Taking the legend at face value doesn't seem like a cold-minded thing to do, but it was exactly what led the Nazis to Montserrat in search of the Holy Grail, which they believed would give them power. The episode of 1940, which caused quite a bit of fun for the monks of the abbey, is regaining interest now, with the recent visit of the creator of Indiana Jones to the magical mountain.
When he boarded the San Juan funicular with his wife and the Obamas last week, Steven Spielberg learned that while Hitler was meeting with Franco in France, Heinrich Himmler was breaking into Montserrat ready to snatch the abbot from chalice of Christ The president of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, Toni Segarra, accompanied them on the journey and told them about this visit by a Nazi entourage. Spielberg, who had dealt with the theme of the Holy Grail in the spirit of adventure in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the third installment of the saga, listened to him carefully. The filmmaker knew nothing about it and was grateful for the explanation. Because in his film, Indiana's father, archaeologist and adventurer, who is a great grail scholar, has disappeared into the hands of the Nazis!
Making Hitler appear in an adventure film is sacrilegious, but Spielberg making Indiana meet the Nazi leader is the one of great adventure cinema, as critic Jordi Batlle points out. "It's pure TBO, almost a satire like the one Tarantino does in a more grotesque shot with Himmler in Damned bastards. They laugh about it. It will be in Schindler's List when the author is portrayed in the film."
It's no secret that Hitler had an obsession with relics of power and believed them necessary to win the war: the Holy Grail, the Spear of Destiny with which the Roman soldier Longinus allegedly killed Jesus on the cross, or Thor's hammer. Esteban Feune de Colombian remembers it, without going any further, in his recent Limbos Terrestrials (Anagrama). The Argentinian actor and poet settled in El Bruc evokes the phrase with which Himmler, despotic, contradicted Father Ripoll, who spoke to him in German and denied that, no matter how many hoods the monks wore, they did not guard such a thing as in the legend of Parsifal "Everyone in Germany knows that the Holy Grail is in Montserrat!", he demanded.
In view of the latest scientific studies, it is clear that the leader of the Gestapo and the SS would have gone less wrong if he had gone to the cathedral of Valencia. The famous chalice of blessing that, together with the rest of his reliquary, was left there by King Martí the Human in exchange for a loan to pay the troops in Naples and Sicily, revealed six years ago an inscription that, well looked at, it is a palindrome of languages, since in primitive Kufic Arabic it says the same thing as a mirror reads in primitive Hebrew: "Jesus God". An indication that suggests that it is the chalice that Christ raised with his blood at that dinner held in a wealthy house in Jerusalem. That of John Mark, Saint Mark, disciple of Saint Peter, who followed him to Rome with the precious vessel. And it is known that the first popes of Rome officiated with an "original" cup...
"We know this last from the liturgy, but during the last fifteen years the studies have multiplied and show that the piece brings together the characteristics of a chalice of blessing of the Jewish tradition, which is still passed down from parents to children". the canon of the cathedral of Valencia, José Verdeguer, explains to La Vanguardia. "The material, for example, is a variant of agate that is only found in Palestine (between Alexandria and Syria), since they always had to be pure, non-porous material. So the Indiana Jones wooden cup thing is impossible," he jokes. Other clues: the Hebrew University of Jerusalem certifies it as authentic from the 1st century and made from a single piece. And his ability corresponds with the religious ritual he obeyed.
Himmler did not have this information. But Valencia also did not respond to the myth and influence of Wagner. His Parsifal takes place in the vicinity of Montsalvat, a concept from medieval fables that the composer places in the Pyrenees. The similarity of the name, together with the visual impact of the imposing mountain, alien to the serious and grand character of the Nordic or Alpine mountain ranges, led to Montserrat.
But considering that Wagner never set foot in Spain, where did his Pyrenean idea come from? It was the German philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt who in 1800 was fascinated by the anchorites of Montserrat, a "magical place of reunion with oneself". He sends his reflections to Goethe, who turns Montserrat into a symbol of inner research, creates a romantic imagination and includes the anchorites in his second Faust ... From Goethe it goes to Schiller. Schumann incorporates it into his Faust, and Wagner takes the more theatrical part of it, he is even inspired by the drawings of Humboldt himself to recreate the imaginary place... this infernem land, the distant mountain.
"Wagner turns Montserrat into the place of custodian of the chalice that we see in Parsifal and Lohengrin. And Nazism takes it literally. I remember that when I told the story to the boys at Escolania, the monks laughed: 'what a donkey!'". This is what the music director of the Liceu, Josep Pons, says between rehearsals of Parsifal.
He was ten years old when he arrived in Montserrat, puzzled by the wisdom of the hundred monks, the intellectual life, the art or the contents of the Escolania's musical library. "I didn't even know what a facsimile was and they had Bach, Handel... it was their lyrics! The abbey subscribed to the complete works of Hindemith or Schönberg. I saw the score of his new Requiem arrive from Ligeti". And he ends: "Himler was taken to the museum and you can see that, when he passed a skeleton, which must have been taken by Bonaventura Ubach from his travels through places in the Bible, he said: 'Aryan'".
