Otto Rahn Biography

CHRONOLOGY 1904-1939
 18 Feb 1904 Otto Rahn born, Michelstadt. Parents Karl & Clara (nee Hamburger)
 1910-1916 Junior school at Bigen
 1916-21 Secondary school at GrieBen
 1922 obtains Baccalaureat
 1924 obtains Bachelor in Philology and History
 1930 Rahn begins his European travels (Paris, Provence, Switzerland,
 Catalonia, Italy)
 1931 Rahn visits French Pyrenees. Visits "Spion" in Pyrenees with Himmler and Abetz
 1932 Rahn leads a Polaires expedition in Pyrenees
 13.12.33 Rahn joins the German Writers Association
 1934 publishes "Kreuzzug gegen Gral" (Crusade against the Grail)
 1935 appointed to personal staff of Heinrich Himmler
 29.2.36 Rahn joins Allgemeine-SS, member 276 208
 1936 Rahn visits Iceland with 20 men
 1937 publishes "Luzifers Hofgesind. Eine Reise zu denguten Gelstern Europa" (Lucifer's Court in Europe; Rahn sent back to Languedoc (Montsegur), says he will return in 1939. Time of alleged Corbieres visit?
 20.4.37 promoted to sub-lieutenant (Untersturmfuhrer)
 Sep-Dec1937 military service for "disciplinary reasons" at Oberbayern Regiment, Dachau<

 24.1.38 Rahn's Certificate of Racial Origin requested for his SS-dossier but never materialises
 11.9.38 promoted to lieutenant (Obersturmfuhrer)
 end 1938 Rahn to Buchenwald for two months tour of duty
 1939 Rahn invited Wiligut and Himmler to his wedding
 28.2.39 submits letter of resignation to Karl Wolff<
 13.3.39 Rahn disappears on Wilder Kaiser, Kufstein, Tyrol
 17.3.39 Rahn's resignation from SS is granted

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The early years

 According to the resume which Rahn wrote for his SS entry dossier, he was born on 18 February 1904, son of Karl (tribunal officer of Mayence) and Clara(nee Hamburger) in Michelstadt in the Hesse region.

 In 1910 Rahn entered junior school, firstly at Bigen on the Rhine, and then at Gieben where, in 1922, he obtained his Reifeprufung (baccalaureat). During a one year period in his early teens Rahn meditated on the protective role of the rose-thorn. The Rose has long been a symbol of eternal life and Rahn did believe that we live many lifetimes; that the last lifetime had to have a frugal, primitive quality, returning for this final earth experience to the essence of the first men.

 Rahn's mother introduced him at an early age to the Grail romances and the stories of Parzival, Siegfried etc. Rahn's birthplace at Michelstadt was near Marbourg-on-Lahn, between Rhenanie and Thuringe. This whole area was impregnated in European legend. Rahn wrote: "my ancestors were pagans and my grandparents were heretics". Michelstadt is the Odenwalt: the forests of Odin, the grand god of the North, Oddhinn Alfaddir. It is here that the hero Siegfried, immortalised by Wagner, the killer of dragons in the Nibelung Saga, would be assassinated. Michel is the Christianised pagan Siegfried, hence the derivation of the name Michelstadt, the town of Michel the dragon slayer. Rahn said: "I am therefore come from a world in the orbit of the Grail. Parzifal, Siegfried and Odhinn-Wotan were my Godfathers".

 A few leagues distant Marbourg is the ancient seat of the notorious
 Inquisitor, Conrad, and was a centre of repression of heresy. The odour of the butchers was no less a stench in Marbourg than in the South of France. Otto Rahn believed that a number of his ancestors had been slain by Conrad and his fellow Inquisitors. He gained his Bachelor degree in 1924, following the course of the faculty ofletters and of philology, specialising in literary history of the language and romances of meridional France. Rahn's thesis was titled "to the Research of Master Kyot of Wolfram von Eschenbach" dedicated in 1929 to the author of Parzifal, to Wagner and to the troubadours.

 He continued his studies at the universities of Giessen, and Fribourg in Brisgau, before deciding on a career in writing and publishing. He pursued these studies in Berlin and Heidelberg, and, from 1928, spent several years in Switzerland (where he worked in Geneva as a language teacher and translator) and France. He aspired to become a literary critic but in 1930 the effects of the economic crisis began to make itself felt throughout Germany. To survive, Otto Rahn had to content himself with taking on all sorts of menial jobs:
 cinema attendant, salesman, proof-reader, translator, film extra and screen writer for the budding talking picture industry. He was 26 years old. Like Parzifal he was inspired to seek the Grail in the source of the traditional sentiment.

RAHN AND POLAIRES

 In March 1932 a controversy broke out in La Depeche, which published articles about the activities of a group of Polaires (a society linked to the Theosophical Society, particularly active in France and England), who were excavating in the caves of Ussat and Ornolac. Otto Rahn was said to be the leader of this group, and suspicions were raised because of his nationality (there being much anti-German feeling at this time arising from WW1). Antonin Gadal wrote in Rahn's defence, saying that his visit had nothing to do with the Polaires, and Rahn himself subsequently wrote to the newspaper, saying that he had never heard of the Polaires before coming to the Ariege, and that he was a simply a writer interested in the Cathars.

 Another enigmatic figure involved in this debate was an engineer from Bordeaux named Arnaud, who was also engaged in excavations for "Cathar treasure", although not connected with the Polaires. According to Paul Ladame it was the writer-poet, Maurice Malgre, who encouraged Rahn, at that time researching at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, to go do his research "on the ground". However, Malgre's respect and admiration for Rahn did not last, having a dig at Rahn in "La Cle des Choses Cachees" in saying that "...his book, while written with love, carries an abundance of documentation". Malgre ended up suspecting that the young German was, in truth, a spy. Perhaps Magre was convinced that the nationalist political events of the early thirties were bound to exert an influence such that even a passionate scholar and adventurer like Rahn could not resist.

 However, it may be something to do with the Polaires connection that changed Magre's opinions. There are suggestions that Rahn was a Polaires member. Magre was himself a member, a joint contributor to the preface to Accomani's (Zam Botiva) Asia Mysteriosa. Later, however, Magre was to leave this group after a fracas. Before he reached this point, though, he introduced Rahn to a number of his occitan friends, including the comtesse Pujol-Murat, with whom Rahn enjoyed a deep platonic firendship, and Arthur Caussou, an old Ariegois who told Rahn the legend of Esclarmonde (literally `light of crystal') de Foix (Repanse de Joie in Parzifal). According to this legend, on the evening of the fall of Montsegur the young woman was given custody of the Grail which had been guarded by Cathar Parfaits. The handover complete,

 Esclarmonde transformed herself into a dove and flew off towards the East. Magre especially wanted to introduce Rahn to Antonin Gadal, premier historian of the Syndicate of Initiative of Ussat-Ornolac. Gadal-Rahn. Master-pupil. Father-son. The young German would speak of his mentor as "Trevrizent whom I never expected to discover". Gadal's medieval hero was Galahad, in French Galaad, and he was proud that his surname was an anagram for the Grail Knight. Perhaps Malgre was simply jealous of the younger man's charm and enthusiasm.

