# Nazis, the Occult, and other Nazi confusions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 15, 2002, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992 "2002-07-15T03:08:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/1 "2002-07-15T03:08:23Z")
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) 1. The Nazis trying to find the Spear of Destiny 2. The SS having operatives in Tibet on some sort of secret mission 3. 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 4. The Nazis establishing bases of any sorts on or around Antarctica 5. The Order of the Black Sun secret society and Nazi involvement 6. The alleged CIA pardon/co-operation with former Nazi spy master Reinhard Gehlen 7. The claim that Hitler would argue alone to an invisible entity 8. 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. 9. And the followup claim that there was a Nazi belief that there were only 72 “true men” per generation. Much thanks to those who answer! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/2 "2002-07-15T03:32:34Z")
Well. 1. 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. That’s all I really know ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/3 "2002-07-15T03:44:19Z")
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… ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/4 "2002-07-15T05:04:08Z")
1. 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](http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:tKdQv7XKg2QC:%5Burl)]cached Google page of the completely public-domain National Archives website, which I believe I can quote at great length, it says: > [@](#): > > Reinhard Gehlen > > This release includes a substantial collection of high-level documents on the origins and first years of the relationship between Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen and the United States Government. As Nazi Germany collapsed, Gehlen turned himself in to the U.S. Army. During the war he had led the Fremde Heeren Ost, the intelligence unit that collected and analyzed information on the Eastern Front for Hitler and the Wehrmacht. In the summer of 1945 Gehlen offered to continue the same work for the United States. > > Much has already been written on the 25-year relationship that ensued when American officials accepted Gehlen’s offer; but these documents detail the complexity of that relationship as well as the strategic gamble made by the United States in sponsoring the rebirth of Gehlen’s wartime organization. The U.S. Army remained Gehlen’s sponsor until 1949, when the Central Intelligence Agency, after much internal debate, took over as Gehlen’s main patron. According to one CIA official, though Gehlen was “chiefy motivated by a desire for personal success” and would not be “an American or Allied puppet in office,” he was “sincerely interested in harmonious cooperation between the Germans and the Western Allies.” Gehlen ultimately became the first head of the Bundesnarichtensdient (BND), the West German foreign intelligence service, and relations between the BND and CIA were good. But, as these documents illustrate, the relationship entailed certain problems. In building his organization, Gehlen recruited some former members of the SS. Besides the troubling moral issues involved, these recruitments opened the West German government, and by extension the United States, to penetration by the Soviet intelligence services. He is also prominently described in [The Spy Book](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375702490/ref%3Dnosim/kimberlastsjames/102-9948371-3388126), but unfortunately I do not have it readily at hand. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/5 "2002-07-15T06:55:11Z")
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. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/6 "2002-07-15T07:14:28Z")
1. 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](http://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. ---
**Author:** ![Already\_in\_Use](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Already\_in\_Use](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Already_in_Use)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/7 "2002-07-15T07:58:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > **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).** [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] ---
**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/8 "2002-07-15T15:16:41Z")
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: 1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. 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. 6. The alleged CIA pardon/co-operation with former Nazi spy master Reinhard Gehlen Yes, referenced above. He had some potential value . 7. 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. 8. 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. 9. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazis-the-occult-and-other-nazi-confusions/118992/9 "2002-07-15T16:24:00Z")
1. Antarctica/Arctic expeditions. 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](http://uboat.net/boats/u977.htm) 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.