The Ahnenerbe ("Ancestral Heritage") was a fake science organization created by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in Nazi Germany in 1935. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler founded it on July 1, 1935, as part of the SS. Its goal was to support the racial ideas promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The group included scientists and scholars from many fields who believed that Germans were descendants of an Aryan race, which they claimed was racially better than other groups.
Adolf Hitler became Germany’s leader in 1933 and turned the country into a dictatorship ruled by one party. He claimed that Germans came from an Aryan race that, unlike what most scholars believed, was responsible for major human achievements like farming, art, and writing. Many scientists worldwide disagreed with these ideas. To support their beliefs, the Nazis created the Ahnenerbe to find and share evidence for their theories. Ahnenerbe researchers often changed or made up evidence to match Hitler’s ideas. They also sent teams to different parts of the world to search for proof.
The Nazi government used the Ahnenerbe’s research to support policies, including the Holocaust. Nazi propaganda claimed that archaeological findings showed the Aryan race had lived in Eastern Europe, which the Nazis used to justify their plans to expand there. In 1937, the Ahnenerbe became an official part of the SS and was renamed the Research and Teaching Community in Ancestral Heritage. Much of their work stopped when World War II began in 1939, but they continued research in areas under German control after the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.
At the end of World War II in 1945, Ahnenerbe members destroyed most of their records to avoid being blamed for war crimes. Many members avoided punishment and later worked in West Germany’s archaeological field. This limited serious study of the Ahnenerbe until Germany reunited in 1990. Some ideas from the Ahnenerbe still influence neo-Nazi groups and fake archaeologists today.
Background
Adolf Hitler believed that people could be divided into three groups: those who created culture, those who carried it forward, and those who destroyed it. He thought the creators of culture were a biologically different group called the Aryan race, which he claimed had been tall, blond, and from Northern Europe. He believed that in ancient times, the Aryan race was responsible for major cultural achievements, such as farming, building, music, writing, and art. He claimed that modern Germans were descendants of these Aryans and inherited their supposed biological superiority over other races. Hitler saw the destroyers of culture as the Jewish people, whom he did not view as a group with shared cultural and religious traits, but as a single, biologically different race. He believed that wherever Jews lived, they harmed and eventually destroyed the cultures around them.
Hitler wrote about these ideas in his 1925 book Mein Kampf. Outside Germany, most scientists and scholars considered his views on human history and evolution incorrect, partly because there was no evidence that people from Northern Europe had created major developments like agriculture or writing, which first appeared in the Near East and Asia.
In January 1929, Hitler named Heinrich Himmler, a member of the Nazi Party, to lead the SS, a military-like group formed in 1925 to protect Hitler and other Nazis. Himmler reorganized the SS, created a system to gather information about Jews, Freemasons, and political rivals, and launched a recruitment campaign. By 1931, the SS had 10,000 members. Himmler aimed to ensure the SS was as racially "Nordic" as possible, establishing an office to screen applicants and the women they wished to marry. Himmler believed in the existence of a "Nordic" race, which he thought was the purest form of the ancient Aryans. His ideas were influenced by Hans F. K. Günther, a German nationalist who promoted Nordicist beliefs.
Himmler was interested in history and how it could shape the future. However, his views about ancient Germanic peoples differed from Hitler’s. Hitler was puzzled by why ancient societies in southern Europe had more advanced technology and buildings than those in northern Europe. He claimed that the Aryans must have lived in the south and created ancient Greek and Roman societies, arguing that warmer southern climates helped Aryans develop more than colder northern regions. Himmler, unlike Hitler, admired the strength and bravery of northern Germanic tribes. He studied Germania, a book by the Roman historian Tacitus that described Iron-Age Germanic tribes.
In 1933, after the Nazis took control of Germany, Himmler planned to create a "Nordic Academy" to train high-ranking SS members. He worked with Karl Maria Wiligut, an occultist who believed in mystical ideas. Himmler gave Wiligut a villa in Berlin and used his beliefs to choose Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia as an SS base. The castle was renovated by architect Hermann Bartels, and one room was called the "Grail Room," featuring a rock crystal symbolizing the Holy Grail. Himmler also created a private museum at the castle, managed by archaeologist Wilhelm Jordan.
In 1934, Himmler met Herman Wirth, a Dutch prehistorian living in Germany. Wirth studied symbols in Frisian folk art and claimed they represented an ancient script used by a prehistoric Nordic civilization. He believed this script was the oldest in the world and the basis for all other ancient scripts. He also thought deciphering it would reveal the religion of the Aryan race. These ideas contradicted what scholars knew: by the 1930s, it was clear that the oldest scripts were from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and northern Europe developed its own writing system, the runes, after contact with the Etruscan alphabet. Wirth claimed that Aryans had lived in an Arctic homeland two million years ago and later moved to a sunken land in the North Atlantic, which inspired stories about Atlantis.
Wirth’s ideas were rejected by German archaeologists but supported by wealthy individuals who helped him promote them. Himmler liked Wirth’s theories and was interested in pre-Christian religions of northern Europe, believing they could replace Christianity as Germany’s main religion. Himmler disliked Christianity because of its Semitic origins, its portrayal of Jesus as Jewish, and its focus on charity and kindness. Later, Himmler told his doctor that after World War II, "the old Germanic gods will be restored."
History
On July 1, 1935, Himmler held a meeting at the SS headquarters in Berlin to discuss creating a research institute focused on ancient history. Wirth and Richard Walther Darré, an agricultural expert, attended and supported the idea. The organization was formed as part of RuSHA. Wirth became its president, and Himmler was named superintendent, a role that gave him control over the group’s board of trustees. Its goal was to study the history of ancient intellectual ideas.
The group was first called the "Deutsches Ahnenerbe Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte" (Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas). This name was later shortened to "Ahnenerbe," a German word meaning "something inherited from ancestors." The organization’s first offices were at numbers 29 and 30 on Brüderstrasse, a 13th-century street in Berlin. These buildings were rented from Rudolf Herdzog, a wealthy businessman. It started with seven staff members. Wirth focused on ancient Aryan scripts, so the group studied symbols and writing systems. One researcher, Yrjö von Grönhagen, collected Finnish wooden calendars with engraved symbols.
Starting in 1934, Himmler funded and visited archaeological digs in Germany. This led him to work with archaeologists like Alexander Langsdorff, Hans Schleif, Werner Buttler, and Wilhelm Unverzagt, director of the Staatliches Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Berlin. Two SS departments were initially involved in archaeology: the Abteilung Ausgrabungen (Excavation Department) in Himmler’s personal staff and the Abteilung für Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Department of Prehistory) at RuSHA. The latter, called "RA IIIB," was created in 1934 to oversee all SS prehistoric research and propaganda. It was led by Rolf Höhne, a geologist, who was later replaced by Peter Paulsen, an archaeologist, in 1937. This department did not conduct excavations but aimed to influence other institutions involved in education, research, and monument preservation. Langsdorff worked in Himmler’s personal staff, and the department also used prehistoric ideas to train SS members. When RuSHA was restructured, its responsibilities were transferred to the Ahnenerbe. The Abteilung Ausgrabung in Himmler’s staff was created in 1935, and Höhne joined its leadership in 1937. By 1937, this department managed SS excavations and had its own staff.
The Ahnenerbe’s official mission had two parts: first, to find evidence of ancient German ancestors’ achievements using scientific methods, and second, to share findings with the public through articles, books, museum exhibits, and conferences. Some sources say the group made up stories to support Adolf Hitler’s racial ideas, altering evidence to fit Nazi beliefs.
Himmler saw the Ahnenerbe as a top-level group that would challenge old ideas about human history and prove Hitler’s theories were correct. He believed the group might discover ancient knowledge about agriculture, medicine, and warfare that could help Nazi Germany. Scholars from many fields, including archaeology, anthropology, history, and biology, worked for the group. Himmler thought their combined research would reveal a new understanding of the past.
On July 1, 1935, Himmler met with five "racial experts" from Darré and Wirth at SS headquarters in Berlin. They created the "German Ancestral Heritage—Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas" (Deutsches Ahnenerbe—Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte), later shortened to Ahnenerbe. At the meeting, they set the group’s goal as "promoting the science of ancient intellectual history" and named Himmler as superintendent, with Wirth as president. Himmler appointed Wolfram Sievers as Generalsekretär (General Secretary).
In 1937, the Ahnenerbe focused on amateur racial research. By 1936, Himmler began looking for a replacement for Wirth due to pressure. In September 1936, Hitler criticized Wirth’s beliefs about Atlantis and its influence on architecture during a speech.
In March 1937, the Ahnenerbe received a new rulebook that gave Himmler more power. Wirth was removed as president and made an honorary president, a position with no real authority. Himmler’s title as Kurator (Curator) was strengthened.
Walther Wüst, an expert on India and a professor at LMU Munich, became Ahnenerbe’s new president. He was recruited by Sievers for his ability to explain science to the public. After becoming president, Wüst moved the organization’s headquarters to a new building in Berlin’s Dahlem neighborhood, costing 300,000 Reichsmarks. He also reduced the influence of some scholars, including Karl Maria Wiligut.
The Generalsekretariat led by Sievers became the Reichsgeschäftsführung. The Ahnenerbe was renamed Forschungs- und Lehrgemeinschaft Das Ahnenerbe e.V. and moved from RuSHA to Himmler’s personal staff.
In 1938, Wirth and Wilhelm Teudt lost their roles in Ahnenerbe. In 1939, Wirth was removed as honorary president, and Himmler and Wüst swapped titles, with Himmler becoming president. Herbert Jankuhn, who had previously refused to work with Ahnenerbe, became one of its most
Expeditions
The country of Iceland interested Hitler and Himmler because they believed it was the Thule area, a place they thought was where the Aryan race began. In 1938, Himmler sent an archaeological team to Iceland to search for an ancient place of worship for gods like Thor and Odin. Three Nazi-led trips to Iceland happened in 1938. However, the three Ahnenerbe expeditions faced limits because of rules set by the Icelandic government. Although the team found a cave they claimed was a sacred place called the hof, it was later proven that the site had no people living there before the 18th century.
In 1935, Himmler contacted Yrjö von Grönhagen, a Finnish nobleman and writer, after reading an article about the Kalevala folklore in a newspaper. Grönhagen agreed to lead an expedition to the Karelia region of Finland to record pagan sorcerers and witches. Because it was unclear if the Karelians would allow photography, the Finnish illustrator Ola Forsell joined the team. Musicologist Fritz Bose brought a magnetophon to record pagan chants.
The team started their expedition in June 1936. Their first success was finding a traditional singer named Timo Lipitsä, who knew a song similar to one in the Kalevala, though he had never read the book. Later, in Tolvajärvi, the team photographed and recorded Hannes Vornanen playing a traditional Finnish kantele.
One of the team’s last achievements was meeting Miron-Aku, a soothsayer thought to be a witch by locals. She said she had predicted their arrival. The team asked her to perform a ritual for the camera and tape recorder, where she summoned ancestor spirits and claimed to predict future events. The team also recorded information about Finnish saunas.
After a slide show on February 19, 1936, about his trip to Bohuslän, a region in southwestern Sweden, Wirth convinced Himmler to launch an expedition there. This was the first official Ahnenerbe-funded trip. Bohuslän had many petroglyph rock carvings, which Wirth believed were evidence of an ancient writing system. Himmler chose Wolfram Sievers to manage the expedition, likely because Wirth had had financial issues before.
On August 4, 1936, the team began a three-month journey, starting at the German island of Rügen, then visiting Backa in Sweden to see rock carvings. Wirth focused on lines and circles he thought formed a prehistoric alphabet. His interpretations, such as a circle with a vertical line representing a year, were based on personal belief rather than scientific research. The team made copies of carvings they considered important and sent them back to Germany. After working at the site, they traveled through Sweden and reached the Norwegian island of Lauvøylandet.
In 1937, the Ahnenerbe sent Franz Altheim and his wife, Erika Trautmann, to Val Camonica to study prehistoric rock inscriptions. They returned claiming to have found Nordic runes, suggesting ancient Rome was founded by Nordic people. An expedition to Sardinia was planned in the 1930s, but the reasons for it are unknown. It would have focused on the village of Santa Sofia d'Epiro and the vaults of some Arbëreshë families.
In 1938, Franz Altheim and Erika Trautmann asked the Ahnenerbe to fund an expedition from Central Europe through Western Asia to study a power struggle in the Roman Empire, which they believed was between Nordic and Semitic peoples. The Ahnenerbe agreed to match the 4,000 Reichsmarks offered by Hermann Göring, a friend of Trautmann’s.
In August 1938, after traveling through remote hills looking for ruins of Dacian kingdoms, the team arrived in Bucharest, Romania’s capital. Grigore Florescu, the director of the Municipal Museum, met with them and discussed history and politics, including the Iron Guard’s activities.
After traveling through Istanbul, Athens, and Lebanon, the researchers went to Damascus. They were not welcomed by the French, who controlled Syria as a colony. In Iraq, Fritz Grobba, the German envoy to Baghdad, arranged for Altheim and Trautmann to meet local researchers and visit Parthian and Persian ruins in southern Iraq, including Babylon.
From Baghdad, the team traveled north to Assur, where they met Sheikh Adjil el Yawar, a leader of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. He discussed German politics and his desire to follow the success of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia. With his support, the team visited the ruins of Hatra, located on the former border between the Roman and Persian empires.
The third German Antarctic Expedition happened between 1938 and 1939. It was led by Alfred Ritscher.
Excavations at Hedeby, which had started in 1930, were officially managed by the Ahnenerbe in 1938 by Jankuhn.
In 1937–1938, Gustav Riek led an excavation at the Heuneburg on the Danube in Baden-Württemberg, where an ancient fortress had been found earlier. The Ahnenerbe won control of the site over Hans Reinerth of the Reichsbund für Deutsche Vorgeschichte. Riek focused on the burial mound called Hohmichele, where he found the main burial chamber had been looted in ancient times. Another nearby grave with rich items was discovered. Excavations stopped in 1939 due to the outbreak of war.
A private expedition by Richard Anders and Wiligut in the Murg Valley of northwestern Baden-Württemberg had no connection to the Ahnenerbe.
The Ahnenerbe also worked in the Mauerner Höhlen (Mauern caves) in the Franconian Jura. R.R. Schmidt found red ochre, a pigment used by Cro-Magnon people for cave paintings.
In autumn 1937, Assien Bohmers, a Frisian nationalist who had applied to the SS Excavations Department earlier that year, took over an excavation. His team found artifacts like burins, ivory pendants, and a woolly mammoth skeleton. They also discovered Neanderthal remains buried with throwing spears and javelins, a technology thought to belong to Cro-Magnons.
Bohmers claimed the site was the oldest in the world and traveled across Europe to share his findings, holding exhibitions in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. At the Parisian Institute for Human Paleontology, Bohmers met with Abbé Henri Breuil, an expert on cave art. Breuil arranged for Bohmers to visit Trois Frères, a site where the owners allowed limited access.
Cancelled expeditions
In 1928, Edmund Kiss traveled to Bolivia after winning 20,000 ℛℳ in a writing contest. He studied ancient temple ruins in the Andes and claimed they looked similar to structures in Europe, suggesting they were built by Nordic people millions of years ago. He also said his findings supported the World Ice Theory, which stated the universe began with a violent collision between giant ice balls and glowing matter. Arthur Posnansky had studied a site called Tiwanaku, which he also believed supported this theory. (In reality, Tiwanaku was built by Amerindian people during the 1st millennium AD.)
After meeting Posnansky, Kiss asked Wüst to help plan an expedition to excavate Tiwanaku and a nearby site, Siminake. The team would include 20 scientists who would dig for a year, explore Lake Titicaca, and take aerial photos of ancient Incan roads they believed had Nordic origins. By late August 1939, the expedition was nearly ready to begin, but the invasion of Poland caused it to be postponed indefinitely.
In 1938, Walther Wüst, president of the Ahnenerbe, proposed a trip to Iran to study the Behistun Inscription, created by Achaemenid Shah Darius I, who claimed Aryan ancestry in his writings. The inscriptions were carved on steep cliffs using scaffolding that was later removed. Unable to afford new scaffolding, Wüst suggested sending a small team with a balloon-mounted camera instead. However, the start of the war caused the trip to be postponed indefinitely.
