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Savitri Devi Mukherji ( September 30 , 1905 - October 22 , 1982 ) was a French woman, of mixed English , Italian and Greek ethnicity, who became enamoured with Hinduism and Nazism , trying to synthesise Hinduism with Nazi Philosophy and Racial Ideology and proclaiming Adolf Hitler an Avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu . Her writings have exerted a decisive influence over Neo-Nazism and Esoteric Hitlerism . Although Mystical in her conception of National Socialism , and often classified as an advocate of Nazi Mysticism , Savitri Devi saw Nazism as a practical Faith without the requirement of Metaphysics . BIOGRAPHY Born Maximiani Portas in Lyon , France , daughter of a Greek / Lombard Italian father and an English mother. At one time, her self-described nationality was " Indo-European ". ( {Link without Title} ) Early impressions Portas formed her political sympathies and antipathies early on. From childhood throughout her life she was a passionate advocate for Animal Rights , thus colouring her impression of The Practitioners of Kosher Slaughter . Her earliest political affiliations were for Greek Nationalism . Thus, during the First World War , she was outraged by the Triple Entente 's invasion of neutral Greece , especially after the Allied outrage over the German invasion of neutral Belgium . Education and activism She studied Philosophy and Logic , earning degrees in Chemistry and philosophy, and wrote her Doctoral Thesis on the Philosophy Of Science . In early 1928 , she renounced French Citizenship and acquired Greek Nationality . Joining a Pilgrimage to Palestine during Lent in 1929 , Portas realised she was, and had always been, a National Socialist . In 1932 she travelled to India in search of a living Pagan culture. Formally converting to Hinduism , she took the name Savitri Devi ("Sun-rays Goddess" in Sanskrit ). She volunteered at the Hindu Mission and wrote '' A Warning To The Hindus '' to offer support for Hindu Nationalism and Independence , and rally Resistance to the spread of Christianity and especially Islam in India. Pro-Axis activities In 1940 she married Asit Krishna Mukherji , a Bengal i Brahmin with National Socialist convictions who edited the pro-German newspaper '' New Mercury ''. This marriage was purely a way for her to avoid Deportation and was never Consummated . Together they gathered information from British servicemen and American soldiers to pass on to the Japanese . Arrest and imprisonment After The War she travelled to Europe in late 1945 (as the wife of an Indian -- she was Savitri Devi Mukherji now -- she got a British Passport ). First to England , making contacts, she visited her mother in France , travelled on to Iceland where she witnessed the Eruption of Mount Hekla , back to England, then to Sweden where she met with Sven Hedin . On ''). Arrested for posting bills, she was tried (in Düsseldorf on April 5 , 1949 ), for the promotion of Nazi ideas on German territory subject to the Allied Control Council , and sentenced to two years imprisonment. She served eight months in Werl Prison , where she befriended her fellow Nazi and SS prisoners, (recounted in '' Defiance '') before being released and expelled from Germany. She went to stay in Lyons , France . Pilgrimage In April of 1953 , she obtained a Greek Passport in her Maiden Name in order to re-enter Germany , and she began a Pilgrimage , as she called it, of Nazi holy sites. She flew from Athens to Rome then travelled by Rail over the Brenner Pass into " Greater Germany ", which she regarded as " {Link without Title} he spiritual home of all racially conscious modern Aryans ". She travelled to a number of sites significant in the life of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP (German Nazi Party ), as well as German nationalist and heathen monuments, as recounted in her 1958 book '' Pilgrimage ''. The Neo-Nazi International Savitri Devi became friends with Hans-Ulrich Rudel , and completed her manuscript of '' The Lightning And The Sun '' at his home in March of 1956. Through his introductions she was able to meet a number of Nazi émigrés in Spain and the Middle East . In 1957 she stayed with Johannes Von Leers in Egypt . In 1961 she stayed with Otto Skorzeny in Madrid . Savitri Devi took employment teaching in France during the 1960s, spending her summer holidays with friends at Berchtesgaden . In the spring of 1961, while on her Easter holiday in London she learned of the British National Party . This group emerged after the Second World War when a handful of former members of the British Union of Fascists took on the name. (The original BNP was absorbed quite quickly into the Union Movement -- it is not connected with the present BNP.) She met with the British National Party president Andrew Fountaine . Beginning a correspondence with Colin Jordan , she became an devoted supporter of the National Socialist Movement . In August 1962, Savitri Devi attended the international Nazi conference in '' (1966-68). Along with articles by Jordan and Rockwell, Pierce devoted nearly eighty pages of the first issue to a condensed edition of ''The Lightning and the Sun''. Because of the enthusiastic response, Pierce included chapters from ''Gold in the Furnace'' and ''Defiance'' in subsequent issues. After retiring from teaching in 1970, Savitri Devi spent nine months at the Normandy home of close friend Françoise Dior while working on her memoirs. Concluding that her Pension would go much further in India, she flew from Paris to Bombay on 23 June 1971. In August she joined her husband in New Delhi . Savitri Devi continued correspondence with Nazi enthusiasts in Europe and the Americas including Jordan, John Tyndall , Matt Koehl , Miguel Serrano , and Ernst Zündel . She was the first to claim to Zündel that the Nazi Genocide Of The Jews Was Untrue ; he proposed a series of taped interviews (conducted in November of 1978) and published a new illustrated edition of ''The Lightning and the Sun'' in 1979. A number of Neo-Nazi pilgrims traveled to meet her, among them Christian Bouchet . Death She died in 1982 in Sible Hedingham , Essex , England at her friend Muriel Gantry 's house; the cause of death was recorded as Myocardial Infarction and Coronary Thrombosis . She was en route to lecture in America at the invitation of Matt Koehl at the time. Her ashes were sent to the American Nazi Party shrine in Arlington where they were placed next to those of Lincoln Rockwell. LEGACY Savitri Devi was influenced by writers and thinkers like René Guénon , Julius Evola , and Oswald Spengler ; she in turn has come to be seen as "the fore-mother of ' Esoteric Hitlerism '", which was founded by the Chilean writer and diplomat Miguel Serrano {Link without Title} . She is credited with pioneering Neo-Nazi links to Occultism , and the Green , Deep Ecology , and New Age movements. In 1982, Francisco Freda published a German translation of ''Gold in the Furnace''; the fourth volume of his annual review, '' Risguardo '' (1980-), was devoted to Savitri Devi as the "missionary of Aryan Paganism". Her works, in conjunction with those of Evola, have been major influences on the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party and activist Bill White . Moreover, they have influenced Traditionalist thought (''philosophia perennis''). Far-rightist Italian , and self-described " Nazi Maoist ", Claudio Mutti was influenced by reading ''Pilgrimage'' as an idealistic teenager. As a young bodyguard for Colin Jordan, David Myatt enthusiastically embraced the values expressed in ''The Lightning and the Sun''. In the U.S. , James Mason (whose Universal Order bears strong resemblance to the sentiments of Savitri Devi) paid tribute to her in '' Siege ''. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme of the Charles Manson gang has recommended ''The Lightning and the Sun''. Revilo P. Oliver has seen the potentiality of a future religion venerating Adolf Hitler "in the works of a highly intelligent and learned lady of Greek ancestry, Dr. Savitri Devi." WORKS
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