Religion and the Reich

Since sporadic posts identifying Nazi philosophy with Christianity continue to appear in this forum, here is a link to some historical material, together with several news stories about the material

.. to the point that race became a kind of religion
for them.

Americans are overtly corporate, using race as
a tool to keep people in line.

repigs use it now. Just a fact.

I respect your right to believe whatever you want, but don't expect others to believe the same way.

commonly made here that Nazism was based on Christianity.

We think of it as a political movement that hated Jews, but there was a lot more to it than that. A lot more. It was a cult of German ethnic identity with a great reliance on ancient Germanic warrior religions, which is why Hitler was such a fan of Wagner's operatic versions of those traditions. As the largest and most visible minority group in Germany, Jews were specifically targeted for "contaminating" the "purity" of the German "race," along with Gypsies and Slavs. Gay men and lesbians were targeted for "moral degeneracy," and physically and mentally disabled people for "weakening the race."

Christians were okay only if they were "tame," willing to knuckle under and not protest Nazi policies. Some (mostly clergy) went to prison or were executed for resistance or worked against the Nazis on the side.

it is completely unclear why you need to lecture me not to "expect others to believe the same way"

The point of the OP is to shed historical light on a claim regularly reappearing in this forum: that Nazism was somehow Christian. In fact, there is considerable evidence that the Nazis intended to extirpate Christianity

It's possible perhaps that Hitler had a "secret agenda" to get rid of Christianity, but publicly he supported and praised Christianity and wore his version of Christianity like the Right wears their American Flag pins.

By Christians who bristle at the fact that sometimes, Christians are bad people. Sorry you don't like that, but it's true.

If the "Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot" card can be played against atheists, then the "Hitler" one works against Christians. Deal with it.

On edit - just a sampling of historical evidence linking Hitler and Nazism with Christianity:
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/Adolf_Hitler_Nazi_Germany_Christian_Nationalism_AntiSemitism.htm

identify it as Marinegarnisonskirche (now called Christus- und Garnisonkirch) in Wilhelmshaven, a Lutheran Church visited somewhere around 1933

"Do unto others as you would have the do unto you."
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
"Turn the other cheek."

Hitler didn't follow any of these Christian principles. The Christians supporting Hitler were misguided. Many Germans after the war claimed ignorance of the Holocaust. Also the Gestapo was around to "discourage" dissent. I know Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister, was killed for attempting to stop Hitler.

You'll have to try harder. Much, much harder.

How embarrassing.

From the 2nd page of the first part of this amazing long document:



Do you know if the author(s) was(were) ever located? Was the evidence ever found?

What's strange, though, is that if Hitler and the Nazis were actively persecuting Christians and in particular Catholics, why weren't they excommunicated?

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. . . we need believing people."

— Hitler, April 26, 1933, during negotiations which led to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.

"Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions."

— Adolf Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on Jan. 30, 1934

which was passed to Burns Oates, which published the English translation in the midst of the War

Müller had close ties to Wilhelm Canaris, who was hanged with Bonhoeffer in April 1945 for his role in the failed assassination plot

Passed through at least one individual who had a vested interest in absolving the Catholic Church from complicity with Nazi Germany. Was any actual evidence ever presented?

and to label any contrary view as "historical revisionism," yet at the same time you want to claim that any contemporary evidence to the contrary merely shows the Vatican was trying to absolve itself of any complicity with Nazi Germany. No useful insights can result from such an approach

The Catholic Church worked with and had a pretty good relationship with the Nazis. They've worked to hide the worst of that because they're rightfully ashamed by it. Where's the contradiction?

The "Sin of Omission"? Radio Vatican and the anti-Nazi Struggle, 1940–1942
Jacques Adler
Australian Journal of Politics & History 50 (3) , 396–406 (2004)

... I propose to examine Father Emmanuel Mistiaen’s broadcasts from Vatican radio directed to France between 1940 and 1942 ... The period during which Mistiaen was in charge of the French section at Vatican radio was also the period during which Nazi race policy was implemented ... Mistiaen’s talks focussed on three issues: firstly, the persecution of the Church; secondly, the danger represented by Nazi propaganda as it sought to mislead people
into believing that “collaboration” with Nazism might be desirable given that the Church also opposed Communism; and last, but not least, the Church’s opposition to that element of Nazi ideology that divided mankind into superior and inferior races ...

The Church’s persecution in Poland was first presented by Mistiaen in November 1940. Referring critically to an unnamed report that claimed all was well in Poland, that there was a revival of religious life, and that the German administration helped repair churches, Mistiaen informed listeners that while some churches were open, all religious associations were suppressed. The central office of Catholic charity was occupied by the German authority. The Catholic University of Lublin had been closed. The Catholic press had been suppressed. And seventy per cent of the Polish clergy were either in jail or in concentration camps ...

