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Hitler and other Nazi leaders clearly made use of both Christian symbolism combined indigenous Germanic pagan imagery mixed with ancient Roman symbolism and emotion in propaganda for the German public. Many Nazi leaders subscribed either to a mixture of then modern scientific theories, as Hitler himself did, or to mysticism and occultism, which was especially strong in the SS. Central to both groupings was the belief in Germanic (white Northern-european) racial superiority. The existence of a Ministry of Church Affairs, instituted in 1935 and headed by Hanns Kerrl, was hardly recognized by ideologists such as Alfred Rosenberg or by other political decision-makers. Despite Germany's long history as the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and the birthplace of the Reformation, Christianity was in a decline during the rise of the Nazi Party. Some of the factors leading to this decline were the after effects of World War I which challenged "traditional" European viewpoints. Nazism claimed to adhere to Positive Christianity which attempted to replace traditional Christian beliefs with those agreeable with Nazism, which many German Christians accepted.[1] Even in the later years of the Third Reich, many Protestant and Catholic clergy within Germany persisted in believing that Nazism was in its essence in accordance with Christian precepts.[1] In 1941, Martin Bormann, a close associate of Hitler said publicly "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable" In 1942 he also declared in a confidential memo to Gauleiters that the Christian Churches 'must absolutely and finally be broken.' Thus, it is evident that he believed Nazism, based as it was on a 'scientific' world-view, to be completely incompatible with Christianity[2]. When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean, like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe, we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or else upon shameless professional self-interest [3] Other members of the Hitler government, including Rosenberg, during the war formulated a thirty-point program for the "National Reich Church" which included: * The National Reich Church claims exclusive right and control over all Churches. * The National Church is determined to exterminate foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill omened year 800. * The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible. * The National Church will clear away from its alters all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of saints. * On the alters there must be nothing but Mein Kampf and to the left of the alter a sword.[4]

Nazism and religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia