Gold in the Furnace

302 Pages·1952·2.84 MB·English

by  Savitri Devi

GGoolldd iinn tthhee FFuurrnnaaccee

By
Savitr i Devi

Calcutta
1952
GGoolldd iinn tthhee FFuurrnnaaccee

By
Savitr i Devi

Calcutta
1952
CONTENTS

FRONT
EDITOR’S PREFACE
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
Chapter I: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SWASTIKA
Chapter II: BRIEF DAYS OF GLORY
Chapter III: NOW, THE TRIAL
Chapter IV: THE UNFORGETTABLE NIGHT
Chapter V: DE-NAZIFICATION
Chapter VI: CHAMBERS OF HELL
Chapter VII: PLUNDER, LIES, AND SHALLOWNESS
Chapter VIII: A PEEP INTO THE ENEMY’S CAMP
Chapter IX: THE ÉLITE OF THE WORLD
Chapter X: DIVINE VENGEANCE
Chapter XI: THE CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE
Chapter XII: THE HOLY FOREST
Chapter XIII: ECHOES FROM THE RUSSIAN ZONE
Chapter XIV: AGAINST TIME
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHORESS
Dedicated
to the Martyrs of Nuremberg.
GOLD IN THE FURNACE is an ardent National Socialist’s vivid and moving
account of life in occupied Germany in the aftermath of World War II, based on
extensive travels and interviews conducted in 1948 and 1949.
The authoress, Savitri Devi, is scathing in her description of Allied brutality and
hypocrisy: millions of German civilians died from Allied firebombing; millions
more perished after the war, driven from their homes by Russians, Czechs, and
Poles; more than a million prisoners of war perished from planned starvation or
outright murder in Allied concentration camps; untold thousands more
disappeared into slave labour camps from the Congo to Siberia.
Savitri Devi describes in vivid detail how individual National Socialists were
subjected to “de-Nazification” by Germany’s democratic “liberators”: murder,
torture, starvation, show-trials, imprisonment, and execution for the higher
echelons; petty indignities and recantations extorted under the threat of
imprisonment, hunger, and the denial of livelihood for ordinary party members.
She also chronicles the systematic plunder of Germany by the Allies: the clear-
cutting of ancient forests, the dismantling of factories, the theft of natural
resources.
In spite of the disaster, Savitri Devi did not view it as the end of National
Socialism, but as a purification—a trial by fire separating the base metal from the
gold—a prelude to a new beginning. Thus Savitri also devotes chapters to
presenting the basic philosophy and the constructive political programme of
National Socialism.
Gold in the Furnace is a valuable historical document: of the National Socialists
who never lost faith, despite suffering, persecution, and martyrdom—of the
ordinary Germans who revered Hitler even after the war—of the widespread
rumours of Hitler’s survival—of the hopes of imminent National Socialist revival,
perhaps in the aftermath of a Third World War—of the expectations of Soviet
victory in such a war—and of the philosophy, experiences, and unique personality
of a remarkable woman.
Gold in the Furnace is one of the first “revisionist” books on World War II and its
aftermath. But although Savitri Devi challenged many claims about the
concentration camps, she believed that there had been a programme of mass-
extermination of Jews, and that the methods of extermination included
homicidal gas chambers. She rejected these claims only in 1977, after reading
Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the Twentieth-Century.
Until now, Gold in the Furnace has been almost impossible to find. Published in
a tiny edition by Savitri Devi’s husband A.K. Mukherji in Calcutta in 1952, it was
distributed privately by the authoress to her friends and comrades. A German
translation appeared in 1982, a Spanish translation in 1995; in 2005, a second
English edition was published in England, in commemoration of the 100th
anniversary of Savitri Devi’s birth, on 30 September 1905.
This limited cloth edition corrects a number of errors in the second edition
(including the omission of the frontispiece and two entire pages of text), and
includes several new photographs.

