Editing Thule Society

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{{short description|German nationalist and occultist movement (1918-25)}}
{{Infobox political party
| name             = Thule Society
| native_name      = Thule-Gesellschaft
| lang1            = German
| name_lang1       = Thule-Gesellschaft
| logo             = File:Thule-Gesellschaft.svg
| logo_size        = 125px
| colorcode        = 836809
| abbreviation     = Thuleorden
| leader           = Walter Nauhaus<ref>Phelps 1963</ref>
| founder          = [[Rudolf von Sebottendorf]]
| founded          = {{start date and age|1918}}
| dissolved        = {{end date and age|1925}}
| split            = ''[[Germanenorden]]''
| merged           = 
| successor        = 
| headquarters     = [[Berlin]], [[Weimar Republic|Germany]]
| newspaper        = ''[[Münchener Beobachter]]''
| think_tank       = 
| paramilitary_wing = 
| student_wing     = 
| youth_wing       = 
| membership       = 1,500 (peak)
| ideology         = {{plainlist|
*[[Anti-communism]]
*[[National mysticism]]
*[[Racial antisemitism]]}}
| religion         = 
| colors           = 
| anthem           = 
| symbol           = 
| country          = Germany
}}

The '''Thule Society''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|t|uː|l|ə}}; {{langx|de|Thule-Gesellschaft}}), originally the {{lang|de|Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum}} ('Study Group for [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] Antiquity'), was a German [[occult]]ist and {{lang|de|[[Völkisch movement|Völkisch]]}} group founded in [[Munich]] shortly after [[World War I]], named after a [[Thule|mythical northern country]] in Greek legend. The society is notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the {{lang|de|[[German Workers' Party|Deutsche Arbeiterpartei]]}} (DAP; German Workers' Party), which was later reorganized by [[Adolf Hitler]] into the [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (NSDAP or Nazi Party). According to Hitler biographer [[Ian Kershaw]], the organization's "membership list ... reads like a Who's Who of early Nazi sympathizers and leading figures in Munich", including [[Rudolf Hess]], [[Alfred Rosenberg]], [[Hans Frank]], [[Julius Lehmann]], [[Gottfried Feder]], [[Dietrich Eckart]], and [[Karl Harrer]].<ref>Kershaw, Ian (2000). ''Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris'', W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 138–139.</ref>

Author [[Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke]] contends that Hans Frank and Rudolf Hess had been Thule members, but other leading Nazis had only been invited to speak at Thule meetings, or they were entirely unconnected with it.<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|pp=149, 221}}</ref><ref name="Goodrick-Clarke 2003 114">{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|2003|p=114}}</ref> According to Johannes Hering, "There is no evidence that Hitler ever attended the Thule Society."<ref name=GC201/>

==Origins==
The Thule Society was originally a "German study group" headed by Walter Nauhaus,<ref name=Ph>{{harvnb|Phelps|1963}}</ref> a wounded [[World War I]] veteran turned art student from [[Berlin]] who had become a keeper of pedigrees for the [[Germanenorden]] (or "Order of [[Germanic peoples|Teutons]]"), a [[secret society]] founded in 1911 and formally named in the following year.<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|pp=127–28, 143}}</ref> In 1917, Nauhas moved to Munich; his ''Thule Society'' was to be a cover-name for the Munich branch of the Germanenorden,<ref>Phelps 1963, n.31.</ref> but events developed differently as a result of a schism in the order. In 1918, Nauhas was contacted in Munich by [[Rudolf von Sebottendorf]] (or von Sebottendorff), an occultist and newly elected head of the [[Bavaria]]n province of the schismatic offshoot known as the [[Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail]].<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|pp=131, 142–43}}</ref> The two men became associates in a recruitment campaign, and Sebottendorff adopted Nauhas's Thule Society as a cover-name for his Munich lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater at its formal dedication on 18 August 1918.<ref name=GC144>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=144}}</ref>

==Beliefs==
A primary focus of the Thule Society was a claim concerning the origins of the [[Aryan race]]. In 1917, people who wanted to join the "Germanic Order", out of which the Thule Society developed in 1918, had to sign a special "blood declaration of faith" concerning their lineage:

<blockquote>The signer hereby swears to the best of his knowledge and belief that no Jewish or coloured blood flows in either his or in his wife's veins, and that among their ancestors are no members of the coloured races.<ref>Rudolf von Sebottendorff, ''Bevor Hitler kam'', 1933, page 42 (original: "Blutbekenntnis": "Unterzeichner versichert nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen, daß in seinen und seiner Frau Adern kein jüdisches oder farbiges Blut fließe und daß sich unter den Vorfahren auch keine Angehörigen der farbigen Rassen befinden.")</ref></blockquote>

"[[Thule]]" ({{langx|el|Θούλη}}) was a land located by Greco-Roman [[geographer]]s in the farthest north (often displayed as Iceland).<ref>[http://artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.12:1:419.geography "Perseus Digital Library"], citing Smith's ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography]]''</ref> The Latin term "Ultima Thule" is also mentioned by Roman poet [[Virgil]] in his pastoral poems called the ''[[Georgics]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Georgics, by Virgil — trans. in 1916 by H. R. Fairclough (1862–1938) |url=https://www.stoictherapy.com/elibrary-georgics |website=www.stoictherapy.com |access-date=15 May 2021}}</ref> Thule originally was probably the name for [[Scandinavia]], although Virgil simply uses it as a proverbial expression for the edge of the known world, and his mention should not be taken as a substantial reference to [[Scandinavia]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hornblower|first1=Simon |last2=Spawforth|first2=Antony |last3=Eidinow|first3=Esther |title=The Oxford Classical Dictionary|year=2012|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-954556-8|page=554}}</ref> The Thule Society identified [[Ultima Thule (disambiguation)|Ultima Thule]] as a lost ancient landmass in the extreme north, near [[Greenland]] or [[Iceland]],<ref>Goodrick-Clarke, Nicolas (1995) [https://books.google.com/books?id=9ZzWRz9x8mwC&q=Ultima&pg=PA145 ''The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology''] New YorkL NYU Press. p.145 {{isbn|9780814730607}}</ref> said by [[Nazi occultism|Nazi mystics]] to be the capital of ancient [[Hyperborea]].

==Activities==
The Thule Society attracted about 1,500 followers in [[Bavaria]], including 250 followers in Munich.<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=143}}</ref>

The followers of the Thule Society were very interested in racial theory and, in particular, in combating [[Jew]]s and [[Communism|communists]]. Sebottendorff planned but failed to kidnap Bavarian socialist [[prime minister]] [[Kurt Eisner]] in December 1918.<ref name=Ph/><ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=147}}</ref> During the [[Bavarian Soviet Republic|Bavarian revolution]] of April 1919, Thulists were accused of trying to infiltrate its government and of attempting a coup. On 26 April, the Communist government in Munich raided the society's premises and took seven of its members into custody, executing them on 30 April. Amongst them were Walter Nauhaus and three aristocrats, including Countess Heila von Westarp, who functioned as the group's secretary, and [[Prince Gustav of Thurn and Taxis]], who was related to several European royal families.<ref>[http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/timebase/1919tbse.htm Timebase 1919] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060929134934/http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/timebase/1919tbse.htm |date=2006-09-29 }}. ''Timebase Multimedia Chronography''. Accessed April 18, 2008.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=148.}}</ref> In response, the Thule organised a citizens' uprising as White troops entered the city on 1 May.<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=149.}}</ref>

===''Münchener Beobachter'' newspaper===
In 1918, the Thule Society bought a local weekly newspaper, the ''[[Münchener Beobachter]]'' (Munich Observer), and changed its name to ''Münchener Beobachter und Sportblatt'' (Munich Observer and Sports Paper) in an attempt to improve its circulation. The ''Münchener Beobachter'' later became the ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' ("''[[Völkisch]]'' Observer"), the main Nazi newspaper. It was edited by [[Karl Harrer]].

