From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: soc.women,rec.arts.books,soc.history,soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Hitler's Religion (was re: Instant Yuppies)
Date: 13 Apr 92 23:10:27 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books,soc.history,soc.culture.jewish
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.

In article <10392@optilink.UUCP> 
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>In article <1992Apr7.150659.5461@Princeton.EDU>, 
>roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>> In article <10305@optilink.UUCP> 
>> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>> >In article <1992Mar31.084144.9525@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>> >gross@befvax.uchicago.edu writes: 

CEC:
>> >> >Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
>> >> >"National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable." -- Martin Bormann, 
>> >> >1941.

LG:
>> >> P.S.  Why are you quoting a Nazi war criminal in your .sig file?
>> >> 
>> >> Leon Gross

CEC:
>> >Because there's a widespread belief that the National Socialist
>> >movement was Christian.  I can think of no better quotation to
>> >demonstrate the falsity of the claim.

RL:
>> How's that again?  Quote the words of a lying, murderous criminal?
>>
>> How about these then?
>> 
>> "We have no further territorial demands." -- Hitler, Munich, 1938.
>> "We don't want to kill any Jews, just relocate them." -- ibid., a few
>> years later.
>> 
>> Seriously, have you no better authority for your case than a heinous
>> Nazi criminal?  

CEC:
>In a country that was nominally Christian, such a statement is a
>profound statement of how totally opposed National Socialism and
>Christianity were.  Can you imagine the same statement being made
>in America today?  Making such a statement as a lie would be 
>counterproductive -- hence the reason to believe it to be true.
>Bormann gained nothing from such a statement, and the potential
>was strong to damage the National Socialist position.

This sort of reasoning hardly proves anything.  By the same token, Lenin
had nothing to gain and everything to lose when he stated: "The capitalists
will sell us the rope that we will hang them with" at the time when Russia
was actively seeking foreign trade partners.  Political rhetoric just
happens to work that way.  Keep in mind that every German soldier had "Gott
mit Uns" written on his belt buckle.

RL:
>> Or do you not wish to confront the behavior of Germany's Christians and
>> Christian churches, most of which embraced the new order with little
>> problem?  

CEC:
>A largely false statement -- but I've learned to expect those from
>you.  See end of posting.

Roger is absolutely right.  See Raul Hilberg's "The Destruction of the
European Jews" on the behavior of German Christian leaders, and the 1990
NYRB article by Conor Cruise O'Brien concerning the post-1939 _entente
cordiale_ between National Socialism and Vatican, which gave German
Catholics an excuse to look the other way.  As a matter of historical fact,
only one German pastor spoke out ex cathedra against the persecution of the
Jews.  See Hilberg, index under "Lichtenberg".

RL:
>> Or do you not wish to confront the reinvention of Christianity (something
>> that happens all the time, btw) as something "German"?  

CEC:
>Reinvention?  Hardly.  It was repudiated.

About as much as it was repudiated under Napoleon.

RL:
>> Now, tell me what special authority Martin Bormann had within Nazi
>> ideological circles to make that blanket statement, and tell me what
>> *contect* he was saying it in, and you may begin to have a flicker of an
>> inkling of a case.
>> 
>> Oh, and tell me what words he actually used.  I doubt he spoke them in
>> English, and the word that translates to "Christianity" also translates
>> to "The Christian World" or "Christendom."  

CEC:
>Translation always involves context.  Tell me, does the statement,
>"National Socialism and the Christian World is irreconcilable," 
>sound a little bizarre, coming from a leading Nazi in 1941?

Of course, Bormann neither set nor expressed the Reich's religious policy.

RL:
>> So, unless you really CAN'T think of a better refutation than a vague,
>> out-of-context quote from someone whose authority in these matters was
>> less than complete, and whose credibility is zero to begin with, how
>> about ponying up?
>> 
>> Roger

CEC:
>        The Religion of Adolf Hitler & Nazi Germany

Is this anything but a grade school book report?

CEC:                           
>There  is   a  widely   held  belief  that,  "Hitler  was  a
>Christian."   This  false  idea  is  widely  promulgated  by
>atheists as  part  of  their  propaganda  efforts,  but  the
>evidence is  entirely on  the other  side.  While it is true
>that Hitler  had been  raised as  a Catholic,  and gave  lip
>service to  the place  of Christianity  in  Germany  in  his
>speech of  March 23, 1933, when the Reichstag "abandoned its
>functions  to   the  dictator,"  the  sham  nature  of  such
>statements became apparent almost immediately.

So far, no evidence.

