Sixty years after the defeat of the Third Reich, the complexities of Nazi ideology are still being unravelled. This enormously influential book has provided the first serious account of these ideological origins.
The book demonstrates the way in which Nazism was influenced by powerful occult and millenarian sects that thrived in Germany and Austria at the turn of the century. These sects (principally the Ariosophists) promoted doctrines of popular nationalism, 'Aryan' racism and occultism to support their advocacy of German world-rule.
Their ideas and symbols filtered through to nationalist-racist groups associated with the infant Nazi party, and in time exerted a strong influence on Himmler's SS. Their fantasies were played out with terrifying consequences in the Third Reich: Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka are the hellish museums of the Nazi apocalypse, the roots of which lay in the millennial visions of occult sects.
This bizarre and fascinating story contains lessons we cannot afford to ignore.

Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Author's Preface to 2004 Edition
Foreword
Introduction
Part 1: The Background
1. The Pan-German Vision
2. The modern German Occult Revival 1880-1910
Part 2: The Ariosophists of Vienna
3. Guido von List
4. Wotanism and Germanic Theosophy
5. The Armanenschaft
6. The Secret Heritage
7. The German Millennium
8. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and Theozoology
9. The Order of the New Templars
Part 3: Ariosophy in Germany
10. The Germanenorden
11. Rudolf von Sebottendorff and the Thule Society
12. The Holy Runes and the Edda Society
13. Herbert Reichstein and Ariosophy
14. Karl Maria Wiligut: The Private Magus of Heinrich Himmler
15. Ariosophy and Adolf Hitler
Appendix A: Genealogy of Lanz von Liebenfels
Appendix B: Genealogy of the Sebottendorff Family
Appendix C: The history of Ariosophy
Appendix D: New Templar Verse
Appendix E: The Modern Mythology of Nazi Occultism
Notes and References
Bibliography
Index

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953-2012) was Professor of Western Esotericism and Director of the Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO) within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Exeter.