The leaders of the Third Reich believed in a pseudoscientific theory of the creation of the universe!
In the summer of 1925, proclamations began to circulate in Germany and Austria, stating: “Hitler cleared politics. Hans Herbiger sweeps away false sciences. The doctrine of eternal ice will be a symbol of the revival of German science. " By that time almost everyone had heard about who Hitler was - after all, less than two years ago, he and his supporters staged the Beer Hall putsch in Munich, trying to come to power. Since then, he managed to sit in prison for high treason, lose most of his party, lose his Austrian citizenship and start building a political career again. But what kind of Hans Herbiger was and what kind of "doctrine of eternal ice" was - this was absolutely incomprehensible to the respectable burghers.
Engineer and astronomer
Hans Herbiger was a talented engineer of Austrian origin. Having started his career as a simple draftsman, by 1900 he had already opened his own design office in Budapest. He survived bankruptcy after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but was able to restore the company and even became the author of several important inventions (for example, a valve with a metal plate instead of a leather one).
However, besides fiddling with technology, Hans was always attracted by higher matters. Observing the transitions of water from one state of aggregation to another (vapor - liquid - ice), he came to the conclusion that, after a good reflection, he could explain the origin of the Earth, life on it and, in general, answer all the topical questions of the universe.
At the beginning of the 20th century, he met the German school teacher Philip Fout, who, among other things, was an amateur astronomer. At the suggestion of Fauth, Herbiger became interested in observing the lunar surface. And soon it dawned on him. He came to the conclusion that the entire surface of the Moon is covered with a layer of ice one kilometer thick. He had no scientific evidence for this thesis, but he always said that he understood it “intuitively”. Moreover, this was in perfect agreement with the ideas about the structure of the Universe that had long been ripening in him.
The more literary talented Fauth co-authored, and in 1913 Hoerbiger's Ice Cosmogony appeared, the first publication on the doctrine that would later impress Nazi leaders.
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Five years later, Faut published another book with the same title, where he revealed the position of a new view of the world order in more detail and in detail. Scientists - astronomers, physicists and philosophers - who caught the eye of Herbiger's and Fout's publications, either ignored them or ridiculed them. Everything described in them looked so crazy. However, several more years passed, and the Herbiger doctrine had zealous followers from among the functionaries of the NSDAP. Scientific reliability did not bother them at all. But ideologically, the doctrine of eternal ice (in German it was called Welteislehre or in abbreviated form "Vel") they really liked.
Four moons
According to Herbiger, the eternal struggle between ice and fire was at the heart of all global world changes. Here, for example, how he described the process of the emergence of our solar system: “In an endless void rested a huge body with a high temperature, millions of times larger than our present Sun. It collided with a gigantic planet made up of an accumulation of cosmic ice. The result was an explosion of colossal force. The fiery body collapsed, fragments of ice scattered into space. The Milky Way was cited as an example, which supposedly consisted of those very fragments.
As a result, a relatively weak Sun and ice blocks-planets revolving around it remained. Initially there were 30 of them. But only on one of them the struggle of ice and fire continued. As you might guess, it was the Earth. It was these mysterious processes that influenced the emergence of life.
Herbiger believed that the Earth originally had four satellites. Each of them in turn passed the same path - gradually narrowed its orbit and, in the end, fell to the Earth, causing global cataclysms and changing geological eras. Moreover, the closer the next satellite got to the Earth, the more actively the development of living organisms took place on it - the so-called "era of gigantism". It was with this that the creator of the Vel doctrine explained the existence in the past of huge plants, pranasects and dinosaurs. People, on the other hand, arose as a result of mutations generated by cosmic radiation.
The remaining Moon also had to fall sooner or later. It is this upcoming event, as Herbiger believed, is described in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist. The consequences of the fall of the planet's natural satellite seemed catastrophic: after a powerful explosion, a ring of stones, ice and gas would appear around the Earth. Naturally, all people will die in this cataclysm. Except … the chosen people, which, of course, are the Aryans. It would be strange if such views on the universe did not meet with the warm approval of the "possessed Fuhrer" and his closest assistants.
Convenient doctrine
In addition to the doctrine of the chosenness of the Aryans, the Vel doctrine had several prerequisites for the success of the Nazis. First, it echoed the images of German-Scandinavian mythology, which was so dear to the leadership of the Reich. According to Scandinavian myths, the human world (Midgard) was only one of nine, united by the sacred ash Yggdrasil. Among the other eight worlds there were such as Muspelheim, in which flames always rage and fire giants live, and Niflheim, a world of eternal cold, ice and darkness, inhabited by frost giants. Niflheim existed in the abyss even before the creation of anything else.
Second, Hitler generally preferred to rely more on irrational thinking than on traditional science. His fiery speeches always appealed to the emotions of the audience rather than filled with real facts. The story of the creation of all things from ice and fire, outlined in broad strokes, fit here perfectly.
Thirdly, the Nazis simply needed a clearly formulated and ready-made theory in order to oppose it to the "Judo-Marxist consciousness", the manifestations of which they began to fight as soon as they took at least some power. The doctrine of eternal ice - science in form and religion in essence - suited them.
