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Ludwig von Wohl
alias
Louis de Wohl
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Heimkehr ins Glück
(1933)
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Ludwig
von Wohl, better known as Louis de Wohl, was born in Berlin on January
24, 1903. His father was Hungarian, his mother Austrian. According to
his own information, his Hungarian name was Wohl Laios (in Hungarian,
the Christian name is preceded by the surname) and he was a minor
nobleman, in Hungarian entitled Mucsinyi. He had a younger sister,
Elizabeth, who like him emigrated to England - and later
to Africa.
At the age of 17 - his father already died - his mother urged De
Wohl to work at a bank. In 1924 he got fired and had various
professions, such as dress designer and movie advertiser. He did
everything he could to become an author and gradually got a certain
reputation. Until his emigration in 1935 to England, De Wohl wrote
articles for newspapers and about thirty novels, half of them used for
movies. Together with Count d'Haussonville, he wrote the script for the
movie Heimkehr ins Glück (1933), in which Heinz Ruhmann played a
part. In his writings, he used the pseudonym Louis de Wohl. According
to his own information, he moved to England because he no longer could
live under Hitler's regime and did not stand in awe for his legislation.[1]
In 1937, George C. Harrap & Co. Ltd. in London published I follow my stars, De
Wohl's autobiography. In 1938, his astrological book Secret service of the sky was
published by Cresset Press in London; in 1940, another astrological book
was published, entitled Common sense astrology. De Wohl was not a gifted
astrologer, but rather blended a range of circulating astrological ideas
and phrased them in an attractive, amusing and
sensational way.
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Nostradamus
prophezeit den Kriegsverlauf
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World War II
At the outbreak of World War II, De Wohl was not allowed to be a
volunteer at the front since he did not have the British
nationality. In 1940, he started to work for the British Secret
Service, first at the Special Operations Executive
department, from 1942 at the Psychological Warfare Executive department.
In his
book The stars of war and
peace (London, 1952), De Wohl described the kind of work he
did in World War II in connection with psychological warfare,
such as giving advices, based upon "astrological
counter-moves" against his supposed German war strategies,
based upon astrology.
In The stars of war and peace, De Wohl did not discuss
the brochure Nostradamus prophezeit den
Kriegsverlauf. Most of the text of this brochure, which in
1943 was brought into circulation and had to undermine the
morale of German soldiers by demonstrating, by means
of perverted Century-quatrains and invented
quatrains, that Nostradamus predicted the rise of Hitler, his
military success and his imminent fall, was written by De Wohl. Nostradamus prophezeit den
Kriegsverlauf did not carry De Wohl's name, but the name of
dr. Bruno Winkler, the author of the Nostradamusbiography Und dies geheimnisvolle
Buch!... and Nostradamus und seine Prophezeiungen für das zwanzigste
Jahrhundert, both published by Regulus publishers in
Görlitz. For that reason, Regulus publishers was mentioned as
the publisher of Nostradamus prophezeit den Kriegsverlauf.
In this period, De Wohl also wrote the text of two editions of
the fictitious magazine Der
Zenit, in which by means of astrological analyses
predictions were made which were unfavourable for Germany. The
name Der Zenit was chosen in connection with the
astrological magazine Zenit, the monthly of the German Astrologische Zentralstelle,
published for the last time somewhere in 1938.
About De Wohl's meddling with Nostradamus and the Centuries
can also be said that in the beginning of the '40's, he made
James Laver, the author of Nostradamus or the future foretold
(London, 1942) familiar with astrology.[2]
Laver linked the word Hister,
which can be found in three quatrains, to Hitler. In Nostradamus
prophezeit den Kriegsverlauf, this link is made more than
once, and there are indications that De Wohl c.s.
copied this link from Nostradamus or the future foretold.
A
questionable position
Documents in an
MI5-file about Louis de Wohl, declassified on March 3, 2008 by the British
National Archives, show that within the British Secret Service
his position and ideas were questionable, as was his astrological skill.
Some who met him in the years of war, characterized him as a charlatan
and a fraud. Others were quite impressed by his statements. Despite
warnings from within the Secret Service that he was not reliable, senior
persons considered his story that Hitler relied on the predictions of
Krafft and therefore was vulnerable, very acceptable and important. To
them, it looked as if De Wohl was able to understand Hitler's drives and
ideas by means of astrology. In 1941, De Wohl was
sent to the United States. In a series of lectures, meant to persuade
the United States to join Germany's adversaries in Europe, he told his
audience that Hitler could be defeated because of his reliance on
astrology. The general public approved this.
