In 1942, the SS Gruppenfuehrer Otto Ohlendorf, who had returned from the Crimea, was awarded the 1st degree War Merit Cross with swords by Hitler. Einsatzgroup D led by him was engaged in the extermination of Jews, communists and everyone who participated in the underground and partisan movement in the occupied territories. But the Fuhrer, presenting a high award to his favorite, for some reason called him "the knight of the Grail."
The war crimes that brought SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf to the gallows were just a sideline of his activities. The main task was to find the Holy Grail.
Sacred knowledge "Ahnenerbe"
In addition to the "usual" executioner service, Ohlendorf was an employee of the SS Institute "Ahnenerbe" ("Legacy of the Ancestors"). This institution was engaged in the study of the history and traditions of the Germanic race with the aim of applying the acquired knowledge for occult purposes.
Many secret operations of Hitler's special services were motivated by the desire to find magical artifacts, passages to other worlds and repositories of secret knowledge. Under the auspices of the Ahnenerbe, SS expeditions roamed the Himalayas, and submarines sailed to the Arctic and Antarctica.
But most of all Hitler was interested in Crimea. Already during the war against the USSR, the Fuhrer said that without the possession of this peninsula, the struggle of the Third Reich with the whole world has no sacred meaning at all. The strategy-focused generals ignored the Fuehrer's remarks. But the "dedicated" leaders of the "black order" SS Himmler and Ohlendorf understood what the Fuhrer wanted to say.
In Crimea, as at a key point, several research projects of the "Ahnenerbe" converged at once: the search for the ancestral home of the Aryans of Cimmeria, the search for the real spear of Longinus, with which Jesus was stabbed, and, most importantly, the search for the relics of the principality of Theodoro …
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Cimmeria, according to the Ahnenerbe Magi, should have been in the Crimea, since it was on the peninsula that two magical axes intersected - the axis from the main intellectual center of the ancient world, Alexandria, to the mythical northern country Hyperborea and the axis of the mythical journey of the Greek god Dionysus from Hellas to India … From the point of view of a modern person, the theory looks too speculative, but for the Fuhrer stuffed with a cocktail from ancient legends, everything sounded very serious.
With the spear of Destiny, it turned out to be even more confusing. In fact, Hitler had three rarities in his hands that claimed the title of this relic: one of them was kept in Vienna, the other in Rome, the third in Krakow. But since it was not possible to conquer the world in any way, the Fuhrer came to the conclusion that it was necessary to look for another spear, which would certainly turn out to be genuine. On the basis of ancient manuscripts, the analysts of "Ahnenerbe" determined that it is in the Crimea or the Caucasus. And it was certainly in the Crimea that the Holy Grail should have been.
The Holy Grail meant the vessel from which Christ and His apostles communed at the Last Supper and into which Joseph of Arimathea collected His blood after the death of the Savior.
According to one version, it was in Joseph's house that the Last Supper was held, although Joseph himself was not among the apostles, since he professed Christianity in secret. He also organized the removal of the body of Jesus from the cross and His burial in his own (pre-arranged) tomb.
The first mention of the Holy Grail is found only at the end of the XII century, and not in spiritual, but in purely secular literature. This is the chivalrous novel by Chrétien de Trois "Perceval, or the Legend of the Grail", written in the years 1181-1191. A little later, he was told about him in the novel-poem of Rover de Boron "The Legend of Parsifal" from the cycle about the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur.
Unlike the Byzantines, Italians and French, the British were deprived of such relics, and therefore began to unroll the story that such a bowl really exists and is located somewhere in Britain.
The cup was credited with miraculous properties - a mortally wounded warrior who drank from it was instantly healed, his desires were fulfilled, and he himself gained unlimited power and power.
From time to time, someone even tried to show the public the Holy Grail, but none of these undertakings were successful. It was said that the Byzantines were hiding the cup from the entire Christian world, and it can be assumed that these rumors played an important role in the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204. But even then, the relic was not found - it seemed that the last thread had been cut off. And already in the 1930s, the guys from "Ahnenerbe" presented Hitler with a dossier, from which it follows that it is in the Crimea that one should look for the cup. And the evidence is materials about the medieval Crimean principality of Theodoro.
