The Atlantis of Heinrich Himmler and Nazi Germany

Heinrich Himmler was widely recognised as the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior, he oversaw the affairs of all internal and external police forces as well as the German security forces; security forces that included the feared units of the SS and the Gestapo. He was known to have been particularly proud of his involvement in developing the SS, and took great pride in helping to design and approve the black uniform and distinctive lightning strike insignia.

In his role Himmler infamously presided over the holocaust and is widely thought to have been solely responsible for coordinating the deaths of over 10 million “enemies” of Germany. Indeed, after visiting one of his numerous concentration camps, it had been his idea to implement the use of gas chambers. This was on the basis that it should prove a more cost effective and efficient method of execution when compared with bullets. He was one of the most dangerous and influential men in the Third Reich and it was a shame that his cowardly suicide robbed the West of its chance to put him on trial in Nurnberg.

Himmler's corpse in Allied custody after his suicide by poison, 1945

However, there was a little more to Heinrich Himmler than the cold and calculating war criminal that history has grown to despise. His diaries, which Himmler kept from the age of 10, have provided historians with an idea as to the extent of the hate for outsiders that existed within the Nazi Party, a hate that was almost overwhelming in its ferocity. The diary entries make it clear that, although Hitler and other leading lights within the Party could certainly be considered active racists, some of them were almost left wing when compared to Himmler.

The Reichsführer was certainly not shy of this fact and indeed, given his involvement in the holocaust, it was well known that he thrived on his reputation as a racist in the extremist sense of the word. What is less well known is how Himmler had sought to justify his stance using archaeology. Armed with a huge budget, he commissioned a variety of archaeological and anthropological projects throughout the world, each of them designed to unearth evidence of how those he considered as Untermensch, or sub-human, had polluted his world.

To understand Himmler, one has to understand the world he lived and thrived within. It is well documented that Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party can be traced back to the Munich chapter of a small organisation known as the Thule Society. Founded sometime around 1910, the core belief of its members pertained to the conviction that the Germanic based Aryan race were the direct descendants of the survivors of the Atlantean Apocalypse. However, once the Thule Society had served its purpose in providing him with a public platform, Hitler, perhaps wisely, rejected this core principle; choosing merely to adopt the Society’s recognisable swastika logo into his new regime.

History records that Heinrich Himmler did not actually have any direct links to the Thule Society, yet nonetheless he was fascinated with the alleged Aryan link to Atlantis. He believed that as descendents of a civilisation that mythology leads us to believe was far superior to anything else existing at that time; it followed that those with Aryan blood should also be considered as superior to those around them. In his eyes the world was being contaminated by ‘sub human’ societies that were diluting the blood line; groups that were knowingly interbreeding with his beloved Aryans with the sole aim of stealing their ‘superior’ genetics. Worried that this interbreeding was effectively wiping out the Aryan race, he decided he had to take a stand on behalf of his ancestors. It was therefore through a combination of these misguided fanatical beliefs and his supreme position of power in the Third Reich, that Himmler was able to instigate, what he saw as a programme of justified genocide.  

Although convinced he was right, Himmler was not stupid. He must have realised that eventually the rest of the high command, and indeed Germany in general, would eventually require proof of this Aryan link to Atlantis. Once the war was over, whatever the outcome, both he and Hitler would have been aware that a time might come when they would both have to justify their use of concentration camps, as well as the many other atrocities that were committed in their names.

Emblem of the Ahnenerbe

Resultantly, in 1935, with the consent of the Fuhrer, Himmler established the Ahnenerbe, the ancestral heritage branch of the SS. Under his direct command, the unit was primarily tasked with investigating the Aryan bloodline and over the next few years, undertook numerous projects designed to uncover the supremacist proof that Himmler so craved. Although much of their work was carried out in Europe, Himmler famously funded expeditions into Tibet and the Andes. It was in the former that the team is alleged to have stuck lucky. Although the find was never made public, amongst a number of other ancient texts, it is believed that the expedition leader, Ernst Schafer, presented Himmler with at least one document that pertained to the origin of the Aryan race. Unfortunately, the end of the war followed soon afterwards and with Himmler’s suicide, the funding and the trail ended there.

Ernst Schäfer in Tibet, 1938

So what did Schafer find? Evidence of a lost civilisation; a sunken kingdom; proof that the Aryan race was related to Atlantis? Whatever it was, if indeed it ever existed, and depending upon what it actually said, Himmler must have either had it destroyed or locked away. Maybe locked away in the hope that successful defection at the end of the war would allow him to one day return to his quest and trumpet the truth to the world. History, unfortunately for him, had other ideas.