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A History Lesson

An overview of German history in the KULT universe

If any single Archon ever held almost total sway over Germany it would be Geburah, the Judge. Justice was among the strong traits even of the pre-Roman Germanic tribes, and it has been such ever since. Other Archons won and lost influence, but Geburah reigned almost supreme.

Image: 'Cogwheel' by Robin Pfeifer

Cogwheel
(c) 2001 by Robin Pfeifer

When the Demiurge disappeared, both Kether and Geburah were strong in Europe, but with the loss of the Demiurge's supervision, humans began to awaken. One result of the waning influence of the Demiurge was the French Revolution, and this incident spawned similar events all over Europe. Kether's noble tyrants toppled one by one, and chaos resulted.

The First World War was a half-hearted attempt by Kether in a one-Archon-show at restoring the old order, but even halfway through it it was apparent that he would fail. But the conflict, with its mayhem on a heretofore unprecedented scale, came to the attention of other powers.

On the many fronts and in the trenches of the war Hareb-Serap, the Death Angel whose domain is meaningless slaughter, held sway. The Illusion broke down regularly in the midst of battle, and whole platoons were swallowed by the Inferno. One day, an Austrian private from a Bavarian reserve corps who had to bring orders from one doomed outpost to another, came across a scene of carnage: razides were chopping up screaming soldiers who had fought at close quarters without regard to sides. The private broke down immediately and came to the attention of the razides who immediately seized him. One had his claws already pushed through the ribcage of the shaking and squirming private and closed them around his heart, ready to rip it out and feed it to his victim, when Hareb-Serap himself bade him stop. The razide obyed grudgingly, and the Death Angel healed the fatal wound himself. The private saw his radiant form, and fell to his knees, thanking his saviour and pledging him his life. Hareb-Serap only smiled. The boy would be his bid for power, when the time was ripe. Thus private Adolf Hitler became the personal plaything of a Death Angel.

Years later, the war was over but still fresh in mind, Germany's society lay in ruins. The politicians, who had their first go at democracy, failed miserably. Inflation ran rampant, anarchy ruled the streets. In this time, Adolf Hitler came into contact with right wing radicals who soon made him their voice. The small, low-born looking man had a way of agitating people to believe in what he himself was not - the ideal of the Aryan man, hero of the master race. In the Inferno, Hareb-Serap laughed.

Kether and Geburah took the bait in stride. Kether would not make the same mistake twice, so he called in Hod, the Bringer of Punishment, and Netzach, the Victor. Together, the four would harden rhe Illusion and bring about a world-wide tyranny, the Thousand-Year-Reich. Hareb-Serap laughed some more.

In a process not dissimilar to the forming of an envoy, the four Archons poured their essence into the demagogue Adolf Hitler. He became something of a composite envoy, but the seed of Hareb-Serap was already within him; and he stood wide open to the influence of other Death Angels. Almost all of them joined the fun.

The result was World War II. The Archons wanted to subjugate the world and reinstate the rule of a single man, the Führer. The Death Angels wanted to rip open the Illusion and bring the Inferno into the world. Astaroth was not there to stop them, if it had been in his interest at all, as he was already searching for the Demiurge.

The Archons succeeded quickly, but with Hitler's forces spread wide between two frontlines, the war quickly became unmanageable. Meanwhile, at home, the Nazis under Hitler's command had begun imprisoning and slaughtering all those who did not fit their template of the master race (with the exception of Hitler and his cronies, of course), and first and foremost they pursued the Jews.

The reason for that was simple: the Death Angels wanted to destroy the Labed Vov (see Matthew Boroson's 'Maps of Hell' for further info on the Labed Vov). Tradition had it that these 36 righteous people who guarded the gates to the Inferno always were Jews. With the Jews exterminated to the last person, there would be no more Labed Vov and Inferno was free to break through into the Illusion.

In the concentration camps and forced labour camps as well as along the front lines and whereever Nazi atrocities ran rampant, gates to the Inferno opened and razides and nepharites broke through. But the remaining Archons could not long tolerate this, and even the four behind Nazi Germany had to see that some influence fouled their ideals. Soon, Nazi Germany collapsed under the onslaught of the forces of the remaining world, and shortly before Hareb-Serap triumphed and the gates of hell fell open for good, the considerable strain put on the frail human body of Hitler by the essence of four Archons and almost all the Death Angels literally ripped his body open in his final night in the Führerbunker, and the reign of terror in Europe ended.

After the war, all was calm. Many Nazi soldiers had been transformed to Nepharites in the concentration camps, who now found themselves stranded inside the Illusion. Geburah quickly recovered, and justice was done at Nuremberg. Today, Geburah's influence still remains strong in Germany, while Kether's is dwindling, and the Ruler has invested his attention elsewhere. Hod has all but been destroyed in the wake of the war, and Netzach has gone to seek greener pastures on battlefields where the battle may still be won. Malkuth's influence breaks down the walls between the Illusion and Metropolis in the larger cities which have since recovered from the ghastly wounds the war had ripped open. The Death Angels are of local importance here and there, but prefer seeking to further their aims in other, less stable areas of the world. The tension between Geburah and Malkuth is rising, and with the chaotic formation of the European Union, which more resembles a wild plot by Malkuth and Tiphareth than the orderly growth of a single nation under draconian law that Geburah would like to see, the outbreak of that conflict is too close for comfort.

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