Did the great granddaddy of BS-ing foretell the rise of history's greatest
evil? There's more to Nostradamus' Nazi predictions than meets the eye!
Michel de Notredame, commonly known as Nostradamus, could be called the
patron saint of the scammers and grifters permeating today's pop culture. For centuries,
Nostradamus has been a household name known for his eerie predictions about significant historical
events. Many credit the 16th-century astrologer with foretelling such world-changing moments as
the Apollo moon landing, 9/11, and, as some think, even the rise of Hitler, writes Live Science.
However, Nostradamus was not a prophet with superhuman abilities — obviously. Instead,
he had a deep understanding of how human events repeat throughout history and that the dramas
of the past will reoccur in the future. He was a master at constructing deceptive
phrases that were purposefully cryptic and could be easily misinterpreted over and over
again as years go by and new crops of curious people read his works. Early in his career,
he worked as a doctor without any record of having completed his medical degree after
he'd been kicked out of medical school, writes Britannica. The schemes only continued from there.
At the time he was alive, spiritualism and an interest in the occult was all the rage in Europe.
Astrology was on the rise, and Nostradamus used the hunger for celestial predictions to
his advantage, according to Britannica. He gave astrological readings by mail,
intentionally making his handwriting messy and difficult to read. Just imagine your doctor's
handwriting — but 100 times worse. The Washington Post explains that Nostradamus often wrote in the
language with which the recipient was the weakest to shroud his message further. Later, he would
draw upon these elusive tactics as he wrote the predictions people still talk about today.
The strength of Nostradamus' prophecies comes from their vagueness and his use of
generalizations. Additionally, he carefully selected common
events that recur throughout history: natural disasters, epidemics, and political despots.
These repeated events make them easily applicable to the specificities of any
era. This technique has historical precedent and was common enough to get its own name:
bibliomancy, says History. Like Nostradamus, the bibliomancer lifts specific historical
moments from old texts and then uses astrology to predict when the event will happen again.
Nostradamus compiled his predictions into a book called "Centuries," organized into sections
containing 100 quatrains each. His writing uses intentionally obscure language giving
rise to multiple interpretations. For example, he often used "New City" to reference a location.
Conveniently "New City" can be applied to any burgeoning metropolis. "Nef," another favorite
word, could refer to a cathedral or a ship, providing two different predictions for each use.
Further obscuring his prose, Nostradamus' quatrains have been mistranslated and
misinterpreted. Prediction-seekers find their answers by cherry-picking whichever
poor translation best fits their needs and then will ignore the rest. The linguist
and translator Peter Lemesurier, in Live Science, accuses those interpreters of,
quote, "shamelessly twisting half-understood words retrospectively to fit the proposed event,
or in some cases even twisting the event itself to fit the words." Such is the
case with those who say Nostradamus predicted Hitler's rise to power.
"Nostradaums' prophecy seems to converge with an actual historical figure … "
"A man who very nearly conquered the world."
So did he really predict the Nazis' rise to power? At first glance, some of his quatrains really do
seem to allude to Nazi Germany. Two seemingly relevant quotes read, "The greater part of the
battlefield will be against Hister," and "When the child of Germany observes nothing." Yet the
Nazis understood how to wield Nostradamus' words to their advantage. According to History, Joseph
Goebbels used Nostradamus' passages as propaganda, suggesting that Nazi success was written
in the stars. On the other hand, the Allies quickly caught on and conveniently found quatrains
that purportedly foretold an Ally victory. This exchange of countering predictions is an
excellent example of how readers can manipulate Nostradamus' words to their desired outcome.
However, these quatrains are no different than Nostradamus' other predictions,
relying upon vagueness and multiple meanings. Live Science notes that Hister is an alternative
spelling of ​​"Ister," which references the Danube river, not Adolf Hitler. The passages
also predict details that aren't true. For example, how this new and dangerous
leader would be "born of poor people," even though Hitler's family was middle class.
Look closely, and the predictions fall apart. True, some of Nostradamus'
lasting power is due to the pure fun of "de-coding" words from the past. Yet,
it is helpful to remember that humans have a powerful ability to see what
we want to see and filter out the rest. Nostradamus understood this all too well.