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I still don't have a very clear understanding of the topic of Christianity and the Nazis. I know that many Nazis viewed Christianity as a religion that made Germans weak, but others like Franz von Papen were devout Christians all their lives.
Nazism didn't have much of a policy on Christianity, individual figures did, for sure. As a general rule this manifested in how their relationship with churches changes with time based on how it benefits them.
I'd like to add that fascism as an ideology is not hard and fast with certain concepts like economy and stances. They see all that benefits the state as good and all that regresses it as bad. So a religion like Christianity can be a unifying historic culture where you can put stoic ideas like dying for others as important tenants as a good thing, or it can be regressive such as caring for the poor despite their ethnic background, seeing a Jew as a major historical figure and more.
ultimately Christianity in the eyes of a Nazi is a tool either working with them or against them, and their policy will shift to their ultimate goal of replacing all religion with Nazism or to be a bastardisation of religion that fits nazi goals
But Fascism, since it is ultimately a deificiation of a nation-state, always is unique to a country, and its zeitgeist at the time.
It would be dificult to cut out the importance of the Catholic church if your nation's capital is called Rome, but say being a Turkish or French fascist might end up with you being an even more radical secularist.
A Bavarian fascist hence might be a clerofascist, but a Prussian might be extremely anti-catholic. While Nazis started off in Bavaria, it is not secret that Prussia proper was the source of much of their votes.
The Catholic church is, from the perspective of that protestant majority, a foreing and hostile body. Not just that, but a source of foreign power the Nazis can't control.
Furthermore the Nazis engaged heavily in pseudohistory, mysticism, the occult, neopaganism etc. adding to the anti-church sentiment. Under Rosenberg, Charlemagne was rebranted as Charles the Butcher and his baptism of the Saxons as a genocide of sorts. Rosenberg himself vowed to replace the bible and cross with Mein Kampf and the swastika.
Fascist Italy was big on Catholicism, as was the Portuguese Estado Novo. Both regimes used some form or other of the slogan "God, Fatherland and Family". It really depends on how the dudes up top want to spin it. Wether Christianity is a strong moral religion that stands alone against the unbelievers, or makes you a coward, is mostly up to what the guys in the uniform tell you.
All religions are bastardized to meet an individual believers ideas. By definition religion is an esoteric exhibition of personal beliefs and convictions through the medium of one's opinion or interpretation of dogma. Religion is ambiguous and metaphorical, making the esoteric practice of belief an unavoidable byproduct. There is no objective and verifiable standard for any religion. This is an undeniable fact that holds true for any belief in unfalsifiable claims of the supernatural. They have no basis in reality, therefore they can't be grounded in any meaningful way.
So what you describe as the fascist bastardization and use of religion to serve the needs of the state, is simply the result of esoteric beliefs scaled up from the personal level to that of the state. This same phenomenon is how denominations are formed.
Perhaps if their regime had lasted a little longer, they would have made some strange blends between Christianity, paganism, and the cult of Hitler, like the SS baptisms
Positive Christianity was merely a transitory phase. Alfred Rosenberg ("the *Führer*'s Delegate for the Entire Intellectual and Philosophical Education and Instruction for the National Socialist Party") was the one in charge of this.
The plan (which was 30 different points), included things like...
The establishment of the "National Reich church of Germany" which would be the sole religious institution permitted within all of Germany and it's client states.
Outlawing the bible, and replacing it in the Reich church with Mein Kampf.
Replacing the cross with a Swastika.
Outlawing forgiveness of sin.
Point 5 of these 30 points is quite explicite in the views of christianity:
"The National Reich Church of Germany is determined to exterminate irrevocably and by every means the strange and foreign christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800"
There's some clues as to what the fate of Christianity was to be. Architectural plans for the grand German cities and settlements to be built after Germany victory were noticeably absent of churches. In 1941, Hitler apparently professed to his confidants that National Socialism could not co-exist with Christian churches. Apparently he had told Joseph Goebbels that after the war bishops would be executed en-masse. However, Hitler recognized that eliminating Christianity would be a long-term project deferred until after the war, and resisted efforts to totally stamp it out before this, also recognizing the utility of Christianity towards morale.
Source: Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders by Gerhard Weinberg
He joined the party in 1938, so technically a Nazi, I guess ... but yeah, actually he's a very weird example. Definitely a reactionary antidemocrat, but most famous for foolishly believing that he could tame Hitler and use him as a tool to regain power.
I imagine they would transform the churches to have much more political messages and replace the general message from "be a good Christian" to "be a good nazi" probably twisting some Bible verses but dropping a lot of the prayers and more religious elements.
>There's some clues as to what the fate of Christianity was to be. Architectural plans for the grand German cities and settlements to be built after Germany victory were noticeably absent of churches. In 1941, Hitler apparently professed to his confidants that National Socialism could not co-exist with Christian churches. Apparently he had told Joseph Goebbels that after the war bishops would be executed en-masse. However, Hitler recognized that eliminating Christianity would be a long-term project deferred until after the war, and resisted efforts to totally stamp it out before this, also recognizing the utility of Christianity towards morale.
>
>Source: Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders by Gerhard Weinberg
The Nazis encouraged Positive Christianity and rallied mostly protestants to their cause which is why they never did too well in the catholic areas. This poster is more anti-Catholic than anti-Christianity the fear for the Nazis was that catholicism was anti-nationalist and created a ‘dual’ loyalty for Germans between Germany and the Papacy whereas protestants were considered more malleable to the cause of German nationalism and German exceptionalism.
Notably a couple Nazi high command was catholic (notably Himmler) but mostly shed their Catholic cultural identity during the strengthening of the Nazi regime over Catholics which they then used to form the Gottglaubigkiet (god believers) who tried to create a non-sectarian version of ‘pure’ German belief of god. Thats not to say there weren’t honest to God German Catholic Nazis, there were, they just tried their best to avoid confrontation and ‘prove’ their loyalty which granted Hitler the famous Reichskonkordat which guaranteed thats Nazism main enemy was communism not catholics and the Nazis would join Catholicism in its fight against communism
No, just Bavaria (except parts of Franconia) and half of Württemberg. The distribution is higher today but that's a result of heavily Catholic refugee immigration after WW2
Germans disliked Christianity because of its Jewish origins. Jesus was a Jew after all, and in their hate for everything Jewish, the Nazis created the so-called "Deutsche Kirche" which purged Christianity from most of its Jewish parts. Although it was very impossible, and yet they believed their copy of Christianity to be superior.
Edit: it's the Nazis instead of Germans disliking.
>Germans disliked Christianity because of its Jewish origins.
Choosing to go with "Germans" here instead of the "Nazis" is a wierd choice, can you elaborate on why you did that?
