Nazi’s National Reich Church Anything But Christian

leomcneil.net ^ | October 9, 2014 | Leo McNeil

[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.

[sakic]

But the majority of Germans under Hitler were Christian. That is factual.

[sakic]

Luther crystallized it and formed a religion around anti-Semitism. It’s not a coincidence that Germany was ripe for a Hitler.

[sakic]

Yet, the Germans embraced it.

[dfwgator]

After he got rid of the “Saturday” people, he was going to turn his attention to the “Sunday” people.

[dfwgator]

Nazis practiced their own version of Taqqiya.

[xone]

Luther crystallized it

Hah, it is ignorance. Practiced long and hard before Luther, and was a policy in the 19th century.

formed a religion around anti-Semitism

Lutheranism has a 'crystallized' doctrine of anti-semitism accordingly? Well then a genius theologian such as yourself should have no problem identifying that 'doctrine' from the Book of Concord. Please cite the relevant sections that support your conclusion. Or are you, as you're proving, full of it?

[sakic]

I will not do the drudge work for the willfully ignorant. Read Luther’s proclamations, including that all synagogues should be burned to the ground with the Jews in them for starters.

Even the laziest can do a simple search in Google.

Luther was the scrum of the earth.

[Belteshazzar]

First, what exactly is “it”?

Second, what are Americans embracing in our day? Everything good? We are on a path not dissimilar to that of the Germans in the 20’s and 30’s. There is a path to societal depravity. It increases in steepness the farther you walk it. So far, the constitutional basis of our governance, our traditions built on it, and our two centuries of practice - things which the Germans did not have! - have somewhat protected us. But we are busy shedding the wisdom and decency of those who went before us in our infinite wisdom (!).

Aim your cannons at an appropriate target and make sure your aim is true. I do not see in what you have written much that indicates you know how to hit the targets that should be hit.

[xone]

I will not do the drudge work for the willfully ignorant.

Of course not, you make the claim that it is part of Lutheranism, but can't cite any doctrine to that effect. Luther's 'proclamations' on Jews, weren't made part of the doctrine of the Lutheran church, then or now.

Even the laziest can do a simple search in Google.

And yet it is unmanageable for you even with the reference. Pretending that Luther invented anti-semitism or accepting Nazi claims that their movement was based on Luther is the height of laziness. They were Nazis, no other reason necessary, but they always told the truth? Dope is right.

Luther was the scrum of the earth.

No evidence Luther ever played rugby, but 'scum' would relate to someone who avoids the truth, and posts the lie.

[Belteshazzar]

First, I doubt whether you have read with any serious intent anything of Lutheran theology.

Second, Luther is not the determiner of Lutheran theology and practice. That would be the Bible and the Book of Concord of 1580. Look there. You will find nothing supporting your claims.

Third, consider the top leadership of the Nazi Party and the government over which it presided:

A. Adolf Hitler - reared in a Catholic family.
B. Hermann Goering - reared in a mixed family, but with Catholic roots.
C. Josef Goebbels - reared in a Catholic family.
D. Heinrich Himmler - reared in a Catholic family.
E. Reinhard Heydrich - reared in a Catholic family.

Where is the Luther connection?

But does this mean that the Catholic church is to be blamed for the atrocities of these criminals? NO! In no way! These men were no more Catholic than they were Lutheran. THEY WERE NOT CHRISTIAN! They were Darwinists, everyone of them. They were eugenicists. They were arrogant, racial bigots of the very worst sort. They rejected Christianity utterly. They only used Christian language as it suited them to hide their real intentions. They played on the historical fact - FACT! - of European anti-semiticism which far, far predated them and penetrated virtually every nation in Europe, and, sad to say, still exists (and which Muslims are exploiting even today). And they played on the worst tendencies of their own people, using the time-tested method of inspiring hate in the have-nots toward others in order to blame those others for the conditions in which the economically hurting German lower classes lived. They also exploited the feeling among the Germans that they have been betrayed by their own government in WWI. And meanwhile, the Soviet Union was busy spreading disinformation to help disintegrate Europe’s Christian foundation and prepare it for the revolution that Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin all sought.

Is hate of others and the inspiring of hate toward others Christian in any sense? NO! It is absolutely, fundamentally the opposite of Christian teaching. It is anti-Christian. And that is who the Nazis were.

Does any of this look similar to things happening today?

[af_vet_1981]

Practiced long and hard before Luther,

Luther wrote the blueprint for the Holocaust in his book. The Nazis agreed with him and implemented his recommendations. They both hated the Jews, albeit for different reasons. DR. MARX: Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly after the Party came into power, were there any other publications in Germany which treated the Jewish question in an anti-Semitic way? STREICHER: Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them...

[PATRIOT1876]

Anyone with even an arthritic grasp of reality would be able to tell that the Nazis were not Christian.

Hitler had his own altered version of the Bible made up and he was coming after the Christians next, but the war stopped him.

