Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P3.

In 1924 Ludendorf held a lecture called The Devine Meaning of the Voelkisch Movement” where he proclaimed Hitler as a “Devine Saviour.”(1)

We also know that until later years, during an at times critical relationship with Hitler (see below), there were direct contacts between Luddendorff’s spy network, the Thule Society’s, and Hitler Captain Mayr’s. (2) 

In 1926 he married his second wife Mathilde Spiess/Ludendorf, a Psychologist at the time. Their union was more than just a marriage; it was for the Ludendorffs a historic mission to preserve the German nation. Her voeIkisch philosophy and his voelkisch nationalism merged.

Alfred Rosenberg claimed later Mathilde Ludendorf proposed Hitler to be his spiritual teacher. (Eduard Gugenberger - Hitlers Visionaere, 164) 

Prior to World War I, Mathilde Ludendorf became interested in the scientific study of religion. In her studies, she teamed to explain religious belief by rationally and scientifically analyzing religious texts, which she considered historical documents that reflected the culture of a religion's social environment. She claimed to base her new spiritual and philosophical system upon Germanic pagan beliefs, the philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Her ideology, which she called Deutsche Gotterkenntnis, recommended a return to preChristian Germanic values, morality, and customs.

The NSDAP's swift and broad increase in popularity in 1930 proved important to the evolution and dissemination of the Ludendorffs' ideology. Some in the Tannenbergbund found the NSDAP more youthful, more active, and more rewarding than the Ludendorffs' organization. The NSDAP siphoned off many supporters from the Tannenbergbund, affecting the Nazi party from within. The remainder of Ludendorff s organization, which became more concerned with the spiritual rejuvenation of the German soul than with practical solutions to the pressing social, economic, and political problems of the early 1930s, contracted as radical nationalists moved toward the successful NSDAP.

Walter Goerlitz compared the relationship between the Nazi regime and the German military with the Soviet and Fascist regimes and their respective militaries, and found that the end results in Germany, Russia, and Italy were remarkably similar. Just as Ludendorff demanded a uniform Weltanschauung in the military, so did Stalin and Mussolini, with varying degrees of success. In 1937 Stalin homogenized the Red Army after he drastically purged the officer corps. In Italy, the result was more mixed since Italian officers had allied themselves with the monarchy. (Goerlitz , History of the German General Staff, p. 277.)

In each case, however, it was clear that in totalitarian states the military must remain unquestionably loyal to the regime. Ludendorff simplified the politicization of the Wehrmacht, although the military was broadly sympathetic to radical nationalism before he began his campaign to transform. the mentality of the army. When he and his agents distributed Ludendorff Press publications in the military, he undercut the influence of the remaining conservative Christian officers who could have conceivably opposed the infiltration of Deutsche Gotterkenntnis and radical nationalism in the military.

Together the Ludndorff’s wrote “Europa den Asiatenpriestern?” (1938)

Their hatred for among others Christianity (“the Jesuits”), stemmed directly from their anti- Semitism. Mathilde Ludendorff, like many of her Conservative Revolutionary contemporaries, insisted that each race had its own inherent peculiarities of belief and behavior, and like many of her contemporaries, she considered Judaism fundamentally hostile to not only the German people but also other racial communities. Judaism wielded a powerfull and wide-ranging malevolent influence in the Ludendorffs' universe. It was the invisible puppeteer behind the global political and economic scenes. Indeed, the general swore in court that he believed in the authenticity of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” (Piazza, Luddendorff, p.132.)

In "Okkultwahn zungelt von Asien nach dem, Westen," Erich Ludendorff wrote:

"the Jew must create 'secret fraternities"' in order to influence the "tractable Masses.”( Europa den Asiatenpriestern? ed. Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff (Munich, 1938, 5-6)

Occult practices and fraternal organizations were Jewish institutions created to numb Germans and make them unaware of Jewish machinations. Ludendorff , as did German Kaiser Wilhelm II (living in the Netherlands), came to believe that Judaism controlled all conspiracies, be they Catholic, Masonic, or Marxist. (See Perry Pierik, De verlaten monarch; Wilhelm II in Nederland, 2001)

Moeller and Edgar Jung advanced similar ideas at times as Mathilde Ludendorff, claiming that ethnic groups and races had consciousness and that they inherited from their ancestors fundamental religious and spiritual beliefs. And Carl Jung insisted that the unconscious contained more than mere suppressed personal material; it also contained deeper social material intimately connected with what Franklin L. Baurner calls the "greater-than individual." Jung's "collective unconscious" emerged in religious dreams, symbols, and myths held by all humanity." 

