Das Gott of the Ancient Teutons

Recently I had been lectured to by a supposed German on a website (which I will not name as this will give them the oxygen of publicity) which likes to publish some of my articles to then take the proverbial piss out of them. This particular lecture involved the use and choice of the definite article for the German word for god-Gott. I have on several occasions on this blog mentioned the Armanen practise of referring to the God of the Germans (who Hitler often referred to) as Das Gott[neuter gender] as opposed to Der Gott (masculine gender). This was done to differentiate the Aryan God of the Germans from the semitic god of the Jews, Muslims and Christians. Our Gods and Godesses should be perceived as rays or emanations of the all-pervading force, intellect, the first cause who the ancient Aryans considered to be beyond gender. The Indo-Aryans called this deity Brahma. The ancient Germans acknowledged Tiw/Tyr/Teiws/Zio as their supreme being, later to be eclipsed by Thunor and then Woden as the ancient Teutons by necessity needed to become more war-like in their struggle for existence.


Tiw may be traced back to the reconstructed primary deity of the undivided Aryans, *Dyeus. He is also the Dyaus Pitar of the Indo-Aryans, the Jupiter of the Latins and the Zeus of the Greeks. Amongst the Teutons and the Indo-Aryans He became a very abstract figure. In the Eddas He is relegated to being a son of Woden just as Thunor had been. He performs a useful function in the mythology but tends to be in the background, a sign of His eclipse by the more prominent Woden and Thunor.

Significantly Tyr is also used as a general term for `god` in the Eddas, an indication that at one time to talk about Tyr/Tiw was to talk about `God`. Even Woden who had many by-names was called Hangatyr-`god of the hanged`. It is interesting that Tiw was called Zio in Old High German and was worshiped by the Suebi in southern Germany. His consort was Zisa. Nigel Pennick in his The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Runes (which I highly recommend) states that the Rune Teiwaz is representative of the Pole Star and more over that this Rune is sacred to the Goddess Zisa.

Because of the close similarity of their names I conjecture that originally Zio and Zisa were in fact the same deity as some speculate that Njord and Nerthus were. This does not mean that Tiw was a hermaphrodite but that the original supreme God of the Germans was beyond and above gender, transcendental, untouched by human definition. It is possibly this is the God who should be referred to as the Das Gott of the Germans.

It is interesting that a debate has been initiated recently over the choice of definite article for  referring to Gott, no doubt sparked by political correctness and feminism. However this debate has acknowledged that in National Socialist Germany there were also attempts to refer to God as Das Gott but no doubt from a different motivation. See Friedrich Murawski: Das Gott. Umriß einer Weltanschauung aus germanischer Wurzel. Fritsch, Berlin 1940.

Zio/Zisa, Aspects of Das Gott

Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology volume 1 refers to a German Goddess called Zisa. He found references to this Goddess going back to the 11th century CE.  He also refers to a rhyme composed in about 1373 AD by a cleric, Kuechlin about the history of Augsburg which was dedicated to the Burgomeister, Peter Egen the Young. I reproduce the relevant excerpt as follows:-  

"Sie bawten einen tempel gross darein zu eren[in honour of] Zise der abgoettin, die sie nach heidnischen sitten[after heathen ways] anbetten zu denselben zeiten[adored in those days]. Die stat ward genennt[city got named] auch Zisaris nach der abgoettin[after the goddess], das was der pris. Der tempel als lang stund unversert[stood uninjured], bis im von alter abgieng[as from age it passed away], der berg namen von im empfieng[the hill took name], daruf gestanden was[whereon had stood] das werck, und haist noch huet[hight still to-day] der Zisenberck."

 Grimm says that the older spelling of Her name is Cisa and "that she was most devoutly worshipped by the Suevi" and Her great feast day which consisted of games and merrymaking was held on 28th September. Grimm speculates that Zisa/Cisa is the same divinity as Isis who is referred to in Tacitus` Germania 9.1:  

"Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered nothing, but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley, indicates an imported worship." (translated by Church and Brodribb) 

 
According to Nigel Pennick Cisa/Zisa had a shrine at Augsburg in Germany and her annual festival took place on the 28th of September. (The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Runes), the original name of this city being Zisenburg (A History of Pagan Europe, Pennick/Jones) or Zizarim (The Book of Primal Signs, Pennick). The Roman name of the city was Augusta Vindelicorum. The symbol of Zisa is the pinecone and many large stone pinecones survive from Roman times. Mr Pennick states that the Stadtpyr is the emblem of Augsburg and Her cone appears as a weather vane on the church of St. Peter-am-Perlach, which was built on the site of a holy hill dedicated to the Goddess.

Tyr was a generic name for 'God' and appears as a suffix in many Germanic names of deities or as bynames of Woden such as Hangatyr (God of the hanged), Hrafntyr (God of ravens), Valtyr (God of the slain). The reason that this became a generic term is because He was the original Sky Father before being supplanted by the later Woden as the Germanic peoples by necessity became more warlike due to pressures from the Slavs, Romans and the need for ever more Lebensraum. Tyr became just another war God along with Thunor and Woden, His original pre-eminence all but forgotten.

Tyr was the original Das Gott of the continental Germans,  Teut, the eponymous ancestor of the Teutons, the God of Teut Land >Teutschland > Deutschland. My readers will notice that I have used the German neutar as a definite article because originally God was neither male nor female. Tyr/Tiw/Zio and Cisa/Zisa were male and female emanations of the original sexless Das Gott, the shining God of the Aryans. He/She may be traced back to the Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz and in turn to the Proto-Indo-European *Deiwos, the shining celestial deity of the heavens, represented by the Rune Tyr/Tiw.