Speaker 1: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where every
Speaker 1: week we read about a terrible person, and this one
Speaker 1: is part two of the story of Savitri Debbie and
Speaker 1: most importantly, today is the episode recorded on the tail
Speaker 1: end of my recorder's battery. So we are fucking daredevils
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, I like Robert, you're edging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the podcast edging. Yes, this is edging.
Speaker 1: This is what it means.
Speaker 4: This.
Speaker 3: I've never been totally cloi, but I think that this.
Speaker 1: I am the first person to edge more than one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people at the same time.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was a flex on many levels, and I'm
Speaker 2: just going to wow through it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's what edging's all about.
Speaker 3: Edging is just plowing through it. Wow.
Speaker 2: Wait.
Speaker 3: Edging is when you're like, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Going when you bring someone to Yeah, you go to
Speaker 1: like the edge of orgasm, but you keep stopping.
Speaker 3: And then your leg that's the joke.
Speaker 2: No, okay, okay, Well I've brought up the joke originally,
Speaker 2: and now I'm explaining why I was corrected.
Speaker 3: Yes, which is what all great comedians do.
Speaker 1: So so in October of nineteen forty five, Hitler's death
Speaker 1: still fresh on her mind, Savitri Devi took part in
Speaker 1: the Festival of Kali at the Kaligat Temple in Calcutta Now.
Speaker 1: Kali is the Hindu deity of destruction, a blue skinned goddess,
Speaker 1: and in traditional depictions, she wears a necklace of severed heads,
Speaker 1: a skirt made from severed arms, and wields just about
Speaker 1: every conceivable manner of ancient weapon in her many arms.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of times. Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Like some of the statues of her are like fucking
Speaker 1: twenty feet tall. Its metal as hell. Yeah. So, as
Speaker 1: the goddess of destruction, Khali tends to inspire some pretty
Speaker 1: powerful feelings. As Savitri stared up at the image of
Speaker 1: her goddess, covered in gore and armed with massive swords
Speaker 1: the size of small she belegged Khali for her blessing,
Speaker 1: a blessing of violence and destruction against the Allied powers
Speaker 1: who had destroyed her beloved Nazi Germany. She left the
Speaker 1: ceremony convinced that it was now her duty to do
Speaker 1: what she'd failed to do back in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 1: She had to finally travel to Germany and take part
Speaker 1: in the resistance to the Allies by any means necessary.
Speaker 1: She left her twenty cats and the care of a
Speaker 1: friend and left her.
Speaker 3: That's so mean to that friend.
Speaker 1: Oh god, and the cats. Yeah, it's pretty wild cats behind.
Speaker 1: This is a person who leaves her twenty cats behind
Speaker 1: and the care of a friend to go be a Nazi,
Speaker 1: like a month or two after Hitler died, Like months
Speaker 1: after Hitler dies.
Speaker 2: You can get that text here, just like, hey, so,
Speaker 2: like I have to go do a thing.
Speaker 3: Could you look after my cats indefinitely?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, could you look after my cats and definitely while
Speaker 1: I go to try to resurrect Nazism in nineteen forties Germany.
Speaker 3: Parentheses, there's twenty of the cats.
Speaker 2: By the way, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean that's all this good stuff, all the cruel.
Speaker 2: And horrible things that this woman has done, and I
Speaker 2: don't even know all of them.
Speaker 3: Yet this has to rank like top ten. This is bad.
Speaker 1: It's pretty bad. She's a bad Yeah, she's not a
Speaker 1: great friend or person. No, but she does finally reach
Speaker 1: the birthplace of Hitlerism, the center of the ideology she'd
Speaker 1: adopted for herself in nineteen forty eight. She later wrote
Speaker 1: in her book Gold in the Furnace, that the gods
Speaker 1: had ordained that I should have a glimpse of ruins,
Speaker 1: bitter irony of fate. Germany at that point was still
Speaker 1: largely destroyed and chopped up into four pieces by its
Speaker 1: victorious enemies. So Very Tree's writing about this time shows
Speaker 1: a wild ignorance about the extent of actual Nazi crimes,
Speaker 1: because she's so horrified at how bad things are in Germany.
Speaker 1: She writes, quote one remembers, I say that episode of
Speaker 1: the Second War, as one beholds the ruins of all
Speaker 1: the German cities, the plight of men and women in
Speaker 1: the overcrowded areas still fit to live in, and all
Speaker 1: the misery, all the bitterness consequent of that devilish bombing.
Speaker 1: Streams of fire, tons of phosphorus relentlessly poured over his
Speaker 1: people for five years. These were England's thanks to Adolf
Speaker 1: Hitler for having shown mercy to her soldiers in his
Speaker 1: hour of victory. These were the thanks of the United
Speaker 1: States of America for his older orders not to shoot
Speaker 1: the parachutists captured on German soil, Which is like, so
Speaker 1: she's framing the British evacuations from the coast of France
Speaker 1: as like German mercy, rather than incompetence on Hitler's behalf,
Speaker 1: which they actually were, just rank and competence on Hitler's behalf. No,
Speaker 1: he's also talking about the mercy of Germany and not
Speaker 1: killing captured Allied paratroopers, which was illegal. And in doing this,
Speaker 1: she's ignoring, for one example, the Malmedy massacre, in which
Speaker 1: a Waffan SS troop massacred eight for American POWs with
Speaker 1: machine guns. She's also ignoring the estimated three point three
Speaker 1: million Russian POWs who died in German custody. But if
Speaker 1: I wind up arguing actual history with a dead Nazi
Speaker 1: will be here all day. So we're just gonna move
Speaker 1: forward from that.
Speaker 4: But fair fair, she whitewashes things a bit, is the point. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you a bit, just a bit a scooch. Just obviously
Speaker 4: it's gonna be horrible seeing Germany after World War Two,
Speaker 4: because like the bombing campaign over Germany was one of
Speaker 4: the greatest crimes in history. That said, they kind of
Speaker 4: had it coming.
Speaker 3: The tags tonight.
Speaker 1: I mean, fuck man, if anyone has ever deserved that,
Speaker 1: it's fucking Nazi Germany.
Speaker 2: I mean they are they do present themselves as a
Speaker 2: pretty clear target.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can. You can say the Allies. Maybe
Speaker 1: the Allies went overboard in some areas, while also being like,
Speaker 1: but what were they supposed to do?
Speaker 2: I think a bit of an overreaction may have been
Speaker 2: like it's historically You're like, okay, okay, yeah, you gotta
Speaker 2: do something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I it's it's something to not be
Speaker 1: happy about. But of the list of historical crimes I'm
Speaker 1: going to be outraged at, it's lower than, for example,
Speaker 1: the ones committed by Nazi Germany. Yeah, sure, sure yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: before visiting Germany, Savitri had hung out in Spheeden, where
Speaker 1: a number of Nazis had fled after the war. There
Speaker 1: she met s Finnhead and a Nazi supporting explorer and author,
Speaker 1: and a number of former members of the Nazi Party
Speaker 1: who were hiding out there because you know, it was
Speaker 1: a crime to be a Nazi. Now, she told them
Speaker 1: her mission was to deliver a message of hope to
Speaker 1: the German people. Now, since Nazism was a bit unpopular
Speaker 1: after the Second World War, she wasn't able to find
Speaker 1: any printers in Sweden to actually print out this message
Speaker 1: of hope. So instead Savitri Devi had to write out
Speaker 1: five hundred leaflets by hand. Each featured a swastika, and
Speaker 1: these words quote men and women of Germany, in the
Speaker 1: midst of unspeakable riggers and suffering, hold fast to our
Speaker 1: glorious national socialist faith and resist, Defy the people, Defy
Speaker 1: the powers which work to do Nazify the German nation
Speaker 1: and the whole world. Nothing can destroy what is built
Speaker 1: on truth. We are pure gold, which can be tested
Speaker 1: in the furnace. The furnace may glow and crackle, nothing
Speaker 1: can destroy us. One day we will rebel and triumph again.
