Paul Copeland
The Nazi Gospels

In general, when we are faced with news of yet another terrorist attack or images depicting the tragedy of migrants or those of wars in distant lands about which we know little, partly due to the disinterest of the media, and up to the nuclear threat posed by a surely singular character like Kim Jong-un, not to mention the aggressive behavior of leaders of giant world powers like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, we often use the term 'madness'.

Naturally, we are aware that behind each of these phenomena there are, more or less crudely, evident reasons relating to the distribution of 'power' within the global balance and particularly those that are large economic interests of individuals or - more accurately - in most cases, of large corporations and multinational companies.

We are not appealing in this case, nor in providing this interpretation, to any specific conspiracy theory, but rather to what we can call simple common sense. We envision that it is inconceivable for someone to act so irrationally, considering any act of violence in this way, to the extent of performing such brutal acts.

Because violence is, in any case, something irrational.

Although it is a 'natural impulse,' that is, part of human nature, it has nothing to do with the rational sphere and at most can concern behaviors and reactions of a 'compulsive' type or related to survival.

And yet throughout history, we have witnessed and are still witnessing events that seemingly have nothing rational about them and appear all the more inexplicable because they involve not just what could be a single individual (the sole act of a madman is in itself 'statistically acceptable') but a multitude of people. Even entire nations.

This 2012 History Channel documentary directed by Paul Copeland ('Il Vangelo di Hitler' - original title: 'The Nazi Gospels') focuses its attention on one of the most controversial aspects of Nazism: that which concerns occultism and secret societies. Those which were the foundations of Nazi thought and its mystical roots based on false and distorted beliefs and ancient pagan rites.

A reality that, as much as it was ultimately a shared part of a small circle of the SS leadership in its most extreme and distorted expressions, also formed the basis of that thought which, actively or passively shared by a nation inhabited by millions, led to the Second World War, the genocide of the Jews, the Holocaust.

'The Nazi Gospels' reconstructs the path from the widespread interest in mysticism and esotericism at the end of the 19th century, through a distorted interpretation of the thinking of fundamental philosophers like Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche, and the recovery of what can be considered ancient traditions and rituals of the Germanic peoples, leading to the foundation of the ideological bases of Nazism.

An ideology whose center was obviously the figure of the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, and whose principal ideologue was Heinrich Himmler, military and war criminal and supreme chief of the SS since 1929, and on whom much of the documentary centers.

It could not have been otherwise, since it was he, more than anyone else, who contributed to the formation and spread of Nazi doctrine and thought, of which the SS, as the elite paramilitary organization of the party, constituted the core.

Heinrich Himmler constructed the Nazi ideology by drawing inspiration from principles already mentioned earlier, founding the 'creed' essentially on opposition to all that could be the centers of power in that specific historical period: the economic and scientific, believed to be expressions of the hated Jews; the political, thus liberal thought, social democracy, and communist opponents; the spiritual of the Catholic Church.

He therefore established the SS operational center at the Wewelsburg castle in North Rhine-Westphalia and, obsessed with his theories which posited the Germanic man as the sole descendant of the 'Aryans', an ancient warrior race and creator of civilization and culture, historically destined to dominate all inferior races, began a veritable pseudo-scientific and archaeological research work to find proof supporting his theories.

Among these, recalled within the documentary, the unsuccessful search for the Holy Grail in Provence and Languedoc by Otto Rahn, who was later tragically found frozen to death on a mountainside in Tyrol after being accused of homosexuality and disgraced; the mysterious and never fully clarified archaeological missions in Tibet, where it was believed members of this ancient superior race had taken refuge for a period in their history before mixing with 'inferior races'.

Finally, the rejection of Einstein's relativity theories in favor of the absurd theories of Austrian astronomer Hanns Horbiger, who formulated the 'Cosmic Ice' theory which, through an absurd description of the universe's formation and the solar system's operation, justified the Nazi regime's absurd theories on the existence of races of giants and the existence and consequent submersion of Atlantis and Lemuria.

Clearly, the Nazi regime had gone beyond anything that could have a rational content, and this was so also due to the limited awareness and self-awareness of the German population in the 1930s and 1940s.

Yet these theories, or in any case, the 'heart' of the Nazi creed and what the documentary defines as 'The Gospel of Hitler', was embraced and shared (I repeat: actively and/or passively) by an entire nation.

In 1943, Germany had a population of over 90 million people. How is it possible that these theories, as distorted as they were, managed to become something so universally accepted by the vast majority of the country's inhabitants?

Undoubtedly, Adolf Hitler's political charisma, capable of striking the right 'chords' in a Germany that was deeply humiliated after the First World War and went through an unparalleled economic crisis, was the fundamental principle, the keystone that led to the mass affirmation of Nazi thought. Alongside, it is evident, was the violent and oppressive action of the SS.

Certainly, a fundamental role was played by the propaganda system, an infallible machine led by one of the most important Nazi hierarchs, Joseph Paul Goebbels.

However, propaganda itself and the violence, in the sense of oppressive force exercised by the SS and consequently by the entire Nazi regime, cannot alone justify the acceptance of the most distorted Nazi theories that led to the persecution of Jews, Roma, communists, homosexuals, the mentally ill, Jehovah's Witnesses... hence genocide, the Holocaust.

All of this could not have happened solely in a passive manner. It was indeed indispensable that these ninety million Germans or at least the vast majority of them were 'convinced' of everything that was happening and took active part in it.

Yet the theories promoted by Nazism and Heinrich Himmler were and are absolutely distorted and devoid of any logic and common sense.

The so-called 'collective madness' is something that I do not believe can exist in practical terms. We must conclude that evidently, a large part of the German population at the time viewed the Nazi regime positively for what could be their primary interests and needs, and regardless of how absurd, they were even willing to embrace the most absurd theories as they were and without disputing them for fear of questioning their position or otherwise out of fear of a reaction from the Nazi regime.

Anger, fear, frustration over what happened in the aftermath of the First World War... These are all reasons that can explain what happened in Germany between the 1930s and the end of the Second World War.

Yet these reasons still seem insufficient to me to justify everything that happened.

As much as I am willing to acknowledge that the German population (like the Italian population, for that matter) of seventy to eighty years ago was less aware and less educated, consequently easier to convince to follow the power lust of a single man, the numbers are so staggering they still frighten me today, years later and without having directly experienced those events.

The image I have in mind is that of a domino, where pushing the first piece, all the others fall down in an incredible spiral of violence.

The documentary in question does not aim to justify this 'madness,' yet it clearly condemns everything that was and the distorted ideas of Adolf Hitler promoted and propagated by Heinrich Himmler. Probably no one within the limits of their person will ever truly be able to provide an answer to all of this, and perhaps in this our individual 'inability' lies an invitation to pay attention to what still happens and may happen in the course of our history and urge us to seek collective responses beyond any possible barrier or boundary.