From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Hitler's Religion (was re: Instant Yuppies)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 23:35:39 GMT
Organization: PANIX - Public Access Unix Systems of NY

zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

[A quote from a Nazi religious bureaucrat:]

>>  Dr. Zoellner  and Count  Galen [the  Catholic bishop in
>>  Muenster]  have   tried  to   make  clear  to  me  that
>>  Christianity consists  in faith in Christ as the Son of
>>  God.   That makes  me laugh...  No, Christianity is not
>>  dependent   upon   the   Apostle's   Creed...      True
>>  Christianity is  represented  by  the  party,  and  the
>>  German  people   are  now   called  by  the  party  and
>>  especially by  the Fuehrer  to a  real  Christianity...
>>  The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation.

>You read it right here: "True Christianity is represented by the party, 
>and the German people are now called by the party and especially by the 
>Fuehrer to a real Christianity."  Sounds like Adolf was a true 
>Christian, after all.  Do I smell a whiff of a contradiction with 
>Bormann's claim?

No.  B. said that Christianity and National Socialism were 
irreconcilable.  Another Nazi was appointed to keep people's attachment 
to Christianity and Christian traditions and organizations from 
undermining the regime, and to the extent possible, to channel the 
impulses that gave rise to that attachment into support for the party.  
The obvious maneuver for someone with that responsibility is to claim 
that Naziism is true Christianity.  Similar maneuvers are common enough 
in politics.

Is it your view that that the rejection of the Apostle's creed, and of 
faith in Christ as the son of God as the basis of Christianity, in favor 
of the party and the Fuehrer was intended as a good-faith interpretation 
of Christianity?

[A quote from _Mein Kampf_:]

>"For the political man, the value of a religion must be estimated less by
>its deficiencies than by the virtue of a visibly better substitute.  As
>long as this appears to be lacking, what is present can be demolished only
>by fools or criminals."

>"By helping to raise man above the level of bestial vegetation, faith
>contributes in reality to the securing and safeguarding of his existence.
>Take away from present-day mankind its education-based, religious-dogmatic
>principles --- or, practically speaking, ethical-moral principles --- by
>abolishing this religious edication, but without replacing it with an
>equivalent, and the result will be a grave shock to the foundations of
>their existence.  We may therefore state that not only does the man live in
>order to serve higher ideals, but that, conversely, these higher ideals
>also provide the premise for his existence.  Thust the circle closes."

>"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it
>was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars.
>Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form;
>this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition."

[Back to MZ:]

>[I]t appears that Hitler held in high regard the political and 
>ideological role of Christianity, explicitly objecting against its 
>suppression, effectively using its dogma in support of his xenophobic 
>doctrines, and arguing for its primacy in the moral and political order 
>of the German state.

It does not so appear, at least from anything you cite.  What Hitler 
states in the first two paragraphs is that he thought an existing 
religion should not be suppressed unless a superior replacement is 
available.  In the last paragraph he asserts that when Christianity 
replaced the pagan religions it found fanatical intolerance a necessity 
for establishing its new order of things.  The obvious inference is that 
if someone (like Hitler) thinks he has a new ideology worthy of 
commanding absolute loyalty (like Naziism) then in order to establish 
the new ideology he has to be fanatically intolerant of existing 
religions (by implication, including Christianity).  That's not to say, 
of course, that he might not find it expedient to lie about or obfuscate 
his intentions at first.

>Love your bibliography.  Like I said, a book report.

What's the complaint?  Clayton didn't have to look far to find evidence 
that Naziism and Christianity were inconsistent practically as well as 
theoretically, but he thought it worth while to tell us where he looked. 
Why should that give you a problem?
-- 
    Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books