The Werl prison,
in which so many Germans were—and still are, to this day—detained for having
done their duty faithfully and thoroughly, as one should.
“Muß eine militärische Niederlage zu einem so restlosen Niederbruch einer
Nation und eines Staates führen? Seit wann ist dies das Ergebnis eines
unglücklichen Krieges? Gehen denn überhaupt Völker an verlorenen Kriegen an
und für sich zugrunde?
“Die Antwort darauf kann sehr kurz sein: Immer dann, wenn Völker in ihrer
militärischen Niederlage die Quittung für ihre innere Fäulnis, Feigheit,
Charakterlosigkeit, kurz Unwürdigkeit erhalten. Ist es nicht so, dann wird die
militärische Niederlage eher zum Antrieb eines kommenden größeren Aufstiegs
als zum Leichenstein eines Völker-daseins.
“Die Geschichte bietet unendlich viele Beispiele für die Richtigkeit dieser
Behauptung.”
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf1

1
“Must a military defeat lead to a complete collapse of a nation and a state? Since when is this the
result of an unfortunate war? Do peoples perish in consequence of lost wars as such?
“The answer to this can be very brief: always, when military defeat is the payment meted out to
peoples for their inner rottenness, cowardice, lack of character, in short, unworthiness. If this is
not the case, the military defeat will rather be the inspiration of a great future resurrection than
the tombstone of a national existence.
“History offers innumerable examples for the truth of this assertion” (Adolf Hitler, Mein
Kampf [Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf., 1939], vol. I, ch. x, p. 250; English
trans. by Ralph Mannheim [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943], p. 229). Emphasis added by
Savitri—Ed.
Savitri’s military permit to enter French-occupied Germany, issued 31 August
1948
Savitri’s permit to pass through British-occupied Germany, on 15 June 1948. (See
Chapter 4.)
EDITOR’S PREFACE

Savitri Devi (1905–1982) was an ardent National Socialist. She regarded Hitler’s
Germany as a Holy Land for all Aryans. But Savitri never saw National Socialist
Germany in its days of glory.1 She saw it only in ruins. Gold in the Furnace is the
record of her experiences.
My purpose in this Preface is not to provide a summary, analysis, or critique of
Gold, but to tell the story of its creation based primarily on Defiance, Savitri’s
gripping and powerful account of her arrest, trial, and imprisonment in 1949 for
distributing National Socialist propaganda in occupied Germany. Defiance is
something of a companion volume to Gold since it tells the story of its creation.2
Savitri first entered Germany on the night of 15–16 June 1948. She was working
as a dresser in the dance company of Ram Gopal.3 The company was returning to
London after a Scandinavian tour on the Nord Express, which entered Germany
from Denmark at Flensburg, passed through Hamburg, Düsseldorf, and Cologne,
and crossed the Belgian frontier near Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). In solidarity with
the German people, many of whom were starving, Savitri neither ate nor drank.
Nor did she sleep. She spent the night throwing packets of food and cigarettes
and hand-lettered National Socialist leaflets from the windows of the train. She
describes her experiences in Chapter 4 of Gold, “The Unforgettable Night.”
Savitri returned to Germany on 7 or 11 September 19484 with eleven thousand
posters and leaflets printed for her in London by Count Geoffrey Potocki de
Montalk, a pro-German poet, printer, and pretender to the throne of Poland
whom Savitri had met in London in 1945 or 1946.5 In addition to stealthily
distributing National Socialist

1
“Savitri Devi” is a nom de plume meaning “Sun Goddess.” (“Savitri” = sun; “Devi” = goddess.) It
may seem like undue familiarity to refer to her, for the sake of verbal economy, as “Savitri” rather
than as “Devi,” but “Devi” is not a surname, but a title analogous to “Saint,” and just as one refers
to Saint Paul as Paul for short, rather than as Saint, one refers to Savitri Devi as Savitri, not Devi.
Savitri’s surname, after her marriage, was Mukherji, Mukherji being a contraction of
Mukhopadhyaya.
2
Savitri Devi, Defiance (Calcutta: A.K. Mukherji, 1951).
3
Ram Gopal (1912–2003) was one of the leaders of the revival of classical Indian dance and one
of the most celebrated and widely travelled dancers of the twentieth century.
4
In Defiance (51), Savitri gives her date of return as 7 September 1948; in Gold (123) she gives the
date as 11 September.
5
Count Geoffrey Wladyslaw Vaile Potocki de Montalk (1903–1997).