Episode 37 - The Ahnenerbe

What happens when history, mythology, sacred sites, and wartime legend begin to overlap?

In this episode of Arcane Station, Mike Porter takes a deep dive into the world surrounding the Ahnenerbe, the SS research organization tied to ancestry, archaeology, and some of the most enduring legends of the twentieth century.

From the ideological roots of Thule, to the traditions surrounding Vril, Hollow Earth, and Agartha, this episode follows the threads that connect sacred landscapes, ancient relics, wartime expeditions, Antarctica lore, and the postwar stories that continue to shape popular culture today.

We explore Wewelsburg, Tibet, relic traditions such as the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny, the expansion of the mythology through film and games like Indiana Jones, graphic novels like Hellboy, and video games like Wolfenstein, and why these stories continue to evolve across generations.

Transcript

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Hey everyone, welcome to Archange Station. I'm your host, Mike Porter. Tonight we are going into a weird part of history where myth and legend meet with plans of world domination. In one of the previous episodes, I talked a little bit about Antarctica and what strange rumors and stories happened there, hidden bases, secret expeditions, and the stories that have grown around what the Nazis may have or may not have been searching for at the edge of the world. The Nazis had a special unit in their military that handled all of these weird, odd, esoteric, mythological, and mysterious things, and it was called the Onanair Bay. You may know about this unit without actually knowing the name of it. So images of Nazi officers hunting for relics, searching for lost power, chasing ancient artifacts, and trying to unlock supernatural forces. The idea is everywhere in blockbuster movies, semi-historical books, and graphic novels as well as video games. You see it in Raiders of the Lost Art, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Hellboy and Wolfenstein. But the truth is a lot more complicated. It's very interesting, and so we're going to discuss this secret group. It was founded July 1st, 1935 under Heinrich Himmler as an SS research organization. The stated purpose was to study ancestral German heritage, archaeology, folklore, language, and the origins of what the Nazis called the Aryan race. Historically, this was less about the supernatural and more about ideology, but as they went on, it became more and more um demented, more and more strange. So it was a pseudoscience that was built to support political and racial goals. The organization created uh existed to create evidence, or at least something that looked like evidence, to support Nazi racial mythology. And what that meant is they looked at burial sites, runestones, megaliths, sacred landscapes, and ancient legal systems, as well as migration theories about the true Aryan race that they felt that they came from. But before the Ananarbe, there was another concept that we need to talk about first, and that's Thule. So the Thule Society was a real group that actually predated the uh Ananarbe, and it helps explain where some of the ideas came from. It was founded in Munich in 1918, 18, and it combined nationalism, racial theory, mythology, and occult learning uh occult leaning thoughts. And as I said before, there was an age of sort of occultism. In one of my uh previous podcasts, we talked about the rise of spiritualism in the 1800s, and this is sort of where uh in the 18 and 1900s, this is sort of where that thought process comes from. Everyone during that time period was very involved in the occult, very involved in esoteric knowledge, very involved in things of that nature. And so this was sort of like a nationalized version of a um occult theory and a cult and uh mythology system that comes from this concept of Thule. Now, what is Thule? The name itself comes from an ancient idea of a land called Thule, which was a far northern land at the edge of the known world. Now, on the edge of the maps, this place was called Thule, and most likely it was actually just Iceland. But for practitioners within the Thule Society, it was a homeland and that their ancestry um and their um birthright came from Thule. And they had to sign a blood declaration if they became part of the Thule Society, they had to sign a blood declaration stating that the lineage of their blood was completely pure and that their blood and their partner's blood, their wife's blood, was also completely pure and uh of Thule's descent. Now, they absolutely wouldn't know that for sure. You know, migrations across Europe, uh Europe is so tiny comparatively to some of the states, even in the United States, that migration is really interesting how people move within that space. Um just as a side note, I talked to a friend, he lives he lived in England, and he would say that there are people that would not drive all 15 minutes to go to the next town because that was deemed as too far away. Whereas sometimes in Texas we drive over two hours just to go one way into work. Anyway, that's an aside. Um so in like I said, in classic geography, it was this mythical land, um, and they felt like that that was their birthplace of their ancestors, right? And so there was this idea that it had been an ancient northern civilization that was superior uh to other ones, that was technologically advanced, very similar to concepts around um Atlantis. And the other thought was that modern Germans were somehow descended from there. Now there's absolutely no historical