The more the position of the Nazi party in politics was strengthened, the more actively the Vel doctrine was promoted in all spheres. The further, the more it caused alarm in normal scientists. They tried to draw attention to the obvious: Herbiger's theory contradicts all known laws of physics and is not based on anything other than his fantasies. But in response, they only heard the increasingly aggressive rhetoric of the Aryan "patriots".
In 1931, Hans Hoerbiger died at the age of 70. And then he was elevated by the Nazis to the rank of a sacred figure, a genius and almost a prophet. And in 1932, the NSDAP won first place in the elections to the Reichstag. Soon the doctrine of eternal ice began to be studied in German schools as one of the scientific concepts of natural science.
Philip Fout lived until 1941 and spent the last years of his life surrounded by universal honor and respect. Yesterday's amateur astronomer was unexpectedly recognized as a luminary of science and even opened his own observatory. Since 1939, he headed the research center for astronomy "Ahnenerbe" - an organization that formally studied the "history, traditions and heritage of the Germanic race", but in fact was engaged in serving the occult hobbies of the leaders of the Third Reich. To his credit, though, Fout did make some contribution to serious astronomy. A crater on the moon is even named after him. But the Nazis were primarily interested in him as a co-author of the Vel doctrine.
Chasing magical energy
The leaders of Vril, perhaps the most mysterious occult society of Nazi Germany, were able to creatively develop and deepen Herbiger's doctrine. Many researchers doubt its existence at all. Others believe that it was the "inner circle" of the well-known Thule Germanic Studies Group, whose members believed that the Aryans originated from the sunken Atlantis.
The founder and one of the main leaders of Vril is considered the German geographer, sociologist and thinker Karl Haushofer. He is mainly known as the creator of the theory of geopolitics. According to Haushofer, each state must fight for its living space and expand it. At the same time, he believed that the main confrontation should unfold between the so-called "Continental bloc" (the Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo axis) and the Anglo-Saxon world (Great Britain and the USA). Refracted in Hitler's mind, these ideas degenerated into plans to create a world German empire, which, to begin with, had to subjugate Eurasia.
Haushofer joined the Nazis after the Beer Putsch and for a long time tried to stay in the background, not even joining the party officially. Much more political ambitions of the NSDAP, he was interested in the issues of human capabilities and mystical interactions with the forces of nature. The very name "Vril" was taken from the novel "The Coming Race", written in 1871 by the English Rosicrucian and occultist Edward Bull-ver-Lytton. There it stood for some kind of magical energy. The one who mastered it became the master of his own destiny and could conquer the whole world.
To master the “coveted energy, man had to develop his supersensible abilities. At first, this manifested itself in the form of extrasensory effects (the effect on the speed of grain germination was considered a mandatory test). Then, as the knowledge deepened, the lord of energy could touch directly to the secrets of the universe. It is not difficult to see here an analogy with the Buddhist teaching about enlightenment. This is probably why the Third Reich has always shown an increased interest in the secrets of Eastern religion. This is the search for the mystical country of Shambhala, and attempts to establish contact with the Dalai Lama. And among the members of "Vril", according to rumors, there were many initiates who came from India and Tibet.
The doctrine of eternal ice was adopted as Vril's official view of cosmogony. Obviously, the mysterious magical energy was very well associated with that very fire, which in Herbiger was the main source of everything creative in the Universe.
In addition, the Vril members were addicted to many other strange things. Here is the theory of a hollow Earth, inside of which some supercivilization lives or lived, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It is not for nothing that it is with "Vril" that the legends about the "combat discs" allegedly possessed by the Nazis are associated.
Mysticism against the USSR
However, one should not think that Hitler was a naive madman who grabbed at any idea that looked impressive and mysterious enough. Among his statements one can find the following: "We have nothing in common with those people who understand nationalism only as a set of legends and myths and, as a result, too easily replace it with vague phrases of Nordic content."
Indeed, for all his exaltation, Hitler was first and foremost a cynical and cruel politician who considered every idea in terms of its usefulness for the cause of the Reich. The Nazis began to actively use the Vel doctrine on the eve of 1941.
According to new interpretations, Soviet Russia was declared a bulwark of eternal ice, that is, everything that was dead, hostile and evil. Germany, of course, was a land of life-giving fire. One of the "proofs" was the ancient swastika symbol, appropriated by the Nazis, which symbolized the Sun in Hinduism. True, the Nazis unrolled the solar symbol and made it "roll" from sunset to sunrise. But this did not bother them much.
It is known that occult ideas and mystical interpretations of events had a very specific impact on many actions of the leaders of the Third Reich. Hitler himself planned military operations, taking into account astrological forecasts. His closest aide, Rudolf Hess, surrounded himself with astrologers and eventually fled to Britain, believing the horoscope predicting defeat in the war.
Belief in the occult served the leaders of Nazi Germany a disservice and only hastened their defeat in the war. Nevertheless, secret societies, based on mystical and pseudoscientific ideas, which were so popular with Hitler and his entourage, continued to operate for a long time. Some of them still exist.
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 16, Viktor Banev