Page 25 - Jim Marrs - The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over Americ

C HAPTE R 1

A NEW REICH BEGINS

HITLER’S SUPPORT GROUP

FOL LOW I NG T H E AR M IS T ICE OF 1918, WHICH ENDED WORLD WAR I,
German soldiers returned home, to a country economically devastated by
the war. The Bavarian city of Munich was hit particularly hard, with job-
less ex- soldiers wandering the streets and a number of splinter political
parties vying for membership.
It was in this setting that Hitler, a twenty-nine-year- old veteran, came
into contact with members of the Th ule Gesellschaft, or Th ule Society,
ostensibly an innocent reading group dedicated to the study and promo-
tion of older German literature. But the society, composed mostly of
wealthy conservatives, ardent nationalists, and anti-Semites, actually delved
into radical politics, race mysticism, and the occult under its emblem—a
swastika superimposed over a sword.
The society also served as a front for the even more secretive Ger-
manenorden, or German Order, a reincarnation of the old Teutonic
Knights, which had branches throughout Germany patterned aft er Ma-
sonic lodges. It is believed that these lodges carried on the agenda of the
outlawed Bavarian Illuminati, with its fundamental maxim that “the end
justifies the means.” In other words, members should pretend to be