Speaker 1: Hope and wait, Heil Hitler. So she writes five hundred
Speaker 1: of these by hand, and wearing a sari and swastika earrings,
Speaker 1: Savitri Devi takes a train across Germany and tosses out
Speaker 1: hundred of leaflets over the course of about fifteen hours.
Speaker 1: Attached to each was a gift, a small amount of coffee, sugar, butter,
Speaker 1: sardines or cigarettes. She considered this journey to be an
Speaker 1: act of religious devotion, describing the leaflets as written and
Speaker 1: throne by the gaw through me. As her train crossed
Speaker 1: from Germany into Belgium, she sang a Hindu hymn to Shiva.
Speaker 2: So she is a lot of commitment, A lot of
Speaker 2: commitment is going into this.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and that is all you can say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is yeah. Now. So she gets inspired by
Speaker 1: the success of her first visit and she plans two
Speaker 1: more trips through Germany. She spent a little bit of
Speaker 1: time resting in London and meeting up with fascists in London,
Speaker 1: and because of all the fascists that are in London,
Speaker 1: she's able to actually find a printer to print up
Speaker 1: six thousand additional leaflets to take to Germany. Using a
Speaker 1: connection to an old friend in France, she secured a
Speaker 1: military permit to visit Germany for a longer period of time,
Speaker 1: claiming not falsely that she intended to write a book
Speaker 1: about the nation's post war trials. Her second trip into
Speaker 1: Germany lasted three months and she successfully handed out all
Speaker 1: six thousand leaflets. She also met with a number of
Speaker 1: old Nazis. None of them were very high ranking. These
Speaker 1: were like third rate Nazis, the former POWs. And some
Speaker 1: of these POWs did have legitimate stories of Allied brutality
Speaker 1: that they'd faced in captivity because, like you know, it
Speaker 1: was a war. She interviewed numerous German citizens, introducing herself
Speaker 1: at the start as a committed Nazi to gain their trust.
Speaker 1: Savitri would then talk about her belief that Adolf Hitler
Speaker 1: was still alive somewhere in the world and assure these
Speaker 1: defeated Nazis that surely they were only two or three
Speaker 1: years away from a revival of Nazism in Germany.
Speaker 2: Imagine Hitler was your tupac, Like that is such a
Speaker 2: wild that's like Hitler's.
Speaker 3: No, he's on an island somewhere. You don't understanding.
Speaker 1: Album. Yeah, he's got really Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Don't the holograms a decoy? Oh yeah, sleek, I mean
Speaker 2: I think we can. I mean that said, we both
Speaker 2: agree that the hologram is a decoy.
Speaker 1: Oh no, the hologram is absolutely decoy. Now.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: One one of these conversations that Savitri had with the
Speaker 1: former Wehrmacht soldier is worth me reading out here. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote again from the book Hitler's priestess quote,
Speaker 1: continuing his narrative to post war conditions and occupied Germany,
Speaker 1: the old fighter's face darkened nice people to talk about
Speaker 1: freedom and justice. These damned democrats. They have tied us
Speaker 1: hand and foot so we cannot move. They have muzzled
Speaker 1: us so we can offer no resistance while they plunder
Speaker 1: our country left and right, dismantle and carry off our
Speaker 1: factories piece by piece, cut down our forests, take our oil,
Speaker 1: our iron, our steel, all that we have, and into
Speaker 1: the bargain, make people believe that we were to blame
Speaker 1: for the war, These confounded liars. He lusted for revenge.
Speaker 1: He longed for the day when the last Allies ran
Speaker 1: for their lives to escape Germany, when Paris would lay
Speaker 1: in ruins at its next German occupation, next time he
Speaker 1: would show neither mercy nor good humor. Savitri Devi felt
Speaker 1: a sense of mounting excitement as his mood became ever uglier,
Speaker 1: and he began to describe in a raised voice how
Speaker 1: he would kill his enemies. This was the spirit she sought,
Speaker 1: the rolling eyes of a wounded animal, a war god
Speaker 1: of the stone age for blood, barbaric magnificence. It was
Speaker 1: a perfect meeting of minds, the violent, resentful German and
Speaker 1: the Aryan prophetness of revenge. The day of reckoning seemed
Speaker 1: already nearer. Okay, h she is a fun trip to Germany.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, she had me at the beginning
Speaker 2: with the you know, feeling plundered and betrayed by the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Sure, yes, that's a strong I was.
Speaker 1: Not talking about the Democratic Party though.
Speaker 3: I know, I know, I just there, Rob Robert, I was.
Speaker 1: Away from the mic at that point. What else can
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 2: I can confirm you were not away from the mic
Speaker 2: as I think everyone.
Speaker 3: I believe you're right upon. This is revisionists, This is absurd.
Speaker 1: This is Savitri Debbie levels of revisionist. You you were
Speaker 1: the Savitri Debbie of this podcast.
Speaker 3: That's so mean. At least make me the Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 3: of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Geez, you have not earned that yet, James.
Speaker 2: Make me a fun one, Make me a fun bastard.
Speaker 2: Come on, make me a fun tragic one with a
Speaker 2: pony tail.
Speaker 3: At least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing tragic about Savitri.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: So she returned to France in December of nineteen forty
Speaker 1: eight and immediately began to write a book, Gold in
Speaker 1: the Furnace, about her experiences and her growing conception of
Speaker 1: Hitlerism is something beyond what the old National Socialists had
Speaker 1: really believed. In February of nineteen forty nine, three chapters
Speaker 1: into her book, Savitri Devi was arrested by French authorities.
Speaker 1: She spent a total of six months. Yeah, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's illegal to be a Nazi for good reason.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, hold on, unpacked that yes, I understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She spent a total of six months in pre
Speaker 1: trialed attention and then prison after her conviction for spreading
Speaker 1: Nazi propaganda. The time behind bars was good for Savitri,
Speaker 1: as it historically often is for Nazis who fancy themselves
Speaker 1: writers like her Idol Adolf Hitler. She used her prison
Speaker 1: time as an excuse to finish her first book.
Speaker 2: She uses it as like a sabbatical, as one would
Speaker 2: is sabbatical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an old Nazi story. She also took the
Speaker 1: opportunity to meet even more old Nazis. A lot of
Speaker 1: National Socialists were still imprisoned by the British occupation forces,
Speaker 1: and these old fighters were all too happy to talk
Speaker 1: with Savitri Devi. Her dearest friend in the prison was
Speaker 1: a former wardress from the bergen Belsen concentration camp, a
Speaker 1: quote beautiful looking woman, a blonde of about my age,
Speaker 1: In Devi's words, she claimed that this war criminal had
Speaker 1: the classical beauty of a chieftain's wife in ancient Germany.
Speaker 1: And again, this was a woman who worked at a
Speaker 1: concentration camp voluntarily.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The language is so yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And writes about like how cruel this woman's imprisonment was
Speaker 1: and how nice the concentration camps was.
Speaker 3: Like she's trash tsh, She's absolutely trash.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like spend a lot of time debunking
Speaker 1: her shit like she's garbage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like she is the one that is
Speaker 2: providing all of this information too.
Speaker 3: She is the source.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is the source. And again I can't say
Speaker 1: it enough. She never had the kutzpa to actually go
Speaker 1: to Nazi Germany while it existed. I think because number one,
Speaker 1: she would have been disappointed because like none of this
Speaker 1: this weird religious shit she attached to it was an
Speaker 1: actual part of Nazism in Nazi Germany. Like she would
Speaker 1: have like she would have been like a just like
Speaker 1: she might have gotten knocked up by some Nazi, like
Speaker 1: at the orders of Heinrich Kimler, But she wouldn't have
Speaker 1: She wouldn't have been anything special in Nazi Germany. The
Speaker 1: odds are good, Like maybe they would have tried to
Speaker 1: use her to like propagandize because she knew a bunch
Speaker 1: of languages. I don't know. They might have like had
Speaker 1: to try to reach out to India. But probably she
Speaker 1: would have just been another person. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think that's an interesting aspect of it that isn't emphasized enough.
