Hitler, Nazis, and Religion

[Alceste]

Because facts are more fun than bigotry and ignorance.

So it is a "fact" that a man who considered the catholic priesthood and started his own church was not catholic.

 

[WyattDerp]

What annoys me most about the effort by Christians to fob off the nazis onto some other belief system, or lack of belief in general

Well, that one's easy. Nazism clearly was a religion in and of itself; I guess you could say this about a lot of things, like Stalinism or Maoism. And the Bible is full of a.) circular logic and b.) threats of extermination based on that circular logic, so that parallel certainly exists. But still, as Einstein said for example: the universities and schools didn't resist at all, in the churches there was at least a spark (it just wasn't enough either). And to overlook that sucks, too.

 

[WyattDerp]

So it is a "fact" that a man who considered the catholic priesthood and started his own church was not catholic.

Are you talking about Stalin? His mom sent him to the seminary. He got kicked out of it.

And what does "started his own church" mean? Stalinism? If so, yeah, that kinda means he was a Stalinist, not Catholic Unless you mean something else.

 

[WyattDerp]

There are exactly two kind of people who start these threads.

Christians: Hitler obviously wasnt a true christian and so on
Non-Christians(read crazy Atheists): Obviously he was a real christian

Okay, so you want to ban all Christians and Non-Christians... ?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There are exactly two kind of people who start these threads.

How convenient for you.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Help me out here. Why is it so important to you NOT to believe the Nazis were actually Christians, despite the fact that they continually claimed to be Christians and behaved exactly like modern, ordinary Christians (church, praying, writing "God is with us" on their uniforms, etc) throughout their reign?

A fair and important question so I'll answer this first.


Partly because I am quite interested in history. Partly because my current work concerns, and far more so my undergrad work concerned, how culture influences not only belief but thought, perception, judgment, etc. But mostly (and relatedly) I am very concerned with the nature, root, and destructive power of ideology. That Christian ideology was integral not only to the rise of the Nazis to power but also quite influential to a much larger movement (eugenics) now nearly forgotten is important to understand. However, it is just as important to understand the limits of the Nazi use of pagan & christian symbolism, metaphor, imagery, etc.

I never bring this up though, except to counter direct claims that Hitler was an atheist or a pagan

Using your criteria, the Nazis were pagans.

One of the most elaborate display the Nazis put on was the parade titled "Two Thousand Years of German Culture" in 1937, which "positioned Nazism as the culmination of German history" organized "make the later parades more coherent and comprehensive expressions of the Nazi Party’s vision of past, present and future national community"...

"After warriors escorting a Viking-like ship, most of the successive floats symbolized specific religious icons like the sun, the day, the night, the creation of the first humans, the sea god, and Walhalla where the gods welcomed heroes after death. In an overt attempt to link Nazism to the epoch’s perceived racial purity and martial valour, the sun group presented a stylized swastika as an ancient representation of the sun, while the Walhalla allegory featured long banners and draperies with swastika motifs. The prominence of the swastika was an obvious attempt by parade organizers to position the Nazi movement as the modern incarnation of this prehistoric warrior race...Compared to the 1933 parade, the later parades, with their grounding of Nazi symbols in prehistory and prominent rhetoric of blood ties between ancient Nordic tribes and modern Germans, began with a much more direct ideological statement...Although the Germanic group was replete with pagan religious icons, the Romanesque Age with its ten floats and the Gothic Age with seven floats were largely devoid of Christian overtones...As noted above, religion was almost totally absent, aside from pagan allegories. This reflects a degree of ambiguity if not hostility between Christianity, which enjoyed significant support among the general public, and many party leaders, who cast Nazism as a new messianic religion." (emphasis added)


[Hagen, J. (2008). Parades, public space, and propaganda: the Nazi culture parades in Munich. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(4), 349-367.]

It must be true, obviously, not only because he said so, consistently and repeatedly throughout his entire life, but also because when you start deciding for other people whether they're really Christian or not, you're in no true Scotsman territory. When people shout loud and proud and continuously that they're Christians, I'm sorry to say that's exactly what they are, even when they're Nazis.

The "no true scotsman" fallacy concerns a belief, not a statement. In other words, if Hitler believed himself to be Christian, and I was saying regardless of what he believed, he was not a Christian, then you would be correct.

But I am not saying that. By analogy, imagine a politician who claims to be quite left of center on the political spectrum, especially prior to being in the political position they desire. However, upon obtaining that position, every bill, every law, every veto, and so on, is consistent with conservatice policies and beliefs.


Politicians lie. We might not always know whether or not they actually believe what they say they do or what they say they represent, but it is not a "no true scotsman" argument to assert that a politician can represent themselves as something they are not.

Who decides what your religion is, if not you?

