C HAPTER
1
A NEW REICH BEGINS
H I T L E R’S S U P P O RT G R O U P F OL LOW I NG T H E A R M IS T ICE OF 1918, WHICH ENDED WORLD WAR I, German soldiers returned home, to a country economically devastated by the war. The Bavarian city of Munich was hit particularly hard, with jobless ex-soldiers wandering the streets and a number of splinter political parties vying for membership. It was in this setting that Hitler, a twenty-nine-year-old veteran, came into contact with members of the Thule Gesellschaft, or Thule Society, ostensibly an innocent reading group dedicated to the study and promotion of older German literature. But the society, composed mostly of wealthy conservatives, ardent nationalists, and anti-Semites, actually delved into radical politics, race mysticism, and the occult under its emblem—a swastika superimposed over a sword. The society also served as a front for the even more secretive Germanenorden, or German Order, a reincarnation of the old Teutonic Knights, which had branches throughout Germany patterned after Masonic lodges. It is believed that these lodges carried on the agenda of the outlawed Bavarian Illuminati, with its fundamental maxim that “the end justifies the means.” In other words, members should pretend to be
