[WWII/TS/Covert Ops/Weird War II] Götterdämmerung on Walpurgisnacht

[Michele]

I haven't the slightest idea, sorry. Check with known buildings. Look at the Reichstag for example, that was heavily damaged but not razed to the ground. Look up what color that is.

Another recommendation is the Osprey booklet of the Campaigns series. I have only flipped through it some time ago, but I seem to remember it could be useful to you.

[Icelander]

In his excellent The Nazi Occult, Kenneth Hite mentions the Hügelgrabforshung group of the SS-Ahnenerbe. According to Hite, this scientific institute excavated barrows, kurgans and burial mounds in occupied Norway and Ukraine. It was apparently better known by its nickname of 'Die Totenbruderschaft. Hite also includes an intriguing mention of an incident near Nikolayev in 1944 involving their research.

Other, less informative works, unaccountably fail to mention this research institute of the Ahnenerbe. Does anyone have information on whether Hite made them up himself or whether he found a reference to them in some imaginative source?

Also, does anyone know about real Ahnenerbe research of kurgans in the Ukraine or even just general research of völkisch burial customs of the distant Germanic past? It does sound like something they might have done.

[johndallman]

Sadly, Ken Hite appears to have made them up. The best book on the SS-Ahnenerbe I know of is Heather Pringle's The Master Plan: Himler's Scholars and the Holocaust, which does not mention them.

The Ahnenerbe do not appear to have done any digging in the Ukraine, from memory and a quick look at the book's index. This is plausible: their theories of the origins and migrations of the Aryans wouldn't lead them to expect much of interest there, since they were sure their racial origins were in Germany and Scandinavia, and they did do some exploring there, in rather odd way.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Sadly, Ken Hite appears to have made them up. The best book on the SS-Ahnenerbe I know of is Heather Pringle's The Master Plan: Himler's Scholars and the Holocaust, which does not mention them.

A wonderful find on the Interwebz has reassured me that he only invented the name, however. The Abteilung Ausgrabungen of the Persönlicher Stab des Reichsführers der SS*, led by Herbert Jankuhn, actually did excavate graves in Germany, Norway and Denmark. He did archeological research in France, but I'm unable to confirm any grave-digging, but I wouldn't rule it out. And...

*It appears to have had four archeological departments under it. One is fairly uninteresting in that it analysed pollen, but the other three were, respectively, Dwelling Mounds, Germanic Structures and Prehistory.

Originally Posted by johndallman

The Ahnenerbe do not appear to have done any digging in the Ukraine, from memory and a quick look at the book's index. This is plausible: their theories of the origins and migrations of the Aryans wouldn't lead them to expect much of interest there, since they were sure their racial origins were in Germany and Scandinavia, and they did do some exploring there, in rather odd way.

Our man Jankuhn did some combat archeology in the Crimea, in an attempt to find Gothic and Scythian* artifacts. While no specific mention is made of grave-robbing, that is traditionally where one finds Scythian artifacts, for example.

Elsewhere in the Ukraine, other SS-Ahnenerbe did more combat archeology. Of course they did.

Edit: As it turns out, the son of one of the SS-Ahnenerbe scientists involved in the research in the Crimea/Ukraine emigrated to Iceland after the war and died only comparatively recently. Based on papers and interviews with this son, an Icelandic journalist wrote a fictionalised treatment where the Icelandic grand-daugthter of a (fictional) runemaster and archeologist is trying to solve the modern-day mystery of her grandfather's suicide by delving into the past, unearthing details of the SS-Ahnenerbe mission in the process.

*He believed them to be Aryan and Germanic, of course. Ironically, recent finds in the 21st century confirm blond or reddish hair as well as blue eyes and green eyes for a number of Scythian burials. Their possible völkish heritage was not reported in the study I read.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

... led by Herbert Jankuhn, actually did excavate graves in Germany, Norway and Denmark. ...

