The Book
Uncovering Mysterious Sites, Symbols, and Societies
The doors of some of the world's best-hidden places and most secretive organizations have now been thrown wide open! Some of the names are familiar: Area 51, Yale's Skull and Bones, Opus Dei, the Esalen Institute. Others are more obscure, hidden by fate or purposeful deception, such as the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, the super-secure facility where Vice President Dick Cheney was secreted after the 9/11 attacks, and Germany's Wewelsburg Castle, which was intended to become the mythological centerpiece of the Nazi Regime. Readers can take an unprecedented look deep inside the off-the-map military installations and shadowy organizations that operate in the murkiest corners of our world.
January 14, 2010
The fan base (if I may call it that) of Secret Places, Hidden Sanctuaries has become far-flung, to say the least. This week I received a cordial email from a former cabinet minister of a European country, who wanted to say he was intrigued with next week’s upcoming Christie’s sale in New York of the rather, er, special item shown above. Characterized by that renowned art auction house as a 19th century ballot box of Yale University’s Skull and Bones society, it is officially known as Lot 157, Sale 2287 (see “Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver & Chinese Export”). Its estimate is $10-20,000 including some related memorabilia, and as a piece of “folk art” it is surely unique in a macabre way given its hinged door on top of the skull. Perhaps a well-heeled hedge fund manager could buy it and use it as a spooky sort of canister for pocket change, or as lollipop holder for Halloween.
I think the piece is genuine, and not just because Christie’s has done its homework and properly vetted it. The World Archaeological Congress has indignantly (and perhaps properly) called on the firm to halt the sale, saying that it is “trafficking in human remains,” possibly in violation of the law depending on the provenance of the skull and bones in question.
Although I think its purpose could perhaps have been other than use as a ballot box, it has certain hallmarks of authenticity. As for the inscription “Thor,” that is one of the many secret names that have been used and recycled for generations within Bones, including by such luminaries as W. Averell Harriman (the “Thor” of his senior year at Yale).
If, however, the thought of taking this artifact home gives you the creeps (or, alternatively, the thought of parting with $20K gives you spine chills), here’s another idea, given the winter sales so many airlines are advertising: consider coming to our UK/European book launch party in London on the evening of Feb. 3rd, or else to our book signing the following evening. These will take place at “undisclosed locations,” though it’s possible we might leave a tell-tale sign in the alleyway close to where the Texas Legation to the Court of St James’s once existed. Alternatively, the details are available from your humble authors, “upon application” (the wonderful phrase that the Connaught Hotel used to use when I was lucky to stay there in the good old expense-account days). Come if you dare.
December 31, 2009
With the passing of the old year and the arrival of 2010, Gerald and I have decided to fess up. Given the clamor from friends and foes about the nature of the sources we used in the research phase of our book, we have decided to provide some detail below. (Fussy antiquarians will recall that, prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the beginning of the year used to be March 1st, on the old Roman system. Perhaps on March 1st, 2010 we’ll have even more to say about our sources…)
In preparing the book, we undertook a large number of site visits and private interviews, not to mention the collection of various letters, files, and unpublished documents. The abbreviated source list that follows merely represents a starting point for readers who may wish to pursue further study with the help of some books and articles that are reasonably accessible (especially those highlighted below that are still in print). We can recommend most of those listed below without too many reservations, though we caution readers regarding Heinrich Himmler’s Camelot: while its photographic treatment of the Wewelsburg phenomenon is unique, the book’s editorial line worried us given its apparent spirit of homage.
In any event, the following books and articles represent a very partial list of ingredients that went into our “secret sauce”:
Amberger, J. Christoph. The Secret History of the Sword: Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts . Baltimore: Multi-Media Books, 1999.
Andrews, John Williams. History of the Founding of Wolf’s Head. New Haven (privately printed), 1934.
Bergroth, Tom Christian. Kungliga Carl den XIII:s Orden. Stockholm: Svenska Frimurare Orden, 2002.
Cook, Stephen, and Stuart Russell. Heinrich Himmler’s Camelot: The Wewelsburg Ideological Center of the SS, 1934-1945. Kressmann-Backmeyer: 1999.
Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo. Various editions.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology . New York: NYU Press, 1992.
Graves, Charles. Leather Armchairs: The Chivas Regal Book of London Clubs. (Foreword by P.G. Wodehouse). London: Cassell, 1963.