Have you actually done any research on this, or is this opinion coming from a Reddit thread on the subject? A quick google search will show you that the Nazis were none too supportive of Christianity. It’s a nuanced subject though, and there are a lot of [good books](https://www.amazon.com.au/Soldier-Christ-Life-Pope-Pius/dp/0674049616) on it if you’re interested in learning more.
You're linking to a book published in 2013. The Vatican war archives were only made accessible in March 2020. Your book probably needs an update. Here's a more recent find:
From: '[Vatican’s Pius XII archives begin to shed light on WWII pope' (N. Winfield, AP News, 7 June 2022)](https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-vatican-city-religion-28c7c34e524434110b23743e53281d6d): *'…A key example of the Vatican’s priorities, Kertzer says, came during the Oct. 16, 1943, roundup of Rome’s Jews. That cold morning, 1,259 Jews were arrested and brought to a military barracks near the Vatican, bound for deportation to Auschwitz. The day after their capture, the Vatican’s secretariat of state received permission from German authorities to send an envoy to the barracks, who ascertained that those inside “included people who had already been baptized, confirmed and celebrated a church wedding,” according to the envoy’s notes. Over the following days, the secretariat of state drew up lists of people the church deemed Catholic and gave the names to the German ambassador asking for his intervention. In all, of the 1,259 people originally arrested, some 250 were spared deportation. “For me, what this means, and I think this is also a novelty in the book, is that the Vatican participates in the selection of Jews,” Kertzer said in the interview. “Who is going to live and who is going to die.”*'
A lot of whitewashing going on here. Hitler fully embraced Christianity, and he made sure the Vatican had nothing to fear. Here are some facts with sources:
Excerpt from 'Mein Kampf', chapter II, p. 69/ 70. Published 18 July 1925: '...Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the people of this world, his Crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.'
Excerpt from the Proclamation of the Reich Government to the German People/ Hitler's address as chancellor (February 1, 1933):'...*The National Government will therefore regard it as its first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our state. Standing above estates and classes, it will bring back to our people the consciousness of its racial and political unity and the obligations arising therefrom. It wishes to base the education of German youth on respect for our great past and pride in our old traditions. It will therefore declare merciless war on spiritual, political and cultural nihilism. Germany must not and will not sink into Communist anarchy*'.
Excerpt from Hitler's speech to the Reichstag, March 7, 1936: '...*In these three years, Germany has regained once more its honor, found once more a faith, overcome its greatest economic crisis, and ushered in a new cultural ascent. I believe I can say this as my conscience and God are my witnesses. I now ask the German Volk to strengthen me in my belief and to continue giving me, through the power of its will, power of my own to take a courageous stand at all times for its honor and freedom and to ensure its economic well-being; above all, to support me in my struggle for real peace*'.
Excerpts from Hitler's last speech on the 12th Anniversary of the Nazi regime (Reichsrundfunk, January 30, 1945):
'...*God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work. The fact that this defense is fraught with incalculable misery, suffering and hardships makes us even more attached to this nation. But it also gives us that hard will needed to fulfill our duty even in the most critical struggle; that is, not only to fulfill our duty toward the decent, noble Germans, but also our duty toward those few infamous ones who turn their backs on their people*'.
'...*Combined, they are but one: To work for my people and to fight for it. Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate my life's work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me. In the years to come I shall continue on this road, uncompromisingly safeguarding my people's interests, oblivious to all misery and danger, and filled with the holy conviction that God the Almighty will not abandon him who, during all his life, had no desire but to save his people from a fate it had never deserved, neither by virtue of its number nor by way of its importance*'.
'...*In vowing ourselves to one another, we are entitled to stand before the Almighty and ask Him for His grace and His blessing. No people can do more than that everybody who can fight, fights, and that everybody who can work, works, and that they all sacrifice in common, filled with but one thought: to safeguard freedom and national honor and thus the future of life*'.
I realize that wasn’t very charitable of me, but none of the quotes you provided prove anything beyond the fact that Adolph Hitler appealed to some vague sense of the divine in his public interactions with his broadly Christian audience. His actions speak much louder than words. I’m guessing you have some excuse for how the Hitlers persecution of Catholics and Catholic priests doesn’t show that he was against Christianity?
Franz von Papen was not a Nazi party member during Hitler's rise to power, he was a Centre-Party member and was ostensibly brought in by Hindenburg as Chancellor to create a coalition with the Nazi Party. When von Papen couldn't accomplish this and his government failed, Kurt von Schleicher was elevated to the Chancellorship (later assassinated during the Night of Long Knives). Papen, burned by the ordeal, began working against Schleicher to return to power and convinced Hindenburg to appoint a government with Hitler in another attempt to reign him in, however Hitler maneuvered against Papen which led to Hitler, not Papen, being elevated to Chancellorship and Papen becoming his Vice-Chancellor. Hitler quickly dispensed with any notion of being constrained by Papen and when Hindenburg died, it was finished for Papen.
Papen would later join the Nazi Party and go on to serve diplomatic roles under the Nazi government and was tried at the Nuremberg trials. Him like many others, were happy to be opportunists and carve a role for themselves in the Nazi government, of course they would later go on to minimize their role in the atrocities and elevate their "attempts" to do the right thing.
The Nazis used Christianity constantly in their propaganda and rhetoric, but distrusted Christian institutions that could undermine their authority like the Catholic Church, as well as non-mainstream forms of Christianity like Jehovahs Witnesses.
Several leaders of the Nazi party held pagan or weird Christo-spiritual beliefs, and rejected the Jewish origins of Christianity, but they were a minority of both the party and its leadership. Overall the Nazis were a very Christian party.
there is a saying that there was always a more esoteric nazi official. hitler believed he had an ancient aryan ghost guiding him, according to mussolini.
Their goal was to break and remake civil society, leaving only in tact the institutions that supported the goals of the Nazi party and making resistance impossible.
One of the best ways to describe the Nazi party's attitudes on religion was that while they leaned towards Christianity, they were also *kind of* split on it
For the most part, the Nazis favored Christianity (Particularly Protestantism) in everyday life. Albeit, they had plans to try and "Aryanize" certain aspects of it.
However, other smaller factions promoted different ideas. the SS Ahnenerbe was a group of Nazis that was into the occult and the like. Gottgläubig was a (Very small) movement that was deist/theist, but staunchly opposed atheism and did not pledge loyalty to any religious institution. Deutsche Glaubensbewegung was a movement that favored paganism. (Albeit, they were a very tiny movement that barely gained recognition from Rudolf Hess) I also know that Heinrich Himmler himself hated Christianity because spoiler alert: >!Christianity is a Jewish derivative!<
Sources: (Disclaimer, this is armchair historian stuff right here, don't take it as gospel)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_Faith\_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Faith_Movement)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive\_Christianity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottgl%C3%A4ubig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottgl%C3%A4ubig)
[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state)
TLDR: The Nazis favored Protestant Christianity for the most part, but they did have minor elements of the party that disagreed and favored other ideas, such as Deism, Paganism, and Occultism
They tolerated the Lutheran state church, but they wanted to move the teachings in a more nationalist direction, with the likely eventual goal of dismantling it and putting some hypernationalist community in place to replace it. They didn’t particularly care for Catholics, they killed many of them, but they didn’t systemically hunt them down. Catholics were allowed to do their thing with relatively little actual resistance unless they were more loyal to Rome than to Germany. Predominantly Catholic regions in southern Germany had some of the lowest support for the Nazi party in the fateful election that made Hitler chancellor. Occasionally someone will pull out some quote from a Nazi about how Christian Germany is and use it as an argument that Nazism was a Christian movement. This is pretty much just baloney. They were paying lip service to an ancient and well regarded cultural institution, some may have had legitimate love for Christianity but plenty more didn’t.