===Deutsche Arbeiterpartei===
[[Anton Drexler]] had developed links between the Thule Society and various extreme-right workers' organizations in Munich. He established the [[German Workers' Party|''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'']] (DAP; German Workers' Party) on 5 January 1919, together with the Thule Society's Karl Harrer. Adolf Hitler joined this party in September of the same year. By the end of February 1920, the DAP had been reconstituted as the [[Nazi Party|''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'']] (NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers' Party), often referred to as the Nazi Party.<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=150}}</ref>

Sebottendorff, by then, had left the Thule Society and never joined the DAP or the Nazi Party. Dietrich Bronder (''Bevor Hitler kam'', 1964) alleged that other members of the Thule Society were later prominent in Nazi Germany: the list includes [[Dietrich Eckart]] (who coached Hitler on his [[public speaking]] skills, along with [[Erik Jan Hanussen]], and had ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' dedicated to him), as well as [[Gottfried Feder]], [[Hans Frank]], [[Hermann Göring]], [[Karl Haushofer]], [[Rudolf Hess]], [[Heinrich Himmler]], and [[Alfred Rosenberg]].<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke 1985 221">{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p=221}}</ref> Historian [[Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke]] has described this membership roll and similar claims as "spurious" and "fanciful", noting that Feder, Eckart, and Rosenberg were never more than guests to whom the Thule Society extended hospitality during the [[Bavarian Soviet Republic|Bavarian revolution of 1918]],<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|pp=149, 217–225}}</ref> although he has more recently acknowledged that Hess and Frank were members of the society before they came to prominence in the Nazi Party.<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke 2003 114"/> It has also been claimed that Adolf Hitler himself was a member.<ref name=Ange9>{{harvnb|Angebert|1974|p=9}}</ref> Evidence on the contrary shows that he never attended a meeting, as attested to by Johannes Hering's diary of society meetings.<ref name=GC201>Johannes Hering, "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Thule-Gesellschaft", typescript dated 21 June 1939, ''Bundesarchiv Koblenz'', NS26/865, cited in Goodrick-Clarke (1985: 201), who concludes: "There is no evidence that Hitler ever attended the Thule Society" (ibid., 201).</ref> It is quite clear that Hitler himself (unlike Himmler, for example) had little interest in, and made little time for, "esoteric" matters.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Skorzeny
 |first1               = Otto
 |author-link1         = Otto Skorzeny
 |year                 = 1995
 |title                = My Commando Operations
 |url                  = https://archive.org/details/OttoSkorzenyMyCommandoOperations
 |series               = Schiffer military history
 |publisher            = Schiffer Pub.
 |page                 = 
 |isbn                 = 9780887407185
 |access-date          = 19 July 2024
 |quote                = 
}} 
</ref>{{pn|date=July 2024}}

Wilhelm Laforce and Max Sesselmann (staff on the ''Münchener Beobachter'') were Thule members who later joined the NSDAP.<ref name="Ph" />

==Dissolution==
Early in 1920, Karl Harrer was forced out of the DAP as Hitler moved to sever the party's link with the Thule Society, which subsequently fell into decline and was dissolved about five years later,<ref name="Goodrick-Clarke 1985 221"/> well before Hitler came to power.

[[Rudolf von Sebottendorff]] had withdrawn from the Thule Society in 1919, but he returned to Germany in 1933, hoping to revive it.  In that year, he published a book entitled ''Bevor Hitler kam'' (''Before Hitler Came''), in which he claimed that the Thule Society had paved the way for the Führer: "Thulers were the ones to whom Hitler first came, and Thulers were the first to unite themselves with Hitler."  The Nazi authorities did not favourably receive this claim: after 1933, esoteric organisations were suppressed (including ''völkisch'' occultists), and many were closed down by anti-[[Freemasonry|Masonic]] legislation in 1935.  Sebottendorff's book was prohibited, and he was arrested and imprisoned for a short period in 1934 after departing into exile in Turkey.