I'm not deciding religion. Nor are the sources I am using. I am asserting that the Nazi party (and Hitler) lied when they represented themselves as Christians. There is all the difference in the world between saying someone isn't a Christian (or conservative, or environmentalists, or hockey fan, or whatever) because you don't think their actions and statements are representative of a "true christian", and saying that someone isn't a christian because they do not consider themselves to be Christian.

I am asserting the latter. I am saying that Hitler and his party framed their socio-political goals in terms of Christian ideals and Christian beliefs, and represented themselves not only as Christians but as the ones who would restore Christianity.

I am also saying (based upon my research, including what I cited in my posts), that there is clear evidence this representation by Hitler and the Nazis was not genuine, but was a political strategy used for the following purposes:
1) to gain and consolidate power by appealing to the overwhelmingly Christian population of Germany
2) to create a starting platform and framework to develop a secular ideology and civic cult which would unify Germany
3) to pander to an already established anti-semitic population using ready-made terminology and social narrative

All your reasons for believing that the Nazis were not Christians are happening now in the US.

They are not. First because the fusion of politics and religion in the Nazi party combined both Christian and pagan symbolism and reference (see e.g. Festivals and the Third Reich by W. J. Wilson), and second because these increasingly became devoid of any actual (non-secular) religious overtones. Also, there's the fact that the Nazi party and Hitler went from clear, unambigious support of Christianity and the german churches to eventually outright hostitlity and persecution:

"As events would show, the Nazis used the “German Christians” as an instrument to gain control of the German Evangelical Church; when this failed, Nazi party support for the “German Christians” died."
Barnett's For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford University Press).

The fusion of politics and religion on the extreme right, the fuzzy lines between worshiping God and worshiping the leaders of the Republican party, the intolerance and hostility toward liberal churches, the propaganda network - all that stuff is going on right now, as we speak, and guess what?

And that's not what happened in Germany. In fact, it's fundamentally different. Obviously I did not make my initial posts descriptive (and/or clear) enough. What parts did I make so unclear as to make the above seem like what happened? Or, put another way, what would I need to show (providing I am correct, of course) to show that your portrayal above differs fundamentally from what happened in Germany?

There's a touching story about Nazis in the trenches coming out on Christmas Eve to celebrate with Allied Christians. Probably apocryphal, but shows that we basically all know the Nazis were Christians and it's silly to claim otherwise.

This mistakes the party for the Germans:""During 1936–37 approximately seven hundred pastors and priests were sentenced to the Buchenwald concentration camp, though only about fifty received long sentences. Many Catholic clergy (including nuns) were arrested on trumped-up morals charges. Though 94.5 percent of the adult German population was registered in 1939 as nominally belonging to a church, by that point most of the Christian population was pretty well cowed"

Payne, G. E. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. London, Routledge.

 

[LuisDantas]

I'm not deciding religion. Nor are the sources I am using. I am asserting that the Nazi party (and Hitler) lied when they represented themselves as Christians. There is all the difference in the world between saying someone isn't a Christian (or conservative, or environmentalists, or hockey fan, or whatever) because you don't think their actions and statements are representative of a "true christian", and saying that someone isn't a christian because they do not consider themselves to be Christian.

I am asserting the latter. I am saying that Hitler and his party framed their socio-political goals in terms of Christian ideals and Christian beliefs, and represented themselves not only as Christians but as the ones who would restore Christianity.

I am also saying (based upon my research, including what I cited in my posts), that there is clear evidence this representation by Hitler and the Nazis was not genuine, but was a political strategy used for the following purposes:

Maybe it is just me, but it sure sounds like you could say the same about a sizeable percentage of entities that are generally considered Christian churches in good standing.

1) to gain and consolidate power by appealing to the overwhelmingly Christian population of Germany
2) to create a starting platform and framework to develop a secular ideology and civic cult which would unify Germany
3) to pander to an already established anti-semitic population using ready-made terminology and social narrative

What in Nazism would be secular? That word seems so tacked on.

They are not. First because the fusion of politics and religion in the Nazi party combined both Christian and pagan symbolism and reference (see e.g. Festivals and the Third Reich by W. J. Wilson), and second because these increasingly became devoid of any actual (non-secular) religious overtones.

They did? So you are proposing that somehow the ever-increasing fanaticism and devotion to the Fuhrer was somehow secular despite looking anything but?

I wonder which criteria you used to tell the religious from the secular in this case.

Also, there's the fact that the Nazi party and Hitler went from clear, unambigious support of Christianity and the german churches to eventually outright hostitlity and persecution:

"As events would show, the Nazis used the “German Christians” as an instrument to gain control of the German Evangelical Church; when this failed, Nazi party support for the “German Christians” died."
Barnett's For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford University Press).