Lejeune, Anthony. The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London. London: Dorset Press, 1984.
Lejeune, Anthony. White’s: The First Three Hundred Years. London: A&C Black, 1993.
Martin, Malachi. Windswept House: A Vatican Novel . New York: Doubleday, 1996.
Masonic and Esoteric Heritage: New Perspectives for Art and Heritage Policies. The Hague: OVN, 2005.
Molnar, Thomas. Twin Powers: Politics and the Sacred. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.
More Tales from the Travellers: A further collection of tales by members of the Travellers Club, London. Oxford: Michael Tomkinson Publishing, 2005.
Nicol, Donald. The Immortal Emperor: The Life and Legend of Constantine Palaiologos, Last Emperor of the Romans . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Österreichisches Freimaurermuseum Schloss Rosenau bei Zwettl. Vienna: Museumverein Schloss Rosenau, 1994.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. “Religious Warriors: Reinterpreting the Crusades.” The Economist, 23 December 1995: 37-41.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. “Why has The Da Vinci Code been so Successful?” Emmanuel College Magazine, Volume LXXXVIII, 2005-2006: 49-62.
Robbins, Alexandra. Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power . Boston: Little, Brown, 2002.
Seward, Desmond. The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders (Arkana) . London: Penguin, 1995.
Sire, H.J.A. The Knights of Malta. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
“The Good Network Guide: Being one of us.” The Economist, 26 December 1993: 20-24.
Toumanoff, Cyril. “Princely Rank: Origin or Function.” The Double Tressure (Journal of the Heraldry Society of Scotland), No. 25, 2002: 18-30.
Travellers’ Tales: A collection of tales by members of the Travellers Club, London. London: Castlereagh Press, 1999.
True Fellowship in All Its Glory: Remembrances of C.S.P. New Haven: Kingsley Trust Association, 1992.
Warner of Craigenmaddie, Gerald. The Sacred Military Order of St Stephen Pope and Martyr. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2004.
Wechsberg, Joseph. The Merchant Bankers. New York: Pocket Books, 1966.
Ziegler, Philip, and Desmond Seward. Brooks’s: A Social History. London: Constable, 1991.
December 10, 2009
Your evocative illustration of Gawith’s snuff on your last post and reference to “clouds of snuff” took me back nostalgically to my own snuff-taking days. For anyone interested in the lore of this form of self-indulgence, the virtually unobtainable volume Snuff Yesterday and Today, by C W Shepherd is a vade mecum. Published in London in 1963 by G Smith & Sons, the wonderful old snuff shop at 74 Charing Cross Road (“Price One Guinea”), it is an encyclopaedia of the noble powder.
Shepherd describes how Sultan Amurath IV of Turkey made snuff-taking punishable by death, while a Czar of Russia prohibited it under pain of having the offender’s nose cut off. Hitler, of course, was himself a vehement anti-smoker. So today’s anti-tobacco fanatics are in a long tradition. When I was an undergraduate I was invited to supper with Sir Compton Mackenzie, with whom I had been corresponding about Jacobitism. The day of my invitation coincided with his birthday, so I thought it appropriate to take him a present.
Having recently read his book Sublime Tobacco, with its chapter on snuff, I took him a box of Red Cardinal. “That is very thoughtful, dear boy,” he said, “but unfortunately I don’t take snuff.” Seeing my dismay, he added: “However, I shall decant it immediately into this presentation snuff box that was given to my father by his theatre company – which I have looked at every day for fifty years with the intention of filling it, without getting around to doing so – and it will quickly be guzzled, the next time that James Robertson Justice visits me.”
My one meeting with Lord Dacre, whom you so entertainingly address on your post, was much less auspicious. You will recall that he had unfortunately authenticated the “Hitler Diaries”, which subsequently transpired to be forgeries, for The Times, and for the rest of his life was sensitive about the matter.
Years later, when I as working as social diarist on The Sunday Times, to celebrate an anniversary of the Royal British Legion the railway carriage that had been Field Marshal Earl Haig’s mobile headquarters in France during World War I was hitched to a train and carried the contemporary Lord Haig and his family on a special journey from Berwick to Edinburgh, where there was to be a service at the War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle.
