Nazi Religion

[Sweet Katie]

What, if any, religion would you say the Nazi regime followed? If possible, please site your sources. Thanks.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Sweet Katie What, if any, religion would you say the Nazi regime followed? If possible, please site your sources. Thanks.

I think they were an offshoot of Judaism, weren't they?




Its pretty obvious the Nazi party indulged in the worship of no God. Only the Arean race and the furor.


I've heard them described as Atheist, but I don't buy into that. Atheism isn't a religion, rather a mindset.

[thx1138]

Nine!!!

they believe in the pre-christian nature religions and astrology.

If you do a search on Google Video you can see numbers of documentaries on what they believed in and what crimes it lead the German people into doing.

[Sweet Katie]

Quote by: thx1138 Nine!!! they believe in the pre-christian nature religions and astrology. If you do a search on Google Video you can see numbers of documentaries on what they believed in and what crimes it lead the German people into doing.

Forgive any ignorance but I am learning here. I stated that the Nazis did not practice a religion and was bombarded by claims that seem ridiculous, that they were aligned with the Catholic Church (another forum and I'm searching for clarity). Would you state that the above is or is not a religion? And could you please explain your point of view?

[Sweet Katie]

Quote by: ruksak I think they were an offshoot of Judaism, weren't they? Its pretty obvious the Nazi party indulged in the worship of no God. Only the Arean race and the furor. I've heard them described as Atheist, but I don't buy into that. Atheism isn't a religion, rather a mindset.

Thanks for your reply. This is about how I understand it to be. Now, how can I convince stupid and stubborn people that they are wrong?

[thx1138]

They did believe in a religion it may have been crazy but they were not just Atheist.

Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy part 1of 2

Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy part 2of 2

[Jack]

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

[Sweet Katie]

At the risk of sounding like a jerk, could you A) not quote wikipedia since any one with a keyboard can change it and B) write your own thoughts?

I hope that doesn't sound harsh. I'm sincerely searching for clarity.

[Jack]

You asked for references. There are links to external sources in Wikipedia.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Isherwood You asked for references. There are links to external sources in Wikipedia.

Ya, Wiki is OK to use as long as you read it carefully and cross-reference with their sources, making sure of their bonifides.

The way I understood it, at first Hitler used the Christian faith to steer around the power wielding political force that was the church in Germany. Then, after time, he saw the church as a threat to his vision and crushed it. Replacing his peoples need for religion with a narcissistic ideology. I see the same thing in modern day North Korea. The presence of a God only distracts from the worship of the "Dear Leader".

[phoenix_fire]

Quote by: Isherwood Nazism and religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sounds like some people I know.

I heard that at one time, the Nazis were looking for all sorts of occult and mystical artifacts. It seemed that they used whatever they could with the sole unifying factor being control.

Beware of the demagogues. Hitler wasn't the first to use a subverted form of religion to try to justify his actions, and he isn't the last.

[Thanatos]

He worshiped himself. Nazism was a bizarre hybrid between secular and religious thought, related more to the Egyptian God-kings than anything contemporary. Religion was officially the driving factor and used as a form of control, but under the surface it was very human narcissism and politics.

I don't quite buy the occult thing. He was into astrology, but those videos of Nazi religion are rather...err...unconvincing. I don't think Himmler or the others really believed everything they said...

Heinrich Himmler on Doing Archaeology Right - Archaeology Quotations

[another day]

goebbels wrote in his diary that nazism was his religion, and that he didn't need any conventional religion, only the party. It was very weird. Half political party, half death cult.

[phoenix_fire]

Quote by: Thanatos He worshiped himself. Nazism was a bizarre hybrid between secular and religious thought, related more to the Egyptian God-kings than anything contemporary. Religion was officially the driving factor and used as a form of control, but under the surface it was very human narcissism and politics. I don't quite buy the occult thing. He was into astrology, but those videos of Nazi religion are rather...err...unconvincing. I don't think Himmler or the others really believed everything they said... Heinrich Himmler on Doing Archaeology Right - Archaeology Quotations

I don't think that they fully believed any of the religious or occult stuff. That's evidenced by they way they cannibalized it. But I think that they did kinda nod toward it in hopes that it would help.

