Otto Rahn: the real ?Indiana Jones?

Stoo said:
This portion of dialogue from "Raiders" is VERY telling:
Eaton: Over the last two years, the Nazis have had teams of archaeologists running around the whole world looking for all kinds of religious artifacts. Hitler's a nut on the subject. He's crazy! He's obsessed with the occult.
It would be silly to think the name didn't come up in passing...
Stoo said:
Rocket, you could have used the forbidden term (à la Barbra Streisand) but you didn't.:p Das ist verboten. Ja?:eek:
I can't think of an instant where I would use it in conversation, but forbidden or not I wouldn't have a problem using it if it added to the conversation.
Montana Smith said:
Maybe they'd seen something like this pulpy-looking book from 1974.But he appears to have come to share Indy's dislike of Nazis!
I neglected to thank you for posting the link to Crusade Against the Grail...:hat: ...I may be worrying my wife with my current reading habits! (take that as you will).

Lance Quazar said:
So Deborah may have spent hours and hours in the library, but none of her efforts actually made it to the screen.
Well, like Tana suggests, it's probable the data was "distilled"...

Lance Quazar said:
Heh. Why let facts get in the way of a good headline. But it would have been hilarious if they wrote that instead.
I still have hope for "Did you ever think Indy considered becoming a Nazi?":D

Lance Quazar said:
...And Jones, you know, killed them.
Now you're taunting me...didn't you see my post in the Bacon thread?!

Bacon killed Nazi Germany!
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Rocket Surgeon said:
I may be worrying my wife with my current reading habits! (take that as you will).

She'll really worry when you turn your home bar from an Irish theme pub into a German beer hall...!
 

WilliamBoyd8

Active member
There is a far stranger story that starts with Himmler's visits to Quedlingburg than the occult story,
where Himmler would impersonate King Heinrich in ceremonies.

It involves the theft of millions of dollars in ancient treasure by an American Army Lieutenant in 1945.
He brought the stuff home to Texas, and when he died in the 1980's,
his heirs tried to sell the loot in Switzerland.

:)
 

Montana Smith

Active member
WilliamBoyd8 said:
There is a far stranger story that starts with Himmler's visits to Quedlingburg than the occult story,
where Himmler would impersonate King Heinrich in ceremonies.

It involves the theft of millions of dollars in ancient treasure by an American Army Lieutenant in 1945.
He brought the stuff home to Texas, and when he died in the 1980's,
his heirs tried to sell the loot in Switzerland.

:)

Himmler laying a wreath on the tomb of Heinrich I at the Quedlinburg Cathedral ceremony of 2nd July 1936, on the Thousandth Anniversary of the man of whom he believed himself a reincarnation (it was apt that the reincarnation of Henry the Fowler should himself become a chicken farmer!):

2lbmeu1.jpg


And on 1st July 1938:

794px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H08447%2C_Quedlinburg%2C_Heinrichs-Feier%2C_Heinrich_Himmler.jpg


783px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H08449%2C_Quedlinburg%2C_Heinrichs-Feier%2C_Heinrich_Himmler.jpg



If Lucas and Spielburg hadn't been fixated on popular myths, Dietrich would have visited Himmler in Berlin, and not Hitler.

Treasure Hunt
By LYNN H. NICHOLAS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How a journalist helped crack the case of the missing medieval loot


On a blistering hot day a lone figure walks down the long, narrow street of a semi-ghost town in Texas. From the ticket booth of the abandoned movie theater a whitened cow?s skull watches. Farther long, three tough-looking characters stand across the path. In the nick of time the loner finds refuge in the local newspaper office. Scene from a Clint Eastwood movie? Not at all. It is from the fascinating account by William H. Honan, a cultural reporter for The New York Times, of the recovery of priceless medieval treasures stolen at the end of World War II by a kleptomaniac soldier, who in later life would sometimes sport a woman?s pink wig. And it?s a true story. The church treasures of Quedlinburg, an ancient storybook town in Germany?s Harz Mountains, included delicate reliquaries of rock crystal and gold (in which tiny bits of cloth and wood, said to be from the Virgin?s robe and the true Cross, may still be seen), an elaborately carved ivory comb and two manuscripts in jeweled covers, one of which, the ninth-century Samuhel Gospel, written entirely in gold ink, is beyond price. The objects had accumulated at Quedlinburg as gifts to the church from a Saxon king, Heinrich I (876?-936), and his successors, Otto I and Otto II. Heinrich was especially revered as a founder of Germany, Honan says, and the church became a national shrine. Through the ages some of the objects were stolen, or hidden from the likes of Napoleon, but they had always returned.