Early explorers to the Canary Islands described the Guanche people as having golden-blond hair and white skin. Blond hair was also found on mummies, which Wirth believed showed Nordic people once lived there. His colleague, Otto Huth, planned an expedition in 1939 to study the islanders’ origins, artifacts, and religious practices. At the time, the Canary Islands were part of Francisco Franco’s fascist Spanish State. However, the trip was canceled because Franco refused to support the Axis powers when the war began.
In 1938, Bruno Schweizer visited Iceland three times and later proposed an Ahnenerbe expedition to study the country’s ancient farming, architecture, folk songs, dances, and soil samples for pollen analysis. The first challenge was ridicule from Scandinavian newspapers in February 1939, which claimed the expedition was based on false ideas about Icelandic heritage and sought non-existent church records. Himmler initially canceled the trip but later allowed planning to continue secretly. A second problem arose when Himmler’s staff could not obtain enough Icelandic currency. The trip was rescheduled for 1940, but British forces invaded neutral Iceland in May 1940, and the expedition was ultimately canceled.
In 1940, after the Allied occupation of Iceland, Bruno Kress, a German researcher funded by the Ahnenerbe, was arrested with other Germans on the island. He was interned in Ramsey on the Isle of Man but was allowed to write letters to Sievers. Kress’s book on Icelandic grammar was published in East Germany in 1955.
Other Ahnenerbe activities
After being named Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Race, Himmler worked with Konrad Meyer to create a plan for three large German colonies in the eastern areas that Germany had taken over. The main areas for these colonies were Leningrad, northern Poland, and the Crimea. The colony in the Crimea was named Gotengau, which means "Goth district," in honor of the Crimean Goths who had lived there and were believed to be ancestors of the German people.
Himmler believed it would take about twenty years to change the population of the region. First, he planned to remove people he considered undesirable, then give the land to people of Aryan descent. He also wanted to plant oak and beech trees to recreate forests similar to those in Germany and grow new crops brought from Tibet. To help with this, Himmler ordered the Ahnenerbe, a new organization led by Schäfer, to be created. A research station was built near Graz, Austria, where Schäfer and seven other scientists worked to develop crops for Germany.
Later, Hitler read a book by Alfred Frauenfeld that suggested moving people from South Tyrol, who were believed to be descendants of the Goths, to the Crimea. In 1939, Hitler and Benito Mussolini asked the South Tyroleans to choose whether to stay in Italy and accept being assimilated or move to Germany. More than 80% of them chose to move to Germany (for more details, see the South Tyrol Option Agreement). Himmler then presented the Generalplan Ost, or "Master Plan East," to Hitler, who approved it in July 1942.
Because of the war, the full plan could not be carried out. However, a small colony was started near Himmler’s headquarters at Hegewald, near Kiev. Beginning on October 10, 1942, Himmler’s forces moved 10,623 Ukrainians from the area using cattle cars. They then brought in ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from northern Ukraine. The SS provided families with supplies and land, but also set food production goals they had to meet.
The Ahnenerbe had tried to obtain the Codex Aesinas, a famous medieval copy of Tacitus’s Germania. Although Mussolini had promised it as a gift in 1936, it remained in the possession of Count Aurelio Baldeschi Guglielmi Balleani near Ancona. The Ahnenerbe attempted to acquire it after Mussolini was removed from power.
On July 29, 1943, the Royal Air Force’s bombing of Hamburg caused Himmler to order the Ahnenerbe’s main headquarters in Berlin to be evacuated. The library was moved to Schloss Oberkirchberg near Ulm, while the staff relocated to the small village of Waischenfeld near Bayreuth, Bavaria. The chosen building was the 17th-century Steinhaus. While many staff members were unhappy about the difficult conditions, Sievers seemed to enjoy the isolation.
Financing
Financially, the Ahnenerbe was separate from the Nazi Party’s money and had to find support from other sources, such as membership fees and donations. After 1938, it received money from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. A foundation called Ahnenerbe-Stifterverband was created using funds from business leaders. One of the largest donations, about 50,000 ℛℳ, came from Emil Georg von Stauß and his associates, including BMW and Daimler-Benz. The foundation also received money from patents partly owned by the SS (see below). During the war, Ahnenerbe also received money from other SS departments and benefited from the Arisierung of Jewish property—its headquarters in Dahlem was bought at half its market value. In 1940, another property in Munich was added.
