1904: Otto Rahn was born in Germany. As a boy, he began a lifelong obsession the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail was a metal cup which Christ was believed to have sipped from at the Last Supper.
While attending university, Otto Rahn concluded that the last know whereabouts of the Holy Grail was in the Pyrenees and was in the possession of the medieval Cathars.
The Cathars were a group of French Christians who disappeared in the 13th Century after the Catholic Church eliminated them.
Rahn believed that during the Cathars’ final battle against the Catholics they hid the Holy Grail in or around the Chateau de Montsegur fortress in Southern France.
In 1933, Hahn wrote a book about his search for the mystical relic, despite not finding it. The book didn’t sell well.
That same year, Hitler’s Nazi Party took control of Germany.
Mythology and symbolism, especially regarding Christianity, were central to Nazi ideology.
One high-ranking party official who took special interest in Rahn’s book was Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler of all the Nazis was most responsible for the Holocaust.
Like Otto Rahn, Himmler had also sought the Holy Grail, but he believed it was to be found in Northwestern Germany.
Himmler enjoyed Rahn’s book so much that he offered the explorer a handsome monthly stipend to find the Holy Grail and write another book about it.
But there was a catch. Rahn had to join the SS.
That presented Rahn with two problems. First, he knew he would have to eventually find the Holy Grail in order to appease Himmler.
Secondly, he was secretly gay.
Nevertheless, Rahn couldn’t say no. He reported to Berlin and was appointed a non-commissioned officer.
Then he returned to the French Pyrenees to continue his search.
He also traveled to Italy and even to Iceland in vain attempts to complete his quest, all to no avail.
1937: Rahn published another book entitled Lucifer’s Court: A Heretic Journey in Search of the Light Bringers.
It was his travel diary as he roamed Europe in search of the Holy Grail.
But the book also made the strange argument that Satan wasn’t really all that bad and Christianity misunderstood him.
His original draft made allusions to his disapproval of the Nazi regime. Rahn was disturbed to learn that those criticisms were edited out and were replaced with anti-Semitic ideas.
Himmler loved the book and ordered dozens of copies. He gave one to Hitler.
The general public took no interest in it. Yet in the Nazis’ upside-down world, Rahn was made into a minor celebrity and went on the lecture circuit.
Even so, Rahn was no closer to finding the Holy Grail and knew he couldn’t maintain the charade much longer.
Then his homosexuality was discovered. He was supposedly having an affair with an officer in the Luftwaffe, Germany’s Air Force.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been sent to prison. Instead, Rahn was assigned to guard duty at a concentration camp.
The atrocities he saw there appalled him.
Rahn wrote a letter of resignation from the SS. Himmler accepted it.
But no one simply resigned from the SS. Especially if they were a known homosexual.
Some speculated that the Nazis gave him no choice but to commit suicide.
He died from a fall while hiking in Austria. His frozen body was found at the bottom of a mountain.
However, some people believed Rahn faked his death and escaped. No one knows for certain.
Otto Rahn never came remotely close to finding anything like the Holy Grail.
However, his adventures partially inspired the classic film Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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