Editing Swastika (section)

==== German occultism and pan-German nationalism ====
On 24 June 1875, [[Guido von List]] commemorated the 1500th anniversary of the German victory over the [[Roman Empire]] at the [[Battle of Carnuntum]] by burying a swastika of eight wine bottles beneath the {{Lang|de|[[Heidentor]]|italic=no}} ({{Lit.|Heathens' Gate}}) in the ruins of [[Carnuntum]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004">{{Cite book |last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke |url=https://archive.org/details/TheOccultRootsOfNazism_201602 |title=The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935 |publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]] |year=2004 |isbn=1-86064-973-4 |location=London |language=English |orig-year=1985}}</ref>{{Rp|page=35}} In 1891, List began to claim that [[heraldry]]'s [[division of the field]] was derived from the shapes of [[runes]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=71}} He claimed that the medieval German {{Lang|de|[[Vehmgericht]]}} was a survival of the pre-Christian [[Armanist]] [[Sacred king|priest-kings]] and that the cryptic letters "SSGG" inscribed on vehmic knives represented a double [[sig rune]] followed by two swastikas.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=76}}

In 1897, [[Max Ferdinand Sebaldt von Werth]] published {{Lang|de|Wanidis}} and {{Lang|de|Sexualreligion}}, which according to [[Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke]] in ''[[The Occult Roots of Nazism]]'', "described the sexual-religion of the Aryans, a sacred practice of [[eugenics]] designed to maintain the purity of the race".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=51}} Both works were "illustrated with the magical curved-armed armed swastika".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=51}} Influenced by Sebaldt, List published in ''{{Interlanguage link|Der Scherer – erstes illustriertes Tiroler Witzblatt|de}}'' an article ("{{Lang|de|Germanischer Lichtdienst}}") which claimed the swastika was a sacred symbol of the Aryans representing the "[[Fire drill (tool)|fire-whisk]]" ({{Lang|de|Feuerquirl}}) with which the [[creator deity]] {{Lang|de|[[Mundelföri]]|italic=no}} had begun the world.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=52}} In September 1903, List published an article discussing the creation of the universe, the "old-Aryan sexual religion", [[reincarnation]], [[karma]], "[[Wotanism (Guido von List)|Wotanism]]", and "[[Armanism]]" from his [[theosophical]] viewpoint, which was illustrated by [[triskelions]] and various swastikas in the Viennese occult journal {{Lang|de|[[Die Gnosis]]}}.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=41, 52}} According to Goodrick-Clarke, "This article marked the first stage in List's articulation of a Germanic occult religion, the principal concern of which was racial purity".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=52}}

