The Backstory: Maniacs and mysticism

The Nazis not only had a deluded belief in their own racial superiority, some of their top leaders believed they were superhumans descended from the inhabitants of the lost city of Atlantis. (They had a whole branch of the military dedicated to proving that.)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, we know that one of the most horrifying
things about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was their belief
that they were a superior breed of human being and
they wanted to wipe out any group of people who
didn't fit their diluted standards. But did you know that
some of the top Nazi officials saw themselves as superhuman
because they believed their ancestors came from the Lost City

(00:22):
of Atlantis. They searched for Atlantis along with relics that
were otherworldly, like the Holy Grail. I'm Patti Steele, Maniacs
and mysticism. Next on the backstory. The backstory is back. Well,
we've all seen a lot of the Indiana Jones flicks,

(00:42):
but did you know that major parts of those stories
are based on fact. It seems that before and during
World War Two, the Nazis actually were hunting for mystical objects.
They truly wanted to get their hands on things like
the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, just
like we saw those movies. And it went beyond that.

(01:02):
Many of the top Nazi brass believe they were descended
from a superior race of human beings. They were convinced
it was their job to prove that and to wipe
out everybody else. Now, imagine you're a young Nazi soldier
in the sess and you're assigned to the an Inerba,
that's the branch dedicated to the heritage of the German

(01:24):
people and their alleged racial superiority. That research would take
you down some insane pathways. The powers that Bee have
you searching the world for objects imbued with superpowers to
increase strength, political power, and even control life itself. That
search may take you into caves in Iceland, to monasteries

(01:46):
in the mountains of Tibet, and to the depths of
the oceans. It's totally like the characters from Indiana Jones,
delving into ancient tombs trying to decipher primitive documents, many
carved in stone, and all along you're being closely watched
by a genocidal maniac S s boss, Heinrich Himmler, who

(02:06):
also ran the concentration camps. Himmler believed that the Third
Reich was a modern incarnation of the leaders of an
ancient super race, and he wanted those ancient relics because
he thought they held the key to ultimate power. And
at the same time justified Nazi ambitions and how they
achieved those goals. He wanted to prove that the German

(02:27):
people were directly descended from the people of the Lost
city Island of Atlantis, written about by Plato. Plato described
Atlantis as an entire continent in the middle of the ocean,
perhaps the Atlantic or the North Sea. It was thought
to have once dominated Europe, Africa, and South America, but
after angering the gods, Atlantis had sunk into the sea,

(02:51):
maybe following an earthquake. But it was never really clear
that Plato's story was anything other than an allegory about
nations that had too much huey and attempted to control
the world. Sort of ironic that the story echoed exactly
the Nazi plan, but Himmler believed Atlantis was real and
he wanted that power back for Germany. It seems one

(03:14):
of Himmler's desires was to eventually replace Christianity with the
pagan religions of Germany's past, so ties to the pagan
belief in Atlantis would help him toward that goal. Himmler's
Institute for the Study of Atlantis, as well as the
Study into the Aryan super race led to a fully
established research team by nineteen thirty five, and Hitler himself

(03:36):
ordered its expansion several years later. They actually based much
of the strategy for winning World War II on this
mystical belief. But the Nazis also had a backup idea,
the hollow Earth theory, which suggested that the Earth is
hollow and that there are two enormous holes where you
could actually enter Middle Earth, one at the south pole

(03:59):
and one at the north and they believed it was
also a possibility that the German people could have been
descended from a super race in that subterranean world. Kind
of weird, right, Well, wasn't completely without some backup. Some explorers,
including the respected polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd, were said
to embrace the theory. Now, Himmler ordered teams from the

(04:21):
Onerba to explore deep caves and mines looking for portals
to the underworld. They scoured ancient writings and conducted geological surveys,
anxious to prove this mythical underworld was the divine birthplace
of the Arian civilization and that belief in their superiority
was a cornerstone of the Nazi regime. Now once again,

(04:43):
this tale of the weird explorations of the Nazis was
turned into yet another Indiana Jones book, Indiana Jones and
the Hollow Earth. But it didn't stop there. The Onerba
also searched Tibet for a creature called the Yeti aka
the abom domable snowman. They went to Ethiopia in search
of the Ark of the Covenant. They went to Vienna

(05:05):
to steal the Spear of Destiny, part of the crown
jewels of the Holy Roman Emperor, which was said to
be the lance used to pierce Christ's side as he
hung on the cross. By the way, that lance eventually
disappeared from a locked vault in Nurenberg at the end
of the war. And finally, in one of the craziest
stories about the Onerba, some insiders said they tried to

(05:28):
develop Nazi zombies. They were said to be researching a
method to bring fallen Nazi soldiers and others back to life.
They wanted to reanimate those dead soldiers to fill out
their ranks and send them back into battle as super warriors.
While there's no proof of that program, it does fit
in with the horrifying experiments the Nazis did on their

(05:49):
prisoners as well as their own soldiers to test the
limits of human endurance. Of course, in the end, it
seems the Nazis were unable to find any artifacts with
super natural powers, unable to prove they were descendants of
a lost super race from a mythical place they never found,
and unable to win a war that was the ultimate

(06:10):
test of good versus evil. If you have any stories
that you would like me to take a deeper dive
into and share, you can DM me on Facebook at
Patty Steele or on Instagram at Real Patty Steele. I'm

(06:35):
Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.

(06:58):
Thanks for listening to The Backstare with Patty Steele. The
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know