Which is not surprising, because it was under the auspices of the "Black Order" that a new religion could be created. The SS ideology, which was even more than a religion for the SS, was just waiting in the wings to become all-German. Only now I did not wait.
In 1896, the almost unknown English author M. P. Shil published a fantastic story. It told about a group of ruthless killers who roamed Europe and destroyed everything that, in their opinion, impedes the progress of mankind. The story was called "SS". Four years later, a man was born in Munich who, in his deeds, surpassed the dark fantasies of the English writer. This man's name was Heinrich Himmler. From early childhood, he raved about the history of medieval chivalry and himself developed the symbolism and many rites of the SS.
The Reichsfuehrer SS dreamed of creating an order castle, a ceremonial center comparable to the Marienburg of the medieval Teutonic knights. During Hitler's election campaign in January 1933, Himmler first visited Wewelsburg Castle in Paderborn. He rented the ruins of this Westphalian castle for a nominal fee - one stamp per year.
Wewelsburg, according to legend, was built by the Huns, and got its name from a knight named Wewel von Buren. Himmler intended to turn the castle into the headquarters of his "black order", its museum, repository of ancient Germanic traditions and a spiritual center. Karl Wiligut was in charge of the Wewelsburg restoration project. He approved of the idea of creating an order castle and wrote that Wewelsburg would become "a new knightly order, not based on Christian values, but on the basis of Irminism." In one of his letters to Himmler, Wiligut recounted an old Westphalian legend:
Wewelsburg Castle is destined to become a magical place in the future struggle between Europe and Asia. A huge army from the East will be finally defeated by the West, and this battle will be called the "Battle of the Birch". Wewelsburg will become a bastion against which the invasion of the new Huns will break.
Apparently, the Reichsfuehrer liked Wiligut's idea. This confirmed his own ideas about the main role of the SS in the defense of Europe in the war between the West and the East.
Soon, the Museum of Aryan Culture was created in Wewelsburg, the main exhibit of which was the Spear of Destiny, and the SS Main Directorate for Race and Settlement was also opened here a training center for the ideological training of SS officers. However, in February 1935, the castle was taken over by the Personal Headquarters of the Reichsfuehrer SS.
After restoration and rebuilding, a huge library, an armory, Himmler's own private quarters, Hitler's apartments, and the main meeting room were arranged in the castle - modeled on the Knights of the Round Table. The basement was converted into a crematorium hall, in which the coats of arms of the highest SS ranks were to be burned after their death. Everyday ceremonies were held in the halls of the SS Obergruppenführer. In a special hall, recruits were baptized with blood. Study rooms were located in the wings and small halls of the castle. They were named and decorated after the ancient Irminist gods.
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I requested the Historical Archives of North Rhine-Westphalia and after a while received photocopies of the site plans that were created in the early 1940s by order of Himmler. It was planned to move the surrounding villages away from Wewelsburg. In their place, expanding the castle areas, they were going to arrange a grandiose architectural complex. The project was supposed to be completed by 1960. Himmler dreamed of creating the "Vatican SS" - the center of the thousand-year German Reich. But that was only the beginning. In one of his reply letters to Wiligut, Himmler wrote:
Each standard must create a cultural center of German greatness and the German past, and to bring it into the order and condition that would be worthy of a people with an ancient culture.
Historian Hines Heine wrote:
A veil of secrecy lay on the activities of the SS. Nobody, not even party or SA members, was allowed to know what the SS was doing. The Himmler Order existed in a mysterious twilight.
And every year this twilight became more and more mysterious. So, when a candidate for the SS took the oath and became a full member of the order, he suddenly discovered that there was a “temple within a temple” and, in order to make a career, he must go through another round of initiation. And so on and on and on and on.
When new members were admitted to the SS, they were initiated in Wewelsburg and had to renounce their past. At the same time, a complex ritual was observed. One observer, clearly sympathetic to what was happening, described the scene of the swearing of the SS oath in his diary:
Fine young men with serious faces, exemplary posture and bearing, chosen ones. Tears come to my eyes as a thousand-voiced choir repeats the oath by torchlight. It is like a prayer: “I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich, to be faithful and courageous. I swear to you and to your appointed superiors to obey unquestioningly until my death. And God help me!"
Similar rituals, which Heine called "neopagan", existed for weddings and funerals. Wiligut personally developed them and presented them to Himmler for approval. The Reichsfuehrer SS was delighted. Many fragments of rituals are contained in Wiligut's letters to Himmler, which the latter carefully kept among his personal papers. Actually, that's how they came to us.
For SS officers, wedding ceremonies were held only in Wewelsburg Castle itself. Wiligut appeared with a ritual staff of ivory, entwined with a blue ribbon with runes depicted on it, and "consecrated" the marriage with this staff. At the wedding ceremonies of ordinary members, the function of the priest was performed by the commander of the local SS organization.
The baptism of a newborn in the SS family took place in front of the portrait of Adolf Hitler. The baby must have been given an ancient Germanic name. He received a copy of Mein Kampf as a gift.
The SS did not celebrate Christmas or New Year. Their main holidays were the days of the summer and winter solstices, the Führer's birthday and the anniversary of the "beer coup". The ceremony of "consecration of the banners" was also held in Wewelsburg.
French researcher Michel Tournier describes this custom as follows:
Beer putsch. A volley rang out, killing sixteen people from Hitler's entourage. Goering was seriously wounded, Hitler was crushed to the ground by the dying Scheibner-Richter, and the Fuhrer was able to free himself by dislocating his shoulder. This was followed by the Fuehrer's imprisonment in the Landsberg fortress, where he wrote "Mein Kampf". But all this had no echo. As for Germany, people were completely indifferent to this. The only thing that remembered this day on November 9, 1923 in Munich was the banner of the rebels, decorated with a swastika - a banner lying on the ground among the bodies of sixteen victims of the mutiny and stained with their blood. Therefore, the bloody banner - the famous Blutfahne - was considered the most sacred relic of the Nazi party. Since 1933, it has been publicly displayed twice a year: on November 9, when it was carried out during a march at the Felherrhallev Munich,when a theatrical show was played, reminiscent of medieval passion. The main event was the removal of the banner at the annual party conventions held in September in Nuremberg, which were the culmination of Nazi rituals. These days, the bloody banner, like a bull-producer, ready to impregnate an infinite number of females, came into contact with new and new standards, striving to conceive from him … Then whole armies marched in front of him, each soldier of which was a standard-bearer. Oh, it was a sea of flags, standards, banners, banners, insignias and oriflamms, fluttering in the wind. These gatherings reached their climax at night, when the light of many torches illuminated the flagpoles, banners and bronze statues, plunging huge masses of people into the shadows. Finally the moment came when the Fuhrer ascended the monumental altar,the beams of one hundred and fifty searchlights were suddenly and simultaneously directed into the sky, forming a veritable cathedral of pillars of light that shot up to a height of a thousand feet, emphasizing the absolutely fantastic nature of the mystery that was happening there.
The distinguished SS men received a ring with the image of a "dead head" and runic symbols, a dagger with the SS motto "My loyalty is my honor" and a sword - the latter only from the hands of the SS Reichsfuehrer himself. Handing the sword strongly resembles the attributes of ancient Germanic cults and traditions of the Templars and Teutons.
From the book: "Gods of the Third Reich". Author: Kranz Hans-Ulrich von