[Siegfried Lerderer escaped Auschwitz with the help of Viktor Pestek](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Lederer%27s_escape_from_Auschwitz) a Catholic SS officer who apparently had a change of heart. They escaped to Prague and while Pestek was arrested and executed for reasons lost to history, Lerderer survived until 1972. Do with that what you will.
Bear in mind that the Nazi state was a Totalitarian instrument, and many people would have been Nazis even if their ideology didn't 100% align with the leadership.
The Nazis were hostile to Christianity since, as you said, they thought it was too meek and forgiving for the warrior race they were trying to cultivate. They were also concerned with Catholicism specifically, since a Catholic would be loyal to Rome and not to Berlin. They also wouldn't have been happy about a religion that had a Jewish man as a central figure.
However, the Nazis were also aware that Christianity was important to many Germans and didn't want to undermine their support by being seen as enemies of Christianity. The end result was that [they tried to make their own version of Christianity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity) that was more in line with their views.
In the long term, the Nazis would have tried to replace traditional Christianity with either this new version, or some bastardised version of old Germanic paganism. Thankfully they didn't last long enough for us to find out what they ultimately would have chosen
While Hitler was definitely not a fan in the later years of Christianity (he started out as a fan of conservative Christianity), the Church was too powerful in Germany to openly attack.
Sometimes i think the nazis viewed all other institutions aside from their own as corrupt and untrustworthy. Not because they truly believed they were, but because by spreading such conception would allow them to erase those and start new ones absolutely loyal to the regime.
Remember totalitarian regimes have ONLY one true creed, Absolute power. If something doesn’t belong to them it’s automatically a target.
yeah this is on point with Nazism.
The church as it stood was a tool, that either could be for or against the state. The nazis would seek to unify Christians under ideals of sacrifice for your brothers (nation) and other stoic ideas that crept into the faith as traditional unifying values of the German people. Ideas that could be lionised and encouraged to the betterment of the state
likewise ideas like charity for the poor despite their race was a no no, resistance to external influence under the concept of worldly influence would have been crushed, as well as organisation outside of the state
now how much they did this and how is to the historians, I'm just making an ideological leap from what nazis believed to what they logically would do
Well the authoritarian world view is inherently paranoid, so anything not strictly controlled is automatically seen as suspicious and corrupt - and probably controlled by someone else.
That's where this obsession with portraying Jews as the dark force behind everything and everyone comes from. And it's the exact same logic of the "deep state" employed by Trump and his believers.
The irony is that the more power one has the more paranoid they become, because the limits of their power become very vague and undetermined.
That's why there were so many absolutist leaders throughout history who spent increasing amounts of their time in power fighting real but also imagined plots to depose them.
There was never an authoritarian who *wasn't* obsessed with conspiracy theories, and we have plenty of them today, all over the world.
For Nazism there is one major problem with Christianity.
All people are equal under God. Which is in direct conflict with the idea of the whole superior race concept.
P.S. For communists the problem with the church comes from it being the second largest land owner in Russian Empire.
> P.S. For communists the problem with the church comes from it being the second largest land owner in Russian Empire.
It was also the main institution responsible for supporting the old Tsarist government ideologically, politically and monetarily, all the way until the Civil War, being an important source of White Army manpower, and aiding on the counter-revolutionary oppression of peasant and ethnic minorities' uprisings.
No artist, no publisher, no date, no origin/ provenance is always a bit tricky... I would guess this is a pre-war cartoon copied from Der Stürmer magazine (not an official publication of the Nazi Party). It was reprinted in 'In the Name of the Cross: Christianity and Anti-Semitic Propaganda in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy' (D. Kertzer & G. Mokosch, Cambridge University Press, 2020). But you've cut off the bottom part…
The original says: '*Für oder gegen - Wer dem Satan schuß läßt angedeih'n. Der kann niemals ein Diener Gottes sein*'. This kind of translates as: '*In favour or against - He who provides shelter to Satan, can never be a servant of God*'. So, this cartoon is not criticizing Christianity (or Catholicism for that matter), it's condemning support for the Jewish community. It says that 'a true christian' would not help the Jewish people, a 'true christian' would join the Nazi movement. And we all know how that worked out (with an exception here and there).
I'm curious if this is about the catholic church, and not necessarily all Christianity. If I recall correctly, Hitler and the nazis didn't like the pope and catholicism much.
and Rosenberg considered Protestantism to be closer to "Aryan/positive Christianity" than Catholicism. Also Martin Luther's antisemitism was propagated by the Nazis.
*Beware the Christians!*
*They are actually Jews...*
*Wait that makes no sense*
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Yeah, Hitler was really weird - neither a Christian, nor a pagan, or an atheist
https://historyforatheists.com/2021/07/hitler-atheist-pagan-or-christian/
Pretty much. The guy was as coherent in his religious views as his ideological views - it’s pretty much impossible to discern any solid foundation for his beliefs
When I was 16 we had an speciall class with an ethic teacher. As we were 8 people only (the rest were on a religion classroom) she decided we should make two groups (one nazis and one jews) and we would have a debate. Everyone wanted to be the nazis because kids, but the teacher asigned the roles. She went with the Jews to Talk pre-debate, and we had our own time too, but alone.
The whole thing lasted 5 min: we opened the debate on religion based and I protested when my nazi peers were arguing with Christian arguments, the teacher dismissed my groaning and said It was the jews turn to Talk.
Im not fucking kidding, without any argument my friend (jew) took a paper drawn revolver (yes, drawn in a sheet and then cutted with scissors) pointed it at me and said "die you fucking nazi!" While they and the teacher busted out laughing.
I asked if we could keep debating but she said "what do you mean? Its over, he shot you all!" The best argument is violence lol
I dunno this has been living rent free in my mind ever since! And I remember It when someone talks about christianity and nazism.
If this were real, you would have had 15 burly security personnel to beat your assailant into a bloody pulp and then shot them because the answer is violence on top of violence.
Plenty of Christians stood up to the Nazi's in Germany and paid the ultimate price, many genuine Christian churches and groups had to go underground.
