All language subtitles for The Enigma of the Swastika

Nazi Germany, 1936.

A state which will sterilize, enslave,
and systematically murder millions of

men, women, and children.

Entire peoples are to be swept from the
face of the planet.

Whole populations are to be
scientifically reduced, those who remain

only for their value as slaves.

The world is to be subject to a new
order.

Foreign observers of 1930s Germany,
National Socialism is an enigma.

No conventional political explanation
seems sufficient to account for such an

alien phenomenon.

A whole world of strange rituals and
beliefs seems to have risen from nowhere

mesmerize millions of Germans.

Over the whole extraordinary spectacle
of pageantry and military might presides

the messianic figure of Adolf Hitler.
And everywhere there is a mysterious and

ever -present symbol, the emblem of the
swastika.

The great rallies at Nuremberg
consummate the mystical unity of the

people, and their leader.

The climax of the Nuremberg rally is a
mass display of up to 32 ,000 swastikas.

A foreign reporter finds himself
overawed by the force of the spectacle

witnessing.

Hitler, he writes, is restoring
pageantry and mysticism to the drab

20th century.

The rally has the mystical and religious
fervor of an Easter mass in a great

Gothic cathedral.

The ranks of the Hitler youth sing of
their newfound faith.

No evil priest can prevent us from
feeling that we are the children of

away with incense and holy water.

The swastika brings salvation on earth.

The symbol of the swastika will win the
devotion of millions.

Its rise will chart the growth of a
strange and terrifying cream.

The doctrine of National Socialism.

A doctrine born in the world of the
occult.

The mission of Aryan man.

The mystery of the blood.

The soul of the race.

These dogmas, fundamental to the Nazi
vision, will lead Europe into the realms

of nightmare.

Their symbol is the swastika.

The swastika was adopted by the Nazi
party in 1920, but it was neither the

party's invention nor its discovery.

Since the end of the 19th century, the
swastika had been spreading amongst the

peoples of Europe, and everywhere it was
a sign of a new and powerful force, a

deepening fascination with the arcane,
the esoteric, and the occult.

The revival of the occult in Europe has
its roots deep in the trauma of the

Industrial Revolution.

By the dawn of the 20th century, the
lives of millions have been changed out

all recognition.

Cities, the traditional centers of
commerce and fashionable life, have been

transformed into sprawling industrial
slums.

Yet, everywhere, the catchphrase is
progress.

There is a widespread belief that a new
world is coming.

A world in which the ills of the past
will be cured by science, by technology,

and by democracy.

Many, far from welcoming the dawn of a
new age, are deeply disturbed.

With the Industrial Revolution had come
a decline in the power of traditional

authority.

The political power of the landowner is
waning in favor of a new class of

industrialists and financiers.

Hierarchy is being threatened by
democracy.

It appears to many as if the world of
beauty and order is disintegrating

their very eyes.

Worst of all, Religion itself seems in
mortal danger.

Cherished beliefs accepted as true for
all time are being questioned by

the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Tibet.

From the late 19th century, Tibet is the
mysterious and forbidding destination

of a steady stream of travelers from the
industrialized world.

Many, disillusioned with the certainties
of science, come in search of another

deeper knowledge.

such traveler is a Russian adventurous
and self -proclaimed telepath, Madame

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

In 1888, Madame Blavatsky publishes a
book, The Secret Doctrine, in which she

claims that deep in an underground
Himalayan monastery, she has been shown

ancient occult text.

In it were revealed the mystical secrets
of the universe and the future course

of human history.

In The Secret Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky
describes the universe as having fallen

from pure spirit into base matter,
darkness and chaos.

But soon it will rise once more to reach
the pinnacle of spirituality.

Madame Blavatsky claims that this
knowledge and more she has learned

initiation into the mysteries of seven
esoteric symbols.

Of these seven symbols, one she believed
to be more potent than any other.

The symbol is the swastika.

In Tibetan mythology, the swastika is
the sign of Agni, the god of the sun, of

fire, and of creation.

And always, whether clockwise or
anticlockwise, whether curved or

-armed, it is the symbol of good
fortune.

For Madame Blavatsky, each cycle of
creation has associated with it seven

of human evolution.

Stages she calls root races.

The race which will begin once more, the
ascent from darkness to the light of

the spirit she names Arian.

In the occult teachings of Madame
Blavatsky, the sign of the Arian is the

swastika.

The Nuremberg Rally of 1934 has as its
theme a mystical concept.

The triumph of the will.