Our man Jankuhn did some combat archeology in the Crimea, in an attempt to find Gothic and Scythian* artifacts. While no specific mention is made of grave-robbing, that is traditionally where one finds Scythian artifacts, for example.

Ah, with that name, Pringle yields a lot more. Jankuhn had a more efficient technique. He'd heard that the Soviets had evacuated stuff from the Crimea's museums to the Caucasus, so he went there in summer 1942 looking for them. This definitely required worrying about where the front lines were. He found some spectacular Scythian stuff that was from the Caucasus, and a lot of Greek stuff evacuated from the Crimea, but none of the Gothic material he was after.

A former assistant to Himler, Ludolf von Alvensleben, had seen an ancient Crimean site called Manhup-Kale a few months earlier. Himler ordered Jankuhn there to investigate, but he didn't want to abandon his search in the Caucasus, so sent his assistant, Karl Kersten, to the Crimea to look into it. There were partisans there by this time, but Kersten toured a lot of sites, looking at genuine Gothic stuff, but unable to find the capital of the Gothic Empire.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Ah, with that name, Pringle yields a lot more. Jankuhn had a more efficient technique. He'd heard that the Soviets had evacuated stuff from the Crimea's museums to the Caucasus, so he went there in summer 1942 looking for them. This definitely required worrying about where the front lines were. He found some spectacular Scythian stuff that was from the Caucasus, and a lot of Greek stuff evacuated from the Crimea, but none of the Gothic material he was after.

I cannot emphasise enough how Jankuhn was almost literally a professor of grave-robbing. His dissertation was on grave goods. Granted, just belt buckles, which you mostly find in graves, but even so!

I mean, while I didn't make the connection until I started looking for Nazi archeologists digging up graves, I've seen his name before. A lot. Several of his works on the 1930-1937 Haithabu dig are still cited as some of the most famous studies of Germanic and Nordic Viking-era (and earlier) excavated graves and (alleged) human sacrifice through live burial in bogs.

And Jankuhn doesn't seem to have worried much about avoiding the front. He actually had men from Einsatzkommando 11b escorting him, in between massacres. He then served as an intelligence officer at the front after his Ukraine mission, fighting with the SS Wiking division until the end of the war.

I have a strong feeling that I've found something in him.

Originally Posted by johndallman

A former assistant to Himler, Ludolf von Alvensleben, had seen an ancient Crimean site called Manhup-Kale a few months earlier. Himler ordered Jankuhn there to investigate, but he didn't want to abandon his search in the Caucasus, so sent his assistant, Karl Kersten, to the Crimea to look into it. There were partisans there by this time, but Kersten toured a lot of sites, looking at genuine Gothic stuff, but unable to find the capital of the Gothic Empire.

I'm trying to find more on Dr. Karl Kersten now. I know that he was appointed the Director of the Kiel Museum when he got back from the Ukraine and that he was there at the end of the war. Nordic Bronze Age expert and of course I can find evidence thar he was all about the graves. Silly of me to doubt it, really.

I note that Dr. Herbert Jankuhn really, without any manipulation of sources or hyperbole, did command a Sonderkommando Jankuhn of völkish archeologists, including Kersten and the Baron von Zeefeld. As far as I can ascertain, all of them were committed to fanciful racist or even Ariosophist ideas about Nordic/Aryan prehistory and all of them excavated graves or tumulus mounds at some point.

Sounds like I've found my Totenbruderschaft, especially if I combine their archeological expertise with the racial anthropology work of Dr. Bruno Beger and the honest-to-God-really-attested-in-plausible-sources surpassingly horrifying experiments that SS-Gruppenführer Dr. Gebhardt and a small coterie of Ahnenerbe doctors were pursuing under Ahnenerbe chief Wolfram Sievers, which included the procurement of corpses and skeletons for unspecified 'research' purposes, purposely infecting prisoners with gangrene and even attempts to fuse limbs of still living victims with other bodies.

