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  Nauth is associated with the Younger Futhark rune Naud (or Naudhr), meaning “need.” It is similar in shape to the Anglo-Saxon rune Nyd, meaning “need” or “distress,” and associated with the letter n.

  Is is derived from the Younger Futhark rune Isa, meaning “ice.” It is the same as the Elder Futhark Isaz and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc Is, both meaning “ice.” The runes are associated with the Gothic letter i, called Eis, the German word for “ice.”

  Ar is a variant of the Younger Futhark rune Ar, meaning “year” or “harvest,” and is associated with the Elder Futhark rune Jeran (or Jeraz), which has the same meaning, but is shaped differently. The rune is identified with the letter j.

  Sig, the eleventh rune, was adopted by Himmler’s SS. It is derived from, and is similar to, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune Sigel, the Younger Futhark rune Sol, and the Elder Futhark rune Sôwilô, all of which mean “sun.” However, List changed the meaning of his Sig to “victory,” after the German word “sieg,” which means “victory.” In all four runic alphabets, the rune is identified with the letter s.

  Tyr is named for the god Tyr, the deity associated with individual heroism. In some ancient legends, he is said to be a son of Wotan. List’s rune Tyr is the same as the Younger Futhark rune of the same name, the Elder Futhark Tiwaz, and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune Tir (or Tiw). The rune is identified with the letter t.

  Bar is derived from the Younger Futhark rune Bjarken, and it is associated with the similarly shaped Elder Futhark rune Berkanan and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune Beorc. All of these runes mean “birch” or “birch tree” and are associated with the letter b.

  Laf is derived from the Younger Futhark Logr, meaning “water.” It is also similar in appearance to the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc Lagu, meaning “sea” or “lake,” and the Elder Futhark rune Laguz (or Laukaz), meaning “lake.” It is analogous to the Gothic letter l, called Lagus.

  Man is an inverted Armanen rune Yr. Literally meaning “man,” it is the equivalent of the Younger Futhark rune Madr, and associated with the dissimilarly shaped Elder Futhark rune Mannaz and Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune Man, both of which mean “man.” All four runes are identified with the letter m.

  Yr is an inverted Armanen rune Man. It is derived from the Younger Futhark rune Yr, meaning “yew,” and it is an inverted form of the Elder Futhark rune Algiz and Anglo-Saxon rune Eolh, both of which refer to “elk.”

  Eh is associated with the dissimilar Younger Futhark rune Eh, meaning “horse.”

  Gibor, the eighteenth rune, has no equivalent among other runic systems, although some have associated it with the somewhat similar Elder Futhark rune Eihwaz and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune Eoh, both of which mean “yew.” However, it is much closer in shape to the old Germanic Wolfsangel (wolf’s hook), a Viking-era magical symbol associated with the Yggdrasil, or ancient Nordic World Tree.

  Author’s collection

  The Knights Templar are perhaps the best known, having figured in countless twentieth-century thriller novels, as well as in countless conspiracy theories about lost or hidden wisdom. The order was initially formed early in the twelfth century on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by French knights who had participated in the First Crusade. Officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church, their mission was to protect pilgrims visiting the holy sites. According to legend, they found and possessed the Holy Grail, the cup from which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper and which later held his holy blood, spilled during the Crucifixion. Financed by wealthy patrons in Europe, the Knights Templar grew in power and head count, creating an elaborate financial and banking infrastructure stretching from Jerusalem to Europe. After two centuries, the powerful order came under the suspicion of the church and later was officially persecuted by the church. They were disbanded early in the fourteenth century, but the legend lived on.

  The Teutonic Knights, a Germanic order, was of particular interest within the early twentieth-century Austro-German counterculture. Formed late in the twelfth century, the Teutonic Knights were also a well-financed organization. Though they were initially Crusaders, most of their battles were fought against the Slavic people on the southern and eastern rim of the Baltic Sea. Here, they formed a substantial fiefdom, which encompassed much of East Prussia and the modern Baltic states and which reached its greatest extent early in the fifteenth century. The Slavs, like the Jews, would later have a place on the hit list of Heinrich Himmler’s secret knighthood.

