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00:00Hollywood loves an iconic villain and there are none better than Hitler's Nazis but did Indiana
00:12Jones's old enemy really plunder the world for ancient relics as depicted in the famous films
00:18the answer is yes spearheaded by Heinrich Himmler and the SS
00:27epic expeditions were mounted by Nazi scientists they called themselves the Aminurba their weapons
00:38lies theft and murder they are Hitler's treasure hunters
00:48a vision of zealous Nazis on the hunt for hidden treasures
01:04it was once thought such scenes were merely fiction a fanciful backdrop to good old-fashioned Hollywood
01:12heroics in truth when it came to Hitler and his SS chief Heinrich Himmler no grasp for power was too
01:27outlandish from the Holy Grail and spear of destiny to ancient Aryan mythologies and a castle for Nazi
01:36cult scientists treasure hunting Germans tap into history around the world to service the
01:42imaginations of their leaders Himmler's interest in religious artifacts started with the historically
01:49attested the genuinely religious and valuable but it also extended to the more mythical and the more
01:56unusual and it's here we see him sponsoring expeditions to try and recover things like the
02:01spirit of destiny in the Holy Grail unlike the Hollywood movies however Himmler's desperate search for icons of
02:12religious history wasn't necessarily a bid for supernatural power it was about controlling the populace
02:31of course the Nazis were quite happy to use religion when it suited them so we see that while many of the
02:44leading Nazis themselves were quite skeptical of organized religion of Christianity of Catholicism or
02:52Protestantism that they were more than happy to co-opt it for their own ends when they felt it would serve their
02:58purposes enter the religious treasures and spiritual relics that captivated not only the Nazi imagination but the
03:12imagination of their predominantly religious population for Hitler's supreme treasure hunter Reichsführer
03:28religion was the wellspring that could deliver power prestige and perhaps even immortality so ideas always matter the Nazis
03:41aren't alone in doing this but they really epitomize this quasi cynical pragmatic and quasi ideological search for an alternative
03:52history and alternative past an alternative science an alternative religion around race and space that can substitute for the complexities of modernity
04:04to co-opt religious iconography and realize his vision Himmler had at his disposal the Anna Nurba a pseudo scientific organization set up solely to support master race theories through the pursuit of
04:10religious artifacts and ideas to begin with the Anna Nurba seemed to attract cranks and eccentrics but over time Hitler was extremely critical of the kind of crazy ideas that the Anna Nurba seemed to attract cranks and eccentrics but over time Hitler was extremely critical of the kind of
04:40the Anna Nurba was propagating Himmler tightened up recruitment and really you had quite serious academics entering the Anna Nurba and being offered research opportunities
04:52Himmler wound them up and sent them out into the world with a clear vision in mind one that he thought could quite literally alter the perceived history of the world
05:02Himmler's vision for the Iron Erby was twofold
05:09He needed to use it to prove the deep past of Arianism
05:19But he also needed to take that a step further and justify it for actions in the present
05:27So if one were to argue that Aryans had colonized the entire world then that would be a justification for modern Germany to expand and conquer not new areas of the world but those areas that had once been Aryan before
05:45So the past was justifying the present
05:48It's almost again the schizophrenic kind of idea about how by possessing something like that you can ultimately claim to have possessed that other cultural context
06:01The Grail is probably the quintessential example of that
06:07The Holy Grail
06:08If Germany can get their hands on perhaps the most coveted artifact in history
06:15They could rewrite their past to influence their future
06:20And so the treasure hunt begins
06:26Of all the mystical dalliances playing out in the fevered mind of Heinrich Himmler
06:32The Holy Grail was a standout
06:35The greatest treasure of them all
06:38The Holy Grail
06:39The Holy Grail is a mythical artifact
06:43Of course we see it presented in Indiana Jones
06:47As the carpenter's cup that gives everlasting life if you drink from it
06:56The quest of millennia for fabled knights and crusaders
07:00The Grail is a fascination still firing public imagination today through popular culture and films
07:10But what was it exactly?
