The Occult History of the Third Reich

Perhaps as fascinating as it is terrifying, this trilogy of documentaries are best watched together in order (vol. 1 "The Enigma of the Swastika" vol. 2 "The SS Blood and Soil" vol. 3 "Adolph Hitler").

Each volume focuses on a different aspect of the Nazi ideology, and the influences of the occult, mysticism, ancient Nordic religion, Germanic mythos, and racist theories of a superior Aryan man on the system of politics and belief that was to turn Germany into one of the most horrific forces of destruction and brutality in recent history.

There is perhaps no limit to the amount of discussion that can be had over the shocking actions of the Nazis in the 1930's and 40's, and so this series can only begin to scratch the surface. Yet, it seeks to try to understand the ideology that existed prior to Hitler's rise to power that was fostered and developed in order to achieve the ends of power-hungry and blood-thirsty men.

The DVD edition (1998) comes as a boxed set of three discs, each containing under an hour of video with narration (a bit over two and a half hours total). The extras include posters, trivia games and other nice extras typical of Madacy's bargain disc sets.

Overall, a thought-provoking commentary on Hitler and the Nazis, highly recommended for the student of history, politics, or religion.

Well, here we are introduced to a different view of the Third Reich. Why haven't we seen this before? This aspect of Nazis was not as interesting as weapons or fascist ideology. However, I have seen this film several times on history channels and even on public television. And it does bring up new questions as to how it all started.

Well, some would say they knew all about it and that, and this film is just a glossy version with stock footage. OK, find me a film on the subject that is not glossy and uses unique footage. If you have more than a passing interest then it is book time, such as "The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology"

For the most part, this film covers more than the general public is interested in.

This is mistitled for modern times..... it's fundamentally about the cult of the regime not necessarily "occult" so I feel it's misleading for a 2020 person, however I believe I get the message. Along side the harder to watch "Einsatzgruppen: The Nazi Death Squads" this series is a historical collection of archival film footage that is unfortunately difficult to find in a grouped collection and also a required watch to 'never forget'. It's a very educational series visually on it's own and displays for modern people the experiences of WW2 era in a screen format that we unfortunately require to absorb the state and experience of past events.

Most of the narrative to this is a simplification of Nicholas Goodricke-Clark's book "The Occult Roots of Nazism." That's probably why it isn't awful - Goodricke-Clark did a good job on fact-checking and avoided conspiracy theory to look at some of the more esoteric origins of National Socialist ideology. The first problem is that there isn't much visual evidence to support this – a documentary has little to do except show images from roughly the same era and allow implied connections with the narrative. But, the real problem here is that this documentary in general falls into the category of "Fascinating Fascism," to use Susan Sonntag's term. It is a parade of old propaganda images that attempts to justify its existence by drawing connections between Blavatsky and Crowley and the NSDAP that are tenuous at best. Concepts are undefined (what does it mean that "Rudolf Hess was a convinced mystic" by the time he met Adolf Hitler?). Influences are exaggerated (Goodricke-Clark discusses Guido von List's tiny religion, the film implies that millions of German soldiers in WWI believed it). There are few outright distortions, but this should be seen more as entertainment than as scholarship.