Dacre, who had married into the Haig family, was aboard the train, as was a pack of journalists. We were invited into the historic railway carriage to interview the various family members. Just before we retired from the fray, I found myself confronting Dacre. Believing he was suspicious of journalists, I tried to emphasise the innocuous, non-newshound nature of my journalism.
The train was making a lot of noise, so I raised my voice as I introduced himself. As he seemed to have trouble hearing me, I shouted even louder, just as the train suddenly quietened down. The whole carriage stared as I bellowed in Lord Dacre’s face: “…From the Sunday Times Diary… I said diary!” Oops. Realising the misunderstanding was beyond repair, I beat a hasty retreat. It was a lovely old train, though…
Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie | December 10, 2009 | 3 Comments »
November 29, 2009
For bedtime reading, I’ve recently been working my way through the (unintentionally?) hilarious published letters of late, lifelong Oxford don Hugh Trevor-Rover, who, as Lord Dacre, served as a grand — if not especially well-loved — Master of famously traditional Peterhouse, Cambridge. His private writings are undeniably fascinating, though — how should I put it — frequently bitchy. At any rate, he gives a wonderful description of Oxbridge colleges as nodes of intensely conspiratorial activity:
“[College fellows]… sitting congregated in those dens of conspiracy (never more conspiratorial than in the depths of vacation, when their more mobile colleagues are away, and the dank miasma of the river Thames mixes most dangerously with fumes of port and clouds of snuff).”
He also describes a particular Oxford college as “a sort of Oxford Tibet, with primitive inhabitants, strange superstitions, and few economic attractions for colonising powers.” Anyone want to guess which college he was referring to?
These letters capture the air of a now-lost world, much as the following tidbit does from George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier:
“One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist and feminist in England”.
Then again, maybe that world lives on.
November 19, 2009
There is something about Spanish civilization that seems especially well-suited to turning out painters of genius. I’m not just thinking about the the great roll-call of old masters (Velázquez, El Greco, Zurbarán, Goya, etc.), but also the likes of Salvador Dalí in more recent decades. He claimed that his partly Moorish and Arab remote ancestry gave him a unique flair and flamboyance, including “a love of everything that is gilded and excessive; my passion for luxury and my love of Oriental clothes…” Like many artists of the time, he flirted with anarchism and Communism, and relished rubbing shoulders with the decadent limousine left. In 1934, he deeply shocked masquerade ball-goers in New York by coming (with a companion) as Charles Lindbergh’s baby and the baby’s kidnapper. In 1936, he gave a lecture in London on surrealism wearing a deep-sea diving suit (having arrived helmeted and carrying a billiard cue, accompanied by two Russian wolfhounds). His surrealistic style of painting (augmented by his self-promotion) was a smash hit, to say the least, though even today excessive viewing of his bizarre works can create the cultural equivalent of a dizzying “sugar high.”
Like Picasso, Dalí wasn’t exactly short on self-confidence, saying “every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí.” (A bit like Picasso’s quip that “When I was a child, my mother said to me: ‘If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead I was a painter and became Picasso.”)
At some point, it must have started to feel at bit shallow, even for the man who experienced such supreme daily pleasures. Dalí returned to the practice of his childhood faith, regularized his marital status, and gravitated to tradition and stability (in a societal, if not artistic, sense). According to some biographers, the early 1960s was a turning point. He was commissioned to create a painting called the “Vision of Hell,” based on the 1917 vision at Fatima. The result (shown above) was a swirling vision of horror, with eight carving forks piercing tormented flesh and blood. It apparently unnerved its creator, who increasingly turned his thoughts to more spiritual and mystical themes (though remaining staunchly Cavalier rather than Puritan, to use an English analogy). By the early 1980s, Dalí had in effect become a conservative Catholic aristocrat, and King Juan Carlos of Spain made him the Marquis of Púbol. The Vision of Hell itself is one of his least-known paintings, having been paid for by the life savings of an anonymous donor. The painting “disappeared” for some thirty-five years, before resurfacing in 1997. It deserves a further look.