  Himmler, as we shall see, was quite enthralled with Guido von List’s idea of the Armanen Orden and the notion of perpetuating a select brotherhood. However, it was the idea of the glorious armed orders, such as the Templars and the Teutonic Knights, that most fired his imagination as he dreamed of an elite corps of exceptional Aryan warriors. With Guido von List’s pre-World War I Hoher Armanen Orden, though, the emphasis was strictly on the mystical. They were out for the sort of romps in the countryside with candles and torches and ancient stone edifices that one finds when modern New Age groups greet the sunrise at Stonehenge and like places.

  Like many in New Age circles then and now, List and his order picked solstices and equinoxes as times for key events. In June 1911, for example, List and his followers organized a solstice field trip designed to recapture the same sort of goosebumps-down-the-back sensation that List felt in the underground catacombs beneath Vienna when he was a teenager. The elder patriarch led his followers to experience the power and presence of Wotan at subterranean grottos beneath ancient buildings in and around Vienna, as well as at the ruins of Carnuntum. He called these damp, musty shrines by the collective name “Ostara,” after the Germanic goddess of rebirth. Known as Eostre in Old English, this name is thought to be the origin of the term “Easter,” the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is itself superimposed on the pagan celebration of the rebirth of the earth after the winter. The term “Ostara” is still used in reference to modern Wiccan celebrations of the spring equinox.

  The cover page of an English translation of Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels’s bizarre 1905 book, Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron (Theozoology or the Account of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron). Lanz concocted a pseudoscience called “Theozoology,” writing that Aryans, whom he called theozoa, or Gottmenschen (god-men), were actually descended from the gods. Everyone else was descended from sea monsters, hybrid beasts, or “apelings.” Author’s collection

  Also of interest to the early twentieth-century pagans was the observance of Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night) on the night of April 30 and May 1 and the festivals celebrating the arrival of spring. The holiday is named for St. Walpurga, an eighth-century English saint who traveled in Germany, because her feast day falls on May 1, but the commemoration predates the arrival of Christianity. In Germany, Walpurgisnacht was traditionally the night when the witches danced with the gods on the highest of the Harz Mountains. Celebrations, often accompanied dramatically by bonfires, are still held throughout northern Europe.

  The influence of the Hoher Armanen Orden was such that it became the catalyst for other Völkisch secret societies to materialize out of the dark, polished woodwork in the castles and manor houses of rich, Nordic-centric Germans with time on their hands. One such society was Germanenorden (Germanic Order), which was originally formed in 1912 in Berlin. Among its founders was Theodor Fritsch, the author of some especially inflammatory anti-Jewish literature and an outspoken opponent of industrialization, the ills of which he blamed on Jewish businessmen. Like those belonging to List’s Armanen Orden, the members of the Germanenorden (a name that, uncannily or deliberately, rhymes with Armanen Orden) worshiped Wotan, rapaciously devoured ancient Germanic literature, staged elaborate solstice rituals, and considered the Aryan race superior. Mainly, they all seemed to admire Guido von List as an esteemed prophet, the godfather of the ideals they cherished.

  The popularity of the List Society and the Hoher Armanen Orden was directly attribu
table to the charisma of Guido von List, but unlike many other cult leaders, before and since, he was not so much the leader of the society that bore his name as its figurehead. While List himself had no aptitude for organization, he was surrounded by others who actually ran the society. Among these was the man who had emerged as, for want of a better term, List’s eager understudy, Adolf Josef Lanz.

  Like Heinrich Himmler, Lanz was the son of a schoolmaster. Born in Vienna in 1874, he grew up middle class and comfortable. At the age of nineteen, he became a monk of the Cistercian order, took the name “Jörg,” and entered the 760-year-old Austrian monastery at Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross). While here, Lanz proved to be quite diligent in his studies, becoming quite a knowledgeable biblical scholar and an expert in the Latin Vulgate.