Cradle or bowl?
This state with its capital in Doros (Mangup) stretches along the southern coast of Crimea from Chembalo (Balaklava) to the Aluston fortress (Alushta). In the north, the border passed along the Belbekdo River in the upper reaches of the Kachi River and further to the Demerdzhi mountain range with the Funoy sentinel fortress at the easternmost point.
The population was about 200 thousand people, the subjects of Theodoro were Armenians, Byzantines, Karaites, Alans, Circassians. But most importantly, the role of the elite was played by the Goths - a tribe that seemed to have completely gone from historical chronicles in the middle of the 6th century.
For Hitler, the Visigoths (who plundered Rome) and the Ostrogoths (who created a powerful state in Italy and stubbornly opposed Byzantium) were the most beloved ancient Germanic ancestors. But Himmler told the Fuehrer a lot of other interesting information.
It turns out that the common ancestors of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths remained in the IV century in the Crimea, and after the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders, they achieved full independence. The principality of Theodoro fell in 1475 under the blows of the Turks, but in the 16th century, one of the European envoys at the Ottoman court talked with the “Crimean Goths” who spoke good Old Germanic to him.
All written sources on the history of the principality were destroyed during the Turkish conquest.
Hitler was very interested in the materials presented to the Ahnenerbe, especially since Himmler threw another intriguing bait to the Fuhrer: if the crusaders did not find the Holy Grail in Constantinople, then, consequently, the Byzantines took the bowl somewhere and hid it. Where? It is likely that in the Crimea, which was a Byzantine province. And then there was a lethal argument - the main shrine of the principality, which also figured on its coat of arms, was the Golden Cradle, which outwardly very similar to a bowl.
The frescoes of Theodorite churches constantly feature the same plot - the infant Christ lies in a bowl, or in the Golden Cradle, and the saints gathered around celebrate the Liturgy. Obviously, this image combines the birth of the Savior and His death to atone for the sins of mankind. But Hitler was interested not so much in the plot itself as in what the baby Jesus is in. Sometimes it is just a bowl. In other cases, it is a cradle, more reminiscent of a font for ablution. In the third version, the baby is in the cradle, and there is a bowl nearby.
One way or another, Hitler had to come to the conclusion that the Holy Grail was in the hands of the feodorites dear to his heart.
And as a cherry on the cake "Ahnenerbe" presented the Fuehrer with an ancient Crimean legend …
In the 1370s, the principality had to fight simultaneously against the Genoese and the Tatars of Khan Mamai. The ruler of the Theodorites took refuge with a relic in a cave of a certain mountain Basman. Kneeling down, he prayed to God to preserve the Golden Cradle. An earthquake struck, and the logs that supported the roof of the tunnel collapsed. A voice from above announced to the prince that the cradle will be hidden in the subterranean depths until better times, and if one of the unworthy gets to it, then God will deprive him of his mind. And somewhere in the distant future, the descendants of the Theodorites will retrieve the relic from the ground and create a powerful state.
Stone from Orion
Surely, Himmler embellished something in this legend, since, according to modern historians, the cradle-bowl was just a gift to the Theodorite prince Isaac from the Moscow prince Ivan III. But the banal versions of Hitler were not interested. He needed mysticism.
Himmler presented other interesting materials in his dossier.
In 1926, a group of NKVD officers arrived in Crimea, headed by the chief specialist in paranormal phenomena, Alexander Barchenko.
The Chekists examined the Crimean cave cities - Mangup, Chufut-Kale and others, and also looked for a certain "Stone from Orion". The uninitiated thought that it was a meteorite, but the Grail was allegorically called the "Stone from Orion". For the first time this epithet was used in Wolfram von Eschenbach's poem "Parzival", where the Grail turned into a stone that fell to the ground from the crown of Lucifer. It is difficult to judge how successful Barchenko's expedition was, but when Barchenko himself was arrested in 1937, the investigators “worked” with him for almost a year, and the testimonies were delivered to Stalin personally.
