Julius Evola: The Philosopher and Magician in War: 1943-1945

Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, known to the English-speaking world as Julius Evola (1898–1974), was an Italian philosopher, magician, painter, occultist, Orientalist, linguist, and champion mountain climber. Often considered a pillar of Neo-Fascist thought, Evola opposed Fascism and called himself a “radical traditionalist.”

In this exploration of Evola’s inner and outer life from World War II into the early 1950s, Gianfranco de Turris, who knew Evola when he was alive and is the executor of his estate, offers a new portrait of Julius Evola and debunks many of the pseudo-myths about his activities during the war. Drawing on personal conversations with those who knew him and new documentation never before made public, including letters from the Hakl and Scaligero archives, the author traces Evola’s activities–including his time on the run and living under assumed names–in Italy, Germany, and Austria from 1943 into the mid-1950s. He shares a thorough account of the Baron’s sojourn at Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg, his work for the German secret military services, and his passionate rejection of the racial theories that were the core of Nazi ideology. The author outlines Evola’s critiques of Fascism and Nazism and also explores Evola’s disapproval of the Italian Social Republic because it was destroying traditional values in favor of modernity.