November 10, 2009
As you know, Stephen, one of my regrets during the composition of the book was having to omit the Sacred Vehm. This was done, of course, on the grounds that its secret court sittings, at which the only sentence imposed was death, were held in the open air, so that finding precise locations today, to which we could direct our readers, would have been more than difficult. Since the book was primarily about places, we reluctantly decided to pass on this otherwise fascinating topic – which even made its way into Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story as well as into the more contemporary Illuminatus! trilogy of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
Watching the celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, and recalling all the secret executions that notoriously took place in communist East Germany brought back to me what we unearthed about the Vehm and its place in ancient Germanic traditions of arbitrary justice, a kind of Teutonic star chamber. I thought a very brief outline might profitably be sketched here for the interest of our readers.
The Vehmgericht, or Vehmic courts, first attained prominence in the 13th century. They were centred on Westphalia in Germany – also the location of the notorious SS Wewelsburg Castle featured in the book, of which more anon – and derived from the ancient “free courts” which disappeared in the 14th century. In Westphalia their place was taken by the Vehm, a secret court system originally authorised by the Holy Roman Emperor and local rulers. Any free man could become a judge, but he had to take strict vows of secrecy, even from his family.
The Vehm’s base was Dortmund, where it met in a square between two linden trees, until 1437 when it transferred to Arnsberg. Judges were privy to an elaborate system of passwords and it was death for any unauthorised person to attend a meeting. Initiation ceremonies so resembled later Masonic rites that it seems possible the lodges borrowed from the Vehm. Initiates were given a rope and a knife engraved with the esoteric initials S.S.G.G., representing, in German, “Stone, Rope, Grass, Green”.
Nobody ever escaped the vengeance of the Vehm whose invariable punishment was death by hanging. An accused had a summons nailed to his door or displayed somewhere in his neighbourhood, after which he had six weeks and three days to present himself before the Vehm. The Vehm also tried cases of heresy and witchcraft. Sentence by hanging was carried out on the nearest tree. The Vehm was not a criminal organisation. Many princes belonged to it and King Sigismund of Hungary was himself initiated into it in 1429; he became Holy Roman Emperor four years later.
The expression “Free as a bird” is said to derive from an alleged Vehmic practice of giving a convicted offender several hours’ head start on the executioners and then hunting him to death. None escaped. The Vehm survived, in a much weakened condition, until 1811. The last “Free Count” (presiding judge) of the Vehm died as late as 1835. The Vehm has had a bad press, but it seems to have enjoyed the sanction of the authorities and of society generally, possibly out of fear, but equally likely because it represented the only judicial power capable of dealing with late-Medieval anarchy.
What occurred to me, however, considering the Vehm’s Westphalian location, was the possibility that the so-called “Honour Courts” of Himmler’s SS, ideologically headquartered at Wewelsburg, might consciously have been modelled on the Vehm. If we ever write a sequel to the book (and I see there is a gratifying demand from reviewers that we should do so), perhaps we could include a much more detailed study of the Vehmgericht than this sketchy outline.
Gerald Warner of Craigenmaddie | November 10, 2009 | 3 Comments »
November 2, 2009
I always find Halloween rather kitschy and light on genuine spine chills. More seriously frightening are some recent Cold War-era revelations that show how close the world may have come to nuclear oblivion around the time I was enjoying a misspent youth watching Hogan’s Heroes on the telly (the original release of the show, not the interminable reruns).
According to the new book Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year, the legendary German-accented practitioner of Realpolitik took it completely upon himself to raise US forces to Defcon3 — the third-highest war readiness alert level — during the anxiety-filled days of the Yom Kippur War. US-Soviet tensions were high and going higher, but the boss (President Nixon) was frequently too “loaded” after a couple of drinks to make such presidential decisions — so Dr. K made the call. The Prez was not on a good track that year, though it’s undeniable that he was (in his better moments) a leader of significant talent and vision. (Another good read is Conrad Black’s recent Nixon biography; as you may know, Lord Black is currently a long-term guest of the U.S. Government at the Federal Correctional Institute in Coleman, Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal, and in the meantime this onetime friend of Kissinger’s writes a witty regular column for the rather good Canadian newspaper he founded and lost — the National Post.)
