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UNHOLY ALLIANCE: A HISTORY OF NAZI INVOLVEMENT WITH THE OCCULT |
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Preface to the Second Edition In the years since 1995 when this book was first published, the author has had occasion to see some of his anxieties -- predictions would be an overstatement -- come to sad fruition. The very ending of this book's final chapter, the quotation from Charles Manson that America's children were "coming right at you," came hideously to life with the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 in which children slaughtered their classmates with firearms. These same children had idolized the Nazis, and had selected Hider's birthday -- April 20 -- as the day to launch their sickening offensive. In a note more harrowing than thrilling, author Stephen King reminded us in the New York Times Magazine of September 23, 2001, that the next phase of the Columbine children's crusade was to hijack an airliner and fly it into the World Trade Center in New York City. Out of the guns of babes ... Religious fanaticism and mystical identification of the political body with the Godhead has led to increased terror attacks allover the world, most particularly of course the events of September 11, 2001. The ostensible reason behind this series of attacks was the removal of non-Muslim forces from the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia and the cessation of American support for Israel, both politico-religious goals reflective of intense mystical convictions. In addition, we are just learning of the depth of the horror that has been taking place in the Balkan states -- in Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo, and elsewhere -- as the perpetrators of religious and ethnic cleansing and virtual genocide are brought to some form of justice at the Hague. In Southeast Asia, the prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation blamed the Asian economic crisis of 1997 on a Jewish conspiracy masterminded by George Soros. In that same nation today, one can purchase reprints of Henry Ford's rabid anti-Semitic polemic, The International Jew, at newsstands everywhere. This particular edition, printed in South Africa, also includes the full text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the immortal phrase of Yogi Berra, "it's deja vu all over again." Or in other words, and to paraphrase my own book, we are still fighting World War One. On a somewhat happier note, Chilean government forces have raided Colonia Dignidad several times over the past few years in their efforts to arrest its notorious founder, former Luftwaffe pilot Paul Schafer, and bring him to justice. As mentioned in both the Introduction and the final chapter of this book, I was the unwilling beneficiary of Schafer's hospitality one Sunday morning in the Chilean winter of 1979. Schafer has managed to evade capture, it is thought, by taking advantage of the elaborate tunnel system he had built under the Colony, a system designed in part by an American neo-Nazi and mastermind of the assassination of Orlando Letelier, Michael Vernon Townsley. (Ironically, Townsley's father was a Ford Motor employee in Santiago.) Then, in the spring of 1999, I was invited to Germany for a taping of a television documentary on evil. The venue was the spiritual headquarters of Himmler's SS, the castle at Wewelsburg which is described at length in Chapter Six. I spent several pleasant days in the company of the film crew at our base in Paderborn, and made the acquaintance of a German filmmaker -- Dr. Kerstin Stutterheim -- whose documentary on Nazi occultism is essential viewing for anyone interested in the subject. Faces of Evil was aired on the TNT network during sweeps week in April, 2000 and included interviews with Marilyn Manson, FBI profiler John Douglas, author Poppy Z. Brite, and many other experts on evil and its forms in modern life, with voice-over narration by Malcolm MacDowell. I was honored to have been asked to participate, and even more thrilled when I realized that one of my culture heroes -- from such films as If A Clockwork Orange, and O! Lucky Man -- was to be the film's narrator. It seemed like an embarrasment of riches. Seven Years in Tibet opened in 1997, starring Brad Pitt as Heinrich Harrer, the German soldier who spent that length of time in Tibet during the Second World War and befriended the Dalai Lama, and is based on his memoir of the same title. What Harrer neglected to mention -- to the surprise and shock of filmgoers -- was that he was more than a mere soldier caught behind enemy lines: he was an 55 officer of some standing and reputation. That the Dalai Lama would have befriended a Nazi gave everyone some cause for speculation. As in our agon over Watergate, we wanted to ask the Dalai Lama: what did he know and when did he know it? The SS's fascination with Tibet and the story of their official expedition to that country in 1938 is detailed at length in Chapter Six. Pope John Paul II has begun a series of apologies for the actions of the Catholic Church over the past thousand years or so, actions that included war, murder, and persecution of minorities. These very public apologies are welcome, however late in coming. Some of these activities are covered in Chapter Eleven, where I discuss the efforts of some