Grail

Hi, Jeanne! 
I congratulate you on the release of your book White Lie. This is a great event for all who are familiar with the work, searching and life of Otto Wilhelm Rahn. When did you first hear of him?

Jeanne:
The first time I heard of Otto Rahn was probably during my research of the history of Montségur and the Cathars in connection with Grail lore. I never studied the man himself and only knew what most people know; that he researched Grail lore, visited Montségur and was working for Himmler as a relic hunter in a pre-war Germany. It wasn't until 2008 that a friend sent me "Crusade against the Grail" in English, followed by "Lucifer's Court" and Nigel Graddon's "Otto Rahn, Quest for the Holy Grail". I was thinking of writing a thriller book at that time about the 1st century, and the mysteries of the Languedoc. I had already done a lot of research for the book, but didn't get around to actually writing it, because the financial crisis had made me and my husband work 7 days a week to make a living. In 2011 I first had the chance to sit down properly and started writing in January. I would write almost 18 to 20 hours a day for several months and Otto slowly became one of the key players in the book.

Publicity shot for Crusade against the Grail<

The Secret of Otto Rahn - Relic Hunter

The nineteen thirties, Nazi Germany. Organisations like the Nordische Gesellschaft and the Thule Gesellschaft were researching the origin of the Germanic people, the Arian race. Obsessed with the ancient cultures which connected their ancestors, they searched all corners of the earth trying to find relics and remains of these old civilizations. Relic hunter Otto Rahn seached for the Grail treasure. Here, in Occitania.

Rahn visited Occitania many times and stayed for months at the time during 1929 - 1932. In '32 he leased a hotel called 'Les Maronniers' in Ussat-les-Bains. On the photo we see him entertaining his mother in the garden of the hotel. He is wearing a sweater which his mum nitted for him, showing the symbol of the Thule Gesell-schaft of which he was a member. When the hotel went bankrupt, he had to leave France.

In February 2007, Montserrat Rico Góngora published “The Desecrated Abbey”, in which he claimed that Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s second-in-command and head of the Nazi SS, had made a secret wartime mission to an abbey in Spain, in search of the Holy Grail. Góngora even interviewed Andreu Ripol Noble, a former monk and the only person that spoke German, who was ordered by his superiors to guide Himmler during the visit in 1940. Ripol related that Himmler came to Montserrat inspired by Richard Wagner’s opera “Parsifal”, which mentions that the Holy Grail could be kept in “the marvellous castle of Montsalvat in the Pyrenees” – the mountain range that marks the border between France and Spain.