Thule Society

The Thule Society (/ˈtuːlə/; German: Thule-Gesellschaft),

originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum ('Study
Thule Society
Thule-Gesellschaft
Group for Germanic Antiquity'), was a German occultist and
Völkisch group founded in Munich shortly after World War I,
named after a mythical northern country in Greek legend. The
society is notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP; German Workers' Party), which
was later reorganized by Adolf Hitler into the National Socialist
German Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party). According to
Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw, the organization's "membership list German name Thule-Gesellschaft
... reads like a Who's Who of early Nazi sympathizers and leading Abbreviation Thuleorden
figures in Munich", including Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Leader Walter Nauhaus[1]
Hans Frank, Julius Lehmann, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, and
Founder Rudolf von
Karl Harrer.[2] Sebottendorf

Author Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke contends that Hans Frank and Founded 1918

Rudolf Hess had been Thule members, but other leading Nazis had Dissolved 1925
only been invited to speak at Thule meetings or they were entirely Split from Germanenorden
unconnected with it.[3][4] According to Johannes Hering, "There is Headquarters Berlin, Germany
no evidence that Hitler ever attended the Thule Society."[5] Newspaper Münchener
Beobachter

Origins Membership 1,500 (peak)

Ideology National mysticism
The Thule Society was originally a "German study group" headed
Racial
by Walter Nauhaus,[6] a wounded World War I veteran turned art antisemitism
student from Berlin who had become a keeper of pedigrees for the
Religion Ariosophy
Germanenorden (or "Order of Teutons"), a secret society founded
Politics of Germany · Political
in 1911 and formally named in the following year.[7] In 1917,
parties · Elections
Nauhas moved to Munich; his Thule Society was to be a cover-
name for the Munich branch of the Germanenorden,[8] 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 Bavarian province of the schismatic offshoot
known as the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail.[9] 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.[10]

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:
 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.[11]

"Thule" (Greek: Θούλη) was a land located by Greco-Roman geographers in the farthest north (often
displayed as Iceland).[12] The Latin term "Ultima Thule" is also mentioned by Roman poet Virgil in his
pastoral poems called the Georgics.[13] 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.[14] The Thule Society identified Ultima Thule as a lost
ancient landmass in the extreme north, near Greenland or Iceland,[15] said by 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.[16]

The followers of the Thule Society were very interested in racial theory and, in particular, in combating
Jews and communists. Sebottendorff planned but failed to kidnap Bavarian socialist prime minister Kurt
Eisner in December 1918.[6][17] During the 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.[18][19] In response, the Thule organised a citizens' uprising as White troops entered
the city on 1 May.[20]

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 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 the
same year. By the end of February 1920, the DAP had been reconstituted as the Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers' Party), often referred to as the Nazi
Party.[21]

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.[22] 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 revolution of 1918,[23] although he has more recently
acknowledged that Hess and Frank were members of the society before they came to prominence in the
Nazi Party.[4] It has also been claimed that Adolf Hitler himself was a member.[24] Evidence on the contrary
shows that he never attended a meeting, as attested to by Johannes Hering's diary of society meetings.[5] It
is quite clear that Hitler himself had little interest in, and made little time for, "esoteric" matters.[25]

Wilhelm Laforce and Max Sesselmann (staff on the Münchener Beobachter) were Thule members who
later joined the NSDAP.[6]

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,[22] well before
Hitler came to power.

Rudolf von Sebottendorff had withdrawn from the Thule Society in 1919, but he returned to Germany in
1933 in the hope of reviving 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." This claim was
not favourably received by the Nazi authorities: after 1933, esoteric organisations were suppressed
(including völkisch occultists), many closed down by anti-Masonic legislation in 1935. Sebottendorff's book
was prohibited and he himself was arrested and imprisoned for a short period in 1934, afterwards departing
into exile in Turkey.

Nonetheless, it has been argued that some Thule members and their ideas were incorporated into Nazi
Germany.[24] Some of the Thule Society's teachings were expressed in the books of Alfred Rosenberg.[26]
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 Jesuit order[27]
rather than the Thule Society, according to Hohne.

Conspiracy theories
The Thule Society has become the center of many 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.[28]

In popular culture
The Thule Society has been featured in the television series Supernatural: in "Everybody
Hates Hitler" (2013, season 8), a group of society members seek out a lost ledger containing
information about their experiments with necromancy. In "The Vessel" (2016, season 11), a
leading member of the Thule Society vies against Dean to find a piece of the Ark of the
Covenant during World War II. In "The One You've Been Waiting For" (season 12) the Thule
leadership endeavors to resurrect Adolf Hitler, resulting in the death of both the leadership of
the Thule Society and the resurrected Hitler.
 The Thule Society plays a major role in the Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of
Shamballa, a movie set after the ending of the 2003 anime of the same name.
In Hellboy, the Thule Society was responsible for conducting a doomsday ritual that caused
the titular hero to appear in our world with the aid of Grigori Rasputin. In the 2004 film
adaptation, Professor Bruttenholm refers to Adolf Hitler having joined the Thule Society in
1937, describing them as "a group of German aristocrats obsessed with the occult."

