Latest / Ridiculous History / Otto Rahn, The Nazi Occultist Who Hated Nazis and Inspired Indiana Jones

Transcript

Otto Rahn, The Nazi Occultist Who Hated Nazis and Inspired Indiana Jones · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for tuning in full disclosure. As an eighties baby, one
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of my favorite film franchises ever growing up was Indiana Jones.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Who am I? I'm beat? Which one last Crusade? Temple
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of Doom? You gotta go? Last Crusade for me? Temple
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of the Dog. Uh, you know, I have a copy
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of Crystal Skull. Maybe the magic was just gone because
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I had aged out, I think so. Maybe maybe it
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: was just the inexplicable ninja's that pop up in the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: cemetery and never come back. People age out of Indiana Jones.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: That's so sad. I did age out at Last Crusade.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I still love that with Yeah it's true. I read
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: something really interesting the two guys who are responsible for
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, no, I don't remember what it was. Oh no,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it was that movie A Quiet Place From a Quiet
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Place with the guy from the office. They apparently after
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: A Quiet Place did so well, got pulled into a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: meeting with Lucasfilm, and of course the subject was we
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: need mind Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies. Guys you
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: guys made a big pic, Chuck, and you write a
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: bunch of these movies for us, and they were like,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe you guys should do something new. I
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: think that's maybe why Crystal Skull didn't work. But you're right, Ben,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: those original Indiana Jones movies they got something, don't they.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: They have that swashbuckling sense of adventure, the idea of
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: throwing yourself into the unknown, you know, come what may,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and Indiana Jones really represented that right. But he uh,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: he wasn't Holly a fictional character, and neither are you?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Who are you again? And there's our super producer, Casey
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Pegram also rated extremely nonfictional by nine out of ten reviews.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, in terms of rating the second
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: installment of the Indiana Jones trilogy responsible for the creation
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of the PG thirteen rating, because you know, it's a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: little too hot for PG and not quite graphic enough
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: for an R. And Spielberg had enough clout in those
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: days and probably still to this day that the n
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: p A was like, you know, we'll we'll work something out.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It was Temple of Doom, right, Yeah, it's intensely problematic.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: By the way, no one uses quote unquote voodoo dolls
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in those rituals. The Thuggy cult is a real thing
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: worthy of an episode of its own. But yeah, it's weird.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: They were worried about the the violence, I believe, right, yeah,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: just you know, because he pulls the guy's heart out. It's, uh,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it's a weird one. It's it's kind of a I
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, it sticks out in the trilogy. The first
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and the third are much more kind of in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: same spirit, and that one's just like a weird, bizarre,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: like alternate universe Indiana Jones. I will say this though,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the opening of Temple of Doom is awesome, the musical
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: sequence where like there's like darts being thrown, and like
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: it's just it's very very good. Uh theater, like you know,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: cinematic theater for sure. And today's episode, wait a minute,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: we don't have a what about Casey on the case
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: today's story does have something to do with Indiana Jones.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: You know how often you'll see something like a made
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: for TV film where it says inspired by true events,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: heavy emphasis on inspired. This is kind of like it
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: there is there is a a real life or one
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of several real life inspirations for the character we know
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: as Indiana. That's not his real name. Of course, they
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: named the dogana is that was that? A? Was that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: a Sean Connery? No? No, my Sean Connery is different.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: What was that? Who was that's the that's his buddy
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: in at the very end of Last Crusade where he
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: learns they named the He's the guy who was in Sliders,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: he played the dwarf and Lord of the Rings. Uh,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: this is gonna bug me h for all the fantasy
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: fans out there. I literally just confused Game of Thrones
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: for Lord of the Rings. So you guys can run
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: me up the flagpole for this one. It's John Reese
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Davies also famously played the lead of the dwarves in
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. So that aside, that aside, who
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: is this real person we're talking about? His name is
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Otto Wilhelm Ron R A h N. And just to
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: set the stage, maybe we should emphasize the title if
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you haven't, if you haven't checked out the title before
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: listening to the podcast, because it's one hell of a headline.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Auto Ron the gay Nazi occultists who hated Nazis and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: inspired Indiana Jones Yeah, that sums it up. Great headline.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Aut iran Um was a German, that's accurate. He was
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: an occultist, which is also accurate, and also from the headline.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And he was absolutely myopically obsessed with uncovering that relic
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of relics, that holiest of holies, the Holy Grail, which
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: was also the subject of the Indiana Jones movie Um
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the Last Crusade, which I'm gonna say still is my
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: is my favorite of the four. But to each their
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: own right. Ron was obsessed with European folklore and myths
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: and legends ever since he was a wee tyke he
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: was born in nineteen o four. He was particularly taken
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: with German stories from the medieval period, stories about the Grail,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: like Pars of All or the Song of the Niebelottles.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And he also became fascinated with a sect or a
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: branch of Christianity, the Cathers Catharism. This has been eliminated,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: about abolished, wiped out by the Catholic Church in the century.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: But you see, Randon is something of what we might
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: call a conspiracy theorist in his day because he believes