Speaker 1: She just wasn't willing to actually go to Nazi Germany,
Speaker 1: this place, she claimed, ruled. Yeah, ugh, cool, cool, so well.
Speaker 1: In late nineteen forty nine, Savitri Devi was again a
Speaker 1: free woman, and she published her first book to widespread
Speaker 1: acclaim from the international Nazi community. From this point on,
Speaker 1: Devi became a prolific author, writing up every significant event
Speaker 1: in her life through a mixture of supposedly nonfiction works
Speaker 1: as well as fanciful tales. For example, she retold the
Speaker 1: story of her first trip back to Europe and the
Speaker 1: children's fable Long Whiskers and the Two Legged Goddess, whose
Speaker 1: heroine is a cat loving Nazi named Heliodora.
Speaker 3: No, that cat can't be real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a real.
Speaker 2: Book that sounds like random words selected from a uh, well.
Speaker 1: It all makes sense, like the Heliodor's early a self
Speaker 1: insert characters everything cats, Helio, Savitri Devi's obsessed with sun,
Speaker 1: gods and goddesses.
Speaker 3: God, how embarrassing for her.
Speaker 1: What's embarrassing is that Savitri writes that her self insert
Speaker 1: fantasy character has quote no human feelings in the ordinary
Speaker 1: sense of the word. She had been from her very
Speaker 1: childhood much too profoundly shocked at the behavior of man
Speaker 1: towards animals to have any sympathy for people suffering an
Speaker 1: account of their being Jews.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, the Holocaust?
Speaker 1: Is it bad? Have you seen what happened to cats
Speaker 1: when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: But here's the quite a take.
Speaker 2: That is a wild take to be like, you know
Speaker 2: how we resolve like violence towards cats also cause violence
Speaker 2: towards people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, surely all.
Speaker 1: The Holocaust is cool because cats have been mistreated? Is watching?
Speaker 3: She just like goes to a whole other place.
Speaker 2: She's like, did you know, like when you're having like
Speaker 2: when you're having an argument with someone who doesn't want
Speaker 2: to have a good faith argument with you, and you're
Speaker 2: just like, well what about this?
Speaker 3: And they're like, well, what about cats? In France. What
Speaker 3: about that? Huh? And you're like, I don't I've been
Speaker 3: stunned like a pokemon. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Over in the next few years, Savitri wrote and conversed
Speaker 1: with increasingly aged Nazis and gradually refined her theories about
Speaker 1: the world, until in nineteen fifty eight she published what
Speaker 1: would prove to be her magnum opus, The Lightning in
Speaker 1: the Sun. In this work, the ideas Savitri had been
Speaker 1: rattling around in her head all finally came together. Hitler,
Speaker 1: she concluded, was a man against time, fighting to uphold
Speaker 1: Aryan virtues and blood against the corruption of modernity. She
Speaker 1: placed him at the center of her own trinity, one
Speaker 1: that replaced the decadent Christian one she'd grown up despising,
Speaker 1: and her trinity, I dare you to make less sense
Speaker 1: than the trinity she picks.
Speaker 3: They're okay, yeah, no.
Speaker 1: I think who do you think? Who do you thinks? First?
Speaker 3: Hitler?
Speaker 1: Well, no, Hitler's the most important, but he's not the first.
Speaker 3: Oh he's not the first.
Speaker 1: What though, it goes in order of it goes in
Speaker 1: order of, like time period. So these are all historical figures.
Speaker 3: First one is definitely someone ancient Greek, no.
Speaker 1: Ancient Egyptian Achan Naughton, the first Monotheist, he's generally called
Speaker 1: he was like this, this pharaoh who declared himself the
Speaker 1: Sun God and like tried to institute monotheism, and then
Speaker 1: he died and everything he did was burned by the
Speaker 1: people who came after him because they thought he was
Speaker 1: an asshole. Okay, And it's weird because she like hates
Speaker 1: monotheism so much, but he's like one of the people
Speaker 1: she loves. I think just because he's the sun god
Speaker 1: and she's got a.
Speaker 2: Weird say, she'll make an exception. She'll give any sun
Speaker 2: god a pass.
Speaker 1: Basically, it's it's fucking weird. Second in her holy Trinity
Speaker 1: is Genghis Kott.
Speaker 3: What does she and here's why why.
Speaker 1: It It wouldn't make sense. I mean, basically history's greatest conqueror.
Speaker 1: He's a great conqueror and he's not Christian or Jewish
Speaker 1: or anything, you know. Okay, Yeah, So Aka Naton is
Speaker 1: the Sun and the con is the lightning and Hitler,
Speaker 1: she believes, combines the best attributes of both the pharaoh's
Speaker 1: wisdom with the strategic mind of Genghis Kot. Genghis Khan
Speaker 1: succeeded in invading Russia during the winter. So I don't
Speaker 1: know where you're coming from any question.
Speaker 3: This woman is okay.
Speaker 1: One of these two knew how to invade Russia and
Speaker 1: it was not Hitler.
Speaker 3: And then is the third one Hitler or is there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? The third is Hitler because he combines the best
Speaker 1: parts of act.
Speaker 2: This a terrible cartoon. She's not watched this cartoon wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so dumb. Yeah. So there's probably a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons for her obsession with Acat. For one thing,
Speaker 1: act was deeply revered by the Theosophical Society, which you
Speaker 1: will remember from our uh Our episodes on anthroposophy, and
Speaker 1: the Theosophical Society held a lot of ties also to
Speaker 1: the Tuless Society and all the other weird little occult
Speaker 1: groups who'd supported the Nazis early on. Acton had been
Speaker 1: a utopian thinker who tried and failed to a stay
Speaker 1: ablish a perfect city. Good Rich Clark, Savitri's biographer writes
Speaker 1: that she saw his son worshipping cult as quote rejection
Speaker 1: of all politics that promotes man's interest at a cost
Speaker 1: to the beauty and abundance of nature. Which is just
Speaker 1: invented by her.
Speaker 2: Like she's yeah, I feel like maybe she's She's like
Speaker 2: me and Jack Skellington, She's just kind of there for
Speaker 2: the aesthetic and maybe doesn't fully understand what she is
Speaker 2: all about the Okay, Jack Skellington, Yeah, that is okay, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I'm now, I'm like, I understand this mindset.
Speaker 1: If this Holy Trinity doesn't work for you, consider embracing
Speaker 1: the Holy Trinity of the products and services that support
Speaker 1: this show.
Speaker 3: Products, services, and god, what's the third one?
Speaker 1: Each each is one and a half of the trinity.
Speaker 1: That's how good both products and services are.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they add up to three products. Mm hmmm, we're back.
Speaker 1: So God, there's so much to get through with this.
Speaker 1: This woman's fucking stupid, stupid, fucking beliefs, but they're very important.
Speaker 2: They're stupid, and they're also kind.
Speaker 1: Of they're so dumb and complicated. They're so dumb and complicated.
Speaker 1: They all make sense. I'll say, like, Gal, they don't
Speaker 1: make sense to the fact that they're true, but like,
Speaker 1: based on her history and like the things that she imbibes,
Speaker 1: they all makes I can see what why she came
Speaker 1: to these conclusions, but they're super dumb. So the core
Speaker 1: of her Nazism is a love of nature, which was
Speaker 1: a big part of actual original Nazism too. They were
Speaker 1: very into like like natural life and ship and like
Speaker 1: taking care of the land and animal welfare. And some
Speaker 1: of her early books that she wrote when the Nazis
Speaker 1: were in power, but before she was explicitly a Nazi,
Speaker 1: like The Impeachment of Man, don't explicitly reference Nazism. And
Speaker 1: these books, like The Impeachment of Man is still kind
Speaker 1: of popular among chunks of the New Age and environmentalist
Speaker 1: movements today. Savitri Devi's passionate writing on animal rights is
Speaker 1: actually one of the many little roads that exist between
Speaker 1: the green movement and the neo Nazi movement, and it's
Speaker 1: really fucked up. Dev herself famously railed against the Allied
Speaker 1: forces purging Germany of its fascist organizations, saying that quote,
Speaker 1: you cannot denazifying nature. She believed that nature was fundamentally nationalists,
Speaker 1: national socialist.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's a bad take.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read a quote from the Imagement of Man now,
Speaker 1: and I want to remind you there are people who
Speaker 1: are like environmentalists who are not Nazis who read this
Speaker 1: book today and don't really realize what's going on. Quote.
