Hitler's Master of the Dark Arts

by Bill Yenne

  The first stage of the renovations was complete on September 22, 1934, and Schloss Wewelsburg was officially turned over to Himmler and the SS.

  Officially, the place was to be called SS Schule Haus Wewelsburg. It was an understated name, Völkisch to the point of being folksy, which could be translated as “SS Schoolhouse.” The phrase actually meant “the SS School at Wewelsburg House,” but if there had been a plan for Wewelsburg to be an SS Junkerschule like the one at Bad Tölz, this plan was quickly superseded by Himmler’s scheme to turn it into what has been characterized as a Black Camelot.

  The focal point of castle was a 14,500-square-foot dining hall, configured as a meeting place for the Black Knights of the SS Round Table. Each of the chosen knights would have his own high-back, pig-leather chair, with his name engraved on a silver plate. Here, at this table, SS officers would sit and meditate in a trancelike state. The overall theme of the interior decorators naturally revolved around pagan symbolism—the swastika, the SS “lightning bolts,” and the runes of the Armanen Futharkh.

  In the heart of Wewelsburg was a 14,500-square-foot dining hall in which the Black Knights of the SS each sat in his own high-back, pig leather chair, with his name engraved on a silver plate. Photo by Kris Simoens, used by permission

  In the great hall there would be dining and rituals, performed in the torchlit splendor. Pagan rituals replaced traditional religious holiday celebrations. For example, the winter solstice replaced Christmas and was celebrated with feasts of fish, goose, and wild boar—chosen to represent the primordial elements of water, air, and ground. The fourth element, fire, was present in the roaring conflagration that warmed the room and cooked the meat.

  SS Eheweihen, or wedding ceremonies, were also held at Wewelsburg, as were pagan baptisms. Over the coming years, many of these would be conducted by Wiligut. Whenever he was in residence at Wewelsburg, he functioned as sort of a high priest of the SS neo-pagan religion.

  One can imagine the castle as the setting for seances that would have done Madame Blavatsky proud. There is no record that Heinrich Himmler ever communicated directly with the spirit of his former self in castle, but this is certainly grist for the many fanciful stories that have swirled about the place over the years. The rumor mill has been further stoked by the fact that Himmler drew a curtain of secrecy over Schloss Wewelsburg, forbidding the interior of the castle and the rituals to be photographed. Only a handful of photographs exist, probably taken by the architects to show specific details to the Reichsführer SS during construction.

  Among the stories about Schloss Wewelsburg, suggested by the Round Table parallel, were those that intimate that it was the site of rituals involving either a pagan Holy Grail or the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend. (Those who consider the works of Richard Wagner to function as an operatic soundtrack to Germanic mysticism need no reminder that Wagner’s opera Parzival—based on the thirteenth-century work of the same name by Wolfram von Eschenbach—is the story of the Round Table’s knight Percival and his quest for the original Holy Grail.) Indeed, one of the many oak-paneled reading rooms constructed within the castle for the study of Germanic esoterica was named Gral, the German word for “grail.”

  Officially known as SS Schule Haus Wewelsburg, the sacred castle of the SS Order was also intended to serve as a pagan seminary for the study of Germanic mysticism. Photo by Kris Simoens, used by permission

  The presence of these reading rooms demonstrates that the purpose of Schloss Wewelsburg was as a center of Germanic studies. In addition to Gral, there was a room named Arier, meaning “Aryan,” and one named Deutsche Sprache, named for the German language. Others were named for great medieval Germanic warriors, including König (King) Heinrich der Löwe, Christian the Younger, Widukind, and of course, Himmler’s own former self, König Heinrich I der Vogler. As if there were any doubt that Himmler and his cronies had a Round Table parallel in mind for Schloss Wewelsburg, there was a room named König Artus, for King Arthur himself. Curiously, there was also a room named for Christopher Columbus.

  In the wings of the reconstructed Wewelsburg, apartments were prepared for the use of SS leaders, including Himmler, who visited at least two or three times each year. Far beneath the main castle, in the ancient crypt, with its stone walls five feet thick, was the circular grotto with a large fire pit in the center and a swastika centered in the ceiling. Known as the Obergruppenführersaal (General’s Hall), it was surrounded by twelve pillars, twelve niches, and a sun wheel with twelve spokes. The number twelve was oft-used in Nordic mythology. (Twelve rivers are mentioned in ancient Nordic scriptures, for example.) This room was set aside for the worship of glorious SS martyrs, making the crypt a sort of Black Valhalla. Ashes of such SS personnel were taken here, and it has been suggested that a vault for Himmler himself may have been built here.