 Bernadac attempted to trace the affiliations of the Polaires. The address given in their publications was that of the Theosophical Society in Paris. However, the archives of that society, along with the archives of many other groups, were taken by the Nazis during the Occupation. According to Joseph Mandement, the Polaires were looking for traces of Christian Rosenkreutz, who they believed had passed through the area. Some recall Italian members of the group visiting Lordat as late as 1960, and an anonomous informant told Bernadac that Rahn, too, had shown a particular interest in Lordat and had returned there several times after the war.

Rahn in France

 Speaking both French and the langue d'oc he made his way to the southern French Pyrenees in 1931, after having stayed a while in Paris, in Provence, in Switzerland, in Spanish Catalonia, and in Italy. It was the meagre salary he earned in Geneva teaching German and French that sustained him on these travels.

 In 1931 Rahn made an extensive exploration of the Montsegur area. He explored the grottoes of the Sabarthez area, notably Ornolac and the massive cavern of Lombrives. Here was a huge chamber called by locals "the Cathedral". There was a stalagmite called "The Tomb of Hercules" and another called the "Altar". These names were those used by Eschenbach. Rahn also discovered that the chambers within Sabarthez were covered with Templar symbols, side by side with Cathar emblems. There was also a carving of a lance, a bleeding lance. This greatly excited Hitler/Himmler. Otto Rahn also fell in with an old band of boisterous Pyrenean poets ("Les Seigneurs de Belisse") who eulogised the grandeur and myths of the Ariege, and the existence of the Pyrenean Grail.

 None of the youngsters in the region were interested in the myths and legends and it was Rahn who got the discussions going on hidden treasure and their proud past. The locals called him a "seducter doubled with believer, an eternal adolescent with a superhuman passion for the Grail and the Hermetic Tradition". According to the Tarascon poet Jean-Baptiste Faure-Lacaussade, who met Rahn several times in 1931, he had a "great, but disorderly intelligence" and was sometimes too much of a dreamer to make a good student, but would pursue obsessively any subject that excited his imagination. Faure-Lacaussade also recalled that Rahn said little about his childhood and youth.

 Paul Ladame states that it was Rahn's love of Wagner that led him to study the work of Wolfram von Eschenbach, which in turn drew him into study of the Minnesingers and the Troubadours. Rahn asked Ladame if he would accompany him in exploring the caves around Ornolac in 1932. This was because of Ladame's experience in potholing and climbing; Rahn did not enjoy these activities and endured them as the price to pay for his researches. Ladame learned about Rahn's aims: to discover the secret of the Grail which he believed would unify Europe.

 Other contacts which Rahn and Ladame made in the area included M. Arnaud (whom Rahn mistrusted), and a man known to everybody as M. Rives but whose real name, Ladame learned later, was Arthur Caussou. Paul Bernadac, grandfather of Christian Bernadac, author of "Le Mystere Otto Rahn: Du Catharisme au Nazisme" 1978, was an enthusiastic potholer with an interest in local history. Rahn accompanied him on several excursions in 1932. Paul recalled Rahn being roughed up by Joseph Mandement, President of the Syndicat d'Initiative of Tarascon-sur-Ariege, when he caught Rahn faking Cathar engravings.

 According to several people, the theories in Rahn's Crusade came directly from Gadal, who published nothing himself. Many people resented Rahn's cursory acknowledgement of Gadal and his passing off of Gadal's work as his own. Gadal believed that Catharism derived from a gnostic form of Christianity - 'Johannic' - that originated in Alexandria in the early centuries AD and was brought to Spain by Mark of Memphis around the year 300. It gradually spread across the Pyrenees to the Occitan, where it flourished. 'Bogomil' missionaries arrived in the area around year 1000, found this established gnostic religion, and the fusion of the two gave rise to Catharism.

 'Johannic Christianity' was based on the teachings of St John the Evangelist, and it was believed that the Cathars possessed the original version of John's Gospel. M. Arnaud was also searching for this Gospel and was apparently financed in his search by the French Theosophical Society. Arnaud believed the Gospel to be hidden at Montsegur. When Rahn asked him how he could be so specific with his information Arnaud told him he couldn't elaborate because he was part of a society that required silence from its members on these subjects.

 At this time there was a widespread belief among the Languedocian aristocracry that, unlike the peasantry, they were descended from Nordic or German blood, and saw themselves as cousins of the Germans. Rene Nelli believes that, when they read Rahn's work, the Nazis saw the potential of exploiting this belief. There is a mystery concerning Rahn's finances. During his initial stays in France it was known that he had little money, but in May 1932 he suddenly paid 15,000 francs for the first year of a 9-year lease on the Hotel-Restaurant des Marroniers in Ussat-les-Bains. Among his staff Rahn struck up a particular friendship with a black barman.

 Where did he obtain the funds and why did he encumber himself with this responsibility when Gadal and the elderly occultist Comtesse Pujol-Murat provided largely for his needs in France? Arnaud d'Apremont writes of excursions into the surrounding areas where Rahn is accompanied by a number of unsavoury characters, sorties whose goal seemed incompatible with serious and scholarly archaeological research.

Rahn back in Germany and the publication of his Grail Dissertation

 Rahn left France in September 1932 and returned to Germany, leaving various unpaid bills. In October a petition for bankruptcy was made by Antoine Arques, owner of the hotel-restuarant. Between this event and 1935 there is very little information relating to Rahn's life, only the biographical notices in his SS file and 17 letters he wrote to Gadal. The extracts from his journal that form the basis of Lucifer announce, on 31 March 1933, his intention to voyage to 'Ultima Thule', but the only places mentioned on this itinerary are London and Copenhagen.

 It has been suggested that Rahn while in France was in the secret service of Otto Abetz who headed the Dienstelle (Office) Ribbentrop in the early 1930's, engaging in espionage to influence French politics, posing as journalist and hotelier. Again, he went hungry. Rahn wrote to Gadal saying he had had to leave his watch at a bakery to buy bread; that his shoes were full of holes. However, the tide would soon turn.