Homage is paid to a fundamental dogma in
the Nazi creed of the swastika.

Pure will, the expression of the soul of
the race, will overcome the forces of

darkness and of chaos.

In the world of national socialism, the
race of light, of order and of the

spirit is the Aryan race.

Decades before the swastika was adopted
by the Nazi party, a periodical

published in Germany by an American
occult society became the first German

publication to carry a swastika on its
cover.

The society's founder was Madame Helena
Blavatsky.

It would be the followers of Madame
Blavatsky who would introduce to the

of Germany and Austria the occult
doctrine of the Aryan.

The

Prussian

-Austrian War of 1866 had left German
-speaking Austrians an isolated minority

in the predominantly Slavic Austria
-Hungary.

By the early 20th century, an intense
longing has grown for unification with

Germany.

Hundreds of German -Austrian societies
are founded, committed to the romantic

revival of ancient Germanic mythology.

A folk federation with a membership of
over 100 ,000 calling itself the

Germanenbund holds festivals, founds the
Germanic calendar, revives ancient

rituals and appeals for unity in a new
spiritual German nationhood.

The Germanenbund was inspired by the
writings of an Austrian mystic.

Guido von List, born in Vienna in 1848.

claimed to have psychic visions of the
past in which he was initiated into the

secrets of the ancient Teutonic tribes.

List's visions told him of a Germanic
religion, the worship of the god Wotan.

His dream is to rediscover the occult
heritage of its long -vanished

According to Norse legend, the god
-magician Wotan, leader of the dead

Valhalla, had won by suffering a
priceless store of esoteric knowledge.

He had discovered the secret of the
runes.

List knew that the runes were the
alphabet of a primitive system of

But to Germanic peoples from the 2nd
century to the Middle Ages, they were

magical symbols.

Symbols... which Liszt believed
possessed a deep esoteric meaning.

Far, the rune of wealth, wandering and
destruction.

Ur, the rune of wild oxen, regeneration
and sacrifice.

North, the compulsion of fate.

Sieg, the rune of the sun and of
victory.

To Guido von List, runes were the key to
the occult knowledge of the ancient

Germanic peoples.

Within a decade of his death in 1919,
the runes would have become elements in

new language, the language of National
Socialism.

The Sieg Victory Rune, emblem of the
Hitler Youth.

The Double Sieg, emblem of the
Schutzstaffel, the SS.

The apple rune, symbol of Richard
Voltaire's Ministry of Agriculture.

The rune of inheritance, the rune of
German soil.

The man rune, the rune of death, which
in time will replace the cross in the

graveyards of the SS.

Study of the runes is required of all SS
officers.

Of the many strange and mystical symbols
which have found a place in the new

order of national socialism, one
dominates all others.

Guido von List called the swastika the
twice -high holy secret of constant

generation.

He recounts a Nordic tale in which the
god Mundelfiore whisks the cosmos into

being. The swastika is the fire with the
very act of creation.

A Nazi hymn for a plane.

The time of the cross is gone now.

The sun with shall arise.

And so with God we shall be free at last
and gift our people back their own.

By 1909, the occult visions of Guido von
List have made him famous throughout

the German -speaking lands.

To List, every stream, hill and forest
in Austria was associated with a

god or spirit.

In the devices of heraldic shields, in
the beams of Austrian houses, in folk

customs and rituals,

Liszt claimed to see evidence that
Austria was and always had been part of

German homeland.

For two generations, German -speaking
Austrians had looked to Germany for

reassurance and a sense of identity.

But events were about to occur which
would place in doubt the very future of

fatherland itself.

1914. The Great War.

For the first time in history, the might
of industry is unleashed on the

battlefield.

Nothing could have prepared the peoples
of Europe for slaughter on such an

unimaginable scale.

As the war grinds on and casualties
mount, frontline soldiers on both sides

No Man's Land take to the wearing of
charms and amulets.

In the ranks of Germans and Austrians,
the most popular of all magic talismans

is the swastika.

The swastika medallions and amulets worn
in the trenches of the Great War are

based on the researches of Guido von
List.

By now, an influential and wealthy
society devoted to the teachings of the

master has already been formed in
Vienna.

It is the List Society which supplies
designs to the manufacturers of swastika

talismans.

The swastika...

Now spreading amongst the German armies
is fast becoming the emblem of militant

German nationalism.

But since 1908, it had acquired another,
even more ominous meaning.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Great
War, Liszt had incorporated the occult

teachings of Madame Helena Blavatsky
into his own German mythology.

