Posted on 10/09/2014 7:28:17 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
Every so often someone will make the claim that Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party is both conservative and Christian. National Socialism is neither. It isn’t conservative, certainly not on the American political spectrum. National Socialism is closer to Obama’s outlook than anything else. Each believed government should dictate the economy but allowed private business to carry out the orders of the state in a for profit manner. Obamacare would fit right into National Socialism. Government dictates what healthcare policies will look like, creates mountains of paperwork to be filled out and then allows private companies to sell what the government allows them to sell.
In this piece I’m more interested in the claim that National Socialism was a Christian movement. No doubt Hitler and other National Socialists used the generic term God on a regular basis, just like most American politicians do. The National Socialists had a plan for the church, just like they had a plan for every other organization in Germany. They sought to centralize it, eliminate its leaders, replace the leaders with National Socialists and ultimately transform the teaching and purpose into something that benefited the National Socialist movement. This is exactly what Alfred Rosenberg did with the National Reich Church. He sought a complete take over of the German Church. Opponents were weeded out, the German Confession Church leaders were murdered. Worse, the National Socialists sought to fundamentally alter church teachings to conform with their ideology.
Rosenberg had a 30 point program for the National Reich Church. Among these points are the following:
1. The National Reich’s Church of Germany categorically claims the exclusive right and the exclusive power to control all churches within the borders of the Reich; it declares these to be national churches:
2. The German people must not serve the National Reich Church. The National Reich Church is absolutely and exclusively in the service of but one doctrine: race and nation.
4. The National Reich Church does not force any German to seek membership therein. The Church will do everything within its power to secure the adherence of every German soul. Other churches or similar communities and unions particularly such as are under international control or management cannot and shall not be tolerated in Germany.
5. The National Reich Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably and by every means the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800.
7. The National Reich Church has no scribes, pastors, chaplains or priests but National Reich orators are to speak in them.
10. The National Reich Church irrevocably strives for complete union with the state. It must obey the state as one of its servants. As such, it demands that all landed possessions of all churches and religious denominations be handed over to the state. It forbids that in future churches should secure ownership of even the smallest piece of German soil or that such be ever given back to them. Not the churches conquer and cultivate land and soil but exclusively the German nation, the German state.
12. National Reich Church orators hold office, government officials under Civil Service rules.
13. The National Reich Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany as well as the publication of Sunday papers, pamphlets, publications and books of a religious nature.
14. The National Reich Church has to take severe measures in order to prevent the Bible and other christian publications being imported into Germany.
15. The National Reich Church declares that to it, and therefore to the German nation, it has been decided that the Fuhrer’s “Mein Kampf” is the greatest of all documents. It is conscious that this book contains and embodies the purest and truest ethics for the present and future life of our nation.
16. The National Reich Church has made it its sacred duty to use all its energy to popularize the coeternal “Mein Kampf” and to let every German live and complete his life according to this book.
18. The National Reich Church will clear away from its altars all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of Saints.
19. On the altars there must be nothing but “Mein Kampf”, which is to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book, and to the left of the altar a sword.
20. The National Reich Church speakers must during church services propound this book to the congregation to the best of their knowledge and ability.
21. The National Reich Church does not acknowledge forgiveness of sins. It represents the standpoint which it will always proclaim that a sin once committed will be ruthlessly punished by the honorable and indestructible laws of nature and punishment will follow during the sinner’s lifetime.
22. The National Reich Church repudiates the christening of German children, particularly the christening with water and the Holy Ghost.
24. The National Reich Church abolishes confirmation and religious education as well as the communion the religious preparation for the communion. The educational institutions are and remain the family, the schools, the German youth, the Hitler youth, and the Union of German girls.
28. The National Reich Church rejects the customary day of prayer and atonement. It demands that this be transferred to the holiday commemorating the laying of the foundation stone of the National Reich Church.
30. On the day of its foundation, the Christian cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals and chapels within the Reich and its colonies and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol of Germany the “Hakenkreuz” (swastika).
In other words, the National Reich Church serves the state and focuses on blood and race over all else. The Bible is replaced with Mein Kampf. The Christianity imported to Germany around 800ad is to be abolished, presumably in favor of the pagan religions that existed in what is now Germany at that time. Baptism and communion are eliminated as well as the Christian doctrine of forgiveness of sin. Gone is the cross, in is the swastika. Does this sound like a Christian church in any way? It is quite clear the National Socialists sought to keep the title of church as little more than a name.