Himmler's dossier was supposed to unambiguously convince the Fuhrer that the Holy Grail can only be in the Crimea and nowhere else.
To search for the relic on December 13, 1941 Ohlendorf arrived on the peninsula. Employees of Einsatzgroup D carefully searched the old kenassas (prayer houses of the Karaites) and mosques, the Chufut-Kale caves, the ruins of the Kermenchik fortress and the ruins of the village of Manguta, which were clearly not inhabited by partisans and underground workers.
The tragic events took place on March 23, 1942 in the Lak Valley, which is located just on the northern border of the former principality of Theodoro. Einsatzgruppe officers, together with the soldiers of the Tatar police battalion, surrounded the village of Laki, drove all the residents into one building and burned it down. According to the official version, the reason for the massacre was the connection between the villagers and the partisans. According to an unofficial version, one of the residents knew exactly where the mountain was located, in the Feodorite times called Basman, with an underground cave and a cradle-bowl buried in it.
As a reminder of the massacre, the ruins of the church of St. Luke, rebuilt in our time, remained. The most remarkable icon depicts John the Baptist with the infant Christ in a bowl …
Ohlendorf Hoax
Did Ohlendorf find the Holy Grail?
You can almost certainly say that I did not find it. But Hitler was clearly pleased with the results of his mission. Until the end of the war, this prominent SS man was always in the immediate circle of the Fuhrer, doing either "sociological research" or "issues of post-war economic recovery of the Third Reich." Strange occupations, considering that we are talking about a professional punisher, for whom in 1942-1945 there was quite enough work in the profile.
This paradox can only be explained by one thing: the work of the "sociologist" and "economist" was just a cover for some other activity, probably related to the "Ahnenerbe".
Apparently, not having found the Holy Grail in the Crimea, Ohlendorf nevertheless presented Hitler with some kind of cup, passing it off as this semi-mythical relic.
Soon after the appearance of the fake Grail, Sevastopol fell (July 4, 1942), and indeed the summer of 1942 was the last successful season for the Third Reich. The Fuhrer decided that the bowl was "working for the owner" and fell into euphoria. The feeling of invulnerability dulled any caution, so that the offensive "only forward" - to the Volga and the Caucasus, he led, ignoring the reasonable warnings of his generals. The defeat at Stalingrad was all the more shocking for him.
Further, the defeats went jamb, and the Fuhrer did not understand what was happening. He held on to Crimea with particular stubbornness, calling the peninsula "the last fortress of the Goths." This fortress fell on May 9, 1944 - exactly one year before the final collapse of the Third Reich.
While the armed forces of the Third Reich were being ground by the Red Army, the SS man Ohlendorf chilled out in Berlin, where his tasks, apparently, included manipulating the false Holy Grail, which the Fuhrer continued to take for the real one. Hence the strange belief in Hitler, not supported by objective realities, that luck will return to him again - the allies will quarrel, a miracle weapon will appear. Finally, the belief that the Russians will be defeated on the outskirts of Berlin or even in the capital itself. And Ohlendorf, for reasons of his own survival, supported in the Fuhrer the hope that the Holy Grail would "work", save, and help.
Did Hitler understand that they were driving him for us? Of course, yes, otherwise I would not have shot myself. But every day that he spent in the world of illusions cost humanity tens of thousands of lives. Too high a price for a fake relic.
What did the Americans learn?
At the main Nuremberg trials, Otto Ohlendorf acted as a prosecution witness and diligently "drowned" his former bosses.
In 1948, at one of the "small" Nuremberg trials (in the case of the Einsatzgruppen), he himself was already in the dock. Olendorf was sentenced to death for crimes in Crimea and Ukraine, but the Americans delayed the execution of the sentence for three years, trying to get some information out of him. He was hanged only on June 7, 1951 in the Landsberg prison (Upper Bavaria).
Magazine: Mysteries of History №26. Author: Dmitry Mityurin