The file contains numerous documents which show that De Wohl was closely
observed by the British Secret Service in the period he was employed by
them. The Secret Service considered him to be a potential enemy, since
he was born and raised in Germany. On the one hand, De Wohl
turned out to be a useful collaborator
with an undoubted gift for propaganda. On the other hand, there
was the risk that in case he got a grief against England, he
would become a dangerous enemy since he was able to influence
superstition in high circles.
The file also contains astrological writings by De Wohl with a.o.
predictions about the course of the war. He called himself "the
modern Nostradamus".
In 1943, De Wohl more or less was shunted onto a side track.
De
Wohl, Krafft and Hitler's attitude towards astrology
From
1941, De Wohl spread the rumour that Hitler was obsessed by
astrology and did not take any important decision without
consulting his private astrologer. In an interview with the New
York newspaper
Sunday News, published on July 27, 1941, he told that he
hold a letter from Karl Ernst Krafft, a Swiss astrologer, to
Viorel Virgil Tilea, the former Rumanian ambassador in London.
This ten-page letter contained tactfully phrased astrological
predictions in favour of Hitler. According to the interview with
De Wohl in Sunday News, it
was in 1929 when Krafft became employed by Hitler. In an
introduction to astrological predictions for 1943, dating from
November 1942, De Wohl had written that Hitler employed
astrologers since 1923. He mentioned the names of Krafft, Fritz Brunnhuebner
and B. Korsch.[3]
According to De Wohl, Hitler only came into action if the
astrological aspects were favourable. De Wohl claimed that he
also could calculate these aspects and therefore would know what
manoeuvres Hitler would make, since he based himself upon
advices, given in connection with these favourable astrological
aspects. According to De Wohl, it was not relevant whether or
not the Allied considered astrology a valuable kind of knowledge
or complete nonsense, but that Hitler followed the astrological
predictions/advices.
De Wohl's rumours lack every ground. A remark of one of
Hitler's former secretaries for example shows that he was not at all
interested in astrology. Regarding Krafft's national-socialist
activities, it must be noted that this started in October 1939
in Amt VII-B1 of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt;
from April-May 1941, he worked as a translator at the Deutsches
Nachrichtenbüro. He never has been a private astrologer of
whatever prominent Nazi.[4]
Korsch had no connection with Nazi's.
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The Spear
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The
post-war years
After World War II, De Wohl occupied himself with writing religious
novels such as the novel The Spear (1955, about Longinus, the
soldier who thrusted a spear in the side of Jesus at the time of His
crucifixion), a novel about King David and hagiographies about a.o. the
apostle Paul, St. Augustin, St. Benedict, St. Catharine of Siena, St.
Frances of Assisi, St. Francis Xavier, St. Ignatius Loyola, Joan of
'Arc, St. Theresia and Thomas Aquinas. These books were written in
English. Some of them were translated into Dutch, Italian, Polish,
Yugoslavian and Spanish. De Wohl also wrote a book about
the history of the Catholic Church.
In 1953, De Wohl married Ruth Magdalene Lorch. Both of them were Commander
of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, a Roman-Catholic order
with roots in the era of Godfrey of Bouillon, mainly consisting of
laymen who spiritually as well as materially want to devote themselves
to the needs of Christians in Israel.
De Wohl died in Luzern on July 2, 1961; his wife died on January 4, 1998.
Publications
of Louis de Wohl, discussed on this website
De
Meern, the Netherlands, September 13, 2007
T.W.M. van Berkel
actualized on March 8, 2008
Notes
- Dr. Felix Jay, a
British astrologer and a good friend of De Wohl, supposed that he was a Jew or a half-Jew and fled to England since as a
non-Aryan he no longer could work for the German press or the German
film industry. [text]
- Laver-1942, p.11. [text]
- Fritz Brunnhuebner: Fritz Brunnhübner, the
author of Der neue Planet Pluto. Beobachtungen und Erfahrungen (Diessen,
1935). B. Korsch: dr. Hubert Korsch, chairman of the Astrologische
Zentralstelle and editor in chief of the astrological magazine Zenit. [text]
- Van Berkel:
- Dr. Goebbels nach
Aufzeichnung aus seiner Umgebung;
- Information on Karl Ernst Krafft.
[text]
Many
stories circulate about Louis de Wohl, not in the least spread by himself. His
autobiographical information is not always reliable. According to people
like Howe and Jay, he sometimes embellished his descriptions of facts
and events, which for example resulted in a legendary-like
autobiography.
For this article, the following publications on De Wohl have been consulted:
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