07:13The Grail was a cup
07:15Potentially used at the Last Supper
07:18That then was taken to Jesus' crucifixion
07:20And used to catch his blood
07:23It's being the receptacle of Christ's blood that gives the Holy Grail its supposed power
07:30Films like Indiana Jones, Legends of King Arthur, and countless more paint the picture of a Holy Grail imbued with fantastical otherworldly power
07:46Such stories would have enticed Himmler and his Anunnurba Nazis
07:52But their driving reason for hunting down this artifact was far simpler
07:57We could go down the perhaps easy path of thinking that they wanted to gain possession of the Grail
08:05To harness some supernatural power that it held within it
08:10I think that what's more important is this desire to possess Christian or indeed other mythical relics
08:19To hunt down such an artifact, one that would give legitimate credence to the Nazi propaganda that Jesus was of Aryan ancestry
08:33Himmler recruited a man who would later be described as a real life Indiana Jones
08:40Otto Rahn
08:41So the individual that had a great deal of interest in acquiring the Grail for the Iron Erby was a man called Otto Rahn
08:53He had been a medieval scholar in universities prior to the rise of the Nazis
08:58But he did believe in the existence of the Grail and that it could be found
09:02From an early age, Rahn's mother introduced him to stories and legends of the Holy Grail
09:11A topic he enthusiastically pursued while attending Geisen University in Germany
09:18One story in particular piqued his interests
09:22That of a dissident religious order called the Cathars
09:28The Cathars were totally opposed to the medieval church of Rome
09:33They formed a counter-church and were vilified as the great heresy
09:37Rome ordered their extermination
09:41In 1244, the entire sect was wiped out in what is called the last stand of the Cathars
09:48At their mountain fortress of Mont-Ségur in the French Pyrenees
09:54It reads like the legends of King Arthur and the Knights Templar
09:58Popularized by books like the Da Vinci Code
10:01Ron, a fanatic for these kinds of stories
10:05Read a poem about one of King Arthur's knights, Parcifal
10:09And how he found the Grail in a mythical castle called Mont-Savate
10:12Things suddenly clicked, Parcifal's Mont-Savate and the Cathars' Mont-Sagur
10:19Otto Rahn believed these two castles were one and the same
10:25But he also was a pretty consummate scholar and had tracked down enough textual evidence to at least suggest the possibility that when the Grail ultimately left the Middle East that it could have made its way by means of one of these, you know, kind of heretical scenes
10:43into Western Europe
10:58In 1931, 700 years after the last stand of the Cathars, Rahn traveled to France and unearthed a local legend about a mysterious treasure
11:08It was said that in the final siege of Mont-Sagur, four Cathars had scaled down the side of the fortress with the treasure and vanished forever
11:21Rahn made his ultimate link
11:24This Cathar treasure was the Holy Grail
11:31He published his theories in a book, The Crusade Against the Grail in 1934
11:38One reader was enthralled and sent Rahn a telegram to arrange a meeting
11:44When he arrived, his host was none other than Heinrich Himmler
11:55Himmler was very definitely his principal sponsor and he seems to have been really dedicated to Himmler as a kind of father figure almost
12:07Himmler asked Rahn to join the SS and his Anna Nerva Research Institute
12:13He joined as a junior non-commissioned officer in 1936
12:18Despite having little affiliation with the racist dogma of the SS
12:23Rahn was totally devoted to Heinrich Himmler
12:26Not because they shared the same world views, but rather the same belief in the Holy Grail
12:41The treasure hunt took Rahn to Europe's most famous sacred sites
12:44From Germany and France to Italy and Iceland
12:50Where he conducted excavations throughout 1935 and 1936
12:55Through the two years, Rahn maintained frequent correspondence with Himmler
13:01Who was funding his research
13:02I think in these various treasure hunts that members of the Anna Nerva went on
13:10Regardless of whether or not they believed in the religious meaning of some of these objects they were seeking
13:17Certainly they understood the value in society to many that these objects held
13:22And so they were more than happy to go and plunder them and try to take them for their own as well