 In 1934, following on from his library researches and his ground studies in the Pyrenees, Rahn completed on the day of the Summer Solstice in Heidelberg Kreuzzug gegen den Graal. It was not a best seller, selling 5000 copies in Germany and as many again in France. But it touched deeply those who came to it. Rahn saw in Parzifal that the Eschenbach's heroes and were modelled after real Middle Ages personalities: Parzifal was le vicomte de Carcassone Trencavel, one of the foremost and heroic victims of the Crusade; Respanse de Joye was Esclarmonde de Foix; the mother of Trencavel Adelaide de Toulouse made a perfect Herzeloide; the hermit Trevrizent was the Cathar Bishop Guilhabert de Castres; the King Anfortas, Raimon-Roger de Foix; and Montsegur was Montsalvage. Moreover, Montsalvage is protected by a Fountain "Salvage" in which Rahn believed he recognised the intermittent fountain of Fontestorbes, a few kilometres from the Pog, Montsegur's promontory.Also, the forest around Montsalvage is called the "Briciljan" and close by Montsegur is Priscilien Wood. Rahn firmly concluded that the Fortress Castle of Montsegur was the Temple of the Grail.

 Rahn associates the Cathar Church with the Church of the Grail, with the mystical group Fideles d'Amour of Dante. He believed that the Templars after their enforced dissolution found refuge in the Pyrenean caverns. Rahn wrote of the many indications that the white tunic with octagonal red cross of the Templars was to be found with the black cassocks with yellow cross of the Cathars in the dark grottos of Sabarthez.

 Rahn believed that the Grail consisted of several tablets of stone engraved with runic or even pre-runic inscription. He believed that it was either one perfect emerald with 144 facets or 144 tablets of stone engraved in emerald. This emerald would have graced the Crown of Lucifer, symbolising his third eye, and which fell to earth, precisely on the Pog of Montsegur! Kreuzzug gegen Gral"is at once an erudite essay, a mystical treatise, a reverie and a chanson d'amour.

 Arnaud d'Apremont wries in the preface to Luzifers Hofgesind (1937) that this, Rahn's second book, is written in more an idealogical style, vaguely racist, anti-semitic, to all appearances national-socialist. However, more perceptive critics see Rahn in a quandary, having to toe the nationalist party line,suck up to the censor, and had been unable to write the full objective and integrated text he would have liked and that he indicated the irony of his position in the book's title. The irony suggestion seems, however, unlikely as Rahn did not see Lucifer as synonomous with Satan or the Devil; to Rahn Lucifer was the Pyrenean Abellio, the Celtic Belenos, the Nordic Balder, the Greek Apollo, all luminous gods today asleep. The Cathars called this god Lucibel. These are the light bearers, an attribute that Rahn, himself, wished to be recognised for: a Lucifer. Above all else Rahn wished with all his soul to reawaken the grand European dream.

 For Rahn, the Polaire, the Light came not from the East but from the North. He travelled around the ancient and sacred places of Europe: Forest of Teutoburg, scene of Arminius' victory over the Roman legions of Varus; Externsteine, site of Irminsul, sacred symbol of the Saxons; Thingveillir, place of assembly of the ancient Icelanders, and Reykholt, birthplace of Snorri Sturlusson, the Nordic Homer and author of the Edda.

 The Court of Lucifer is an expedition through the "garden of roses", Rahn's affectionate term for the Kingdom of the Asgardian Elfin, Lorin, and a realm closed to non-believers or the uninitiated. Rahn dreams of a return to Thule, the primordial centre of the European Hyperboreans. He pines for a return to the Golden Age.

Rahn in the S.S

 On 13 December 1933 Otto Rahn joined the German Writers Association. In his SS dossier of candidature we read that Rahn affirms himself to be "ready to defend without reservation German literature in conformity with the spirit of National Socialism". Christian Bernadac believes that Rahn had been a member of Roehm's Brown Shirts.

 Around this time Rahn had a lady friend named Bricon, a collaborative of Daladier who had come to Germany to learn all about National-Socialism. Bricon's nom de guerre for her writings for "La Republique" was Etienne. Rahn saw in the 1933 New Year with her (according to a letter he wrote to Antonin Gadal). In 1934 Rahn saw in the Winter Solstice in Italy at the Albergo Alpino Plancios, Bressanone.

 On 29 February 1936, Karl Wolff, SS Divisional General, wrote to the SS recuitment office to convey Himmler's personal instruction that Rahn be admitted. He was accepted into the SS on 12 March 1936, and the following month was promoted to Untersharfuhrer, joing Himmler's staff. Otto Rahn joined the Black Order the Allgemeine-SS (as distinct from the Waffen-SS, the combattant branch), member 276 208.

 Paul Ladame met up with Rahn during the Winter Olympics in February 1936. According to Ladame, Rahn received a mysterious telegram while he was staying in Paris in 1933, depressed over his difficulites in raising the finances for the French publication of Crusade. The author did not state his name but praised Kreuzzug gegen den Graal and offered Rahn 1000 DM per month to write a second publication in the same vein. At the same time a sum was telegraphed to Rahn in Paris so he could settle his affairs there and return to Berlin to an address supplied. When Rahn turned up at 7 Prinz Albrechstrasse he was taken aback to discover that the secretive telegram sender was no less than Heinrich Himmler who welcomed the writer personally! Himmler organised an office and secretary for him.

 Rahn's initial pleasure at his change in fortune soon gave way to worries ashe realised the nature of the regime under which he had to work and the constant scrutiny he found himself under. In December 1936 Rahn's superior was arrested, and Ladame himself (who had tried to intervene on behalf of the arrested man's wife) found he was under surveillance. It was, in fact, Rahn that was ordered to keep watch on him, but Rahn tipped his old friend off and Ladame left Berlin, which was the last time he saw Rahn. (This doesn't seem somehow to ring true. This is important because we rely largely on Ladame for details of Rahn's life).

 Opinions differ on the level of Rahn's commitment to the Nazi cause. Rene Nelli and Paul Ladame believe that his work was simply too useful as propaganda for the Nazis, and was therefore co-opted in to the SS - an offer that coudn't be refused. Christian Bernadac, however, believes that Lucifer, which as we have said carries a distinct antisemitic thread, was not written under orders as some claim, but that it was based on personal and mystical exploration of the mythology of the Grail and, moreover, based on Rahn's journal kept before, during and after his time in France. Bernadac believes that, from their context, the antisemitic passages were present in the original journal.

 Bernadac cites documents written by Rahn in his SS file. A note dated 23 February 1936 is headed "My combat for the Third Reich before 1933" and states that "Before the taking of power, I had written abroad...a book (The Crusade against the Grail) and articles that today represent an inheritance of the National Socialist thought..." When Bernadac asked Faure-Lacaussade whether Rahn was antisemitic he replied that he did not recall Rahn ever talking specifically about the Jews, but that he certanly held racist attitudes towards Arabs and blacks. Isabelle Sandy, writer and poet who lived at Foix in the 1930's, told Bernadac that Rahn had 'protectors' in the area but refused point-blank to name them. She said that Rahn was an admirer of Hitler but he did not regard war, especially with France, as inevitable, and that he hoped his work would lay the foundation of a Franco-German alliance.