Now he no longer refers to ancient
Germans or Teutons.

Instead, the tribes who populate his
visions he names Aryans.

In Madame Blavatsky's writings, The
Aryans are the race of upward spiritual

evolution, the race whose sign is the
swastika.

In Hitler's Mein Kampf, the meaning of
the swastika to the Nazi party is made

clear.

In the swastika, he writes, we see the
mission for the struggle for the victory

of Aryan man.

By the 1930s and the great Nazi rallies
at Nuremberg, the concept of the Aryan

has become a cornerstone of the party's
mystical ideology.

The grand design for the Aryan state has
already existed for over 20 years.

Its author was Guido von List.

In the slaughter and misery of the Great
War, the writings of Guido von List

assume greater and greater significance
for the soldiers of the German and

Austrian armies.

To List, the Great War is the conflict
which will purge the world of evil and

herald a new age.

Democracy and materialism will be
destroyed on the battlefields of Europe.

Victory will usher in an aereo -German
empire.

By 1911, List had already described in
detail his vision of the future Germanic

state.

It will be a strict hierarchy in which
leaders will be obeyed without question.

It will be patriarchal, with full rights
only for the male heads of families.

Only Aryans will be entitled to
citizenship.

There will be strict laws to ensure the
purity of the race.

Every family will keep a record of its
ancestry as proof of its Aryan blood.

By 1918,

The conflict which Liszt called the
holiest war had cost the lives of two

million Germans.

That same year, the German armies had
won a series of military victories.

The Russian enemy had collapsed, and yet
Germany had sued for peace.

To men who had suffered so much, it
seems like a colossal betrayal.

Then comes the greatest shock of all.

The Kaiser is forced into exile.

The terms imposed on Germany by the
Treaty of Versailles are harsh and

Key industrial regions must be handed
over to the victors.

The German army is to be reduced to a
fraction of its former strength.

Heavy reparations must be paid when war
has already left the German economy on

the verge of collapse.

The Versailles Treaty will fatally
undermine the authority of the new

Republic.

The ministers who signed its terms will
become known as the November Criminals.

As food supplies dwindle and a once
proud nation is reduced to dependence

misery, Germany threatens to descend
into anarchy.

the infant Weimar Republic quickly
becomes a battleground of warring

In the major cities, revolutionary
socialist republics are declared by

of workers and soldiers.

Nationalists and monarchist groups
muster private armies and mobilize for

counter -revolution.

Behind the factions on both sides is the
hidden hand of conspiracy.

Among the many shadowy groups organizing
nationalist counter -revolution is the

wealthy and powerful Thule Society.

Thule is the Munich Lodge of the
Nationalist and Anti -Semitic German

The German Order is dedicated to the
occult teachings of Guido von List.

On November 9, 1918, Rudolf von
Sebotendorf, Master of Thule, addresses

hastily convened meeting of the Lodge.

Socialist republics have been declared
in both Munich and Berlin.

Yesterday, we experienced the collapse
of everything which is familiar, dear,

and valuable to us.

I am determined to pledge Thule to this
struggle.

Our god is Valvata.

His rune is the Arun.

The Arun signifies Arian, primal fire,
the sun, and the eagle.

Thule will fight.

until the swastika rises victoriously
out of the icy darkness.

In the following months, along with
other nationalist groups, Thule

weapons and trains volunteers.

On April 30, 1919, 20 ,000 men,
including strong detachments armed and

Thule, storm Munich in a bloody counter
-revolution.

On the helmets of many nationalist
volunteers is the emblem of the

The success of Thule in the 1919 Munich
counter -revolution would have far

-reaching consequences for the Germany
of the 1920s.

A shadowy organization devoted to arcane
rituals and the creation of an Aryan

empire would attract support from the
highest levels of German society.

The secret German order.

Parent Order of Thule was founded in
1912.

It was and would remain virulently anti
-Semitic and anti -democratic.

The membership of the Thule and of all
the lodges of the German Order is drawn

from the ranks of aristocrats,
industrialists, lawyers, judges and

All are required to prove that they and
their spouses are of pure Aryan blood.

Applicants must submit details of hair,
eye and skin colour.

Hair must be blonde to dark blonde.

Eyes must be blue or light brown.

The skin must be fair.

For membership of the Berlin Lodge, even
the shape of the skull is taken into

account.

By the autumn of 1918, Rudolf von
Sebotendorf, master of the Thule Lodge,

attempted to extend the influence of
Thule's ideas by secretly sponsoring the

formation of a workers' discussion
group.