I don't think we have seen much in the way of evidence for that, particularly given how self-destructive the Nazi regime was, and how relatively unremarkable it is for Christian-inspired movements to be at war with each other - particularly on Germany, that to this day is fairly divided between Catholic and Lutheran influences.

Hitler arrested many of his own supporters at the Night of Long Knives, but that is hardly evidence that he had no political ambitions. Heck, Hitler hardly ever though twice about chastising his own supporters, period.

And that's not what happened in Germany. In fact, it's fundamentally different. Obviously I did not make my initial posts descriptive (and/or clear) enough. What parts did I make so unclear as to make the above seem like what happened? Or, put another way, what would I need to show (providing I am correct, of course) to show that your portrayal above differs fundamentally from what happened in Germany?

Make your choice, because I sure can't think of anything that suggests that there are significant differences.

 

[Quagmire]

There are exactly two kind of people who start these threads.

Christians: Hitler obviously wasnt a true christian and so on
Non-Christians(read crazy Atheists): Obviously he was a real christian

.

This one was started by an agnostic.

 

[Alceste]

A fair and important question so I'll answer this first.


Partly because I am quite interested in history. Partly because my current work concerns, and far more so my undergrad work concerned, how culture influences not only belief but thought, perception, judgment, etc. But mostly (and relatedly) I am very concerned with the nature, root, and destructive power of ideology. That Christian ideology was integral not only to the rise of the Nazis to power but also quite influential to a much larger movement (eugenics) now nearly forgotten is important to understand. However, it is just as important to understand the limits of the Nazi use of pagan & christian symbolism, metaphor, imagery, etc.



Using your criteria, the Nazis were pagans.

One of the most elaborate display the Nazis put on was the parade titled "Two Thousand Years of German Culture" in 1937, which "positioned Nazism as the culmination of German history" organized "make the later parades more coherent and comprehensive expressions of the Nazi Party’s vision of past, present and future national community"...

"After warriors escorting a Viking-like ship, most of the successive floats symbolized specific religious icons like the sun, the day, the night, the creation of the first humans, the sea god, and Walhalla where the gods welcomed heroes after death. In an overt attempt to link Nazism to the epoch’s perceived racial purity and martial valour, the sun group presented a stylized swastika as an ancient representation of the sun, while the Walhalla allegory featured long banners and draperies with swastika motifs. The prominence of the swastika was an obvious attempt by parade organizers to position the Nazi movement as the modern incarnation of this prehistoric warrior race...Compared to the 1933 parade, the later parades, with their grounding of Nazi symbols in prehistory and prominent rhetoric of blood ties between ancient Nordic tribes and modern Germans, began with a much more direct ideological statement...Although the Germanic group was replete with pagan religious icons, the Romanesque Age with its ten floats and the Gothic Age with seven floats were largely devoid of Christian overtones...As noted above, religion was almost totally absent, aside from pagan allegories. This reflects a degree of ambiguity if not hostility between Christianity, which enjoyed significant support among the general public, and many party leaders, who cast Nazism as a new messianic religion." (emphasis added)


[Hagen, J. (2008). Parades, public space, and propaganda: the Nazi culture parades in Munich. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(4), 349-367.]



The "no true scotsman" fallacy concerns a belief, not a statement. In other words, if Hitler believed himself to be Christian, and I was saying regardless of what he believed, he was not a Christian, then you would be correct.

But I am not saying that. By analogy, imagine a politician who claims to be quite left of center on the political spectrum, especially prior to being in the political position they desire. However, upon obtaining that position, every bill, every law, every veto, and so on, is consistent with conservatice policies and beliefs.


Politicians lie. We might not always know whether or not they actually believe what they say they do or what they say they represent, but it is not a "no true scotsman" argument to assert that a politician can represent themselves as something they are not.




I'm not deciding religion. Nor are the sources I am using. I am asserting that the Nazi party (and Hitler) lied when they represented themselves as Christians. There is all the difference in the world between saying someone isn't a Christian (or conservative, or environmentalists, or hockey fan, or whatever) because you don't think their actions and statements are representative of a "true christian", and saying that someone isn't a christian because they do not consider themselves to be Christian.

I am asserting the latter. I am saying that Hitler and his party framed their socio-political goals in terms of Christian ideals and Christian beliefs, and represented themselves not only as Christians but as the ones who would restore Christianity.

