Robin Siefkin 8N
ELA P. 6-7 3/27/18
How the Fuhrer Rejected Christianity And
The Official State Religion Of the Fascist State of Germany
Most assume that the official religion of Nazi Germany’s Third Reich (1933-1945), was Christianity, or atheism. The real answer is that the religion of Nazi Germany was a sect of Christianity called “Positive Christianity.” This name is misleading, although the followers of this sect share some ideas with followers of the Catholic or Christian churches, these are few and far between. The Church also hindered the Nazi Party, with a few times that they aided the NSDAP [the Nazi Party].
Positive Christianity was a philosophy created by Alfred Rosenberg, a Socialist, and intellectual (Trueman, Positive Christianity). Positive Christianity favored anti-Semitism, anti-modernism, and anti-communism. It promoted traditional social roles for women, which was particularly popular with females within Nazi Germany. “Rosenberg saw Positive Christianity as a way of purifying the German Nordic Race and to harmonise the belief in Christ with ‘the laws of blood and soil’ [Blut und Boden]” (Trueman, Positive Christianity). In other words, the rejection of Catholicism and Protestantism would help Germany, as they were contaminating the religious prose of Germany proper. “Positive Christianity replaced the ‘Oriental’ aspects of Christianity that were frowned upon by Hitler and replaced them with ‘positive aspects’— such as racialism,…, the supremacy of the Aryan race, and the importance of the individual heroic figure” (Trueman, Religion and Nazi Germany). In 1934, Professor Ernst Bergmann put forth an idea for the German Fascist religion. As Trueman writes in Religion and Nazi Germany, Bergmann outlined that the swastika should be the symbol of German Christianity, that Christ was a martyr whose death relieved the world from Jewish dominance, and that Adolf Hitler was the new Messiah, come to save Germany from being overrun by racial lessers. [This included Jews and Gypsies.] Bergmann’s plan fell through when Nazi support began to disintegrate in 1944. The Great War, or World War I, was the spawn of all of these radical ideas. Crippling Germany was the goal of the Treaty of Versaille, and it did just that. As quoted from Dan Carlin, Nazi Tidbits, “The depression that succeeded the Great War was a breeding pool for all these radical ideas. These ideas would never had gained such a ground in a country that had a stable economy.”
Hitler rejected Christianity in a multitude of ways. Although he was raised as a Roman Catholic, he got rid of these beliefs once he was a poor man in Austria. Hitler had a very low regard for Christianity and Catholicism. In Religion and Nazi Germany, Trueman writes that “Hitler, in Mein Kampf [My Struggle/Fight], wrote that antiquity was better than modern times because it did not know of both Christianity and syphilis.” He also gave a list of why he disliked it so much. “1. It protected the weak and the low. 2. Christianity was Jewish and Oriental in origin and it forced people ‘to bends their backs to the sound of the church bells and crawl to the cross of a foreign God.’ 3. Christianity began 2000 years previous among sick, exhausted and despairing men who had lost their belief in life… 5. The Christian idea of mercy was a dangerous idea and ‘un-German’… 7. The Christian idea of equality protected the racially inferior, the ill, the weak and the crippled” (Trueman). This is why he wanted to replace the Church with an official Reich Religion. His personal view differed from the official NSDAP [Nazi] party view. The Nazi view of Christianity was not negatory. The NSDAP said, according to Dan Carlin, that as long as the Church stays out of the Reich’s business, the Church proved a prime recruiting ground for soldiers (Nazi Tidbits). The way the Reich was able to keep the Church on their side was to not show the horrors that were the Holocaust and the war through censorship. The people, because of the censorship, believed that the Holocaust was their Crusades or their Inquisition (Cline).
The Church both hindered and aided the Nazi Party. The Church aided the German’s searches for Jewish people, providing lists of who went to synagogues. The Nazis held high respect for the Church originally, but that sense of sincerity was lost almost immediately after the NSDAP gained a person in the Chancellor’s seat. The Nazi view then changed from respect of civility to running amok in their affairs (Carlin, Nazi Tidbits). The Socialist viewpoint still regarded the Church as a prime recruiting ground (Cline), but they held little else. Many Churches were pro-Nazi, and they were very devout to their “Messiah.” “These churches pushed for Reichskirche: a ‘state church’ loyal to Nazism and subordinate to the state” (Llewellyn). The Church also greatly hindered the Nazi Party. “Many Protestant Churches joined to form the Pfarrernotbund (Emergency League of Pastors) to resist the creation of a pro-Nazi state religion” (Llewellyn). Pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer joined into a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and when he was caught, was placed in the concentration camp at Dachau. Another theologian was arrested for not starting each class with the traditional “Heil Hitler” and the Nazi salute (Carlin, Nazi Tidbits). Many churches were above the way of allying with Fascists. In one incident, Nazi officials arrested over seven hundred pastors on the pretext that they were smuggling gold out of the country. Eventually, in response to these offenses, the German government signed the Reichskonkordat into law, which forbid Catholic clergymen and members from being a part of political parties, and all German bishops had to swear loyalty to the Fuhrer. This also had some benefits for the Church, as Church events and their freedom were protected.
Positive Christianity was the “replacement for Christianity” put forward by a Nazi official. It was very unsuccessful with the people who loved both their country and their religion. It was in place to try to show the new Fuhrer as a demigod, like the Japanese Emperor. The official standing of the Nazi Party was neutrality toward the Church. This is accounted for by the wanting to keep support within the mostly Christian nation of Germany, and on the negative side, the attacks on theologians and pastors. The Church reciprocated those feelings rarely, mostly either being supportive of the Third Reich or being completely against it. In short, the Church and the German people were divided about this government ruled by misfits, the so-called Third Reich.
Works Cited
Carlin, Dan. “Nazi Tidbits.” Hardcore History, Orator LLC, 11 Oct. 2007, Dan Carlin’s
Hardcore History. www.dancarlin.com
Cline, Austin. "What Did Hitler Have to Do With Christian Nationalism?" ThoughtCo, 3
Jan. 2006, www.thoughtco.com/adolf-hitler-and-christian-nationalism-248189.
"The German Churches and the Nazi State." United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005206.
J. Llewellyn et al, “Religion in Nazi Germany”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date],
http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/religion-in-nazi-germany/.
Trueman C. H. "Positive Christianity." History Learning Site,
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/positive-christianity/. Accessed 7
Mar. 2018
—. "Religion and Nazi Germany." History Learning Site,
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/religion-and-nazi-germany/. Accessed 7 Mar. 2018.