evidence for that claim, but the myth was useful in that it gave them a story of origin, and once they have that story of origin, you can start building an entire worldview around it, and that worldview later feeds directly into the Andan Arabay. So I'm gonna kind of separate some documented history and the mythology that grew around it because that mythology didn't stop with Thule, it actually continued to grow, and it eventually absorbed uh different ideas like vrill, hollow earth theory, Agartha, and Antarctica was kind of batched in there as well. And it was this other concept that they had lost this sort of sacred power. So I'm gonna go deeper into all this. And we can start off with Vrill, V-R-I-O. So, unlike the Anan Arbe or the Fool Society, Vrille doesn't begin as a real historical organization. It actually starts in a book, in fiction. The term comes from an 1871 novel called The Coming Race by Edward Boulder Lighton. In that book, Vrill is described as a mysterious force, an energy wielded by an advanced subterranean civilization, and it's essentially a form of hidden power. And it's a force that can be used to influence matter, heal, destroy, and control people. The important thing here is that it begins as literature and it's not history. However, over time, especially in post-war conspiracy literature, this fictional concept gets absorbed into the mythology surrounding Nazi occultism. And this is where stories begin to emerge about this supposed rail society. According to the myth, this group was involved in esoteric knowledge, hidden energy, and contact with higher intelligences, having advanced technology and even anti-gravity or disc-shaped craft, so basically aliens. So, this concept of a hidden force, where does it actually come from? And this is where uh you've heard the term hollow earth theory. This is where this comes from. The hollow earth concept is most actually much older than Nazi Germany. It appears in early speculative science, esoteric writing, and adventure literature going well back before the 20th century. The basic idea is that the earth is not solid, it contains a vast internal space with caverns, civilizations, or entire hidden worlds beneath the surface. There's even a version that describes an inner sun, and this is where the mythology begins to merge with these concepts of a place called Agartha. Now Agartha is often described as a hidden kingdom, sorry, pardon me, a hint a hidden kingdom beneath the earth, a place of ancient wisdom, advanced beings, and preserved knowledge. And again, this may be mythology, and I say maybe because Admiral Byrd, who was a distinguished admiral, described a land beyond the poles where he made contact with a group of aliens called Agarthians or Vrilya. And they were described as an advanced, ancient subterranean civilization living in a mythical kingdom within the hollow earth. Other legends describe them as giants over twelve feet tall or as survivors of Atlantis and Lumeria, and later on I will probably do an episode on Atlantis and Lumeria. And allegedly, when this cataclysm happened in Atlanta in Atlantis and Lumeria, they were forced underground. But this becomes a really perfect narrative to fit uh all of these things together. Thule, um, the concept of this Germanic uh master race, with you know, twelve twelve foot tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed master race that was forced underground because of a cataclysm, but they were technologically advanced, and they had this hidden power of vril. Um so basically, Thule becomes this ancient northern homeland, vrill becomes the hidden power, and Agartha or Hollow Earth is where that power originates from. So maybe they were they came to the surface, they built uh a kingdom that was technologically advanced and prosperous, and then when cataclysms happened, they were forced back underground. So, in post-war legend, one of the major claims is that Nazi personnel escaped to hidden bases in Antarctica and perhaps had access to Hollow Earth or Agartha. Now there was this, and I've talked about this before, but there was this expedition in 1938 to go to Antarctica by Nazi um scientists, and they surveyed an area, and that expedition was led by Alfred Richter. And from there, the map, you know, the myth about the Nazis going to Antarctica it kind of expands into hidden bases and access to hollow earth and the production of saucer type craft. And there are actually drawings uh of salcer type craft from World War II, and those were called Hinabao, Hanabao II. Um it looked very much like um a flying saucer, and so part of that legend comes from this concept that there perhaps they did have access to Agartha and these people, these beings with advanced technology. So again, you start hearing these claims about underground tunnel systems, polar openings, entrances beneath the ice, escape scientists, hidden disk technology, and inner-earth civilization. So none of that's obviously supported by documented historical evidence, but it becomes incredibly important culturally because it connects everything together that we've talked about. The real Ananabe was a pseudoscientific SS institute, and their studies into these esoteric ideas is where many conspiracies and legends take root. There are many times where we've been told something is real, though. And so when I talk about these sort of sort of things, I'm being very uh careful to say that this is not true or that's not true because over time we've been told something that's not real or didn't happen only to later find out that the real truth is that the official story was