“Gruft?” Ginger parroted.
“‘Vault,’ as in ‘burial vault,’” Cohen clarified. “Their ceilings were cast in concrete and faced with natural stone. And they had made plans for another hall on an upper floor. They wanted to turn Castle Wewelsburg into the Mittelpunkt der Welt—the ‘Center of the World.’
“What I found interesting is that many, if not most all, of the modifications made to the castle had to do with the number twelve. Himmler apparently wanted to reincarnate the Knights of the Round Table.”
“As in King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table?” Ginger asked.
“Yes, but a German, or Teutonic, version thereof.”
He made a significant pause, collected his thoughts, then continued. “In Nordic mythology, there are twelve Aesir—sort of gods—including Odin and Thor. When Himmler re-formed and enlarged the SS, he set it up with twelve departments—SS-Hauptämter. So I began to think that Himmler wanted the castle to serve as the stage for a Nazi version of the Knights of the Round Table.
“In this scenario, Himmler designated twelve senior SS officers as the knights of his round table.
“In the vault, the ceiling is held up by twelve pedestals. In the center of the ceiling there’s a huge swastika.
A gas line leading to the center of the floor was almost certainly going to fuel an eternal flame.
“In the Hall of the Obergruppenführers, there are twelve pillars and niches—the latter probably intended for the eventual interment of Himmler’s latter-day knights. There is also a sun wheel with twelve spokes. It looks like a wheel with the sun at the center.”
“What, exactly, is the purpose of this sun wheel?” Dunwiddie asked.
“In this SS religion they were starting,” Cohen explained, “they declared that the sun was the strongest and most visible expression of God.
“If I didn’t mention this before, I later learned, credibly, that upper-level SS brass, mostly general officers, would gather secretly at various places in Castle Wewelsburg to conduct religious rites. Or quasi-religious rites.”
“Sounds crazy,” Ginger said.
“Yes,” Cohen said. “Unfortunately, they were dead serious. But speaking of crazy, did you ever hear of the Inner World of Agharti?”
No one replied.
“Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fellow who wrote Tarzan,” Cohen said, “also wrote about an under-the-earth civilization. He called it Pellucidar.”
“But that was fiction, right?” Ginger said. “Fantasy.”
Cohen grunted. “Speaking of fantasy, what if I told you that beginning in 1941 the SS began construction of a vertical tunnel in Hungary, sort of a super mine shaft, that would eventually be equipped with an elevator that would take Himmler and his inner circle ten miles downward to the Inner World of Agharti?”
He paused, looked from face to face, then added, “Would you consider that fact or fantasy?”
“Fantasy,” Dunwiddie said.
“Insanity,” Ginger said.
“Incredible,” McGrath said.
“Yes, one would think all that. Yet work on the tunnel continued until November 1944, when the SS ran out of supplies and decided the project would have to wait for the Final Victory. I’ve been there. You would be astonished at the size of the mounds of evacuated earth and stone created from a hole, say, thirty feet in diameter and two and a half miles deep—that’s as far as they got.”
“It boggles the mind,” Dunwiddie said.
“Let me now turn to what else I learned happened in Castle Wewelsburg,” Cohen said. “They began to stage religious rites there. The first official Nazi religion ceremony was the baptism of Obergruppenführer Wolff’s son, Thorisman—rough translation, ‘Man of Thor’ or ‘Thor’s son.’”
“Thor?” Ginger said.
“The Nordic warrior god of power, strength, lightning, et cetera,” McGrath furnished. “That’s where we get Thursday—Thor’s day.”
“I never knew that,” Ginger said.
“Present at the baptism,” Cohen said, “were SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei Reinhard Heydrich. Baby Thor got a silver christening cup from Himmler himself.”