13:33Traversing through Europe in search of religious relics
13:36Rahn was truly Indiana Jones before Harrison Ford ever was
13:40The only problem
13:43He made a deal with the devil
13:49One that would soon extract a grim price
13:53Two very personal issues were surfacing for the archaeologist
13:58That he was struggling to square away with the work he was doing
14:02He had Jewish blood through his mother
14:05And he was gay
14:06Unsanctioned escapades while abroad
14:10Drew the attention of Himmler
14:12And retribution was swift
14:14The problem was, of course, that as a homosexual within the SS
14:19He was always potentially at risk
14:26As a punishment in part for his transgressions
14:29Both ideologically and sexually, you could argue
14:31He was sent to one of the concentration camps, to Dachau specifically
14:36And as a result of that, he withdrew from the SS entirely
14:40And ultimately, as with so many individuals in this time
14:45He was co-opted, he was used, and eventually the system spat him out
14:49In 1939, Rahn resigned from the SS
15:00He travelled to Austria, walked into the Alps
15:04And sat down under a tree
15:06It's thought he may have taken sleeping pills
15:10And froze to death
15:11The Nazi Grail quest really shows us something important
15:24No matter how potentially ridiculous
15:29No matter how fictional, no matter how mythical
15:34There is no element of human culture that the Nazis wouldn't try and co-opt
15:43Rahn may have gotten closer than anyone to the Holy Grail
15:47But his secrets and knowledge died with him
15:50Himmler and the Anunerbe had a true treasure hunter in the form of Rahn
15:55And yet they couldn't see past their own fervent ideology
15:58Himmler and the Anunerbe were not the noble knights of old going on a Grail quest
16:05They were hypocritical mass murderers
16:09So for all of the high-minded ideology
16:13Really what it boiled down to was a totalitarian quest to conquer the world
16:21The Nazi Grail hunt had come to an end
16:24But Himmler was already finding new ways to exploit religion
16:30And create their own heroic backstory
16:45Years before Rahn was ever given a troupe of Anunerbe for his own glorious Grail quest
16:50Himmler had something far more concrete in mind
16:55He wouldn't need to co-opt the iconography
16:59Not if he could prove a cornerstone of the Nazi party's beliefs
17:03The Master Race Theory
17:05In their eyes, Germans were descendants of ancient and glorious Nordic superhumans
17:18That conquered and civilized the world
17:21But to sell these wild musings
17:25He needed someone who could give them a veneer of credibility
17:28Enter Dutch-born intellectual Hermann Werth
17:33Scholar of ancient languages, symbols, and religions
17:41Werth published works promoting the idea of an ancient pagan religion
17:46And pushed a theory of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Nordic race
17:50That had evolved in the Arctic
17:54Werth would claim he had found the hard evidence Himmler craved
17:59Rock carvings in Sweden
18:02Which he said were the first writings of civilization
18:06And contained ancient Nordic holy text
18:09In many ways, you know, I think he represents the really more esoteric and somewhat bizarre element of the sort of early founders of the SS Anunerbe
18:24Because he was one of the initial sort of forces behind getting that organization going
18:28The very first mission of the Anunerbe would be to Sweden
18:38In pursuit of their most basic ideological desires
18:42Something that would prove their dominion over the world
18:46This was an industrialized and scientific effort
18:50The Nazis truly saw their investigations into racial histories, into Aryanism, into the collection of objects and the proof of Aryan civilization across the globe as a scientific effort
19:09The meeting of minds between Himmler and Werth wasn't surprising
19:13Werth's German father, like Himmler's, was a school teacher
19:17Who passed on to his son an intense fascination with Germanic folklore and music, languages, history and religion
19:28Their like-minded ideas would set Werth off on a quest to rival Ron's hunt for the Grail
19:35Only his treasure wasn't so much a physical object, it was an idea
19:40A few years before meeting Himmler, Werth was wandering the Dutch Friesen countryside
19:51When he spotted symbols painted onto wooden folk sculptures
19:55He concluded, without evidence of course
