'Siegfried'

'Siegfried', by Gustaf Tenggren

Gustaf Tenggren was actually one of Walt Disney's animators on Snow White. This was his illustration for the 1939 Gertrude Henderson book version of The Ring of the Nibelung.

“Origin of Gandalf”

Humphrey Carpenter got it wrong. This painting was painted after Tolkien had written The Hobbit.

There are of course several possibilities:

1. Tolkien didn’t know where he’d got the idea for Gandalf from.
2. Tolkien knew about Rübezahl ‘mit seinen zwergen’ before this picture was painted.
3. Rübezahl is currently depicted as more Gandalf-like (he now has a broad-brimmed hat, a long staff and, most improbably of all, a long pipe) to make him more tourist friendly.

Personally I find 2. most appealing. Carpenter is only one amongst many Tolkien biographers/"scholars" who has pushed the idea of Tolkien the geek, Tolkien the nerd, perhaps even Tolkien the philistine, who knew precious little of the world, much less of culture and art generally, outside of his own narrow academic field.

In actual fact, though there is no direct evidence that Tolkien knew about Rübezahl, there are various details about him that make him a good model for Gandalf.

He’s a mountain giant. (There are mountain giant, or “rock giants”, mentioned in The Hobbit - by Gandalf - and, very unusually for Tolkien’s creations, there’s not so much as a corroborative mention of them anywhere else.)

He has “dwarfs” with him.

He has more than one name.

He’s a liminal being - specifically one who ranges the mountains between modern Poland and the Czech Republic (traditionally Silesia and the Bohemian Sudetenland) and hence, in Tolkienian fashion, his various names.

Most poignantly of all, since The Hobbit’s publication, the German-speaking people of Rübezahl’s realm have themselves become exiles, having been driven westward in the anti-German campaign of ethnic cleansing that followed WWII.

(Personally I have a strong suspicion that since his death Tolkien’s political views have been significantly censored, if not actually bowdlerized - so we’re allowed to know that he was a Tory, a monarchist, proto-libertarian (though he preferred to think of himself as a "philosophical" anarchist), something of a philo-Semite (and staunch, though not necessarily outspoken anti-Nazi), a firm patriot, a bit of a “greenie”, and something of a Luddite, and that he found the changes to the Mass post-Vatican II deeply hurtful. But what he really thought about de-colonialisation, mass non-white immigration, Britain’s entry into the European common market, or even about wars in Suez, Korea or Vietnam, we simply do not know - although it’s quite possible that since he didn’t read newspapers he wouldn’t have felt qualified to venture opinions on many of these things.)

Beyond Traditionalism

Did men only turn to the cultivation of their Aryan heritage when they had lost (and lost touch with) everything else?

I used to call myself a ‘traditionalist’, but I have now dropped the term. I am concerned about the demise of traditional forms of aesthetic and spiritual knowledge in the world today, and more specifically I am concerned about the decline of the so-called white or "Nordic" race. I do not, however, hold the central traditionalist belief that all the world’s religions descend from a single source - except in the sense that they may all contain within them some natural inkling of divine truth. It might be more accurate to say that by instinct I am a counterrevolutionary or a reactionary rather than merely a traditionalist. I am also interested in some "neo-reactionary" ideas.

By 1933 the German people had lost the monarchy, in both Bavaria and Prussia, their faith in the Catholic Church, the Great War itself, and of course their savings (in the hyperinflation of the 1920s) and, finally, their jobs (in the Great Depression).

I believe homosexuality is an integral part of radical National Socialism. (I do not, however, support in any way the Marxist inspired "gay rights" agenda.) What I mean by “radical” National Socialist was the movement within the Party for a “Second Revolution” after 1933, as advocated by Goebbels, Röhm and Darré. My suspicion is that physical “man-love” or “man-sex” was actually confined to a just small group within the SA, though it was presumably an important part of the male Gemütlichkeit within the SA’s unofficial Männerbund.

National Socialism in England today

What practical National Socialist political programme do you think it is still possible for us to pursue in today's England?

I know of no genuine National Socialist movement at work in England today. My feeling is that any attempt to found one will be hampered by the modern political establishment, with its laws against “racism”, as well as by mass immigration, which has made it socially difficult (but perhaps not impossible) to establish a political movement that represents the English Volksgemeinschaft.

It is of course also questionable whether an English Volksgemeinschaftactually exists.

My feeling is that the first stage must be a spiritual regeneration.  What this will mean in practice is an intellectual renewal based on truth, which must be based on reason. The intention must first be to identify and define the Volksgemeinschaftand then defend it principally in the personal and cultural spheres. What is needed is some of "Aryan Underground", including family networks and cultural heritage groups on the model of the ones that already exist in Germany. The existence already some groups such as the Steadfast Trust gives me hope that this is achievable. We must build up an awareness of our shared genetic heritage, history, culture and spiritual values. This will be a long, slow and often painful process. There can however be no room for anti-intellectualism, or the rejection of the past out of hand without long and careful consideration.

A political party will then emerge over time as the other political parties prove ideologically unwilling or politically incompetent to address our needs.