The Nazi Gospels explores the roots of Nazi ideology, and how the Third Reich used twisted versions of history and religion to bolster its power and help drive Germany towards war and genocide. The story begins in 19th Century occult societies, where what will become the central tenet of Nazism is developed: belief in an ancient Aryan Master Race, born to rule lesser races, especially the ‘subhuman’ Jews. In the aftermath of Germany’s defeat in World War I this racist ideology passes into the Nazi party, being fostered by Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Nazi’s elite troopers, the SS.
Himmler dreams of a Germany turned away from Christian doctrines of love and peace, and establishes spooky Wewelsburg Castle as an SS Pagan Vatican, designing pagan rituals for his men to take part in. He establishes an Ancient History Department for the SS which conducts bizarre and ambitious archaeological quests… to Tibet, supposed homeland of ancient Aryans, and to southern France in search of the Holy Grail.
These eccentric efforts may seem a sideshow next to Adolf Hitler’s dream of conquering a thousand-year empire for Germany. But the film shows how the Nazi belief in the Aryan Master Race characterised World War II as a war between the Aryan Germans and the ‘lesser races’, for example the Russian Slavs and especially the Jews… a belief which reached its most terrible consequence in the Holocaust. The same SS men caught up in these bizarre, cult-like obsessions of ancient Aryans with magical powers, of Pagan Gods and the Holy Grail, were also those who directed genocide.
Illustrated with unnerving drama and readings of original Nazi texts, as well as little-seen archive, The Nazi Gospels shows how racist myth-making and false history was used to underpin the greatest crime in history.
