The Nazi Occult (Dark Osprey Book 1)

This is an interesting if disjointed overview of the subject. My biggest complaint is the complete lack of references or any other app at us to verify some of the more bizarre claims about this book.

Reads a bit dry, because it tries to be a history book. It mixes lots of occult history together with some imaginative extrapolations for a Weird War II setting. I nice book for anyone who's into gaming the Weird War II genre for games like AE-WWII, Secrets of the Third Reich, Weird Wars, Achtung! Cthulhu, etc.

A must read for gamers, Cthulhu mythos roleplayers, GURPS, CoC, ToC, etc.. Ken Hite connects the weird with the plausible to mix fantasy horror and history together in a series of concepts and ideas useful for any WWII game. It can also be used in pulp adventure games and is made to be mined for ideas. It's an Osprey book so the art, layout and presentation is of the highest caliber.

Very nicely illustrated, with great color panels. A fun read with much historical seriousness blended with some great conjecture. A skilled author. The book is somewhat short but it makes up for it's brevity in some great quality. I really liked it & recommend it especially for those of you who love this genre in RPG's.

Some of the top Nazis were interested in the occult and formed special units to investigate and develop the "occult science". The Nazis really did send expeditions to Tibet and other places looking for magical artifacts. This resulted, historically, in a waste of money and manpower. In this book, written as if it were a serious history, Hite takes the real history of the Nazi occult and writes as if the claims made by the various charlatans and lunatics in the fringes of the Nazi movement were true. Some of these are hilarious, such as the mystical psychic who claimed to be the reincarnation of an aryan sorceror-king who ruled the earth in 200,000 BC "when the Earth was lit by three suns". Hite repeats this claim as if it were a plain fact, and his deadpan matter-of-factness makes it even funnier.Hite has a degree in international relations and has studied history. He knows how to write history and make it entertaining.If you enjoy "secret histories" like Tim Powers' Declare, or alternate history novels like Harry Turtledove's, or even just a fan of Indiana Jones, you'll probably enjoy The Nazi Occult. Players of roleplaying games in the 1930s pulp era or Weird War II genres will also get a lot out of it - plenty of historical characters and plot hooks.If you are looking for a genuine, serious history of the lunatic ideas behind Nazism, this will not be satisfying for you, and I'd give it a miss. There is some discussion of those ideas but you'd be frustrated by the necessity of sorting the truth from the BS.

If you need villains in an RPG campaign, nobody serves the purpose better than Nazis. There are lots of them and nobody cares...Kenneth Hite has condensed all the information and folklore on the Third Reich and the Occult and presented as if it were an Osprey Elite book. Where the various accounts lapsed he filled in with his extraordinary imagination. Where they conflicted, he untangled them. The result is an excellent resource for role-playing gamer and a wonderful read for anyone who enjoys conspiracy theory as a hobby.

The author pulls together a variety of mystical writings about the Nazis that has appeared in print -- some scholarly and some BS -- to produce a short handbook of Nazi occultism. His bibliography is okay and he seems to possess enough of a knowledge base of nazi lore to weave together an interesting and semi-believable read although he draws some different conclusions from other writers who have explored this subject. This book is hardly serious research or history and much of it is obviously speculation and entertainment. Some of the topics touched upon are downright silly. Much of the artwork is also riddled with contradictions (Wehrmacht insignia on SS uniforms, fictitious waffenfarbe and litzen, etc.) and errors because there is very little factual basis for the illustrations to begin with. Don't even believe that there were distinctive skill badges and sonderfuhrer rank insignia for specialist practitioners of Nazi mysticism. Readers who are into Nazi occultism probably already have their own favorite reading lists and opinions about the subject.

Kenneth Gore does historical fantasy proud with this fine product of history and imagination. Approached as a tome giving a factual account of Nazi delving into the occult, Hire excels in blending fact and fiction. Anyone wanting inspiration for a 1920 to modern Nazi hunting and mystery horror game will find this book a treasure tome of ideas!

The occult history of the Third Reich underpinned many aspects of its belief system, and was ultimately culpable in the persecution - and extermination - of millions. While the more esoteric aspects of this history are rooted in hard facts, the internet is full of frankly bonkers theories about UFOs, werewolves and armies of zombie soldiers. Thankfully, this book does not reinforce the appalling revisionist history that surrounds Nazi science, and adds a healthy dose of fantastical speculation to ensure that we are reading fiction, mixed with some fairly unpalatable facts about the regime's obsession with eugenics, racial profiling and all the rest of the theories that have been consigned to the dustbin of history. This is an energetic and entertaining read, and my only criticism is that it doesn't go far enough in implicating the role of Himmler's occult obsession with the holocaust. There is one story missing from the book that would help to rebalance this: the alleged disappearance of a Gestapo agent in the genizah of Prague's Old-New Synagogue while investigating the legend of the Golem. What a righteous conclusion that would have been.

An entertaining text that will be very useful for gamers and those generally interested in the occult and the fantastic from alternate realities to the Cthulhu mythos. This book blends legend, myth and reality rather skilfully. As always with Osprey publications, it is very well illustrated, easy to navigate and helpfully explanatory. However, for those of you wanting to find out the facts about National Socialist links to the occult then this volume is not for you. Rather you should see Nicholas Goodrick Clarke's scholarly 'the Occult Roots of Nazism' or perhaps as an introduction, Ken Anderson's useful 'Hitler and the Occult'.

Really enjoyed reading this book which seemed to blur fact and fiction. All manner of topics dealing with Nazi occulticism and the supernatural are covered here from the origins of Germanic neo-paganism in the early 1900s to Nazi flying saucers in the final days of the Third Reich in May 1945. Other topics include the zero-point energy of the Hans Kammler 'bell', the Spear of Destiny, Ahnenerbe organisation, Black Sun and Wewelsburg castle, Holy Grail and werewolves, all of which have the typical strand of racial superiority running through it. Really bizarre but fascinating.

I like this book as pure entertainment. It is well written and contains many good ideas. The book is a mock serious historical look at the occult forces at work in the Third Reich. It is based on documented historical events and people, but with the authors own entertaining and wild speculations thrown in on top. This means unfortunately, that for anything but entertainment I find it a bit frustrating that the book does not distinguish more clearly between fact and fiction. This critique may be a bit unfair. It does seem to be almost a defining trait of the whole "alternate history" genre. And normally I find this quite interesting. But with a subject as obscure and steeped in myth as this, it becomes very confusing that you cannot easily separate the documented historical facts from the speculations of the author. This especially since the links between Nazism and occultism are actually often much stranger than you would assume. I think it would have been easy to mark somehow where the author left established history and ventured into his own speculation. This could probably be done without even breaking the mock serious historical tone of the book. Had this been done, the book could also have worked as a serious primer for a very interesting subject, or enabled the reader to substitute his or her own speculations on a "true" historical foundation. But as it is, our only choice is to accept the authors entire vision as it is. And of course the lack of any notes or references does nothing to help further study either.Still recommended though.

Very interesting, if you're into the more weird side of ww2 and later gaming this book will give you some good hooks for adventures/scenario's