On 15 October 1942, Mistiaen once more returned to the victims of racial persecution, now with a significant difference. For, it was the fist time that the victims of racial persecution were given a name: they were the Jews, and he called on Christians to open their hearts and their homes to all those who were persecuted: Let us not forget that Jesus had looked at his lambs with love ... He demands that we remember
them, that we help them through our courage ... that we look after those who are rejected and
damned by men, ..., let us not forget that we also may be called to testify with our blood ... All
men are the children of the same Father ... ... The passage quoted appeared on the last published copy of the “Voice of the Vatican”. According to Robert Graham, the team which had set out to keep French Catholics
informed of the Vatican’s views continued to transcribe Vatican radio’s broadcasts until June 1943, but they were no longer distributed ...

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2004.00342.x

and rather than address proof to the contrary, you just throw out another block cut & paste.

Okey dokey.

All your links show is that some Catholics worked against the Nazis and were punished for it. I've never disputed that - but you seem to want to whitewash history, and I can't let that happen.

25 October 1945
MEMORANDUM
Subject: Relationship of the German Churches to Hitler.
To: General Donovan.

... At the beginning of the
- 2 -
war, Joseph Müller became a Captain in the CI-section under Admiral Canaris. In this function Joseph Müller was to influence the attitude of the dignitaries of the Catholic Church against Hitler and also to negotiate with the Vatican. The aim of these negotiations was to find out thru the Vatican under what conditions a Germany liberated from Hitler could make peace. On the part of the Vatican the negotiations were conducted by the personnal secretary of
Pope Pius XII, Padre Leiber. In the course of years, the negotiations were exceeded <sic> also to the diplomatic representatives at the Vatican, the powers at war with Germany. In this the English representative Osborn played a major part. The negotiations were recorded in writing. The documents were finally assembled by Admiral Canaris. Later, a part of them was discovered by the Gestapo. The result was that Canaris and his collaborators were hanged. Joseph Müller escaped by luck ...

<pdf:> http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/pdf/Nuremberg_3/Vol_X_18_04_01.pdf

LMAO!

Because I asked if the corroborating evidence - as was mentioned and desired in YOUR SOURCE - was ever produced?

Rich. Very, very rich.

activity) as having "a vested interest in absolving the Catholic Church from complicity with Nazi Germany." That accusation seems stunningly dishonest and is apparently made on the basis of no evidence whatsoever

The claim, that Müller had some interest in covering up crimes, seems inconsistent with his efforts after the war, when Bavarians tried dismantle Dachau:
" ... former camp prisoner Josef Müller, who made his career as a senior Christian Social Union politician and did all he could as a member of the Conservative Bavarian government to protect the Dachau site ..."
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/publications/legdach/legreviews/RevTLSStargart021.htm

I was referring to the priest (Mariaux) that you said edited the info for the publisher. So your accusation of me slandering Müller is baseless.

nazi period in exile, first in Germany and then in Brazil



Does any actual evidence support your suggestion that Mariaux was somehow dishonest?

You've lost the discussion, so now you just keep making up things I said. I never accused anyone of being dishonest, only that your all-encompassing source was filtered through a couple of people, one of whom would have had a vested interest in protecting the church. Pointing out potential conflicts of interest is not the same as impugning someone's honesty.

So are you done yet?

basis of an anonymous publication, suggested that the material was questionable: but, of course, the reluctance was really associated with the difficulty of maintaining an appearance of fairness if prosecuting on the basis of an anonymous volume. In #13, I told you who collected the material and who edited it; both were devote Catholics, of course. In #16, you continued to attempt to discredit the work of Müller/Mariaux, on the grounds it was "all based on word of mouth" and a claimed "vested interest in absolving the Catholic Church from complicity with Nazi Germany." Müller was associated with assassination plot conspirators, spent some time in concentration camps, and worked hard politically after the war to ensure that the record of nazi atrocities remained for posterity. I posted a link (#57) indicating that the German Mariaux was in exile in Italy because of the anti-nazi work of the organization he headed; and his abrupt transfer to Brazil in 1940 suggests an effort to eliminate his tracks before the Burns Oates publication

