Faith is here to stay. People are going to find ways of making sense of the world that

go beyond science and material reality. And if a politician is good at exploiting that

or speaking that language, they can find ways to attract those people to their party or

their ideas that have nothing to do with empirical reality.

Dr. Eric Kerlander is the author of Hitler's Monsters, a supernatural history of the Third

Reich, a masterwork of exhaustive research that tells the story of what he calls the Nazi

supernatural imaginary. A historian who specializes in modern German history, he is also a professor

at Stetson University, where he teaches classes I desperately want to take, like our monsters,

ourselves, a supernatural history of self and society. And today, for our American

hysteria history course, the supernatural is on the syllabus.

In this lesson, actually stretches outside the borders of America, but at the same time,

it has something very important to teach us about ourselves. So take your seat in the

front or the back of the classroom and pay attention.

A quick preface to this episode. As the Nazis increased their power in the years leading

up to the end of the liberal Vimar Republic, they used a potent tool of fascism, the creation

of a modern German myth. A time when Germany was great. And then mixed in some revamped supernatural

stories, occult and esoteric beliefs, fairy tales, pseudosciences, eastern and western

religion, dousing mysticism, astrology, Hitler's beloved world ice theory, and many sensational

conspiracy theories. Some of the highest ranking Nazis surrounding Adolf Hitler were willing

to investigate all kinds of bizarre practices that could increase their power and control

over the population. And through a mashup of fantastical beliefs, old and new, they

formed the Nazi supernatural imaginary as a battle between good and evil that would lay

...