Nazi Ideology

This is some areas of the Nazi ideas that don't make sense or contradict each other that maybe some could clarify:

Hitler, Himmler, and the main circle of Nazis believe the islands of Atlantis and Thule in the North Atlantic really existed, where a race of super human masters called Aryans lived and founded great civilizations. A catastrophe wiped it out, but some of them survived and by boat made it to Central Asia, the areas of India and Tibet. From that area of Central Asia, these Aryan masters migrated and founded the great civilizations all over the ancient world, but lost their pureness by interbreeding.

Now, if they were in the North Atlantic, how did they end up all the way to Central Asia? The continents of Europe and Africa are much closer, so why Asia? Secondly, Hitler disliked Slavs, Russians, and Jews because of their "Asiatic roots." Now, if the Super Aryans came from Central Asia, how can he find Asians inferior, or hold some in higher regard like the Tibetans or Indians, and totally dislike others?

Can anyone add to this?

 

I have nothing to add but find it interesting that a quick search finds many occultist organizations "searching for the romance of Atlantis and Babylon."

The NSDAP, though obsessed with the Nordic influences of their race, never publicly made a spectacle of their archaeological searches. Himmler and Rosenberg were indeed fanatical and searched for divine acceptance of their theories, but as a whole it was a tad hush hush. The murmurs in social circles regarding Himmler are evidenced throughout Third Reich history

 

If their "Aryan" Race came from Central Asia, then how can they say Asians are inferior?

And the only Aryan in history were the Indo-Iranians, which is where the word came from. I guess in ancient Sanskrit Aryan meant noble, and there's a German word Ehre that meant honorable, so that's where they came up with Aryan. So the Aryans migrated from Central Asia, but Asiatics are sub-human according to Hitler. Contradictions.

 

I think you can find many contradictions in Nazi philosophy

 

I guess Aryan refers to the certain language spoken by the ancient Indo-Iranian groups that eventually turned into Indo-European languages. Regardless, in originated in Central Asia, though Hitler sees the Asiatic as inferior.

 

Just looking at Hitler and Himmler makes you wonder how Aryan they are...

 

You have to be a little careful factoring in the 'mystical' baggage that came with Adolf and his people.
Such things, from Spiritualism through Theosophy, to Crowleyan Magick and all points between were surprisingly fashionable in the period. (Arguably down to the intellectual/societal effect of Egyptian discoveries and the search for some salve of the losses in WW1, but it's a big old subject.)
While it can't be denied that 'Fortean' stuff was used as part of the overall mythos of Nazism, it was as much a useful hook to hang a few assertions on, show an interest in some of the contemporary obsessions, and even imply an intellectual basis for your ideology. The suggestion that you studied what many thinkers of the period were also interested in. (With the bonus that mysticism could give you an opening with some of the higher echelons of society, who could be said to be disproportionately interested.)

All handy, as the joy of Myth and Legend, is that you can present it in any way you think might benefit your main cause.
Did Adolf and many of his closer adherents believe in much quackery? Certainly. Though it's a stretch to take it too seriously since it pales into insignificance alongside more pragmatic means as just another tool of the new quackery they were trying to sell.

It's hard for a myth to be truly inconsistent.
It's a myth.
The Atlantean stuff is just another handy prop to justify Ehrenarier complexities & inconsistencies when you're trying to build an internationally connected state on racial grounds.

 

Hitler and most of his inner circle certainly did not believe any of the mystical and occult baloney surrounding Himmler's Thule society. Hitler indulged Himmler in this because he saw no harm in creating a new religion and myth surrounding Germanic origins, and hoped it might eventually become a widespread religion to replace Christianity. Yet in private table talk (when Himmler wasn't present) he was known to ridicule the entire idea. Most people have a spiritual core, and if Himmler could create one around Germanic origins, Hitler was just fine with that even if he privately thought it was silly.

Hitler was an atheist, though he was known to play the religion card both in public and in private conversations with religious people, because he realized that he needed to appeal to people of faith. In that, he was no different than many politicians today who do the same thing. He certainly did espouse Nordic superiority, but his speeches and writings on the subject were rooted in pseudo-scientific genetic theories rather than the mystical leanings of Himmler and his Thule disciples.

Hitler had that quality of being able to mirror the beliefs of anyone he spoke to. He was a chameleon. He could 'read' people extremely well and tailor his conversation and tone in a way that the listener would walk away from a private conversation thinking he and Hitler were perfectly in tune with one another, that they had a special bond, a deep friendship, even after a single meeting. So, when you read Speer, who wrote the most detailed account from the inner circle, you see Hitler as a frustrated architect with an abiding love and friendship with the writer. Other inner circle accounts are more fragmentary, but each one thinks Hitler had a special bond with that individual and shared the same dreams and goals. I don't think Himmler's diary (if he kept one) survived, but in reading brief accounts from those associated with Himmler and the Thule movement, they think Hitler was a believer, yet I recall reading of Hitler making snide jokes about it. I *think* I read of his disdain for Thule in Tischgespräche (table talk), a collection of private conversations garnered from the notes of several people who recorded Hitler's private social conversations.

 

1000 pages were recently discovered at a Russian military archive in Podolsk. It appears that the content will be published in full next year.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/diaries-holocaust-architect-heinrich-himmler-discovered-russia-180960005/

 

That will be an interesting read. Himmler is a pretty shadowy figure.

 

Interesting indeed.

 

We are more free market fascism, centralized control of private enterprise, corporations, business a la regulations, laws aka the New Deal.

 

IIRC there's some issues with the "table talks", there's supposed to be a questionmark over the the veracity of about 30% of the content.

While Hitler may not have been a catholic, or protestant....or even a declared Christian of any form - I'm not so sure he could actually be described as an atheist in the modern sense. He owned a HUGE private library, a great percentage of which was theology and philosophy, and many of the surviving volumes...there are tranches of books around the world with Hitler's private "ex libris" label in them and often annotated in his handwriting...deal with the nature of good and evil, the freedom of the individual and the individual vs. morality, and the "godhead's" role in it all etc. It seems he was personal believer that SOMETHING was there, if not just the unitarian godhead of Christianity, or in the form modern Christians would see it..

 

Personally I would have been more surprised if Himmler HADN'T kept a diary, it seems to have been surprisingly common within the Nazi hierarchy - as it was as a whole in that era. In many case we see regulations AGAINST service personnel keeping diaries on both sides having to be issued, a recent one I came across being that RAF personnel transiting the Takoradi air bridge from Nigeria across Africa to the Delta had standing orders not to record anything regarding the transit in their diaries....in fact, their diaries were to be kept sealed during the journey.

If not a formal, personal diary, in the case of the arch-organiser Himmler a "daybook" level of daily business recording would have been virtually certain.

 

I agree. Although one may look at the Nazi hierarchy keeping journals of some kind as a method of keeping themselves immortalized in history. The cataclysmic nature of their quest was preserving and strengthening greater Europe, in their minds, to the "natural order" of things.

That being said, the diaries are critical to the history of the Second World War and for understanding why men and women turn into demons and willing participants. Goebbels diary entries, for instance, very much explains how the German population was duped into believing falsehoods. It is interesting to read that even he was duped into believing many of his propaganda headlines such as the Luftwaffe having complete air superiority in the skies over Britain.

 

Its hard to know what Hitler really believed, but he did believe in destiny and the Germanic superiority that Himmler spouted.

 

I don't think it's that hard to infer from explicit, direct quotations from Hitler his intents and dogma.

 

Its not only public statements though. Decrees signed, eyewitness accounts, official docs, etc. Plenty, IMO, to draw conclusions from.