Speaker 1: A civilization that makes such a ridiculous fuss about alleged
Speaker 1: war crimes, acts of violence against the actual or potential
Speaker 1: enemies of one's cause, and tolerates slaughterhouses and vivisection laboratories
Speaker 1: and circuses in the fur industry, infliction and pain upon
Speaker 1: creatures that can never be for or against any cause,
Speaker 1: does not deserve to live out with it. Blessed the
Speaker 1: day it will destroy itself, so that a healthy, hard,
Speaker 1: frank and brave, nature loving and truth loving elite of
Speaker 1: superman with a life centered faith, a natural human aristocracy
Speaker 1: is beautiful on its own higher level, as the four
Speaker 1: legged kings of the jungle might again rise and rule
Speaker 1: upon its remains forever. So again, you see how because
Speaker 1: of the kind of stuff she's written, she's there's there's
Speaker 1: these bridges. She's a big part of why there's bridges
Speaker 1: between the eco movement and the Nazi movement. And there
Speaker 1: very much are on like the hard edge of the
Speaker 1: of the of the eco movement, of the anti climate
Speaker 1: change movement. There are Nazis and left wing activists who
Speaker 1: kind of increasingly seem like Nazis in a lot of cases.
Speaker 1: Just not to say that like even supporting radical environmental
Speaker 1: action makes you a Nazi, it's to say that, like,
Speaker 1: part of the what Sevitri achieved is building in roads
Speaker 1: between these groups and the Nazi movement. So now more
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that get into Nazism through environmentalism,
Speaker 1: and Savitri Devi's a part of that. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of the story we're telling today.
Speaker 3: Sazism really knows how to ruin a good thing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't as good at it before Savitri dev It's
Speaker 1: always been a ruiner, but she really took it to
Speaker 1: new levels.
Speaker 3: Oh good, as long as she elevated how bad it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the Lightning in the Sun her opus, posits a
Speaker 1: cyclical view of history. She believed that time began with
Speaker 1: a Golden Age, in which it was dominated by the perfect.
Speaker 2: Area like age.
Speaker 1: Like a sun god. Yeah, And this degraded slowly into
Speaker 1: a Silver Age and then a Bronze Age. And both
Speaker 1: of these worse ages featured increased racial mixing that weakened
Speaker 1: the arians. They also featured pernicious Jewish influence. The next
Speaker 1: age is the kali Yuga, or dark Age, which Savitri
Speaker 1: believed the world had all already entered into. She also
Speaker 1: called this dark age the reign of the Jew.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only way out of this dark age was
Speaker 1: for the Man against Time Hitler to gather up the
Speaker 1: terrible weapons of the dark Age and use them to
Speaker 1: bring about the return of the Golden Age, presumably through
Speaker 1: genocidal purging of non arians and the establishment of a
Speaker 1: strict racial hierarchy. Her book was dedicated quote to the
Speaker 1: godlike individual of our times, the Man against Time, the
Speaker 1: greatest European of all times, both sun and lightning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a tribute of unfailing loyalty and love forever and
Speaker 1: ever God.
Speaker 3: You know, there's been a lot said about fan culture.
Speaker 2: I don't agree with all of it, but you know,
Speaker 2: this is a real argument against fan culture.
Speaker 1: This is the worst fan culture has ever gone. I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable saying bad.
Speaker 4: This is this is this is this is the worst
Speaker 4: it can go.
Speaker 3: This is bad stand culture.
Speaker 2: It's bad, bad, bad there and even the way that
Speaker 2: she writes and structures these things, it kind of you
Speaker 2: can hear that like interest in ancient history in there,
Speaker 2: because it just sounds like she's kind of connecting these
Speaker 2: lines that don't actually exist to make it sound like
Speaker 2: to I mean kind of like the way she like
Speaker 2: arguably maybe lifted some of her own like self mythologizing
Speaker 2: from mind comps. Like she's just like putting something she
Speaker 2: wants to say into a familiar framework.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called syncretisy. Well, this is part of syncretism,
Speaker 1: is like taking these other things that you like and
Speaker 1: sticking it onto this thing. And this is like the
Speaker 1: main things she goes down in history for doing to Nazism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now I have I have a lot of debates with
Speaker 1: myself putting this together about how much detailed to get
Speaker 1: into about Savitri's theories. There's a really dark, very vile
Speaker 1: world of esoteric Hitlerist fantasy based in large part off
Speaker 1: of her writing. And this shit is dangerous. It spreads
Speaker 1: a kind of ideological infection that grabs impressionable children, primarily
Speaker 1: in a vice like grip, and turns them into something
Speaker 1: very dangerous. And a lot of people have died from this,
Speaker 1: and I am not going to If you're very knowledgeable
Speaker 1: about this, you will notice there is a lot of
Speaker 1: things I'm leaving out just because like this is enough
Speaker 1: to understand it. And I don't want to just like
Speaker 1: be spreading weird Nazi propaganda to an audience.
Speaker 2: As you said, one hundred thousand people, the Robert that
Speaker 2: is the most merciful thing you've ever done on this
Speaker 2: entire podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just too dangerous in my opinion.
Speaker 3: That's good. That's yeah, I agree. And I don't even
Speaker 3: know what it was.
Speaker 1: It's fucking weird, stupid shit. But yeah. The last thing
Speaker 1: that's really important to understand about Savitri Devi's beliefs is
Speaker 1: that she decided Hitler was what she called well, she
Speaker 1: was not the only person. Other people had the same idea,
Speaker 1: but she's one of the more prominent ones. The kali Yuga,
Speaker 1: the tenth incarnation of Vishnu, and she used several segments
Speaker 1: from August kubaz K's ill advised book The Young Hitler.
Speaker 1: I knew Kubazek was Hitler's friend when they were like teenager.
Speaker 1: He wrote a terrible book. It's valuable because it's the
Speaker 1: only insight we haven't hit Hitler at that period, but
Speaker 1: he clearly wrote it to make money.
Speaker 3: Is it like my friend Dahmer? Is it like that? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like that same vibe of like this horrible person. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I knew you're like.
Speaker 1: We were buried cool. Yeah, but you also get the
Speaker 1: feeling that Kubazek didn't really think he was horrible until
Speaker 1: he like he was writing it initially to be in
Speaker 1: a biography that was published under the Nazi regime as
Speaker 1: like a pro Hitler piece of propaganda, so they lost
Speaker 1: the war, and then he just kind of rewrote it
Speaker 1: so that it could be like, well, now I'm just
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just going to explain my evil friend
Speaker 1: to the allies.
Speaker 3: It was so fucking sinister.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean the people. SHARE's a lot
Speaker 1: of debates to have about Kubazek, but most historians will agree, well,
Speaker 1: you have to read Kubazek. You have to take him
Speaker 1: with like a lot of salt. Yeah, he's trying to
Speaker 1: takes him with no salt at all. And she pulls
Speaker 1: several passages from his book as like evidence that Hitler
Speaker 1: was the Collie Yuga and was like channeling fucking Vishnu. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this.
Speaker 2: Woman does not understand Shades of Gray even remote.
Speaker 3: No, she's just okay.
Speaker 1: She would have written Shades of Gray though if she
Speaker 1: had been around.
Speaker 3: I wish she.