19:59That the symbols were remnants of the earliest writing system in the world
20:04The mother of all scripts
20:06Nordic
20:08Aryan
20:09Never mind that scholars the world over had already traced the earliest examples of writing to Egypt or Mesopotamia
20:17If the Nazis could say the first intelligent humans were Nordic
20:22And the Germans were their descendants
20:25It would link them to a glorious past
20:28One that the German people were already familiar with through myths and legends
20:33They didn't have to teach them new things or invent something from scratch and then justify it
20:41They could go back to these mythologies that everybody knew about
20:45And build them into their ideology
20:48And say actually, these aren't myths, they aren't merely legends
20:52We can find these in the Nordic and Germanic histories of our people
20:55Worth argued that these writing systems were taken to those places by Nordic migrants
21:07From one of the most fabled cities in the world
21:10The Lost City of Atlantis
21:12While absurd on the surface
21:16Linking the Nordics to the city of Atlantis
21:19Worth gained admiration from a legion of fans and treasure enthusiasts alike
21:25As the fabled Lost City would become a pinpoint of fascination for the Nazis in future treasure hunts
21:32For now, there was no greater fan of Worth's than Himmler himself, who arranged a covert meeting in 1934
21:46The Annanerba leader needed little seducing
21:50And he promptly set Worth to the north of Sweden in 1936
21:55To collect and decode what he called the Nordic holy texts
21:59He was convinced that the material, you know, culture record
22:04And that included, you know, in terms of what we would now call sort of
22:08Folk traditions in rural areas in particular
22:12That one could still extract from that
22:14Some echoes of this earlier original religion
22:17That he was obviously interested in reintroducing
22:23The site was astonishing
22:255,000 rock art panels
22:29Images of a primeval world
22:32But it was the engravings of lines, triangles, and circles
22:38Which enticed Worth
22:40But for all his boasting and bombast
22:43When it came time to deliver
22:45Worth lacked the expertise needed to decipher what he had found
22:49They were principally linguists
22:51They were interested in things like, you know, the traditions of song and poetry
22:56I think ultimately, it tells us a lot about the way in which he and many Nazis approach many things
23:02Which was, it was always Hail Mary shots
23:05Always this idea that there was going to be some sort of miracle
23:07That if one just kept willing it, sooner or later one would find that magical, so to speak, almost holy grail of evidence
23:17Whether or not we're talking about the specific holy grail or not
23:20Like all the failures before him, the lack of results had Worth on the outs with Himmler and his team
23:27You know, he became more and more clearly sort of unhinged with regard to some of his ideas and therefore, you know, more and more marginal over the course of his lifetime
23:40After failed attempts to find the holy grail and a glorious Aryan ancestry
23:46Hitler and Himmler were growing concerned that Christian ideology might become too powerful to control
23:55Because everything Christianity taught was antithesis to the racist Nazi dogma
24:02Religion presents a couple of problems for the Nazis
24:06It's a separate power structure
24:08It's a separate loyalty that you could have
24:11The other problem is that the nature of Christianity, its central tenets, its beliefs
24:18Christianity preached forgiveness
24:21The triumph of the meek and the weak who will inherit the earth, not the strong
24:27But of course, the myth of Aryan supremacy was all about
24:32Might is right
24:40Himmler's pursuit of religious iconography
24:43Particularly Christian and Jewish iconography
24:47Had an insidious purpose
24:49In their eyes, no one should be worshipped above the Fuhrer and his Nazi party
24:56Religion made people weak and gave them something else to focus on
25:01When all their attention should be served to the nation
25:05The Nazis viewed religion with a great deal of skepticism
25:08They saw them as competitors to the sole focus on the promotion of the Aryan race
25:15And this idea of Nazism that they wanted everyone to have as their first and really only allegiance
25:23But most importantly, Christianity said Jesus was a Jew
25:28And no German should be worshipping a Jew
