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I would trace the genesis of Hitler’s Monsters to three distinct influences. The first was my childhood love of Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics––Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four––which, as illustrated by the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,are replete with themes of Nazi occultism and border science.The second was a conversation with my thesis advisor early in graduate school, when he noted that he was advising a dissertation on German occultism (Science for the Soul). The third influence was observing the mid-2000s resurgence in rightwing populism across Europe and North America, seemingly fueled by recourse to esoteric and supernatural thinking. The rest, as they say, is history.
For those interested in a compelling work of fiction built loosely around Nazism and the occult, Michael Chabon’sThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is the perfect novel.
Whether it’s one of the protagonists, a young Jewish magician, escaping Nazi-occupied Central Europe in the coffin of the “Golem of Prague” or the eponymous cousins finding success with their own comic book series infused by contemporary esoterica, Kavalier & Clayevokes the world in which young, first and second generation Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe created the Marvel and DC superheroes and super(natural) villains, often allied with the Third Reich, that have defined our popular culture for the past eighty years.
Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic - from the author of 'Wonder Boys'.
One night in 1939, Josef Kavalier shuffles into his cousin Sam Clay's cramped New York bedroom, his nerve-racking escape from Prague finally achieved. Little does he realise that this is the beginning of an extraordinary friendship and even more fruitful business partnership. Together, they create a comic strip called 'The Escapist', its superhero a Nazi-busting saviour who liberates the oppressed…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I would trace the genesis of Hitler’s Monsters to three distinct influences. The first was my childhood love of Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics––Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four––which, as illustrated by the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,are replete with themes of Nazi occultism and border science.The second was a conversation with my thesis advisor early in graduate school, when he noted that he was advising a dissertation on German occultism (Science for the Soul). The third influence was observing the mid-2000s resurgence in rightwing populism across Europe and North America, seemingly fueled by recourse to esoteric and supernatural thinking. The rest, as they say, is history.
Although there is no longer a shortage of scholarship on the occult or supernatural before 1945, Monica Black’s Demon Haunted Landis the first major history in English to investigate the afterlife of these cultural and intellectual traditions in the early years of the West German Federal Republic.
Beautifully written and based on extensive archival research, a Demon Haunted Landshows how witchcraft, the occult, and a belief in miracles played an important role, alongside democratic stabilization and the so-called “Economic Miracle”, in helping Germans work through the trauma of defeat and legacies of the Third Reich in a new postwar reality.
“Evocative. . . . Epic. . . . Chock-full of colorful anecdotes and charismatic figures, A Demon-Haunted Land not only offers a brilliant rethinking of postwar German history, but also asks us to see the irrational as an integral part of modernity.” ―Boston Review
In the aftermath of World War II, a succession of mass supernatural events swept through war-torn Germany. A messianic faith healer rose to extraordinary fame, prayer groups performed exorcisms, and enormous crowds traveled to witness apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Most strikingly, scores of people accused their neighbors of witchcraft, and found themselves in turn hauled…
I would trace the genesis of Hitler’s Monsters to three distinct influences. The first was my childhood love of Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics––Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four––which, as illustrated by the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,are replete with themes of Nazi occultism and border science.The second was a conversation with my thesis advisor early in graduate school, when he noted that he was advising a dissertation on German occultism (Science for the Soul). The third influence was observing the mid-2000s resurgence in rightwing populism across Europe and North America, seemingly fueled by recourse to esoteric and supernatural thinking. The rest, as they say, is history.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s Occult Roots of Nazism is arguably the first scholarly monograph to take the relationship between occultism and Nazism seriously, providing a fascinating overview of the “secret Aryan cults” and “Ariosophic” beliefs that ostensibly influenced Nazi ideology.
While Goodrick-Clarke stops short of drawing a direct connection between prewar occult doctrines and Nazi policies during the Third Reich– indeed, his study concludes in 1935––no historian before or since has done as thorough a job, based on copious empirical research, of chronicling the eclectic and ubiquitous occult underground that helped shape the interwar folkish movement that produced Nazism.
Reveals how Nazism was influenced by powerful occult sects that thrived in Germany and Austria almost fifty years before Hitler's rise to power
Over half a century after the defeat of the Third Reich, Nazism remains a subject of extensive historical inquiry, general interest, and, alarmingly, a source of inspiration for resurgent fascism around the world. Goodrick-Clarke's powerful and timely book traces the intellectual roots of Nazism back to a number of influential occult and millenarian sects in the Habsburg Empire during its waning years. These millenarian sects-principally the Ariosophists-espoused a mixture of popular nationalism, Aryan racism, and occultism to…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I would trace the genesis of Hitler’s Monsters to three distinct influences. The first was my childhood love of Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics––Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four––which, as illustrated by the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,are replete with themes of Nazi occultism and border science.The second was a conversation with my thesis advisor early in graduate school, when he noted that he was advising a dissertation on German occultism (Science for the Soul). The third influence was observing the mid-2000s resurgence in rightwing populism across Europe and North America, seemingly fueled by recourse to esoteric and supernatural thinking. The rest, as they say, is history.