Unknown to most members of the group,
its chairman, Carl Hara, would belong to

Thule.

The most active member of the workers'
group is a locksmith, Anton Drexler.

By the end of 1918, Drexler had proposed
that the workers' circle be formed into

a new political party.

The Thule chairman agreed.

On January 5th, 1919, the new party is
formally founded in a Munich tavern, the

Fürstenfelderhof. It is to be called the
German Workers' Party.

On September 12th, 1919, ten months
after the foundation of the party, an

spy is sent by his superiors to attend
one of its meetings.

The spy is a 30 -year -old Austrian war
veteran.

His name is Adolf Hitler.

Within weeks, Hitler has joined the
party, become a regular speaker at beer

political meetings and has been
appointed to the party's steering

Within four months, the party has
changed its name.

It has become the National Socialist
German Workers' Party.

On May the 20th, 1920, the swastika was
formally adopted as the symbol of the

new Nazi party.

The form chosen, straight -armed and
anti -clockwise, was chosen by Adolf

himself.

Until now, the Nationalist swastika had
no set direction.

The swastika talismans of the Great War
were vertical and tilted.

clockwise and anti -clockwise.

Hermann Göring, future chief of the
German Air Force as a nationalist

of 1919, wore a vertical anti -clockwise
swastika.

In the ranks of the nationalist counter
-revolutionaries, both clockwise and

anti -clockwise forms were commonplace.

The curved swastika of Thule, chosen
from the many popularized by Guido von

List, will not be forgotten by the party
to which Thule gave birth.

It will live on on the belt buckles of
the brown -shirted stormtroopers.

The ceremonial swords of the Luftwaffe
will bear the Thule swastika.

Decorations for anti -partisan warfare
on the Eastern Front will display the

Thule dagger and the curved swastika.

Whatever the form in which the swastika
will appear in the banners and regalia

of National Socialism, its meaning will
remain the same.

It is the meaning claimed for it by
Madame Blavatsky and Guido von List.

It is the sign of creation, the sign of
the mystical destiny of Aryan man.

By the 1920s, the spread of Charles
Darwin's theories of evolution has had a

profound impact on nationalist
consciousness.

A new explanation for the differences
between cultures and for the rise and

of civilizations is now possible.

Increasingly, laws of inheritance are
believed to be the key to history.

The artistic achievements of a nation,
its courage in war, its temperament,

its spiritual life, are all believed to
be the legacy of race.

It is a belief that will culminate in
the official Nazi doctrine that each

has its soul and each soul its race.

The myth of the Aryan, developed in the
occult teachings of Madame Blavatsky and

Guido von List, has by the late 1920s
spread throughout Europe, the United

States and Britain.

And with it, fascination with the
swastika.

The stories of India by the British
author Rudyard Kipling appear emblazoned

with the feel of the swastika.

In Scotland, the discovery of swastika
markings in a Pictish cave inspired the

creation of the swastika kilt pin.

In the United States, costly earrings
and brooches appear in the form of the

swastika.

During the Great War, the British War
Savings Drive has a swastika as its

official emblem.

Its administrators are awarded swastika
lapel badges in recognition of their

services to the nation.

By 1930, members of the British Druidic
cults display swastikas on their

ceremonial robes.

In 1932, an English periodical appears
with the title The Superman.

It is devoted to physical culture, and
on its cover is a border of swastikas.

The Superman, as well as features on
sport and health, carries articles by

respected British scientists, warning of
the racial contamination of Saxon

Britain.

Because you are flesh from our flesh and
blood from our blood.

And in your young brain is the same
thing as ours.

We could not be different than connected
with us.

And if the great columns of our movement
today

... ... ...

... ... ...

rally of 1934.

The Fuhrer, addressing the massed ranks
of the Hitler Youth, speaks of Germany,

of the blood, and of the continuity of
the race.

In the coming year, a series of new
German laws will be signed into

Adolf Hitler.

The first Reich law of citizenship will
divide the people of Germany into two

classes. Those of pure Aryan blood will
be full citizens of the Reich.

Non -Aryans will be reduced to mere
subjects of the state.

A second law, the law for the protection
of German blood and German honour, will

forbid pure -blooded Aryans from
marrying people of Jewish descent.

Soon after, the measure will be extended
to forbid intermarriage between Aryans

and all non -Aryans.

The Germanic vision of Guido von List is
becoming a reality.

In 1935, a foundation is established in
what is now National Socialist Germany.

