. It was just a small step to move into the secret society milieu by forming Thule Society - although this was just a public front; Thule Society entered and influenced almost all of the political parties in pre-WW1/WW1/post-WW1 Germany. It was like they decided to play all the cards and see which one actually works.
In itself above does not sound much but take into account very difficult situation for most of the people in the world at the time - with industrialization came also poverty and lots of people lived endured great difficulties in cities that saw massive influx of people and expansion. And for this you need to blame somebody - right? So you put some social policies that will bring the masses to you (boo to the existing economic system [capitalism] and its supporting religious element (all Christian churches)), add some mystique (ever mysterious Orient, especially India and mix it up with old Nordic religions and say - see this is the link!) and chose somebody to blame for everything (at the time everybody chose Jews).
Now put the nationalism into the equation together with pseudo-scientific approach to Darwin's theory of evolution and ever present ideas of race supremacy/predestination and you end up with the pretty solid powder keg.
Then it only takes few people in esteemed enough positions in society to fire up the keg and you end up with Nazism (or equivalent). And this is important thing to note - this is not a time with social media and knowledge available everywhere. First groups that fell enamored with Thule Society were educated people, people who were members of high society, the very intelligentsia (although they wanted to clear their name later).
Now imagine the danger of this type of demagogues in our society where every story has its own spin (as our marketing experts like to say) and majority is susceptible to everything and lazy to do any research on their own. What a horror that would be.
I wont get into the details - book provides enough of it in a very readable manner - especially not about Theosophy (which seems to be still alive and kicking and wants [oh it ever so wants] to separate itself from the Ariosophy and likes) and nebulous statements on race suitability to further evolve - for a very reason that even today we have nebulous stands against science that people do follow with a lot of zeal (take flat Earth theory for example).
Book is also relevant to our times because it shows how easy can masses be manipulated when they need a vent - they do not even need to believe into whatever is served to them but they follow the flock.
Only thing that caused Thule Society to dissolve (although whether or not they truly dissolved is something that for me is still not defined) was the choice of a man they thought to use as a sort of front (Hitler). They thought to control man with serious personal disorders who thought of himself to be a messiah of sorts and who did not like any other religious movements (and Thule Society was first and foremost quasi-religious group) because he wanted his religion where he will be treated as godlike creature (which again is dream of every dictator). So in that view one can say that Thule Society's madness was halted by another - more gruesome, bloody - madness but nevertheless madness they gave birth to and nurtured.
Very interesting book. One of those that show how real world events can be much weirder than the fantasy.
Recommended to all history fans.
July 14, 2025
It is without question the definitive book on the Thule Society . Truthful and informative and thoroughly researched the author has really covered all bases on a subject that other historians barely mention in passing .
February 4, 2021
It’s too easy to fall into the History Channel trap of getting both fascinated and horrified by the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s. I saw this book mentioned somewhere and was prepared for it to be trash/pulp conspiracy theory of the shadowy Thule Society.
Actually it turned out to be a serious history of the society and explains a lot of the quirky occult nazi beliefs that came out of interests of this society. E.g. Where the hang up with supposed aryan supremacy came from. Spoiler this goes back to Atlantis(!) and what the relation of Nazi beliefs is to Theosophy.
Many of the top Nazi’s were members of this society before they were nazis and once Hitler got into power the occult interests were almost embarrassedly toned down and covered up.
It shows how a small group of wacky thinkers can generate enough group-think to take over a country.
I had no idea about Bavarian/Munich Soviet Republic or of the German Revolution of 1918-1919 and the history of his era read like an adventure novel at times.
There were so many episodes that I knew nothing about that I was constantly reading Wikipedia to get the historical background.
Without knowing this history, Hitler seems to just pop up fully formed and straight into government whereas there were many who influenced him and were ready to follow him as he could stand up and express their feelings and prejudices better than anyone else.
A surprisingly eclectic and interesting book based on many contemporary records and news sources.
Actually it turned out to be a serious history of the society and explains a lot of the quirky occult nazi beliefs that came out of interests of this society. E.g. Where the hang up with supposed aryan supremacy came from. Spoiler this goes back to Atlantis(!) and what the relation of Nazi beliefs is to Theosophy.
Many of the top Nazi’s were members of this society before they were nazis and once Hitler got into power the occult interests were almost embarrassedly toned down and covered up.
It shows how a small group of wacky thinkers can generate enough group-think to take over a country.
I had no idea about Bavarian/Munich Soviet Republic or of the German Revolution of 1918-1919 and the history of his era read like an adventure novel at times.
There were so many episodes that I knew nothing about that I was constantly reading Wikipedia to get the historical background.
Without knowing this history, Hitler seems to just pop up fully formed and straight into government whereas there were many who influenced him and were ready to follow him as he could stand up and express their feelings and prejudices better than anyone else.
A surprisingly eclectic and interesting book based on many contemporary records and news sources.
December 16, 2022
Only Thules rush in and get the best seats.
I have read many references about the Thule Society. There have even been videos that mentioned the Thule Society. These references mostly said it is mysterious and had an underlying influence on Nazism.
After reading this Thule never be the same.
From the cover flap:
David Luhrssen has written the first comprehensive study of the society’s activities, its cultural roots, and its postwar ramification in a historical-critical context. Both general readers and academics concerned with European cultural and intellectual history will find that “Hammer of the Gods” opens new perspectives on nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe.