If you want to claim that Müller's collection of information or Mariaux's editing was questionable, then you ought to produce some evidence of that: Müller/Mariaux both survived the war and lived for a considerable period afterwards, so (for example) there was adequate opportunity for Müller to put on record any objection he had to Mariaux's handling of the material. If you find such evidence (or any other actual evidence of dishonesty by Mariaux, other than the mere fact that he was a priest), by all means, put it forward. Absent such evidence, one should take Müller's information at face value, except insofar as direct eyewitnesses provide a different account

The war produced tremendous dislocations (for example, around six million people died in Poland alone, about half of them Polish), so there is a good chance for many atrocities one will never find multiple accounts. A demand for "corroborating evidence" (as you do in #50) in such a horrific context -- where witnesses are often likely to have been relocated or killed and are very likely to have been injured and terrorized -- to my mind closely resembles holocaust denial. And your apparent suggestion that mere editing by a priest renders the material suspect -- which is the major effect of your #16 ("a vested interest in absolving the Catholic Church from complicity with Nazi Germany") reinforced by #56 ("I was referring to the priest (Mariaux)") -- is not an innocent question: it is a suggestion/assertion that the Church actively collaborated with the nazis and that Mariaux was complicit in some cover-up of that; it is an underhanded accusation leveled without the slightest evidence, and to me it smells something like anti-catholic prejudice

If after all of this, you still want to complain of widespread naivety, cowardice, inadequacy, and indifference, in the Catholic and Protestant churches, I cannot object, as I think the record supports that, in different ways with many different people. But of course such inadequacy of response, however, was not limited to Germany, nor to the Churches: it was too common around the world. However (I will repeat again) one simply cannot gain any meaningful lessons from gross abstractions: one needs concrete instances of specific people in particular circumstances, in order to understand their real failures and the actual avenues open to them at the time

You are no longer arguing your point, but instead just attacking a distortion of what I said. I shall now introduce my replacement for the rest of your tirade, since it is obviously addressed to him:

Monday, Apr. 14, 1941

... First the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano published the vigorously anti-Nazi Lenten pastoral of the Most Rev. Conrad Gröber, Archbishop of Freiburg, which German authorities had suppressed. "The schism of the German people is undeniable," the prelate declared, adding that instead of bringing unity the war has made the exclusion of confirmed Catholics more evident. And then he bade his flock reject passive resignation as against "conscience and ... the example of Christ" and urged them to resist Nazi efforts to teach their children anti-Christian doctrines.

Next Osservatore published a homily by militant, anti-Nazi Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, which assured German Catholics that only the Pope's desire to appear neutral had restrained him from more vigorous expression of his "profound unhappiness" over the situation in Germany. Simultaneously the Vatican let it be known that the Pope had lately made several spirited protests through his Berlin Nuncio over Germany's renewal of Catholic persecution.

Then the Vatican radio swung into action, declaring that Nazis were set to establish a new church in Germany entirely independent of Rome and recalling Nazi Mystagogue Alfred Rosenberg's denunciation of Roman Catholicism as a "Mediterranean Jewish myth." Later the Vatican broadcast that all Germans expressing a desire to become priests are liable to internment, that convents and monasteries have been closed all over Germany, that priests have trouble in ministering to soldiers and are liable to expulsion from their parishes at the slightest pretext ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932234,00.html

From a review:


http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/CathTheoNazi.htm

But elsewhere in this thread you disparage the use of historical material which passed through Catholic hands ...

Hitler's Reich
The Concordat of 1933 was ambiguous in its day and remains so.
By Robert A. Krieg | SEPTEMBER 1, 2003
" ... Robert A. Krieg is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame ..."
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3131

Here's his webpage:
http://theology.nd.edu/people/all/krieg-robert/index.shtml

If you don't get the point, there's little reason to continue this.

Monday, Jun. 07, 1943

... Last week came the most vicious charge of all: that the Church started World War II.

Over the puppet Paris radio the ingratiating voice of a "Dr. Friedrich"* gave a warped résumé of Vatican-German relations since the Concordat of 1933 was negotiated by Cardinal Pacelli (now Pius XII) and Franz von Papen:

"A careful . . . study . . . has enabled me now to realize clearly the crushing responsibility of the Church in unleashing the present war. . . . The Vatican let loose its hostility as soon as Hitler assumed power in 1933. . . . With the support and encouragement of Rome, many German Catholics took up an open fight against the National Socialist State. . . .

"The Catholic press . . . put Communist atheism and Hitler's positive Christianity on the same level. . . . The encyclical of Pope Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge, . . . not only condemned the totalitarian conception of the state but also the principles of National Socialism, particularly on blood and race. . . . The attitude of the Papacy . . . contributed very sensibly to the development of the war psychosis. . . . Numerous militant Catholics in France joined the warmonger's clique. This barking chorus of sulky dogs was made complete when Cardinal Verdier <in December 1937> declared that Christian doctrine and democratic principles were fundamentally identical" ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884954,00.html

Sounds like they were to busy protecting their own political interests...