Corinna Treitel’s Science for the Souldid for the occult what Goodrick-Clarke’sOccult Roots of Nazismdid for Ariosophy, providing the first comprehensive account of the wide array of occult doctrines and esoteric sciences that flourished in Germany and Austria at the turn of the twentieth century.
While she does include a chapter on occultism in the Third Reich, Treitel is careful not to blame occultism for Nazism, showing how Theosophy and Anthroposophy (the progenitors of Ariosophy), astrology, parapsychology, spiritualism, and other esoteric doctrines provided a socially and politically diverse group of Germans a range of alternative beliefs and practices to help make sense of a modernizing, post-industrial, “disenchanted” world.
One of the two best books, with Anne Harrington’s Reenchanted Science, on the history of German occultism and “border science”.
Germany's painful entry into the modern age elicited many conflicting emotions. Excitement and anxiety about the "disenchantment of the world" predominated, as Germans realized that the triumph of science and reason had made the nation materially powerful while impoverishing it spiritually. Eager to enchant their world anew, many Germans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries responded by turning to a variety of paranormal beliefs and practices-including Theosophy, astrology, psychical research, graphology, dowsing, and spirit healing. No mere fringe phenomenon, the German occult movement had a truly national presence, encompassing hundreds of clubs, businesses, institutes, and publishers providing and…
I am a historian of twentieth century Germany and the Holocaust, but I am also a voracious consumer of popular culture. How do I justify spending so much time watching and analyzing horror and science fiction film and television? Well, write a book about it, of course. The first thing I realized is that many other brilliant scholars have thought about why this imagery permeates contemporary culture, even if I asked different questions about why. I hope you are as inspired and enlightened by this book list as I was.
Eric Kurlander is a brilliant historian of modern Germany who finally treats this topic with the seriousness it deserves. Lots of charlatans and amateurs on the History Channel love to speculate about the Nazis and the occult, but Kurlander brings a historian’s rigor to the subject and reveals a complex relationship between the supernatural and the Nazi worldview. Among his findings is that key Nazi figures used the vast propaganda machinery, including film, to depict its “racial enemies” as monstrous. Kurlander also breaks down absurd beliefs like World Ice Theory and determines the truth behind Hitler’s fascination with the “Spear of Destiny.”
The definitive history of the supernatural in Nazi Germany-the occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by the Third Reich in the service of power
"[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media."-Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
"A careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits."-National Review
The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler's personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however,…
When I was a kid at school, I was told that I had no imagination. I wrote a short essay on what I did at the weekend and put my heart and soul into it. I handed in my homework, and I remember waiting one day, then two, then three, when finally my teacher said: “Mr Vernon, I have a bone to pick with you.” I did not know what the expression meant, but it terrified me. It was only years later that I discovered I could, in fact, write, and that the imagination was a friend, not an enemy. I want others to know the same.
I lived in Germany as a teenager and have only warm and exciting feelings for the country.
It seemed that everything from the food to the place itself was, somehow, far more interesting than England, my homeland. That was, no doubt, largely because it was not England and I was an agitated youth.
But this book also gave depth to my feeling because of Goethe’s presence in the German imagination, who is quite as important there as Shakespeare to England or Dante to Italy.
I am appreciative of this book for opening up the life and times, ideas and art, of this massive imaginative figure, about whom I previously knew very little. He knew that imagination is truth-bearing, carrying us to the heart of life.
'Wild, brilliant and has all the intelligence to rival its subject. Five Stars.' - Frances Wilson, The Telegraph 'Exuberant and wide-ranging' - Literary Review 'Passionate' - The Times
A spellbinding recreation of Goethe's life and work from one of our greatest biographers.
Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era.
A N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Jay Geller is a professor of history and Judaic studies and has published five books on the experience of the Jews in twentieth-century Germany. He has worked with secondary school teachers, religious communities, and museums to develop programs on the Holocaust, Nazism, and dangers of intolerance and radicalism. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale University.
When the Nazis came to power, they were viciously antisemitic, but they had not planned a genocide of the Jews. By 1942, that genocide was their driving purpose. What changed? Schleunes argues that pressures within the Nazi Party and the circumstances of World War II induced an increasing radicalization of the Nazis’ plan for the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust.
"There is no single phenomenon in our time so important for us to understand as the one which identified itself in Germany during the 1920's, 30's and 40's as National Socialism. By the time this movement was swept from the stage it had destroyed the lives of at least thirty million and perhaps as many as forty million people. . . . The realization that some men will construct a factory in which to kill other men raises the gravest questions about man himself. We have entered an age which we cannot avoid labeling 'After Auschwitz.' If we are to…
I'm a retired diplomat and award-winning novelist with a PhD in history. I was drawn to the German Resistance because, unlike the other resistance movements across Europe, the German Resistance fought not a foreign invader but rather confronted the corruption and hijacking of their own state. Germans opposed to Hitler needed the moral fortitude to commit treason, and ultimately tyrannicide, not for the sake of the nation, but for humanity itself. I devoted ten years of my life to studying the German Resistance, first for my doctoral dissertation and then to write my novel. During that time, I was asked a thousand times why I was so fascinated and committed to the topic. The answer, tragically proven true over the last five years, is that the United States is not immune to fascism. The need to resist a racist and immoral demagogue has never been more relevant.
No one can understand the German Resistance to Hitler without first understanding Nazi Germany — its ideology, its institutions, and its psychology. Grunberger’s concise but comprehensive study of Nazi Germany organized topically provides essential insight into the society in which those who opposed Hitler lived. This book is more valuable than any chronological history of Nazi Germany and exposes just how pervasive and insidious the National Socialist corruption was.
How did people talk during the Third Reich? What films could they see? What political jokes did they tell? Did Nazi ranting about the role of women (no make-up, smoking, or dieting) correspond with reality? What was the effect of the regime on family life (where fathers were encouraged to inform on sons, and children on parents)? When the country embraced National Socialism in 1933, how did that acceptance impact the churches, the civil service, farmers, housewives, businessmen, health care, sports, education, "justice," the army, the arts, and the Jews? Using examples that range from the horrifying to the absurd,…
While growing up in a Vermont town in the lower Champlain Valley, I became fascinated with the wealth of nearby historic sites dating from the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Within easy reach of our family station wagon were Fort Ticonderoga and more. I became especially intrigued by German mercenaries hired by the British to fight the American colonists. My interest led me to become a history major at the University of Vermont, and eventually to Germany as a correspondent for The Associated Press. I worked and lived in Germany from 1987-1997, covering the toppling of Communism, the birth of a new Germany, the rise of neo-Nazi violence, and other themes.
There is no better scholarly work about the birth and death of Germany’s first democracy than The Coming of the Third Reich, by British historian Richard J. Evans. Evans uses a wealth of archival material to create a masterful narrative of the intrigue, revolts, economic forces, and political chaos that marked the Weimar era. The Coming Of The Third Reich is the first book in a three-volume series, which covers Germany from the end of World War I to the downfall of the Nazi regime.
Richard J. Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed Democracy and Seized Power in Germany explores how the First World War, the Weimar Republic and the Great Depression paved the way for Nazi rule.
They started as little more than a gang of extremists and thugs, yet in a few years the Nazis had turned Germany into a one-party state and led one of Europe's most advanced nations into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair.
In this consummate and compelling history, the first book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I was born in Germany and came to the US as a small child. My parents spoke only German at home but rarely talked with me about their years in Germany. Years after my father had died, I came across a photograph of him wearing a Hitler Youth uniform. What I learned about his childhood and his family inspired much of my novel The Vanishing Sky. Though my novel is finished, I continue to read about the German experience of WW2 because it resonates for me personally and because the lessons it teaches us are still relevant today.
Heck’s plain-spoken memoir of his indoctrination into Nazism as a young boy and his time in the Hitler Youth and the German military is powerful and honest. Long after he’d left Germany as an adult, Heck continued to grapple with his own complicity in the regime and his fervent beliefs in its goals. The Hitler Youth was particularly adept at tapping into young boys’ yearning to be heroes. Heck explains the lingering effects of his indoctrination, noting that, “Despite our monstrous sacrifice and the appalling misuse of our idealism, there will always be the memory of unsurpassed power, the intoxication of fanfares and flags proclaiming our new age.” This was a fascinating read for me personally, given the similarities between Heck’s experiences and those of my father, and it was an invaluable resource as I wrote my own novel.
In this starkly candid account of one boy's indoctrination into the Hitler Youth, we see a side of Nazism that has been little recorded. This autobiographical account is a rare glimpse at World War II from a German boy's viewpoint.
