- If you needed any further proof that the Nazis were nuts, check out this stuff.
As World War II began, Hitler’s murderous armies rolled across Europe. In addition to the latest military technology of the time, they were armed with unspeakable supernatural powers.
That’s not the plot of some sci-fi B-movie. The German high command really did try its best to put forces beyond this reality under Nazi service.
Their results of those attempts, however, were… Let’s call it a mixed bag. A mixed bag of experiments that did nothing whatsoever, and those that were just plain ridiculous.
Here’s a sampler of 7 of the Nazis’ harebrained plots to tap into the supernatural.
1. Finding Warships with Pendulums
As World War II raged, Germany’s navy started losing battleships at an alarming rate. But what if they could locate those sunk ships for later recovery and repair?
That’s where mystic Ludwig Straniak came in. He claimed to be able to accurately pinpoint ships’ locations on a map by using his pendulum dowsing abilities.
The Nazis put Straniak to the test, telling him to divine the location of an unsunken ship. And what do you know, he did it accurately.
With that, Straniak (and a few other psychics) were hired to the SP Office, whose sole responsibility was finding lost ships using pendulums. However, Straniak’s test must have been a fluke, because there’s no record of the SP Office ever correctly locating a single ship.
2. Hitler’s Personal Clairvoyant
Erik Jan Hanussen is a fascinating character. He was a hypnotist, astrologer, and many other otherworldly things who got hired by Hitler himself in the early 1930s to coach him in public speaking and also serve as his personal clairvoyant.
There was just one thing Hitler didn’t know — Hanussen was Jewish. Although he had converted to Christianity, Hitler probably wouldn’t have been too thrilled about the revelation.
Hanussen provided Hitler with astrology services and made predictions about the future. His greatest feat was that he accurately predicted the Reichstag Fire of 1933.
That, however, was also Hanussen’s downfall. He was arrested after other Nazi leaders became suspicious of him having insider knowledge of the arson attack. In the end, the Nazi regime thanked Hanussen for his services by summarily executing him.
3. Visions of the World’s Creation
Hanns Hörbiger was an Austrian engineer and inventor who discovered the truth about how the universe was born. He posited that two enormous iced-over stars collided in empty space and created the current universe.
How did he know this? Oh, it all came to him in a dream in 1894.
Hörbiger tried to promote his World Ice Theory, but nobody really took him seriously. That changed when the Nazi regime picked up the idea and made it a more or less part of their official worldview.
Granted, the Nazis didn’t necessarily believe in the World Ice Theory. However, it contradicted the “accepted Jewish science” of the time, so they clung on to it anyway.
4. Psychically Detecting Jews
Among the most notorious of the Nazis’ supernatural lackeys was Dr. Wilhelm Gutberlet. Hitler met him shortly after World War I, and the two bonded over how they really, REALLY hated the Jews.
The relationship of this terrible duo took a step for the worse when Gutberlet told Hitler his great secret. He claimed to be a psychic who could use his powers to detect Jewish people.
Well, Hitler thought that was the best news he’d ever heard. As his National Socialist Party seized power, Hitler hired Gutberlet to make good use of his powers.
Gutberlet might be the only person on this list to make an actual, horrible impact on the world with his supposed “powers.” There’s no official record of how many people ended up in the concentration camps because of Gutberlet, but it’s probably safe to guess it’s, unfortunately, a non-zero number.
5. The Anti-Assassination Star Reader
Karl Ernst Krafft was a Swiss astrologer who believed he could divine the future from the stars. In 1939, he warned the Nazi government that Hitler would be in danger between November 8 and 10 that year.
The Nazi government ignored the lunatic’s letter. Then, on November 8, 1939, Hitler narrowly escaped an attempted assassination by bombing in Munich.
Suddenly, the Nazis took Krafft much more seriously. He got hired by the government — and proceeded to do jack for the rest of the war.
Well, he did do one thing. By simply getting hired, the British government determined that there was something to this astrology business and hired an astrologer of their own (who also ended up doing nothing at all).
If you want to know about other outlandish arms wars, read our list of 8 bizarre Cold War plots.
6. Rudolf Hess’ Visionary Mission of Peace
By 1941, Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuehrer of the Third Reich, had grown tired of the war. He wanted to find a way to end it, so he consulted the most authoritative of all military counselors—his astrologer, Karl Haushofer.
Haushofer told Hess that he was in luck. The wackjob had had a dream of Hess walking through the gardens of England, obviously a sign that Hess should attempt to make peace with Great Britain. Additionally, six planets were in Taurus and the moon was full, so the timing couldn’t be better.
Encouraged, Hess took a plane and flew to Scotland. This is exactly as insane as it sounds.
His plan, shockingly, didn’t work. Great Britain didn’t make peace with Germany, Hess spent the rest of his days in jail, and Hitler ordered a violent purge of astrologers and other mystics across Germany.
7. Himmler’s State Monopoly on Astrology
Supporting Hitler in his crackdown on astrology was Heinrich Himmler, the brutal leader of the SS and the main architect of the Holocaust. However, he didn’t want astrology restricted because he thought it was nonsense.
He believed it was so powerful that it should only be practiced by the Nazi regime.
As you might guess from that resume, Himmler was a little off his rocker. Not only did he believe in astronomy, but he thought he was one of the most powerful astronomers of all time.
It’s on historical record that before any major decisions, Himmler consulted the stars. He was so deep in his thing that he believed he could genuinely tell the future.
A man of his power should certainly understand how dangerous astrology could be. So, he wanted to bring its potential to use by the Nazi war machine.
“Astrology must remain ‘privilegium singulorum’ in the national-socialist state and is not for the mass of the people,” he is recorded as having said.
The Third Reich’s stupid plans didn’t end at the supernatural. Check out our list of 5 other bizarre Nazi plans from WWII.