So let's see:
Freedom of the Catholic religion, and freedom of practice thereof.
Secures rights of the church.
Catholic religion allowed to be taught in schools, and the bishop has control over the hiring of teachers.

Tell me more about this persecution of Catholics.

And signed the paper.
And then promptly invaded Poland.

Are you saying that Christians NEVER lie? All Christians are sin-free?

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

German Catholic press, and the Pope for starting the war -- propaganda that cites the papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge as evidence of an open fight by Catholics against the National Socialist State -- your response in #19 is to apparently to dispute this by citing the Reichskonkordat of a decade earlier as evidence of the freedom of Catholics to practice their religion freely

I've posted several sources, including Catholic ones, that disagree with your attempt to completely absolve the church from any role in the rise and/or maintenance of Nazism in Germany. You have ignored them, or just attacked me. Whatever makes you happy - but you can't change history.

I suggest that you direct your accusations and frustrations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress, since they agree with me.

From "Vatican Gives Formal Apology for Inaction During Holocaust" at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V118/N13/bvatican.13w.html

You cited quotes from Hitler himself, he cited third hand gossip and Time Magazine articles.

It is obvious that there are different standards for proof in operation here.

But then if all you are looking for is support for a crackpot theory, you don't require a level of credibility in your sourcing.

I have to wonder if the OP believes what Time Magazine said about GWB or Obama? Or if his trust is selective.

if that is your question. You may, of course, argue against this, if you choose, but my natural reaction will be to regard such an argument with considerable prejudice

It is clear that no evidence will change your opinion. That's why I didn't bother to respond to your original post.

I was just warning trotsky that your need for evidence is significantly less than his. And that disparity makes rational discussion rather tedious.

When you start with a conclusion, you'll accept only the evidence that supports it.

is indeed selective. Another fine example of believing only those things with which you agree.

Oh well.

to point out that the nazis planned the extirpation of the Christian church in Germany. That is not at all the same as claiming that that have never been people who simultaneously called themselves Christians and were anti-semites or violent or otherwise jerks

And the Catholic Church as an institution did not support the nazis. To say that, is not to claim that there were no Catholics who supported the nazis, it is not to claim that the Catholic Church was a heroic bulwark of anti-nazi resistance, and it is not to take a particular stand on any question about the significance of particular antisemitic manifestations in the Catholic church (or among other Christians) in the decades or centuries prior to the Shoah. Such questions can only be addressed by careful historical attention to detail

In the case of Germany, however, one should note that volkish antisemitism and anticatholicism had been linked for some decades by the time of the nazi take-over. The nazi antisemitic and anticatholic rhyme "Ohne Juda, ohne Rom, wird gebaut Germaniens Dom! Heil!“ ("Without Jews, without Rome, we shall build Germany's cathedral") originated in the "Lose Rome" movement associated with Schönerer's Alldeutsche Bewegung:



See also Katholizmus and Anti-Semitismus im Deutschen Kaisereich (Olaf Blaschke) at 201

The Catholic Church just prior to the Third Reich viewed atheistic Communism (and the liberal, Jewish-influenced, secular Weimar Republic) as a far greater threat than Nazism, and directed resources and agreements accordingly.

Those Jewish organizations I quoted from confirm that the church merely apologizing for not doing "enough" to stop the Nazis isn't sufficient. You disagree with them. I guess that's the way things will just be.

I'm glad to see that at least you've moderated your position - maybe there's hope for you yet.

that sloganeering cannot provide informative lessons and that particular and specific historical discussion is much more likely to yield practical and useful insights

very frankly in a conversation with a British diplomat, Ivone Kirkpatrick:

His Eminance .. made no effort to conceal his disgust at the proceedings of Herr Hitler's government .... there was no word of palliation or excuse .... Pacelli equally deplored the actions of the German government at home, there persecution of the Jews, their proceedings against political opponents, their reign of terror .... ... "

Asked why he had nevertheless signed a concordat ... Pacelli replied ... 'If the German Government violated the Concordat -- and they were certain to do so -- the Vatican would have a Treaty on which to base a protest ...' ..."
The Silence of Pope Pius XII
John S. Conway
The Review of Politics, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1965), pp. 105-131

The (interrupted) interior quote (part in italics, part in quotation marks) is taken from a British foreign policy document

but it is also vehemently denied that atheism has anything to do with their policies. Why is that different for Naziism and Christianity. They are two distinct and separate isms.

against atheism, but we're supposed to count the crimes of Hitler against Christianity.