  Like Guido von List, Lanz received an epiphany about the ancient, mythical roots of the Nordic or Germanic identity while he was meditating on ancient stones that had been touched by his ethnic ancestors. This scrutiny came about in 1894, when he was reflecting upon a thirteenth-century carving that had been unearthed at the monastery. It showed a nobleman standing above a small creature with a long tail and an apparently human head. Lanz interpreted this creature as a subhuman beast. This view was not particularly unusual, insofar as religious buildings all across Europe had been encrusted with gargoyles and grotesques for centuries. However, for Lanz, this one specific image was full of deep meaning. He interpreted it as representing the age-old conflict between human goodness and subhuman evil.

  While pondering this grand struggle, Lanz apparently wandered a trifle from the straight and narrow himself. In 1899, he was asked to leave the Cistercians and Heiligenkreuz for having submitted to the temptation of what is described in the official paperwork as “carnal love” (with whom and under what circumstances is not known). Released from his vows, Lanz was back on the streets of the secular world, looking for meaning in his life. This he found in Theosophy and in the flourishing Austro-German New Age movement—especially in the teachings of Guido von List, whom he first met in the early 1890s.

  In List, Lanz saw a man who, like himself, had grown up middle class, but who was, in fact, more special than his mundane origins suggested. Like List, Lanz imagined himself as possessing long-forgotten roots in nobility. Like List, he cast about for a good excuse to be able to insert the aristocratic “von” into his name. He found a fifteenth-century Hans Lanz, who had married a noblewoman, gained title to her property, and later ennobled himself as Lanz von Liebenfels. Though a direct relation to the man was tenuous at best, Adolf Josef “Jörg” Lanz renamed himself as Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels in 1903. He also began bragging, erroneously, that his schoolmaster father was actually a titled baron who had once used the Liebenfels name himself. There are stories that he also changed his birthdate in order to misdirect astrologers.

  In the first years of the twentieth century, Lanz was counterintuitively dividing his time between conventional religious scholarship and his growing preoccupation with the counterreligious aspects of the Austro-German New Age movement. On one hand, he was invited to contribute a chapter to Zur Theologie der Gotischen Bibel, a scholarly study, involving Jewish as well as Christian scholars, of theology in the Gothic Bible. At the same time, he was drifting in and out of several New Age groups that were part of the Viennese intellectual scene.

  Burg Werfenstein, seen on the left, was an old hilltop castle overlooking the Danube near Vienna. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels used the castle for solstice celebrations. In 1907, atop Burg Werfenstein, he became the first Ariosophist to hoist a flag emblazoned with a swastika. Author’s collection

  Like Guido von List, Lanz became convinced of the racial superiority of the Aryan race. Remembering the “beast” carved in stone at Heiligenkreuz, he incorporated this notion into his own ideas about human goodness versus subhuman evil. He decided that it was the Aryan race that embodied human goodness, while the other races in the pseudoscientific hierarchy were contaminated with subhuman evil.

  When looking around the streets of turn-of-the-century Vienna for “other races” upon which to fixate, Lanz saw few Africans or Asians. However, it was not hard to see a substantial number of Jews—especially when they accounted for nearly ten percent of the city’s population. For List and others, Jews were definitely a race that was outside the Völkisch mainstream, but Lanz went a step further. He decided that they were not merely inferior, but they were also the physical embodiment of the subhuman evil he had seen in the carving at the monastery.

  It has never been fully explained why, if Jews and semites were so substandard, List, Lanz, and their fellow Völkisch counterculturists moved in circles where the ancient Jewish mysticism of Kaballah was so widely studied and so thoroughly appreciated. Also a paradox was how, if Asians were inferior, the mystical scriptures of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism could be so widely revered.

  Arthur de Gobineau and his fellow pseudoscientists had racial chauvinists from Helena Blavatsky to Guido von List to justify their superiority complex, but Jörg Lanz wanted more. He wanted to believe that non-Aryans were not merely inferior humans, but nonhumans. In the absence of a pseudoscientific theory upon which to anchor his beliefs, he set out to formulate one. Whereas Madame Blavatsky created Theosophy from a fusion of theology and philosophy, Lanz called upon Theosophy and zoology, naming his radical new pseudoscience Theozoology. His doctrine was summarized in his strange 1905 book Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron (Theozoology or the Account of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron). Lanz wrote that Aryans, whom he called theozoa or Gottmenschen (“god men”), were actually descended from the gods, and that other races, which he dubbed anthropozoa, were descended from beasts, or “apelings.” He insisted that “sodomy” between the gods and apelings had resulted in the sorry state of humanity, and something should be done about it.