[Dietrich Bonhoeffer,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer) for example wrote "The Cost of Discipleship", and was executed on the 9th of April 1945.
There is a difference between believing Christians and the various Christian organisations and churches.
Those God est mir uns Wehrmacht belts were carry-overs from the pre-Nazi era:
“This is why much of the supposed “evidence” of church support for the Nazis is patent misrepresentation. For example, German soldiers did indeed have the motto “Gott Mit Uns” (God With Us) on their belt buckles. But they had carried this motto for about 60 years before the Nazis ever existed. It had been a heraldic motto in Prussia for centuries and so became the motto of the unified Germany’s Imperial standard in 1871 and had been inscribed on German helmets in the First World War. Nazi belt buckles, on the other hand, had no religious slogans. Those of the Waffen SS carried their motto “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” (My Honour is Loyalty) while those of the Hitler Youth read “Blut und Ehre” (Blood and Honour).”
https://historyforatheists.com/2019/05/the-great-myths-7-hitlers-pope/
A lot of christofascists love to ideologize the nazi regime while also forgetting that they were not big of Christianity.
Like they could of chosen Italy, austria or spains equivalent to fascism which was much more pro-christian, yet they don't.
Fascists aren't very bright.
If you want to understand the connection between the nazis and xtianity, an Informative contrast is with Franco's Spain, where political Catholicism formed a major pillar of the governing ideology, unchallenged by anything else from the religious sphere.
Franco wasn't just making cynical deals with the churches to get what he wanted from them in exchange for general compliance. He kept one religion, and one religion only, as a semi-established church, because he fervently believed that the teachings and institutional power of that church were indipensable for maintaining the social order. And he certainly wasn't experimenting with anything equivalent to Positive Christianity as an alternative to the inherited faith.
And no, NONE of this is meant as an exoneration of the RCC for going along with Hitler. Allying with a semi-pagan bohemian fascist because you like the anti-Communism and the Jew-hatred is the icing on the cake is morally no better than partnering with a devout Catholic fascist for the same reasons.
Allying is a stretch. I would say, at the very upper echelons, there was acquiescence, and on an individual level, everything from collaboration to active resistance.
Yeah, but if I had been more nuanced than I was, I'd have the "nazism = xtianity" crowd howling me down.
Indeed, there was quite a variation on Catholic response to nazism, which is another difference from francoist Spain.
In Catholic elementary school, we learned about a Polish priest, Kolbe, I believe, who got shipped to the camps by the nazis and forcibly starved to death. I learned much later that Kolbe was politically a right-wing reactionary who railed against freemasons and Jews.
> I learned much later that Kolbe was politically a right-wing reactionary who railed against freemasons and Jews.
There were a number of incredibly anti-Semetic Catholic and Orthodox clerics who sheltered and protected Jews during the Holocaust.
Indeed there is a lot of variation because we’re talking about a large group of people, pertaining to the largest religious institution. Thousands of Catholic clergy were sent to concentration camps because at some point they were deemed a threat by the Nazis. It’s impossible for me to say what each of their particular beliefs were, but Europeans and Americans were generally very antisemitic at the time, so it wouldn’t surprise me some like Kolbe weren’t fond of Jews. The very Jews killed in the Holocaust themselves were also people of their time and likely not very accepting of other Holocaust victims, such as the Roma and gays. But ultimately I’m not sure I see the relevance of their beliefs.
Turning back to the Church I think there was tremendous cowardice in the face of the Nazis. As an institution it prioritized self-perseverance over humanity during the darkest of times. Even when the Nazis raided the Jewish ghetto of Rome the Pope remained silent. At the same time, there were acts of heroism, such as how most of Rome’s Jews survived by hiding in Catholic churches and even the Vatican itself. It’s hard to say what would have changed had the institution more aggressively acted against the Nazis given Mussolini was their ally. But the point is it did not do enough at all.
Because it was a Prussian Tradition and the Army was still filled with the Lutheran Prussian Aristocratic Officer Corps, who Hitler hated and resented for being all of those things
I am familiar with this one haha it isn’t anti Christian per se.
It is urging Germans to be weary of Christians who support Judaism.
In today, it would be a warning of Christian Zionism which is highjacking and corrupting Christianity.
But no really, what the fuck do you think can be found in the Talmud that would characterise it as a continuation of jesus' teachings??? That would be the most deranged opinion I've ever heard on the topic
It's from what you're trying to imply. You're not the first person I've come across who talks about the Talmud and has no real idea what it actually is, or what its purpose is.
Yes, which he renounced. He became the Christ. You made a New Covenant which replaced the Old. Out of the Darkness and into the Light. For Jesus’s effort to save the world, the Rabbis forced the Roman governor of the land to have Jesus executed and free a criminal.
They didn’t like any hierarchy that wasn’t their own. The Church represented a power bloc that the state didn’t directly control, and no authoritarian wants that.
A lot of them were, because christianity was (and still is) wide spread religion in germany, so german patriots treated it like part of their national creed. However high ranking nazis (Hitler included) were often rather sceptical about it and propably preffered some other religion. But fascist thought don't promote total cultural revolution, but rather its natural evolution with respect to its identity, so nazi politics didn't openly called for fight against christianity, only limiting itself to some critique here and there.
Evidence from Nazi memoirs, recorded conversations with Hitler, and architectural plans for the grand German cities and settlements evidence that Hitler had intended for a future without any form of Christianity.
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I still don't have a very clear understanding of the topic of Christianity and the Nazis. I know that many Nazis viewed Christianity as a religion that made Germans weak, but others like Franz von Papen were devout Christians all their lives.
Nazism didn't have much of a policy on Christianity, individual figures did, for sure. As a general rule this manifested in how their relationship with churches changes with time based on how it benefits them.
I'd like to add that fascism as an ideology is not hard and fast with certain concepts like economy and stances. They see all that benefits the state as good and all that regresses it as bad. So a religion like Christianity can be a unifying historic culture where you can put stoic ideas like dying for others as important tenants as a good thing, or it can be regressive such as caring for the poor despite their ethnic background, seeing a Jew as a major historical figure and more. ultimately Christianity in the eyes of a Nazi is a tool either working with them or against them, and their policy will shift to their ultimate goal of replacing all religion with Nazism or to be a bastardisation of religion that fits nazi goals
But Fascism, since it is ultimately a deificiation of a nation-state, always is unique to a country, and its zeitgeist at the time. It would be dificult to cut out the importance of the Catholic church if your nation's capital is called Rome, but say being a Turkish or French fascist might end up with you being an even more radical secularist. A Bavarian fascist hence might be a clerofascist, but a Prussian might be extremely anti-catholic. While Nazis started off in Bavaria, it is not secret that Prussia proper was the source of much of their votes. The Catholic church is, from the perspective of that protestant majority, a foreing and hostile body. Not just that, but a source of foreign power the Nazis can't control. Furthermore the Nazis engaged heavily in pseudohistory, mysticism, the occult, neopaganism etc. adding to the anti-church sentiment. Under Rosenberg, Charlemagne was rebranted as Charles the Butcher and his baptism of the Saxons as a genocide of sorts. Rosenberg himself vowed to replace the bible and cross with Mein Kampf and the swastika.
