In his book, On Aggression, Konrad Lorenz spoke briefly of the Ute Indians, citing S. Margolin’s “A Consideration of Constitutional Factors in Aggressivity of an Indian Tribe.” Lorenz writes, “It is objectively convincing, indeed it is proof of the correctness of Margolin’s interpretation of the behavior of Ute Indians, that these people are particularly susceptible to accidents.” That Utes were plains warriors for centuries and have been found in studies to be accident prone, psychosomatically susceptible to illness and great businessmen has been utilized to argue that a trait — aggressiveness — can be acquired through natural selection and genetically passed down. However convincing the example of the Utes might be, it is of particular relevance among eugenicists, such as would have embraced the teachings and work of the Nazi Vril Society. As Goebbels strove through his “well-camouflaged German propaganda network” to increase “racial awareness” among German-Americans, the term “Ute” would have been synonymous with “great warrior” — whose aptitudes, moreover, could be inherited by his offspring. My father’s father, as I pointed out in DW #9, was probably someone the Nazis deemed a great warrior.
Of people we knew well enough to visit on weekends or receive as visitors in our home when I was a child, only Hermon von Ute was not either a relative or a member of my dad’s profession. Yet Herman was virtually my godfather, although I cannot guess how he and my father first met. To say that his name may have meant Her-Man-Son-of-the-Great-Warrior will seem far-fetched only to those unfamiliar with the cryptic linguistics of conspiracy politics. Herman was, further, a steady family man — the very model of all conservative virtues. His wife, Helen von Ute, which may have meant the Hell in the Son of the Ute, was an alcoholic — jus tlike dad — and behaved as if she was probably sexually promiscuous, as was my father. In other words, I think Helen and Herman were an instance of the “well-camouflaged German propaganda network” in action.
Just like Brother-in-law, the man with whom I was decades later to plot the JFK assassination, Herman was a bald-headed pipe-smoking German. In the older cant language of which I am dimly aware, a bald head signifies political potency. Herman was a model for my father to emulate, Helen an example for him to avoid — as I interpret in retrospect. When I was an infant, Herman was a railroad worker. Soon afterwards he went to work for Sears or May Co. Somewhere along in there he bought me a Lionel train with an oval track, a Shell tank car and a Baby Ruth freight car.
Helen was supposed to be Mexican. Actually I think she was a Honduranian Castillian Spaniard. I also think Herman was a monarchist. Both conclusions result from rumors I acquired later on.
The von Utes lived in Temple City. According to Britanica (21-825) “an ‘Order of the Temple’ that existed in England and Germany in the 18th century specifically claimed derivation from the knights” Templar. I mentioned in DW#10 that Switzer, my mother’s maiden name, is also a word signifying the Swiss guard of European kings. The symbol of the Knights Templar was a red cross, as also adorns the Swiss flag and, indeed, they are historically linked to that nation as well as to the Holy Land. Not only the Crusades, but also sensational charges of Satanism are associated with the Templars — which would have made societies derived from them particularly appealing to the Nazis. –Kerry Wendell Thornley
