Karl Maria Wiligut

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Karl Maria Wiligut (born December 10, 1866 in Vienna , † January 3, 1946 in Arolsen ; pseudonyms: Karl Maria Weisthor , Jarl Widar , Lobesam ) was an Austrian occultist and SS brigade leader .

Life

Karl Maria Wiligut was baptized a Roman Catholic in Vienna and entered the Vienna cadet school at the age of 14. In 1883 he began his career in the kuk infantry regiment of the Serbian King Milan I as a private and in 1888 became a lieutenant. In 1889 he became a member of the “ Schlaraffia Lodge ”. In 1903 he published the book Seyfrieds Runen under the name Karl Maria Wiligut (Lobesam).

In 1907 he married Malwine Leurs von Treuenringen from Bozen . The two daughters Gertrud and Lotte emerged from the marriage. One of the girls' twin brothers died in childhood. This was a tragedy for Wiligut, as he longed for a male heir to be able to convey his "secret knowledge" to him.

From 1908 he is said to have cultivated contacts in Vienna with ethnic and ariosophical circles and with members of the Lanz New Templars . He was close to the Edda Society and wrote poems for their Widar booklets under the pseudonym Jarl Widar . Wiligut's ideas were similar to those of Guido von List .

During the First World War , he served on the southern and eastern fronts , was honored for his bravery and in 1917 was promoted to colonel in the Austro-Hungarian army . After the end of the war he moved to Morzg near Salzburg in 1919 , where he devoted himself to occult studies.

The information about Wiligut's life before joining the SS is very unreliable and comes mainly from circles in which he was revered or is still revered today.

Salzburg Mental Clinic (1924–1927)

In November 1924 Wiligut was admitted to the Salzburg Psychiatric Clinic because of a paraphrased psychosis with the formation of ideas about size and impairment , where he was treated until his discharge in early 1927 and in the meantime his wife was incapacitated after unsuccessful financial transactions. During his stay in the state hospital for the mentally and mentally ill , Wiligut described himself as a seer and declared that he was the only survivor of the fall of Atlantis . As a fortune teller, he played an important mediator role in anchoring the belief in the modern Atlantean myth , as an integral part of folk occultism , according to which the Aryans emerged directly from the supposedly lost Atlantean civilization. These views were later mainly kept alive in Himmler's environment. In 1925 he claimed to have found a prehistoric site that supported the thesis of world ice theory , a völkisch-occult pre- world theory of the Austrian engineer Hanns Hörbiger .

Escape to Germany (1932)

In 1932 Wiligut fled to Germany from his family because of his vandalized reputation due to his long stay in the mental hospital, where he settled in the Munich suburb of Bogenhausen . Here he continued his genealogical research and became popular among rune occultists.

Career in the SS and in the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) (from 1933)

The SS officer and member of the Neutempler order Richard Anders introduced Wiligut to Heinrich Himmler in 1933 at a conference of the Nordic Society . In October 1934 he was appointed head of the archive in the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA), where he exerted a significant influence on the Department of Prehistory. Shortly afterwards he joined the SS under the pseudonym "Karl Maria Weisthor" and became Himmler's closest advisor on matters of occultism.

On behalf of Himmler, he had to carry out prehistoric studies from 1933 to 1939. Since April 20, 1934 he was SS-Standartenführer ( honorary rank ), which corresponded to his former military rank (colonel) in the Austrian army, and was promoted to SS-Oberführer on November 9, 1934 . On November 9, 1936, Himmler awarded him the rank of SS Brigade Leader .

When Himmler and Richard Walther Darré were looking for a venerable building for the SS in Westphalia, the architect Hermann Bartels drew attention to the Wewelsburg near Paderborn on November 3, 1933 in consultation with the district president and Jutta von Oeynhausen . Wiligut was involved in the development of the SS rituals. His influence on the friend of the castle captain of the Wewelsburg, Manfred von Knobelsdorff , inspired him to revive the belief in Irminen and to organize "Germanic" wedding ceremonies for SS leaders and their brides and annual solstice and July celebrations for the SS and the villagers of Wewelsburg. For a time, Wiligut played a leading role in transforming the Wewelsburg into an SS order castle . He designed the skull ring of the SS, dealt with runes , heraldry and symbolism and claimed to have clairvoyant abilities. He also advised his personal friend Heinrich Himmler on astrology issues . Because of his influence, he was also referred to as "Himmler's Rasputin ". Wiligut laid down the ceremonial elements that were to embed the SS ideology, the goals of racial purity and territorial conquest in a sacred framework.