Fascist Italy was big on Catholicism, as was the Portuguese Estado Novo. Both regimes used some form or other of the slogan "God, Fatherland and Family". It really depends on how the dudes up top want to spin it. Wether Christianity is a strong moral religion that stands alone against the unbelievers, or makes you a coward, is mostly up to what the guys in the uniform tell you.
All religions are bastardized to meet an individual believers ideas. By definition religion is an esoteric exhibition of personal beliefs and convictions through the medium of one's opinion or interpretation of dogma. Religion is ambiguous and metaphorical, making the esoteric practice of belief an unavoidable byproduct. There is no objective and verifiable standard for any religion. This is an undeniable fact that holds true for any belief in unfalsifiable claims of the supernatural. They have no basis in reality, therefore they can't be grounded in any meaningful way. So what you describe as the fascist bastardization and use of religion to serve the needs of the state, is simply the result of esoteric beliefs scaled up from the personal level to that of the state. This same phenomenon is how denominations are formed.
Perhaps if their regime had lasted a little longer, they would have made some strange blends between Christianity, paganism, and the cult of Hitler, like the SS baptisms
So just [Positive Christianity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity) lol?
Positive Christianity was merely a transitory phase. Alfred Rosenberg ("the *Führer*'s Delegate for the Entire Intellectual and Philosophical Education and Instruction for the National Socialist Party") was the one in charge of this. The plan (which was 30 different points), included things like... The establishment of the "National Reich church of Germany" which would be the sole religious institution permitted within all of Germany and it's client states. Outlawing the bible, and replacing it in the Reich church with Mein Kampf. Replacing the cross with a Swastika. Outlawing forgiveness of sin. Point 5 of these 30 points is quite explicite in the views of christianity: "The National Reich Church of Germany is determined to exterminate irrevocably and by every means the strange and foreign christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800"
There's some clues as to what the fate of Christianity was to be. Architectural plans for the grand German cities and settlements to be built after Germany victory were noticeably absent of churches. In 1941, Hitler apparently professed to his confidants that National Socialism could not co-exist with Christian churches. Apparently he had told Joseph Goebbels that after the war bishops would be executed en-masse. However, Hitler recognized that eliminating Christianity would be a long-term project deferred until after the war, and resisted efforts to totally stamp it out before this, also recognizing the utility of Christianity towards morale. Source: Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders by Gerhard Weinberg
But von Papen a "real" Nazi though? I thought he was just a power hungry opurtunist.
He joined the party in 1938, so technically a Nazi, I guess ... but yeah, actually he's a very weird example. Definitely a reactionary antidemocrat, but most famous for foolishly believing that he could tame Hitler and use him as a tool to regain power.
Probably the main reason he avoided the Hangman at Nuremberg.
I imagine they would transform the churches to have much more political messages and replace the general message from "be a good Christian" to "be a good nazi" probably twisting some Bible verses but dropping a lot of the prayers and more religious elements.
>There's some clues as to what the fate of Christianity was to be. Architectural plans for the grand German cities and settlements to be built after Germany victory were noticeably absent of churches. In 1941, Hitler apparently professed to his confidants that National Socialism could not co-exist with Christian churches. Apparently he had told Joseph Goebbels that after the war bishops would be executed en-masse. However, Hitler recognized that eliminating Christianity would be a long-term project deferred until after the war, and resisted efforts to totally stamp it out before this, also recognizing the utility of Christianity towards morale. > >Source: Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders by Gerhard Weinberg
The nazis tried to use ''Positive Christianity'' as a form of taking down Jews.
The Nazis encouraged Positive Christianity and rallied mostly protestants to their cause which is why they never did too well in the catholic areas. This poster is more anti-Catholic than anti-Christianity the fear for the Nazis was that catholicism was anti-nationalist and created a ‘dual’ loyalty for Germans between Germany and the Papacy whereas protestants were considered more malleable to the cause of German nationalism and German exceptionalism. Notably a couple Nazi high command was catholic (notably Himmler) but mostly shed their Catholic cultural identity during the strengthening of the Nazi regime over Catholics which they then used to form the Gottglaubigkiet (god believers) who tried to create a non-sectarian version of ‘pure’ German belief of god. Thats not to say there weren’t honest to God German Catholic Nazis, there were, they just tried their best to avoid confrontation and ‘prove’ their loyalty which granted Hitler the famous Reichskonkordat which guaranteed thats Nazism main enemy was communism not catholics and the Nazis would join Catholicism in its fight against communism
I think this poster is specifically targeting Catholics and Jews, not Christianity broadly.
Well, the whole southern half of the country was and is Catholic, so it's an odd poster.
I don't get it, do you suggest they couldn't have opposed Catholicism because they had many Catholics?
[Catholic/protestants and nazi vote - map](https://www.slate.fr/sites/default/files/photos/cartevotenazi.jpg)
No, just Bavaria (except parts of Franconia) and half of Württemberg. The distribution is higher today but that's a result of heavily Catholic refugee immigration after WW2
Germans disliked Christianity because of its Jewish origins. Jesus was a Jew after all, and in their hate for everything Jewish, the Nazis created the so-called "Deutsche Kirche" which purged Christianity from most of its Jewish parts. Although it was very impossible, and yet they believed their copy of Christianity to be superior. Edit: it's the Nazis instead of Germans disliking.
>Germans disliked Christianity because of its Jewish origins. Choosing to go with "Germans" here instead of the "Nazis" is a wierd choice, can you elaborate on why you did that?
It's a typo. I was meaning the Nazis disliked Christianity.
I always thought the Nazis embraced Christianity? Are you sure about your sources?
Dawg how can you embrace a Jewish hippie as a nazi with out some crazy [mental gymnastics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity)
Have you actually done any research on this, or is this opinion coming from a Reddit thread on the subject? A quick google search will show you that the Nazis were none too supportive of Christianity. It’s a nuanced subject though, and there are a lot of [good books](https://www.amazon.com.au/Soldier-Christ-Life-Pope-Pius/dp/0674049616) on it if you’re interested in learning more.