Speaker 1: Had, like against the better world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as with literally every single person you've ever told
Speaker 2: me about on this cursed show, Robert, everything would have
Speaker 2: been better off if people had just channeled their horny
Speaker 2: energy into fan fiction instead of brutal hate and murder
Speaker 2: every single time.
Speaker 1: Masturbating to fan fiction is the only things that will
Speaker 1: save us from the next Hitler.
Speaker 2: It will absolutely and and and that's where the kylo
Speaker 2: ren stands come in.
Speaker 1: If you know an angry person who spends too much
Speaker 1: time writing fan fiction for under no circumstances, stop them,
Speaker 1: encourage that behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, them doing it of.
Speaker 3: I can't even begin to tell you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is horrible, Okay, horrible, back to what
Speaker 2: you were saying, that was horrible.
Speaker 1: So she like reads Kubazek and she becomes convinced that
Speaker 1: a couple chunks of that book are evidence that Hitler
Speaker 1: is channeling Vishnu, is the avatar of Vishnu. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like there are these moments in the book where like,
Speaker 1: Hitler will like that that Kubazak writes very like purple Prosy,
Speaker 1: where Hitler will like suddenly like in the middle of
Speaker 1: a conversation, like make some sort of like grand statement
Speaker 1: about the future. And it's like, maybe it's true because
Speaker 1: he was Hitler, Like it wouldn't be the weirdest thing
Speaker 1: of Hitler had always been that guy, right, sure. But
Speaker 1: also Kubazek wrote this, well, after Hitler, you know, was
Speaker 1: done with and it's entirely possible he was like, people
Speaker 1: are going to expect him to make grand speeches that
Speaker 1: are like dark and crazy about the future because he
Speaker 1: was Hitler, and he threw them in there because that's
Speaker 1: what people like, We don't know, ye. Yeah. So decades later,
Speaker 1: Savitri Devi would claim that her initial inspiration for the
Speaker 1: idea that Hitler was the calai Yuga had come from
Speaker 1: a conversation she'd had in nineteen thirty six with Satyananda Swami,
Speaker 1: the founder and head of the Hindu mission where she'd worked.
Speaker 1: She claims that Satyananda used to say, and I'm cluding
Speaker 1: directly from her writing here, Adolf Hitler is the reincarnation
Speaker 1: of the god Vishnu. Vishnu is the aspect of the
Speaker 1: Hindu Trinity who goes to keep things from rushing to destruction,
Speaker 1: to keep them back to go on against time. Time
Speaker 1: is destruction. You have to destroy in order to create again.
Speaker 1: But there are forces that try to postpone destruction. And
Speaker 1: he said Hitler was the reincarnation of that force, and
Speaker 1: he was. He was. But it's a nice thing to hear,
Speaker 1: a very refreshing thing to hear from a Hindu sage.
Speaker 1: I told him, I came here because I'm really a pagan,
Speaker 1: a worshiper of the Sun, and I believe in the
Speaker 1: pagan reaction of Emperor Julian. And I came to India
Speaker 1: to get, if possible, a sort of tropical equivalent of
Speaker 1: what we have had in Europe before Christianity. And I
Speaker 1: am not a disciple of any Indian. I'm at aciple
Speaker 1: of Adolf Hitl. He said, good, good, Adolf Hitler. He's
Speaker 1: as much a Hindu as any of our Hindus. He's
Speaker 1: an incarnation of the god Vishnu, probably never happened, but
Speaker 1: might have, I mean.
Speaker 3: Particulate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. But one of the things that Hindu scholars,
Speaker 1: who again are generally very critical of a lot of
Speaker 1: all of these claims, if Saveetris, will point out some
Speaker 1: like one of the kind of downsides of sort of
Speaker 1: this very open aspect of Hindu mythology where it kind
Speaker 1: of accepts new things and new gods and other religions,
Speaker 1: and like it's very open canonically in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And so there were a lot of Indians who would
Speaker 1: have who very well might have been like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you worship Hitler. Sure, he's probably like this, like because
Speaker 1: like they're just looking at a way to understand through
Speaker 1: their religion this thing that matters to you. Like, yeah, again,
Speaker 1: who knows, you'll get different opinions on this than ane
Speaker 1: who you go to. So, yeah, we don't know what's true.
Speaker 1: What is important is that after Savitri Devi starts writing
Speaker 1: about all this shit, a lot of Nazis come to
Speaker 1: believe it. In fact, the reeling and wounded remaining Nazis
Speaker 1: of the West felt like Savitri's occult musings were basically
Speaker 1: a breath of fresh air, and she spent her middle
Speaker 1: and later years traveling around and meeting fascists all over
Speaker 1: the world. In nineteen sixty one, she made her first
Speaker 1: direct connection with the English neo Nazis of the British
Speaker 1: National Party or b and P. As the war years
Speaker 1: receded further and further away, an international agglomeration of fascist
Speaker 1: inclined folks began to link up and plan together for
Speaker 1: a resurgence of Nazism. Savitri Devi was at the center
Speaker 1: of it. As this paragraph from Hitler's Priestess illustrates quote.
Speaker 1: She lost no time in contacting Andrew Fontaine, the president
Speaker 1: of the B and P. A spring camp attended by
Speaker 1: twenty delegates from European nationalist groups was held on Fonteane's
Speaker 1: estate at Narford at Narford, Norfolk, in May of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. Those present included Robert Lyon, a young leader
Speaker 1: in the American National States Rights Party, which violently opposed
Speaker 1: to segregation in the South, representatives from German neo Nazi groups,
Speaker 1: and Savitri Devi. Another key figure was EXSS Lieutenant Friedrich
Speaker 1: Borth born in nineteen twenty eight. This blue eyed, blonde
Speaker 1: Austrian Nazi had served in the Luftwaffa and the VAFNSS.
Speaker 1: As a teenage officer, he had commanded an assault group
Speaker 1: and won the Iron Cross. After serving a three year
Speaker 1: jail sentence in post war Vienna, he published an SS
Speaker 1: veteran magazine, Das Camrade, which was swiftly suppressed by the
Speaker 1: Soviet authorities. Thereafter, he was connected with numerous extreme right
Speaker 1: wing groups and attended the most international fascist gatherings. He
Speaker 1: led the boom Heimertured Yugen until its banning in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, and then branded the Legion Europa, the Austrian
Speaker 1: section of THEO Arts, GEO and Europe, another international grouping
Speaker 1: inspired by the French Oas in Algeria and Belgian rancors
Speaker 1: over the loss of the Congo. After a busy schedule
Speaker 1: of lectures at Narfurt, the participants celebrated their Nordic racial
Speaker 1: identity with Folkish songs and tankards of traditional ale around
Speaker 1: the campfire. So you see what's happening here, Savitri Devi
Speaker 1: gets pulled into not just neo Nazi groups and not
Speaker 1: just old Nazis. She's meeting with the American States Rights Party,
Speaker 1: she's meeting with like the Belgians who are angry that
Speaker 1: they've lost control of the Congo, and she's meeting with
Speaker 1: all these old neo Nazis and the British National Party
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 2: Would you say at this point she is out of
Speaker 2: her depth in terms of I can't believe you did that.
Speaker 1: No, no, I did no, no, no, I think she No,
Speaker 1: she's not out of her depth at all. Okay, she is.
Speaker 1: What she is doing is helping to draw She's not
Speaker 1: the only force doing this, but she's helping to draw
Speaker 1: these groups together by providing the early Like these are
Speaker 1: all separate groups, like the Cause of desegregation, like a
Speaker 1: lot of racists who don't want America to segregated, fought
Speaker 1: against the Nazis. She is a part of all these different,
Speaker 1: like very far right groups, including Nazis, coming together and
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, starting to embrace these weird
Speaker 1: this weird Nazi religion she's she's invented as something to
Speaker 1: unify all of them. That's what starts to happen in
Speaker 1: this period. And that's what's really unique about this period
Speaker 1: is like these are all groups like the Belgian, like
Speaker 1: pro Congolese control of like the Belgium, Like the Belgians
Speaker 1: weren't pro Nazi, but like these Belgians start to get
Speaker 1: pro Nazi now because like they realize there's like this
Speaker 1: white identity thing, but also this weird religion that is
Speaker 1: more attractive to them than actual national socialism would have been.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, I mean it seems like part of her
Speaker 2: effectiveness lies in like having so many little bits of
Speaker 2: things for people to latch onto, so that even if
Speaker 2: you don't agree with the larger ideology, there's a worm
Speaker 2: on the hook that'll get you in.