I am also saying (based upon my research, including what I cited in my posts), that there is clear evidence this representation by Hitler and the Nazis was not genuine, but was a political strategy used for the following purposes:
1) to gain and consolidate power by appealing to the overwhelmingly Christian population of Germany
2) to create a starting platform and framework to develop a secular ideology and civic cult which would unify Germany
3) to pander to an already established anti-semitic population using ready-made terminology and social narrative


They are not. First because the fusion of politics and religion in the Nazi party combined both Christian and pagan symbolism and reference (see e.g. Festivals and the Third Reich by W. J. Wilson), and second because these increasingly became devoid of any actual (non-secular) religious overtones. Also, there's the fact that the Nazi party and Hitler went from clear, unambigious support of Christianity and the german churches to eventually outright hostitlity and persecution:

"As events would show, the Nazis used the “German Christians” as an instrument to gain control of the German Evangelical Church; when this failed, Nazi party support for the “German Christians” died."
Barnett's For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford University Press).



And that's not what happened in Germany. In fact, it's fundamentally different. Obviously I did not make my initial posts descriptive (and/or clear) enough. What parts did I make so unclear as to make the above seem like what happened? Or, put another way, what would I need to show (providing I am correct, of course) to show that your portrayal above differs fundamentally from what happened in Germany?





This mistakes the party for the Germans:""During 1936–37 approximately seven hundred pastors and priests were sentenced to the Buchenwald concentration camp, though only about fifty received long sentences. Many Catholic clergy (including nuns) were arrested on trumped-up morals charges. Though 94.5 percent of the adult German population was registered in 1939 as nominally belonging to a church, by that point most of the Christian population was pretty well cowed"

Payne, G. E. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. London, Routledge.

I'm on a phone, so I'm not going to do a point by point, but there are two issues I have with your post.

1. The simultaneous use of Christian and pagan symbolism does not indicate that someone is secretly a pagan rather than a Christian. The timing of Christian holidays are poached from paganism, as are Christmas trees. Catholic saints are often poached from pagan traditions. Christian hymns are often rewritten pagan songs. Integrating local traditions was a key strategy to the spread of catholicism. So you can draw heavily on pagan symbolism and still be a Christian (especially a catholic).

2. Being at odds with this or that denomination of a church says very little about whether or not you believe in and worship the Christian God. Hitler repressed whatever established institution resisted his agenda, whether in the arts, academia, organized religion - everywhere. This was a rejection of DISSENT, not theology.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Maybe it is just me, but it sure sounds like you could say the same about a sizeable percentage of entities that are generally considered Christian churches in good standing.

Churches are not people. Nor am I saying that the Nazi party and Hitler said they were christians but didn't act like it. I am saying that (based on what I understand to be the general view among historians as reflected in the academic literature) the Nazis and Hitler viewed religion itself, including christianity, as a weak, stunted, relic of a bygone age. Moreover, they intended (and began) to replace it with a civic cult; a secular state ideology which provided the solidarity, purpose, and ties religion had before without any supernatural elements. In this they were consciously building of off the work of the work of Nietzsche and to a lesser extent of those like Jung, Durkheim, etc.

Whatever you can say about other parties or groups is irrelevant to whether or not I am making a "true scotsman"-type argument. That fallacy involves the exclusion of individuals, groups, etc., from a particular category based upon features of the category. If I were saying Hitler wasn't a christian because of his actions and/or statements, but agreed that he thought of himself as a christian, then I would be making a "no true scotsman" argument. But that's not what I'm saying.

What in Nazism would be secular? That word seems so tacked on.

Did you read my posts? I didn't tack it on:

"Nationalism served as a secular religion that promised an alternative to a world suffering from an excess of capitalist and communist rationalization."

Herf, J. (1984). Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"Germany’s self-conception and destiny, embodied in the civil religion of the Nazis" grew to dominate all things "German" (Cristi, M. (2001). From Civil to Political Religion The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Wilfrid Laurier University Press)


"One key modality in which fascist movements seemed to parallel certain religious groups was the projection of a sense of messianic mission, typical of utopian revolutionary movements. Each had the goal of realizing a new status and mode of being for its nation, but the fascist ambitions typically paralleled those of other secular revolutionary movements in functioning within an imminent, this-worldly framework, rather than the otherworldly transcendence of religious groups.
Fundamental to fascism was the effort to create a new “civic religion” of the movement and of its structure as a state. This would build a system of all encompassing myths that would incorporate both the fascist elite and their followers and would bind together the nation in a new common faith and loyalty. Such civic religion would displace preceding structures of belief and relegate supernatural religion to a secondary role or to none at all."
Payne, G. E. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. London, Routledge.



It stems both from the use of the term (or those like it; e.g. "civic") in the literature as well as studies on religion and ideology in general. For example, civic cults in the classical world have much in common with the Nazis. Hitler himself said as much: "Those who see in National Socialism nothing more than a political movement know scarcely anything of it. It is more even than a religion; it is the will to create a new man.”

I wonder which criteria you used to tell the religious from the secular in this case.

I actually worked on an fMRI study which involved this. Materialism, the exclusion of the other-worldy, faith without spirituality, etc. Basically, religion in which the objects of worship and faith are not only material/earthly, but are defined in terms of state and politics.

