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Nazism and Religion

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Nazism and Religion Nazism and Religion Nazism and Religion Eric Kurlander Subject: Buddhism, Global Perspectives on Religion, Hinduism, Islamic Studies, Judaism and Jewish Studies, Religion and Politics Online Publication Date: Dec 2019 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.680 Summary and Keywords The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) always had a complicated rela­ tionship with religion, emblematic of the diverse völkisch movement out of which the NS­ DAP emerged. This relationship became even more complicated during the later years of the Weimar Republic as the party grew larger and attracted millions of new supporters from Protestant as well as Catholic regions. The NSDAP’s attitude toward the Christian churches was nonetheless ambivalent, swinging from co-optation to outright hostility. This ambivalence was founded in part on a pragmatic recognition of Church power and the influence of Christianity across the German population, but it simultaneously reflect­ ed an ideological rejection of Judeo-Christian values that a number of Nazi leaders saw as antithetical to National Socialism. Many Nazis therefore sought religious alternatives, from Nordic paganism and a “religion of nature” to a German Christianity led by a blond, blue-eyed Aryan Jesus. This complex mélange of Christian and alternative faiths included an abiding interest in “Indo-Aryan” (Eastern) religion, tied to broader ideological assump­ tions regarding the origins of the Aryan race in South Asia. Ultimately, there was no such thing as an official “Nazi religion.” To the contrary, the regime explored, embraced, and exploited diverse elements of (Germanic) Christianity, Ario-Germanic paganism, and Indo- Aryan religions endemic to the völkisch movement and broader supernatural imaginary of the Wilhelmine and Weimar period. Keywords: Nazism, religion, Christianity, paganism, völkisch, esotericism, blood and soil, Volksgemeinschaft, Aryan, Nordic The Nazi Party always had a complicated relationship with religion. Historically, most German parties had clear affiliations with a particular socioreligious milieu. National Lib­ erals and Conservatives tended to be associated with Protestantism; Left Liberals with liberal Protestantism and reform Judaism; the Center Party with Catholicism; the Social­ ists and Communists with atheism and secular humanism. One can make no such broad generalization when it comes to Nazism.1 Although Nazi voters were disproportionately Protestant by 1932, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) was founded in Bavaria, and many of its early leaders were raised Catholic. Complicating matters fur­ ther was the reticence of the Nazis to commit theologically to any particular confession. As Christopher Dawson has put it, Nazi religiosity was a “fluid and incoherent thing Page 1 of 37 PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, RELIGION (oxfordre.com/religion). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2020. All Rights Reserved. Personal use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited (for details see Privacy Policy and Le­ gal Notice). date: 02 April 2020 Nazism and Religion which expresses itself in several different forms.” There was the “neo-paganism of the ex­ treme pan-German element,” the “Aryanized and nationalized Christianity of the German Christians,” and “the racial and nationalistic idealism which is characteristic of the move­ ment as a whole.”2 No wonder that historical interpretations of Nazism and religion are diverse. Some schol­ ars have argued, for example, that the Nazis disdained Judaism, Christianity, and any oth­ er form of organized religion, wanting instead to create a “political religion” of their own based on a shared faith in racial community.3 Others have suggested that the Nazis were pagans who preached, in the words of Richard Evans, a “religion founded on mythical gods of the Germanic Middle Ages, on Thor and Wodan and their ilk.”4 Somewhere be­ tween these two interpretations, but informing both, is the idea that Nazism was a “reli­ gion of nature” grounded in blood, soil, and a highly selective understanding of Darwin­ ism.5 Finally, scholars also argue that the Nazis were in fact Christians, who sought to build a “Holy Reich” informed by German Protestant and, to a lesser extent, Catholic reli­ gious traditions.6 There are elements of truth to all four of these interpretations, supple­ mented by a growing body of research that emphasizes a Nazi fascination with esoteri­ cism and Eastern religions.7 This essay proceeds first by examining Nazi attitudes toward religion before the seizure of power. Nazi attitudes were eclectic, emblematic of the late Wilhelmine and early Weimar völkisch movement out of which the Nazi Party emerged. Not surprisingly, these views shifted during the Weimar Republic as the