Speaker 1: That's called syncretism. That's what syncretism really is, is like
Speaker 1: all these different things kind of it's like a Katamari
Speaker 1: of ideology with like Nazism at the core, but all
Speaker 1: these things sticking to it, and these things get other
Speaker 1: people stuck to them, so like, yeah, that's what we
Speaker 1: start to see happening in the early nineteen sixties. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, Savitri was in England again for a
Speaker 1: gathering of worldwide Nazis that included Bastard pod main character
Speaker 1: George Lincoln Rockwell.
Speaker 2: I know this, ALR. Things are about to get way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not great, okay.
Speaker 1: Savitri Devi was one of the signatories for the World
Speaker 1: Union of National Socialists, a proposed organization to form a
Speaker 1: quote combat efficient international apparatus to facilitate a return to
Speaker 1: Nazi values and the extermination of non whites from Western nations.
Speaker 1: Now ones wound up being a bust for several reasons,
Speaker 1: including the fact that Rockwell was almost immediately kicked out
Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom, but he and Savitri developed a
Speaker 1: friendly relationship. The leader of the American Nazi Party had
Speaker 1: been on the lookout for a new American fascist religion,
Speaker 1: something esoteric and enchanting that he could use to draw
Speaker 1: in new members in a way that national socialist political
Speaker 1: theory and unvarnished racism just did not, And he must
Speaker 1: have thought The Lightning in the Sun had some potential
Speaker 1: for he published an abridged version of the book in
Speaker 1: the National Socialist World magazine, The.
Speaker 3: Lightning in the Sun over to the US.
Speaker 2: The Lightning in the Sun, it should be said, could
Speaker 2: be a YA book that like is out right now.
Speaker 1: I it might be to be entirely honest, and that
Speaker 1: YA book might actually be Nazi propaganda hidden his young
Speaker 1: adult thing.
Speaker 3: Which oh you can't put it past?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, no, no, no, much like for example, the
Speaker 1: Bad Ace of Bass. Wait what Yeah, the Ace of
Speaker 1: Base were Nazis? Did you not hear that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Oh? Adam Todd Brown wrote a great article about this
Speaker 1: for correct, the Base of Aces was a Nazi submarine base.
Speaker 1: If you watch the music video for All That She
Speaker 1: Wants is another baby. The woman who just wants another
Speaker 1: baby to get on welfare is like holding a star
Speaker 1: of David the entire time, and there's all these long,
Speaker 1: lingering shots of it. There's a bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 1: The sign that they saw is clearly a swastika if
Speaker 1: you listen to the lyrics, it's fucked up.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: But we have to blaze past that right now.
Speaker 3: I found a book called Lightning on the Sun.
Speaker 1: That's pretty close. It's about a Nazi shit.
Speaker 3: It's about a guy named Glenn Schmidt. Win's a store, Yeah, Glenn.
Speaker 1: Schmidt, who might be Nazi.
Speaker 3: A moon god.
Speaker 1: Yep, that's some Nazi shit there. It is or anti Nazi,
Speaker 1: since Nazi Savitri was all about the sun God, it
Speaker 1: could be either. Really wow. So Savitri Devi would go
Speaker 1: on to spend the bulk of her remaining years in India,
Speaker 1: traveling irregularly when the demands of her national socialist beliefs
Speaker 1: took her around the world. She remained convinced all her
Speaker 1: life that Hitler would return, either in a new incarnation
Speaker 1: or after revealing that he had somehow survived the war
Speaker 1: and lead a resurgent Nazis into global victory. She retired
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy, living for a time at the home
Speaker 1: of her friend Francois Dior in England. That's the Dior
Speaker 1: you're thinking of? Really, yeah, it's well, it's the it's
Speaker 1: like the daughter I think of the woman who created
Speaker 1: the line. Yeah, mean granddaughter.
Speaker 3: Oh good?
Speaker 1: She was a big Nazi backer before the war.
Speaker 3: Yeah wow, okay, learning more? I love fashion knowledge.
Speaker 1: Savitri Devi was kicked out of Door's house eventually for
Speaker 1: her twin habits of refusing to bathe ever and chewing
Speaker 1: on garlic constantly.
Speaker 3: Can we disgusting?
Speaker 1: Come on girl? Okay, that's what gets the reaction, Sophie,
Speaker 1: because she's terrible.
Speaker 3: I was chewing on garlic a lot over the summer.
Speaker 3: It helps preserve your voice. I don't think that's why
Speaker 3: she was doing it.
Speaker 1: Does Do we have to bathe while chewing on garlic?
Speaker 3: Do we know what happened to her cats?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Solid question, Jamie.
Speaker 1: Well, she had numerous pet cats.
Speaker 2: What happened to those twenty cats she left to Nazi
Speaker 2: Germany with?
Speaker 1: She I was just about to say. She spent most
Speaker 1: of her remaining years living alone in India with dozens,
Speaker 1: sometimes of pet cats. And at least one cobra. She
Speaker 1: always had a fuck load of cats. Yeah, this woman
Speaker 1: couldn't get away from her cats. One thing about her.
Speaker 2: You wou think that cats live long enough that the
Speaker 2: original twenty cats she left behind would still be alive.
Speaker 1: But then I think a lot of them were. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of them weren't.
Speaker 3: Oh, she was taking them with.
Speaker 1: I don't know precisely, but my assumption, based on everything
Speaker 1: I know Savitri Devi, is that she would have absolutely
Speaker 1: tried to get back her original cats if it was possible.
Speaker 1: She was very into cats. Yeah, she would not have
Speaker 1: abandoned the cats. I don't think she was real consistent
Speaker 1: about that part. Yeah. As she grew older, Devi became
Speaker 1: more and more convinced that the United States represented the
Speaker 1: most fertile ground for the growth of the esoteric Nazi
Speaker 1: religions he had spent her life helping to construct. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, she decided to travel to the United
Speaker 1: States to do what she could do to help American
Speaker 1: Nazism break out as a national force. She died on
Speaker 1: the way while staying at a friend's house in Great Britain.
Speaker 1: Her ashes, however, finally made it across the pond to
Speaker 1: the United States of America, and American Nazis laid her
Speaker 1: to rest by sprinkling her on their hero's grave, George
Speaker 1: Lincoln Rockwell. So Rockwell and Savitri Devi's share a grave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, Okay, So she's like, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know who doesn't share a grave with George
Speaker 1: Lincoln Rockwell and Savitri Devi.
Speaker 3: The products and services were about to hawk. Yes, for now,
Speaker 3: you never know.