actually the myth, and the myth was the actual real story. And so I try to be cautious about how I approach saying some of these things. Um so from these mythological locations to the real ones, not only were they searching for these ax these access points into this hidden uh underworld system and uh access to vrill or this hidden power, they were also focused on architecture, sacred geometry, and rituals. And they felt that if they had the perfect combination of those elements, they'd be granted supernatural and world-changing power. And one of the most important locations in this entire story is Vivelsberg Castle. And this is a 17th-century fortress in Germany, and it was transformed by Heinrich Himmler into a cultural, central, ideological, occult, and spiritual center. So basically, he looked at the SS as a um religious order and knight, uh, but not like a Christian religious order, but a pagan one. And he saw that the death head uh Nazi unit was his knight that was on a uh pagan holy mission, not a holy holy mission, uh, to find these things. And he envisioned this place as the center of the new world, focused on Aryan mythology, Germanic mysticism, and occult beliefs. And he had this concept of um this area was called the crypt, and there was also the SS Obergruppen Fuhrer Hall, which contains a Black Sun mosaic, which was intended to be the core area of Nazi occult worship. And there was many um sacrifices and and things that took place there from the villagers, they talked about strange happenings at that castle. So the site was to become central to both the history and the mythology of um the Aryan race. There's there's all of this um interesting information in the geometry of the room. So it was an old castle that was repurposed as a ritual space, and so they changed the geometry of the rooms themselves. Sometimes they had circular shapes, uh, the alignments of the chamber and the ceremonial use of all these different things were meant to enhance and focus energy when the ritual was taking place. Another site that's pretty interesting is called Exterstein, uh Externstein, and it's a massive uh these are massive sandstone formations that look very cathedral-like almost. And they were studies as part of a pre-Christian sacred landscape in ancient Germanic ceremonial spaces. So the landscape the landscape itself was meant to have power because of the way it looked, and because they thought that perhaps there was some uh sacred geometry within the natural formations because it was spectacular looking, that they could then use and draw from the power of the land itself to create better ceremonial um outcomes and ritual outcomes. They also looked into a bunch of different regions, so one of those was Iceland. Um they were really interested because they believed, again, that this was the Thule area, this is where the birthplace of the Aryan race took place, and um they had three different trips there again in 1938, so very similar to when they went to um Antarctica, and they did find this cave which they thought to be uh a location of a mystic place of worship known as the Hoth. Um it would be proven that the site was actually, in fact, uninhabited before the 18th century. So they found artifacts in there and they thought that this was oh, this is one of our starting points of our religion and our race, but it was just a site that had been used previously. There's also an expedition into Karelia, and this is um uh an area that had um basically it was in Finland and they had uh a record of pagan sorcerers and witches, and they thought that perhaps these Karelans um would teach them something, but um they were not able to do so. They were not allowed to record pagan chants and stuff like that. And so they thought that perhaps um because they were uh Iceland, they thought that uh Finland also had some of the migration from Thule and that some of these chants that these people were saying. I I think it's called Gronhagen, uh, is where it was at. Um region of Finland. And um they they basically took a Finnish illustrator, Ola uh Forsa, to actually record uh things um as they were going along, and he tried to use a magnetophone, which is sort of like a recorder recording device, but they were unable to get the recordings of those things. Um there was this one soothsayer that they found, uh, believed to be a witch, and she claimed to have foreseen their arrival, and so the team persuaded her to perform a ritual for the camera and tape recorder in which she summoned the spirits of ancestors and divined these future events, and they also uh recorded information on finished saunas, which they thought perhaps uh as part of the ritual or spiritual process, they had to use saunas as well. Um there was this another trip to Bohuslan, uh it's a region in southwestern Sweden, and uh basically what they thought is that they saw these massive quantity of petroglyph rock carvings, um, and they believed it was evidence of an ancient writing system predating all known systems, so uh they went and documented that stuff. And basically, um, despite the existence of the scene showing warriors and animals and ships, Worth focused on the lines and circles that he thought made up prehistoric alphabets. And while his studies were largely based on personal belief rather than objective scientific research, he made interpretations of the meanings of the ideograms carved into the rock. So, such as a circle bisected by a vertical line representing a year and a man standing with his arms raised, representing what he called the Son of God. So basically he saw all these cave markings and he