I have previous discussed the famous SS-Ahnenerbe member and German writer on the Cathars Otto Rahn and dispelled various myths about him, such as that he was jewish (1) and/or a homosexual. (2) What I haven’t really discussed on its own is the myth – propounded by many of Rahn’s modern apologists and supporters – (3) that Rahn was murdered by ‘the Nazis’ or the SS more specifically.
As explained Daniel Cecchini this narrative is that:
‘Beyond the official information, they soon began to spread in very low voices two versions of Rahn’s death. One of them—not without mystery—claimed that he had committed suicide by imitating a ritual of an ancient Catholic sect. The other, more sinister, claimed that a group of SS officers had taken him to the mountain and forced him to commit suicide by swallowing those pills, which no one bothered to identify.’ (4)
The problem of course is that there is absolutely no evidence for this latter more spectacular claim, while for the former there is some logic to it (and reasons to suspect this is what happened).
The ‘Nazis murdered Rahn’ theory and some of the historical context is explained at length by ‘Otto-Rahn.com’ as follows:
‘Rahn began to talk freely. He opposed the coming war, believing instead that Germany and Europe should be transformed into a race of “Pure Ones” or Cathars. On February 28 1939 Rahn submitted his letter of resignation from the SS to Gruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff writing: “Unfortunately, I must ask you to intervene with the Reichsfuhrer SS (Himmler) for my immediate discharge from the SS. The reasons that have led me to this resolution, this decision, are of so grave a nature that I can only explain them to you orally”.
Rahn was dismissed from the SS on 17 March 1939, four days after his death. On May 18 1939 “Volkischer Beobachter” published Rahn’s obituary signed WOLFF, SS-Gruppenfuhrer: “Due to a mountain snowstorm, last March, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Otto Rahn tragically lost his life. We weep for our late comrade, an honest SS man and an excellent author of historical and scientific works.”
On 17 July Rahn’s father wrote to a writers’ association, of which Rahn was a member, informing them that his son had died in a snowstorm at Ruffheim on 13 March 1939. In February 1939 Wiligut-Weisthor retired from the SS on grounds of age and ill-health. On 13 November 1939 a dossier de liquidation comprising Rahn’s research files, was sent from Himmler’s office to the chief of SS personnel.
The final sentence reads: “The decision concerning the former Brigadier General Weisthor is pending”. There is apparently fragmentary evidence that Rahn tried to save his life by requesting that he live out his days in the Pyrenees. The proposition is that this was refused and he was left with the options of death by suicide or by execution. On March 13 1939 Rahn disappeared. Prior to his disappearance he told friends in Fribourg that he had been “denounced”.
Some say Rahn committed suicide but why would he have taken this course? He was working on a number of projects: a book on Conrad of Marbourg (as stated in Kreuzzug gegen Gral), Promethius Unbound (sequel to Luzifers Hofgesind), According to God and to Right (a book for the French, according to Rahn’s SS dossier), Laurin (a novel as per Rahn’s letter to Gadal of 14.7.34) and Montsalvat and Golgotha (per letter to Weisthor 27.9.35). In addition he was preparing a grand novel “Sebastian”, a 2000 page manuscript that he had been working on for several years. Rahn had told Himmler he would work at his cottage in the Black Forest. That would also improve his bronchial catarrh. (A thought: are Lorin and Sebastian the same draft work?).
The mountain on which Rahn died, the Wilder Kaiser, is comparatively low and it is rare to find life-threatening conditions there. (However, it is 40 km from Hitler’s ‘eagle’s nest’ at Berchtesgaden and was in the defensive zone surrounding it.) There were said by many to be no traces of Rahn’s body, neither at the civic facilities at Kufstein nor at Michelstadt. There is no known tomb. Others, such as Otto Vogelsang, editor of Kreuzzug gegen Gral, believe Rahn to be buried at Mayence, giving the date of death as 10 May 1939 and interrment on 20 May. Vogelsang had dined with Rahn a few days before his death and had found Rahn to be happy and confident about the future.’ (5)
For the record this is Rahn’s official obituary published by the SS in the ‘Volkischer Beobachter’ on 18th May 1939:
It is helpful here to give a timeline of Rahn’s life in the SS from his promotion to SS-Untersturmfuhrer (roughly 2nd Lieutenant) in April 1937 to his suicide in March 1939.
This is as follows:
20th April 1937: Rahn is promoted to SS-Untersturmfuhrer.