The Thule Society is referenced in several of Charles Stross's Laundry Files novels and
short stories.
In the Area 51 novels, the society is mentioned as being the occult force behind the Nazi
Party.
The Thule Society plays a major part in the Wolfenstein video game series.

In the Secret World Chronicle[29] by Mercedes Lackey, the Thule Society is behind the
attacks on Echo facilities on February 15, 2004.[30]

The Thule Society is featured in the video game Clive Barker's Jericho.
The fictional "Brotherhood of Thule" is featured as the American branch of the Thule Society
in the 1998 video game Black Dahlia.

The Thule Society plays a role in the Marvel Comics series, Fear Itself. In the story, the Thule
Society is under the guidance and leadership of the Red Skull, which he uses to protect the
Hammer of Skadi when it is summoned to the earth.
The Thule Society also appears in Steve Gerber's brief run on Marvel's Cloak and Dagger.
The Loyalists of Thule, a group dedicated to the hunt for supernatural creatures, are based
on the remnants of the Thule Society in Hunter: The Vigil by White Wolf Publishing
The Thule Society is present in the eroge/anime 11eyes as a hermetic society of dark magic
practitioners aiding Nazi Germany in its war against the Vatican.

The Thule Society is at the center of a conspiracy which is the subject of the Serbian 2017
TV series Senke nad Balkanom ("Shadows over the Balkans"), set in the interwar Kingdom
of Yugoslavia.
In Prisoners, detective Loki who inspects the disappearance of abducted children wears a
ring that bears the logo of the Thule Society. The logo appears again in the form of maze
drawings on a wall in a scene.

See also
Ahnenerbe
Guido von List
Nazi archaeology
Nazism and occultism
Thule-Seminar

References
1. Phelps 1963
 2. Kershaw, Ian (2000). Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 138–139.
3. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 149, 221
4. Goodrick-Clarke 2003, p. 114
5. 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).
6. Phelps 1963
7. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 127–28, 143
8. Phelps 1963, n.31.
9. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 131, 142–43
10. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 144
11. 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.")
12. "Perseus Digital Library" (http://artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.12:1:419.
geography), citing Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
13. "Georgics, by Virgil — trans. in 1916 by H. R. Fairclough (1862–1938)" (https://www.stoicther
apy.com/elibrary-georgics). www.stoictherapy.com. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
14. Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (2012). The Oxford Classical
Dictionary. OUP Oxford. p. 554. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.
15. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicolas (1995) The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their
Influence on Nazi Ideology (https://books.google.com/books?id=9ZzWRz9x8mwC&q=Ultima
&pg=PA145) New YorkL NYU Press. p.145 ISBN 9780814730607
16. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 143
17. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 147
18. Timebase 1919 (http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/timebase/1
919tbse.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20060929134934/http://www.humanitas-
international.org/showcase/chronography/timebase/1919tbse.htm) 2006-09-29 at the
Wayback Machine. Timebase Multimedia Chronography. Accessed April 18, 2008.
19. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 148.
20. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 149.
21. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 150
22. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 221
23. Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 149, 217–225
24. Angebert 1974, p. 9
25. Skorzeny 1995
26. See, for example, Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der
seelischgeistigen Gestaltungskämpfe unserer Zeit, München: Hoheneichen, 1930.
27. Höhne 1969, pp. 138, 143–145
28. Goodrick-Clarke 2003, pp. 166–169.
29. "The Secret World Chronicle" (http://secretworldchronicle.com/). The Secret World
Chronicle. Retrieved 2014-02-24.
30. "The Thule Society" (http://secretworldchronicle.com/characters/the-thule-society/). The
Secret World Chronicle. 2004-02-15. Retrieved 2014-02-24.
Bibliography
Angebert, Jean-Michel (1974). The Occult and the Third Reich: the mystical origins of
Nazism and the search for the Holy Grail. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-502150-8.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (1985). The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and
Their Influence on Nazi Ideology - The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935.
London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 0-8147-3054-X.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. 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.)
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics
of Identity. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0.
Höhne, Heinz (1969). The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. Martin Secker
& Warburg. 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
Phelps, Reginald H. (1963). " "Before Hitler Came": Thule Society and Germanen Orden" (ht
tps://www.jstor.org/stable/1899474). The Journal of Modern History. 35 (3): 245–261.
doi:10.1086/243738 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F243738). ISSN 0022-2801 (https://www.worl
dcat.org/issn/0022-2801). JSTOR 1899474 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1899474).
S2CID 143484937 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:143484937).
Skorzeny, Otto (1995). My Commando Operations. Schiffer Pub. ISBN 0-88740-718-8.

Further reading
Gilbhard, Hermann. 1994. Die Thule-Gesellschaft. Kiessling Verlag. ISBN 3-930423-00-6.
(in German)
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, 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.

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