Bit of a double standard, yes?

I'll give you the Crusades and the Inquisition, since those were actually planned by church authorities, but Nazism was a political movement based on racism and not primarily a religious movement, even though it coopted the official Catholic and Protestant churches. At the same time, there were a noticeable number of Christians, both clergy and lay people (not nearly enough, although in a country with such an authoritarian history, it's remarkable that there were any at all), who resisted the Nazis in to some extent, sometimes paying with their lives.

as anybody else. Nazism wasn't about christianity, just like Communism and Stalinism wasn't about atheism. But how often do you hear atheists say "Oh, but that person isn't a true atheist, or he wouldn't be killing?". That's bullshit...but religious people do it all the fucking time. Even in this thread, we have people saying that the Nazi's weren't christian.

THAT'S THE PROBLEM, THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE. They were christian. Just as many of the stalinists were atheist. And usually, from my experience on the board, the discussion about Nazi's being christian is always brought up AFTER someone brings up Stalin or Polpot, or AFTER someone accuses Nazi's of persecuting christians and being atheist.

No, you can't blame the crimes of Stalin et al on atheism. But I also can't claim good deeds done by atheists are because of their atheism either. It's a null philosophy. There's nothing that comes along with atheism that says how we should act, or how we should treat each other, or anything. It certainly paves the way for more advanced moral systems than "Don't do that because it makes god mad" but that's about all that can be said.

But since Christianity usually gets credit when its adherents do good, then it's only fair to assign some blame when its adherents do bad.

Atheism is more of an attribute or a descriptor than it is a philosophy. It does not entail any specific ideas or doctrines that motivate particular actions. Atheists have done abominable things in the last century. Many of the most brutal leftist regimes in modern history were loudly atheistic, but that does not mean their crimes were committed "in the name of atheism." By definition, something cannot be done in the name of atheism, because atheism has no content.

I feel more responsibility for Stalin as a socialist than an atheist. Socialism has specific ideas attached to it, some of which it shares in common with Stalinism. Stalin's lack of belief in gods was no more responsible for his atrocities than the fact that he did not play tennis or drive a Ford. I share both of those with him, but that doesn't make me responsible for his crimes against humanity.

Personally, I never said that Nazism was the responsibility of Christianity. I'm not sold on the contention that the ideas about racial purity and world dominaiton came from Christianity. My only point has been that if God's permission justified the genocide agaist the Midianites in the book of Joshua, there is no fundamental reason why it could not justify the crimes committed by the Nazis. I personally never said it had anything to do with Christianity in particular.

I'm a pretty outspoken atheist who is tired of the no true Scotsman shite every time a Christian does something horrible, but even I've never contended, or even seen it contended by other atheists, that Hitler acted in this way BECAUSE he was a Christian. I mean he said he was "doing the Lord's work" but I'm not likely to accept that as proof that Xianity was his sole, major or even a significant motivator.

Can't speak for anyone else but my contention is merely that he WAS a believer, and certainly not an atheist as he is often described.

Frankly if other atheists are saying he killed Jews only, or mostly, because of his claimed Christianity, then they are as deluded as Chrsitians who say Stalin killed people only, or even mostly, because of his claimed atheism.

He got into the whole "racial purity" shtick and carried it to its extreme. He started by killing disabled people, and at first, he seemed content to have Jews just leave Germany.

a curious amalgam of ideas from distinct groups, including the avowedly antisemitic groups that had existed for decades prior (such as the pagan Wotan societies), the anticommunist groups previously associated with loyalty to a German aristocracy that still existed, a widespread anger and resentment at the unexpected loss of WWI (which had been kept from the German population until collapse was at hand), and so on. The simplest explanation for such an amalgam may be that it was expedient for their purposes . Towards the end of the Republic, the nazis played a careful political game, professing in various venues to hold the views of this group or that group, without much consistency but without much risk of being discovered in their inconsistency. Once in power, they moved immediately to consolidate power, funding their planned war machine by seizures of the assets of their opponents. Extermination, as a "philosophy," offered the political "benefit" of pleasing certain antisemitic extremists
but a greater "benefit" is that it provided land and houses with which to reward supporters; it further provided slave labor; and beyond all that it further consolidated power by terrorizing the rest of the population

The Church did NOTHING but kiss the Nazis ass, Hitler has never been excummonicated from the church. Of course Hitler wanted to destroy the Church, HE wanted to be worshipped as a gawd; their new gawd.