REVELATIONS IN SCIENCE: Insights Require No Proof
Art Design: huxley.media via Photoshop inspired by René Magritte’s painting «Portrait of Stephi Langui», 1961
How should serious scientific hypotheses — such as a new theory on the origin of Earth and the planets — be proven? Many people believe that this requires presenting scientific facts that can be explained by the new theory, while older theories cannot. However, Austrian engineer Hans Hörbiger (1860–1931) was convinced that facts were entirely unnecessary to prove the truth of his astonishing theory.
What he himself said on the matter is a separate question, but the real strength of his argument — the reason his theory was even once taught as mandatory in schools — is now clear. It’s quite simple: all one needs to do is charm the totalitarian leader of the state where the theory is being promoted. In that case, all evidence contradicting it will lose its validity because anyone daring to present such facts will simply face serious consequences.
This, of course, won’t change the structure of the universe in the slightest — not even in matters that don’t fit into the new «brilliant» theory. But mentioning such discrepancies will have to be done in vague terms and without much insistence — at best…
INVENTOR AND LINGUIST
One shouldn’t assume that Hörbiger was just another madman — that would be too simple. A rather gifted engineer, he invented a new valve system for pumps and compressors, achieving not only recognition but also commercial success. The company he founded based on his ideas thrived for decades, only going bankrupt during World War I. However, shortly before his death, it reopened, and most intriguingly, it still exists today.
Hörbiger was also interested in interlinguistics, the study of creating artificial international languages. He was a major sponsor during the development of Occidental, a relatively successful constructed language that even has a Wikipedia section dedicated to it. Overall, he was an intriguing figure — visually striking, almost a demonic guru, the kind of person few would dare to contradict.
For most of his life, Hörbiger didn’t raise much concern — a successful entrepreneur, an accomplished inventor, and a loyal subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (later an Austrian citizen). His eccentric appearance and behavior? Well, that was amusing at best. But then, Hörbiger had a revelation, and he created his doctrine. Not a scientific theory — a doctrine. A doctrine doesn’t require logical proof; it isn’t meant to be proven but rather to be believed.
WELTEISLEHRE
Hörbiger himself recounted how his ideas were born — in a letter delivered to Robert Ley, the future head of the «Labor Front», the Nazi imitation of trade unions, through Ley’s cousin Wilhelm (a rather telling choice of recipient…). He began his story by describing an experience from his youth: he once observed molten steel spilling onto snow-covered ground. The Earth exploded with a slight delay but with great force.
That was enough for him to conclude that, in ancient times, an enormous fiery star — much hotter than the Sun — was struck by an equally massive icy planet. As a result, the resulting water vapor exploded, ejecting a vast amount of icy debris. Some of these fragments formed our Earth and other planets — of which there were originally thirty. Some of the remaining ice chunks are mistaken for stars, but that is an error, and photographs of individual stars are outright forgeries.
Over time, Earth has had four different moons. Each time a moon eventually crashed into our planet, a race of giants was born. The closer the Moon, the larger the beings. The last Moon fell 700 years ago, during the heyday of the Teutonic Order, but there is no mention of this in historical records because enemies erased all traces. Our current Moon will also fall, and after this catastrophe, only the Aryans will survive — so the rest of humanity need not even bother preparing.
All of this, if you’ll pardon the absurdity, was what Hörbiger called the Doctrine of Eternal Ice — Welteislehre.
NO ONE ARGUED
Hörbiger’s doctrine never sparked a scientific debate — there was simply nothing to argue against. What facts could one refute or reinterpret when no facts were presented in the first place? It wasn’t until 1913 that Hörbiger finally published the fruits of his musings in a book with the grandiose title Glacial Cosmology. Eight hundred pages of this — and still, no one argued. What was there to debate?
However, sometime around 1925–26, when Robert Ley finally brought Hörbiger’s letter to the attention of his Führer, Hitler took an interest in the book’s ideas and began inquiring about Hörbiger. For active use in propaganda, Hörbiger himself was deemed unsuitable — he had a dignified appearance but was eccentric and unpredictable.
Even in his many conversations with Hitler, Hörbiger never minced words, often cutting him off with «Maul zu!» (which in German is somewhat harsher than just «Shut up!»). Hitler, notably, would fall silent and listen reverently — after all, eccentric or not, this prophet’s revelations appealed to him. He immediately mobilized his propaganda machine to promote these ideas — Hörbiger himself was not particularly necessary for that.
Soon, scientific institutions across Germany and Austria began receiving messages along the lines of: «The time has come to choose — are you with us or against us? Hitler will cleanse politics, and Hans Hörbiger will sweep away false sciences. The Doctrine of Eternal Ice will be the symbol of the German people’s rebirth! Beware! Join us before it’s too late!»
To further discourage any attempts at dissent, prominent astronomers started receiving letters stating: «When Hörbiger triumphs, you and your kind will be begging in the streets!»
In short, no one was eager to debate Hörbiger — if he could say «Maul zu!» to Hitler himself, what might he do to anyone else who dared to object?
APOTHEOSIS
The Führer’s orders were carried out with great zeal — disagreeing was simply too dangerous. A whole movement emerged to promote Welteislehre, complete with its own information service, propaganda apparatus, and even recruitment mechanisms. Three massive volumes were published to lay out the doctrine in detail, alongside more than 40 popular books to spread it among the masses and hundreds of pamphlets, simplifying these «brilliant» ideas even further.
