Recently I’ve been browsing crackpot lit on the net concerning the Third Reich, and some questions have been aroused. So, what’s the Straight Dope on these? (please provide detail, if possible)
The Nazis trying to find the Spear of Destiny
The SS having operatives in Tibet on some sort of secret mission
The Nazis sending forces to the island of Rugen to spy on the British fleet, following the pseudo-science of Hollow Earth advocate Dr. Heinz Fischer
The Nazis establishing bases of any sorts on or around Antarctica
The Order of the Black Sun secret society and Nazi involvement
The alleged CIA pardon/co-operation with former Nazi spy master Reinhard Gehlen
The claim that Hitler would argue alone to an invisible entity
The claim that Walter Rathenau, after being mortally wounded on June 24, 1922, said as to the question, “Who shot you?” answered, “The 72 who control the world.” The claim then goes on to say that the Superior College of the Initiated Brothers of Asia has 72 members.
And the followup claim that there was a Nazi belief that there were only 72 “true men” per generation.
What you’re talking about is the Spear of Longinus, which is a relic that the Roman Centurian Longinus supposedly pierced Jesus’s side with while he was on the cross. Apparently, the spear was in a museum in Vienna. When the Germans united with Austria, Hitler took the spear and had it moved to Nuremburg.
What about the Ark of the Covenant? I saw this movie a few years ago, about this acheologist named after some state, I think he was called ‘Tennesee Ford’ or something…
The Gehlen Organization is acknowledged to be a valuable asset to American intelligence, although it does not appear to be officially acknowledged as such by the CIA. From this www.nara.gov/nara/pressrelease/nr02-52.html+gehlen+site:.gov&hl=en&start=1&ie=UTF-8]cached Google page of the completely public-domain National Archives website, which I believe I can quote at great length, it says:
He is also prominently described in The Spy Book, but unfortunately I do not have it readily at hand.
I’m surprised nobody has caught this yet. The sequel to the game Wolfenstein 3D was called Spear of Destiny.
For those of you who don’t know, Wolfenstein (aka Escape from Castle Wolfenstein) was a first-person shooter that pitted you as captured Cpl. B.J. Blaskowitz, carrier of information about Nazi research on creating super-soldiers, escaping from the Nazi prison Castle Wolfenstein. It was for the IBM PC in the early 1990s, and provided good gore levels for the time in addition to being genuinely spooky (it was silent except for sound effects, which made it really, really easy to get paranoid). I sunk more than my share of time into Wolfenstein, but never bought Spear of Destiny.
The Nazis establishing bases of any sorts on or around Antarctica.
The Nazis had floating weather stations far north, and land based sites in Greenland. These are well-substantiated, and have been photographed. They weren’t bases in the sense of a place to launch an attack or to defend territory, but they were quite alarming to the allies. In those days knowing anything about the coming weather often meant a large military advantage.
www.violations.dabsol.co.uk/ind2.htm discusses the German polar expeditions. It sounds like a fringe site, but there’s also what looks like hard information. Rather amusing.
[TOTAL hijack]Man, does that bring back memories! I must have been around 8 or 9 when I had Wolfenstein. I still insist that first-person shooters haven’t advanced since then. Now, with the advanced graphics, the blood just forms sort of maroon stains, whereas back then, the VGA graphics forced them to have BRIGHT RED BLOOD ‘N’ GORE. And did anyone else save the game right at the last level just so you could have the pleasure of getting the BIG HUMONGO GUN and killing the HUGE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ARYAN NAZI DUDE without having to go through the preceding levels?[/TOTAL hijack]
There was a TV series and is a book based on same that extensively referenced the Nazis and the Occult. You can get the book at the Holocaust Museum.
Specific Q’s: AFAIK:
The Nazis trying to find the Spear of Destiny.
Yes, they removed what was thought to be it frm an Austrian museum. I don’t know what happened to it. Obviously, it didn’t help them win the war.
The SS having operatives in Tibet on some sort of secret mission.
I think this would be Ahnenerbe or some such, a goofy ass research office in the SS that responded to Himmler’s weird ideas. Tibet may be cold, but it beats the Russian Front. (The expedition would have been pre-war anyway.) The object of such a search would be to locate the wise masters who have the ultimate secret occult knowledge, and also perhaps also be the ultimate Aryan ancestors. Real discovery: Tibet is cold, has buddhists (with swastikas), and is peopled by Asians.
The Nazis sending forces to the island of Rugen to spy on the British fleet, following the pseudo-science of Hollow Earth advocate Dr. Heinz Fischer.
Sorry, never heard that one. Not mentioned in the series referenced at the beginning of my post.
The Nazis establishing bases of any sorts on or around Antarctica
No, but as said before there wers some weather stations in the Arctic and Greenland. IIRC, a remotely operated one in the Canadian Arctic wasn’t rediscovered until the 1980’s.
The Order of the Black Sun secret society and Nazi involvement.
Sounds like BS to me. Not mentioned in the series referenced at the beginning of my post.
The alleged CIA pardon/co-operation with former Nazi spy master Reinhard Gehlen
Yes, referenced above. He had some potential value .
The claim that Hitler would argue alone to an invisible entity
No, I don’t think so. This is a new on me. Not mentioned in the series referenced at the beginning of my post.
The claim that Walter Rathenau, after being mortally wounded on June 24, 1922, said as to the question, “Who shot you?” answered, “The 72 who control the world.” The claim then goes on to say that the Superior College of the Initiated Brothers of Asia has 72 members.
As the preceding. Not mentioned in the series referenced at the beginning of my post.
And the followup claim that there was a Nazi belief that there were only 72 “true men” per generation.
No, also a new one to me. Not mentioned in the series referenced at the beginning of my post.
At the close of the war in Europe, there was a widely circulated rumor that some high-level Nazis were spirited away to Antarctica in Schnorchel-equipped U-boats. The rumor gained some credence when the U-977 turned up in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in August 1945 after an exhausting run of 108 days, 66 of them continuously submerged.
According to the book U-977, by the boat’s captain, Heinz Schaffer, by the time he arrived in Argentina, the yarn had grown quite elaborate. Two U-boats were sent to Antarctica with Nazi holdouts, and were then directed to go to (formerly sympathetic) Argentina to resupply. There was an investigation, but Shaffer’s log proved this story incorrect by correlating ship and plane sightings along his stated route.
However, I don’t know if there was a second U-boat which also took off south at the close of the war, or what happened to it if another one did.
As an aside, the weather station at Sptizbergen (Svalbard), above the Arctic Circle, changed hands several times during the course of the war, and was the site of some of the most northerly ground fighting of the war. Somewhere I once read that one winter both German and British troops occupied the island, and at one point conditions became so bad that the two sides made an informal truce and traded resources in order to survive.
