Nazism and religion
Encyclopedia : N : NA : NAZ : Nazism and religion
The relationship between German Nazism and religion is a controversial area of study, with much debate centered on two key issues: the role of Protestant and Catholic clergy and hierarchies in defending, criticicizing, or ignoring the Nazi regime and its inceasingly repressive actions towards Jews, religious and political minorities, and others; and the role of paganism, the occult, and mysticism in formulating the views of Hitler and the Nazi Party. This entry looks at the German Nazi movement between WWI and WWII. See also, Clerical fascism. For Post-WWII matters, see Neofascism and religion.
Nazism and Christianity
Hitler and other Nazi leaders clearly made use of both Christian and Pagan symbolism and emotion in propagandizing the Germanic public, and it remains a matter of controversy whether Hitler believed himself a Christian, a heathen, or something else entirely. Some historians have typified Hitler as a Satanist or occultist, whereas other writers have referred to Nazism's occasional outward use of Christian doctrine, regardless of what its inner-party mythology may have been. The existence of a Ministry of Church Affairs, instituted in 1935 and headed by Hanns Kerrl, was hardly recognized by ideologists such as Alfred Rosenberg or by other political decision-makers.
Many Christians believed Nazism to be a Christian movement.Richard Steigmann–Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p. 5 Even in the later years of the Third Reich, many Protestant and Catholic clergy persisted in believing that Nazism was in its essence in accordance with Christian precepts.
Protestantism
The level of ties between Nazism and the Protestant churches has been a contentious issue for decades. One difficulty is that Protestantism includes a vast number of religious bodies many of whom had little relation to each other. Added to that, Protestantism tends to allow more variation among individual congregations than Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which makes statements about "official positions" of denominations problematic. Still, many Protestant organizations or denominations were solidly opposed to Nazism and many Protestants died fighting it. The forms or offshoots of Protestantism that advocated pacificism, anti-nationalism, or racial equality tended to oppose in the strongest terms. Prominent Protestant, or Protestant offshoot, groups known for their efforts against Nazism include the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Confessing Church. Many of their members died in the camps or struggled fiercely against the Nazis.
Yet Lutherans voted for Hitler more than Catholics. Different German states possessed regional social variations as to class densities and religious denomination (see Jackson J. Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany ISBN 0131898779; books like Richard Steigmann-Gall The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 ISBN 0521823714 allege a linkage between several Protestant churches and Nazism, the main aspect Hitler's citing anti-Semitic pamphlets by Martin Luther and accusations that the Lutheran establisment supported Hitler). The small Methodist population at times was deemed foreign, this stemmed from the fact that Methodism began in the England while in Germany it largely began in the nineteenth century with Christoph Gottlob Müller and Louis Jacoby.[link][link][link] Because of this history they felt the urge to be "more German than the Germans" to avoid suspicion. Methodist Bishop John L. Nuelsen toured the U.S. on Hitler's behalf to protect his church, but in private letters indicated he feared or hated Nazism and so retired to Switzerland. Methodist Bishop F. H. Otto Melle took a far more collaborationist position that included apparently sincere support for Nazism. He felt that serving the Reich was both a patriotic duty and a means of advancement. To show his gratitude, Hitler made a gift of 10,000 marks in 1939 to a Methodist congregation to purchase an organ.[link] Outside of Germany, Melle's views were overwhelmingly rejected by most Methodists. The leader of pro-Nazi segment of Baptists was Paul Schmidt. Hitler also led to the unification of Pro-Nazi Protestants in the Protestant Reich Church which was led by Ludwig Müller. The idea of such a "national church" was possible in the history of mainstream German Protestantism, but National Churches devoted primarily to the state were generally forbidden among the Anabaptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and in Catholicism.