25:31It was time to change the narrative
25:33If they could, the Nazis were going to shift how people interpreted one of the most well-known stories in history
25:43The story of Jesus Christ
25:46No longer Jewish in the eyes of Himmler and his team
25:50He was now a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan
25:53They're using theories about witchcraft and Indo-Aryan mythology and the holy grail and Atlantis and world ice theory to justify the marginalization and murder of Jews and sloths
26:09Unfortunately for the Nazi party, the German people were as steeped in Christianity as most
26:26But to the Nazis, faith represented a challenge to their authority as the supreme German institution
26:35An Aryan race as great as they thought it was
26:45Shouldn't be bound by some of the softer or weaker aspects of, for example, Christianity
26:55And that you really needed to go back to something like ancient pagan beliefs
27:00To really find a suitable religious system for warrior farmers and this Aryan master race
27:07The party set about rewriting history by promoting more Aryan-Germanic ideals while eliminating Jewish notions of history
27:25Jesus was no longer a Jew in their eyes
27:28A special de-Judification institute was set up to back the claims
27:44Rewriting the Bible to remove the Jewish roots of Jesus and remove any Jewish names or places
27:51Himmler, on the other hand, went full smear campaign against the church
27:56Claiming that the victims of the Christian-backed witch trials
28:01Were actually Germanic women with a natural gift for healing
28:06They claimed that Jews made up the concept of witchcraft
28:11Claimed that Germanic women who were just natural healers were witches
28:16And then got the Catholic Church to burn them at the stake
28:20Killing two birds with one stone, according to Himmler
28:22The early witchcraft trials, said Himmler, were a capital crime against the German people
28:34Instigated by Jews, presided over by the Catholic Church
28:39Where the grail quest was a battle of ideologies and power
28:42The search for witches was straight-up opposition research against Christianity
28:49A treasure hunt for people rather than objects
28:53To aid in their battle against institutionalized religion
28:57They destroyed this ancient Germanic religion and culture
29:01With the Catholic Church, which the Catholic Church and Christianity and Jews didn't like
29:08And they murdered or committed a form of proto-genocide of the Germanic Aryan race
29:14Because if you kill all the women, they can't have children
29:17Himmler even had the SS taking over traditionally Christian events
29:28Weddings were presided over by SS commanders instead of priests
29:33While babies were baptized under an image of Hitler instead of the cross
29:38The tactics had little impact on the faith of the German people
29:42But luckily for Himmler and the Anunnurba
29:46There was another powerful Christian artifact they could set their sights on
29:53Few leaders in history were as effective as Hitler in using symbolism to sell outrageous doctrines
30:01The cynical art of his deal with the masses was to launder the idea of his authority and authenticity at every opportunity
30:09It was his destiny to rule the world
30:13To prove it, he sought out the Spear of Destiny
30:17Also known as the Spear of Longinus
30:21Maybe a little on the nose, sure
30:24But as the legend foretold
30:26If you possessed the spear, you were invincible
30:29You hold the destiny of the world in your hands
30:33The Spear of Longinus was definitely one of these objects that was thought to have this
30:39Particularly, you know, kind of military association in terms of, you know, being victorious if it was in your possession
30:50The legend of the Holy Lance, as it's also called, is based on a biblical reference
30:56It was claimed that the Spear of Destiny was the Roman lance that pierced the side of Christ at the crucifixion
31:05The Spear was linked in legend to the Holy Roman Empire
31:10Possessed by a string of German conqueror kings
31:14Over the centuries, several artifacts were claimed to be the Holy Lance
31:19Hitler zeroed in on one
31:22The Hofburg Spear, held in Vienna as part of the treasures of the Holy Roman Empire
31:27Like the Holy Grail, the Nordic master race, and the Germanic witches
31:34Whether or not these things held actual power, was almost irrelevant to Hitler and Himmler
31:41It was about what they represented
