Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich

By Eric Kurlander

Book Overview

The definitive history of the supernatural in Nazi Germany--the occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by the Third Reich in the service of power

"[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"A careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits."--National Review

The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler's personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich's relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300234546
• ISBN13: 9780300234541
• Release Date: May 2018
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 460 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Very interesting perspective on the mind of a notorious figure in history

There are those who debate about the works of the Third Reich regime, on both sides, and though the author clearly picks a side in that debate, he also offers very good points about the occult and theosophic and Hindu-Aryan influences on 1930s Germany. It talks about the significance of witchcraft and even "World-Ice Theory". The print is small however so you may need a magnifier to read if you are older.