THE OCCULT ROOTS OF NAZISM
descendant or reincarnation of a chieftain of the ancient Wolsungen tribe in prehistoric Germany. Tarnhari assured List that his ancestralclairvovkt memories confirmed List's own reconstruction of the Ario-Germanic traditions and hierarchic institutions. Tarnhari subsequently published two patriotic brochures at Diessen near Munich during the war, later establishing a volkisch publishing house at Leipzig. During the early post-war period he was associated with Dietrich Eckart, Hitler's mentor in the early days of the Nazi Party. That Tarnhari popularized List's ideas during the war can be seen from the writings of Ellegaard Ellerbek, a volkisch-mystical author, who paid extravagant tribute to both Tarnhari and List. His example was followed by others in the 1920s who wrote about the religion of Armanism and guaranteed this word a certain currency in nationalist "
The third channel of Listian influence in Germany concerns those individuals, who specifically built upon his ideas of an occult AryanGerman heritage and elaborated upon the wisdom of the runes, mantic sciences, the Edda, and Teutonic astrology. Rudolf John Gorsleben. Werner von Bulow. Friedrich Bernhard Marbv, Herbert ~eichstein'andFrodi ~n~olfson'wehrmann created a comhex corpus of armanist-ariosophical lore, which, while associated with the writings ofJorg Lanz von Liebenfels during the 1920s, owed amore significant and acknowledged debt to Guido von List. This later ariosophical movement flourished in Germanv during " the late 1920s and 1930s. Although these individuals worked in esoteric circles and sought no political involvement, a small coterie of these Edda and runological occultists enjoyed the confidence of Heinrich Himmler during the mid-1930s and contributed to the symbolism and ritual of the SS50 List himself remained a mystical thinker with little organizational ability. However, he did found a tiny inner ring of initi$tes within the List Society called the HAO, which stood for Hoher Armanen-Orden (High Armanen-Order). The H A 0 was formally founded at the midsummer solstice of 1911, when the most dedicated List Society members in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich travelled to meet their Austrian colleagues invienna. List took this elect on several 'pilgrimages' to certain places in 'the land of Ostara, where the spirit of Hari-Wotan still reigned'. On 23 June 1911 the group visited the cathedral catacombs, where the young List had first sensed this pagan god, and then proceeded to other allegedly Wotanist sanctuaries on the Kahlenberg, on the Leopoldsberg and at Klosterneuburg. Over the next three days, the enthusiasts made their way to Bruhl near