The church was to be transformed into an indoctrination vehicle for National Socialism. In this case, it sought to turn National Socialism into a religion. Adolph Hitler replaced God, Mein Kampf replaced the Bible and the Swastika replaced the cross. Gone is the doctrine of forgiveness of sins, to be replaced with the eugenic notions of blood and race pushed by the National Socialists. Those Germans who were truly Christians and did not wish to participate in this new religion were banned from participating in truly Christian Churches. Those believers did leave the National Reich Church, creating the Confessing Church. The National Socialists murdered thousands of pastors and believers from the Confessing Church. There was to be no protestant church in National Socialist Germany but the Reich Church.
There is nothing Christian about Hitler’s National Socialism. His destruction of the church via the National Reich Church makes that plain. There simply isn’t anything within the Reich Church that resembles the Christian faith. All of the Biblical sacraments are eliminated, the Bible replaced with Hitler’s rantings, God replaced by Hitler. The fundamental doctrines taught by Christ were eliminated in favor of ruthless legalism. There simply isn’t anything Christian about the National Socialists church. Which of course means that those claiming Hitler and the National Socialists are Christians either are ignorant or lying. Any quotations by the National Socialists concerning God or Christianity have to be viewed through the lens of the National Reich Church and the broader philosophy of National Socialism. Their motives are clear, Christianity had to be destroyed in Germany. The Church was only valuable as an organization which could be used to further National Socialism and the cult of Hitler. Otherwise, Christianity and the Church had no value to the National Socialists.
bttt
Hitler set himself up as god. All power and authority was his. His own alpha and omega. Love, forgiveness, compassion are the antithesis of everything that Hitler and the Nazis stood for. The only reason that Christians follow Jesus is that He is the promised JEWISH Messiah. And Himself a Jew to boot.
NO way Hitler was a Christian.
Looked up 800 A.D. That was the year Charlemagne was crowned ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. It was also the first year that the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in western Europe.
Wonder why those events got the Nazis so all riled up? They were going all Nordic for Norse mythology & runes & Gothic stuff, but a calendar...?
We can spin this any way we want, forgetting about Hitler, his followers most assuredly identified themselves as Christians. We can say they did not behave like Christians, but that’s a different discussion.
Martin Luther laid the groundwork for Hitler and he pounced on it.
The followers of David Duke thought they were Christian, too. Just because most religious people are good does not mean some are not bad.
Listen to some of his advisors and what they say about the value of human life and other freedoms and you will hear Hitler’s Germany of the 1930’s resound loud and clear.
“Nazi’s National Reich Church Anything But Christian”
Yup, the Nazis worshipped Big Government.
Hitler was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church as a baby, he may have been confirmed when he was older. As an adult, he would go to churches for food when he lived as a tramp in Vienna. Otherwise, he did not attend services in any way. Certainly not once he became Chancellor. His actions and the actions of the government he led make clear Hitler wasn’t a believer. The SS attacked churches both in Germany and in occupied territories. The National Reich Church sought to destroy Christian theology and replace it with National Socialist ideology. The Gestapo arrested and murdered thousands of protestant pastors and church members, to say nothing of Roman priests.
Describes how anything Christian - including carols and even Easter - were perverted to serve the state. They had to sign one of the most German of carols Silent Night in quiet tomes to keep from being overheard.
Way too much like the current situation in DC and Hollywood.
Hitler said Christianity was a "gutter religion", he was bent on replacing Christianity with his own pagan ancestor worshipping ideas. He was most definitely not Christian.
When you get to the point where the National Reich Church is banning the Bible and Christian theology you’ve gotten to the point where the people aren’t believers anymore. The term church may still exist but it has a different meaning. That’s what happened in Germany, which by the time Hitler got into power was largely post-Christian in the first place. That doesn’t mean there were no Christians in Germany but let’s not pretend like the majority of Germans were Christians much less the majority or even sizable minority of National Socialists.
So, just another liberal organization.
The Germans were also expropriating all the Catholic Church properties they could find. They were also replacing nuns in hospitals with their own Nazi Sisters.
Oh yeah, there was never systemic anti-semitism until the 16th century. What a dope.
“The National Reich Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably and by every means the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800.”
Yes, the HRE was the First Reich, & the German Empire was the Second Reich. But notice Rosenberg’s hostility to anything Christian. Wonder what he thought about Islam? Ol’ Adolf kinda liked it.
Abysmal ignorance or calculated disinformation.
Now, you want to see a Christian group that resisted the Nazis to a man and to the death, check out the Jehovah's Witnesses, who although not claiming me as a member have earned my utmost respect.
The National Socialists did everything in their power to destroy the Confessing Church, including outlawing it and arresting its leaders.
Did I say Hitler was Christian?
I said his followers self-identified as Christians.
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