Besides, everyone knows that a Socialist group is almost always anti-God.

[Belteshazzar]

And you believe that Julius Streicher is a credible source on Nazi intentions and motivations? Unbelievable. He was a bigoted boob that the Nazi leadership used to incite the existing boob population of Germany. Read history!

[xone]

We’ve been here before, must we post popery’s AS that had the effect of law again? As for believing a Nazi as to his motivations, really? No historical influence of the 400 years after Luther? No chronic European anti-semitism, no feelings of being put upon after losing the Great War? Had to be a book from 400 years before because a Nazi always tell the truth. Mein Kampf would never had been published except for Luther? Poor Hitler, controlled by a man dead for centuries, to revive anti-semitism which the good people of the world had suppressed after damn Luther died. Lame.

[af_vet_1981]

Where is the Luther connection ?

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Martin Luther wrote "THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES," the blueprint for the Holocaust, after he rebelled against the Catholic Church. He was full of poison. "Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death."

***

"What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Let us apply the ordinary wisdom of other nations like France, Spain, Bohemia, et al., who made them give an account of what they had stolen through usury, and divided it evenly; but expelled them from their country; For as heard before, God's wrath is so great over them that through soft mercy they only become more wicked, through hard treatment, however, only a little better. Therefore, away with them!"

***

quot;How much more unbearable it is that we should permit the entire Christendom and all of us to be bought with our own money, be slandered and cursed by the Jews, who on top of all that be made rich and our lords, who laugh us to scorn and are tickled by their audacity!"

***

"What a joyful affair that would be for the Devil and his angels, and cause them to laugh through their snouts like a sow grinning at her little pigs, but deserving real wrath before God."

***

"What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must pratice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengenance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

> First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly—and I myself was unaware of it—will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. . . .

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuternomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the Law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the Word of God, and therefore he forfeited the righ to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. . . If you princes and nobles do not close the road legally to such exploiters, then some troop ought to ride against them, for they will learn from this pamphlet what the Jews are and how to handle them and that they ought not to be protected. You ought not, you cannot protect them, unless in the eyes of God you want to share all their abomination.

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants."

***

"But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews' synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God's Name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. For our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God."

***

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward."

"To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden—the Jews . . ."

"Let the government deal with them in this respect, as I have suggested. But whether the government acts or not, let everyone at least be guided by his own conscience and form for himself a definition or image of a Jew. When you lay eyes on or think of a Jew you must say to yourself: Alas, that mouth which I there behold has cursed and execrated and maligned every Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with His precious blood; in addition, it prayed and pleaded before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians might be stabbed to death and perish miserably. And he himself would gladly do this if he were able, in order to appropriate our goods . . ."

"Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot are these Jews, who for these fourteen hundred years have been and still are our plague, our pestilence, and our misfortune."

"I have read and heard many stories about the Jews which agree with this judgment of Christ, namely, how they have poisoned wells, made assassinations, kidnapped children, as related before. I have heard that one Jew sent another Jew, and this by means of a Christian, a pot of blood, together with a of wine, in which when drunk empty, a dead Jew was found. There are many other similar stories. For their kidnapping of children they have often been burned at the stake or banished (as we already heard). I am well aware that they deny all of this. However, it all coincides with the judgment of Christ which declares that they are venomous, bitter, vindictive, tricky serpents, assassins, and children of the devil, who sting and work harm stealthily wherever they cannot do it openly. For this reason, I would like to see them where there are no Christians. The Turks and other heathen do not tolerate what we Christians endure from these venomous serpents and young devils . . . next to the devil, a Christian has no more bitter and galling foe than a Jew. There is no other to whom we accord as many benefactions and from whom we suffer as much as we do from these base children of the devil, this brood of vipers." "We are at fault for not slaying them."

***

"I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in, proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish. They surely do not know what they are doing; moreover, as people possessed, they do not wish to know it, hear it, or learn it. There it would be wrong to be merciful and confirm them in their conduct. If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated."

[xone]

Luther wrote the blueprint for the Holocaust

So there were trains, crematoria, SS and such in Luther's book, who knew?

Himmler must have stolen them

Auschwitz blueprints.

Oh no, the Kaiser did!

African concentration camps.

Have these been carbon-dated, they must be 16th century, I read it on FR.

Auschwitz blueprint.

Whether you choose to admit it or not the Nazis are responsible for their actions as are all sinners. To attempt to shift the blame does a disservice to those killed during the Holocaust as well as those who were killed and maimed destroying the regimes who perpetrated the action. I thought you were Catholic, where is the free will?

[Belteshazzar]

Did I deny that Luther said some things that were intemperate and wrong? No. Did I claim infallibility for Luther? No.

