“There’s more than superstition that hides behind the crooked cross”

(Martin Walkyier: “Behind the Crooked Cross” [1988])

Yrjö von Grönhagen’s “Himmler’s Secret Society,” available on October 8, 2025 on Star Regulus Press, could be considered an unknown classic of “Nazi Occultism” – yet  it was definitely not written for the said genre, born in the wake of the commercial success of Pauwel & Bergier’s “Morning of the Magicians” (1960). Von Grönhagen’s book, published in Finnish in 1948, begins as an innocent travelogue of his walk across Europe in 1935 but soon turns into an intriguing first-hand account of occult circles around Heinrich Himmler: living with Karl-Maria Wiligut, who accommodated him from August 1936 to January 1937, von Grönhagen met shady characters like Hans Janik, also called “John the Baptist” and “Jesus Christ,” whose sordid story has mutated into the mythos of “Vril” that later writers have made so much of. At Wiligut’s request, von Grönhagen also summoned his old acquaintance from Paris, the Belgian-British occultist Gaston de Mengel, to brief Himmler on his esoteric research and a secret society called the Green Dragon (the incredible story is told in a companion volume, “Chasing the Green Dragon” by Ike Vil, published simultaneously with von Grönhagen’s memoirs.)    

In addition to many unpublished photographs from von Grönhagen’s archives, the book also features an extensive foreword and biographies of main characters by translator Ike Vil.

“Himmler’s Secret Society” will be available in paperback and hardcover editions on October 8, 2025 from your hip local book dealer or from Amazon & other major online stores.

For more info, see Himmler’s Secret Society