31:44In these other traditional belief systems, these objects were thought to have that kind of power and symbolic weight
31:51Then by literally removing them and co-opting them and physically seizing them
31:58You would be able to undermine the sort of psychological position of the enemy
32:03Whether it pierced the side of Jesus or not
32:06Hitler did get his hands on what people claimed was the Spear of Destiny
32:12On March 28, 1938, the day Hitler annexed Austria, he went straight to the Hofburg Museum
32:22And seized the Holy Roman crown jewels, a collection that included the spear
32:29The treasure was sent off to be buried under the fortress in Nuremberg, the spiritual capital of Nazi Germany
32:36Maybe if Hitler had carried it everywhere with him, he might have had more luck
32:41Because just six years later, the war was over
32:45He was dead, and the spear was recovered and sent back to Vienna
32:51What the Grail story and indeed the Spear of Destiny show us
32:56Is that all religions were not equal
32:59Whatever their purpose, the Nazis saw a use for Christian relics
33:04This cannot be said for Jewish relics of equal importance or even more ancient history
33:19Whether it was the Holy Grail or the Spear of Destiny
33:23The idea of mythic quests was embedded in Nazi DNA
33:28The mere existence of the Onanerba proved as much
33:31So determined was Himmler to either claim religious artifacts for himself
33:37Or wipe their ideology out entirely
33:40He would soon go to extraordinary lengths to create his own quasi-religious temple
33:47A pagan palace where the SS could revel in spiritual symbolism
33:53And study their stolen treasures
33:55Like his wannabe Grail knight Otto Rahn, Himmler was captivated by the story of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
34:10He wanted the SS to be his very own Teutonic Knights
34:16So much so, he embedded these myths into his very own Nazi cult castle
34:22Weevilsburg, as it was known, was a 17th century fortress
34:27Said to be located near the prophesied site of an epic battle between Germanic powers and dark eastern forces
34:39So the Weevilsburg is a castle
34:43And Himmler saw it as the basis for a kind of SS headquarters
34:49And Grail castle
34:51A place where almost kind of a Disneyland for all the bizarre esoteric
34:55And Indo-Aryan and pagan ideas
34:59That many members of the SS were playing around with
35:03Where they could actually deploy them
35:05Himmler set his sights on transforming this into a spiritual home
35:11Where the SS could explore their Aryan heritage
35:16And develop Germanic pagan rituals
35:19It would be Himmler's Camelot
35:22A place to bring all the treasures they acquired
35:25Research them
35:27And learn of their awesome powers
35:29They could have the equivalent of kind of Arthurian round table
35:33And no one would make fun of them
35:35Because it would be exclusively for the SS
35:37Hitler would never visit
35:39It would only be for the SS
35:42A mythical symbol
35:44A castle on a hill
35:45A beacon to Himmler's new pagan ideologies
35:49And home to the world's most significant treasures
35:53Whatever the ultimate plans for Weevilsburg
35:57Its mere existence
35:59Highlighted the contradictions and ruthlessness
36:02Of Himmler, the SS, and the Nazis as a whole
36:09But at the same time we can't forget
36:11That there is a concentration camp placed nearby
36:13So that forced labor can be used from that camp
36:17And so we always have to keep in mind
36:19No matter how outlandish these ideas are
36:22That they have a very real connection to the cost
36:27That many, many people are paying at the time
36:31At Weevilsburg, Himmler could never have known
36:35How close he was to both acquiring and becoming
36:39The cult symbol he longed to be
36:41Himmler could claim all the mystical castles he wanted
36:47For his treasure hunting on Anurba
36:49It didn't change the fact
36:52They were coming up empty handed on almost every front
36:56Their ideological war with religion was on the back foot
37:00Getting desperate, Himmler turned to his most bizarre treasure hunt yet
37:03A search for the long lost body of a man they called
37:10The First Führer
37:14In the Hartz Mountains, three hours from Berlin
37:17Sits a fairy tale castle atop a medieval town
37:22Quedlinburg is an architectural treasure and world heritage listed
37:27But in the darkest of times, it was a cult town