Are Lutherans - real Lutherans - honest enough to air their own dirty laundry? Yes. Did I indicate that the Book of Concord of 1580, the only authoritative confession of the Lutheran Church, did not accept any of his thoughts on this matter? Yes. And the Lutheran Church has sided with the Book of Concord on this matter for now almost 500 years.

Your task is to prove that a man, dead 400 years, so captivated and controlled the minds of the Nazi leadership on this subject - WHILE NOT HAVING THE SLIGHTEST INFLUENCE ON THEM WITH ANYTHING ELSE HE SAID!!! - that he is to be held responsible for their actions? This is akin to, and even more ludicrous, than the Obama administration’s attempt to blame everything that is bad on George Bush years after Bush was long out of office.

What a totally bogus argument you put forward.

[xone]

Ye shall know them by their fruits.

Indeed, Luther was a sinful man. The JATL a terrible book. None of which became Lutheran doctrine or approved practice. The question remains, did Luther personally harm Jews? I'd like to see the evidence. Now let's review the Catholic Church approach to AS in the territory where they held sway.

Papal_Bulls_Jews.

Official policy, not just of the individual pope, but of the church. Bad fruit indeed.

[af_vet_1981]

And you believe that Julius Streicher is a credible source on Nazi intentions and motivations? Unbelievable. He was a bigoted boob that the Nazi leadership used to incite the existing boob population of Germany. Read history!

The Nazis were peculiar at leaving evidence since they were proud of Luther and his influence with them. "Four hundred years after it was written, the Nazi Party displayed On the Jews and Their Lies during Nuremberg rallies, and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, the newspaper describing it as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published.[44]"

The prevailing view[28] among historians is that Luther's anti-Jewish rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of antisemitism in Germany,[29] and in the 1930s and 1940s provided an ideal foundation for the Nazi Party's attacks on Jews.[30] Reinhold Lewin writes that "whoever wrote against the Jews for whatever reason believed he had the right to justify himself by triumphantly referring to Luther." According to Michael, just about every anti-Jewish book printed in the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from Luther. Diarmaid MacCulloch argues that Luther's 1543 pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies was a "blueprint" for the Kristallnacht.[31] Shortly after the Kristallnacht, Martin Sasse, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia, published a compendium of Martin Luther's writings ; Sasse "applauded the burning of the synagogues" and the coincidence of the day, writing in the introduction, "On November 10, 1938, on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany." The German people, he urged, ought to heed these words "of the greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews."[32] Christopher J. Probst, in his book Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany (2012), demonstrates that a significant number of German theologians and clergy made use of the sixteenth-century writings by Martin Luther on Jews and Judaism to reinforce the racial antisemitism and religious anti-Judiasm already present among Protestants. Focusing on key figures, Probsts's study makes clear that a significant number of pastors, bishops, and theologians of varying theological and political persuasions employed Luther's texts with considerable effectiveness in campaigning for the creation of a "de-Judaized" form of Christianity. Probst shows that even the church most critical of Luther's anti-Jewish writings reaffirmed the antisemitic stereotyping that helped justify early Nazi measures against the Jews.[33] Published In 1940, Heinrich Himmler wrote admiringly of Luther's writings and sermons on the Jews.[34] The city of Nuremberg presented a first edition of On the Jews and their Lies to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, on his birthday in 1937; the newspaper described it as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published.[35] It was publicly exhibited in a glass case at the Nuremberg rallies and quoted in a 54-page explanation of the Aryan Law by Dr. E.H. Schulz and Dr. R. Frercks.[36] On December 17, 1941, seven Lutheran regional church confederations issued a statement agreeing with the policy of forcing Jews to wear the yellow badge, "since after his bitter experience Luther had [strongly] suggested preventive measures against the Jews and their expulsion from German territory."

Michael states "Luther wrote of the Jews as if they were a race that could not truly convert to Christianity. Indeed, like so many Christian writers before him, Luther, by making the Jews the devil's people, put them beyond conversion." He notes that in a sermon of September 25, 1539, "Luther tried to demonstrate through several examples that individual Jews could not convert permanently, and in several passages of The Jews and Their Lies, Luther appeared to reject the possibility that the Jews would or could convert."[37]

Franklin Sherman, editor of volume 47 of the American Edition of Luther's Works in which On the Jews and Their Lies appears,[38] responds to the claim that "Luther's antipathy towards the Jews was religious rather than racial in nature," Luther's writings against the Jews, he explains, are not "merely a set of cool, calm and collected theological judgments. His writings are full of rage, and indeed hatred, against an identifiable human group, not just against a religious point of view; it is against that group that his action proposals are directed." Sherman argues that Luther "cannot be distanced completely from modern antisemites". Regarding Luther's treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers wrote: "There you already have the whole Nazi program".[39]

[Skooz]

There used to be some willfully ignorant, history-challenged, blithering imbeciles who frequented FR who vociferously stated that Hitler was a Christian.

They might still be here. Not sure.

Idiots.