CEC:
>Hitler's government  signed an  agreement with  the  Vatican
>"which guaranteed  the freedom of the Catholic religion" and
>the right  of  the  Church  to  regulate  its  own  internal
>affairs.   Almost immediately,  the German  government  took
>steps that  showed the essential conflict between the values
>of the Roman Catholic Church, and the National Socialists:
>  
>  On July  25, five  days after  the ratification  of the
>  concordat,  the   German   government   promulgated   a
>  sterilization  law,  which  particularly  offended  the
>  Catholic Church.   Five days later the first steps were
>  taken to  dissolve the  Catholic Youth League.   During
>  the next  years thousands of Catholic priests, nuns and
>  lay leaders  were arrested,  many of them on trumped-up
>  charges  of   "immorality"  or  of  "smuggling  foreign
>  currency."  Erich Klausener, leader of Catholic Action,
>  was, as  we have  seen, murdered  in the June 30, 1934,
>  purge.     Scores   of   Catholic   publications   were
>  suppressed, and  even the  sanctity of the confessional
>  was violated by Gestapo agents.[1]

This evidence of political oppression is, of course, irrelevant to the
question of "the religion of Adolf Hitler". 

CEC:
>By 1937,  Pope Pius  XI had  accused National  Socialism  of
>"secret and  open fundamental  hostility to  Christ and  His
>Church."[2]

Note that his successor, Pius XII (reigned 1939--58), an open antisemite,
has suppressed the denunciation of Hitler's regime, which was prepared by
Pius XI shortly before his death.  See O'Brien's article for more details.

CEC:
>The situation  for Protestant  churches in  Germany was even
>worse.  A National Socialist organization called "The German
>Christians' Faith  Movement" had  been organized  by an army
>chaplain, with  the goal  of using the government to form "a
>Reich Church which would bring all Protestants into one all-
>embracing body."   This  faction had  the support of about a
>sixth of the 17,000 pastors in Germany.  In opposition was a
>group of pastors called the "Confessional Church":
>  
>  It opposed the Nazification of the Protestant churches,
>  rejected the  Nazi racial  theories and  denounced  the
>  anti-Christian objectives  of Rosenberg  and other Nazi
>  leaders.[3]

And how did their number compare to that of Nazi collaborators? or to that
of active Nazi supporters?

CEC:
>Like most other Germans, the majority of German Protestants,
>including such  eventual opposition leaders as Pastor Martin
>Niemoller, initially  supported  Hitler  as  a  solution  to
>Germany's economic  and social  chaos.  As the nature of the
>National Socialists  became apparent,  many became opponents
>of the  government.   A newly formed official "Reich Church"
>that forced  all Protestant  denominations together  quickly
>demonstrated its position concerning the Bible:
>  
>  A Dr.  Reinhardt Krause,  the Berlin district leader of
>  the  sect,   proposed  the   abandonment  of   the  Old
>  Testament, "with  its tales  of  cattle  merchants  and
>  pimps" and  the revision  of the New Testament with the
>  teaching  of  Jesus  "corresponding  entirely  with the
>  demands of National Socialism."  Resolutions were drawn
>  up  demanding  "One  People,  One  Reich,  One  Faith,"
>  requiring all  pastors to take an oath of allegiance to
>  Hitler and  insisting that  all churches  institute the
>  Aryan paragraph  and exclude  converted Jews.  This was
>  too  much  even  for  the  timid  Protestants  who  had
>  declined to take any part in the church war, and Bishop
>  Mueller was  forced to  suspend Dr.  Krause and disavow
>  him.

Does this make Mueller a freedom fighter or what?  Why is this releant to
the claim of your title subject?

CEC:
>Hitler had  always had  a strong  contempt for  Protestants,
>considering them,  "insignificant little  people, submissive
>as dogs..."   When the Confessional Church claimed to be the
>legitimate Protestant church in Germany in 1935, the Gestapo
>arrested 700 of the Confessional Church's pastors.  Hundreds
>more arrests  followed the  Confessional Church's  May, 1936
>memorandum to  Hitler protesting against the "anti-Christian
>tendencies of  the regime, denouncing the government's anti-
>Semitism and  demanding an  end to State interference in the
>churches..."   Many of  the pastors  went  to  concentration
>camps; one  of the signers of the memorandum was murdered at
>the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[4]

Ah, now we get the numbers: 700 dissidents vs one sixth of 17,000 Nazi
supporters, with the balance collaborating with the government.  Can you
count, Clayton?

CEC:
>What was  the position  of the official "Reich Church" about
>Christianity?     It  taught   a  distinctly   non-Christian
>doctrine.   One of  the  Reich  Church  bureaucrats  clearly
>defined his  position  relative  to  Jesus  Christ  and  the
>teachings of Christianity:
>  
>  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.[5]

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?