In our new book (which Amazon just started shipping about a week ago), Gerald and I traverse some significantly more hair-raising Cold War close shaves with world annihilation. In that vein, Wired Magazine’s October 2009 coverage of a really above-top-secret Soviet program called “Perimeter” caught our eye. So hush-hush in fact, that neither Soviet arms negotiators (nor the U.S. intelligence services) knew about it. When former CIA director James Woolsey was told about it recently by author Nicholas Thompson, he was disbelieving, remarking “I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that.” Also known (in Russian) as “Dead Hand,” this doomsday device was designed to launch Armageddon automatically, based on computer-controlled sensor readings. It’s comforting to know that no malfunction or misinterpreted earthquake reading ever brought about World War III. But to quote character Dr. Stangelove from Stanley Kubrick’s cult classic of the same name, “The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret… Why didn’t you tell the world?” It seems that with Perimeter, the Soviets built a deterrent system to “deter themselves” from premature commands to carry out nuclear war, on the theory that they could take comfort from the knowledge that devastating counterstrikes would go ahead — even if they themselves were dead. Perhaps not so comfortingly, it is said that Perimeter remains very much operational, with regular system upgrades and updates.
Gerald and I wish you a fine Feast of All Souls.
October 20, 2009
“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good club.” I thought of that quote by Esmond Warner (d. 1984), the late honorary librarian of Brooks’s in London, when I was in Barcelona in recent days. Breakfasting at the Circulo Ecuestre, lunching at the Royal Polo Club and dining at the Circulo del Liceo (part of the Opera house) was not only great fun, but convinced me that Spaniards (and Catalans) really know how to put their own stamp on the gentlemen’s club tradition. True, the kind of club lore and eccentricities that Gerald and I report on at length in our book was not much in evidence. But your cardiologist will thank for skipping the grouse and bread sauce in London and going for Barcelona’s olive oil-perfumed arroz with a vast bounty of crustacea (though I also had excellent grouse at the Travellers Club — renowned for its game — before flying down to Barcelona on easyJet).
Speaking of club lore, I’m not just thinking of the likes of Bernard Fergusson, the onetime New Zealand governor-general famous for “the skill with which he could toss his monocle in the air and catch it in his eye”. It’s the whole mythology, much of it so close to reality that it hardly needs embellishment. In our tome, we report in some detail on the once-legendary Clubland guerrilla war between on-again, off-again friends Evelyn Waugh and Randolph Churchill. In order to avoid running into Churchill at White’s, Waugh frequently went to the St. James’ Club instead (which later merged with Brooks’s). Waugh wrote: “I have taken refuge here from White’s which has become uninhabitable since the budget — all the men who to my certain knowledge have not £100 in the world yelling themselves hoarse (and I think sincerely believing) that they are ruined and the dozen or so really rich men smoking quietly in corners having made themselves registered companies in Costa Rica years ago”.
Whether Waugh ever ran into Herr Ribbentrop in the St. James’ is not known. The onetime bubbly merchant who became Hitler’s foreign minister was, earlier, the Nazi ambassador in London — and so had membership privileges there. (It was said he “rose to fame on foam of champagne” and “Went in early for Hitler”.) Another St. James’ member was rudely kept waiting for dinner by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, another less than gentlemanly specimen. “I have been shooting,” said Goering. “Animals, I hope?” was the quite reasonable question in response.
So, given the way the 20th Century unfolded, it required an entire generation of clubmen to fight the baddies. Loel Guinness, a member of that great Irish family and a courageous fighter pilot, help put together an enterprising group of club denizens into an efficient volunteer air squadron in London funded out of their own pockets — the 601. Getting fuel was a problem. Guinness apparently said, “I think that I’m a director of Shell”. His commander snapped back, “What do you mean ‘think’? Telephone your secretary and find out.” And so he was, a very helpful development for the squadron, even if the story doesn’t quite meet today’s lofty corporate governance standards.
October 8, 2009
 
We might not be seeing much of this in the beleaguered British Army in Afghanistan, but one hallmark of this world-famous fighting force has always been its ability to draw in and synthesize a unique range of talents. What other country (or empire or Crown) would take a young rebel commander in a far-off land and eventually make him one of its own field marshals? (If you don’t recognize the reference, I’ll hint that this distinguished–if now largely forgotten–person was one of the world’s best-known public figures c. 1945, and that he also coined the terms “holism” and “holistic”.)
Another such figure was Kermit Roosevelt MC, son of US President Teddy Roosevelt–a naturalized British subject who served an officer in both world wars (including as a subaltern in the Middlesex Regiment). Though a fearless explorer, author, entrepreneur, decorated holder of the King’s Commission and Harvard man (who clearly inherited his father’s energy level), sadly he did not ultimately survive his battle with clinical depression and alcoholism.
