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The Thule-Gesellschaft (Thule Society) was founded August 17, 1918, by Rudolf von Sebottendorff. Like many other groups, the Thule Society was part of the völkisch movement in Germany around the turn of the century, which was interested in the national identity of the German people. The society's original name was Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum (Study Group for German Antiquity), but it soon started to disseminate anti-republican and anti-Semitic propaganda.
It had some members from the top echelons of the Nazi Party, including Rudolf Heß. Although Adolf Hitler himself was not a member, Dietrich Eckhart, who was a member, coached Hitler in public speaking. Hitler later dedicated Mein Kampf to Eckhart.
Its press organ was the Münchener Beobachter (Munich Observer) which later became the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer).
Thule beliefs
A primary focus of Thule-Gesellschaft was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. "Thule" was a land located by Greco-Roman geographers in the north of Europe. "Ultima Thule," ("most distant Thule") mentioned by the Roman poet Vergil in his epic poem Aeneid, was the far northern segment of Thule and is generally understood to mean Scandinavia.
The Thulists also believed in the hollow earth theory. Thule's ultimate goal was to prove that the Aryan race came from a lost continent, perhaps Atlantis.
Rudolf von Sebottendorf
Rudolf von Sebottendorf was deeply influenced by Sufi mysticism, other Eastern philosophies, and in particular, the writings of Madame Blavatsky. He used Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine to launch his own recreation of ancient Germanic myth, positing a coming historical moment in which he proposed that the Aryan race would be restored to prior glories by the appearance of a race of Supermen. Von Sebottendorf eventually founded the Thule Society, which was in some ways a precursor of the National-Socialist German Workers' Party.
The Thule Society, founded shortly after the end of World War I, espoused ideas of extreme nationalism, race mysticism, virulent anti-Semitism, and the occult. It attracted about 250 ardent followers in Munich and about 1500 in greater Bavaria. Thule agents infiltrated armed formations of the Communist Party in Munich and plotted to destroy the party, hatching plans to kidnap the party's leader, Kurt Eisner, and launching an attack against Munich's Communist government on April 30, 1919.
The Society's founder Sebottendorf was a Freemason in the Grand Orient of Turkey. The equalitarian doctrine of Freemasonry was completely incompatible with the racial idealism of the organization that Sebottendorf had founded, raising the question of where Sebottendorf's loyalty really lay. When Sebottendorf was accused of allowing the names of several key Thule Society members to fall into the hands of the Communists, resulting in the execution of seven members after the attack on the Munich government in April 1919, he fled Germany for Switzerland and then Turkey.
The Thule Society had started its own newspaper, Münchener Beobachter, in 1918, and eventually approached the organizer Anton Drexler to develop links between the Society and various extreme right workers' organizations in Munich. Drexler was instrumental in merging the Thule Society with a workers' party that he was involved with. The merged organization became known as the München Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP). It was the DAP that Adolf Hitler was introduced to in 1919. By April 1, 1920, the DAP had been reconstituted as the National-Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).
Sebottendorf returned to Germany in January 1933, but fled again in 1934. He became an agent of the German military in Istanbul during the period 1942–1945 but apparently was really working for the British military as a double agent. Von Sebottendorf allegedly committed suicide by jumping into the Bosphorus on May 8, 1945.
Members
Prominent members of the Thule Gesellschaft were Dietrich Eckhart, Gottfried Feder, Hans Frank, Karl Harrer, Rudolf Hess, and Julius Streicher.
Status during the Third Reich
After Hitler came to power, secret societies were suppressed. Thule was one of these.
Nonetheless, some of the Thule's teachings appeared in the books of Alfred Rosenberg. Also, many of the occult ideas found favor with Heinrich Himmler who, unlike Hitler, had a great interest in mysticism.
Fantastic Claims about the Society
Like the Ahnenerbe section of the SS, and due to its occult background, the Thule Society has become the center of many conspiracy theories concerning the Third Reich. Such theories include the creation of spacecraft and secret weapons. Because a member, Dietrich Eckhart, had helped Hitler with his speaking skills, some have even suggested that the society somehow granted him magic powers that contributed to his later success.
Some believe they sent expeditions to remote parts of the earth in search of the entrances to the inner world where they could contact ancient underground civilizations who worship the Black Sun.
It is also claimed that Thule-Gesellschaft possessed a psychic, one Maria Orsic, who convinced them that the Aryan race didn't originate on the Earth, but came from Aldebaran in Taurus — some sixty-five light years away.
It is further suggested that Vril, Thule-Gesellschaft, and DHvSS (Men of the Black Stone) all joined together at some point (perhaps 1919). DHvSS is said to have worshipped a German mountain goddess "Isias" as well as the Schwarzer Stein (Black Stone).
See also
Literature
- Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology, New York University Press 1994, ISBN 0814730604
- Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, Penguin Books Ltd 2001, ISBN 0140133631
- Hermann Gilbhard, Die Thule-Gesellschaft, Kiessling Verlag 1994, ISBN 3930423006 (in german)