Eric Kurlander, Professor, Stetson University, Tuesday Dec. 5, 5 pm
"Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich"
The Nazi fascination with the occult is often dismissed as pulp fiction or Hollywood fantasy. As Eric Kurlander argues in his new book, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this talk, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire.
Tuesday, December 5, 2017 at 5:00pm to 7:30pm
Colleges, College of Arts and Sciences, History, Rintels Professorship
Nathan Stoltzfus
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