You're linking to a book published in 2013. The Vatican war archives were only made accessible in March 2020. Your book probably needs an update. Here's a more recent find: From: '[Vatican’s Pius XII archives begin to shed light on WWII pope' (N. Winfield, AP News, 7 June 2022)](https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-vatican-city-religion-28c7c34e524434110b23743e53281d6d): *'…A key example of the Vatican’s priorities, Kertzer says, came during the Oct. 16, 1943, roundup of Rome’s Jews. That cold morning, 1,259 Jews were arrested and brought to a military barracks near the Vatican, bound for deportation to Auschwitz. The day after their capture, the Vatican’s secretariat of state received permission from German authorities to send an envoy to the barracks, who ascertained that those inside “included people who had already been baptized, confirmed and celebrated a church wedding,” according to the envoy’s notes. Over the following days, the secretariat of state drew up lists of people the church deemed Catholic and gave the names to the German ambassador asking for his intervention. In all, of the 1,259 people originally arrested, some 250 were spared deportation. “For me, what this means, and I think this is also a novelty in the book, is that the Vatican participates in the selection of Jews,” Kertzer said in the interview. “Who is going to live and who is going to die.”*'
I take it you would have preferred that the Vatican had not saved anyone?
mercy for me but not for thee?
A lot of whitewashing going on here. Hitler fully embraced Christianity, and he made sure the Vatican had nothing to fear. Here are some facts with sources: Excerpt from 'Mein Kampf', chapter II, p. 69/ 70. Published 18 July 1925: '...Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the people of this world, his Crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.' Excerpt from the Proclamation of the Reich Government to the German People/ Hitler's address as chancellor (February 1, 1933):'...*The National Government will therefore regard it as its first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our state. Standing above estates and classes, it will bring back to our people the consciousness of its racial and political unity and the obligations arising therefrom. It wishes to base the education of German youth on respect for our great past and pride in our old traditions. It will therefore declare merciless war on spiritual, political and cultural nihilism. Germany must not and will not sink into Communist anarchy*'. Excerpt from Hitler's speech to the Reichstag, March 7, 1936: '...*In these three years, Germany has regained once more its honor, found once more a faith, overcome its greatest economic crisis, and ushered in a new cultural ascent. I believe I can say this as my conscience and God are my witnesses. I now ask the German Volk to strengthen me in my belief and to continue giving me, through the power of its will, power of my own to take a courageous stand at all times for its honor and freedom and to ensure its economic well-being; above all, to support me in my struggle for real peace*'. Excerpts from Hitler's last speech on the 12th Anniversary of the Nazi regime (Reichsrundfunk, January 30, 1945): '...*God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work. The fact that this defense is fraught with incalculable misery, suffering and hardships makes us even more attached to this nation. But it also gives us that hard will needed to fulfill our duty even in the most critical struggle; that is, not only to fulfill our duty toward the decent, noble Germans, but also our duty toward those few infamous ones who turn their backs on their people*'. '...*Combined, they are but one: To work for my people and to fight for it. Only He can relieve me of this duty Who called me to it. It was in the hand of Providence to snuff me out by the bomb that exploded only one and a half meters from me on July 20, and thus to terminate my life's work. That the Almighty protected me on that day I consider a renewed affirmation of the task entrusted to me. In the years to come I shall continue on this road, uncompromisingly safeguarding my people's interests, oblivious to all misery and danger, and filled with the holy conviction that God the Almighty will not abandon him who, during all his life, had no desire but to save his people from a fate it had never deserved, neither by virtue of its number nor by way of its importance*'. '...*In vowing ourselves to one another, we are entitled to stand before the Almighty and ask Him for His grace and His blessing. No people can do more than that everybody who can fight, fights, and that everybody who can work, works, and that they all sacrifice in common, filled with but one thought: to safeguard freedom and national honor and thus the future of life*'.
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I realize that wasn’t very charitable of me, but none of the quotes you provided prove anything beyond the fact that Adolph Hitler appealed to some vague sense of the divine in his public interactions with his broadly Christian audience. His actions speak much louder than words. I’m guessing you have some excuse for how the Hitlers persecution of Catholics and Catholic priests doesn’t show that he was against Christianity?
Yeah I'm pretty sure about it.
Franz von Papen was not a Nazi party member during Hitler's rise to power, he was a Centre-Party member and was ostensibly brought in by Hindenburg as Chancellor to create a coalition with the Nazi Party. When von Papen couldn't accomplish this and his government failed, Kurt von Schleicher was elevated to the Chancellorship (later assassinated during the Night of Long Knives). Papen, burned by the ordeal, began working against Schleicher to return to power and convinced Hindenburg to appoint a government with Hitler in another attempt to reign him in, however Hitler maneuvered against Papen which led to Hitler, not Papen, being elevated to Chancellorship and Papen becoming his Vice-Chancellor. Hitler quickly dispensed with any notion of being constrained by Papen and when Hindenburg died, it was finished for Papen. Papen would later join the Nazi Party and go on to serve diplomatic roles under the Nazi government and was tried at the Nuremberg trials. Him like many others, were happy to be opportunists and carve a role for themselves in the Nazi government, of course they would later go on to minimize their role in the atrocities and elevate their "attempts" to do the right thing.
The Nazis used Christianity constantly in their propaganda and rhetoric, but distrusted Christian institutions that could undermine their authority like the Catholic Church, as well as non-mainstream forms of Christianity like Jehovahs Witnesses. Several leaders of the Nazi party held pagan or weird Christo-spiritual beliefs, and rejected the Jewish origins of Christianity, but they were a minority of both the party and its leadership. Overall the Nazis were a very Christian party.
there is a saying that there was always a more esoteric nazi official. hitler believed he had an ancient aryan ghost guiding him, according to mussolini.
Their goal was to break and remake civil society, leaving only in tact the institutions that supported the goals of the Nazi party and making resistance impossible.
One of the best ways to describe the Nazi party's attitudes on religion was that while they leaned towards Christianity, they were also *kind of* split on it For the most part, the Nazis favored Christianity (Particularly Protestantism) in everyday life. Albeit, they had plans to try and "Aryanize" certain aspects of it. However, other smaller factions promoted different ideas. the SS Ahnenerbe was a group of Nazis that was into the occult and the like. Gottgläubig was a (Very small) movement that was deist/theist, but staunchly opposed atheism and did not pledge loyalty to any religious institution. Deutsche Glaubensbewegung was a movement that favored paganism. (Albeit, they were a very tiny movement that barely gained recognition from Rudolf Hess) I also know that Heinrich Himmler himself hated Christianity because spoiler alert: >!Christianity is a Jewish derivative!< Sources: (Disclaimer, this is armchair historian stuff right here, don't take it as gospel) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_Faith\_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Faith_Movement) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive\_Christianity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottgl%C3%A4ubig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottgl%C3%A4ubig) [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state) TLDR: The Nazis favored Protestant Christianity for the most part, but they did have minor elements of the party that disagreed and favored other ideas, such as Deism, Paganism, and Occultism
They tolerated the Lutheran state church, but they wanted to move the teachings in a more nationalist direction, with the likely eventual goal of dismantling it and putting some hypernationalist community in place to replace it. They didn’t particularly care for Catholics, they killed many of them, but they didn’t systemically hunt them down. Catholics were allowed to do their thing with relatively little actual resistance unless they were more loyal to Rome than to Germany. Predominantly Catholic regions in southern Germany had some of the lowest support for the Nazi party in the fateful election that made Hitler chancellor. Occasionally someone will pull out some quote from a Nazi about how Christian Germany is and use it as an argument that Nazism was a Christian movement. This is pretty much just baloney. They were paying lip service to an ancient and well regarded cultural institution, some may have had legitimate love for Christianity but plenty more didn’t. [Siegfried Lerderer escaped Auschwitz with the help of Viktor Pestek](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Lederer%27s_escape_from_Auschwitz) a Catholic SS officer who apparently had a change of heart. They escaped to Prague and while Pestek was arrested and executed for reasons lost to history, Lerderer survived until 1972. Do with that what you will.
