The Austrian mystic and occultist of the Third Reich Karl Maria Wiligut was Himmler's personal magician. For his prophetic revelations about the ancient German past, he was made an SS Brigadefuehrer. True, Wiligut's views on the Aryans were in stark contrast to Nazi doctrine. For this mystic, the Aryans were spiritual beings who came to Earth from the Moon.
The mystic, who was nicknamed "Himmlers Rasputin" for his all-encompassing but short-lived influence on the SS Reichsfuehrer, was born on December 10, 1866 in the capital of the Danube monarchy. Following family tradition (his father and grandfather were military), Karl Maria was enrolled as a teenager in the imperial cadet school in Vienna. In December 1884, he entered an infantry regiment stationed in Herzegovina. Wiligut was not only an officer devotedly serving the Habsburg empire, but also an aesthete who wrote poetry and was interested in ancient Germanic mythology.
Probably for this purpose he joined the Schlaraffia Society in 1889. Founded in Prague on October 10, 1859, the Schlaraffia society, which cultivated friendship, encouraged the arts and appreciated humor, chose the expression In arte voluptas - "Pleasure in art" as its motto. It is believed that the word Schlaraffe comes from the Middle High German Slur-Affe, which means "young helipads" (sorgloser Genießer). In society he had the name Lobesam - "Piit".
Nicholas Goodrick-Clark, a British scholar of the occult roots of Nazism, emphasized that there is no evidence of Schlaraffia's connection "with the Pan-German movement, nor is there any indication that Wiligut was associated with any other nationalist organization in imperial Austria." But since 1903, he made friendships and became close with the Viennese völkisch (völkisch - literally "popular" - a racial-biological national-chauvinist movement associated with anti-Semitism) and the Ariosophists.
This year saw the light of his book on the ancient Germanic mythology Seyfrieds Runen ("Seyfried's Runes"). He signs his poems with the pseudonym Jarl Widar - Jarl Vidar. Wiligut becomes a member of the Order of the New Templars (Neutempler-Orden, or Ordo Novi Templi (ONT)), a Völkisch esoteric secret union founded by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels.
After 20 years of service, Wiligut was still in the infantry regiment and was promoted to major two years before the outbreak of World War I. In October 1914, the 47-year-old staff officer of the 30th Infantry Regiment took part in hostilities against the Russian army in the Carpathians. In May 1918, Wiligut was recalled from the front and appointed commandant of the convalescent camp in Lemberg (now the city of Lvov). This was an event that largely predetermined the fate of the future Nazi mystic.
In June 1918, a delegation of high-ranking Catholic prelates, among whom was the apostolic nuncio in Poland and the Baltic states, Cardinal Ratti (the future Pope Pius XI), visited the officers' mission. Wiligut told the churchmen about the origin of his surname and the family tradition kept in secret. The Jesuit general whispered in the ear of the papal legate "Cursed family" in Italian. And then the middle-aged officer shouted in rage at the priests. They say that after that meeting, Karl Maria began to have seizures or was attacked by the deepest depression.
Wiligut, Goodrick-Clark reports, revealed that he was a descendant of ancient Germanic kings, describing "the religious practices, military organization, and laws of the ancient Germans in terms suspiciously close to the early revelations of Guido von List."
Promotional video:
In 1933, Wiligut joined the SS, where he made an amazing career in three years. The top leadership of the SS gave him the honorary pseudonym Weisthor. Weis meant an initiate in secrets, and Thor was the name of the god of thunder and storm. In 1936, Reichsführer Himmler confers the title of SS Brigadeführer on Wiligut. If for all the anagram of two runes SS meant Schutzstaffeln - "security detachments", then another explanation was in store for the SS elite. Only the initiated understood by this abbreviation Schwarze Sonne - "Black Sun". From beliefs dating back to Ancient Egypt and Sumer, it followed that there are two suns: "white", which we see, and "black", the hidden sun of spiritual enlightenment.
He was involved in the development of the SS Totenkopfring (Death's Head ring) worn by members of the Black Order and in the formation of the concept of the Wewelsburg SS Castle Order. Even modern historians know little about what the "Himmler's Rasputin" actually did.
Andrei Vasilchenko, a specialist in the history of the Third Reich, asserts: “Wiligut's name was not mentioned at all either in the SS official publications or in the all-German mass media. All this indicated that Himmler and Wiligut were connected not just by service relations, but by something more."
Wiligut's views of the Aryans were in stark contrast to official Nazi racial doctrine. The true Aryans, which were spoken of in the National Socialist ideology, according to Karl Maria, they could become if they regained their long-lost abilities. For Weistor, the Aryans were spiritual beings who came to earth thousands of years ago from the moon. They had the ability to return to their ancestral home.
Perhaps due to the intrigues of other runologists and occultists from Ahnenerbe, perhaps due to deterioration in health due to old age, as noted in the official reason for resignation, but in August 1939 Wiligut left his post. Himmler retained his magician's SS-honor ring "Death's Head" and his sword of honor (SS-Ehrendegen). Less than a month later, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began.
At the end of the war, Wiligut ended up in a displaced persons camp of the British occupation forces. From there he first returned to the Austrian Salzburg, but then went to the small town of Arolsen (Arolsen), now Bad Arolsen in the state of Hesse. Here, on Christmas Day 1945, 79-year-old Wiligut was struck by apoplectic stroke, and at seven in the morning on January 3, 1946, he died.
Booker Igor