Nazi occultism

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Nazi occultism is an occult undercurrent of Nazism, of minor overall importance. Some historians attest semi-religious elements in Nazism.[1] Nevertheless, an occult side of Nazism did not exist as such. The persistent idea that the Nazis were directed by occult agencies is modern cryptohistory, in the sense that such an agency "has remained concealed to previous historians of National Socialism."

Nazism as political religion?

This article owes much to the research of a single historian, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. His book The Occult Roots of Nazism, first published 1985, is the most important work of reference for this topic. In a new preface to the 2004 edition, Goodrick-Clarke mentions some other serious writers who have examined "the religious and occult aspects of German National Socialism" before him: Raymond Aron, Albert Camus, Romano Guardini, Denis de Rougemont, Eric Voegelin, George Mosse, Klaus Vondung and Friedrich Heer.

The Occult Roots of Nazism includes a definition of occultism, but Goodrick-Clarke does not put forward a theoretical concept that specifies his view of the relation between Nazism and Religion / Nazism and Occultism. Other historians would focus less on the occult aspects of Nazism and more on the kind of religious aspects that have been termed Political religion by Eric Voegelin.

Among high-ranking Nazis, Richard Walther Darre, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg are credited with an interest in the occult. Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs in particular have been a question of examination.

After 1945, esoteric elements within Nazism were continued and expanded into new volkisch religions of white identity, collectively described as Esoteric Nazism. Influenced by Esoteric Nazism, there is even a contemporary loose network of pagan neo-Nazis.