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'Otto Wilhelm Rahn' (February 18, 1904—March 13, 1939) A German medievalist and a Obersturmführer of the SS. He was born in Michelstadt, Germany.
There has been much speculation around Otto Rahn and his research. At an early age, he became interested in the legends of Parsifal, Holy Grail, Lohengrin, and the Nibelungenlied. While attending the University of Giessen he was inspired by his professor Baron Von Gall of the Albigensian (Catharism) movement, and the massacre that occurred at Montsegur. Rahn is quoted as saying that "''It was a subject that completely captivated me''".

Contents

Work

The SS and death

Works

References

External links

Work

In 1931 he traveled to the Pyrenees region of southern France; and Montsegur is where the large extent of his research was conducted. Rahn claimed that there was a direct connection to that of Wolfram Von Eschenbach's Parszifal and the Cathar Grail mystery. He believed, that the Cathars held the answer to this mystery and that the answers lay within a particular cave called the "Cathedral" or perhaps on the mountain pog in the fortress of Montsegur, the last Cathar fortress to fall during the Albigensian Crusade.

Rahn believed it was possible to trace the Cathars, who guarded the Holy Grail in their castle at Montsegur, back to Druids who converted to Gnostic Manichaeism. The Druids in Britain were forerunners of the Celtic Christian Church. He saw in the culture of the medieval Cathare stronghold of Languedoc strong resemblances to the Druids. Their priests akin to the Cathare Parfaits. The Cathar secret wisdom being preserved by the later Troubadours, the travelling poets and singers of the medieval courts of France-''M. Sabeheddin, [Countermedia][1]''.

The SS and death

Rahn wrote two bestseller Grail novels linking Montségur and Cathars with the Holy Grail: Kreuzzug gegen den Gral ("Crusade Against the Grail") in 1933 and Luzifers Hofgesind ("Lucifer's Court") in 1937. After the publication of his first book, ''Kreuzzug gegen den Gral'', Rahn came to the attention of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS who was fascinated by the occult.
Rahn joined his staff at the Ahnenerbe as a junior NCO and became a member of the SS in 1936. In 1937 for disciplinary reasons, he served as a guard at the Dachau concentration camp. Rumored to be homosexual, he resigned from the SS the following year. He wrote "''There is much sorrow in my country. Impossible for a tolerant, liberal man like me to live in the nation that my native country has become''." On March 13, 1939 near the anniversary of the fall of Monsegur, he was found frozen to death on a mountainside near Söll (Kufstein, Tyrol) in Austria. His death was officially ruled suicide.
Otto Rahn was supposedly one of the inspirations behind the Indiana Jones movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The idea of Nazis after the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail was developed from the life of this German archaeologist and researcher. Otto Rahn has been the object of many rumors and strange stories including that his death had been faked. (All such rumors and stories have been proven false.)

Works

★ ''Kreuzzug gegen den Gral. Die Geschichte der Albigenser (Broschiert)'' (In German), 1934, ISBN 3934291279; ISBN 978-3934291270.

★ ''Croisade contre le Graal: Grandeur et Chute des Albigeois (Broché)'' (French Translation), 1934, ISBN 2867141842; ISBN 978-2867141843.

★ ''Crusade Against the Grail: The Struggle between the Cathars, the Templars, and the Church of Rome'' (First English Translation), 1934/2006, ISBN 1594771359; ISBN 978-1594771354.

★ ''Luzifers Hofgesind, eine Reise zu den guten Geistern Europas'' (Rahn's book on Luciferism), 1937, ISBN 3934291198; ISBN 978-3934291195.

References

★ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. 1985. ''The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935''; p.188-189

★ http://www.maryjones.us/jce/rahn.html

★ http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6824/otto.htm

★ http://www.geocities.com/countermedia/Otto.html

External links

★ "The Secret Glory" - A film about Otto Rahn and his 'quest'

★ "Crusade against the Grail" - A review of Otto Rahn's study of Grail lore.