23rd September to 21st December 1937: Rahn is seconded to the Death’s Head branch of the SS for service with the Oberbayern Regiment at the Dachau concentration camp for ‘disciplinary reasons’.
24th January 1938: the RuHSA (SS-Race and Settlement Main Office) requests Rahn submit his Großer Ariernachweis (‘Greater Aryan Certificate’) to them for ancestry checks to be performed.
29th February 1938: Rahn’s superior officer Karl Wolff writes to the RuSHA explaining that Rahn has been unable to provide his Großer Ariernachweis and that he has been given a month’s extension to do so.
11th September 1938: Rahn is promoted to SS-Obersturmfuhrer.
September to December 1938: Rahn is seconded to the Death’s Head branch of the SS for service with the Thuringen Regiment at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
January/February 1939: Rahn invites Himmler and Karl Maria Wiligut to his upcoming wedding to his fiancée Asta Baeschlin.
28th February 1939: Rahn submits his letter of resignation from the SS to Wolff; Karl Maria Wiligut formally retires from the SS.
13th March 1939: Rahn is found dead by local children in a ravine near the village of Soll in the Kaiser Mountains in the Austrian Tyrol.
17th March 1939: Rahn’s resignation from the SS is formally accepted.
Now we further need to remember that Rahn had gotten into trouble in August 1937 for (extreme) public drunkenness – it is often fancifully claimed on no evidence whatsoever that this was an ‘incident of homosexual behaviour’ – which is the reference to Rahn’s ‘shameful conduct’ in Karl Wolff’s 28th August 1937 memo to Himmler.
Rahn being seconded to the guard detail at Dachau – which proponents of the ‘politically-disillusioned homosexual Rahn’ make much of - makes perfect sense in this context as the then commandant of Dachau Theodor Eicke was a notoriously strict disciplinarian and had been specially drafted in by Himmler to sort out corruption and unauthorized executions at Dachau in 1934/1935. Further Dachau was also the training centre of the Death’s Head branch of the SS. (6)
This then makes sense of Rahn’s secondment to Dachau for ‘disciplinary reasons’ from 23rd September to 21st December 1937, because Rahn has in essence gotten into trouble for being extremely drunk in public and ‘shaming the SS’. So, to ‘toughen him up’ he was sent for re-training at the Death’s Head’s branches training centre at Dachau.
Think of it like an irresponsible adolescent being sent to military school for a few months so they can learn the error of their ways, create better habits/get sober and learn some new skills while they at it.
This in turn makes sense of Rahn’s usually unmentioned second secondment to the Death’s Head branch at Buchenwald – which had incidentally just acquired its famous camp zoo – (7) between September and December 1938; since Rahn was now a trained Death’s Head officer – after his stint at Dachau the year before – and is now helping run the Buchenwald concentration camp to gain further experience.
We can tell this didn’t impact Rahn badly or make him an ‘anti-Nazi’ because he completed this tour of duty successfully and happily invited Himmler and Karl Maria Wiligut to his wedding to Asta Baeschlin a month or so after his tour of duty at Buchenwald had been successfully completed.
Now it is only with the revelations about Wiligut – which occurred while Rahn was serving at Buchenwald not while he was in Berlin and/or serving in Himmler’s Personal Staff – that Rahn sinks into deep depression and resigns from the SS.
This then completely debunks Christopher Jones’ claims that Rahn was ‘disillusioned with National Socialism’ by the end of his time serving at Dachau and then Buchenwald because of the ‘evil he saw there’. (8) Since Rahn was absolutely fine in January/February 1939 and inviting Himmler and Wiligut to his wedding, but then suddenly in March he is in a deep depression and suddenly requests to leave the SS.
The only event this links to in Rahn’s life is the exposure of Wiligut as a former psychiatric patient in November 1938 with the decision being made to ‘retire’ – in effect expel – Wiligut from the SS in February 1939 that was communicated to Wiligut’s staff – of which Rahn was one - days before Rahn had his sudden depressive episode, applied to leave the SS and disappeared into the Kaiser Mountains in the Austrian Tyrol only to be found death on 13th March 1939.
The truth I think is rather simple in that Rahn was indeed in the midst of finishing the various different works and pieces of research that he had ongoing and for which Wiligut was his primary champion within the SS. Indeed, his book on the famous German medieval inquisitor Konrad von Marburg, his sequel to ‘Lucifer’s Court’ titled ‘Prometheus Unbound’, ‘According to God and to Right’, ‘Golgotha’, ‘Montsalvat’ as well as the novels ‘Laurin’ and ‘Sebastian’ (possibly the same book) are his many unfinished works, but all were being written under the patronage of Himmler via Wiligut.