Between 1905 and 1907, List published articles in the {{Lang|de|[[Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung]]}} arguing that the swastika, the triskelion, and the sun-wheel were all "[[Armanist]]" occult symbols ([[Armanen runes]]) concealed in [[German heraldry]], and in 1908 his {{Lang|de|[[Das Geheimnis der Runen]]}}  ({{Lit.|''The Secret of the Runes''}}) argued that the swastika or Armanen rune "[[Gibor]]" was represented in [[blazon]]s including different [[heraldic crosses]] and kinked versions of the [[Ordinary (heraldry)|ordinaries]] [[Pale (heraldry)|pale]], [[Bend (heraldry)|bend]], and [[fess]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=72}} List argued that the swastika, triskelion, and other Armanen runes had been concealed in 15th-century [[rose windows]] and curvilinear [[tracery]] in [[late Gothic architecture]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=74}}
[[File:Table_of_the_Secret_of_the_Runes_by_Guido_von_List.png|thumb|upright 0.75|Table from [[Guido von List]]'s 1908 {{Lang|de|[[Das Geheimnis der Runen]]}}  ({{Lit.|''The Secret of the Runes''}}) illustrating his ideas about swastikas and his [[Ariosophist]] [[Armanen runes]] in [[German heraldry]] and [[Gothic architecture]].]]
List's 1908 book {{Lang|de|Die Rita der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Rite of the Ario-Germans''}}) had chapter headings with triskelions, swastikas, and other symbols attached. The work laid out his belief in an ancient priestly {{Lang|de|[[Armanenschaft]]}} of Wotanist initiates and identified the "Ario-Germans" as a "race" identical with [[Helena Blavatsky]]'s theosophical fifth "[[root race]]".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=52–53}} List's 1910 {{Lang|de|Die Religion der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Religion of the Ario-Germans''}}) discussed [[Yuga cycle]]s and the [[Kali Yuga]], proposing a mathematical relationship with the {{Lang|non|[[Grímnismál]]}} of the {{Lang|non|[[Edda]]|italic=no}}.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=53|pages=}} His {{Lang|de|Die Bilderschrift der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Picture-Writing of the Ario-Germans''}}) of the same year connected Blavatsky's Hindu-inspired cosmic cycles ([[Kalpa (time)|kalpas]]) with the realms of [[Muspelheim]] ({{Lang|de|Muspilheim}}), [[Asgard]], [[Vanaheimr]] ({{Lang|de|Wanenheim}}), and [[Midgard]], each with a corresponding symbol. Blavatsky's first Astral and second [[Hyperborea]]n races List connected with the descendants of [[Ymir]] and [[Orgelmir]], her third [[Lemuria]]n race was his race of [[Thrudgelmir]], her fourth [[Atlantis|Atlantean]] race his descendants of [[Bergelmir]], and Blavatsky's fifth root race List identified as the "Ario-Germans".<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=53–54}} According to Goodrick-Clarke, List again argued that the clockwise swastika was a holy symbol of the "Ario-Germans":
{{Blockquote|text=A series of anti-clockwise triskelions and swastikas and inverted triangles symbolized stages of cosmic evolution in the downsweep of the cycle (i.e. the evolution from unity to multiplicity), while their clockwise and upright counterparts connoted the return path to the godhead. The skewed super-imposition of the of these 'falling' and 'rising' sigils created complex sigils like the [[hexagram]] and the [[Maltese Cross]]. List asserted that these latter symbols were utterly sacred, because they embraced the two antithetical forces of all creation: as the representative symbols of the zenith of multiplicity at the outermost limit of the cycle, they denoted the Ario-German god-man, the highest form of life ever to evolve in the universe.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=54|pages=}}}}
List's 1914 {{Lang|de|Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen}} ({{Lit|''The Proto-Language of the Ario-Germans''}}) adopted the geological ideas of theosophist [[William Scott-Elliot]] and claimed that fragments of Atlantis remained part of Europe, pointing to [[rocking stones]] in [[Lower Austria]] and European [[megaliths]] as evidence. From [[Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels]], List took on occult ideas about the Aryan homeland [[Arktogäa]] (a lost polar continent), and struggle the Ario-German [[master race]]s and the non-Aryan slave races, and the [[Knights Templar]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=54–55}} List believed that the Templars had been adepts of "[[Armanism]]" during the Middle Ages' Christian ascendancy, and that they had been suppressed for worshipping the Maltese cross that List believed to be derived from a superimposed clockwise and anti-clockwise swastika and which he identified with [[Baphomet]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=61–62}} Members of the inner circle of the [[Guido von List Society]], the {{Lang|de|[[Hoher Armanen-Orden]]|italic=no}} (HAO), expressed their membership of the occult priesthood with swastikas. [[Heinrich Winter]], [[Friedrich Oskar Wannieck]], and [[Georg Hauerstein]] senior's first wife all had their graves decorated with swastikas.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=65}}[[File:Flag of the Order of New Templars.svg|thumb|upright 0.75|Flag of the [[Order of the New Templars]] designed 1907 with a swastika used as [[:Völkisch movement|''völkisch'']] (German ethno-nationalist) symbol]]Lanz, a former [[Cistercian]], established the [[Order of the New Templars]] or ONT ({{Lang|la|Ordo Novi Templi}} {{Lit|New Order of the Temple}}) in imitation of the Knights Templar whose [[monastic rule]] had been written by the Cistercian [[Bernard of Clairvaux]] and whom Lanz believed had aimed to establish "a [[Pan-Germanism|Greater Germanic]] [[Monastic order|order]]-state, which would encompass the entire [[Mediterranean area]] and extend its [[sphere of influence]] deep into the [[Middle East]]" whose eventual suppression had been a triumph of racial inferiority over the "Ario-Christian" eugenics practised by the Templars.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=108}} As the headquarters of his revived Templar Order and as a museum of Aryan anthropology, Lanz bought {{Interlanguage link|Burg Werfenstein|de}} on the Danube, where on Christmas Day 1907, he hoisted his [[heraldic banner]] (''[[gules]]'', an eagle's wing ''[[argent]]'') and the flag of the ONT: a swastika ''gules'' surrounded by four [[fleurs-de-lis]] ''[[Azure (heraldry)|azure]]'' on a field ''[[Or (heraldry)|or]]''.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke-2004" />{{Rp|page=|pages=106, 109, 113}}