In the Nazi era Heinrich Himmler, who secretly regarded himself as the reincarnation of Heinrich I, turned Quedlinburg into a ?Germanic sanctuary? in which Christian ritual was replaced by torch-lighted SS ceremonials featuring, on one occasion, the magical appearance of the Reichsfuhrer SS himself from a secret compartment in the church floor. In 1943, to protect them from both the SS and whatever conqueror might next arrive, local officials removed their treasures to a mushroom cave outside the town. While American troops occupied the area in 1945, 12 of the most precious objects disappeared. There was little doubt that they had been looted by soldiers, but investigation by the Army was hampered when Quedlinburg became part of the Soviet Zone, and the case was dropped.

Nothing more was heard of the treasure until 1983, when rumors of the availability of a magnificent bejeweled manuscript began to be heard in the tiny world of medieval specialists. From the descriptions it could not be other than the Samuhel Gospel. The word soon got to the West German Government, which had an agency dedicated to recovering looted national treasures. Enter Willi Korte, art sleuth extraordinary, as hired gun to track down the Quedlinburg works. Wise to the ways of America, he immediately called Honan. The search was on.

The Quedlinburg case is a classic example of the fate of war loot. An object is stolen and hidden by the thief for years. The thief dies, and his heirs, at first ignorant of what they have, try to sell the piece. When enlightened as to its value, they are overwhelmed by greed, and a minuet with middlemen begins. One of Honan?s great accomplishments in ?Treasure Hunt? is his revelation of the virtually total absence of conscience in the art world; museums, dealers and auction houses desperately tried to think of a way to acquire or profit from these treasures, which they knew to be stolen. Here the art trade, the greatest unregulated industry in the world, is revealed in all its elegant corruption.

Equally fascinating is Honan?s portrait of the thief, Joe Tom Meador, the totally misplaced esthete who, all during his wartime service as a forward observer for an artillery unit (one of the most dangerous jobs in the Army), stole and stole, explaining to buddies that he ?needed? the objects. His obsession with them would be their salvation. For Meador the treasures were not things to be sold but objects of delight, which he used after the war to impress people and to lure sexual partners. The backdrops of his life were surreal in their contrast. On weekdays, Meador, in baggy overalls, presided over a moribund hardware store in the tiny Texas town of Whitewright and lived with a family straight out of ?The Simpsons.? On weekends he repaired to the gay community of Dallas and a modern apartment decorated with his gleaming medieval collection.

But in this book the chase is the thing, and Honan, despite occasional lapses into bad dime-novel style, gives us a very good read, full of suspense, plus a chronicle of the methods of the investigative reporter. After much research and consultation with lawyers, dealers and specialists in the looting and recovery of art (including this reviewer), he found the lead that took him to Texas. He relentlessly searched obscure files in even more obscure courthouses in the Texas hinterlands. With determination and considerable charm, he elicited vital evidence from a highly colorful array of characters (some of them downright nasty) and soon discovered the identity of the thief and his heirs. Speed was of the essence, for it was known that the owners were deep in negotiation with a number of interested buyers, and should the objects be sold to a private collector they could vanish forever.

In the end, all but two of the works, which are still unaccounted for, would be bought back from Meador?s relatives by the German Cultural Foundation. Before Honan?s investigations were completed, the Samuhel Gospel was marketed through a dealer in Switzerland. The rest of the hoard, location and owners now known to all the world, were sequestered by a Texas judge after frantic legal maneuvering by Willi Korte and a Washington lawyer, Thomas Kline, whose adventuresome investigative paths constantly crisscross those of Honan in the course of the narrative. The Meadors settled. Their total take approached $3 million, but it is unlikely that they will be able to keep it all. They face possible tax penalties of some $50 million and criminal prosecution by the Justice Department.

Whitewright, besieged for weeks by reporters and television crews, is quiet again, and the treasures glow in their cases in Germany. But we can relive the whole story in this exciting and often rather touching book, written in an easygoing style. Take it to the beach?and hope for the movie.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lynn H. Nicholas is the author of ?The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe?s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War.?

http://www.museum-security.org/quedlinburg-hoard.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/honan-treasure.html
 
This one was a long time in the making...

Stranger Than Fiction: The Real "Indiana Jones" Might Have Worked for the Nazis

It's been more than 30 years since Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) first globe-trotted around the world in search of precious relics from antiquity and, thanks to the popularity of the four movies chronicling his exploits, the character has transcended film to become an enduring part of our American culture. Even the least knowledgeable of movie buffs know that Indiana loves his hat, hates snakes, and relishes saving artifacts from the fiendish clutches of the Nazis.

