Rulers Who Relied On Astrology To Make Decisions – Grunge

While Adolf Hitler himself wasn’t known to interpret the stars, his colleagues Joseph Goebbels, Marshall Heinrich Himmler, and Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess were known to heavily reference astrology to make political decisions. Starting with Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda used a team of astrologers to perpetuate the war message of the Third Reich, according to Vice. And since Germans were already pretty big believers in astrology, this worked splendidly for Goebbels to undermine the enemy. But to control the narrative in typical Nazi fashion, citizens were prohibited from interpreting and making their own astrological predictions, according to HistoryNet.

For Heinrich Himmler, his team of astrologers were used to help locate Benito Mussolini when he went missing, according to HistoryNet. When the Italian dictator was recovered, Himmler gave much of the credit to the fortunetellers rather than whomever may have helped break radio codes to find him.

As for Rudolf Hess, the deputy made a pretty daring decision in 1941 that was off of a planetary positioning between Uranus and Neptune. His astrologers insulated that it was an advantageous time to make peace talks with the British, and encouraged him to do so, according to History. But, his plane crash landed in Scotland on the way, and he was immediately put in prison after officials discovered he didn’t have any authorization to be gallivanting off to Britain, per HistoryNet. This incident really, really upset Hitler, and by 1944 to show that he was completely over the influence of the stars on his men, he sent the country’s astrologers to the concentration camps and made sure to burn their books as well.