made he made up interpretations of them. There were also expeditions into Crimea, Ukraine, Poland, France, Italy, and Tibet. And each one of these locations feeds a different thread into the larger narrative they were trying to build. So northern regions certainly connected naturally to Norse and Germanic traditions. Eastern regions tie into ancestry, migration, and ancient settlement theories. And then there's these other areas that kind of come together, and one of those is Tibet. So there was this expedition led by Ernst Schaefer. Um and what they were trying to do, so the official story was that they were doing a zoo zoological and uh architectural look into um this region. But what they the other thing that they were trying to do is kind of focus on uh Tibetan hymn uh Tibetan chants, uh the geometry of the spaces, uh which they saw as sacred geometry, but also the the concept of uh Shambhala, which was this um meant to be this idyllic place where the um they felt that the Aryans were also residing currently. And you've heard this concept of uh Shambhala before, which is a uh valley within the Himalayas that's green and there's beautiful villages and gold and you know, like hel everyone's healthy and young. Um so there's this concept that perhaps they could go to Shambhala and also find a source of power there. So one of the other sources of power that they were trying to adopt or find, and you've seen this again in the Indiana Jones movies, was um these religious artifacts. And one of those is the Holy Grail, obviously from the movie. Another was called the Holy Lance, but some people call it the Spirit of Destiny. And even later, at some point, they tried to get the Ark Ark of the Covenant. And what's interesting about this to me. Is that um the SS, the Fool Society, and the uh real society basically were pagans, they were worshiping pagan gods, and um very similar to North Norse mythology, and um they felt like they wanted to build power, but they were trying to grasp and use Christian artifacts, and so what they felt was is that proximity, they weren't doubting God, they weren't doubting Jesus. What they were saying is like we have an alternative to that, um, and this is our bloodline. We go to Bahalla or we go to this sacred place when we die, just like you do, but our gods are better. It's kind of what was happening. But so like the Ark, they knew it had power, um, but they thought they could uh apply their will to that artifact to create power, as opposed to being um passive or uh sub sub not subjugated, that's the wrong word, but being submissive to the power of God as opposed to trying to dominate the power of God. And so that's sort of where they were um looking for these pieces. They felt like these were symbols of legitimacy, of authority, of inheritance, and of destiny. They felt like if they possessed those things, then they would have the right to rule. Um so the Holy Lance in particular is really interesting because it's connected with the fact that if someone has that, they will rule. Uh, and that's happened uh in the past where there was a um there is a mythology or a legend of some king having the spirit of destiny but losing it and therefore becoming um usurped and taken over by a different um you know, a different person. So it's just very interesting that that mythology um of that that mythology of Soul and the uh realization of Christianity were at odds with one another, but they were trying to use tools of Christian faith as a means of uh providing themselves some sort of legitimacy. So whether it's an actual object or a symbolic object, there's a story attached to it, and it occupies an important place in mythology. So the same can be said from the spirit of destiny to the grail. So depending on the tradition, the grail is a chalice or a stone or a vessel of divine bloodline or a source of knowledge, right? So it could even be a source of immortality or a sacred object of kingship, and because the grail tradition already carries such a strong mythological weight, it just becomes something that they desire, which to help kind of bolster or uh shore up their concept of why they should already be in in command. So throughout this whole thing, again, they wanted to they wanted to control something they couldn't control. And um that that idea is really like the backbone of the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, those sacred relics and their um abuse of power of those things is what they were really looking to do. Um so the other thing that they were trying to do is they again they they were using the spaces, they wanted to use sacred objects, and then it was the ceremonies themselves. So they were very large into ceremonial shows of force, very large into military um spectacle. And again, with Vivelsburg Castle, it's central to this story because it sits at the intersection of all these different ideas. It's a physical physical location, it's tied to ceremony, it's tied to symbolism, and over time it's the focal point for traditions involving ritual use, sacred geometry, and the idea of central power. They wanted Vivelsburg to be the center of the universe, they wanted it to be um this beacon of Aryan um dominance, right? And so that was meant to be the showpiece of their concepts and the rituals that took place there, you know, whether those rituals were uh of Norse uh Norse type rituals or whether they were demonic type rituals, we don't know because we don't have access to that information, but we do know that there were sacrifices that took place there, there were burned remains uh that were found there, and