At this point, orthodox history gives way to strange rumours and speculations regarding the true reason for the Third Reich’s interest in Antarctica. It has been suggested, for instance, that the 1938-39 expedition had been to look for a suitable ice-free region on the continent that could be used for a secret Nazi base after the war. According to the novelist and UFO researcher W. A. Harbinson: Throughout the war, the Germans sent ships and aircraft to Neu Schwabenland with enough equipment and manpower (much of it slave labour from the concentration camps) to build massive complexes under the ice or in well-hidden ice-free areas. At the close of the war selected Nazi scientists and SS troops fled to Antarctica …’ (38)
Such speculations properly belong to the field known as ‘Nazi survival’, which we will discuss in depth in the final chapter of this book. Therefore, let us place them aside and turn our attention to another important element in the concept of a lost Aryan homeland: a symbol that once signified good fortune but was irreparably corrupted by the Nazis, and which now signifies nothing but terror and death.
In antiquity, the swastika was a universal symbol, being used from the Bronze Age onwards on objects of every kind. The word ‘swastika’ comes from the Sanskrit: su (Greek eu, meaning ‘good’), asti (Greek esto, meaning ‘to be’) and the suffix ka. (39) The symbol means ‘good luck’ (the Sanskrit-Tibetan word Swasti means ‘may it be auspicious’). According to Joscelyn Godwin, the shape of the swastika derives from the constellation Arktos, also known as the Great Bear, the Plough and the Big Dipper. To the observer in the Northern Hemisphere, this constellation appears to rotate around Polaris, the Pole Star (an effect caused by the rotation of the Earth). If the positions of Arktos in relation to Polaris are represented in pictorial form (corresponding to the four seasons), the result is highly suggestive of a swastika; in 4000 BC, they were identical to the symbol. It is for this reason that the swastika (aside from denoting good fortune) has been used to represent the Pole. (40)
The swastika gained in importance in European culture in the nineteenth century, primarily in the fields of comparative ethnology and Oriental studies. The absence of the symbol from Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria and Phoenicia led the ethnologists to believe that the swastika was an Aryan sun-symbol. (41) Madame Blavatsky saw the significance of the symbol, and incorporated it into the seal of the Theosophical Society to signify the harmony of universal movement. According to Godwin: ‘So innocent were the “good luck” associations of the swastika that during World War I, it was used as the emblem of the British War Savings Scheme, appearing on coupons and stamps.’ (42)
The swastika appears in two forms: left-handed and right-handed. However, confusion quickly arises when one is faced with the question of how to define ‘left’ and ‘right’ with regard to this symbol. Some occultists and historians favour a definition based on the direction taken by the arms as they extend outward from the centre; while others prefer to define left’ and ‘right’ in terms of the apparent direction of rotation. The confusion arises from the fact that a swastika whose arms proceed to the left appears to be rotating to the right, and vice versa.
Each swastika variant has been taken to mean different things by writers on the occult, such as the Frenchman Andre Brissaud who says that the counter-clockwise-spinning swastika represents the rotation of the Earth on its axis and is the ‘Wheel of the Golden Sun’, symbolising creation, evolution and fertility. The clockwise-spinning swastika is, according to Brissaud, the ‘Wheel of the Black Sun’, representing man’s quest for power in opposition to Heaven. (43) The Chilean diplomat, esotericist and Hitler apologist Miguel Serrano (b. 1917), whom we shall meet again in the final chapter, has another explanation of the left-and right-handed swastikas: the left-handed (clockwise-turning) symbol represents the migration of the ancient Aryan Race from its homeland at the North Pole, while the right-handed (counter-clockwise-turning) symbol — the one used by the Nazis — represents the destiny of the Aryans to return to their spiritual centre at the South Pole. (44)
After informing us of the complexities attached to the interpretation of left-and right-handed swastikas, Godwin continues:
Whatever the validity of these theories, the ancient decorative swastikas show no preference whatsoever for one type over the other. The place where the left-right distinction is supposed to be most significant is Tibet, where both Nicholas Roerich and Anagarika Govinda observed that the swastika of the ancient Bon-Po religion points to the left, the Buddhist one to the right. Now it is true that the Bon-Pos perform ritual circumabulations counter-clockwise, the Buddhists clockwise, but almost all the Buddhist iconography collected by Thomas Wilson shows left-handed swastikas, just like the ones on the Bon-Pos’ ritual scepter, their equivalent of the Buddhist vajra. One can only say that the swastika should perhaps be left-handed if (as in Bon-Po) it denotes polar revolution, and right-handed if (as in Buddhism) it symbolizes the course of the sun. But the root of the problem is probably the inherent ambiguity of the symbol itself, which makes the left-handed swastika appear to be rotating to the right, and vice versa. (45)
As we saw in the first chapter, the swastika gained popularity among German anti-Semitic groups through the writings of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels, who took the symbol of good fortune and universal harmony and used it to denote the unconquerable Germanic hero. As might be expected, the counter-clockwise orientation of the swastika used as a banner by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) has also aroused considerable controversy in occult and esoteric circles.
According to the occult historian Francis King, when Hitler called for suggestions for a banner, all of the submissions included a swastika. The one Hitler finally chose had been designed by Dr Friedrich Krohn, a dentist from Sternberg. However, the design incorporated a clockwise-turning swastika, symbolising good fortune, harmony and spirituality.
Hitler decided to reverse the design, making the swastika counter-clockwise, symbolising evil and black magic. (46) Here again, we encounter the problem of defining what is a right-and left-handed swastika. Was the Nazi symbol right-handed (traditionally denoting good) or left-handed (denoting evil)? In one sense, the Nazi swastika could be said to be right-handed because the hooked arms extend to the right; conversely, it could be said to be left-handed, since the apparent rotation is counter-clockwise. As the journalist Ken Anderson notes: ‘What we are dealing with is subjective definition … We can speculate that Hitler had chosen to reverse the cross because of the connotations of black magic and evil in Krohn’s cross and for the purpose of evoking the positive images of good luck, spiritual evolution, etc., for his fledgling party!’ (47) (Original emphasis.) Anderson gives the impression of having his tongue slightly in his cheek, but his interpretation is almost certainly correct, for two reasons.
Firstly, we must remember that Hitler himself had very little time for occult mumbo-jumbo, and was certainly not the practising black magician many occultists claim him to have been (more on this in Chapter Five); and secondly, the idea that Hitler considered himself ‘evil’ (as he would have had to have done in order to take the step of reversing a positive symbol to a negative one), or that evil was an attractive concept for him is ridiculous. As we noted in the Introduction, one of the most terrifying and baffling aspects of Adolf Hitler is that he did not consider himself ‘evil’: as Trevor-Roper states, Hitler was convinced of his own rectitude, that he was acting correctly in exterminating the Jews and the other groups targeted for destruction by the Nazis.