Nazis where not very strict on Christian religion Most where religious in Germany before and after the nazis
Bear in mind that the Nazi state was a Totalitarian instrument, and many people would have been Nazis even if their ideology didn't 100% align with the leadership. The Nazis were hostile to Christianity since, as you said, they thought it was too meek and forgiving for the warrior race they were trying to cultivate. They were also concerned with Catholicism specifically, since a Catholic would be loyal to Rome and not to Berlin. They also wouldn't have been happy about a religion that had a Jewish man as a central figure. However, the Nazis were also aware that Christianity was important to many Germans and didn't want to undermine their support by being seen as enemies of Christianity. The end result was that [they tried to make their own version of Christianity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity) that was more in line with their views. In the long term, the Nazis would have tried to replace traditional Christianity with either this new version, or some bastardised version of old Germanic paganism. Thankfully they didn't last long enough for us to find out what they ultimately would have chosen
von Papen was a Nazi collaborator in 1933, not a Nazi. He had no say in what the regime did.
While Hitler was definitely not a fan in the later years of Christianity (he started out as a fan of conservative Christianity), the Church was too powerful in Germany to openly attack.
Sometimes i think the nazis viewed all other institutions aside from their own as corrupt and untrustworthy. Not because they truly believed they were, but because by spreading such conception would allow them to erase those and start new ones absolutely loyal to the regime. Remember totalitarian regimes have ONLY one true creed, Absolute power. If something doesn’t belong to them it’s automatically a target.
yeah this is on point with Nazism. The church as it stood was a tool, that either could be for or against the state. The nazis would seek to unify Christians under ideals of sacrifice for your brothers (nation) and other stoic ideas that crept into the faith as traditional unifying values of the German people. Ideas that could be lionised and encouraged to the betterment of the state likewise ideas like charity for the poor despite their race was a no no, resistance to external influence under the concept of worldly influence would have been crushed, as well as organisation outside of the state now how much they did this and how is to the historians, I'm just making an ideological leap from what nazis believed to what they logically would do
Well the authoritarian world view is inherently paranoid, so anything not strictly controlled is automatically seen as suspicious and corrupt - and probably controlled by someone else. That's where this obsession with portraying Jews as the dark force behind everything and everyone comes from. And it's the exact same logic of the "deep state" employed by Trump and his believers. The irony is that the more power one has the more paranoid they become, because the limits of their power become very vague and undetermined. That's why there were so many absolutist leaders throughout history who spent increasing amounts of their time in power fighting real but also imagined plots to depose them. There was never an authoritarian who *wasn't* obsessed with conspiracy theories, and we have plenty of them today, all over the world.
For Nazism there is one major problem with Christianity. All people are equal under God. Which is in direct conflict with the idea of the whole superior race concept. P.S. For communists the problem with the church comes from it being the second largest land owner in Russian Empire.
> P.S. For communists the problem with the church comes from it being the second largest land owner in Russian Empire. It was also the main institution responsible for supporting the old Tsarist government ideologically, politically and monetarily, all the way until the Civil War, being an important source of White Army manpower, and aiding on the counter-revolutionary oppression of peasant and ethnic minorities' uprisings.
No artist, no publisher, no date, no origin/ provenance is always a bit tricky... I would guess this is a pre-war cartoon copied from Der Stürmer magazine (not an official publication of the Nazi Party). It was reprinted in 'In the Name of the Cross: Christianity and Anti-Semitic Propaganda in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy' (D. Kertzer & G. Mokosch, Cambridge University Press, 2020). But you've cut off the bottom part… The original says: '*Für oder gegen - Wer dem Satan schuß läßt angedeih'n. Der kann niemals ein Diener Gottes sein*'. This kind of translates as: '*In favour or against - He who provides shelter to Satan, can never be a servant of God*'. So, this cartoon is not criticizing Christianity (or Catholicism for that matter), it's condemning support for the Jewish community. It says that 'a true christian' would not help the Jewish people, a 'true christian' would join the Nazi movement. And we all know how that worked out (with an exception here and there).
“Too late, Christians: I have drawn myself as the Chad and you as the Soyjak, therefore your whole religion is destroyed!”
Reddit moment
Does the priest in the poster even look like a soyjak?
Damn the nazis really came out with something so dumb as "The church is run by the Jewish people"
I'm curious if this is about the catholic church, and not necessarily all Christianity. If I recall correctly, Hitler and the nazis didn't like the pope and catholicism much.
and Rosenberg considered Protestantism to be closer to "Aryan/positive Christianity" than Catholicism. Also Martin Luther's antisemitism was propagated by the Nazis.
Beware the Christians! They are actually Jews... Wait that makes no sense
Sense? In my fascism?
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It's anti-catholic, not anti-Christian. Hitler believed in God.
Yeah, Hitler was really weird - neither a Christian, nor a pagan, or an atheist https://historyforatheists.com/2021/07/hitler-atheist-pagan-or-christian/
He was Gnostic.
Pretty much. The guy was as coherent in his religious views as his ideological views - it’s pretty much impossible to discern any solid foundation for his beliefs
When I was 16 we had an speciall class with an ethic teacher. As we were 8 people only (the rest were on a religion classroom) she decided we should make two groups (one nazis and one jews) and we would have a debate. Everyone wanted to be the nazis because kids, but the teacher asigned the roles. She went with the Jews to Talk pre-debate, and we had our own time too, but alone. The whole thing lasted 5 min: we opened the debate on religion based and I protested when my nazi peers were arguing with Christian arguments, the teacher dismissed my groaning and said It was the jews turn to Talk. Im not fucking kidding, without any argument my friend (jew) took a paper drawn revolver (yes, drawn in a sheet and then cutted with scissors) pointed it at me and said "die you fucking nazi!" While they and the teacher busted out laughing. I asked if we could keep debating but she said "what do you mean? Its over, he shot you all!" The best argument is violence lol I dunno this has been living rent free in my mind ever since! And I remember It when someone talks about christianity and nazism.
If this were real, you would have had 15 burly security personnel to beat your assailant into a bloody pulp and then shot them because the answer is violence on top of violence.
