Irminenschaft

Irminenschaft (or, Irminism, "Irminenreligion") is a current of Ariosophy based on a hypothetical Germanic deity "Irmin" (a backformation from "Irminsul" "great pillar" and informed by Tacitus' "Hermiones"; The Old Saxon adjective "irmin" "great, strong" may also have been an epithet of Ziu or Wodan). Notably the Nazi occultist Karl Maria Wiligut claimed a historical Irminism, established in 12,500 BC, later ousted by Wotanism

Wiligut's Irminenschaft

Wiligut claimed that the Bible had originally been written in Germanic, and testified to an "Irminic" religion ("Irminenreligion") that contrasted with Wotanism. He claimed to worship a Germanic god "Krist", which Christianity was supposed to have later bootlegged as their own saviour Christ. Germanic culture and history according to Wiligut would reach back to 228,000 BC. At this time, there were three suns, and Earth was inhabited by giants, dwarfs and other mythical creatures. By 12,500 BC, The Irminic religion of Krist was revealed and from that time became the religion of all Germanic peoples, until the schismatic adherents of Wotanism gained the upper hand. In 1200 BC, the Wotanists succeeded in destroying the Irminic religious center at Goslar, following which the Irminists erected a new temple at the Externsteine, which was in turn appropriated by the Wotanists in AD 460. Wiligut's own ancestors are protagonists in this setting: the Wiligotis were Ueiskunings ("Ice kings") descended from a union of Aesir and Vanir. They founded the city of Vilna as the center of their Germanic empire and always remained true to their Irminic faith. Wiligut's convictions assumed a paranoid trait in the 1920s, as he became convinced that his family was the victim of a continuing persecution of Irminists, at present conducted by the Catholic Church, the Jews, and the Freemasons, on which groups he also blamed the loss in World War I and the downfall of the Habsburg empire. (Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 181)

During the 1920s, Wiligut had written down 38 (out of a number claimed to exceed 1000) verses, the so-called "Halgarita Sprüche", that Willigut said he had memorized as a child, taught by his father. Wiligut had designed his own "runic alphabet" for this purpose.

Werner von Bülow and Emil Rüdiger of the "Eddagesellschaft" translated and annotated these verses. They claimed that numbers 27 and 1818 are connected with the Black Sun,

Verse number 27 according to Willigut is a "solar blessing" aged 20,000 years::"Sunur saga santur toe Syntir peri fuir sprueh Wilugoti haga tharn Halga fuir santur toe"Werner von Bülow translates:"Legend tells, that two Suns, two wholesome in change-rule UR and SUN, alike to the hourglass which turned upside down ever gives one of these the victory / The meaning of the divine errant wandering way / dross star in fire's sphere became in fire-tongue revealed to the Earth-I-course of the race of Paradise / godwilling leaders lead to the weal through their care in universal course, what is visible and soon hidden, whence they led the imagination of mankind / polar in change-play, from UR to SUN in sacrifical service of waxing and waning, in holy fire Santur is ambiguously spent in sparks, but turns victorious to blessing"

"Santur" is interpreted as a burnt-out Sun that was still visible at the time of Homer. Rüdiger speculates that this was the center of the solar system hundreds of millennia ago, and he imagines a fight between the new and the old Suns that was decided 330,000 years ago. "Santur" is seen as the source of power of the Hyperboreans.

In some esoteric currents of Neo-Nazism, Neofolk, National Socialist Black Metal and Nazi paganism, Willigut's writings enjoyed a renewal of interest in the 1990s.

References

*cite book|author=Wiligut, Karl Maria|title=The Secret King: Karl Maria Wiligut, Himmler's Lord of the Runes|publisher=Dominion|year=2001|id=ISBN 1-885972-21-0
*cite book|author=Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas|title=The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology|publisher=Gardners Books|year=2003|id=ISBN 1-86064-973-4; originally published as cite book|author=Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas|title=The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology; The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935|publisher=New York University Press|year=1992|id=ISBN 0-8147-3060-4