Johann Dietrich Eckart

Johann Dietrich Eckart is a fictional character inspired by a historical person in the novel Blood Ties.

He was born as Johann Dietrich Eckart in 1868 in Neumarkt, Upper Palatinate in the Kingdom of Bavaria, the son of royal notary and lawyer Christian Eckart and his wife Anna, a devout Catholic. His mother died when he was ten years old. Young Dietrich was expelled from several schools; in 1895, his father died also, leaving him a considerable amount of money that Eckart soon spent.

Dietrich Eckart initially studied law at Erlangen, later medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and was an eager member of the fencing and drinking Korps. But he finally decided in 1891 to work as a poet, playwright, and journalist. Diagnosed with morphine addiction and nearly stranded, he moved to Berlin in 1899. There he wrote a number of plays, often autobiographical, and became the protégé of Count Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler (1858–1922), the artistic director of the Prussian Royal Theatre. Eckart was a successful playwright, especially with his 1912 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, one of the best attended productions of the age with more than 600 performances in Berlin alone. This success not only made Eckart wealthy, it gave him the social contacts needed to introduce Hitler to dozens of important German citizens. These introductions proved to be pivotal in Hitler's ultimate rise to power.”

Later, Eckart developed an ideology of a "genius superman", based on writings by the Völkisch author Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels; he saw himself following the tradition of Heinrich Heine, Arthur Schopenhauer who both happen to be vampires and Angelus Silesius. He also became fascinated by the Buddhist doctrine of Maya (illusion).

After World War I, Eckart edited the antisemitic periodical Auf gut Deutsch ("In good German"), working with Alfred Rosenberg and Gottfried Feder. A fierce critic of the German Revolution and the Weimar Republic, he aggressively opposed the Treaty of Versailles, which he viewed as treason, and was a proponent of the so-called stab-in-the-back legend, according to which the Social Democrats and Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in the war.

In January 1919, Eckart, Feder, Anton Drexler and Karl Harrer founded the German Workers' Party, which to increase its appeal to larger segments of the population; in February 1920 he changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (DAP); more commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was the original publisher of the party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, and also wrote the lyrics of Deutschland erwache ("Germany awake"), which became an anthem of the Nazi Party.

Dietrich met Adolf Hitler when Hitler gave a speech before the DAP members in 1919. Dietrich was involved with the Thule Society, although not a member. The Society was a secretive group of occultists who believed in the coming of a “German Messiah” who would redeem Germany after its defeat in World War I.

Dietrich expressed his anticipation in a poem he wrote months before he first met Hitler. In the poem, Eckart refers to ‘the Great One’, ‘the Nameless One’, ‘Whom all can sense but no one saw’. When Eckart met Hitler, Eckart was convinced that he had encountered the prophesied redeemer. Dietrich started lending Hitler books and helping him to improve his German – written and spoken.

Thule Society members such as Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Hans Frank became Nazi leaders and had key roles in the Third Reich. It was Dietrich who introduced Alfred Rosenberg to Adolf Hitler. Between 1920 and 1923, Eckart and Rosenberg labored tirelessly in the service of Hitler and the party. Through Rosenberg, Hitler was introduced to the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, it is not known who turned Hitler and Eckart into vampires. Hitler was killed by an unknown assailant while Eckart continued to live on.

In 2014 Eckart went under the alias Terry Waldenville and resided in Pennsylvania and used the Order of the Nine Angles as a way to recruit neo- Nazis. His purpose was to create a vampire army to purge America.

Eckart was killed by Tony Perillo, Rudolph Hess and Cagliostro before Perillo knew that Eckart had already murdered his girlfriend.