In 1936, the SS formed a partnership with Anton Loibl, a machinist and driving instructor. The SS learned about reflector pedals for bicycles that Loibl and others were developing. Himmler ensured Loibl received the patent and used his influence to pass a 1939 law requiring the use of the new pedals. Ahnenerbe received a share of the profits from this law, totaling 77,740 ℛℳ in 1938.
Medical experiments
The Institut für Wehrwissenschaftliche Zweckforschung ("Institute for Military Scientific Research"), which performed medical experiments on human subjects, became part of the Ahnenerbe during World War II. It was managed by Wolfram Sievers. Sievers had created the organization based on orders from Himmler, who named him director and placed two divisions under Sigmund Rascher and August Hirt. The organization was supported by the Waffen-SS.
Sigmund Rascher was assigned to help the Luftwaffe understand what conditions were safe for pilots, as airplanes were being designed to fly at higher altitudes. He requested and received permission from Himmler to use prisoners from camps in vacuum chambers to mimic the high altitude conditions pilots might experience.
Rascher was also assigned to study how long German airmen could survive if shot down over freezing water. His victims were forced to stay outdoors naked in freezing weather for up to 14 hours or placed in tanks filled with icy water for 3 hours. Their pulse and body temperature were measured using electrodes. Attempts to warm the victims included immersion in very hot water and other methods, such as placing the subject in a bed with women who would try to sexually stimulate him, a method suggested by Himmler.
Rascher tested the effects of Polygal, a substance made from beets and apple pectin, on blood clotting to help treat gunshot wounds. Subjects were given a Polygal tablet and then shot in the neck or chest or had limbs amputated without anesthesia. Rascher published an article about his use of Polygal without explaining the human trials and also created a company to produce the substance, using prisoners as workers.
Similar experiments occurred from July to September 1944, as the Ahnenerbe provided space and materials for doctors at Dachau concentration camp to conduct "seawater experiments," primarily through Sievers. Sievers is known to have visited Dachau on July 20 to meet with Ploetner and the non-Ahnenerbe Wilhelm Beiglboeck, who carried out the experiments.
Walter Greite became head of the Ahnenerbe's Applied Nature Studies division in January 1939 and began measuring 2,000 Jews at the Vienna emigration office. However, scientists could not use the data collected. On December 10, 1941, Bruno Beger met with Sievers and convinced him of the need for 120 Jewish skulls. During the later Nuremberg Trials, Friedrich Hielscher testified that Sievers had initially opposed expanding the Ahnenerbe to human experimentation and had "no desire whatsoever to participate in these."
Legacy
During the 20th century, few scholars studied the Ahnenerbe. Many researchers may have been discouraged from investigating the topic because former Ahnenerbe members held important academic roles in West Germany and did not want younger historians or archaeologists to examine their connections to the SS. The main scholar who studied the Ahnenerbe during this time was a Canadian historian named Michael Kater. He conducted his research in Germany. In 1966, the University of Heidelberg tried to publish Kater’s thesis about the Ahnenerbe. Walther Wüst, a former Ahnenerbe member, attempted to stop the publication legally but failed. Kater’s research was published in 1974 as Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935–1945.
After German unification in 1990, Achim Leube began studying the remaining historical records about the Ahnenerbe, much of which had been stored in West Germany. In November 1998, Leube organized an international academic conference in Berlin to discuss the Nazis’ relationship with prehistoric history.
Many of the ideas used or created by the Ahnenerbe continue to influence people today. Canadian author Heather Pringle has highlighted how Edmund Kiss’s unusual theories, such as the World Ice Theory and ideas about the origins of Tiwanaku, affected later writers like H.S. Bellamy, Denis Saurat, and Graham Hancock.
In popular culture
False information about the Ahnenerbe has spread, partly because of stories and movies that include the group, and because of unreliable conspiracy theories that sometimes mix up the Ahnenerbe with the Thule Society, which existed around the same time, or the Vril Society, which has no proven history. The Ahnenerbe inspired the way Nazis are shown searching for religious artifacts in the Indiana Jones movies.