  In her 1977 book The Nazis and the Occult, Dusty Sklar mentions that she learned of secret U.S. government interviews with SS men who observed human sacrifices at Wewelsburg. According to C. Scott Littleton, an anthropology professor at Occidental College in California, SS men were beheaded, and their blood was drunk from the severed heads as part of a ritual related to the “Secret Masters of the Caucasus.” In addition to his academic work, Littleton is well known in esoteric circles for his study of paranormal phenomena, the Knights of the Round Table, whom he believes were real, and the Holy Grail.

  Himmler had a personal safe installed at a secret location in the basement of Schloss Wewelsburg’s west tower. The whereabouts were said to be known only to the Reichsführer SS himself and to the commandant at Wewelsburg.

  To be the first burghauptmann, or commandant, of Wewelsburg, Himmler picked SS Obersturmbannführer Manfred von Knobelsdorff, a friend of Wiligut’s who happened to be Walther Darré’s brother-in-law. While Wewelsburg never became a school with a practical leadership curriculum, Knobelsdorff oversaw its transformation into a pagan seminary for the likes of Armanen and Ariosophic mysticism. It would be an institute for Germanische Zweckforschung (Germanic Applied Research) and a center for Völkisch archeology projects in Germany and adjacent countries. In addition to the reading rooms, or study halls, there were a photo lab, archives, and a library with a growing collection of musty old tomes and rare documents related to Germanic lore and the arcane sciences. A planetarium was planned, but never built.

  Among the SS Schule Haus Wewelsburg’s “faculty” were medieval historian and Völkisch folklorist Karl (a.k.a. Karlernst) Lasch, as well as Völkisch archaeologists Wilhelm Jordan and Hans Peter des Coudres, who conducted research projects in the area, using Wewelsburg as a base.

  As had Guido von List at Carnuntum and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels at Bad Werfenstein, commandant Knobelsdorff and his successor, Siegfried Taubert, presided over solstice events at Wewelsburg, and Himmler and Wiligut attended from time to time.

  The art that decorated the SS Schule Haus Wewelsburg consisted of a profusion of paintings and objects celebrating Völkisch, as well as heroic Nazi and SS, ideals. These included works by portraitist Wolfgang Willrich, as well as porcelain statuettes by Dr. Karl Diebitsch, a Waffen SS Obersturmbannführer who, as an industrial designer, had been responsible for the dagger and chained scabbard that was standard gear for every SS man.

  By 1936, Diebitsch had gone into business with the industrialist Franz Nagy, manufacturing porcelain ware at a factory near Munich. Their firm, Porzellan Manufaktur Allach, produced more than two hundred different patterns of statuettes depicting various Nazi and SS themes. These included SS men in heroic poses and were designed by Diebitsch and others, including Theodor Karner. Himmler was a staunch patron of their work, and he granted Nagy and Diebitsch permission to use the SS lightning bolt runes as a maker’s mark on the bases of their ware. The design differed from the SS insignia in that the two Sig runes were interlocking, rather than side-by-side.

  Wolfgang Willrich’s credentials as a Nazi artist were also quite impeccable, as he had played a leading role in organizing the
1937 Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in Munich. This infamous art show had been arranged at Hitler’s behest and was designed to mock modern or avant-garde art, or art that was deemed insulting to Völkisch ideals such as motherhood, heroism, or rural life. As an artist himself, Willrich had been commissioned by Walther Darré to create portraits illustrating and celebrating Völkisch German peasantry and those blonde, blue-eyed physical features that Darré and Himmler considered representive of the Aryan archetype. Willrich’s first book of portraits, appropriately entitled Bauerntum als Heger Deutschen Blutes (Peasantry as the Keeper of German Blood) was published in 1935 by Blut und Boden Verlag (Blood and Soul Publishing) and was easy to find on coffee tables around Wewelsburg. Another Willrich collection, Des Edlen Ewiges Reich (The Noble, Eternal Reich), was published four years later.

