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THE TOTENKOPF RING: A PRE-HISTORY

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“The award of the ring is the visible sign of our community’s inner code and loyalty to the Fuhrer and his ideology, proven in years of struggle and duty. “
Heinrich Himmler, Totenkopf ring award regulations, 10.4.1933.

Ring-Giver is an Anglo-Saxon metaphor often used to describe a King. both in fiction and throughout history. For example, in the epic-poem Beowulf King Hrothgar is referred to several times as a giver of rings. The root of the word used for ring in these epic poems referred not to a finger ring, but to rings of gold that were placed around the wrist, arm or neck. Still, the idea of kings as givers of finger rings has become a well-established bit of folklore, used by famous authors and composers including Tolkien and Wagner. Throughout history, royalty m both life and epic were givers-of-rings.
Himmler’s personal association with royalty came early on. He was christened Heinrich in honour of his father’s position as a tutor to Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, poetically marking the young Himmler with the trappings of royalty even though, independently, he had none of his own. We know that later in life, Himmler revered King Heinrich I, duke of Saxony from 912 AD and King of the German Empire from 919 until his death in 936. The king enthralled Himmler, who drew parallels between King Heinrich’s role as unifier of the German tribes and founder of the medieval German Empire, and himself … the standard-bearer of a unified Aryan people. It was even rumoured that he imagined himself to be the spiritual reincarnation of this first king of the Germanic people.

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The Ring of the Nibelung by the German composer Richard Wagner

We know that Himmler read Arthurian legend, and was a huge fan of Wagner, in light of this history, and alongside Himmler’s romantic visions of kingdoms, royalty, and its knighthood, it is no surprise that Himmler decorated his profes¬sional and private lives with the trappings of medieval court… a castle for himself at Wewelsburg complete with a round table for his knights, swords and daggers, and of course, rings. Himmler was self-appointed king and his officers were his vassals. This environment must have offered Himmler a frequent mental vacation from his vassal-like service to his master, the Fuhrer.

King Arthur

King Arthur

For Himmler, the Totenkopf ring symbolized possession of those who wore it, similar in many ways to a wedding ring. In fact, Himmler specifically instructed the ring to be worn on the ring finger of the bearer’s left hand. The traditional wedding ring, after all, was worn on the ring finger of the right hand in Germany, and this can be seen as a deliberate statement of equivalence; the bearer was married to the SS and tied to its king, forever bound to the duties and entitled to the privileges that this union entailed. It should come as no surprise then that the first of two kingly gifts Himmler bestowed upon his knights was a ring, given in December 1933 (only later in 1937 did Himmler bestow upon them another traditional element of royal favor, the sword).
From Wewelsburg, his castle in Westphalia, Himmler hoped to see his army of well-decorated knights lead the march into a thousand-year future that Hitler had laid out, and he would help build. As we will see throughout this book, the Totenkopf Ring was an important symbol of his plan, which lasted about ten years.