Indiana Jones and the History Lessons that Could Have Been
Happy Indiana Jones season to all who celebrate! The last installment of the franchise doesn’t seem to be doing great in theaters, but that’s okay, because the movies aren’t even my favorite thing about Indiana Jones. Stick with me.
What do you know about Cathar castles? To French children summering in the back of their parents’ cars, they’re this boring network of ruins perched atop rocky spurs in the Eastern Pyrenées. The roads to them are long and winding, and car sickness is real, but I’m still going to have to write a report about them later, aren’t I?
Here’s what the kids are told: these are the remnants of fortresses built by medieval lords, members of a Christian sect that thrived in the region between the 12th and the 14th centuries.
“Cathar” has the same root as “catharsis” — Greek for pure. But this designation came later. Rather, in all their humility, they called themselves the “Perfects.” They lived in asceticism to emulate Jesus and his apostles: poverty, fasting, hard work, and a black-and-white worldview. They believed God made the intangible world — the afterlife — in all its beauty. The Devil reigned on Earth. It surprised me that they were relative egalitarians, women played prominent roles. Importantly, though, they resented the Catholic Church for its hierarchies, its control over the faithful, and its meddling between people and God. The Perfects were mystics.
Historians disagree on who split first. Did the Cathars leave the Church or had Rome had enough of the criticism? What we know is that the Perfects were tagged as heretics and targeted by crusades. The sect would not endure.
Here’s the bit no one ever tells the kids: let's head to 1930s Germany. As Adolf Hitler and his mates gather strength, an openly gay Medievalist named Otto Rahn from Michelstadt (a small town straight out of a fairytale) is obsessing about myths of the Holy Grail. He takes an Arthurian legend (Parzival, sequel to Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval) a little too literally and convinces himself that Jesus’ wine cup is buried in one of the Cathar castles, Montségur. In 1931, off he goes. He digs, but no dice. He publishes a book about it anyway.
That draws attention. It’s now 1933 and the Nazis, who have just risen to power, dabble in esoterism. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, is passionate about Ariosophy, which “studies” the mythological, “divine origins” of the “Aryan race.” It’s perfect for justifying racist ideas. He and others recycle pre-Christian symbols for the Nazi party and rituals for the SS troops. The hate-crazed occultists believe their imagined Aryan forefathers share traits with the Cathars: in all their black-and-white wisdom, they strove for a simple life of hard work until the corrupt Church of Rome quashed them all.
Himmler contacts Rahn and offers to fund his quest. Imagine if the Nazis got their hands on the Holy Grail! It would be proof of their superiority, and it might guarantee eternal rule. Rahn, who leans liberal, is conflicted. He dislikes the Nazis and their odious program, which would lead to the Nuremberg laws two years later. But the man isn’t known for his courage, so he chooses his career. And off he goes again.
By 1937, there’s still no Holy Grail. One day, Rahn drinks far too much and gets caught having sex with another guy. He could be jailed, but instead, he’s roped into the SS and posted as a guard at Dachau, the concentration camp that opened four years prior. He’s appalled by what he witnesses there. He tries to quit the SS in 1939, but the Gestapo hunts him down.
On March 13th, 1939, Rahn’s body was found in the Tyrolean Alps. He’d frozen to death, 695 years nearly to the day after the fall of Montségur. The authorities ruled it a suicide.
Rahn was the gullible gay man who half-heartedly collaborated with the Nazis and, to the dismay of fans, inspired the character of Indiana Jones. And who are Indy's arch-nemeses? In classic ahistorical Hollywood fashion, they're Rahn’s Nazi sponsors. But for all Indy’s fictional travels (Germany, China, Perú, Egypt, Hatay in present-day Turkey), he never once sets foot in Cathar country. Which is annoying, because that would have made the ruins loads more interesting and my childhood reports a hell of a lot more fun.