Dr. Hans Gruberman of Gotham University is the head of a group dedicated to the study of the lost secrets of Atlantis and the use of these secrets to blaze the way to a new, better future. There are faculty members from all the colleges in the city, librarians from the Kane Library and independent readers and thinkers from across the city who flock to the society's lectures and meetings.

What most do not realize is that Gruberman comes from the same occultist stock that formed the spiritual background to the Nazi movement in Germany. The Philosophical Ascent to Atlantis (or PATA) is thoroughly thrilled with the birth of the new Nazi state in Germany and many are already dirty, rotten, Nazi scum. The society has been recently reaching out to German immigrants, especially among the skilled workers tossed out of work by the Depression and has been attempting to organize them for its own aims (and the aims of the Fatherland).

It is rumored that some of the group have indeed mastered Atlantean secrets and are becoming masters of the mystic arts, which bodes no good for the city.

The connection between the PATA and Baron Stahl and his cell of Nazi spies was recently discovered by Team C of the Project

On October 1 of 1934 the PATA organization was destroyed in Gotham by Team C, who killed Baron Stahl, kidnapped Dr. Gruberman and killed over 2 dozen Nazi and PATA agents.