The Ahnenerbe is the ancestral heritage
society for the study of German

prehistory.

Its official task is to investigate the
territorial extent and spirit of the

Nordic Indo -Germanic race.

The Ahnenerbe will grow to over 50
departments, controlling all archaeology

the Third Reich.

By 1937, it will be the research branch
of the SS.

Anunnerb researchers dispatched to
Tibet, South America, Greece and Rome

conclude that all were once populated by
great Aryan civilizations.

The work of the Anunnerb will reinforce
what are already deeply held beliefs.

Civilization and everything that is
valuable are products of the Aryan soul.

The way is open for Adolf Hitler to
claim, if we divide the human race into

three categories, founders, maintainers,
and destroyers of culture, the Aryan

stock alone can be considered to
represent the first category.

Munich, 1937.

National Socialism celebrates the
history of the Aryans and the sacred

of the swastika.

The solemn ritual has been organized by
Alfred Rosenberg, official ideologist of

the party and one -time associate of the
Thule Society.

Today, Rosenberg proclaims, a new mythus
is dawning, the mythus of the blood,

the belief that the godly essence of man
himself is to be defended through the

blood.

The Nordic race represents the mysterium
which has overthrown and replaced the

old sacraments.

Already in the rituals of the Hitler
Youth, the Christian Gospels have been

replaced by readings from Mein Kampf.

In the League of German Maidens, the
compulsory youth organization for girls,

the religious rites of a mythical Aryan
past are reenacted.

the thumb -whisked swastika is carried
in procession.

The loom of fate and destiny of Nordic
legend is woven once more.

By 1939, the very word Christmas has
been banned from official use.

In children's books, there are no
references to Christ, to angels or to

shepherds.

Instead, there are emissaries of nature
and the power of the sun.

Concerted efforts are being made to
convert Christmas into a festival of

In the National Socialist calendar, the
summer solstice has become an official

holy day.

The swastika is revered as the sign of
the sun and of creation.

Ceremonial fires are lit all over the
Reich.

In nocturnal rituals, Far incantations
are recited by the assembled worshippers

of the new Nordic faith.

The consecration of the blood flag.

On the 9th of November, 1923, the
fledgling National Socialist Workers'

led by Hitler, attempted to overthrow
the government of Bavaria.

In a Munich street, their advancing
ranks were met by a volley of police

gunfire.

Sixteen are killed, including the
stormtrooper marching beside Hitler.

In the chaos, the swastika flag...
carried in the front rank of marchers,

knocked to the ground and drenched in
blood.

The blood flag, entrusted to the
guardianship of the SS, becomes the most

relic of the Nazi party.

All new party banners must be
consecrated by contact with the original

flag.

We do not want to have any other god.
Only Germany, proclaims Adolf Hitler.

And in the doctrine of National
Socialism, Germany is the race.

Already the priesthood of the Aryan
Empire of the future is in the process

creation.

It is to come from the mystical
brotherhood of the SS.

The SS, first created as the personal
bodyguard of the Fuhrer, will become a

state within a state.

Its members are chosen as the most
perfect living examples of Aryan man.

Even a single filled tooth will bar a
candidate from entry to the racial elite

of the Reich.

Each applicant for SS membership must
prove his German ancestry to 1750.

He must undergo thorough instruction in
racial biology.

He must study the mystical destiny of
Aryan man.

He must be obedient without question and
loyal to the death.

In the Aryan Empire of the future, the
SS are to be the incorruptible guardians

of the purity of the race.

It is from their ranks that a new breed
will come.

It is they who will pave the way for the
next phase in human evolution.

For the followers of the creed of the
swastika, the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler has

sent by Providence.

It is his mission to lay the foundations
for the coming Aryan millennium.

During the Great War, Guido von List
revived an ancient Nordic prophecy.

The strong one from above ends the
faction.

He settles everything with fair
decisions.

Whatever he ordains shall live forever.

In reality, the thousand -year Reich
will live for 12 years.

In those 12 years, Adolf Hitler will
preside over a nightmare of mass murder,

world war, and the destruction of
Germany itself.

And yet, long before the rise of Hitler,
or even the foundation of the National

Socialist Party, the seeds had been
sown.

Germany had inherited a legacy which
would pave the way to the most

chapter in human history.

The occult teachings of Madame
Blavatsky, Guido von List and their

The Aryan fantasies of secret societies.

The racial myths of militant
nationalism.

A legacy already inextricably bound to a
symbol.