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that somewhere in southern France. The Cather's were the last
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: caretakers of the actual facts Holy Grail, the real thing,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and that they, despite being you know, persecuted by the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church, managed to keep this secret. And that meant
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that the real Holy Grail was hidden somewhere in France.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And he started thinking, you know, if I, if I
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: read these poems, I will know the clues. It's very
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Dan Brown, right, because he's he's reading into things that
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: he is convinced or purposely left clues but may just
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: be his interpretation it's true. And to back check, ever
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: so slightly, just to flex my opera roots a little bit,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: there is an opera cycle by Wagner called the Ring Cycle,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: which is based on the Ring of the nibelungen Um,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: which is a story that our main character today was
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: very much obsessed with, which is about mystical creatures, mythical
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: creatures and a ring forged in a broken sword, and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: very much was a huge inspiration for the Lord of
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. And he didn't
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: he didn't just think this was generally France. He believed
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: that the Mount Sigur castle in southern France was probably
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the last known location of the Grail because in the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: real world it was Catherine's stronghold and they made their
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: last stand against the Catholics there, well, less a last stand,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: more a mass murder, because they were murdered there in
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: twelve forty four, but the belief was before the massacre,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: three catherine Knights ditched the fight. They skipped town and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: they took the cup the Holy Grail with them, and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: so Ron decided that he would be the person to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: find it. He decided to go h and arrived in
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Monsigeur in nineteen thirty one in the summer, and he,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you know, tries he might. He didn't actually find the Grail,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: but he didn't have some pretty fun adventures in the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: cathedral caves of lung Duck, which caused him to actually
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: write a book about it, called Crusade against the Grail,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: which has already got a pretty pretty awesome cinematic kind
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of title. And that was in nineteen thirty three that
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: came out, which was also, as it turns out, the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: year that the Nazi Party swept the land and reigned
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Supreme Um. And here's the thing. His book was pretty
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: well received by the likes of Henrik Himmler, who as
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: we know, had the secret military police, the ss OF
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: of Adolf Hitler, and he became a patron, you know,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of of Ron and offered to help him finance another work. Yeah,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: he said, look, I run the s s and I
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: have access to the policies, but also the purse strings.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: So if you become my boy, you're loyal to me otto,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: then I will executive produce your search for the Grail
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: more or less. And we have to look at the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: context of a lot of Nazi officials at this time.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: There was this obsession with creating a new past, a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: new collective story or narrative for the people of Germany,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and most of it, well by most of it, I
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: mean all of it was ultimately aiming to justify their beliefs.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Uh they're they're racist beliefs about German superiority. So they
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: like the idea that Ron's theories seemed to support their
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: pre existing goal, this idea that Nordic populations had a
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: great and ancient past, and they said, you know, these
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: traditions and the truth of the past was suppressed by
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Roman Catholic forces, and so they wanted to revive Germanic
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: pagan beliefs, but like a lot of movements, especially movements
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: with an ulterior motive, it shifted. A guy named Guido
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: von List tilted this pursuit and made it something that
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: focused more on anti Semitism racist ideas, and Himmler was
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: a big von List fan, so he didn't think Ron
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: was just making up wild cockamami. Three drinks deep at
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the bar stories he said, you know, Otto, I'm something
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: of a Grail researcher myself. I'm also looking for it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I've actually sponsored some expeditions into Pyrenees. So you and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I we're on the same page. And that's why one
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: day in three Ron gets a telegram that offers him
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: one thousand rice marks per month if he just keeps
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: looking for the Grail, and all he has to do
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: is show up to an address in Berlin. This is
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: a big deal for Ron. A thousand riks marks was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: no small sum because he had always had a hard
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: time staying fully employed, and he also was openly gay,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: which was a very dangerous way to be, especially given
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the tide changing under the Nazis. So it's a surprise
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to him to learn that the center of the telegram
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: was Himmler. Himself, and the fact that Himler was so
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: taken by Ron's passion for finding the Grail and for
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: his writing UH that he was willing to overlook the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: fact that he was openly gay. This was a big deal.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: So Ron was eventually kind of forced into joining the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Nazi Party and becoming a member of the s S
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and nineteen thirty five. He became a non commissioned officer
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: UH in nineteen thirty six, and basically his main job
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was to continue writing and to continue searching for the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Holy Grail. Yeah, that's pretty much it. That was the deal, right.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: He had a he had a tough time, and he
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: was he was embarrassed because people in his friends group,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: his non work friends, his real friends would see him
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and he would be, you know, he would be a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: little humiliated and dejected. And there's a quotation where he
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: says someone asked them about it. They're like, dear God,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? You work for those dudes now?