 During his visit to France in 1932, Rahn was accompanied by an individual named Nat Wolff. This person travelled on an American passport and claimed that he was on a photographic mission for the US government. In fact, according to the police files, on different occasions Wolff used two passports (giving different birth dates), and was suspected of being a German agent, eventually being the subject of an expulsion order by the Minister of the Interior. Bernadac thinks this could have been the Nazi Karl Wolff.

 Wolff was one of the original members of the SS on its formation in 1926. He was given the task of cultivating individuals and groups that were sympathetic to the Nazis, initially in Germany and later abroad. He was engaged in this work until 1933 when he was returned to Germany as Himmler's personal assistant. He became chief of Himmler's personal staff in 1936, and liaison officer between Hitler and Himmler in 1937. In 1943 he was appointed head of the SS and police in Italy.

 During his time with the S.S. Rahn noticed that his telephone was tapped and that he was being spied upon. He was under orders to deliver a book to Himmler by 31 October 1937 and another by in 1939. (Rahn was said to have had a godson who was seized by the S.S.). From archive documents unearthed by current German research into Otto Rahn, we know that Rahn read and lectured at the Dietrich-Eckart Club. Dietrich Eckart was the wealthy publisher and co-editor of an antisemitic journal called In Plain German. Eckart was also a commited occultist, drug addict, master of magic, and was a member of the Thule Society.

 Eckart was an enormous influence on Hitler who dedicated Mein Kampf to him. In Dr Wolff Heinrichsdorf's account of one lecture we read that Rahn told his rapt audience that although the Cathars were long dead their spirit lived, and that although the representatives of Christ (Catholics) could burn men and women they were mistaken if they thought that in doing so their devotion and yearning for the teachings of Luzifer - "The Lightbringer" -would also perish. The audience saw that this spirit became alive, real and glowing in Otto Rahn, a descendant of the old troubadours. Rahn talked about his belief in a world of pure spirit for the servants of Luzifer - as opposed to the fear of hell - the negative Jehovah and the Jewish teaching. That evening's host, Kurt Eggers, closed the lecture with the greeting "Luzifer, who suffered unjustly, I salute you".

 From 23 November to 21 December 1937, Rahn served obligatory military service with the Oberbayern Regiment, SS-Totenkopf division at Dachau. It appears that it was a disciplinary measure according to a letter to the Chief of Staff of the Reichsfuhrer-SS dated 28 August 1937. This memo stated that Rahn had promised to abstain from alcohol for two years, and had promised to acquit himself in his forthcoming tour of duty at Dachau for his reproachable conduct at Arolsen and which Rahn bitterly regretted. What was this shameful thing that Rahn did to earn such approbation from the S.S. authorities?

 On 29 February 1938 Karl Wolff wrote an astonishing letter to the SS Office of Racial Questions, informing them that Rahn had been unable to produce a certificate of racial origin, a certificate that this letter points out had been an absolute requirement for SS membership since 1 January 1935. Wolff's letter grants Rahn one more month to meet this rule. Even so, there is nothing in Rahn's file to indicate that such a certificate was produced before his disappearance over a year later. At the end of 1938 Rahn spent two months duty at Buchenwald.

Otto Rahn and Karl Maria Wiligut-Weisthor<

 One of the most enigmatic personalities of the Nazi era was Karl Maria Willigut (he changed his name to Weisthor on entering the SS), born 10 December 1866 in Vienna. Willigut claimed a royal lineage, issue of a long tradition of Germanic sages, the Uiligotis of the Asa-Uana-Sippe, a link which would have conferred on him a most particular power: ancestral clairvoyant memory. His old friend Richard Anders, member of the Order of the New Temple of Jorg von Liebenfels, became an SS officer and introduced Willigut to Himmler. And so, aged 67, in September 1933, Willigut joined the ranks of the SS, rising to Brigadefuhrer, and attached to prehistoric study as head of the department of RuSHA (Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt, principal race and population bureau of the SS).

 One group of the researchers grouped around Weisthor was to form the backbone of the Ahnenerbe but Weisthor, in common with many others close to him personally, never joined the Ahnenerbe which did not regard him with any seriousness. In October 1934 Weisthor became head of Section VIII, archives, of the RuSHA. Rahn made frequent visits from his home in Grunewald and got on very quickly with the much older man. From May 1935, Rahn was commissioned by civil order to join Himmler's personal office to assist Weisthor. Between them they sought to recreate a cult founded on the ancient Germanic traditions.

 However, in February, Karl Wolff, chief of Himmler's office, announced to Weisthor that he should quit his duties and he was therefore officially decommissioned of his responsibilities on 28 August 1939. Nothing in Weisthor's SS dossier indicates that he failed in his duties except that the Hitler regime was replete with petty jealousies and maybe he was a target in this respect. Weisthor's section was incorporated into the Ahnenerbe. The relationship between Rahn and Weisthor was so close that in 1939 Weisthor received an invitation to Rahn's wedding, Perhaps surprisingly, Himmler was also invited. (Rahn's fiancee was called Asta Baeschlin and was born in Holtz which may be in Switzerland. At the time of Rahn's disappearance she was around 27 years of age. Details of only one other friend of Rahn's in Germany have come up in the very brief opportunities to scan Rahn's SS files. His name was Raymond Perrier and the places associated with Perrier are Muggenbrunn (Schwarzwald), Berlin, Quedlingburg, and Freiburg/Breisgau).

 Himmler regarded Rahn as a very important member of the team. Himmler personally ordered one hundred copies of Luzifers Hofgesind and had one of the deluxe editions offered to Hitler. After Rahn's death, even with his hands full with the war and despite the paper shortages, Himmler had an additional one thousand copies printed. Rahn seemed to incarnate the highest ideals of the SS in Himmler's regard, representing a savoir-faire founded in the most fundamental knowledge of the old traditions.

 Working with Karl Maria Wiligut-Weisthor, Rahn received in 1936 his next assignment which was to visit Iceland. Rahn with twenty comrades visited Lake Laugarvatn. He spent the summer solstice in Reykholt, the birthplace of Snorri Sturlusson, the Nordic Homer, author of the Edda. He searched for evidence of Hyperborea.

 In 1937 he was sent back to Languedoc for reasons never clarified. He stayed brief time in Montsegur and then left saying he would be back in 1939. This wasn't to be. Was this 1937 trip the time when Rahn is said to have visited the Corbieres near Rennes-le-Chateau, an expedition connected with the "forbidden merchandise" in search of which the Otto Skorzeny's Das Reich team massacred the inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glame in 1944?

Rahn's Disappearance

 Current critical opinion (certainly in France) is that it is incontestable that Rahn was a Nazi. However, there is still a lot of conjecture about Rahn's supposed Jewishness. The writer E. Mila says that Rahn's Jewish status is irrefutable. Rahn's mother was Clara Margaret Hamburger and his grandfather was Simeon Hamburger, a name form frequently used by central European Jews. His maternal grandmother, Lea Cucer, was equally Jewish. Cucer comes from Cocer, a name of profession widely used by Jews of central Europe. If he was Jewish, Rahn was far from being the only Jew in National Socialism eg Frederic Heilscher and Martin Buber; also the Ahnenerbe chief Wolfram Sievers.