  In 1937, a year after his millennium celebration for Heinrich I, Heinrich Himmler was back in black, this time to reinter the remains of Heinrich I in a special crypt at the Quedlinburger Dom. Himmler (center in helmet) staged another dramatic procession, accompanied by such Nazi luminaries as Martin Bormann and Dr. Robert Ley, as well as dozens of SS officers. As stirring martial music was played, they marched through the castle and cathedral complex, their route flanked by an honor guard of hundreds of SS men in full black regalia. U.S. National Archives

  Even as the artwork was being moved in and the SS elite sat in the dining hall to savor their goose and boar, construction work continued around the castle. The southern and western of the three wings were rebuilt between 1934 and 1938 by Reichsarbeitsdienst crews, and the third wing was renovated between 1936 and 1938. The biggest focus was on the complete restoration of the north tower, the focal point of SS ritual at Schloss Wewelsburg.

  Meanwhile, in 1935, an ironworks was even built on site for the manufacture of wrought iron fittings that were used throughout the castle. Dishes and flatware were designed and manufactured specifically for the Schloss Wewelsburg dining hall, to be used nowhere else.

  Karl Maria Wiligut was no stranger to the halls at Wewelsburg during these years, as he was a ubiquitous fixture throughout the SS universe. He continued to serve as the mystic advisor to the Reichsführer SS, and he was even called upon to design the official SS Ehrenring (SS honor ring) for the Black Knights. Known as the Totenkopfring because of the death’s head that was placed at the center, it was initially conceived by Himmler as a means of recognizing the founding members of his order of dark warriors, but it was eventually awarded to most senior SS leaders.

  Reading Rooms at SS Schule Haus Wewelsburg, and the Significance of Their Namesakes to the Imagination of Heinrich Himmler and the Mythology of the SS

  1. Arier: The name literally translates as “Aryan.”

  2. König Artus: Named for King Arthur, the mythical British king of the legendary Round Table. He and his table are said to be prototypes for Heinrich Himmler’s conception of Wewelsburg as a mystical meeting place of his own black knights.

  3. Christoph Kolumbus: Named for Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the Italian navigator working for Spanish monarchs who confirmed the existence of a continental landmass west of Europe and east of Asia.

  4. Deutsche Sprache: The name literally means “German Language,” an important element in Germanic identity.

  5. Deutscher Orden: The name literally means “German Order,” but it has been suggested that it is a reference to the Teutonic Order (the Teutonic Knights, or Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens [the Order of the Brotherhood of the German House, St. Mary’s Hospital]) in Jerusalem. Founded in the twelfth century during the Crusades, the order was often seen by the mystic German nationalists of the twentieth century as the original Germanic secret society of warriors.

  6. Fridericus: The term is generally assumed to refer to Frederick the Great, or Friedrich II of Prussia (1712–1786), probably Germany’s most prominent and most highly regarded monarch.

  7. Gral: The name literally translates as “Grail,” meaning the Holy Grail. This confirms the interest in the grail on the part of Heinrich Himmler and the SS.

  8. König Heinrich: The name literally translates as “King Henry,” and the specific Henry is Heinrich I der Vogler (Henry I the Fowler) (876–936), who Heinrich Himmler believed himself to be in a previous life. The duke of Saxony, Heinrich I is considered the founding father of the Ottonian Dynasty of German kings and emperors and first king of the medieval German state.

  9. Heinrich der Löwe: The name literally translates as “Henry the Lion” and is a reference to the Heinrich (1129–1195) who ruled as both Heinrich III, Duke of Saxony, and Heinrich XII, Duke of Bavaria.

  10. Jahrlauf: The term literally means “Annual Run,” and is translated to mean the “Course of the Seasons.”

  11. Reichsführer SS: Heinrich Himmler’s title as the supreme leader of the Schutzstaffel.

  12. Reichsführerzimmer: The term literally means the “Room of the Reichsführer,” or the supreme leader of the Schutzstaffel. It is the name of Heinrich Himmler’s room.

  13. Runen: The term literally means “Runes,” a subject of obvious interest within SS mysticism. Runes were also a key element in the decorating scheme at Wewelsburg.

