ABSTRACT
Although the myth of Atlantis is intimately linked to the “Nordic” in Nordic fascism, research on its ideological implications within the movement is lacking. This chapter analyses interwar Nordic esoteric fascist notions of a mythical continent once located in the extreme north as the origin of the Nordic race and how such ideas served to reconnect that race with the divine. It identifies the idea underlying this aspiration as the Hyperborean narrative, a racialised variant of the myth of Atlantis based on the divine unity of the Nordic race and its racial soul, and outlines the racialisation of interpretations of Atlantis from Plato through Blavatsky's Theosophy and the diverse racialised esoteric current of Ariosophy. It then highlights the Swedish Manhem Society [Samfundet Manhem] to show how this narrative was applied among Nordic fascist actors and in the early years of the National Socialist German Ahnenerbe research institute, in connection with its quest to find the Holy Grail. The chapter concludes that the Hyperborean narrative as delineated by esoteric fascists depicted Atlantis as both grandiose past and future utopia and that the “Nordic” in Nordic fascism refers to both a geographical region and an aspired re-instalment of a paradise lost.
