In January 1929, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was appointed the leader of the fledgling Schutzstaffel (SS). By 1930 Himmler had persuaded Hitler to run the SS as a separate organization. He launched a massive recruitment campaign that took the SS from fewer than three hundred members in 1929 to ten thousand in 1931. Once the SS had grown, Himmler began its transformation into a "racial elite" of young Nordic males. Strict membership requirements ensured that all members were of Hitler's Aryan Herrenvolk ("Aryan master race"). Applicants were vetted for Nordic qualities...in Himmler's words, "like a nursery gardener trying to reproduce a good old strain which has been adulterated and debased; we started from the principles of plant selection and then proceeded quite unashamedly to weed out the men whom we did not think we could use for the build-up of the SS." At Wewelsburg Castle, Himmler ordered the construction of a "Reich SS Leadership School" in which he could develop his SS into knights of the fatherland.
As a part of this new state religion, Himmler, along with Herman Wirth and Richard Walther Darré, founded the Ahnenerbe in July 1935. The Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the archaeological and cultural history of the Aryan race, and later to experiment and launch voyages with the intent of proving that prehistoric and mythological Nordic populations had once ruled the world. Its name came from a rather obscure German word, Ahnenerbe (pronounced AH-nen-AIR-buh), meaning "something inherited from the forefathers." The official mission of the Ahnenerbe was to unearth "new evidence of the accomplishments and deeds of Germanic ancestors using exact scientific methods."
Expeditions commence worldwide in order to prove the ancient Aryan myth. But Himmler desired something more...an object that he could present to his beloved Führer that would flaunt dominance over all the enemies of Germany. He wanted the Holy Grail.
Though Himmler was born and raised as a Christian, his disdain for it was evident in this quote:
"We will have to deal with Christianity in a tougher way than hitherto. We must settle accounts with this Christianity, this greatest of plagues that could have happened to us in our history, which has weakened us in every conflict. If our generation does not do it then it would I think drag on for a long time. We must overcome it within ourselves..." Himmler shared the outlandish belief with other leading Nazis that Jesus Christ was actually descended from Aryan stock. To Himmler, the Holy Grail was not the sacred chalice from the Last Supper or the vessel that collected blood from Jesus during his crucifixion. It was an object, an entity from the Aryan Gods, that possessed immense power capable of laying waste to all adversaries.
The following article was published in February 2007:
Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, made a secret wartime mission to an abbey in Spain in search of what he believed was the Aryan Holy Grail, a new book claims.
Himmler visited the famous Montserrat Abbey near Barcelona where he thought he would find the Grail which Jesus Christ was said to have used to consecrate the Last Supper.
According to The Desecrated Abbey, by Montserrat Rico Góngora, the Reichsführer-SS thought if he could lay claim to the Holy Grail it would help Germany win the war and give him supernatural powers.
The book claims that, far from being the King of the Jews, Himmler shared the outlandish belief with other leading Nazis that Jesus Christ was actually descended from Aryan stock.
Góngora writes that Himmler, Hitler's right-hand man, believed Jacob was of Aryan blood and his descendants, including Jesus Christ, were Aryan too.
Góngora has interviewed a former monk who was ordered by his superiors to greet Himmler during the visit in 1940.
Now a pensioner living in an old people's home near Barcelona, Andreu Ripol Noble was at the time the only German-speaker in the abbey and was asked to help Himmler with his odd quest.
Antoni Maria Marcet, the abbot, knew Himmler had launched public attacks on the Catholic Church in Germany and had no time for him, the book claims. But Ripol related how Himmler came to Montserrat inspired by Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, which mentions the Holy Grail could be in kept in "the marvellous castle of Montsalvat in the Pyrenees".
It was widely believed in Nazi circles that this castle was Montserrat, a belief strengthened by the fact the first performance of the opera was held at the Liceu Opera House in Barcelona in 1913. Others have said it was Montségur in France.
Wagner is thought to have been inspired by the writings of the 13th troubadour Wolfram von Eschenbach and scores of other writers who claimed to know where the sacred chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper lay.
According to Góngora, Himmler was also inspired by a folk song from Catalonia, the north-eastern region in which Montserrat lies, which has a cryptic reference to a "mystical font of life" situated in the area.
Himmler, a former chicken farmer who rose through the Nazi ranks to become Hitler's most trusted lieutenant, is known to have an interest in racial mysticism.
After initially proclaiming himself a Catholic, Himmler had started to attack the German church more publicly, and increasingly turned to a fanatical belief in racially based paganism.
But, the book claims, despite his quest to find the Grail, he came away from Montserrat empty-handed.
Himmler was in Barcelona while Hitler was holding a conference with the newly installed Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, in October 1940. Hitler believed he could persuade Franco to join the war on Germany's side.
But with Spain ravaged after three years of civil war, Franco refused to take sides and officially at least, remained neutral.
Hitler was said to be furious and told the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, that Franco was a "coward". The Spanish press at the time reported Himmler's visit in bland terms, noting only that he had given 25,000 pesetas towards the repair of a local reservoir.
The Reichsführer is known to have stayed at the Ritz hotel in Barcelona and made his hour-long journey to Montserrat surrounded by "blond-haired SS men", reports at the time said. - Independent
Many officials in the Nazi leadership found Himmler a figure of fun and would often comment about him and his mystification of the SS (behind closed doors only!). Architect, construction master, and armaments minister Albert Speer reports Hitler as saying of Himmler:
"What nonsense! Here we have a last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind it, and now he wants to start all over again. We might just as well have stayed with the church... To think that I may some day be turned into an SS saint! I would turn over in my grave..."
NOTE: Over the years, I have read many accounts on Himmler and the SS. The following are a few suggestions:
Nazism, a History of Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919-1945: Volume 2 [II], Foreign Policy, War and Radical Extermination
Himmler's Crusade: The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race
Hitler's Master of the Dark Arts: Himmler's Black Knights and the Occult Origins of the SS
Here are a few previous posts that may be of interest:
Hitler's Plan: Use Alien Technology Against The Allies
Gifts From The Master Race
Heinrich Himmler's Wewelsburg Castle becomes museum dedicated to history of Nazi Germany's SS