 Rahn began to talk freely. He opposed the coming war, believing instead that Germany and Europe should be transformed into a race of "Pure Ones" or Cathars. On February 28 1939 Rahn submitted his letter of resignation from the SS to Gruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff writing: "Unfortunately, I must ask you to intervene with the Reichsfuhrer SS (Himmler) for my immediate discharge from the SS. The reasons that have led me to this resolution, this decision, are of so grave a nature that I can only explain them to you orally".

 Rahn was dismissed from the SS on 17 March 1939, four days after his death. On May 18 1939 "Volkischer Beobachter" published Rahn's obituary signed WOLFF, SS-Gruppenfuhrer: "Due to a mountain snowstorm, last March, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Otto Rahn tragically lost his life. We weep for our late comrade, an honest SS man and an excellent author of historical and scientific works."

 On 17 July Rahn's father wrote to a writers' association, of which Rahn was a member, informing them that his son had died in a snowstorm at Ruffheim on 13 March 1939. In February 1939 Wiligut-Weisthor retired from the SS on grounds of age and ill-health. On 13 November 1939 a dossier de liquidation comprising Rahn's research files, was sent from Himmler's office to the chief of SS personnel.

 The final sentence reads: "The decision concerning the former Brigadier General Weisthor is pending". There is apparently fragmentary evidence that Rahn tried to save his life by requesting that he live out his days in the Pyrenees. The proposition is that this was refused and he was left with the options of death by suicide or by execution. On March 13 1939 Rahn disappeared. Prior to his disappearance he told friends in Fribourg that he had been "denounced".

 Some say Rahn committed suicide but why would he have taken this course? He was working on a number of projects: a book on Conrad of Marbourg (as stated in Kreuzzug gegen Gral), Promethius Unbound (sequel to Luzifers Hofgesind), According to God and to Right (a book for the French, according to Rahn's SS dossier), Laurin (a novel as per Rahn's letter to Gadal of 14.7.34) and Montsalvat and Golgotha (per letter to Weisthor 27.9.35). In addition he was preparing a grand novel "Sebastian", a 2000 page manuscript that he had been working on for several years. Rahn had told Himmler he would work at his cottage in the Black Forest. That would also improve his bronchial catarrh. (A thought: are Lorin and Sebastian the same draft work?).

 The mountain on which Rahn died, the Wilder Kaiser, is somparatively low and it is rare to find life-threatening conditions there. (However, it is 40 km from Hitler's 'eagle's nest' at Berchtesgaden, and was in the defensive zone surrounding it.) There were said by many to be no traces of Rahn's body, neither at the civic facilities at Kufstein nor at Michelstadt. There is no known tomb. Others, such as Otto Vogelsang, editor of Kreuzzug gegen Gral , believe Rahn to be buried at Mayence, giving the date of death as 10 May 1939 and interrment on 20 May. Vogelsang had dined with Rahn a few days before his death and had found Rahn to be happy and confident about the future.

 An Austrian author, Kadmon, relates that while walking towards the Totenkirchl, a promontory of the Wilderkaiser where, traditionally, war victims had come to commit suicide, he met an old man who told him that in 1939, while out climbing, he had come across Rahn's search party. The old man pointed to a small hill surrounded by saplings and told Kadmon that it was the place where the searchers had found the young man's body. There was no markings, nothing to indicate the scene. The man said that the group had searched for several days before finding in the falling snow a body. The back of the head and the shoulders were buried in the snow. He said there was something "sacred, the saintliness of a hermit, of a sage. The face displayed a great gentleness and softness; there was no sign of agony."

 In "Luzifers Hofgesind" Rahn writes: "To open the Kingdom of Lucifer, you must equip yourself with a Dietrich (skeleton-key)...I carry with me the key". Compare Dietrich also to Sepp Dietrich, commandant of the Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, of which Rahn was also said to have been a member. On 13 November 1939 a confidential note containing appendices on Otto Rahn was sent to SS Gruppenfuhrer Schmitt at the office of the Chief of Staff SS:

 APPENDIX 1 said that Rahn had been receiving a Captain's pay ever since he had been a Lieutenant.

 APPENDIX 4 said that Rahn had been "decorated" with the "Jultenchter", the Candlestick of the Winter Solstice, which certified the spirit of the SS and its nordic renewal. This was an exceptional measure for Rahn as the Jultenchter was exclusively reserved for couples and families.

 APPENDIX 5 said that Rahn had stayed at one time in one of the fourteen houses of the Lebensborn Association, dedicated to racial purity. This was a commitment to prove that one had handed over one's life to Himmler as an "homme de la SS" (Himmler's Order).

 Bernadac compares Rahn's obituary to those of 11 other SS officers who dies around the same period. In every other case the notice was signed by their family - only Rahn's is written and signed by Karl Wolff. In none of the other 11 examples is the press notice included in the officer's SS file - only in Rahn's case. In 8 of the other cases, what is included are the legal proceedings, inquest details etc - but they are not found on Rahn's file.

 Why was the letter from Rahn's father in the SS file? Stranger still, the letter is signed R. Rahn - his father's name was Karl. And the letter ends "Heil Hitler", which was usually only used by Party members. Bernadac found that no notice of death had been received by the town council of Michelstadt, Rahn's place of birth. The normal procedure was to send a notice within 30 days, and this rule was strictly applied even for soldiers dying in combat. Rahn's father was a civil servant, and would have known this rule. And there is nothing on record concerning Rahn's inheritance, which would have included royalties from his books.

 Bernadac and a fellow-researcher also went to Kufstein, the nearest town to the Wilder Kaiser. The mayor of the time remembered nothing of the discovery of the body, and there is nothing in the town's archives concerning the event. They were unable to find any records in any of the relevant towns concerning the death, recovery of the body or inquest.

OTTO RAHN AND RUDOLF RAHN: the links

 Christian Bernadac advances the theory that Otto Rahn and Rudolph Rahn, Germany's ambassador to Italy in WW2 were, in reality one and the same person, the subject of a carefully conceived cover-up within the higher echelons of the Nazi regime. In April 1941 a German diplomat was sent to Beirut, with a pro-German Frenchman named Guerard, to handle the delivery of arms to rebels in Iraq. The diplomat, chosen because of his excellent command of French and knowledge of the country, was Rudolph Rahn. He was the advisor to Abetz, the German ambassador to France, and subsequently became Nazi Germany's last ambassador to Rome. However, in both the memoirs of Jeanne de Schoutheete (the wife of the Belgian diplomat in the Lebanon) and Henri Seyrig (director of the Institut Francais in Beirut), he appears under the name Otto Rahn.