Throughout the years, dozens of real-life adventurers have been offered up as the inspiration for the character, but if any of them truly did serve as the basis for Indiana Jones we may never know because creators George Lucas and Steven Spielberg aren't talking. One of the most recent additions to the list is also one of the most controversial because this "Indiana Jones" actually worked for the Nazis.

The Strange Truth

One of the most mysterious figures in modern archaeological history, German medievelist Otto Rahn traveled the world in search of ancient artifacts and legendary treasures. Rahn's meticulous study of The Iliad led him to the western coast of Turkey, where he discovered ruins that he believed to be the legendary city of Troy. Obsessed with finding the Holy Grail, Rahn journeyed to the Pyrenees region of southern France because he believed there was a link between Wolfram von Eschenbach's epic 13th century poem "Parzival" and the Grail. After publishing his findings, Rahn was contacted by Heinrich Himmler, the brutal leader of Hitler's SS, who wanted to fund his research into finding the grail. Though not a Nazi himself, Rahn accepted the commission, telling a friend, "A man has to eat. What was I supposed to do? Turn Himmler down?"

Himmler was so confident in Rahn's theories that he had a space set aside in Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia for the Holy Grail. Rahn never did discover the Grail and his alternative lifestyle landed him in hot water with Himmler, who ordered him to serve a three-month tour of duty as a guard at the Dachau concentration camp. Rahn was horrified by what he saw at the camp, writing, "I have much sorrow in my country? impossible for a tolerant, liberal man like me to live in a nation that my native country has become." The archaeologist naively attempted to resign from the SS and Himmler accepted, but soon thereafter Rahn was dead. Or not. Some say he committed suicide, while others say Himmler had him killed. Another theory has it that he didn't die at all, but changed his name and became an ambassador. Rahn's true demise is, perhaps, forever lost in time. That is, until another real-life "Indiana Jones" digs up the truth in some long lost tomb...

Inspired Fiction

In the two most popular movies in the series, Indiana Jones (Ford) races to discover legendary religious artifacts before the Nazis can get their clutches on them. In Raiders, we see that the Nazis will spare no expense to discover the Ark of the Covenant for Hitler, employing thousands to dig holes all over the desert. In Last Crusade, the Nazis are on the hunt for the Holy Grail, the very same item that Rahn spent his career searching for on behalf of the Nazis.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
BrentJS at reelz.com on 5 December said:
Throughout the years, dozens of real-life adventurers have been offered up as the inspiration for the character, but if any of them truly did serve as the basis for Indiana Jones we may never know because creators George Lucas and Steven Spielberg aren't talking. One of the most recent additions to the list is also one of the most controversial because this "Indiana Jones" actually worked for the Nazis.
"Recent addition"? This is old news.:rolleyes: "Controversial"? How?:confused:
 
Stoo said:
"Recent addition"? This is old news.:rolleyes: "Controversial"? How?:confused:
I think you might be disappointed with the answer, seems to me he's just mimicking flowery language he's read elsewhere that sounds official but really means (and refers to) nothing...

WilliamBoyd8 said:
794px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H08447%2C_Quedlinburg%2C_Heinrichs-Feier%2C_Heinrich_Himmler.jpg


The little guy to the left of the column.

Those pointy ears make one wonder.

Is he a Nazi Hobbit?

:)

Looks like the devil himself...
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Rocket Surgeon said:
I think you might be disappointed with the answer, seems to me he's just mimicking flowery language he's read elsewhere that sounds official but really means (and refers to) nothing...
My question was a rhetorical one so I wasn't looking for an answer. The blogger states that the inspiration is controversial but never bothers to explain why. He doesn't/can't because it isn't.

To paraphrase Indy: "Bloggers. I hate these guys."(n)
 

otto rahn

New member
Aha ! You have discovered my secret ! I am the original "Indiana Jones" Bwaa ! Haa! Haa! Now, of course I will have to destroy you all !
 

Montana Smith

Active member
otto rahn said:
Aha ! You have discovered my secret ! I am the original "Indiana Jones" Bwaa ! Haa! Haa! Now, of course I will have to destroy you all !

Just don't make too much of a mess. Finn's on cleaning duties this week, and you wouldn't like him when he's angry.
 

otto rahn

New member
Montana Smith said:
Just don't make too much of a mess. Finn's on cleaning duties this week, and you wouldn't like him when he's angry.
Verdammt ! I can't destroy you all right now, I can't remember where I put The Holy Grail. I have to find that cup ! Now, was it in the dishwasher ?
 

otto rahn

New member
Another book on Rahn that may be of interest is Nigel Graddon's "Otto Rahn & The Quest For The Holy Grail" (subtitle :"The Amazing Life Of The Real Indiana Jones") (Adventure Unlimited Press ,2008). I have a copy but Ahem, haven't got around to reading it yet.
 
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