CEC:
>Pastor Niemoller's  last sermon,  before his arrest in July,
>1937, made  it clear that he and other Christians in Germany
>placed obedience  to God  above obedience to the government,
>and that the two were clearly in conflict:
>  
>  No more  are we  ready to  keep silent  at man's behest
>  when God  commands us  to speak.   For  it is, and must
>  remain, the case that we must obey God rather than man.
>  
>Niemoller was  tried and  convicted of "abuse of the pulpit"
>and sent  to prison  for seven months.  Upon his release, he
>was arrested  by the  Gestapo and  sent to Sachsenhausen and
>Dachau.   Niemoller was  not alone.   A  total of  807 other
>pastors and  leading laymen  of the Confessional Church were
>also arrested in 1937, and "hundreds more in the next couple
>of years."

You are repeating yourself.  Yes, some Christians opposed Hitler; however a
vast majority of them actively supported his regime; only a select few ever
did anything to help the Jews.  Incidentally, Niemoller himself remained
undisturbed by the Nazi racial policies.

CEC:
>What about  the other  pastors in  Germany?    "As  for  the
>majority of  Protestant pastors,  they, like almost everyone
>else in Germany, submited in the face of Nazi terror."  Less
>resilent men  than Niemoller,  such as  Bishop Marahrens  of
>Hanover  were  forced  to  make  public  statements  putting
>Christianity at  a lower  level of  obligation than National
>Socialism.[6]

More evidence against your thesis.

CEC:
>The National  Socialists were not content to create a "Reich
>Church" that repudiated all of Christian teaching; they went
>further.   Rosenberg, Bormann,  and Himmler, developed plans
>for the  restoration of  paganism.   Bormann recognized that
>even  in  the  emasculated  form  that  the  "Reich  Church"
>represented,  Christianity   and  National   Socialism  were
>fundamentally  at   odds.     In  1941,  Bormann  proclaimed
>publicly:   "National   Socialism   and   Christianity   are
>irreconcilable."   Rosenberg's  program  for  the  neo-pagan
>"National Reich  Church" included  the extermination of "the
>strange and  foreign Christian  faiths imported into Germany
>in the ill-omened year 800," and the "immediate cessation of
>the publishing  and dissemination  of the Bible in Germany."
>Other goals  included the removal of "all crucifixes, Bibles
>and pictures  of saints," and the replacement of all crosses
>with "the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika."[7]

Programs are cheap; the same wacky crew also planned to estabilish a Jewish
museum after implementing the Final Solution.  Furthermore, Hitler's own
views were quite the opposite (see below).  On the other hand, policies are
most telling (see above).

CEC:
>Hitler,  however,   didn't  have  the  same  enthusiasm  for
>religion that his lieutenants had:
>  
>  What nonsense!   Here  we have  at last  reached an age
>  that has left all mysticism behind it, and now he wants
>  to start  that all  over again.   We might just as well
>  have  stayed   with  the  church.    At  least  it  had
>  tradition.  To think that I may some day be turned into
>  an SS saint!  Can you imagine it?  I would turn over in
>  my grave...[8]
>  
>Speer reports  that Hitler  would make "harsh pronouncements
>against the  church" among  his  political  associates,  but
>would soften  his tone  around women.    Hitler  would  also
>complain that it had been the "misfortune" of the Germans:
>  
>  to have  the wrong  religion.   Why didn't  we have the
>  religion of  the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the
>  Fatherland  as   the  highest  good?    The  Mohammedan
>  religion too would have been much more compatible to us
>  than Christianity.   Why did it have to be Christianity
>  with its meekness and flabbiness?[9]

"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."

Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf", translated by Ralph Mannheim.

CEC:
>The  evidence   is  clear  -  Hitler  held  Christianity  in
>contempt, made  substantial efforts  to co-opt both Catholic
>and  Protestant   churches  in  the  interests  of  National
>Socialism, and  when it became clear that Christianity would
>never be  the willing  lap-dog he  sought,  he  allowed  his
>lieutenants to  engage in  a campaign  to replace  even  the
>corrupted form  of the  "Reich Church"  with an openly pagan
>religion,  even   though  he   regarded  all   religion   as
>"nonsense."

On the contrary, the evidence demonstrates that National Socialism found a
willing collaborator in the vast majority of the leadership of the German
Christian churches; furthermore, it 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.

CEC:
>Sources
>
>1 William  L. Shirer,  _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_,
>(New York, Simon & Schuster: 1960), 234-235.
>2 Shirer, 235.
>3 Shirer, 235-236.
>4 Shirer, 237-238.
>5 Shirer, 238-239.
>6 Shirer, 239.
>7 Shirer, 240.
>8 Albert  Speer, transl.  by Richard & Clara Winston, _Inside
>The Third Reich_, (New York, Macmillan Co.: 1970), 94.
>9 Speer, 95-96.

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

>-- 
>Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
>"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a
>favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace
>of God." -- Thomas Jefferson


`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
:                                                             so     :
: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
: 872 Massachusetts Ave., Apt. 707                                   :
: Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139           (617) 661-8151            :
: email zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu or zeleny@HUMA1.BITNET            :
:                                                                    :
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
Xref: sparky soc.women:8627 soc.men:8065