This is the first book that is not fringe research that I have found. The last chapter tells us of the fate of the Thule society. The biography is not that straightforward on Thule stuff. The notes are in the back of the book and not on the bottom of the page; you will have to keep a finger in the note section while reading.
I have read many references about the Thule Society. There have even been videos that mentioned the Thule Society. These references mostly said it is mysterious and had an underlying influence on Nazism.
After reading this Thule never be the same.
From the cover flap:
David Luhrssen has written the first comprehensive study of the society’s activities, its cultural roots, and its postwar ramification in a historical-critical context. Both general readers and academics concerned with European cultural and intellectual history will find that “Hammer of the Gods” opens new perspectives on nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe.
This is the first book that is not fringe research that I have found. The last chapter tells us of the fate of the Thule society. The biography is not that straightforward on Thule stuff. The notes are in the back of the book and not on the bottom of the page; you will have to keep a finger in the note section while reading.
April 4, 2014
The biographical section on Guido von List in this book alone is worth the purchase price, and it is noteworthy to mention that Luhrssen does not merely content himself to utilize the English sources alone, but, rather, delves into many primary German sources such as List's Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache (which is presently being translated in this journal) and early issues of Ostara (to name a few). Any German translator who has read these texts can appreciate the amount of work that goes into translating these pre-Nazi scripts which regularly employ words that are no longer used in the modern German language (to say nothing of the double meanings, poetry, and acronyms found throughout these writings). Luhrssen should be commended, instead of just regurgitating the same tired English writings he translated and utilized many original German sources including several obscure/rare works.
On a personal note, I approached this work with my usual skepticism (as I do with any writing that attempts to connect the ‘occult’ to the Third Reich), but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the erudite manner in which he handles such
an ambiguous and much neglected topic. I can confidently recommend this book to anyone interested in Ariosophy, the roots of Nazism, or the history of World Wars 2 in general and the fact that Prof. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote a favorable review (which actually appears on the back cover) only serves to validate that Luhrssen’s work
represents a solid contribution to this history.[From the RESEARCH JOURNAL OF GERMAN ANTIQUITY, 2.3 ]
On a personal note, I approached this work with my usual skepticism (as I do with any writing that attempts to connect the ‘occult’ to the Third Reich), but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the erudite manner in which he handles such
an ambiguous and much neglected topic. I can confidently recommend this book to anyone interested in Ariosophy, the roots of Nazism, or the history of World Wars 2 in general and the fact that Prof. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote a favorable review (which actually appears on the back cover) only serves to validate that Luhrssen’s work
represents a solid contribution to this history.[From the RESEARCH JOURNAL OF GERMAN ANTIQUITY, 2.3 ]
December 22, 2012
The Thule Society was a strange and inconsistent blend of Nordic mythology, Eastern mysticism, the occult, belief in Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism and probably two or three things I've forgotten. (In some respects, it reminds me of the New Age movement of more recent times.) Some Thulists believed, apparently in all seriousness, that the Aryan race had its beginnings in the lost continent of Atlantis.
From my reading of "Hammer of the Gods," it all sprang from a rejection of Judeo-Christian beliefs. Most of the central figures in the Thule Society hated Christianity, the author points out.
The extent to which the Thule Society gave rise to the Nazi Party is apparently up for debate. Quite a bit, David Luhrssen argues. He believes that the Thule Society's role has been underplayed in most previous works, which is the reason he wrote this book.
Or at least that's how I understood it.
"Hammer of the Gods" is too scholarly for me. But if you like scholarly, and if you're interested in "World War II, causes of ..." there's no reason why you shouldn't read it. You also might enjoy it if you like the term "findesiecle," which the author uses an awful lot.
From my reading of "Hammer of the Gods," it all sprang from a rejection of Judeo-Christian beliefs. Most of the central figures in the Thule Society hated Christianity, the author points out.
The extent to which the Thule Society gave rise to the Nazi Party is apparently up for debate. Quite a bit, David Luhrssen argues. He believes that the Thule Society's role has been underplayed in most previous works, which is the reason he wrote this book.
Or at least that's how I understood it.
"Hammer of the Gods" is too scholarly for me. But if you like scholarly, and if you're interested in "World War II, causes of ..." there's no reason why you shouldn't read it. You also might enjoy it if you like the term "findesiecle," which the author uses an awful lot.
March 5, 2020
It is fascinating to consider how many different sets of ideas wove their way through the Nineteenth Century to contribute to the nightmare of Nazism. Luhrssen does an excellent job of uncovering the history of the Thule Society and other obscure occult organizations that contributed ideas - and in some cases personnel- to the Nazi movement. It is almost as if there was a strange Venn diagram of occult beliefs, the study of mythology and folklore, antisemitism, and rabid nationalism with the Thule Society in its horrid center. With irrational beliefs and racist nationalism seemingly on the rise around the world, Luhrssen's book is important reading.
November 27, 2012
First book i ever read on the Thule society.
It was a decent Intro into an rather tangled web of Occult beliefs.
It did a good job of acknowledging the role it played in Incubating some of the Nazi Ideology.
It was a decent Intro into an rather tangled web of Occult beliefs.
It did a good job of acknowledging the role it played in Incubating some of the Nazi Ideology.
August 6, 2012
very informative but a little disappointment wit the conclusion. well worth reading.
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