Nonetheless, it has been argued that some Thule members and their ideas were incorporated into [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name=Ange9/>  Some of the Thule Society's teachings were expressed in the books of [[Alfred Rosenberg]].<ref>See, for example, Alfred Rosenberg, ''Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelischgeistigen Gestaltungskämpfe unserer Zeit'', München: Hoheneichen, 1930.</ref> Many occult ideas found favour with Heinrich Himmler, who had a great interest in mysticism, unlike Hitler, but the ''[[Schutzstaffel]]'' (SS) under Himmler emulated the structure of [[Ignatius Loyola]]'s [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit order]]<ref>{{harvnb |Höhne |1969 |pp=138, 143–145}}</ref> rather than the Thule Society, according to Hohne.

==Conspiracy theories==
The Thule Society has become the center of many [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] concerning [[Nazi Germany]] due to its occult background (like the [[Ahnenerbe]] section of the SS). Such theories include the creation of [[vril]]-powered [[Nazi UFOs]].{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2003|pp=166–169}}

==See also==
*[[Ahnenerbe]]
*[[Guido von List]]
*[[Nazi archaeology]]
*[[Nazism and occultism]]
*[[Thule-Seminar]]
*[[Vril Society]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book | last =Angebert | first =Jean-Michel | author-link = | title =The Occult and the Third Reich: the mystical origins of Nazism and the search for the Holy Grail | year =1974 | publisher =Macmillan | location = | isbn =0-02-502150-8 }}
* {{cite book |last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |year=1985 |title=The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology - The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935 |location=[[London]] |publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]] |isbn=0-8147-3054-X}}
* Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. ''[[Black Sun (Goodrick-Clarke book)|Black Sun]]: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity''. New York University Press. {{ISBN|0-8147-3124-4}}. (Paperback 2003, 384 pages, {{ISBN|0-8147-3155-4}}.)
* {{cite book| last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |title=Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity |year=2003 |publisher=New York University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8147-3155-0 }}
* {{cite book | last =Höhne | first =Heinz | author-link = | title = The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS | year =1969 | publisher =Martin Secker & Warburg | location = | isbn =0-14-139012-3 }}
* Jacob, Frank. 2010. ''Die Thule-Gesellschaft''. Uni-edition. {{ISBN|3-942171-00-7}}
* Jacob, Frank: Die Thule-Gesellschaft und die Kokuryûkai: Geheimgesellschaften im global-historischen Vergleich, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg, 2012, {{ISBN|978-3-8260-4909-5}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Phelps |first1=Reginald H. |title="Before Hitler Came": Thule Society and Germanen Orden |journal=The Journal of Modern History |date=1963 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=245–261 |doi=10.1086/243738 |jstor=1899474 |s2cid=143484937 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1899474 |issn=0022-2801}}

==Further reading==
* Gilbhard, Hermann. 1994. ''Die Thule-Gesellschaft''. Kiessling Verlag. {{ISBN|3-930423-00-6}}. {{in lang|de}}
* Hale, Christopher. 2003. ''Himmler's Crusade: The True Story of the 1938 Nazi Expedition into Tibet''. London: Transworld Publishers. {{ISBN|0-593-04952-7}}.
* Kershaw, Ian. 2001. ''Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris''. Penguin. {{ISBN|0-14-013363-1}}.
* Lavenda, Peter. 2007. ''Unholy Alliance''. Continium Books. {{ISBN|0-8264-1409-5}}.
* (fr) [[Jean Robin (writer)|Jean Robin]], ''Hitler, l'élu du dragon'', Camion Noir, {{ISBN|978-2-357-79730-7}}.
* Sklar, Dusty. 1977. ''The Nazis and the Occult''. New York: Dorset Press. {{ISBN|0-88029-412-4}}.


{{NSDAP|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1918 establishments in Germany]]
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[[Category:Occultism in Nazism]]
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