party grew larger and attracted a di­ verse group of supporters from Protestant as well as Catholic regions. This first section will survey official party statements on religion as well as examples of public religious de­ votion, such as solstice celebrations. It will also incorporate a brief survey of the private beliefs of Nazi leaders, including Hitler, in order to understand better the relationship be­ tween faith and politics within the NSDAP before 1933. The second section will turn to Nazi attitudes toward Christianity and the churches dur­ ing the twelve years of the Third Reich. The NSDAP’s relationship with the Christian churches was ambivalent, swinging from co-optation to outright hostility. This ambiva­ lence was founded in part on a pragmatic recognition of the Church’s power, but also an ideological rejection of Judeo-Christian values that many Nazis saw as ethically and epis­ temologically antithetical to their racial and spatial ethos of blood and soil. The third sec­ tion will look at the first prong of the “final form of belief” that some Nazis believed the Third Reich may eventually achieve, namely a substitute Ario-Germanic religion.8 This Ario-Germanic religiosity included elements of German Christianity and a religion of na­ ture, not to mention outright Nordic paganism, völkisch-esotericism, medieval Gnosti­ cism, and even Luciferianism. This complex mélange of religious and spiritual ideas, as the final section suggests, in­ cluded a broader interest in “Indo-Aryan” (Eastern) religions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Shin­ to, even Islam. A fascination with Eastern spirituality was of course tied to broader ideo­ logical assumptions regarding the origins of the Aryan race in South Asia, but it had just Page 2 of 37 PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, RELIGION (oxfordre.com/religion). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2020. All Rights Reserved. Personal use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited (for details see Privacy Policy and Le­ gal Notice). date: 02 April 2020 Nazism and Religion as much to do with many Nazis’ theological preference for a “this-worldly” religion grounded in ancestor worship, blood, and kinship. The essay concludes by affirming that there was no such thing as an official Nazi religion. Ultimately the regime investigated, embraced, and exploited diverse elements of (Germanic) Christianity, Ario-Germanic pa­ ganism, and Indo-Aryan religions endemic to the völkisch movements and broader Ger­ man intellectual life in the Wilhelmine and Weimar period. Nazi Attitudes Toward Religion Before 1933 The National Socialist German Workers’ Party did not appear out of the ether. It was the byproduct of a much larger völkisch milieu that emerged in the last decades of the Wil­ helmine Empire, radicalized during the First World War, and expanded in scope and diver­ sity during the Weimar Republic. This völkisch milieu was never indifferent to religion. It possessed an important strain of “German Christianity,” alongside more overtly pagan-, Ario-Germanic-, and Indo-Aryan-oriented religious and spiritual elements. These Ario-Ger­ manic and Indo-Aryan religious elements were especially strong among völkisch thinkers who resented both the “Jewish” foundations of Christianity and the “un-German” aspects of Christian theology, which appeared to preach universal love and acceptance toward the ethnoreligious other.9 Indeed, during the second half of the 19th century, Germany and Austria witnessed a re­ naissance of interest in Germanic folklore, Nordic mythology, and Eastern religions.10 Between the 1880s and the First World War, a number of völkisch thinkers drew these in­ choate strains together into concrete religious and spiritual doctrines, ranging from out­ right paganism and “new heathenism” to the German Faith Movement and German Chris­ tianity.11 Alongside these völkisch religious movements there emerged a parallel interest in occult philosophies that combined Darwinist musings about race with esoteric religious teachings. These included Helena Blavatsky’s doctrine of theosophy, Rudolf Steiner’s an­ throposophy, and, most redolent of Nazi attitudes toward religion, Ariosophy. Ariosophy was developed by two Austrian intellectuals at the turn of the 20th century, Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels. By following arcane religious and eugenical practices, which List called “Armanism” and Lanz “Ariosophy,” the two Austrian occultists believed they may inspire a reawakening of Aryan civilization.12 Ariosophists embraced theories about the lost civilization of Atlantis (or Thule), magic and witchcraft, Germanic runes, and astrology. They created secret masonic societies founded on strict racial crite­ ria and flocked to pagan Germanic “holy” sites such as the Brocken
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  • Asatru – a Religion of Nature?
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