This rivalry between von Braun and Kammler was to have a profound effect not only on the development of the Walhalla moonbase, but also on postwar space research and the shape of the Cold War.
While von Braun’s rocket group continued their work along purely conventional lines, German saucer craft were inspired by more esoteric knowledge. In its early years, Nazism was influenced by several mystical groups, including the Thule Society and the Vril Society.
Originally the Study Group for Germanic Antiquity (Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum), the Thule Society was founded in 1918 and named after a northern country from Greek mythology. It has been claimed that a young Rudolf Hess was a member, along with other leading Nazis. The Society’s research combined history, archeology, and occultism, and was instrumental in developing the idea of an ancient Aryan race with superhuman abilities. It dedicated itself to recovering the lost knowledge of the Aryans, and flying saucer technology was among the fruits of this effort.
From 1920 onward, Hitler took steps to distance the growing National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) from occult and mystical groups, including the Thule Society. The Society was officially suppressed, but continued its work in secret with the aid of powerful supporters within the Nazi Party. Without its knowledge, it is unlikely that the Nazi space program could have existed.
In his 1871 novel The Coming Race, English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton described a subterranean master race whose power was based on a mysterious energy named vril. Although his work was fiction, it was embraced by leading Theosophist Helena Blavatsky and by several other occultists whose work would help shape Nazi ideology and mysticism.
The Vril-1-Jäger (Vril-1 Fighter) was the first armed disk aircraft. Developed under the auspices of SS E-IV, it was 37 feet in diameter and was armed with two 30mm MK 108 cannon and two 7.92mm MG 17 machine guns. Early models had a solid metal dome, which was later replaced by a clear glass dome. While its top speed was reported as 7,456mph (or almost Mach 10), it could slow down for combat with conventional aircraft and execute 90-degree turns without subjecting its crew to excessive G-forces. Seventeen craft were built, and 84 test flights took place between 1941 and 1944.
The Vril-2 Zerstörer (Destroyer) was a heavy fighter concept that never left the drawing board: its advanced oval shape was too far ahead of its time. Little is known about the Vril-3 through Vril-6 craft, which may not have advanced beyond concepts or prototypes.
The Vril-7 Geist (Ghost) was spurred by the Amerikabomber project. It was 146 feet in diameter and carried a crew of 14. Arado built one prototype in 1944, but by now resources were being diverted to the Haunebu project (see below).
The Vril-8 Odin was the last Vril series design. The only prototype was in early testing when Berlin fell.
All of the Vril series craft were capable of space travel. According to captured Black Sun documents, further development of the series was aimed at developing a craft that could travel to Aldebaran, some 65 light years away, to make contact with the Aryans there. Among the designs on the drawing board at the war’s end was the Andromeda-Gerät (Andromeda Device), a huge cigar-shaped spaceship capable of making the interstellar journey.
These same documents also record that the vril medium Sigrun was vocal in her opposition to the development of the Vril craft for military use. She vetoed Arado’s request for a Vril Triebwerk drive to use in their E.555 Amerikabomber prototype, and clashed with Kammler repeatedly during the development of the Vril series saucers. It has been argued that this friction led directly to Kammler’s patronage of the Haunebu project, which was under his sole control.
The Vril Society, named for this mystical energy that combined electromagnetism, gravity, and all the other forces of the universe, began as a splinter group within the Thule Society, but quickly took on a life of its own. It allegedly developed ties with Aleister Crowley’s Order of the Golden Dawn in England, and with other occult groups around the world. Like the Thule Society, the Vril Society was suppressed as part of Hitler’s move away from esoteric thought, but its work carried on in secret.
The Society’s most significant work for the Nazi space program was a series of séances which claimed to make contact with an advanced Aryan civilization in the Aldebaran system, some 65 light years from Earth. In the course of these séances, vril mediums acquired vital information that enabled German engineers to create the advanced alloys and propulsion systems required for successful saucer development.
The Vril Society was revived some time in 1943 as the Black Sun began to pour resources into saucer research for the Bifrost Protocol. The process was not entirely smooth, however: several vril mediums maintained that saucer technology should only be used for peaceful space travel and opposed its military applications. Nevertheless, the Order of the Black Sun ignored objections and the development of armed saucer craft continued at an accelerated rate. Significantly, the Vril saucer series was discontinued at this point and succeeded by the Haunebu series, whose development was entirely under Black Sun control.
The idea of the Aryan race began in the 19th century as a purely linguistic classification, but through the influence of Theosophy and other esoteric doctrines it became identified with a race of enlightened superhumans who lived in prehistoric times and whose diluted blood persisted in the Germans and other Nordic races of the 20th century. Much of Nazi racial policy was aimed at removing the “impurities” of other races from the German ethnic stock and breeding back to a pure Aryan strain — a “master race” that would rediscover its lost superhuman powers and take its place as the rightful rulers of the world.
The Thule Society was suppressed by the Nazi Party when they took power in 1933, but much of its thinking was shared by the Vril Society. As early as 1917, the German-Croatian medium Maria Orsitsch was conducting séances for the Vril Society and claiming to have made contact with an Aryan civilization living on a planet in the Aldebaran system, in the constellation of Taurus. Together with another medium called Sigrun, she relayed a series of documents in a secret Templar script and other languages, which are said to have formed the basis of all German saucer research.
The Jenseitsflugmaschine (Other-world Flight Machine) was the first German saucer craft. It was built in the summer of 1922; according to Thule Society documents the design was transmitted psychically to the vril medium Sigrun by Aryans who had been living in the Aldebaran system since 1919.
The craft’s disk was made up of three stacked circular plates with a cylindrical motor running down the center of the assembly. When the motor was activated, the disks contra-rotated, creating a powerful electromagnetic field.
It is thought that the oscillating field was intended to open a wormhole to Aldebaran and place the machine’s builders in direct contact with the advanced Aryan civilization there, but no such journey is documented. However, the surviving reports indicate that the Jenseitsflugmaschine demonstrated impressive flight characteristics, and Hitler authorized further development until 1934, when the craft was dismantled and taken to the Messerschmitt works in Augsburg for storage. The craft was almost certainly destroyed by American bombing, which devastated the site between February 1944 and February 1945.