  If this book seems a long stretch from his work on Zur Theologie der Gotischen Bibel, it should be pointed out that nearly every line in the weird work contains a biblical reference, primarily to the Old Testament. Nearly every other line contains a reference to sex—generally violent or illicit sex. Indeed, the defrocked Cistercian (who was bounced from the monastery for dabbling in “carnal love”) spent an inordinate amount of time in Theozoologie discussing the sexual practices of apes, humans, and subhumans—as well as sea monsters and “sodomite hobgoblins”—in lurid detail.

  As for the “godly” electrons in his book title, Lanz was also one of many in the early twentieth century who shared the belief that newly discovered invisible electronic rays, such as x-rays, were somehow connected with otherworldly mysticism. The supposed connection between electronics to mysticism would crop up again during the heyday of Heinrich Himmler.

  In Theozoologie, Lanz also embraced aspects of a yet more radical pseudoscientific theory that was making the rounds of universities and think tanks in the late nineteenth century. Social Darwinism was so named not because it had anything to do with Charles Darwin, but because it embraced a mirror image of one of his basic tenets. Darwin coined the term “survival of the fittest” to describe the natural selection that was ongoing in nature. Social Darwinists described natural selection in human society and advocated sidelining those in society who were considered less productive. At their extreme, Social Darwinists advocated eugenics, the selective breeding of humans to perpetuate desirable traits. Eugenics would also crop up again during the heyday of Heinrich Himmler.

  Lanz eagerly accepted eugenics, but he went beyond merely proposing animal husbandry to refine the bloodline his “superior” race. He embraced the notion that people with hereditary defects or mental illness should be sterilized so as not to pass on any undesirable characteristics, and he also advocated he sterilization of lesser, anthropozoa, races, especially the Jews. He also proposed that the sick, weak, and infirm in society should be not just sterilized, but also euthanized. These were more ideas from the pseudoscientific fringe that Heinrich
Himmler would later enthusiastically bring into the mainstream.

  To go along with the aristocratic “von” and his fabricated title, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels had also bought himself a castle. Situated on a picturesque hilltop overlooking the Danube, about seventy miles west of Vienna, Burg Werfenstein was actually more of a ruin than a castle, but this suited Lanz’s craving for an old stone edifice.

  Always ready to mimic his hero, Guido von List, Lanz also created his own secret society, which he headquartered at Burg Werfenstein. Using Latin, with which he was quite familiar as a biblical scholar, Lanz named his society Ordo Novi Templi, or “Order of the New Templars.” The name suggested a connection with the Knights Templar, which Lanz obviously intended, but the dogma was straight out of Lanz’s view of Aryan supremacy. Also, based on a reading of Theozoology, one can imagine that the rituals and festivities the New Templars held amid the bonfires and banging drums at the castle probably involved orgies.

  According to Lanz’s across-the-river neighbor, Franz Herndl, quoted in the periodical Die Trutzberg, Lanz and his cronies celebrated the winter solstice in 1907 by running up a banner over Bad Werfenstein. As a heraldic centerpiece for his flag, Lanz chose a bright red runic symbol. Rather than waiting for a vision or creating something out of his own imagination, as Guido von List did with his runes, Lanz picked a pre-existing emblem. He chose an ancient rune that had been widely used by many cultures around the world, a symbol known in Sanskrit as a swastika.

  In 1905, among his other activities, the busy Jörg Lanz started a magazine. Apparently, the magazine was quite popular, for it reached a peak circulation of around 100,000 and ran for nearly one hundred issues before it ceased publication in the turning-point war year of 1917. Much of what is known about Lanz and the activities of the New Templars comes from articles published in the magazine. We learn that, among other things, he decided that Burg Werfenstein had played a role in the ancient Nibelunglied legends popularized by Richard Wagner.