I don't think we have seen much in the way of evidence for that

It's been extensively documented, not only in the book I cited you responded to (which largely concerns the ways he abandoned his Christian support) but also far more generally. I gave you several citations you can check out already:

Perhaps because, as the historian Doris Bergen put it, he believed (at least for all intents and purposes) he was god. Perhaps because most of those who believe that a Christian god is on there side do not pay lip-service to christian values and beliefs until they are in positions of power, at which time their support turns to persecutions, as demonstrated in great detail in e.g.:

J. S. Conway's The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-1945.
E. C. Helmreich's The German Churches Under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue
Scholder's 2 volumes The Churches and the Third Reich
and so on.

Hitler arrested many of his own supporters at the Night of Long Knives, but that is hardly evidence that he had no political ambitions. Heck, Hitler hardly ever though twice about chastising his own supporters, period.

 

[LuisDantas]

Churches are not people.

They are shaped by the people who make them, though.

Nor am I saying that the Nazi party and Hitler said they were christians but didn't act like it.

Of course. Why would anyone say such a thing?

I am saying that (based on what I understand to be the general view among historians as reflected in the academic literature) the Nazis and Hitler viewed religion itself, including christianity, as a weak, stunted, relic of a bygone age.

That is an odd reading of the available evidence, far as I can tell. Hitler viewed himself as the spearhead of something "greater than religion". I guess you are interpreting that in a wholy different way than I am.

Moreover, they intended (and began) to replace it with a civic cult; a secular state ideology which provided the solidarity, purpose, and ties religion had before without any supernatural elements.

If you don't consider the faith in the wisdom and destiny of the Fuhrer and in the grand destiny of Mother Germany supernatural (and in the God that makes such destinies a certainty) then sure, that would be true.

Me, I think that misses the point of what religious fanaticism is. It is not so much about supernatural belief as about grabbing readily available answers to placate one's anxieties and going out of one's way in order to not question them.

In this they were consciously building of off the work of the work of Nietzsche and to a lesser extent of those like Jung, Durkheim, etc.

Consciously, perhaps. But not at all in good faith, or sucessfully or accurately. Hitler's claim of Nietzschian influence is no more reasonable than the associations with "Darwinism" that are sometimes attached to Nazism.

Whatever you can say about other parties or groups is irrelevant to whether or not I am making a "true scotsman"-type argument. That fallacy involves the exclusion of individuals, groups, etc., from a particular category based upon features of the category. If I were saying Hitler wasn't a christian because of his actions and/or statements, but agreed that he thought of himself as a christian, then I would be making a "no true scotsman" argument. But that's not what I'm saying.

Then I guess you have to deal with that part of showing that he did not think of himself as a Christian.

(...)

It stems both from the use of the term (or those like it; e.g. "civic") in the literature as well as studies on religion and ideology in general. For example, civic cults in the classical world have much in common with the Nazis. Hitler himself said as much: "Those who see in National Socialism nothing more than a political movement know scarcely anything of it. It is more even than a religion; it is the will to create a new man.”

I actually worked on an fMRI study which involved this. Materialism, the exclusion of the other-worldy, faith without spirituality, etc. Basically, religion in which the objects of worship and faith are not only material/earthly, but are defined in terms of state and politics.

Hold on. So you are saying that you believe that on a neurological level Hitler's fascism was distinguishable from religious fanaticism?

Despite such telltale signs as, for instance, Eva Braun marrying him just in time to commit ritual suicide with her (and IIRC, there were others doing much the same)? Or the whole cult of personality thing?

Really?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That is an odd reading of the available evidence, far as I can tell.

Which naturally begs the question: what evidence are you using? As I said in my opening post, the problem here is not necessarily one typical of historical issues. The reason religious groups can paint Hitler and the Nazis as pagans is because they absolutely did use pagan symbolisms, orchestrate spectacular displays filled nordic/germanic symbols, deliberately not only liken themselves to their quasi-mythical pagan ancestors but also claim to continue their tradition and represent the race.

And the reason it is so easy to paint the Nazis as Christians is because the same is true when it comes to Christian symbols and traditions.

Questions about the nature, roots, development, and activities of the Nazis and Hitler require more than the simplistic analyses I have so often seen or heard, and it is because of this that I wanted to start a discussion in which more than google searches for images, quotes from Nazi literature, the rhetoric of the Christian right, and/or sensationalist atheism are considered.

The same individuals who will ignore publications, statements, opinions, and other media information releases because it originates from a particular source (Fox news, the UN, the "liberal media", some person or group which can be found on sourcewatch.org, and even scientist or scientific group dealing with evolution) will swallow whole particular indications that Hitler and/or the Nazis are "x" where "x" can be anything from environmentalist to pagan to the Christian right. The reason this is possible is because the "evidence" available through simplistic, surface analyses may be shaped rather easily to fit one's purposes.