Catholicism
The nature of the Nazi Party's relations with the Catholic Church is also complicated. Before Hitler rose to power, many Catholic priests and leaders vociferously opposed Nazism on the grounds of its incompatibility with Christian morals. Nazi Party membership was forbidden until the takeover and a policy reversal. At his trial Franz von Papen said that until 1936 the Catholic Church hoped for a Christian alignment to the beneficial aspects he said they saw in national socialism. (This statement came after Pope Pius XII ended Von Papen's appointment as Papal chamberlain and ambassador to the Holy See, but before his restoration under Pope John XXIII.) In 1937 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge condemning Nazi ideology. The Catholic opposition to the euthanasia programs led them to be quietly ended in August 28, 1941, (according to Spielvogel pp. 257-258,) but the German Catholics never protested Nazi anti-Semitism in any comparable way. In Nazi Germany, all known political dissenters were imprisoned, and many priests were sent to the concentration camps for their opposition, including the parson of the Berlin Cathedral Bernhard Lichtenberg. Among the punished priests were Poles persecuted primarily for their nationality. However, Hitler was never excommunicated by the Catholic Church and several Catholic bishops in Germany or Austria are recorded as encouraging prayers of support for "The Führer;" this despite the fact the original Reichsconcordate of Germany with the Holy See proscribed any active political participation by the priesthood.
Criticism also arises in that the Vatican pontificate headed by Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII remained circumspect about the national-scale race hatred before 1937. A statement by Pius XI on 8 Sept 1938 spoke of the "inadmissability" of anti-semitism, but Pius XII is criticised by people like John Cornwell for being unspecific. Pius XI may have underestimated the degree that Hitler's ideas influenced the laity in light of hopes the Concordant would preserve Catholic influences amongst them. The evolution of the Vatican's understanding has faced criticism of weakness, slowness, or even culpability. On culpability this is perhaps clearest with regards to the German hierarchy as after the Concordant there was a radical reversal of the episcopal condemnation, according to Daniel Goldhagen and others. It is less certain in other cases. From the other extreme the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands officially condemned Nazism and so faced violence and deportation of its priests, along with attacks upon monasteries and Catholic hospitals. Likewise, the Polish Roman Catholic hierarchy was violently attacked by the Nazis and saw many of its clerics sent to concentration camps, a famous example of this being Father Maksymilian Kolbe. Most nations hierarchy took a mixture of the two positions, oscillating between collaboration and active resistance.
Tangential to the more extreme of collaborationist accusations is the characterisation that Nazism actively based itself on a similar pontifical structure and corps of functionaries. For example the special clothing, ghettoization, and badges demanded of Jews were once common or even began in the Papal States. Also that the Nazis saw themselves as an effective replacement of Catholicism that would co-opt its unity and respect for hierarchy. Hence attempts were made to unite other religions, as in the earlier example of the Protestant Reich Church. There was even some Catholics that were persercuted in Nazi Germany.
Nazi mysticism
Nazi mysticism is a term used to describe a philosophical undercurrent of Nazism which denotes the combination of Nazism with theosophy, antroposophy, occultism, esotericism, cryptohistory, and/or the paranormal. The esoteric Thule Society and Germanenorden were secret societies which while only a small part of the Völkisch movement, led into the Nazi party.[1]
Dietrich Eckart, a member of Thule, actually coached Hitler on his public speaking skills, and while Hitler has not been shown to have been a member of Thule, he received support from the group. Hitler later on dedicated Mein Kampf to Eckart.
Heinrich Himmler showed a strong interest in such matters, although as Steigmann–Gall points out, Hitler and many of his key associates sometimes still attended Christian services of the nazified Reich Church. Himmler wanted to replace Christianity with a mixture of popular symbolism, Germanic paganism, Buddhism and Hinduism.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
Nazi mysticism, however, plays a major role in some forms of contemporary Nazism, with a mythology including such ideas as interdimensional vril-powered UFO's, hyperborean supermen, and a nazi moon base, along with the more widely known myth of Hitler having escaped to the Antarctic.
See the main discussion at Nazi mysticism, and the related Neofascism and religion.
Notes
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.