wotan

The lute bearing blue eyed blond youths who roamed the roads of Europe in the early decades of the 20th century called themselves Wandervogel, many of whom later morphed into enthusiastic members of the Nazi party. Feel free, as ever, to draw your own conclusions from the following bit of horse's-mouth Jungian racial theory based on that darling of every New Age whackjob who ever drew breath: the "collective unconscious." I found this article reproduced in full at (surprise, surprise)... http://www.NAZI.org.uk But what is more than curious – indeed, piquant to a degree – is that an ancient God of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity, in a civilized country that had long been supposed to have outgrown the Middle Ages. We have seen him come to life in the German Youth Movement, and right at the beginning the blood of several sheep was shed in honour of his resurrection. Armed with rucksack and lute, blond youths, and sometimes girls as well, were to be seen as restless wanderers on every road from North Cape to Sicily, faithful votaries of the roving god. ~ Carl Gustav Jung   "Wotan," 1936   Collected Works, Vol. 10   Civilization in Transition, 2d ed.

---