So I have deliberately avoided the kind of sources which make any discussion of the Nazi party or of Hitler nothing more than picking and choosing whatever evidence may be yielded through internet searches.

In the sources I have cited thus far are the very reasons I have relied on their type- the "evidence" is anything but straightforward. For Nazi Germany in particular, a country with a deeply entrenched Christian tradition, the common practice for totalitarian regimes to use (or require) religious frameworks and appeal to religious sentiment is apparent: "This is a typical problem for fascist-type regimes: the need to rely upon a traditional base such as Christian culture in order to bring about an anticlerical and anti-Christian change of values...Compared with the other phenomena of its type, Nazism took the absolutization of the political to the extreme by basing its political religion on an ethno-religion. Its rejection not only of the Enlighten ment but also of the entire Judeo-Christian heritage led it, quite logically, to commit the worst mass crimes of the modern era."
Burrin, P. (1997). "Political Religion: The Relevance of a Concept" History and Memory vol. 9

“The other prominent examples of political religions are Italian fascism and German Nazism. As early as 1912, Benito Mussolini was calling for “a religious concept of socialism.” It became commonplace among critics of the Mussolini and Hitler regimes, and among political scientists, to note the intensely ritualistic and all-absorbing nature of ideology in those regimes and to call it religion. Examples are so common that I need not belabor the point here”
Cavanaugh, W. T. (2009). The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hitler viewed himself as the spearhead of something "greater than religion". I guess you are interpreting that in a wholy different way than I am.

I don't know how you are interpreting it.

If you don't consider the faith in the wisdom and destiny of the Fuhrer and in the grand destiny of Mother Germany supernatural (and in the God that makes such destinies a certainty) then sure, that would be true.

It is the same type of faith behind any extreme activism.

Me, I think that misses the point of what religious fanaticism is. It is not so much about supernatural belief as about grabbing readily available answers to placate one's anxieties and going out of one's way in order to not question them.

One of the main reasons I am concerned with this issue is the issue of fanaticism. If you wish to define extreme ideology are necessarily religious, then so be it. But this is not only misleading for many (as religion is typically defined in a way that excludes socio-political extremism), but is of questionable value. Any socio-political movement can contain motivate the same actions, imbue the same blind faith, create the same thoughtless destruction, and act as a filter to the mind just as any religious movement. It is ideology, whether socio-political, cultural, religious, even peer-driven, which can (and has) led to the kind of fanaticism behind the Nazi horrors.

Consciously, perhaps. But not at all in good faith, or sucessfully or accurately. Hitler's claim of Nietzschian influence is no more reasonable than the associations with "Darwinism" that are sometimes attached to Nazism.

That is not true. While social Darwinism had little to no relation to Darwin's work, Nietzsche is a different story.

Then I guess you have to deal with that part of showing that he did not think of himself as a Christian.

The reasons proffered in support of the view that he was have to do with the statements he made and symbols he used. Yet not only did he do much of the same with pseudo-paganism, his later actions belied his statements. If one elects a politician because that politician promises to make healthcare available to all or to drastically cut government spending or some other promise of the same type, but upon being elected not only fails to so much as act on those promises, but both ignores those who supported him for that reason and then do the opposite, what reason would there be for thinking that the intial statements were anything but lies?

"As in other areas, Hitler went much further than Mussolini. He was more overtly hostile to organised religion and wanted to create a National-Socialist church (the German Christians) that would legitimate his policies and draw some Christians from other denominations. The ‘German Christian Church’ was supported by a National-Socialist Theological Seminary. Nazis propagated the idea that, whatever the nature of the afterlife, there could be no question of conflicts of loyalty between faith and the Fuhrer in this life."
Davies, P., & Lynch, D. (2002). The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. London, Routledge.

Hold on. So you are saying that you believe that on a neurological level Hitler's fascism was distinguishable from religious fanaticism?

Not at all. It just reminded me of the study. It dealt with classification/categorization of groups in the mind and how they were represented. It's relevant only in that it dealt with how the mind uses particular features to classify "things" (from ideas to physical objects) into particular categories. In other words, it's not relevant at all except nostalgically.

 

[Shermana]

And the reason it is so easy to paint the Nazis as Christians is because the same is true when it comes to Christian symbols and traditions.

How about the fact that Christians overwhelmingly voted for them in the early period when they were spouting the same rhetoric as they did later when they tried to stamp out the elements of Traditional Christianity?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Consciously, perhaps. But not at all in good faith, or sucessfully or accurately. Hitler's claim of Nietzschian influence is no more reasonable than the associations with "Darwinism" that are sometimes attached to Nazism.

