Alexander Rud Mills

Alexander Rud Mills (1885 – 8 April 1964) was a prominent Australian Odinist, and one of the earliest proponents of the rebirth of Germanic Neopaganism in the 20th century. He was a published author, lecturer and barrister. He founded the First Anglecyn Church of Odin in Melbourne in 1936. He was also known by the pen-name Tasman Forth.

Mills was born in Forth, Tasmania in 1885. Around 1910 he moved to Victoria to enrol at the Melbourne University Law School at the University of Melbourne. Mills was admitted to the Victorian Bar in 1917. He married Evelyn Louisa Price at Holy Trinity, Church of England, Surrey Hills, Victoria 2 June 1951. She was the daughter of Frederick Andrew Price and Helena Louisa Rogers. Rud was 65, Evelyn was 62. They had a long friendship and romance continuing for over 30 years prior to their marriage. Witnesses at the wedding were Henry Jamieson and Edward Clare. Rud Mills died on 8 April 1964, buried at Ferntree Gully Cemetery, Victoria. His wife, Evelyn died on 9 July 1973 and is buried with her husband.

Mills became politically and religiously active during a trip to Europe between 1931 and 1934. While in Russia during this time he became disillusioned with communism, which he had come to view as a form of organized thuggery. In England he attended meetings of Sir Oswald Mosley's 'British Union of Fascists', and Arnold Leese's smaller and more radical 'Imperial Fascist League, receiving Leese's newspaper, The Fascist. When Mills appeared before a Commission of Inquiry, some years later, he conceded that he believed Leese to be “at times misguided in his statements." He pointed out that he also received "Soviet Today" and the "Jewish Chronicle".

Historian of esotericism Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke characterised Mills as a "Nazi sympathiser". In 1933, Mills travelled to Germany and met Adolf Hitler. According to the Odinic Rite website, of meeting Hitler Mills later wrote: "I saw him. Talked to him. He would not discuss my theme." In Germany Mills also met followers of General Erich Ludendorff, the famous strategist and hero of the First World War who was also interested in a Nordic religious revival. Mills disagreed with Ludendorff on philosophical grounds.

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