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: And he says, a man has to eat. What was
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I supposed to do? Turn Himmler down? Which is a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting question, because again, Himmler did have the power
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: or to snap his fingers and have people disappeared. But
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Ron smart guy, right, he already knows this situation is
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: unsustainable over the long term. And he knows. Look, searching
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: for something is all well and good, but that's not
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the same thing as finding something, as anybody familiar with
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the unending Oak Island money Pit TV series can can attest.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So he went through all throughout Germany, he went to France,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: went to Italy. I think he even went to Iceland
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: at some point and came up with Bubkis. But he said,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I have to look like I'm producing something. If you
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: can't produce the actual Holy Grail, the cup that giveth
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: everlasting life, which by the way, it was was either
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Jesus's cup at the Last Supper or also the blood
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: collecting cup at the crucifixion right right, or his illegitimate
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: children the bloodline Christ would be considered the rail too,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: But that's you know, that's open to interpretation. Is a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: generous way to phrase that. So back to this thing,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: he says, I gotta get results. He says, if I
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: cannot produce the actual Grail, I sure as heck can
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: write another book. And so he writes this terrible, terrible
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: book called Lucifer's Court, a heretic journey in search of
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the Light Bring us. It's published in thirty seven. It's
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: just it's all over. The place is rambling. It doesn't
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. There's a quote that particularly
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: stood out to me, cited by John Preston writing for
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the Telegraph. Just tell me if you want to read
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a book's worth of this. Look, I will tell you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a secret. The time has come for the groom to
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: crown his bride. Guess whether crown lies toward midnight? Because
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the light is clear in the darkness. What is this
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: about that? Like? What? What? What's what's this? What's the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: point of this book? It's some people will say. Historians
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: differ here. Some people will say it was a cash grab.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Some people will say it was the time grab. Some
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: people say it was his attempt to uh repackage his
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: beliefs about the Holy Grail conspiracy. Other people think it
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: was maybe a a disguised critique of Nazism. But the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Crusade against the Grail was a historical work, right, that
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: that was was That was their fiction involved in that
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: as well. Let's call it speculative. You know what I meant?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: You sort of like Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and some
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of the more than dan Browns of the world, things
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: like that. And we have to wonder whether Otto Ron
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: himself I knew this was not his best work. Well,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you who did think it was his best
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: work was Himmler. He adored it, and he ordered five
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: thousand copies to be postially bound in leather and given
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: out to all of the top dogs in Germany. Hitler
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: got himself one um and I guess Ron felt like
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: he kind of dodged a bullet, right, but he noticed
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: saleboy Diddy, the book that was published was not the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: book he had written. Now, and that goes back again
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: to why uh, you know, Himmler liked his first book
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: because it was all kind of built around some of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: these mythologies that Nazis have been able to use as
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: almost symbols for the rise of a the Arian race
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and this the uberman and all that stuff, and this
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was no different. Only that stuff wasn't really in there,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: so they actually inserted it in there anti Semitic little messages,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: kind of little passages, right, yep, exactly. And while Ron
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: had dodged one bullet, he could not dodge the bullet
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: looming on the horizon, rushing toward him, and that was
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the fact that he still had not, for some reason,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: found the Holy Grail. And shortly after this book, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: second book has published, Lucifer's Court, he gets intoxicated and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: he is caught having having sex, having intimate relations with
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: a another man, and because he again is Himmler's boy,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the punishment that he would have had is different from
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the punishment he gets. Instead of being incarcerated himself, sent
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: to prison or sent to a camp, he has ordered
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to do guard duty for three months at doc Out,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the worst place in the world, I mean, a hell
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: on earth. And you gotta imagine too. I mean he's
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: an SS and name only up to this point, I
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: would think he's a non commissioned officer. He's wearing this uniform,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: but he's really just kind of dicking around Europe looking
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: for the Grail and writing bad books. Yeah, this is
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: this is this strange thing because it's an understandable tendency
