Thule Society

According to Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw, the organization's "membership list ... reads like a Who's Who of early Nazi sympathizers and leading figures in Munich", including Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Julius Lehmann, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, and Karl Harrer.

[9] The two men became associates in a recruitment campaign, and Sebottendorff adopted Nauhas's Thule Society as a cover-name for his Munich lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater at its formal dedication on 18 August 1918.

[12] The Latin term "Ultima Thule" is also mentioned by Roman poet Virgil in his pastoral poems called the Georgics.

Amongst them were Walter Nauhaus and three aristocrats, including Countess Heila von Westarp, who functioned as the group's secretary, and Prince Gustav of Thurn and Taxis, who was related to several European royal families.

He established the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP; German Workers' Party) on 5 January 1919, together with the Thule Society's Karl Harrer.

Dietrich Bronder (Bevor Hitler kam, 1964) alleged that other members of the Thule Society were later prominent in Nazi Germany: the list includes Dietrich Eckart (who coached Hitler on his public speaking skills, along with Erik Jan Hanussen, and had Mein Kampf dedicated to him), as well as Gottfried Feder, Hans Frank, Hermann Göring, Karl Haushofer, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and Alfred Rosenberg.

[25][page needed] Wilhelm Laforce and Max Sesselmann (staff on the Münchener Beobachter) were Thule members who later joined the NSDAP.

The Nazi authorities did not favourably receive this claim: after 1933, esoteric organisations were suppressed (including völkisch occultists), and many were closed down by anti-Masonic legislation in 1935.

The Thule Society has become the center of many conspiracy theories concerning Nazi Germany due to its occult background (like the Ahnenerbe section of the SS).