Then there is the story of “Stuffy” Dowding — Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Commander of RAF Fighter Command during its “finest hour”. With the trauma of the premature death of his wife, the young widower and father threw himself into his work in shaping up the resource-strapped air force during the 1930s. Perhaps as a form of escapism, he also embraced vegetarianism, theosophy, spiritualism, and English folklore — even joining the Fairy Investigation Society and the Ghost Club. He was quoted on record as saying, “fairies are essential to the growth of plants and the welfare of the animal kingdom”. Happily, none of this fringe stuff got in the way of his pioneering work in the area of integrated air defence, or his quiet, steadfast manner during the darkest of days in 1940 when London was being blitzed to pieces. (I seem to recall my late father saying that he had shaken hands with the air marshal when he was a teenage Polish air force cadet in England.)
Last but not least is the career of Major-General J.F.C. “Boney” Fuller (photo at left above), early prophet of mechanized warfare, author, painter and all-around oddball. Angered by what he regarded as government inaction on military technology, he joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in retirement–becoming a board member, and even attending Hitler’s 50th birthday party in Berlin as an official guest. Unlike the relatively innocent eccentricities of Dowding, Fuller’s gravitational pull seemed relatively dark and sulphurous, despite his intelligence and foresight. He also became a friend and collaborator of the self-proclaimed “wickedest man in the world”–Aleister Crowley. A competent artist, Fuller painted several rather creepy pieces for Crowley’s Temple of the Argenteum Astrum, including “The Portal of the Abyss”. (I didn’t find any shareable image files, but you can peek at them here.) One might spare a prayer for the repose of their souls, in the hope that Fuller (and even Crowley) ultimately chose to turn back from the abyss.
October 2, 2009
The Führer is with us still –- or so some think. After American researchers claimed, in a History Channel documentary broadcast in the United States, that the skull fragments of Adolf Hitler held in the Russian federal archives are those of a woman, conspiracy theorists were re-energised to claim that Hitler escaped from the bunker and is living abroad.
Perhaps that should be in the past tense since, if he is still alive, the twinkling-eyed mass murderer is 120 years of age and eligible for admission to the Guinness Book of Records for yet another reason: longevity. The London-based Daily Telegraph has now done a roundup of the various theories relating to Hitler’s alleged survival and they make interesting reading.
One theory is that Hitler fled on one of two U-Boats –- U-530 and U-977 –- in the so-called “ghost convoy” to Argentina and started a new life there. A variation on the same theme suggests that he escaped in a U-Boat to the Antarctic and was found there in the late 1950s by American and British forces which destroyed his base with atomic weapons. The obvious question is: why nuke him, why not just arrest him? In fact, a U-Boat could not have penetrated the winter ice of Antarctica and the atomic explosions in the southern hemisphere in 1958 took place high up in the atmosphere.
I much prefer the ultimate counter-knowledge text on the issue which claims that Nazi rocket technology was more advanced than the Allies realised, so that Hitler was able to escape to the Moon. A variation suggests that the Nazis had made contact with UFOs and established a base on the Moon, where the air is breathable and the environment habitable, but NASA claims otherwise, to keep other nations from exploring there.
The beauty of the lunar thesis is that it cross-fertilises another famous conspiracy theory: that the Moon landing was simulated in a Hollywood studio. If the Moon is in the hands of the Third Reich, the US flag cannot truly be flying there. Then we get into all the geometric technicalities of how the shadow of the flag was lying in the wrong direction. Better not to go into all that again, at a time when NASA is fighting for funding.
My own view is that these rococo theories are really off-the-wall, when the obvious explanation is staring us in the face. If the Hitler skull belongs to a woman, that does not necessarily make it a fake. What if Hitler was a woman all along? That Charlie Chaplin moustache always looked a bit phoney. The further objection is that the skull allegedly belongs to a woman under 40, but Hitler was 56 when he died. So what? Women lie about their age –- in fact that characteristically female trait strengthens my case, though admittedly women usually reduce rather than inflate their age.
It should be added that the Russian archive authorities deny that the researchers ever visited their premises and insist they would not have been allowed to take away such historic material for analysis. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? They will be telling us next that Elvis is really dead.
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