 There are some correspondences in respect of this theory that are worth looking at. On 23 February 1944 someone repaid an outstanding loan from Himmler's "black fund" to Otto Rahn in the sum of DM 5471, about £3000 in today's money. Who would think this necessary five years after the Rahn's death? Rudolph Rahn's Certificate of Aryanisation was missing from his file, a curious coincidence bearing in mind Otto Rahn's missing certificate of racial origin.

 Otto Rahn and Rudolph Rahn employed the same secretary , the former in 1932, calling her Tita, the latter in 1943 in Rome. Otto Rahn at one time wrote to Gadal saying that his secretary was "indispensible". Rudolph Rahn said he was often called or liked to be called Otto in memory of his brother who died in infancy in 1904 aged 3. Rudolph was born 16 March 1900 at Ulm.

 During his mission in the Middle East, Rudolph also went under the name of Robert Renouard. He explained to Mme Schoutheete that he chosen the name Raynouard (his initial choice, he told her, was Renoir) after a 19th-century Provencal writer, but that his superior officer had mistakenly spelt this as 'Renouard' on his papers. Otto Rahn was in a rush to leave the Hotel des Marronniers at Ussat, and in his hurry he left behind in his bedside cabinet a book of occitan poems translated by Raynourd.

 In his memoirs Rudolph Rahn writes of his mystical "jeu d'images" phenomenon he experienced as a young child. He had the "gift" as it were. He said it was always at his shoulder, impossible to escape from. He could foretell coming events. His phantoms often took the form of numbers. He could visualise numbers and geometric lines to form pathways to locate missing objects, the numbers being footprints and the lines the direction to take to find the missing item.

 These memoirs have several identical elements to Otto Rahn's own writings. For example, Otto in Lucifer writes: "Soon, my little alarm clock will ring seven times. In two hours it will be night...". In Rudolph Rahn's autobiograhy Vie Sans Repos (thought: why did Rudolph call it: Life without Rest?) writes: "The clock rings two chimes first, seven after..."

 In Vie San Repos we read that after attending University (Berlin and Heidelberg - also attended by Otto), Rudolph, like Otto, lived in Geneva where he worked as a teacher and translator. Here he met an elderly spinster, who took him to Provence. Strangely, he does not name this benefactor, who Bernadac thinks is reminiscent of the Comtesse Pujol-Murat. Rudolph Rahn was Germany's ambassador to Italy in the final days of the war. Karl Wolff at this time was head of the German military in Italy. Bernadac showed photos of Rudolph Rahn to Paul Ladame, and photos of Otto Rahn to Jeanne de Schoutheete. Both said there were certain resemblances.

RAHN'S ALLEGED PRE-CONNECTION WITH THE 1944 MASSACRE OF ORADOUR-SUR-GLAME

 Robin Mackness has written a book called: "Oradour: Massacre and Aftermath" published by Bloomsbury Books. Oradour-sur-Glame was a small village in the Limoges area that was visited by Otto Skorzeny's crack SS team: the Das Reich in 1944. The SS made a house-to-house search; they were apparently looking for gold but also for "forbidden merchandise", said to be documents/archives of some description.

 Whether the SS found anything is not clear but they concluded their visit by massacring the village; there were apparently two survivors. An SS contingent, led by Skorzeny, then went to the Corbieres, the arid region around Rennes-le-Chateau and searched the mountains and caves. It has been suggested that Otto Rahn made a previous visit to the Corbieres in the 1930's and this visit was also connected with the "forbidden merchandise".

 According to a letter recently received from France by the UK Rennes group, whose members are verifying the convenance of the letter and its author, the merchandise concerns some occult documents, apparently stolen from Hector Dagobert in the Napoleonic era by `Chef Dubien'. This member of the Dagobert family is said to be the real identity of le Comte de St Germain. Dubien was a member of the Philadelphus Society and it was he who introduced Alfred Sauniere to aristocratic circles. The inference is that Dagobert's documents and the "forbidden merchandise" are one and the same.

 According to Preston Nicholls and Peter Moon, authors of the Montauk series, a remarkable event was said to have happened in Germany in 1923: a massive time travel experiment which involved the Nazis. Key members of the Thule group collaborated with Alisteir Crowley's Lodge, the Astrum Argentinium (Order of the Silver Star of Illuminati) and a hybrid project was created called the Phisummum. This project and the purpose of the secret order behind it, the Order of the Black Sun, was time travel. Elizabeth van Buren has called WW2 a War of Time. The Black sun stood for the centre of the galaxy.

 In project Phisummum the Order of the Black Sun wanted to retrieve the Holy Grail from a past century and put it into the hands of the groomer of the Antichrist. Sex magic was employed and the Spear of Longinus was supposedly used as a magical power source. A small but distorted time window was created and all involved began to feel the overwhelming power building up.

 Later in the year Dietrich Eckart died and his successors made a botch of things and created a time rift which rippled forward to Philadelphia 12 August 1943 and to several other points in time. Is there some kind of weird synchronicity between the Philadelphus Society and the Philadelphia experiment? Preston/Nicholls go on to say that in 1939 the most adventurous Ahnenerbe experiment was set up: the harnessing of all natural and supernatural forces from modern technology to medieval black magic; from the teachings of Pythagoras to the Faustial pentagram incantation. If true was this a decisive turning point for Rahn when he consequently sought his immediate dismissal?

THE DOORWAY/HOLE/POLAR THEME

 Joscelyn Godwin writes at length in "Arktos" about the Spriritual Pole and the experience of mystical ascent to it. The mystic Persian theosophers did not situate their "Orient" towards the East but in the direction to the North, beyond the north. There is a darkness around this pole which corresponds to the shroud around one's individual spritual centre. Through self-discipline the initiate can make a Pilgrimage to this Polar Orient that is not found on maps. The Pole is also a mountain, called in Iranian lore Mount Qaf, whose ascent, like Dante's climbing of the Mountain of Purgatory, represents the individual's progress through spiritual states. The Mountain of Qaf is the Sphere of Spheres surrounding the totality of the visible cosmos; an emerald rock is the keystone of this celestial vault, the pole.

 Of course, the mountain is not a physical geographical entity because it is an allegory for individual spiritual ascent. It can be symbolized, therefore, by any place on the earth but there are earthly topographies which do have a power of which men and women may avail themselves in their Quest for enlightenment. Montsegur is clearly one such place; Pic de Canigou is another.

 There is abundant hollow earth literature on green lights, green children etc. Najm Kobra speaks of green as the colour of the pole. The pilgrim at first finds himself in a deep well and then he is suddenly illuminated by an extraordinary green light that at first shines at the mouth, then, in the course of the ascent, suffuses the whole of the well so that one is travelling up a luminous shaft "of green light because it has become the place to which desend the Angels and the divine Compassion".

