Christianity, Nationalism, and the Third Reich: the German Experience What Happened and What It Can Teach Us

Session 2 : Definition, Ideology and Movement Session 2: Describing Nazism

• Nazism as a historical phenomenon. • Nazi ideology. • Nazism as a movement up to the war.

Nazism as a totalitarian system

• Totalitarianism a modern coinage, though definition has been a problem. • State and society merge maximally. “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” (Mussolini) • But Nazism was also intensely populist, charismatic, dynamic, personal. • “Working towards the Fuehrer:” Hitler’s light hand. • The Nazis' need for legitimation required real popular consent.

Knowing fascism when we see it (Robert Paxton’s checklist). • Sense of overwhelming crisis not resolvable by ordinary means. • Primacy of the group over the individual. • One’s group is a victim of enemies both internal and external. • Dread of the group’s decline due to individualistic liberalism, class conflict, alien influences. • Closer integration of the group to protect its purity, by whatever means. • Leadership of natural chieftains, always male, who incarnate the group’s destiny. • The leader’s instincts are superior to abstract and universal reason. • Right of the chosen people to dominate others by reason of Darwinian struggle.

Nazism as a form of fascism

• Another coinage of Mussolini, for a while a paragon of the fascist dictator. • Fascist movements common all over Europe in 1920s and 1930s as answer to Bolshevism. • Nazism thoroughly fascist by Paxton's criteria. • But Nazism did not develop the corporatist model common to fascist systems elsewhere in Europe.

Nazism as a political religion

• “Political religions”: coined in the 1930s to describe a new political form. See Eric Voegelin, The Political Religions (1938). • They mimic religions: demand of the whole person, faith, ritual, myth, music, sacred texts, charismatic founders, eschatology. • They appear to fill a void created by religious decline. • But they also displace religions by usurping the same existential roles in more this-worldly and immediate ways. • An apocalyptic strain in Nazi eschatology.

Nazi ideology: some texts

• , The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930), on the racial division of humanity. • Hitler, (1924-25, 1928). • 25 Point Party Program of 1920. Nazi ideological matrix: völkisch populism

• Virtually every feature of N.S. ideology rooted in the völkisch movement. • Many meanings: ethnic, nationalist, racist, populist, nativist. • Potent brew: anti-capitalism, xenophobia, , anti- (mostly), eugenics, social Darwinism, imperialism. • And, infamously, ferocious anti-Semitism. • N.S. 25-Point Program of 1920 encapsulated all of this save one: it advocated for “positive Christianity” (no. 24).

Hitler’s worldview: Making the völkisch movement actual and political

• Literary deposit: the history of Mein Kampf, now again in print. • Lebensraum (space for living) in the East: utterly ruthless imperialism. • “Redemptive anti-Semitism” (Saul Friedlander): saving the German race by racial cleansing and removal of the . • Anti-Semitism as end (why he sought power) rather than as means to gain power. • Christianity: though baptized a Catholic, he did not practice his Catholicism. Paid church tax until 1933. • Christianity as ally, until both churches disappointed him (1936-37).

"If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity, and this planet will, as it did millions of years ago, move through the ether devoid of From Mein men." "Eternal Nature inexorably avenges the Kampf infringement of her commands." [said with reference to racial struggle] "Hence today I believe that I am fighting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew I am fighting for the work of the Lord." "The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity [emphasis added] without binding itself to any Point 24 on particular confession. It fights "positive against the Jewish materialistic Christianity" spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our Volk can only come about from within on the principle: COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD.” Catholic population in 1925 Census

Nazi vote distribution in July 1932 Reichstag election The Depression and the crisis of the Republic (1929-1933)

• Conservative alliance to cripple the Republic and Social Democrats (big business, army, Hindenburg) • Fall of “Great Coalition” in March 1930 over failure to pass a budget. • Subsequent chancellors (Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher) rule by presidential decree amidst parliamentary gridlock. • Nazi ascendancy in “earthquake” election, September 1930: 18.3%, 107 Reichstag seats. • July 1932-January 1933: conservative alliance need for Nazi populism to achieve authoritarian revision of government. • January 1933: Hindenburg’s long resistance breaks and he makes Hitler chancellor.

Legal seizure of power, the "gift of power" () (1933)

• Enormous burst of popular enthusiasm. • Immediate brutal reprisals against political enemies and the press -- Dachau opened as first camp. • Reichstag fire (February 27, 1933) and emergency decree suspending civil liberties. • Last semi-free election (March 5, 1933) fails to give Nazis a majority (43%). • Hitler puts best face forward for Reichstag opening. Hitler and Hindenburg "Day of Potsdam" (March 21, 1933) • Reich President Paul von Hindenburg in full military dress, former German Army Commander in Chief in WWI. • Hitler as new chancellor, in devout deference to the living symbol of the old imperial order. • Date: opening of Reichstag session, also anniversary of first Reichstag session of the Wilhelmine Empire (1871). • Location: Potsdam (adjacent to Berlin), a residence of Prussian kings and German Kaisers. • Setting: outside the Court and Garrison Church, a parish church of Prussian kings and tomb of Frederick the Great. • Event preceded by separate Catholic and Protestant religious services – neither of which Hitler attended.

"Day of Potsdam" Hitler pays court to Hindenburg "The national government regards the two Christian confessions as the most important factors for the preservation of our national Hitler's culture...will honor the treaties between them and the provincial governments...will guarantee Reichstag the Christian confessions their due influence in school and educational matters...The fight against speech – a materialistic view of the world and for the March 23, creation of a genuine Volksgemeinschaft is as much in the interests of the German nation as of 1933 our Christian faith...Likewise, the Reich government regards the fostering and extension of the friendly relations with the as of the greatest importance." (“Coordination”) (1933-1934)

• Coopting or dissolving of associations: civil service (April 7), the states (April 7), labor (May), abolition of parties (July). • First anti-Semitic initiatives (April 1933). • Concordat with Vatican (July 1933). • Efforts to coopt new German Evangelical Church (July 1933-May 1934). • Withdrawal from League of Nations (November 1933). • Purge of conservative resistance and SA (June 30, 1934), death of Hindenburg (August 2, 1934), oath of personal loyalty.

"Removal" of the Jews in four stages

• Discrimination: Civil Service Reform Act (April 7, 1933) denied government employment to non-. • Segregation: The Nuremberg Race Laws (September 1935) denied them citizenship and forbade inter-marriage. • Expropriation: seizure of remaining Jewish assets; Kristallnacht pogrom of November 10, 1938. • Deportation and murder: fall 1941 after invasion of Soviet Union.