Wiligut advised Himmler on ideological issues, was entrusted with special tasks in the RuSHA from January 1936 and was involved in setting up the RuSHA's Prehistory and Early History department alongside his rival Alexander Langsdorff . Wiligut and Himmler shared an interest in occult, esoteric and mythological topics. Wiligut claimed of himself that he and his family descended directly from the Aesir and were their last remaining tradition bearers.

Release from the SS (1939)

In August 1939 he had to leave the SS because he was increasingly being exposed as a charlatan and because of his drug and alcohol abuse he could no longer be kept in the SS. At that time, his stay in a mental hospital in Salzburg from 1924 to 1927 became public knowledge, as was the incapacitation of his wife in 1925. In addition, Hitler had now taken a public position against occultism. Nevertheless, Himmler did not completely give up his relationship with Wiligut and sought his advice several times. In the summer of 1940 Wiligut designed a grave sign for fallen SS members. Also in 1940 he directed Himmler's interest to archaeological finds from the Neolithic in the valley of the Iraqi Little Zab in the province of Erbil . Wiligut said that he had found the fantasy place " Atlantis " here and that he himself came from one of the magicians of the time. After his discharge from the SS, Wiligut lived for a few years in the medieval town of Goslar , to which he felt very attached.

Awards

Works

  • Karl Maria Wiligut: Seyfried's runes. Friedrich Schalk Verlag, Vienna 1903.
  • Karl Maria Wiligut: Representation of the development of mankind from the secret tradition of our Asa Uana clan Uiligotis. (Federal Archives Berlin NS 19/3671)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Armin Mohler : The Conservative Revolution in Germany 1918–1932. A manual. Supplementary volume. With corrigenda to the main volume . Darmstadt 1989, p. 90 u. 92.
  2. ^ A b Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 293.
  3. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of National Socialism. marixverlag, 2004, p. 159f.
  4. ↑ a b Stefanie von Schnurbein: Religion as cultural criticism. Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1992, ISBN 3-533-04582-X , p. 113.
  5. ↑ Rüdiger Sünner: The Black Sun. Unleashing and abuse of the myths in National Socialism and right esotericism . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1999, ISBN 3-451-05205-9 , pp. 69-70.
  6. ↑ a b c d Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: In the shadow of the black sun: Aryan cults, esoteric National Socialism and the politics of demarcation. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-86539-185-0 , p. 283.
  7. ^ Stefanie von Schnurbein: Religion as cultural criticism . Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1992, ISBN 3-533-04582-X , p. 114.
  8. ↑ Examples of ONT writings on Wiligut are Rudolf J. Mund: Der Rasputin Himmlers. The Wiligut saga . Volkstum-Verlag et al., Vienna et al. 1982, ISBN 3-85342-035-4 ; Rudolf J. Mund, Gerhard von Werfenstein: Myth Black Sun. Karl Maria Wiligut-Weisthor, the holy grail and the secret of the Wewelsburg . Hans Herzig, Books on Demand 2004, ISBN 3-8334-1122-8 .
  9. ↑ a b Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The occult roots of National Socialism. marixverlag, 2004, p. 159.
  10. ↑ Sabine Doering-Manteuffel : The occult. A success story in the shadow of the Enlightenment. From Gutenberg to the World Wide Web . Siedler, Munich 2008. p. 203.
  11. ^ Julian Strube, Nazism and the Occult, in: Christopher Partridge (ed.), The Occult World , London / New York: Routledge 2015, pp. 336–347, here p. 340.
  12. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2008, p. 292.
  13. ^ A b Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2008, p. 295.
  14. ^ Karl Hüser : Wewelsburg 1933 to 1945. Cult and terror site of the SS. A documentation . 2nd Edition. Bonifatius, Paderborn 1987, ISBN 3-87088-534-3 , p. 16 f.
  15. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology. P. 187; Daniela Palumbo: Karl Maria Wiligut. 1992.
  16. ↑ See on this Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2008, pp. 292–295.
  17. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2008, p. 292 f.
  18. ↑ Uta Halle : "The Externsteine ​​are Germanic until further notice!" Prehistoric archeology in the field of tension between national socialist science and politics. Bielefeld 2002, pp. 62f., 77, 355-358; Dirk Mahsarski: Herbert Jankuhn (1905–1990). A German prehistorian between National Socialist ideology and scientific objectivity. Rahden 2011, pp. 28, 176f.
  19. ↑ Rüdiger Sünner: The Black Sun. Unleashing and abuse of the myths in National Socialism and right esotericism . Herder, Freiburg 1999, ISBN 3-451-05205-9 , pp. 69-70.
personal data
SURNAME Wiligut, Karl Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weisthor, Karl Maria; Widar, Jarl; Praise
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian officer, National Socialist esotericist
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1946
Place of death Arolsen