 There is an old legend that Rahn recounts in "Crusade" that is very apposite. He writes of an ancient lake "entre Montsegur et la cime du Thabor". It is a lake of dark (green) waters surrounded by sheer cliff walls. It is the Lake of the Trouts (note that TROUTS contains the word OURS=bear) or the Lake of Sins. It is situated between the mountain of Saint Bartholomew (opposite Montsegur and known locally as Thabor) and the Pic de Soularac (Saint Bartholomew's twin summet).

 It is the lake where the druids threw gold, silver and precious stones in a time before Jesus. This treasure was said to be the fabled treasure of the Temple of Delphi. In 279 BCE, Brennus, the Celtic chief led two hundred thousand soldiers into Greece to raid this treasure. On the point of victory at Parnassus, a series of natural calamities: lightning storms, falling rocks, hail stones and heavy snow assailed the Brennus' troops causing mass slayings of the beseigers.

 The Oracle told the townsfolk of Delphi that Apollo would not let allow them to suffer distress. However, some accounts say that the Celts were finally victorious, stole the treasure and brought it to Toulouse (Tolosa), but because of the nature of its procurement the booty was cursed. Celtic settlers in the Montsegur area began dying in numbers of an inexplicable ailment. A man healthy in the morning could be dead by nightfall. Never before had such a malady struck in the mountains. The druids divined by the flight of the birds that the people would never get well unless the treasure was diposed of and they advised the mountain folk to throw away the Delphian spoils as gifts for the subterranean divinities, mistresses of life and death. On chariots drawn on stone wheels, the mountain people brought their riches to the lake and plunged them in the fathomless depths. Then the druids traced a magical circle around the pond.

 Immediately, all the fish perished and the waters, once green, became black. At this moment the people were cured of their terrible affliction. The legend says that all the gold and silver will belong to he who can break the magic circle. But, it warns, as soon as the finder touches these treasures he will succumb to the same malady as the old mountain-folk (and presumably perish).

 This mysterious lake in the Pyrenees, and the lake of the Grail of Wolfram von Eschenbach: are they one and the same...? Rahn writes also that a part of the Treasure of Solomon, the "Table of Solomon", was brought to Carcassone by the Visigoths in 410. Spanish
 romances say that this Table was hidden in the magical grotto of Hercules in the Pyrenees.

 The gold of Tolosa has echoes of La Toison d'Or: the Golden Fleece, and of the legend of Hercules. Hercules, after having skinned the cattle of Geryon, seduced the daughter of Bebryx, Pyrene. He then abandoned her. Pyrene, fearing the wrath of her father, fled but was met by wild beasts. In desperation Pyrene called out to Hercules but he arrived too late. She was dead. His lamentations reverberate around the grottos and caverns to the echo of the name Pyrene, such is how the range got its name. The name of Pyrene will never perish because always the mountains will carry it.

 In the Argonauts' epic adventures the Golden Fleece was hung upon a sacred oak, nature symbol of the Druids,a group so bound up in the history of the Pyrenees and the development of the Cathar faith and beliefs. Rahn posits that the Cathars were a scion of earlier Druidism converted to Christianity by missionary Manicheans.

 As in Ireland, Druidism was able to maintain itself well into the progress of Christianity in the Pyrenees. The druid Vates were the astrologers, seers and healers; the Bardes were the poets and singers. They were guardians of dualist mysteries that we cannot fathom because they were transmitted orally from master to pupil.

 TOISON D'OR = IN OT(T)O'S DO(O)R. In medieval times the Philosophers Stone was also called la Toison d'Or. Wolfram von Eschenbach had Parsifal looking for a stone, the Lapsit exillis (Lapis ex coelis), the "Desire of Paradise".

 For those on the path, the joys of paradise are to be found in the stars, the grandeur of the firmament, transmuting nature's power within one's spirit-self and creating a state of grace and balance. This is the essence of alchemic endeavour. It was not gold the old alchemists wished to find but God within. The possession of the Golden Fleece hoisted the Argonauts towards the stars. Hercules prepared himself to become one with God, to take his place in the constellations between the Lyre, the Crown, between Castor and Pollux. The good ship "Argo" which had brought the precious relic across the sea was transported to the Milky Way to join its sister stars in celebrating the infinite luminescence of God in the Heavens.

 The Argonauts were Hyperboreans. The inhabitants of Crotona in the sixth century BCE made out that Pythagoras was no other than Apollo reborn, arrived from Hyperborea to announce to mankind a new doctrine of hope and welcome. Later, Cicero saw that druidic doctrine, which included a belief in eternal life and the transmigration of souls, was Pythagorean in origin but a meld also of natural sciences and of Hindu and Babylonian affinities. The druids taught that the earth and all that grows and walks upon it is a creation of
 the God of Death, Dispater. The immortal souls was obliged to migrate from existence to existence to eventually purify itself and reconnect with its divine essence and enter the world of pure spirit. The druids' God was Belenus or Belis. This God was Apollon-Abelio, God and the Light. Dispater was the latinised name of the Prince of Darkness, Pluto, sovereign of pale souls, of the dead, and guardian of all hidden treasures. The druids held earthly treasures to no account and it was on their order, as we have seen, hat the gold of Tolosa was thrown into the lake.

 Returning to the "green" theme, Iranian philosophers refer continually to this colour: emerald rocks, giving access to emerald cities, and to the Green Island where the hidden Imam lives (compare with this with Avalon or the Island of Apples, the resting place of Arthur). All these seem to be transcripts of the same visio smaragdina (emerald vision). The cosmology of Hermes Trismegistus was written on an emerald tablet. The Taoist designation for the Pole Star is the Pivot of Jade, a green stone.

 Metaphyicians teach that green is the colour of the Philosophic Bridge; that once a person has reached a point in his earth-plane completion cycle when he is going beyond religion, asking questions on why, what, where and how (Parzifal found that the Grail castle disappeared because he did not have the wit to ask the question), then the aura takes on a beautiful emerald hue. The image of the Jade Pivot fits this Bridge concept perfectly. It is green because it is the colour of nature and it is in nature that we begin to perceive an appreciation of the beauty within. This is our Grail and Otto Rahn knew this, too.

 In Parzifal the Grail is a stone. The human heart is often compared to stone when it is unfeeling and perhaps it also resembles this inanimate state before it is enlivened by the passion of Quest. When a person's inner nature is at one with outer nature it is an emerald illumination, a Jade Pivot. From that moment on there is no going back; to borrow from Castenada, there is no retun to Ixtlan once the question has been asked: Who Am I? It is then that the heart, whose chakra colour is green, transmutes from simple stone i.e. simple flesh and blood, to an altogether higher quality of creation. It is that alchemical process which demarcates a major signpost along the mountain trail of the Grail Quest.