Speaker 1: For now, for now, we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 1: So Savitri Devi's dead. Good finally, But this is not
Speaker 1: the end for her, not really, because starting in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, a famous Holocaust and iron publisher, Ernst Zundel,
Speaker 1: had found her old work and started pushing it back
Speaker 1: into circulation. Now, but it only developed a limited audience
Speaker 1: in those early post war days. But now, nearly twenty
Speaker 1: years later, people were ready for esoteric hitlersm the book
Speaker 1: Hitler's Priestess notes. By the late nineteen seventies, the historical
Speaker 1: experience of the Third Reich was quickly receding into the past,
Speaker 1: as popular literature and films ably demonstrated Nazism was becoming
Speaker 1: something mythical, even fantastic and also plastic that could be
Speaker 1: molded and combined with novel associations lyrics. By publishing the
Speaker 1: work of Savitri Devi, Zundel aimed to create a new
Speaker 1: coltic interest in Hitler, linking him to ancient mysteries, the
Speaker 1: world of nature, and powerful religious symbols drawn from the
Speaker 1: orients she was just saying there by saying it's plastic,
Speaker 1: because he's pointing out we have all these weird movies
Speaker 1: now about like Nazis on the Moon. You know, you've
Speaker 1: got these fanciful stories like Wolfenstein, these games about like Nazi,
Speaker 1: like all of this, this this fictional sort of world
Speaker 1: that's been built up, like mythology built up around the Nazis,
Speaker 1: usually not by people who are actual Nazis, and a
Speaker 1: lot of cases just by people who are like, well,
Speaker 1: they're the worst people ever, so I can make them
Speaker 1: the bad guys. That's an easy go for a bad guy. Sure,
Speaker 1: But Zundel is like, this is a fucking opportunity because
Speaker 1: kids are growing up reading about these cool, evil, bad
Speaker 1: guy Nazis. And for the same reason that kids loved
Speaker 1: dressing up as Imperial Stormtroopers from Star Wars, kids get
Speaker 1: interested in the Nazis from this, and he sees Savitri
Speaker 1: Devi's work as like, I can fucking get a shitload
Speaker 1: of kids interested in Nazism by pushing this stuff back
Speaker 1: out there. Oh okay, and he's fucking right, yeah now,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Another important architect of this whole thing, and
Speaker 1: we're not going to get into enough, but I will
Speaker 1: do an episode on in the future is a Chilean
Speaker 1: Nazi named Miguel Serrano. And it's from Miguel that we
Speaker 1: actually get the term esoteric hitlersm Serano and Devi seem
Speaker 1: to have reached essentially the same conclusion about Hitler as
Speaker 1: an avatar of Vishnu through slightly different intellectual roots. Miguel
Speaker 1: was a student of Young and a mythrist which we
Speaker 1: just don't have enough time to get into, and a
Speaker 1: member of the day once again, the Theosophical Society. He
Speaker 1: was also an early Avid Western practitioner of yoga. Miguel
Speaker 1: corresponded with dev during her lifetime. Before he died in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. He gave interviews to Nazi magazines
Speaker 1: with names like Black Sun, where he said this about
Speaker 1: Savitri Devi. Quote, Savitri Devi is the greatest warrior after
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler, Rudolph Hess and Joseph Gebels. Moreover, she was
Speaker 1: the first to discover the ancient and spiritual power behind Hitlerism.
Speaker 1: She envisioned a new religion and inaugurated a sanctuary for
Speaker 1: Hitler in India. She was, as I myself am anti Christian.
Speaker 1: She initiated completely on her own all that I have
Speaker 1: developed up until now. It is not mere coincidence that
Speaker 1: the Spanish Catholics published an attack against Savitri Devi, Otto
Speaker 1: Ron and me. It was very late in her life
Speaker 1: when we started to write each other. We just missed
Speaker 1: each other in Europe by one week. I arrived a
Speaker 1: few days after her death. I think that Savitri Devi
Speaker 1: will be the greatest sister of all the priests of
Speaker 1: esoteric hitlersmasts of Wotan.
Speaker 2: And he's like wearing a male feminist T shirt while
Speaker 2: he does this. He's like, I don't hate women. I
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 3: I like the worst woman I've ever heard of love.
Speaker 1: He would not have worn him, I will say that much.
Speaker 1: But you're getting the spirit of the guy, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a real gigantic piece of shit. We're not getting
Speaker 1: into it up, but he gives her credit as like
Speaker 1: the real motive force behind the religion that Hitlerism becomes,
Speaker 1: even though he's also like kind of independently coming to
Speaker 1: a lot of the same conclusions and even earlier in
Speaker 1: some cases. Like she's the popularizer in a lot of way.
Speaker 1: She has a big role in that. And yeah, he's
Speaker 1: we'll talk about him more later today. Savitri Devi's fingerprints
Speaker 1: can be found all over the radical and murderous chunks
Speaker 1: of the fascist right. The Fair Creek Division an accelerationist
Speaker 1: neo Nazi organization that's a very similar to Adam Woffen Division,
Speaker 1: similar enough to talk about for the purposes of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Both of them seek to bring about the isolent destruction
Speaker 1: of the current world order through to stabilizing attacks. The
Speaker 1: Fair Creek Division directly cites dev as an inspiration. The
Speaker 1: group's gab bio includes this dev quote, creation and destruction
Speaker 1: are one to the eyes of one who can see beauty.
Speaker 1: Savitri's beliefs went on to have a big influence on
Speaker 1: Adam Waffen too and the members of the base who
Speaker 1: weren't FBI agents, anti fascists or journalists, which is basically
Speaker 1: those seven guys who got arrested.
Speaker 3: That's familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, in these groups like the Base, that we
Speaker 1: can see some hint of what makes Savitri dev so dangerous.
Speaker 1: The leader of the Michigan Cell of Adam Waffen Division,
Speaker 1: who was docked a few days before I wrote this episode,
Speaker 1: reached his position in charge of the Michigan Cell when
Speaker 1: he was fifteen years old. The three members of the
Speaker 1: Base who were arrested in Georgia in the process of
Speaker 1: trying to spark a race war were ages nineteen, twenty one,
Speaker 1: and twenty five, respectively. These acceleration esoteric Hitlerists tend to
Speaker 1: be young, and there is disagreement on the average age
Speaker 1: at which people enter cults, but the work of doctor
Speaker 1: John G. Clark, a psych professor at Harvard who surveyed
Speaker 1: five hundred current and former cult members, suggests an average
Speaker 1: age of nineteen and a half for new cult members.
Speaker 1: He also points out that most new cult members are male.
Speaker 1: This is because young men are particularly vulnerable to being
Speaker 1: enraptured by ideologies that offer them a sense of purpose
Speaker 1: and belonging. It's one of the reasons the same age
Speaker 1: group is the ideal recruitment population for soldiers, but esoteric
Speaker 1: hitlersm doesn't just suck these kids in because they're young.
Speaker 1: And to explain this new part, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about techism, and I am
Speaker 1: very sorry.
Speaker 4: No, do.
Speaker 3: We absolutely, absolutely, yeah, we.
Speaker 1: Really Dochism that is a joking parody of religion invented
Speaker 1: by the shit posters four chan and eight chan during
Speaker 1: gamer Gate. It's very dumb and talking about it makes
Speaker 1: me feel very silly. But the short of it is
Speaker 1: keechism started out, and for probably most people still is
Speaker 1: a dumb gag and a way for them to make
Speaker 1: fun of members of minority groups by pretending to be
Speaker 1: members of a victimized religion because they think that's funny.
Speaker 1: The whole thing focuses around shit posting and spreading memes.
Speaker 1: But as the Trump campaign ramped up and this weird
Speaker 1: internet movement started to have an impact on the real world, some,
Speaker 1: particularly unhinged Anon, started to take keechism more seriously, while
Speaker 1: others just thought the joke kept getting funnier and spread
Speaker 1: it around. For that reason, Lawrence Murray, a writer for
Speaker 1: the fascist podcast The Right Stuff, was probably the first
Speaker 1: person to purposefully meld keechism with Savitri Devi's philosophy into
Speaker 1: something he called esoteric keechism. He started shitting out memes
Speaker 1: that replaced Hitler with Pepe as an avatar of Vishnu,
Speaker 1: stuff like that It's very dumb. When interviewed, Murray claims
Speaker 1: he was only half joking with the whole idea, but
Speaker 1: like any joke of the sort on the Internet, it
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire, and a certain chunk of the people
Speaker 1: who saw it took it seriously, which led them to
Speaker 1: the work of more serious fascist thinkers, people like Savitri Devi,
Speaker 1: and led some of them into accelerationist groups like Adam
Speaker 1: Woffen and the Bass. It is not a coincidence that
Speaker 1: andders Brevic, the Utoya, Norway shooter who massacred dozens of
Speaker 1: children at a left wing summer camp, directly praised Hindu
Speaker 1: nationalism in his manifesto. It is also not a total
Speaker 1: coincidence that both anders Brevik and Brenton Tarrant, the christ shooter,
Speaker 1: claimed to be Knights Templar, members of a Christian order
Speaker 1: fighting against Muslims, basically, and it is not a coincidence
Speaker 1: that the Urban Dictionary page for Keekism, written by a
Speaker 1: gamer gator, describes it as a red pilled ideology originating
Speaker 1: from the true Knights templar. And again, all of this
Speaker 1: is joking. All of this is not joking. It's both
Speaker 1: at once. It's the contradiction of modern fucking yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that's yeah. The greatest trick the Devil ever played
Speaker 2: was irony poisoning, because you just can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't argue with that. And yeah, some people
Speaker 1: will say, and it's possible. There is are some central
Speaker 1: figures behind this spread of syncretism, like sinister individuals who
Speaker 1: have like kind of put all this together purposefully, or
Speaker 1: at least put pieces of it together purposefully.