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people. Until he gets to dock Out,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: he's able to we have such a tremendous talent for rationalization.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Something is happening, sure, and it's terrible yes, but it's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: happening to someone else a and it's happening somewhere I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: can't see it be. And now oh he has to
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: aid and a bet directly the atrocities occurring at these
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: camps and what he saw there changed him. He said
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: it was too much. He said it was impossible for
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a tolerant liberal man like me to live in a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: nation that my native country has become. And so he
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: writes to the s S and attempts to resign. That's laughable.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: But let's also not forget that a lot of Germans
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: were in this boat, right, who were maybe not willfully
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: putting on blinders what was going on, but at least
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: they didn't know the extent. I mean, they didn't broadcast
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: on national television what was going on inside these camps.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: You kind of had to be there. You had to
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: know what was going on, and if you didn't, you
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: could maybe trick yourself into thinking everything wasn't quite as
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: bad as it was. Man, what do you think, Ben,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: what do you would have been like to be a
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: German citizen living in that time? There's a line, I mean,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: they're clearly clearly the information asymmetry is different there because
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you know, people could learn about things, but they couldn't
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: google things for themselves, and a lot of maps were
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: edited and so on. But after a certain threshold it
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: becomes apparent that the official narrative and the actual events
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: on the ground are different. So I think there were
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of people it's just speculation here. I think
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of people who were lying to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: themselves willfully. But this and Ron Ron was definitely doing
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: that because he was he was gay, and he knew
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that gay people would be hunted down. So he was
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: in a situation where he already knew was unsustainable, already
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: knew it was going to come crashing down. And when
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: he wrote that letter in February nine, he said, I
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: must ask you to accept my immediate discharge from the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: s S. The reasons are of so grave a nature
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that I cannot explain them in writing. And then members
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of the Nazi Party, instead of accepting his resignation or
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: something like that, they went hunting for him. Yea, you know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: there's it's like the mob, man, you can't quit the mob.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: You don't quit the SS you know, quit don't You're in.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: You're in for life. And it's I mean that it
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: was forced in in the first place, that he really
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: think this guy seemed a little bit um what's the word,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit naive about all of this. But again
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: he was in a rock and hard place because Himmler
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: found him. He didn't find Himmler, right, And it's like,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: can you that's what's the nature he consent there? Could
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: he have said no, you know what I mean? Because
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: every every thought from Himmler to someone lower than him
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: in the hierarchy is a mandate practice. Well, everything that
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: we've been reading about this makes it seem like he
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: was a very open, openly gay So that was dirt
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: on him from the start, right Like if if he
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: had turned down Himmler, Himmler could have said, well, okay,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: then we're putting you in prison for being gay, right exactly?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Just so, so Ron says, I've got a high tailor.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: He gets word that Nazi officials are looking for him,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and then he disappears until March thirteenth, nineteen thirty nine,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: when his body is discovered in the middle of nowhere
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: on the side of a mountain in Austria. He his
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: body was frozen. People thought, well, people will argue that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: he swallowed poison, but there was no official cause of death.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: He was thirty four years old. It's really sad, very young. Um. Yeah,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that's crazy to me. I mean to me, the idea
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that he maybe was trying to escape and then froze
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to death makes more sense then. I mean, if he
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: if he was going to kill himself and he had poison,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: why would need to do that somewhere warmer instead of Yeah,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: it seems to me like he got lost and was
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: trying to make a run for it and then just
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you know, froze to death in the mountains of Austria. Yeah,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and those are the questions that remain and as tends
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to happen, as we we we know very well been
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: when there are kind of questionable circumstances around someone's demise.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We had a handful of conspiracy theories popping up, much
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: like we do with our with the Jeffrey Epstein today,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: where the question is was that really him? Was that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: really his body? It was also way easier to fake
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: one's death at this time. So yes, like any notable figure,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: there will be tons of speculation whenever someone meets an