um you know, it's extremely haunted. So all of that being said, um their uh their whole goal again was to dominate the world and their whole goal was to use this concept of thool vr vril vrill and um s these sacred uh rituals to perform um to perform these acts which would gain them unlimited power. Alright, so after the war, um the US actually comes in, the US and the USSR actually came in and started to uh snatch up all these different scientists. And for the most part, we were trying to snatch up the scientists that were uh part of aviation, rocketry, uh medical stuff, and they through Operation Paperclip Clip, they allowed these Nazis to uh we call them, we call it denazification, basically. They uh through this process they took the the ones that were so high profile that they could not um get away with keeping them and put them on trial. And the ones that were lower level and had knowledge, they were able to pull into the United States, basically forgive their past, sometimes renaming them, um sometimes uh setting them up in a way that made them uh central to something, like for instance in um NASA, you know, the top the top Nazi uh rocket scientist was the one that was helping NASA get the men on the moon. Um so a lot of the stuff that was in the Anunarbe um safes or what was um all the paperwork that they collected, right when they were starting to collapse, many of those documents were destroyed. Uh they tried to rush to destroy some of it. Um those that they didn't were just taken, and some of those um the US has, some of it's all all classified, and we'll never see the light of day um because they haven't even gone through some of it, I would imagine. Some of it they have. Um the redacted and the uh classified stuff, it doesn't mean that it's uh real, whatever it's just discussing if it's a pagan ritual or something like that, it does not necessarily mean that it's real. What it means is it's unidentified how it will or won't help us, and so um, where the knowledge isn't hasn't been tested, and so why give away or destroy something that you don't know whether it works or not? And so that's probably why they're keeping many of these documents. Now, because this is such a weird topic, you find that all of these things become pop culture, you hear little hints and little secrets and information gets out and stuff like that, and this is where we have um these concepts. Um I wrote up a game concept uh a while ago that was basically um had the secret under underwater uh submarine base in Antarctica, they had UFOs. Um there was this concept that they were doing secret soldier or super soldier projects there. Um so it's not a it's not a far stretch if you kind of look at all of these different things and where their their um mindset was while they were doing these rituals and sacred stuff, it's not a far-fetched to go uh looking at zombies and looking at um ancient societies turning spaces into sacred ritual sites and things like that. So you like I said, you got it for Raiders of Lost Art, you got it the uh Holy Grail, um you had uh books like the Keep, um there's television shows, games, documentaries, conspiracy literature, you know, Hollow Earth, uh Vrill, all of these things, all this ancient power, sacred sites, all that stuff. That's just in the pop culture now, and there's loads of ways in which you can exploit that to make interesting content for uh a book or a graphic novel or something like that. And it's compelling because not everything has been dismissed or disproven, it's compelling because there's still so much unanswered questions out there about all of this, right? So it continues because you know there's a possibility that there are still pieces of the story that remain buried, archived, or simply interpreted differently than what is being told to us, and that's what keeps stories like this alive. So um I just think it's a really interesting concept that that a government was so invested in the esoteric, supernatural, and unknown that they built an entire society around it. And that tells you that there's something possibly there, at least something to be looked at beyond uh you know, beyond just scrutinizing and dismissing. I think there still needs to be research around what is real, what is sacred, what is um accessible power-wise, in terms of not for power not power for misuse or not power for controlling someone, but power for freeing people, and power for um freeing yourself from any sort of psychological, mental, emotional uh constraints that you put on yourself, and I think that's really powerful. Of course, many people turn to the Bible for that, um, and I think that's a really good place to start. Some people turn away from that, and that's their choice and they're right. Um, but I do think there's things out in this world that could help us become better persons and better versions of ourselves, and perhaps looking into these esoteric things and finding out what is and isn't real could be one of those steps. Alright, that's been me uh telling you about the weird things that are always on my mind. Um I I like again cryptids and crazy stuff, and if you have anything weird to tell me that will uh make content uh good content, and you want to hear about it, uh, if you want me to look into something, I'm happy to do so. You can reach me on my um socials, uh Instagram, ArcaneStation2, uh TikTok, Arcane Station, um, and on YouTube. I have uh one-minute shorts that talk about all of this strange stuff as well, and I have my podcast that's being delivered um weekly. And so I look forward to hearing from you. Have a wonderful evening.