I have a multi-part question. In WWII, according to rumor/legend/lore (among other, fictional recounts) the Third Reich attempted many strange paranormal rituals, supposedly looking for a way to one-up the Allies. The Indiana Jones movies showed us some of the stuff the Nazis were allegedly up to…I wanna know, what “occult”/“supernatural”/“paranormal” experiments the Nazis really did perform?
And, speaking of Nazi experiments, one of the rumored experiments was bringing the dead back to life, in order to create the ultimate soldier. Several movies and videogames (most notably “Day of the Dead” & “Return of the Living Dead 1 and 3” and “Resident Evil”/“Castle Wolfenstein”) this was a plotpoint. Has the US Government (or any other government since WWII) attempted to use modern medical technology to revive the dead, to create some type of supersoldier?
If you want to see some of the stuff they were into, see Masrtin Gardner’s Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. He, I believem gives some of the stuff they were into – some German crackpot’s idea about ice ages and stuff. That’s not so critical. What is is the way they misused Darwinism to back up their eugenics work (See David Burke’s TV series and book The Day the Universe Changed).
Lastly, there was an old 1930s movie that showed some unnamed foreign power (unnamed, but clearly Germany) reviving zombies and using them as unstoppable warriors. I don’t recall the flick’s name, but i have it on DVD at home – it’s got “Zombie” in the title.
I read a bit about the subject in a book called “The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi Ideology” by Nicholas Goodrick-Clark. Interesting read, and I read it because I too was curious about such things.
TO summerize, Some of the Nazi leadership was extremely interested in and even parcipated in pre-war secret socities based on supposed pre-Christian Europeon Nature religions and tribal societies and meant by some to be a modern incarnation of said secret societies. Himmler apparently had some dreams for making the SS sort of a modern incarnation of ancient Warrior/Priests from a society that never verfiably existed, at least in the way it was imagined. Also, various “secret societies” lator paved the way for the nazi party, or gathered people together who held such beliefs.
But as far as zombies and bringing about the end of the world through socrecy, there appears to be no real evidence at all. Any books seriously advocating such are usually tied in with those who feel think UFO’s are sent by the Atlantians to spy from the Illuminati.
But it’s always fun if you want to use it for fiction.
Really, if you are interested, take a look at the book.$20 from Amazon, and it is interesting and well researched (Not to mention well documented).
Well, yes, the Nazis were interested in the roots of European man, this led to the so-called East Pole Expedition for example. They were trying to prove ideas like Eurpoeans arrising seperatly from Africans.
Sme Nazis were into strange ideas (Hollow-Earth Theory being my favorite.) Of course National Socialism itself is more than a little loopy.
There were 2 Zombie titles I’m aware of in the early 40s.Both had Mantan Moreland in the cast and both,IIRC from Monogram.King Of the Zombies and Return Of the Zombies.The first (KOTZ) had a german scientist type as the zombie maker,the second (Return) had John Carradine as the maker,and he was making them for the Nazis.
The second,I thought more entertaining,with some interesting cast members.
First there’s Bob Steele as a Nazi spy (his bigest roles all thru the 30s/40s were cowboy heroes,plus a stint as Curley in OM&M and a hood in the Big Sleep.
Then Gale Storm in one her early B roles years before My Little Margie,and finally Robert Lowery as the good guy male costar-whose claim to fame was Batman in the 49/50 serial that used a stock Lincoln (49/50) as the batmobile.
There was also a comic with one of the stories about a Nazi soldier/flyer? that came to life and created zombies for Hitler.Sounds like it could have been a Captain America villain,tho not sure on this one.
I think any Nazi zombie tales you’ve heard can probably be traced back to those stories.
There was a book called (IIRC) “The Occult History of the Third Reich” and a TV documentary series by the same name based on the book. It was shown on PBS and I think originally came from the UK. The book is or at least has been available in the Washington DC Holocaust Museum. It’s worth checking out if you’re interested in this part of history.
This thread is related somewhat to the other recent thread on Blatvasky and her infulence on the Nazis.
Some of the founders of Nazism were either seriously into the occult (Himmler, Hess) or had been influenced by theories of race and history with substantial “fringe” type influences. Hitler supposedly subsrcibed to and completed a collection of back issues of the “Ostara” magazine, which seems to have been some kind of racial-occultist type rag.
It’s pretty much impossible to look at Himmler’s SS castle (I unfortunately forget the name of it) and not conclude that he was very much an occultist. Himmler also allegedly believed himself to be a reincarnation of the medieval Emperor Heinrich the Great, destined to lead a new crusade against the heathen of the east.
The zombie thing seems to be an invention of fiction writers, though one could (I suppose) reasonably make the conjecture that only a mindless zombie could follow Nazism and do some of the things they did.
Hittler was a firm believer in the Hollow Earth theory and launched a couple of expeditions to the north pole to look for the “entrance” to the subterranian world below.
If you’re looking for some reading on that subject matter check out the Time Life book “Mystic Places” in the “Mysteries of the Unknow” series.