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: untimely and people said, as you point out, all that
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: he had faked his death and was continuing in in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the underground right to search for the grail and maybe
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: eventually found it. But the thing is there are people
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: who still look for the grail today in nineteen is
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: we record this and this search or this question has
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: continued throughout history. Although you may not have heard of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Auto Iron before this episode, you have doubtlessly heard of
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the works of fiction that are partially inspired by him.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Indiana Jones. Of course it's yours, Indie. Yours and mine
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: y'are named after the dog. That's sorry, wrong, wrong character. No,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that's true. Right, wasn't Indiana the name of George Lucas
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: is the Pyrenees or what was some kind of big
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: dog right right? The um that's the yeah, the lion
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I pulled it earlier where it's like he finds out that, uh,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the Indiana Jones real name is Junior. Yeah, that's right,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: that's right. But no, it's true. It was the same
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: dog that I believe the look of Chewbacca was was
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: based on. And this would have been a Alaskan mall
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: mala mute, Malla mutt mala mute. Yeah. So the thing is,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: while people will say, yeah, his actions did partially inspire
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Indiana Jones for those of us who remember the Last
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Crusade again, uh, in my opinion, the best of the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: bunch Otto Ron was much more like that character I
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: just quoted Dr Elsa Schneider. Remember her, She was kind
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: of the love interest of course, yeah so she she,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: like Ron, was a scientist, a seeker who was blinded
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: by ambition and glory and kind of thought that the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: ends justified the means. The thing is, that's not always true.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: It's never it was very rarely so cut and dry
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: like that either, right, And like, I don't know that
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: anything that we know about Ron paints him as either
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a purely good or a purely evil character. He obviously,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, whether or not you think that
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: he was completely strong armed into it. He did join
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the Nazi Party, he did witness these atrocities, but then
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: he also who knows what he actually did in this
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: capacity as a guard there. But it sure seems like
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: he tried to make amends in one way or another,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you know, But he seems like he was swept up
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: into something that was much bigger than he could fully grasp.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: So to me, he's almost a casualty in this than
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: he is an active villain or hero, you know what
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I mean. It's interesting. I completely agree because here's here's
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: another part to to add to that. And this this
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: came in the course of our research, so thanks to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Gabe Lousier for finding this part. There was a tweet
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: here that I'd like to read. We found a via
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: tweet says historians have a word for Germans who joined
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the Nazi Party, not because they hated Jewish people, but
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism or
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: convenience or ignorance or agreed, that word is Nazi. Nobody
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: cares about their motives anymore. Which is true now Otto
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Iran seems to us to be um a person who
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: is torn apart by the violent times in which they live. Right,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and and I like the way you put it in
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: all the the idea that it's tough to ascribe greatness
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: or on filliting to a lot of people. In any case,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Ron's story lives on. He would properly where he alive
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: today be very interested to know that the search for
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the Grail continues at this point as far as we
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: can tell, unsuccessfully. But hey, if you're listening today and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you have found the Holy Grail, let us know. We'd
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter. You can find us
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: on Instagram if you are Facebook inclined, dropped by our
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: favorite little page on that platform, Ridiculous Historians, where you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: can meet our favorite part of the show, your fellow listeners. Yeah,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and if you want to follow me and Ben and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: our personal exploits, you can do so for me on
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Instagram at how Now Noel Brown. You can find me
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: on various adventures and misadventures on Instagram at Ben Bollin
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, trying out weird one liners and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: puns on Twitter at Ben bolland h s W. Thanks
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: as always to super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks to Alex
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Williams who composed our track, and thanks to research associates
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Gabe Lozier, Ryan Barriss, who should be making another appearance
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: on the show before the summer is out. And um,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: as always, thanks to you, Ben for for being a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: being a pal and a confidante and in a ridiculous
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: historian to boot, thanks so much, They'll shout out right
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: back at you, and uh also shout out to George Lucas.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go watch Last Crusade. We'll see
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you next time Fox. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows