New collection of essays promising to re-energize the debate on Nazism's occult roots and legacies and thus our understanding of German cultural and intellectual history over the past century.

“A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph 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, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides 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

In A Science for the Soul, historian Corinna Treitel explores the appeal and significance of German occultism in all its varieties between the 1870s and the 1940s, locating its dynamism in the nation's struggle with modernization and the public's dissatisfaction with scientific materialism. Occultism, Treitel notes, served as a bridge between traditional religious beliefs and the values of an increasingly scientific, secular, and liberal society. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, Treitel describes the individuals and groups who participated in the occult movement, reconstructs their organizational history, and examines the economic and social factors responsible for their success. Building on this foundation, Treitel turns to the question of how Germans used the occult in three realms of practice: Theosophy, where occult studies were used to achieve spiritual enlightenment the arts, where occult states of consciousness fueled the creative process of avant-garde painters, writers, and dancers and the applied sciences, where professionals in psychology, law enforcement, engineering, and medicine employed occult techniques to solve characteristic problems of modernity. In conclusion, Treitel considers the conflicting meanings occultism held for contemporaries by focusing on the anti-spiritualist campaigns mounted by the national press, the Protestant and Catholic Churches, local and national governments, and the Nazi regime, which after years of alternating between affinity and antipathy for occultism, finally crushed the movement by 1945.

Death in Berlin traces rituals and perceptions surrounding death from the Weimar Republic to the building of the Berlin Wall.

Over half a century after the defeat of the Third Reich the complexities of Nazi ideology are still being unravelled. This text is a serious attempt to identify these ideological origins. It demonstrates the way in which Nazism was influenced by powerful occult and millenarian sects that thrived in Germany and Austria at the turn of the century. Their ideas and symbols filtered through to nationalist-racist groups associated with the infant Nazi party and their fantasies were played out with terrifying consequences in the Third Reich: Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka are the hellish museums of the Nazi apocalypse. This bizarre and fascinating story contains lessons we cannot afford to ignore.

Public interest in Adolf Hitler and all aspects of the Third Reich continues to grow as new generations ponder the moral questions surrounding Nazi Germany and its historical legacy. One aspect of Nazism that has not received sufficient attention from historians of the Third Reich is the doctrine's origins in the Thule Society and its covert activities. A Munich occult group with a political agenda, the Thule Society was led by Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a German commoner who had been adopted by nobility during a sojourn in the Ottoman Empire. After returning to Europe, Sebottendorff embraced a form of theosophy that stressed the racial superiority of Aryans. The Thule Society attempted to establish an anti-Semitic, working-class front for disseminating its esoteric ideas and founded the German Workers' Party, which Hitler would later transform into the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party. Several of the society's members eventually assumed prestigious posts in the Third Reich. David Luhrssen has written the first comprehensive study of the society's activities, its cultural roots, and its postwar ramifications in a historical-critical context. Both general readers and academics concerned with European cultural and intellectual history will find that Hammer of the Gods opens new perspectives on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe.

“A Demon-Haunted Land is absorbing, gripping, and utterly fascinating... Beautifully written, without even a hint of jargon or pretension, it casts a significant and unexpected new light on the early phase of the Federal Republic of Germany’s history. Black’s analysis of the copious, largely unknown archival sources on which the book is based is unfailingly subtle and intelligent.” —Richard J. Evans, The New Republic 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 into court on charges of defamation, assault, and even murder. What linked these events, in the wake of an annihilationist war and the Holocaust, was a widespread preoccupation with evil. While many histories emphasize Germany’s rapid transition from genocidal dictatorship to liberal democracy, A Demon-Haunted Land places in full view the toxic mistrust, profound bitterness, and spiritual malaise that unfolded alongside the economic miracle. Drawing on previously unpublished archival materials, acclaimed historian Monica Black argues that the surge of supernatural obsessions stemmed from the unspoken guilt and shame of a nation remarkably silent about what was euphemistically called “the most recent past.” This shadow history irrevocably changes our view of postwar Germany, revealing the country’s fraught emotional life, deep moral disquiet, and the cost of trying to bury a horrific legacy.

In May of 2003, Timothy Ryback, the author of "Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life" had an article published in The Atlantic Monthly. In the article he detailed several of the books held in a portion of Hitler's library at Brown University. Mr. Ryback also mentioned some of the passages Hitler marked in these books. One particular passage was worthy of attention: "He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world." That passage appeared in the book "Magic: History / Theory / Practice," written by Dr. Ernst Schertel. Schertel was a researcher of alternative sexual practices, nudism, and the occult. After finishing his book Magic in 1923 he sent a dedicated copy to Adolf Hitler. Now, for the first time ever, "Magic: History/Theory/Practice" has been translated into English, with all sixty-six Hitler annotations intact.

The Salem Witch Trials is based on over twenty-five years of archival research--including the author's discovery of previously unknown documents--newly found cases and court records. From January 1692 to January 1697 this history unfolds a nearly day-by-day narrative of the crisis as the citizens of New England experienced it.

Fills a serious gap in German historical literature by providing the first political biography of Jung, a leading figure of the anti-Nazi Right. By the time of his death, Edgar Julius Jung (1894-1934) was well known in Germany and Europe as one of the foremost ideologues of the political movement that called itself the Conservative Revolution and as a right-wing opponent of the Nazis. He was speechwriter for and confidant of Franz von Papen (first Hitler's predecessor as chancellor, then Hitler's vice-chancellor), which put him at the center of political events right up until the Nazi seizure of power. Considered by Baldur von Schirach and Goebbels to be one of the worst enemies of the Nazis, Jung was assassinated by the Nazi regime in June 1934. The eleven years of Nazi rule that followed contributed to Jung's neglect by historians, as did distaste, since the war's end and the founding of the Federal Republic on democratic principles, for his strongly antidemocratic stance. Although there have been several studies on Jung's political thought, there has been until now no biography in German or English. Roshan Magub's book therefore fills a serious gap in German historical literature. It shows that Jung's opposition to National Socialism dates from the earliest days andthat he had a very close relationship with the Ruhr industry, which supported him financially and enabled him to reach a nationwide audience. Magub uses, for the first time, all the available material from the archives in Munich, Koblenz, Cologne, and Berlin, and the whole of Jung's Nachlass. Her book sheds new light on Jung and demonstrates his importance in Germany's political history. Roshan Magub holds a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London.