LES VEILLEURS/AFFRANCHIS

 Rene Schwaller, 1887-1961, organized in 1919 his Theosophical companions in Paris into a group called L'Affranchis. This group renamed itself in July of that year as Les Veilleurs. The Affranchis/Veilleurs split themselves into two groups: the "Centre Apostolique" which was Theosophical in nature, and the Mystic Group Tala translated as the `link'. The young Rudolf Hess was a member of the Veilleurs.

 Another member of this group was Oscar Vladislav de Lubicz Milozz (1877-1939). He wrote a journal for the group called "La Revue Baltique" where we read of the myth of Aryan origins on the Amber Coast of the Baltic Sea. It is not clear what connection, if any, exists between Les Veilleurs and Otto Rahn and needs further investigation.

Is there a Tibetan connection?

 The Russians came across about one thousand Tibetan corpses in the eastern sector of Berlin in 1945 dressed in German army uniforms bereft of any insignia of rank. According to Pauwels and Bergier, a small trans-Himalyan colony was established in Berlin and Munich in 1926. One of its members, a Tibetan monk known as the "man with the green gloves", was said to have "possessed the keys to the kingdom of Agarthi". This monk took a keen interest in the growing Nazi movement and gained notoriety by accurately predicting how many party members would win seats in the Reichstag. Hitler consulted with him regularly.

 Alongside the state religion of Lamaism was Tibet's aboriginal religion of Bon. The Bon-pas followed a primitive, animalistic creed full of dark rituals and spells. The Bon-pas priests had a reputation among the common people as magicians. They were atavistic dark occultists. The Thule group believed in an esoteric history of mankind and believed that knowledge of this was preserved in Tibetan monastary archives. The Nazis began to organise expeditions to Tibet when sufficient funds built up and these succeeded without interruption up to 1943.

 A little before 1880 a young lama arrived in Lhasa. He had been born in Azochozki, on the shore of Lake Baikal in Siberia, of the Mongolian Buriat race. In Tibet he was known as Comang Lobzang, later called Khende-chega and later still Tsannyis Khan-po. Also known as Ngaku-wang-dorje and Akohwan Darjilikoff. In Russia he was known as Hambro Akvan Dorzhieff or Dorjieff. This latter name is a Russian verion of the Tibetan word for thunderbolt.

 On his arrival in Tibet as a young man he entered the Drepung monastery. After years of study he became professor of metaphysics. In 1898 he was sent back to Russia. He made futher trips back and forth and returned towards the end of 1901 with a draft treaty between Tibet and Russia. The British invaded Tibet in December 1904. Dorjieff disappeared but evidence that he returned to Tibet and was visited there by Karl Haushofer in 1903, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908. Haushofer went on to found the Thule group, which was moulded on similar esoteric Tibetan groups, studying the Stanzas of Dzyan, the cornerstone of Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine".

 Haushofer also founded the Vril Society based on the Bulmer-Lytton's "The Coming Race" published in the late 1800's. There is a body of opinion that Haushofer initiated Hitler into the rites and secrets of the Japanese Zen Green Dragon Society. Notwithstanding Haushofer's role in its establishment, the Thule Gesellschaft had its origins in the Germanenorden conference held at Thale in the Harz Mountains, Pentecost, 1914. Out of this conference was born the Geheimbund (the "secret band"). Most of the original Thule group were Catholic, but several had Jewish origins.

 The group practised a form of divination using a special Tibetan `Tarot' pack, used also to keep contact with the secret master, the King of Fear. Brennan suggests that this "King" was Gurdjieff. Both Gurdjieff and Aliester Crowley are believed to have sought contact with Hitler. By the 1920's when the Thule group was formed Dorjieff was living in France. He was then known as George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. He died in 1949 aged 103 years. Stalin had been a fellow student of Gurdjieff's in the Seminary at Alexandropol.

 From 1907-10, Haushofer lived mostly in Japan where he was initiated into the Green Dragon Buddhist society. It is possible that Rasputin was also a member of this society for its lodges fringed Russia. He gave a gift to the Tsarina of a pair of small emerald green dragons, the Order's insignia, which was discovered to have been sewn into her dress in 1918.

 Alexandra, the last Tsarina, inscribed the left-hand swastika with the date 1918 on the wall of her prison quarters at Ekaterinburg where she was subsequently murdered. Her doctor, Badmaiell, was a practitioner of Tibetan medicine. The Tsarina also used the swastika as a secret sign of recognition in her correspondence. The swastika was also used by Russian monarchists who, after defeat of Germany in WW1, allied with General Ludendorff's entourage as protector to Hitler.

 Dietrich Bronder published "Bevor Hitler Kam" in 1964. He wrote of the SS expedition to Tibet set up with the express purpose of establishing a radio link between the Third Reich and the lamas. The `Stanzas of Dyan' were used as the code for all messages between Berlin and Lhasa during the war. In Wilhelm Landig's "Gotzen gegen Thule", 1971, we read the fictional account of two Nazi airmen named Recke and Reimer finding sanctuary in a secret base in Arctic Canada called Point 103. Its symbol is the Black Sun. Its number is 666. Consider this with link to Crowley and the material the Montauk volumes.

A FLEETING THOUGHT

 If, as I believe, Otto Rahn survived his "death", indeed lived through the war, does this place hold a clue to his fate....?

OTTO RAHN BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Le Mystere Otto Rahn" Christian Bernadac
 "The Grail Legend" Emma Jung
 "The Return of Arthur Conan Doyle" edited by Ivan Cooke
 "The Occult and the Third Reich" Jean-Michel Angebert
 "Nazis and the Occult" Dee Sklar
 "Trail of the Serpent" Stoddard
 "The Dawn of the Magicians" Pauwels & Bergier
 "The Lost World of Agarthi" Alec McClelland
 "Le Croisade Contre le Graal" Otto Rahn
 "Genisis: the First Book of Revelations" David Wood
 "Geneset: Target Earth" David Wood & Ian Campbell
 "Hitler and the Age of Horus" Gerald Shuster
 "La Cour de Lucifer" Otto Rahn
 "Emerald Cup-Ark of Gold" Col. Howard Buechner<
 "The Order of the S.S." Frederic Reider
 "Arktos: the Polar Myth" Joscelyn Godwin
 "Montauk Project: Experiments in Time" Preston Nicholls & Peter Moon
 "Montauk Revisited" Nicholls/Moon
 "Pyramids of Montauk: Experiments in Consciousness" Nicholls/Moon
 "The Occult Roots of Nazism" Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke<
 "Die Welt" article: `the Double Rahn & the Holy Grail' 12 May 1979
 "Storm Troopers of Satan" Michael Fitzgerald
 "Hitler's Secret Sciences" Nigel Pennick
 "The Occult Reich" H. Brennan
 "The Spear of Destiny" Trevor Ravenscroft
 "The Berkut" Joseph Heywood
 "Jules Verne: Initie et Initiateur" Michel Lamy
 excerpt from "The Magi of the North" James Webb