  14. Tolle Christian: The term, which literally means “Mad Christian,” refers to Christian the Younger (1599–1626), the duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and the bishop of Halberstadt. A German military leader during the Thirty Years’ War (1616–1648), he had a reputation of being a dangerous maniac. It is recalled too that the Braunschweig-Lüneburg uniform used a totenkopf, or death’s head, insignia—just like that used on SS uniforms.

  15. Westfalen: The German name is that of the German state of Westphalia, where Wewelsburg itself was located.

  16. Widukind: The name is probably a reference to the Saxon warrior leader Widukind (a.k.a. Wittekind, or “White Child”), who lived in the later eighth and early ninth centuries in the area around Wewelsburg and Paderborn. A principal antagonist of Charlemagne, he came to represent Saxon independence. Through the years, he became an archetype of the Germanic warrior hero. There is a story that he had one blue eye and one black eye—a physical characteristic that has esoteric mystical significance to some. His coat of arms was a black horse, which he exchanged for a white one after his conversion to Christianity. His white horse appeared on the flag of Westphalia and still appears on the flags of the modern German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.

  Like many ceremonial items that Himmler introduced into the SS, the Totenkopfring was firmly grounded in ancient Germanic mysticism, right down to its Armanen runes. They were straight from the “vision” of Guido von List, although Wiligut had been dabbling in creating a runic system of his own. On the ring, the death’s head was flanked by Sig runes. The SS “lightning bolts” appeared at the back, opposite the death’s head, flanked by a rune that was a combination of the Tyr and Os runes from List’s Armanen Futharkh. The iconography was rounded out with a swastika on one side, and the rune Hagal, symbolizing conviction and esprit de corps, on the other.

  Approximately 14,500 of the rings were manufactured by the Gahr jewelry firm in Munich between 1938 and October 1944, when production was halted because of the economic difficulties of World War II. Each ring was engraved with the name of the individual to whom it was presented and the date it was issued. Himmler later decreed that the Totenkopfrings of deceased SS men should be returned to Wewelsburg, where they were to be enshrined as a symbol of their owners’ eternal membership in the order of the SS.

  Heinrich Himmler’s long-term plan for Schloss Wewelsburg involved its becoming the center of a vast complex that was to be called the Zentrum der Neuen Welt (Center of the New World) by the 1960s. The Zentrum was never built, although blueprints and architectural models still exist to show the monumental scope of this scheme. The north tower was to be the hub of a great semicircular complex half a mile in diameter, surrounded by sixty-foot-high stone walls, and punctuated by eighteen to
wers. It was to have been a Nazi Stonehenge.

  Within the complex would be large, stark buildings, including the Saal des Hohen Gerichtes der SS (Hall of the High Court of the SS), accommodations for various levels of SS hierarchy, and even cultivated land to appeal to the Völkisch predilections of these people. Also inside the semicircular complex, interior walls would extend from the two walls of the triangular castle that met at the north tower. As viewed from the air, these radiating walls would form a giant arrowhead or spear point, with the north tower as its point.

  In turn, this semicircle was to have been surrounded by a highway circle nearly a mile in diameter. A broad boulevard lined with four rows of trees would have in turn connected this highway with the autobahn leading to the city of Kassel. This boulevard was aligned in such a way as to visually form the shaft that attached to the spear point. This spear, of course, pointed north, toward the mythological origins of the Germanic race in the imaginary land of Thule.

  According to the tale that has circulated in pop-mythological circles for decades, the Wewelsburg complex spear motif represented the so-called Spear of Destiny. Also known as the Holy Lance, this weapon was said to have been used by a Roman legionnaire (named Longinus in some legends) to pierce the side of Jesus Christ during the Crucifixion. According to various stories, the lance was preserved and later recovered as a holy relic. There, the story forks. In one version, the spear was brought back to France during the Crusades by King Louis IX (later St. Louis) and preserved for over 500 years until it disappeared during the French Revolution. In an alternate story, the lance was in Germany at the time of Otto III, but taken to Vienna during the French Revolution. Adolf Hitler is said to have seen this lance in Vienna, and he was said to have believed the story that if he possessed it, he would rule the world. He later got his hands on it, but never ruled the world. Himmler’s SS architects were so taken with their Führer’s fantasy that they designed the Spear of Destiny motif into their never-realized site plan for Wewelsburg.