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From the moment the Nazis seized power in Germany in1933. They inaugurated a series of quests in search of fabulous objects and places from mankind's earliest myths. The lost Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Spear of Longinus which pierced Christ’s side, and the lost continent of Atlantis.
For Adolph Hitler, such places and objects held a dark promise of secret knowledge and limitless power. If the Nazis could find them, their armies would be invincible. Missions were dispatched all over the world from Wewelsburg Castle, the sinister heart of the Third Reich. Built on the intersection of 4 prehistoric pathways called laylines, Wewelsburg was believed to lie in a zone of magical earth power, and thus a fitting place for the home of the Nazi’s most elite troops- the dreaded SS.
Never forget we are a knightly order, from which we cannot withdraw, to which we are recruited by blood.
Headed by Hitler’s trusted lieutenant – Henrich Himmler, the SS modeled themselves on an order of Knights. The purist members of the Aryan race, they were the only men considered fit enough to pursue such ancient secrets as Atlantis.
The search for these sorts of objects had a dual purpose. On the one hand it made for great publicity, I mean, this kind of stuff just looks good in the headlines, you know, with the archeologists out looking for the Ark or have found the Spear of Longinus and it's coming to Berlin. And, you know, the archeologists actually were out there in teams looking for these types of objects, that’s in fact an accurate element in Spielberg’s films. In fact there was a major concern within the profession that German archeologists were going to become the laughing stock of their colleagues outside of Germany because of this, this type of lunatic fringe research.
How and why German archeologists became so obsessed with pursuing these mythical objects and places has its roots in the disaster of World War I and its terrible aftermath. In which the myth of Atlantis played a fateful role in the Nazi’s rise to power.
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invincible: adj. 不能征服的，无敌的
dispatch: v. 分派，派遣
laughing stock: n. 笑柄
lunatic fringe: n. 狂热者，极端主义者
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