Sixty years after the defeat of the Third Reich, the complexities of Nazi ideology are still being unravelled. This enormously influential book has provided the first serious account of these ideological origins.

The book demonstrates the way in which Nazism was influenced by powerful occult and millenarian sects that thrived in Germany and Austria at the turn of the century. These sects (principally the Ariosophists) promoted doctrines of popular nationalism, 'Aryan' racism and occultism to support their advocacy of German world-rule.

Their ideas and symbols filtered through to nationalist-racist groups associated with the infant Nazi party, and in time exerted a strong influence on Himmler's SS. Their fantasies were played out with terrifying consequences in the Third Reich: Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka are the hellish museums of the Nazi apocalypse, the roots of which lay in the millennial visions of occult sects.

This bizarre and fascinating story contains lessons we cannot afford to ignore.

Goodrick-Clarke's now classic work triumphantly demonstrates that scrupulous scholarship and sound judgement can illuminate a crucial episode in the genesis of Nazism. The political dangers of the new century posed by the mixture of modernity with faith and esoteric mysticism make it particularly timely. -- Professor Roger Griffin, author of The Nature of Facism
An extensive survey of...theology, astrology, and 'ariosophy' (Aryan-racists-occult-theories)... An intriguing study of apocalyptic fantasies... * Times Literary Supplement *
If anyone still questions the power which myth exercises over the human mind, he should read The Occult Roots of Nazism. -- Anthony Storr, Fellow, Royal College of Psychiatrists

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953–2012) was Professor of Western Esotericism and Director of the Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO) within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Exeter.