This is actually so important (as it relates to the factors behind the rise of the Third Reich that I should have (and will now) do it more justice.

"The claim that the National Socialists simply falsified the 'true Nietzsche' has spawned a certain interpretative myopia, a failure to engage with Nietzsche's concrete, historical role in the ideological apparatus of the nazi regime. A comprehensive analysis of what Steven Aschheim calls the 'historical transmission belts' between Nietzsche and nazism is predicated on a serious examination of those philosophers who saw in his work both the anticipation and the justification of the new regime.... For many intellectuals in the Third Reich, Nietzsche provided not merely the decorative furnishing of National Socialism, but its core ideology. This influence cannot be explained away as a simple act of misappropriation"
Whyte, M. (2008). "The Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche in the Third Reich: Alfred Baeumler's 'Heroic Realism'". Journal of Contemporary History 43(2).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How about the fact that Christians overwhelmingly voted for them in the early period when they were spouting the same rhetoric as they did later when they tried to stamp out the elements of Traditional Christianity?

1) What "traditional christianity"?
2) What "vote"?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm on a phone, so I'm not going to do a point by point, but there are two issues I have with your post.

1. The simultaneous use of Christian and pagan symbolism does not indicate that someone is secretly a pagan rather than a Christian.

Let me be clear: there is no doubt in my mind that neither Hitler nor any member of the Nazi party was pagan in any meaningful sense of the term. Their use of pagan symbolism was political, not religious or spiritual. Much of the "pagan" symbolism they used was invented. None of it represented any actual religious or spiritual connection to, or belief in, any pagan deities, practices, etc.

So you can draw heavily on pagan symbolism and still be a Christian (especially a catholic).

The use of pagan symbolism was a deliberate attempt to create a particular German völkisch or Volksgemeinschaft. It was a celebration of the (ahistorical) Aryan pre-Christian German heritage. While Christian symbolism and references to Christianity both gained support and provided a framework for a (perverse) messianic Hitler, the use of pagan and pseudo-pagan symbolism filled other needs, such as a warrior ethos, an elitist identity (which the Christian humility ideal, even if ignored in practice, could not provide) and a racially-based community/"brotherhood" which the religiously-based communal ties of Christianity lacked.

2. Being at odds with this or that denomination of a church says very little about whether or not you believe in and worship the Christian God.

There was no "this or that" denomination. It was all religious expression. The Nazi party, having gained power through an alliance with, and use of, Christian people and Christianity itself, proceeded to eradicate the church in its entirety insofar as it represented an expression of any spiritual god, other-worldy belief, or anything other than the Nazi civic cult.

Hitler repressed whatever established institution resisted his agenda, whether in the arts, academia, organized religion - everywhere. This was a rejection of DISSENT, not theology.

Only it was not simply "rejection", but replacement. From history books to religious ceremonies, the Christian framework wasn't simply abandoned or rejected, nor simply tied to neo/pseduo-paganism, but supplanted with the secular ideology of Nazi civic cult.

 

[Shermana]

1) What "traditional christianity"?
2) What "vote"?

1) The same parts of Christianity you are claiming the Nazis wanted to stamp out and didn't really believe in.

2) German federal election, March 1933 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one where the Nazis won 288 seats, more than the Social Democrats and Communists combined.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

1) The same parts of Christianity you are claiming the Nazis wanted to stamp out and didn't really believe in.

2) German federal election, March 1933 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one where the Nazis won 288 seats, more than the Social Democrats and Communists combined.

How about the fact that Christians overwhelmingly voted for them in the early period when they were spouting the same rhetoric as they did later when they tried to stamp out the elements of Traditional Christianity?

I'm waiting for the "later period". Hitler was elected in 1933. That wasn't the "early period". That was the solidification of Hitler's power and that of the Nazis, and the success of his pandering to the Christian populous. It was the beginning of both the Nazi's and Hitler's divide between (followed by increasing hostility and even persecution of) their former Christian supporters and of Christian churches.

A major point I have been trying to get across is the Hitler's and the Nazi's use of Christianity and Christian symbolism, ideals, etc., to gain power. The election in 1933 you for some reason view as "later" is exactly what I'm talking about. If you have anything to say about "later rhetoric" relative to earlier, then you need to have some conception about the timeline.

 

[Shermana]

I'm waiting for the "later period". Hitler was elected in 1933. That wasn't the "early period". That was the solidification of Hitler's power and that of the Nazis, and the success of his pandering to the Christian populous. It was the beginning of both the Nazi's and Hitler's divide (followed by increasing hostility and even persecution) of their former Christian supporters and of the Christian church.

A major point I have been trying to get across is the Hitler's and the Nazi's use of Christianity and Christian symbolism, ideals, etc., to gain power. The election in 1933 you for some reason view as "later" is exactly what I'm talking about. If you have anything to say about "later rhetoric" relative to earlier, then you need to have some conception about the timeline.