Criticism of Welteislehre was virtually nonexistent, and after Hitler came to power, it became both unthinkable and impossible. Scientists were pressured to sign declarations stating, «I swear to believe in the Doctrine of Eternal Ice». (I haven’t heard of any refusals — and I can guess why.)
Some prominent scientists even publicly supported Welteislehre — for example, Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark. Of course, these were the same figures behind Aryan physics, designed to discredit Einstein’s «malicious Jewish theories» — but still, Nobel Prize winners, nonetheless!
In the end, Welteislehre became a mandatory subject in schools — after all, it was best to indoctrinate children early with state-approved ideas. There’s a chance that even Hörbiger himself, toward the end of his life, began to feel uneasy about the overwhelming propaganda effort. He withdrew from public life, secluded himself in his home in Berghof, and quietly passed away.
The news of Hörbiger’s death was delivered to Hitler by Hess, who had taken an interest in his ideas. Hess visited Hörbiger’s home only to find him already dead.
Years later, in prison after the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, Hess recalled that Hörbiger had left not only a will but also a cryptic note: «Those who cross the threshold of the millennium, those who witness the omens of the Fifth Moon and meet the new man, will repeat your mistakes, and soon, all will be over for them. The man of the Fifth Moon will no longer be human».
Entirely in line with Hörbiger’s theories — if, of course, Hess was telling the truth, which in itself would be rather astonishing…
PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES
Hörbiger’s death did not mark the end of Welteislehre propaganda — after all, the Führer himself had endorsed the doctrine! The leadership of the movement passed to his son, Hans Robert, who was even officially granted the title of Welteislehreführer on July 19, 1936. Official Reich documents recognized Welteislehre as a «true treasure of German intellect».
Interestingly, traditional astronomy continued to be studied — after all, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine navigators needed to guide ships and planes toward enemy cities and trade routes, and without the very science that Hörbiger condemned, they would have ended up hopelessly lost. However, the terrifying Ahnenerbe («Ancestral Heritage») organization, which was eventually absorbed into the personal staff of the SS Reichsführer, sought to derive practical applications from Hörbiger’s theories.
Since races of giants and sages were said to have existed before the fall of previous moons, they must have possessed unimaginable technologies — technologies worth uncovering to crush the Reich’s enemies, right? Through unknown methods, Ahnenerbe determined where traces of these lost civilizations might be preserved and launched «scientific» expeditions to Scandinavia, Iceland, Tibet, and the Middle East. There are even reports of an expedition to Antarctica, where they allegedly established a secret base — Neuberlin, Station 221.
Yet everything was so heavily classified that verifying these claims remains exceedingly difficult. In any case, they brought back nothing of practical use for developing a Wunderwaffe («weapon of vengeance»). Wasted money and effort — classic signs of pseudoscientific theories, their inherent flaw, something they cannot escape.
Hans Robert Hörbiger and his followers dutifully assured that the expeditions were on the right track and that just a little more time was needed before the Nazis would uncover the secrets of great past civilizations (admitting otherwise would have had severe consequences). And so it continued until 1945 when the entire Doctrine of Eternal Ice quietly disappeared as if it had never existed. Unfortunately, not forever…
AFTER THE PASSAGE OF TIME
The only thing that kept this insane doctrine afloat — one with no practical confirmation and which even took pride in that fact (Hörbiger openly declared that objective science was a harmful invention and a totem of decline) — was the will of the arrogant and ignorant rulers who found it convenient to support such nonsense.
So after the fall of Nazism, it wasn’t that Welteislehre was actively debunked — there had been no such publications before, and there were none after. What was there to debunk? It was enough that the propagators and agitators were no longer paid from state funds — surely, they wouldn’t disgrace themselves for free.
Hans Robert Hörbiger lived until 1955, but after the war, he vanished from public view. He got off lightly — Ahnenerbe leader Wolfram Sievers, on the other hand, was convicted and executed as a war criminal in Nuremberg. And in 1948, his father’s legacy suffered a final symbolic blow — the lunar crater named in Hörbiger’s honor was officially renamed after the French astronomer Delambre (though perhaps Hörbiger wouldn’t have minded since his theory predicted that the Moon would fall soon anyway).
Yet Welteislehre did not disappear entirely. Every such theory finds its defenders — conspiracy theorists who consider the lack of evidence the strongest proof of all. Of course, there’s no evidence! That just means the cunning enemies have hidden it, which only confirms that the great doctrine is true…
And there is something inherently primal and ancient in the idea that everything arose from ice and fire — it aligns with many mythologies (such as the Norse myths so beloved by the Third Reich’s elites).
After all, wasn’t the entire world recently captivated by the hit TV series Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire? How is that any different from Hörbiger’s teachings? Well, for starters, it openly admits to being a work of fiction — no one is trying to pass it off as scientific truth.
Not to mention the complete absence of threats and intimidation toward those who disagree — because that, more than anything else, is the clearest and most unmistakable sign that you’re being sold utter nonsense.
LITERATURE
- Helmut Dolezal: Hörbiger, Hanns. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 1972, S. 352 f.
- Georg Markus: Die Hörbigers. Biografie einer Familie.Amalthea Verlag, Wien 2006
