The author points out a lot of the popular pagan and occult influences in Germany between the world wars and talks about the friends of Hitler involved in these groups and their influence on him and other high ranking leaders.

While the author covers a broad range of topics the most interesting to me was the discussion of how the Nazis used cult like tactics to recruit and train people. This training was part of the answer of how ordinary people could be trained to do terrible things to people identified as unfit or unworthy. The author also discussed the efforts of cults in the US to recruit and brainwash people and warns of the dangers cults pose.

( )

My reactions upon reading this book in 1989.

Sklar makes a convincing case for the Nazis being heavily influenced by the occult (particularly the Germanic occult) ideas of the late nineteenth century. This book sheds light on the many allegations of Hitler’s occult past, the seeming irrationality of some of the Nazis’ political moves (astrological predictions stopping Hitler from invading England, German rocket programs falling victim to a sincere belief in a a hollow earth, a strong strain of mysticism and occultism in the SS), the whole orgin of the Aryan belief (and why the Nazis tolerated an alliance with another race -- the Japanese), and many other bizarre aspects of Nazism that go far beyond an ideal of racial superiority and anti-Semitism but explain both. Sklar shows how the Germans accepted such nonsense. A great quote from one Madame de Staël calls the Germans “vigorously submissive” -- a great characterization. The Germans, unlike the rest of Europe, thought the Middle Ages were great and wanted to go back, and seem to have had a dangerous mystical bent.

I use to think the comments that the Nazis couldn’t have conqueored the world (or even won the war) naive, but after seeing a Nazi memo bragging about increasing the rate of German illiteracy, I can accept the notion utterly.

I have two objections to this book. First, I wish Sklar would have documented her sources and quotes better -- footnotes would have been a good idea. I don’t think Sklar misquoted anything or skewed the context but I’d like to be able to check. Second, the last two chapters seemed overblown and, I suspect, represent the book’s whole reason for being. I find Sklar’s assessment of cult brainwashing fallicious and her assessment of cult danger overstated. ( )