[Sweet Katie]

Thanks for your replies. Keep them coming! :)

[Athena]

Nazi Germany was as Christian as the USA.

This site will give you evidence of the importance of religion to Nazi Germany.

Nazi photos Hitler's close friend, Dietrich Eckart, told of overhearing Hitler showing off to a lady by denouncing Berlin in extravagant terms: ". . . the luxury, the perversion, the iniquity, the wanton display and the Jewish materialism disgusted me so thoroughly that I was almost beside myself. I nearly imagined myself to be Jesus Christ when he came to his Father's Temple and found the money changers." Eckart described Hitler as "brandishing his whip and exclaimed that it was his mission to descend upon the capital like a Christ and scourge the corrupt." SMOKING GUN! Hitler wth Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, 1935 On April 20, 1939, Archbishop Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations, initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) became a tradition. Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" and added with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars." (Source: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XI

[notworthabean]

So athena your source for Hitler being xtian is an atheist site (jeez wonder what the bias there is) which cites things he said to catholic leaders. He couldn't have been misleading them could he?

[Athena]

The actions of Nazis was very intertwined with protestantism in Germany.

Protestant Churhes in the Third Reich In 1917, German Protestants celebrated the 400th anniversary of the posting of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Although the intention was to revive interest in the church, this event became the vehicle for an idolatry of Luther as a German hero, and as an incarnation of the German spirit. Later, when Hitler gained national prominence, some saw him as an heir of Luther. This comparison was helped by Luther's own severe anti-Semitism that he revealed late in his life. Indeed, when Hitler wrote Mien Camp, he listed Luther as one of Germany's great reformers. Luther's 1543 book On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther advocated the burning of synagogues and schools, the deportation of Jews, and other measures that closely resemble the actions taken by the Nazis. Regard this excerpt from On the Jews and Their Lies: 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 sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire... Second, that all their books-- their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible-- be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted... Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country... Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it. (http://members.icanect.net/~zardoz/luther.htm) When Hitler's German Workers' Party (the predecessors of the Nazis) adopted a manifesto in 1920 that was explicitly anti-Semitic and seems to promise the curtailing of religious freedom, it was not opposed by the Protestant establishment. The twenty fourth point of the manifesto advocates the institution of a "positive" Christianity: “We demand the freedom of all religious denominations in the State insofar as they do not endanger its existence or violate the ethical and moral feelings of the Germanic race. The Party as such takes its stand on a positive Christianity but does not tie itself in the matter of confession to any particular denomination. It fights the spirit of Jewish materialism inside and outside ourselves and it is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only come from within and on the basis of the principle that the common good comes before the selfish good.” ( Rhum von Oppen, 25) The church began to respond the Nazis only when its autonomy was repeatedly threatened by the National Socialist government

[Athena]

Quote by: notworthabean So athena your source for Hitler being xtian is an atheist site (jeez wonder what the bias there is) which cites things he said to catholic leaders. He couldn't have been misleading them could he?

I make an issue of the Christian domination of Germany, because Charles Sarolea made an issue of the influence of Christianity on Germany before the first world war. The problem Sarolea observed was the Christian belief that God determines what happens, preventing the Germans from taking things seriously and motivating them to take responsibility for what happens. If we believe things are determined by God, then we obey, and follow men like Hitler and Bush, who can easily use our belief to do terrible things to those people our churches tell us have no God and no morals. We can be convinced we are doing God's will when engage in wars. :)

The same thing happens in the USA:(

[ruksak]

Hitler was not a Christian. The article you posted was meant only to counter assertions that Atheist leaders are responsible for the greatest atrocities ever to occur. Christians and Atheist have had this arguement for quite some time.