Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper (b 1863) is a long-standing member of the German occult organization known as the Blood Lodge of Guido von Liszt. This sinister body blends Aryan mysticism with Germanic nationalism, in a revival of Nord-Europäisches paganism, with particular reference to the powerful Graal legend of the minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach. (We keep a close eye on this Lodge, some of whose members are highly unsavoury characters lately rising to prominence in the chaos of modern German politics. Fortunately, a few weeks ago their ringleaders were arrested, after an incompetent attempted putsch in a Munich bierkeller – so it seems we now have little more to fear from them. But that is all by the by.)
In late 1914 Hipper was tasked by the High Command with the bombardment of Britain’s east coast, and given the command of a squadron led by the armoured cruiser SMS Blücher. The mission was remarkably successful, carrying out immensely destructive shelling attacks on the vital ports of Hartlepool, Scarborough and Great Yarmouth. This success is thought to have been due not so much to his military genius as to the aid the Lodge had given him – an artefact known as the Stone of Parsifal, believed to have belonged to the knight (better known to us as Sir Percivale) who found the Graal. This Stone is believed to have functioned for Hipper as some sort of supernatural targeting device.
British agents became aware of the presence of the Stone accompanying Hipper’s squadron, and a Royal Navy battlecruiser squadron was sent out under Vice-Admiral Beatty. The two forces met on 24th January 1915 in what became known as the Battle of Dogger Bank, and by concentrating fire on the Blücher, Beatty was able to prevail, depriving the Huns of one of their most valuable weapons. Hipper himself escaped, together with a good third of the Blücher’s 800-man crew; but the Stone was destroyed when the cruiser’s main magazine exploded.
Or so we believed, until now…