The "later period" was well after the election, the Nazis were still spouting the same rhetoric. By "early period" I meant when they were initially voted in by Germany's Christian population overwhelmingly, so the term "Early period" is moot in that aspect. I would say it wasn't until 1937, a good four years after Nazi Germany had time to start implementing the policies that it originally swooned the Christians with that the divide started appearing.

So we're having a miscommunication, forgive me if I wasn't specific, the "early period" I am referring to culminated in the 1933 election, and the "Later period" was many years after this, when the Nazis began to disassociate from the direct Christian ties, while still espousing the same rhetoric that got the German Christian masses so riled up. I would think I have a decent conception about the timeline, I suppose we just need to get our Semantics straight.

What we can see is that German Christians were well supportive of the Nazi ideals even in the 1920s.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The "later period" was well after the election, the Nazis were still spouting the same rhetoric.

"During 1936–37 approximately seven hundred pastors and priests were sentenced to the Buchenwald concentration camp, though only about fifty received long sentences. Many Catholic clergy (including nuns) were arrested on trumped-up morals charges. Though 94.5 percent of the adult German population was registered in 1939 as nominally belonging to a church, by that point most of the Christian population was pretty well cowed"

Payne, G. E. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. London, Routledge

"Not surprisingly, the reading of lists with several hundred names of persecuted Christians had a galvanizing effect on Confessing congregations, particularly in 1937 and 1938 as Nazi brutality was exercised more and more openly.
There were a number of signs that Nazi ruthlessness against the churches was intensifying. The arrest of Martin Niemöller in July 1937 shocked Confessing Christians, many of whom had assumed that the Nazis would avoid attacking a man of Niemöller’s stature and fame."

Barnett's For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford University Press).

Compared to the 1933 parade, the later parades, with their grounding of Nazi symbols in prehistory and prominent rhetoric of blood ties between ancient Nordic tribes and modern Germans, began with a much more direct ideological statement...Although the Germanic group was replete with pagan religious icons, the Romanesque Age with its ten floats and the Gothic Age with seven floats were largely devoid of Christian overtones...As noted above, religion was almost totally absent, aside from pagan allegories. This reflects a degree of ambiguity if not hostility between Christianity, which enjoyed significant support among the general public, and many party leaders, who cast Nazism as a new messianic religion." (emphasis added)


[Hagen, J. (2008). Parades, public space, and propaganda: the Nazi culture parades in Munich. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(4), 349-367.]


"As events would show, the Nazis used the “German Christians” as an instrument to gain control of the German Evangelical Church; when this failed, Nazi party support for the “German Christians” died."
Barnett's For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford University Press).

By "early period" I meant when they were initially voted in by Germany's Christian population overwhelmingly, so the term "Early period" is moot in that aspect. I would say it wasn't until 1937, a good four years after Nazi Germany had time to start implementing the policies that it swooned the Christians with that the divide started appearing.

There's a reason for the dates in the title of Conway's classic text: J. S. Conway's The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-1945

And there's a reason for the shift to an almost utter absence in Christian symbolism from the 1933 show of Nazi extravaganza to the far more elaborate one in 1937:

One of the most elaborate display the Nazis put on was the parade titled "Two Thousand Years of German Culture" in 1937, which "positioned Nazism as the culmination of German history" organized "make the later parades more coherent and comprehensive expressions of the Nazi Party’s vision of past, present and future national community"...

"After warriors escorting a Viking-like ship, most of the successive floats symbolized specific religious icons like the sun, the day, the night, the creation of the first humans, the sea god, and Walhalla where the gods welcomed heroes after death. In an overt attempt to link Nazism to the epoch’s perceived racial purity and martial valour, the sun group presented a stylized swastika as an ancient representation of the sun, while the Walhalla allegory featured long banners and draperies with swastika motifs. The prominence of the swastika was an obvious attempt by parade organizers to position the Nazi movement as the modern incarnation of this prehistoric warrior race...Compared to the 1933 parade, the later parades, with their grounding of Nazi symbols in prehistory and prominent rhetoric of blood ties between ancient Nordic tribes and modern Germans, began with a much more direct ideological statement...Although the Germanic group was replete with pagan religious icons, the Romanesque Age with its ten floats and the Gothic Age with seven floats were largely devoid of Christian overtones...As noted above, religion was almost totally absent, aside from pagan allegories. This reflects a degree of ambiguity if not hostility between Christianity, which enjoyed significant support among the general public, and many party leaders, who cast Nazism as a new messianic religion." (emphasis added)

while still espousing the same rhetoric that got the German Christian masses so riled up.

Ok. What rhetoric were you referring to?