37:32Its ancient castle abbey, a shrine for Nazi worship
37:34Chosen by Heinrich Himmler as the epicenter of a new German religion
37:45Quedlinburg has been dubbed the first German capital
37:49Home of the first king of a unified Germany in the year 919
37:53Heinrich der Vogler
37:57Henry the Fowler
37:59Popular in his day for having waged war against Eastern European neighbors
38:04Henry's feats were romanticized by poets and playwrights
38:11King Henry was said to be buried in a crypt beneath Quedlinburg Abbey in 936
38:16Almost a thousand years before Hitler would birth his Third Reich
38:22The term Reich, meaning realm, was actually utilized by Nazi Germany
38:28To legitimize their supposed empire in reflection of King Henry
38:33Calling his reign and the Roman Empire the First Reich
38:37It was a propaganda godsend for Himmler
38:41A chance to steal what he saw as the real treasure of Quedlinburg
38:47King Henry's legend and legacy
38:51Himmler sent in the SS to seize the abbey and crypt below it
38:56And transform it into a Nazi showcase for the millennial anniversary event
39:02Outraged by church leaders was stifled
39:05As the Nazi propaganda machine dutifully espoused the virtues
39:09For the pagan mutation of the abbey
39:13Quedlinburg was originally a medieval castle and abbey
39:18But under Himmler and the SS it became more of an occult shrine dedicated to worshipping the Nazis
39:25So they stripped its interior of Christian imagery and covered it with a royal blue cloth
39:31Creating this feeling of being inside a heraldic temple
39:35What Himmler wanted most for Quedlinburg was to celebrate King Heinrich
39:40Who was believed to be the first king of the united Germany
39:44Himmler even saw him as the first Führer
39:47The only problem was there were no royal remains there
39:51Himmler adapted the king's legend to Nazi narratives
39:55Henry became known as the founder of the first Reich
40:00The first Führer to some
40:02Himmler made military parallels
40:05Unifying Germany, attacking Slav nations
40:09German colonization
40:11He used the old king's legend to try to validate SS genocide
40:15Henry, he said in his millennial speech, had the courage to create unpopular politics
40:22And the wherewithal to see them through
40:26Quedlinburg was awash with SS symbols and Nazi leaders for the 1000 year anniversary event
40:34But there was one thing missing
40:38The abbey had no idol
40:41When the SS had opened the crypt, there was no King Henry
40:45Only an empty space beside the remains of his wife
40:49Himmler established a task force to look for King Heinrich's remains
40:54He had his researchers scour Germany and pry open the tombs of any possible locations where he might be found
41:03And in 1937, it was announced that the lost king had finally been found and could be laid to rest at Quedlinburg
41:12The SS even held a midnight re-internment ceremony, placing the body in a sarsophagus and decorated it with runes
41:20It became a place of veneration and indoctrination for the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls
41:28But like so many other mystical Nazi quests, the whole thing was a lie
41:34No remains had ever been found, but it wasn't until after the war that the truth became known
41:40In 1948, the vault of Henry the Fowler, the legendary king, was opened
41:47The skeleton inside was that of a woman
41:54To the very last, the Nazis' attempts to steal, fake, and bend religion to their will
42:02Were nothing more than the colorful fantasies of zealots
42:06The Nazis failed
42:15They were not able to create a new religion based on Nordic mythology
42:21They were not able to rewrite world history to serve their Aryan supremacy
42:26For six years, the Nazi military machine wreaked havoc, destruction, and misery across Europe
42:33But their eventual loss on the battlefields was not their only defeat
42:42They also lost their war on religion
42:46Germany remained an overwhelmingly Christian nation
43:03Than the Vigilfsten chợp and печ candidly
43:05They were not able to wreck a new ideology
43:06To the far-pest and moving back
43:11Very horny they were just they had försöts to retain itsfiguren
43:14This body was murdered from thebrand
43:16Even if nobody knew that war each other
43:19unkt 4, anyway, was destroyed by the pains
43:22When ιşallah was proven
43:25And that had historically uninstitized
43:29Transcription by CastingWords
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