There is a luxuriant oak tree standing just inside the gated entrance of Auschwitz Camp I where the sign reads, “work makes you free.” There are many stately oaks inside the camp and just outside the entrance. Oak trees also existed in the immediate proximity of a few of the gas chambers and crematoriums as well. The gas chamber doors at both Auschwitz and Treblinka were made of solid oak. At Auschwitz, double oak doors were used to seal the sacrificial fate of all the victims. That Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was placed in charge of the logistics of the holocaust is incredibly ironic. His last name virtually means “man of the oaks.”
No matter how industrial the holocaust has so often been characterized, the ancient symbolism of human sacrifice being practiced under the oak trees bleeds through the veneer of Nazi modernism. Eyewitness accounts depict conspicuous lightning rods that were attached to each of the four sides of the crematorium chimneys at Auschwitz. The massive flames that burst out from the chimneys accentuated the lightning rods, especially at night. The Nazi SS letters themselves were iconically stylized after lightning bolts borrowed from nature mystic Guido von List (1848-1919). List promoted a pan-German nature mysticism called Ariosophy. Ariosophy simply means “wisdom of the Aryans.” It was both anti-modern and anti-Semitic. Ariosophy mixed apocalypticism, Norse mythology, paganism, racism, evolution, eugenics, and ecology into its worldview. SS leader Heinrich Himmler was well aware the Norse god Thor was not only the god of thunder and lightning, but also the god of the oaks.
In German paganism, the sacred oak tree symbolized fertility, power, and sacrifice – and sacrifice was the means by which fertility and power were obtained. Sexual fertility and male virility were symbolized by oaks as well. Pagan sacrifices were offered in sacred oak groves in order to help guarantee the fertility of nature and her harvest cycles. (more...)
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