Wiligut’s unanticipated and fairly spectacular fall from grace that was communicated to Rahn – as a member of Wiligut’s staff – just days before his own resignation from the SS and suicide seems to have knocked Rahn for six and sent him into a deep depression from which he never recovered – Rahn is fairly well-known for having been a rather erratic and eccentric character at the best of times – and which no one seems to have be able to address (although one suspects the reason his resignation wasn’t immediately accepted was because Wolff and Himmler wanted to allow Rahn to take time away and sort his mind out).
The idea that he was ‘murdered’ by ‘the Nazis’ and/or the SS is ludicrous precisely because Rahn hadn’t been thrown out of the SS at all, but rather seems to have been granted his requested discharge four days after his dead body was discovered as a post-mortem courtesy and was treated by the SS as if he were still one of them two months after his death per his official SS obituary that was published on 18th May 1939.
We know this in part because Rahn’s SS file lists his cause of death as exposure (9) and while it is hard to unintentionally commit suicide in this way in the Austrian alps; (10) it is quite easy to do so if you intentionally intended to end your life by deliberately not being warm enough (exposure) especially if you have respiratory issues anyway – Rahn had had bronchial catarrh since at least 1935 – (11) or if Rahn had in fact committed suicide – as suggested by reports that he was found was a small bottle/two small bottles by his side (the implication being that they contained poison) – then both are entirely inline with an important Cathar concept – in fact one of their sacraments – called the ‘Consolamentum’ about which Rahn had written much.
This is done just before a Cather Parfait (‘Perfect’) is about to die so that the Cathar Parfait would die sinless and as part of this after the ‘Consolamentum’; the Cathar Parfait would deliberately fast and in essence commit ritual suicide via said fasting. It is not hard to see that Rahn – who identified so closely with the Cathars – in essence saw himself as a modern Cathar Parfait who then – when he fell into a deep depression caused by the fall from grace of Wiligut – felt that his life’s meaning had come to an end and decided to receive the ‘Consolamentum’ in some way and then commit ritual suicide in the Austrian alps.
That this makes a lot more sense than the SS randomly murdering one of their officers – and a man whose work was much beloved by Himmler and who the SS then proceeded to lionize as one of their own two months after his suicide – should be obvious, but because it doesn’t disassociate Rahn from National Socialism many of his modern fans are simply unable to cope with the truth that Rahn committed suicide not because he was opposed to – or had become dissatisfied with – National Socialism, but rather because his friend Karl Maria Wiligut had been exposed as a former psychiatric patient and had been drummed out of the SS, which sent Rahn into a deep spiral of depression that in turn led to his suicide shortly after.
It should be noted that this situation wasn’t unique to Rahn either; Johann von Leers was also a close friend of Wiligut’s and associated with his staff. Just like Rahn, Leers took the news of Wiligut’s fall badly but instead switched his religious beliefs progressively abandoning his pro-pagan stance – most comprehensively seen in his large 1938 book ‘Odal’ – to an increasingly pro-Islamic position by 1942/1943 which in turn led Leers to formally convert to Islam after the end of the Second World War.
The truth then is that ‘the Nazis’ didn’t murder Rahn but rather Rahn committed suicide, and many modern fans of his work refuse to believe the obvious because their idol died as he had lived: a convinced National Socialist.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-otto-rahn-jewish
(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-otto-rahn-a-homosexual
(3) For example, see: https://aurora-israel.co.il/en/The-mysterious-death-of-the-only-Jew-who-joined-the-Nazi-SS-and-desperately-searched-for-the-Holy-Grail-to-deliver-it-to-Hitler./
(4) Idem.
(5) https://web.archive.org/web/20120404031307/http://otto-rahn.com/otto-rahn-biography
(6) Chris McNabb, 2009, ‘The SS: 1923–1945’, 1st Edition, Amber Books: London, p. 137
(7) On this see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-zoo-of-buchenwald-concentration
(8) Otto Rahn, Christopher Jones (Trans.), 2008, ‘Lucifer’s Court’, 1st Edition, Inner Traditions: Rochester, p. viii
(9) Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 2004, ‘The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology’, 3rd Edition, Tauris Parke: London, p. 189
(10) https://web.archive.org/web/20120404031307/http://otto-rahn.com/otto-rahn-biography
(11) Idem.