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Which
part did the Prophecies of Nostradamus play in World War II? In
what ways did the fighting parties made propaganda with them? What was the
impact of this propaganda? What happened with the propaganda material
after World War II? In the lecture Taking advantage of superstition -
the Prophecies of Nostradamus in World War II, all these questions are
answered by discussing the origin and the contents of the
national-socialist brochure What will happen in the near future?, which in 1940 was published in Stockholm
and meant for the United States.
The
lecture Taking advantage of superstition - the Prophecies of
Nostradamus in World War II has a varied, lively character and is
meant for those who are interested in matters, connected with World War
II, astrological
societies, ESP-societies, schools, religious groups, students etc.
It is not necessary to be familiar with the Prophecies of Nostradamus..
In Taking advantage of superstition - the Prophecies of Nostradamus
in World War II, slides are presented which contain tables and a
variety of pictures such as portraits, covers of propaganda brochures and
pages of books, dealing with Nostradamus.
Contents
of the lecture
The lecture Taking advantage of
superstition - the Prophecies of Nostradamus in World War II consists
of seven parts.
1.
The Prophecies of Nostradamus
Description of the main features of the Prophecies of Nostradamus
by means of a German poem, dating from 1850.
2.
Pre-war comments upon the Prophecies
Discussion of comments, dating from the thirties, in which Hitler is
discussed, and comments, dating from the twenties and thirties in which
the authors determine the year in which the next great conflict in Europe,
in which Germany will be involved, will begin.
3.
The Nostradamusbrochure of the Ministry of Propaganda
First, it is explained in what way some comments upon quatrain 03-57
played a key role in the origin in November 1939 of national-socialist
propaganda, based upon the Prophecies of Nostradamus. Next, the
principal persons are discussed: dr. Paul Joseph
Goebbels, minister of People's Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi-Germany, who developed the idea to use the Prophecies of
Nostradamus for psychological warfare, and Hans-Wolfgang Herwarth von
Bittenfeld, working at the Auslandspresse section of the Ministry of
Propaganda, who by the end of 1939 was ordered by Goebbels to write the
text of a Nostradamusbrochure, meant for the neutral countries. With this
brochure, Goebbels not only served the interests of Germany, but also his
own interests. Because of scandals in his private life, his political
position had got weakened, and the Ministry of Propaganda had to hand over
competences to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Nostradamusbrochure
gave him the opportunity to regain competences.
In this part of the lecture, it is explained in which way Herwarth von
Bittenfeld compiled the text of his Nostradamusbrochure and from which
books he copied texts. It is also explained to what extent the
translations of his brochure dealt with specific circumstances in the
countries in which they were spread.
Goebbels did not like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in his eyes, it was
an unwieldy, bureaucratic institute. A comparison between the Ministry of
Propaganda and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in connection with the
production of a Nostradamusbrochure shows the differences between both
ministries in handling these projects.
4.
The Nostradamusbrochure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched six translations of a
brochure, written in May/June 1940 by the Swiss astrologer/statistician
Karl Ernst Krafft. In October 1940, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked
the Kulturaustausch section of the Reichskommissariat
für die besetzte niederländische Gebiete if they could take care of
translation of this brochure into Dutch and of spreading this translation
in the Netherlands. The Kulturaustausch section did not fulfill
this request, since a similar brochure, Hoe zal deze oorlog eindigen?,
already was circulating. A couple of months later, it became clear to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs that this brochure was produced by the
Ministry of Propanganda..
5.
The brochure What will happen in the near future?
This brochure, one of the eight translations of the German source
text, written by Herwarth von Bittenfeld, was meant for the United States.
Its biographical data are discussed and its differences with other
translations of Herwarth von Bittenfeld's source text. What will happen
in the near future carries the name of Norab, a pseudonym of baron
Lage Fabian Wilhelm Staël von Holstein D.Litt., who also took care of the
translation of Herwarth von Bittenfeld's source text into Swedish and of
publishing both the English and the Swedish translation.
6.
Contra-propaganda
A brief discussion of the brochure Nostradamus prophezeit den
Kriegsverlauf, an English brochure, Louis de Wohl being its main
author, carrying the name of the German Century-scholar dr. Bruno
Winkler and apparently published by the Regulus Verlag in Görlitz, which
company in 1937 and 1939 published a biography of Nostradamus, written by
Winkler, and his Century-comment Nostradamus und seine
Prophezeiungen für das zwanzigste Jahrhundert.
7.
Silent inclusion of text from the Nostradamusbrochure
In this part of the lecture, The fate of the nations is
discussed, a book, written by Arthur Prieditis. This book contains texts,
copied from one of the translations of Herwarth von Bittenfeld's brochure.
In
the lecture Taking advantage of superstition - the Prophecies of
Nostradamus in World War II material is discussed, published from 2004
in the section Substudy "World War II" of the website Nostradamus,
astrology and the Bible (www.nostradamusresearch.org).
The
lecture Taking advantage of superstition takes about two hours,
including a break and the possibility to ask questions.
A
copy of the
lecture Taking advantage of superstition, consisting of sheets and
a list of key-words, is preserved at the library
of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich.
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