Speaker 3: Yea.
Speaker 1: But I tend to be of the belief that most,
Speaker 1: if not all, of it is amorphous. In Acephalis, it
Speaker 1: happened without a head, without much intention on its own.
Speaker 1: There may have been bits of intention here and there,
Speaker 1: like esoteric techism, but a lot of it just happened
Speaker 1: because of the sort of structure Savitri Devi built. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of the natural result of the amorphous and
Speaker 1: sticky nature of the faith that she created. If Hindu
Speaker 1: mythology and ancient Egyptian history can be folded in with
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler and the Arian myth. Why can't Cechism wind
Speaker 1: up in there too? Why can't the Knights Templar fit
Speaker 1: in there too? All these weird little subcultures you've got,
Speaker 1: Norse mythology, chan culture, gamer culture, new age, spiritualism, environmentalism,
Speaker 1: even veganism. All these things appeal heavily to a lot
Speaker 1: of young people. And the more little bridges that you
Speaker 1: can build between these different communities and actual extermination is
Speaker 1: Nazi beliefs, the more young men will kind of accidentally
Speaker 1: fall in and get caught in this net. It's like
Speaker 1: a tunnel spider's web. And at the end, the great
Speaker 1: innovations have each read, every brought like that's that's the
Speaker 1: innovation she brought to Nazism. She took what was a
Speaker 1: dead political system that couldn't spread outside of Germany, not really,
Speaker 1: and turned it into a living, syncretic religion, something with vitality,
Speaker 1: something capable of mutating and absorbing and staying relevant, and
Speaker 1: something capable of inspiring young men to commit murder. And
Speaker 1: the memory of Adolf Hitler nearly a century after his.
Speaker 3: Death, Could you give me that word one more time.
Speaker 1: Of this syncretism.
Speaker 2: Syncretism, Yeah, I mean it's and if you are able to,
Speaker 2: you know, find a way to get a group of
Speaker 2: people who are looking for something to believe in, who
Speaker 2: are maybe a little bit okay, you know what, You're right?
Speaker 3: I was, but yeah, just like finding a.
Speaker 2: Group of vulnerable, vulnerable people ideologically that need something to
Speaker 2: believe in and put a delicious chocolate coating on the
Speaker 2: outside of it.
Speaker 3: It seems to it works. It works.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about Savitri? You a fan? You
Speaker 1: gotta check out her books.
Speaker 3: I can't say I'm a fan she. I don't think
Speaker 3: that we would.
Speaker 2: I don't think we would have been friends in junior
Speaker 2: high and I don't think we would have been friends now.
Speaker 2: I yeah, no, I mean I truly. And it is
Speaker 2: interesting that we don't talk about her. I had no
Speaker 2: idea this person existed.
Speaker 1: I why do you think that is? There's a degree
Speaker 1: to there's a degree to which I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people who know about her and are like researchers
Speaker 1: didn't really want to because there's this worry about making
Speaker 1: a bigger deal of it than it is. Sure, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like I didn't really write about eight Chan
Speaker 1: much until the christ Churt shooting, when it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well now we got to the base. Now it's gotten
Speaker 1: to those points, like all right, we got to fucking
Speaker 1: talk about Savitri dev Debi and esoteric hitlersm Like, we
Speaker 1: got to get some of this out there. I do
Speaker 1: think it's also just like not super well known. I
Speaker 1: think she was seen like really, to be entirely honest,
Speaker 1: I think most of her efforts would have looked like
Speaker 1: a failure to most observers. Observers up until maybe at
Speaker 1: the earliest decade ago. Okay, you know, people who were
Speaker 1: really aware of what was going on would have known earlier,
Speaker 1: but most people, even pretty well informed people, would have
Speaker 1: been like, well, this is kind of a dead end
Speaker 1: and just something to like make fun of up until
Speaker 1: we start to the internet. Really is what provides this
Speaker 1: with the last ingredient it needs to take on.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she like pioneered the red pill mentality, like
Speaker 2: it's yeah, yeah, she was a.
Speaker 1: Big part of that. Yeah, and we're not like Julius
Speaker 1: Evola is a big part of this. Who Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: fucking loves Let's me not let me.
Speaker 2: Not take any credit from any of the Red pil Pioneers.
Speaker 3: Everyone deserves to take up space.
Speaker 1: We'll get them all. We'll get them all on the show.
Speaker 3: We will, we will. They deserve it. Mm hmm, well
Speaker 3: serve it well, Robert as usual. This was absolutely horrifying
Speaker 3: and you've ruined my day. Thank you?
Speaker 1: Good? Yeah, that's the goal.
Speaker 3: Okay, good, And.
Speaker 2: I've got I've got some pluggables, like you can listen
Speaker 2: to my podcast, My Year in Mensa. It's online now,
Speaker 2: there's only four episodes. It's real quick. I'm on Twitter
Speaker 2: at Jamie Loftus help Instagram at Jamie car Superstar on
Speaker 2: tour for the next month or so. Jamie Loftus is
Speaker 2: innocent dot com. And that's what I have to say.
Speaker 2: I love when we talk about the warship in the
Speaker 2: entire world and at the end you're like, so, what's
Speaker 2: your Twitter handle?
Speaker 1: This is Twitter? If you really want to learn more
Speaker 1: about esotery, Hitler is follow Sophie's Twitter. Why underscore, Sophie underscore?
Speaker 1: Why Rob absolutely violent?
Speaker 3: Cannot shut make me fire you no? You know, Hitler,
Speaker 3: you know what?
Speaker 2: Have been on Twitter for less than forty eight hours
Speaker 2: already getting accused of crimes. Robert's gonna be canceled by
Speaker 2: the time this came out because he blew his nose
Speaker 2: on the mic no less than four times hours.
Speaker 1: I am, I am ill, You're ill.
Speaker 2: I know, but you know, but I mean now you're
Speaker 2: just now you're just bragging about it.
Speaker 3: Follow our podcast at Bessard's pod on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me what to do, so oh sorry, listeners,
Speaker 1: what to do.
Speaker 3: For get it together?
Speaker 1: I know I didn't sleep last night and the.
Speaker 3: Episodes nobody I know we've had the Nazism sleep last night?
Speaker 3: That does that excuse the nose blowing? My friend having
Speaker 3: trouble sleeping? Does it excuse the nose blowing? No?
Speaker 1: No, No, Robert, Sophie, Robert, that's going to be okay.
Speaker 1: It is not.
Speaker 3: We're always getting mad. And the episode my friend and
Speaker 3: go take a nap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the episode is over. Yay, Go hug a cat
Speaker 1: or dog? Cats? Can you stop Nazis cat and encourage
Speaker 1: the angriest person you know to write fan fiction.
Speaker 3: That's truly the greatest service you can do.
Speaker 1: Both of those things are critical.
Speaker 2: All right, Episode's over, Bye bye,