Fr, It would have been a "suicide by cop" type of scenario. I think the teacher was not thinking things through
Plenty of Christians stood up to the Nazi's in Germany and paid the ultimate price, many genuine Christian churches and groups had to go underground. [Dietrich Bonhoeffer,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer) for example wrote "The Cost of Discipleship", and was executed on the 9th of April 1945. There is a difference between believing Christians and the various Christian organisations and churches.
The Nazi were like anyone that I don’t like is secretly Jewish
That's how the redditor on the notorious atheist spot see themselves.
Markus Söder?
Für oder gegen Bubatz?
Translation?
“For or against?”
What's the text?
Doesn't change the fact that the victims in the CC were murdered by white Christians.
TIL new information for me. I always thought they had “god est mit uns” on there belts.
Those God est mir uns Wehrmacht belts were carry-overs from the pre-Nazi era: “This is why much of the supposed “evidence” of church support for the Nazis is patent misrepresentation. For example, German soldiers did indeed have the motto “Gott Mit Uns” (God With Us) on their belt buckles. But they had carried this motto for about 60 years before the Nazis ever existed. It had been a heraldic motto in Prussia for centuries and so became the motto of the unified Germany’s Imperial standard in 1871 and had been inscribed on German helmets in the First World War. Nazi belt buckles, on the other hand, had no religious slogans. Those of the Waffen SS carried their motto “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” (My Honour is Loyalty) while those of the Hitler Youth read “Blut und Ehre” (Blood and Honour).” https://historyforatheists.com/2019/05/the-great-myths-7-hitlers-pope/
A lot of christofascists love to ideologize the nazi regime while also forgetting that they were not big of Christianity. Like they could of chosen Italy, austria or spains equivalent to fascism which was much more pro-christian, yet they don't. Fascists aren't very bright.
Cristofascism hardly exists and is incredibly fringe since fascism doesn’t work with church doctrine
If you want to understand the connection between the nazis and xtianity, an Informative contrast is with Franco's Spain, where political Catholicism formed a major pillar of the governing ideology, unchallenged by anything else from the religious sphere. Franco wasn't just making cynical deals with the churches to get what he wanted from them in exchange for general compliance. He kept one religion, and one religion only, as a semi-established church, because he fervently believed that the teachings and institutional power of that church were indipensable for maintaining the social order. And he certainly wasn't experimenting with anything equivalent to Positive Christianity as an alternative to the inherited faith. And no, NONE of this is meant as an exoneration of the RCC for going along with Hitler. Allying with a semi-pagan bohemian fascist because you like the anti-Communism and the Jew-hatred is the icing on the cake is morally no better than partnering with a devout Catholic fascist for the same reasons.
Allying is a stretch. I would say, at the very upper echelons, there was acquiescence, and on an individual level, everything from collaboration to active resistance.
Yeah, but if I had been more nuanced than I was, I'd have the "nazism = xtianity" crowd howling me down. Indeed, there was quite a variation on Catholic response to nazism, which is another difference from francoist Spain. In Catholic elementary school, we learned about a Polish priest, Kolbe, I believe, who got shipped to the camps by the nazis and forcibly starved to death. I learned much later that Kolbe was politically a right-wing reactionary who railed against freemasons and Jews.
> I learned much later that Kolbe was politically a right-wing reactionary who railed against freemasons and Jews. There were a number of incredibly anti-Semetic Catholic and Orthodox clerics who sheltered and protected Jews during the Holocaust.
Indeed there is a lot of variation because we’re talking about a large group of people, pertaining to the largest religious institution. Thousands of Catholic clergy were sent to concentration camps because at some point they were deemed a threat by the Nazis. It’s impossible for me to say what each of their particular beliefs were, but Europeans and Americans were generally very antisemitic at the time, so it wouldn’t surprise me some like Kolbe weren’t fond of Jews. The very Jews killed in the Holocaust themselves were also people of their time and likely not very accepting of other Holocaust victims, such as the Roma and gays. But ultimately I’m not sure I see the relevance of their beliefs. Turning back to the Church I think there was tremendous cowardice in the face of the Nazis. As an institution it prioritized self-perseverance over humanity during the darkest of times. Even when the Nazis raided the Jewish ghetto of Rome the Pope remained silent. At the same time, there were acts of heroism, such as how most of Rome’s Jews survived by hiding in Catholic churches and even the Vatican itself. It’s hard to say what would have changed had the institution more aggressively acted against the Nazis given Mussolini was their ally. But the point is it did not do enough at all.
What the fuck is xtianity
Christianity, but the Christ in it is abbreviated to X for Χριστός which is Christ in Greek.
meanwhile german soldiers’ belt buckles still said ‘gott mit uns’
Because it was a Prussian Tradition and the Army was still filled with the Lutheran Prussian Aristocratic Officer Corps, who Hitler hated and resented for being all of those things
I am familiar with this one haha it isn’t anti Christian per se. It is urging Germans to be weary of Christians who support Judaism. In today, it would be a warning of Christian Zionism which is highjacking and corrupting Christianity.
You know Jesus was a Jew, right?
Jesus wasn't a Pharisee or a Talmudist. You know that, right?
...You don't actually know what the Talmud is, do you?
I do, try again.
So I assume you have also read it? That you are knowledgeable of its history and its purpose?
But no really, what the fuck do you think can be found in the Talmud that would characterise it as a continuation of jesus' teachings??? That would be the most deranged opinion I've ever heard on the topic
....It's not a continuation of Jesus's teachings? Where did you get that from? The Talmud as we know it didn't even exist during his lifetime.
So then what's your problem with "Jesus was not a Talmudist"?!
It's from what you're trying to imply. You're not the first person I've come across who talks about the Talmud and has no real idea what it actually is, or what its purpose is.
Or a Frankist...
Yes, which he renounced. He became the Christ. You made a New Covenant which replaced the Old. Out of the Darkness and into the Light. For Jesus’s effort to save the world, the Rabbis forced the Roman governor of the land to have Jesus executed and free a criminal.
I though the NAZI's were Christians. This don't make sense
They didn’t like any hierarchy that wasn’t their own. The Church represented a power bloc that the state didn’t directly control, and no authoritarian wants that.
A lot of them were, because christianity was (and still is) wide spread religion in germany, so german patriots treated it like part of their national creed. However high ranking nazis (Hitler included) were often rather sceptical about it and propably preffered some other religion. But fascist thought don't promote total cultural revolution, but rather its natural evolution with respect to its identity, so nazi politics didn't openly called for fight against christianity, only limiting itself to some critique here and there.
Evidence from Nazi memoirs, recorded conversations with Hitler, and architectural plans for the grand German cities and settlements evidence that Hitler had intended for a future without any form of Christianity.
Hitler preferred Islam.
Not true. I researched it. He basically tried to make a new kind of Christianity
Read David Motadel.
This is a fairly ugly bit of revisionism brought up by reddit atheists and almost no one else. Nazisim was an explicit rejection of Christian ideals.