Germans and the Indians
Written and researched by Margaret Knight-Sypniewski

The theme of the Nordic ancestry of the Native American Indians, especially those of the Northeast, turned up in popular fiction of the Nazi era. Hitler was deeply involved in the world of the occult. He felt that these beliefs could actually promote and advance the Nazi cause. Thus he was involved in astrology, alchemy, magic, crystal skulls, the Kabbala, and many beliefs of the Native American culture.

The reasoning for this particular interest was the fact that many myths and legends involve the belief that the Vikings were in North America long before Christopher Columbus. As an example, Leif the Lucky, son of Eric the Red (a Viking), founded an Icelandic colony on the West Coast of Greenland in the tenth century. He made his first voyage to "Vinland" around 1000. One of Leif's crewman was named Tyrkir, a German. Today archaeologists have made many strides in proving that Columbus was not the first in the Americas. European sailors were here before him. Many Eastern Indians had blue eyes when they were "discovered" by Christopher Columbus after 1492.

In the Mohawk valley, of New York, Germans were in great numbers. Many 18th century travelers to the United States German. The German and Iroquois way of life and speaking brought them together and they mixed quite freely. English, High Dutch, Low Dutch, French, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora were all spoken in the Mohawk Valley.

The English wanted to remove both Germans and Native Americans.
• Loyalist, Adam Crysler, fought beside Joseph Brant (Mohawk) and the British.

• Elizabeth Hilts was taken from German Flatts and lived at Onondaga.

• Peter Spelman, a German, lived among the Indians for seven years. Spelman spoke Shawnee.

• Hans Fife was captured by the Senecas. After the Seven Years War, he was taken back into white society, only to return to the Seneca, and fight on their side in Chief Pontiac's war against the British.

• A German family named Kobel was attacked by a war party. Kobel was wounded and his wife and eight children were taken with them. His wife was killed but most of their children escaped.

• Conrad Weiser (1696-1760) was born in Germany and lived in southeastern New York, and worked his farm. Weiser lived among the Mohawks and was adopted by them. He then acted as their interpreter.

• David Zeisburger, was born in Eastern Europe and he traveled to Pennsylvania and learned to speak Mohawk and Onondaga. He was adopted into the Onondaga tribe in 1749.

• Many German artists documented tribal dress and customs. Two artists come to mind: Carl Wimar and Karl Bodmer.

• Sat-Ohk, a Polish writer, claimed to be of Shawnee descent.

• Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a German scholar. He studied the ethnology and linguistics of the North America Indian.

• Harold Prins was an anthropologist. Prins thought that approximately two thousand American Indians were brought to Europe before the English pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower.
• Many thought that the Vikings had a trade route with the northeastern coast of North America.

In more recent times, the United States Army used Choctaw, Osage, Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanches, the Navajo, and Mohawks as code talkers. The Navajo nation has received the most press, in this regard, however, since one or two German doctoral recipients had studied Navajo, George Patton decided that he would use Mohawk and Comanche Code talkers. Thus ensuring his men's safety in World War II.

LINKS:

Hitler and Crystal Skulls
Nazism, New Age, Hitler, and the Occult
Hitler and the Occult
Hitler's New Occult Movement
Nazis Occult Movement

SOURCES:

Calloway, Colin G., Gerd Gemunden, and Susanne Zantop. Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

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