Catholic leaders to rescue Nazi war criminals from justice. Magic and occultism have come back in vogue in America and in many other parts of the world. Not only the X-Files, but shows like Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch can be seen on television stations in countries as remote from each other -- in religious sentiment as well as geography -- as the United Kingdom and Singapore, Venezuela and Hong Kong, Italy and Indonesia. Harry Potter became a record- reaker at the box office, just as it was being roundly condemned in some circles as encouraging children in the practices of magic and diverting them from the nervous embrace of organized religion. Magic and politics. Since the biblical days of Saul and the Witch of Endor, political leaders have banned or spurned occultism only to secretly consult mediums, astrologers, and necromancers in times of stress. We need not look too far into the past to realize that this reaction is basic to our nature. One only has to think of President Reagan's astrologer to confront this combustible mixture of magic and politics in our own time. If we insist on looking at magic from the point of view of mainstream science -- as an exploded system based on faulty hypotheses about the nature of reality -- then we miss the point entirely, since the same could be said of religion as it could about some forms of art. Calling magic a "pseudo-science" is also setting up a straw man for burning at the stake. Magic does not pretend to be chemistry or physics. One might as well call Roman Catholicism, the paintings of Picasso, or the films of Marilyn Monroe pseudo-science, if one wishes to devalue them speedily and does not have the intellectual gifts to do so on their own terms. One might as well complain about the unnecessary complexity of Rube Goldberg machinery: confusing form with function is often a characteristic of the cultural critic as it is of the devout scientist, a case of wondering why roses are red and violets are blue. And as much as the scientist scoffs at magic, in equal terms does the politician, military commander, and terrorist mastermind employ magic as one of the weapons in a specialized arsenal of the arcane, alongside psychological warfare, disinformation, Vietnamization, and assassination. War is the ultimate proof of utility: if a weapon works, it stays in the arsenal. Magic has been part of the arsenal of politics and of war (the continuation, after all, of politics by other means) for millennia, alongside the club, the siege engine, gunpowder, advertising campaigns, and dirty tricks. Far be it from this author, however, to wrestle with such complex issues in this limited space. He would rather give credit where it is due, and this he must do by the shovelful: To Phil Tuckett of Bristlecone Films, Alan Brown, Brad Minerd, David Sharples, and the entire crew of Faces of Evil. There are no other people I would rather be with when the ghost of Heinrich Himmler looms over me in Germany. You made taping a documentary entertaining, stimulating, and a lot of fun. To Dr. Kerstin Stutterheim, whose brilliant film on occult practices in Germany -- Mythos, Magie und Mord (Myth, Magic and Murder) -- should be seen by everyone who considers themselves an authority. Her encyclopedic knowledge of European film archives and the cultural context of both German occultism and Nazism is an invaluable resource. To Michael Leach, whose gracious support and encouragement at critical stages was instrumental to this edition, as was that of Dr. Eugene Kennedy and Diane Higgins. Many thanks to you. To Judith McNally, who believed in this book enough to become its informal advocate and guardian angel. Without Judith, this book would still be languishing in out-of-print limbo, unbaptized and unsaved. To Frank Oveis, whose advice and suggestions have made this edition even better than the first. To those other culture heroes who surprised the hell out of me by reading Unholy Alliance and contacting me with gracious praise: To Jim Marrs, whose kind references in Rule by Secrecy made my day. To Jim Hougan, the investigative journalist I wanted to be after reading Spooks, and to Tracy Twyman of Dagobert's Revenge who put us together; and to Hans Janitschek. To Whitley Strieber, with whom I once shared an agent, and whose personal quest somehow parallels my own; thanks for your kind correspondence, your unstinting support of Unholy Alliance and a very rewarding time on the Art Bell show, in spite of the potential difficulties of doing a live broadcast on a syndicated program when we were ten thousand miles -- and a dozen time zones -- apart. To Norman Mailer. It is rare to find anyone in life who will go the extra mile for another based purely on principle, and with no reasonable expectation of reward. It is even more difficult when that person is a literary legend who is probably importuned at every corner by needy (or greedy) authors. There are really no words I can use to thank Norman Mailer (without a constant and compulsive rewrite that will never allow this book to make print) so I won't even try. And finally to all the friends and fans of this book who must remain nameless; your E-mails, letters, reviews, and encouragement raised the energy necessary to get this done. Thank you all very much.
Southeast Asia
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