In “The Soul of Man” (trans. Walter Grossinger, 2nd ed., 1941), Mathilde Ludendorff wrote:

All steps of individual beings upward to consciousness have been created by a flare-up of divine will in one being among the hecatombs of similarly formed living beings. According to the same natural laws, the first Godexperience has not been bom in all preceding beings, but only in the most God-aware among their kin. In the same way, for as long as humans have lived, all other steps of creation until the present are fixed in the subconsciousness of racial inheritance. The same can also be said of the first experience of God himself on the generations, with all its consequences on the 'hereditary character,' the racial inheritance of a race and the racial character of a nation." From her argument, it is obvious that she considered herself a prophet destined to transform the spirituality of the German people. Both she and her husband understood that she carried divine inspiration for the spiritual enlightenment of Germany and assumed she was aware of the divine only because she understood her racial heritage.( 21. 1 )

According to her doctrine, the Volk inherited its spirituality, so for Germany to regain confidence, spiritual strength, and material greatness it had to expel the alien influences of Christianity, Judaism, and the French Enlightenment. Through the religious and philosophical development of a particularly German spirituality rooted in the distant past, Mathilde Ludendorff had proven, according to her husband, that strict adherence to racial unity and a unique conception of the divine would inevitably lead to German liberation.( Mathilde Ludendorff, Der latzte Weg des Feldherrn Erich Ludendorff,1938, 1)

The Ludendorff’s emphasis on national spiritual renewal based upon the restoration of ancient Germanic spiritual beliefs and traditional values set them apart from other Conservative Revolutionaries. No other radical nationalists attempted to formulate such a complex theology or philosophy. 

Other self-styled radical conservative or fascist intellectuals, Nazis included, were either unable or unwilling to imitate her style. But for the average German reader who casually glanced at her work, her writings appeared to be the work of an educated, erudite, and well-respected scholar dissatisfied with the modem world, and the Luddendorff’s books where extremely popular.

Their Monarchist Tannenbergbund followed an aggressive ideology that demanded the elimination of Jewish influence in German affairs and the expansion of German power. They supported German rearmament in order to reestablish German military superiority in Central Europe, wanted Germany to reconquer lost territories, and expected Germany to acquire new territories for colonization and agricultural production. Their xenophobic ideology looked inward: it believed that the German people could only achieve freedom by expelling foreign influences from Germany.

In the mid 1930’s a temporary break between General Ludendorff, largely due to his wife, occurred. Goebbels believed that Ludendorff wished to stand "outside the law." (Diary entry for February 27, 1937; Tagebucher, 395.)

On March 12, 1937, after mulling for two days the possibility of reconciliation, Hitler decided to speak with Ludendorff provided that Ludendorff made no prior demands.(Goebbels, Diary entries for March 10 and March 12, 1937. Tagebucher, Band 4, 2000,44,47.)

Ludendorff was ultimately responsible for the reconciliation since it was he who finally accepted the meeting with Hider after rebuffing Hitler many times before. The Wehrmacht also played a role in the reconciliation, the meeting took place at the Munich headquarters of the regional army command. General Walther von Reichenau, long sympathetic to National Socialism, attended the meeting. 

Imediately after his meeting with Hitler and Reichenau, barriers to his movement disappeared. On April 5, 1937 Ludendorff published in “Am heiligen Quell deutscher Kraft” that Hitler guaranteed freedom for the believers of Deutsche Gotterkenninis. The Sopade reported that in Bavaria Hitler Youth leaders, young teachers, and SS and SA men, under pressure from the upper levels of the NSDAP and enjoying Ludendorffs and Alfred Rosenberg's moral support, had organized public recriminations against the Church.( Deutschland-Bericht der Sopade, Vierter Jahrgang 193 7, 42, 1.)

On May 8, Frick allowed believers of Deutsche Gotterkenntnis to officially register their religion as Deutsche Gotterkenninis (Haus Ludendorffl, an act which gave Deutsche Gotterkenntnis official status, making it the third confession in Germany, equal in stature to Catholicism and Protestantism.( Order Nr. 4452/3 7 JIc from the Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht Fritsch, June 25, 1937.)

It is also important to note that the Nazi regime rarely harassed Mathilde Ludendorff once her husband had passed away. On January 5,1938, Am heiligen Quell deutscher Kraft published an allegedly sealed document written in November 1936 by Ludendorff stating that the Ludendorffs' movement must continue its revolution after his death, and that it must support the foreign and military sucesses of the NSDAP.

By the time of Ludendorfrs death, Deutsche Gotterkenninis had become for Nazis a legitimate Weltanschauung. Ludendorff's vision of a totalitarian society unified in the face of external and internal threats was nearly identical to the Weltanschauung of Nazism.

Many scholars have investigated Ludendorfrs military role in World War I but none to date (2003) has studied his career during the Third Reich.
 

P.1 Hitler's Secret "Protocols" P.1
P.2 Hitler's Secret "Protocols" P.2
P.3 Hitler’s Source P.1
P.4 Hitler’s Source P.2
P.5 The German Kaiser's Confident P.1
P.6 The German Kaiser's Confident P.2
P.7 The Ideologists and First Financiers of Hitler P.1
P.8 The Ideologists and First Financiers of Hitler P.2
P.9 Dietrich Eckart, Rosenberg, and White Russian Creators of Nazi Ideology, P.1
P.10 Dietrich Eckart, Rosenberg, and White Russian Creators of Nazi Ideology, P.2
P.11 The "Final" Solution Before WWII, P.1
P.12 The "Final" Solution Before WWII, P.2
P.13 Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.1
P.14 Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.2
P.15 Early Nazis and the Mystical Connection P.3

 

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