[Icelander]

I've found a wonderful SOE officer to escort a vital mission specialist to the PCs for the last part of the operation. He is Captain George Langelaan of the SOE's French F Section, most well known today for authoring 'The Fly'.

With him, of course, will be an occulist of sufficient power to guide four gliders down to what miniscule space for landing there will be in the Tiergarten or even the garden of the Reichkanzlei itself, depending on how full of German artillery the Tiergarten proves to be. Seeing as that person is old, drug-addicted, untrustworthy and indiscreet, however, it is questionable whether he is an asset at all.

It is telling evidence of the desperation of Sir Maxwell Knight and his fellow occult spymasters that they are dispatching a 70-year-old man on a parachute jump into an urban area. Of course, the man in question claims that the 'Warrior Lord of Thebes' will protect and guide him until he reaches his goal.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

... Captain George Langelaan of the SOE's French F Section, most well known today for authoring 'The Fly'. ... with him, of course, will be an occulist of sufficient power ...

"This plan has the virtue of audacity."

It is telling evidence of the desperation of Sir Maxwell Knight and his fellow occult spymasters that they are dispatching a 70-year-old man on a parachute jump into an urban area.

That is, indeed, quite desperate. How did Maxwell Knight pick up a knighthood?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

"This plan has the virtue of audacity."

Indeed. I'm trying to include SAS men as well as men from 30 Assault Unit.

I've found two good officers from 30 Assault Unit to be part of the ostensibly 'Swedish' rescue convoy. Both speak some German and Norwegian, certainly close enough to Swedish for Germans; with each having one of the languages at Native in GURPS terms,

Lt. Col. Patrick Dalzel-Job has even been mentioned as the prototype for James Bond, or at least the more action-oriented bits of the character. Dalzel-Job declined to comment on the likeness, except to state that as for himself, he only ever loved one woman and was not a drinking man.

Captain Charles Wheeler is his second in command.

Originally Posted by johndallman

That is, indeed, quite desperate. How did Maxwell Knight pick up a knighthood?

Apart from obviously having been behind Operation Mistletoe, the misinformation campaign that resulted in Hess' ill-fated flight to Scotland, operatives from his Section B5(b) have succesfully countered many occult machinations of the RSHA during 1944-1945, including two quite serious plots that aimed to destabilise the British government through sorcerous means.

Most people in the setting assume he unravelled mere mundame spy rings or perhaps stopped kidnapping or assassination attempts, of course. Nevertheless, Churchill and the King were discreetly briefed that it was perhaps in order to display their gratitude at the next New Year's Honours.

That's also how Sir Maxwell got his paws on SOE operatives to carry out his work abroad, cutting out MI-6/SIS entirely. Of course, MI-6's Witchcraft Research Center under Cecil Williamson are, in Sir Maxwell's opinion, all too civilian, scholarly and cautious, despite their formiddable esoteric learning and encyclopedic knowledge of the civilian German occult scene prior to 1941. Their role has been merely the collecting and analysis of data supporting an ever more convinving oracle/intelligence estimate, that of a great metaphysical threat emerging from the physical ruins of the Third Reich.

I still haven't found a good SOE chief of occult matters, but naturally Commander Fleming is in contact with everyone; NID, MI-6/SIS, MI-5, PWE, SOE and even BSC and through them (and (Acting) Wing Commander Roald Dahl), the Americans, in Fleming's capacity as roving liaison officer.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

... operatives from his Section B5(b) have succesfully countered many occult machinations of the RSHA during 1944-1945, including two quite serious plots that aimed to destabilise the British government through sorcerous means.

The reason I assumed that wasn't the case was:

Originally Posted by Icelander

... the McGuffin changes the No Mana of Earth into at least Normal Mana close to it, bleeding into Low Mana and Very Low Mana point by point of penalty as distance increases.

That sounded as if the non-zero-mana-zone round the McGuffin was a matter of miles across at most. If it was tens of miles, taking it to Calais would allow doing things in England.