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New Religions and the Nazis NEW RELIGIONS AND THE NAZIS KARLA POEWE New Religions and the Nazis This book highlights an important but neglected part of Nazi history—the contribution of new religions to the emergence of Nazi ideology in 1920s and 1930s Germany. Karla Poewe argues that Nazism was the unique consequence of post-World War I conditions in Germany, a reaction against the decadence of nineteenth-century liberalism, the shameful defeat of World War I, the imposition of an unwanted Weimar democracy, and the postwar punishment of the Treaty of Versailles. Aiming towards national regeneration, leading cultural figures such as Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, Mathilde Ludendorff, Ernst Bergmann, Hans Grimm, and Hans F.K.Günther wanted to shape the cultural milieu of politics, religion, theology, Indo-Aryan metaphysics, literature and Darwinian science into a new genuinely German faith-based political community. Instead what emerged was a totalitarian political regime known as National Socialism, with an anti-Semitic world-view. Looking at modern German paganism as well as the established Church, Poewe reveals that the new religions founded in the pre-Nazi and Nazi years, especially Jakob Hauer’s German Faith Movement, would be a model for how German fascism distilled aspects of religious doctrine into political extremism. New Religions and the Nazis addresses one of the most important questions of the twentieth century—how and why did Germans come to embrace National Socialism? Researched from original documents, letters and unpublished papers, including the SS personnel files held in Berlin’s Bundesarchiv, it is an absorbing and fresh approach to the difficulties raised by this deeply significant period of history. Karla Poewe is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Calgary and a specialist in new religious movements. Her publications include Reflections of a Woman Anthropologist: No Hiding Place (1982 as Manda Cesara), New Religions as Global Cultures (1997) and Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture (1994). New Religions and the Nazis Karla Poewe Routledge Taylor & Francis Group NEW YORK AND LONDON First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 240 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 100016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/. © 2006 Karla Poewe All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Poewe, Karla O. New religions and the Nazis/Karla Poewe. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Germany—Religion—20th century. 2. National socialism— Religious aspects. 3. Germany—Politics and government— 20th century. I. Title. BL980.G3P64 2005 200′.943′09043–dc22 2005006119 ISBN 0-203-50844-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-60035-5 (Adobe e Format) ISBN10: 0-415-29024-4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-29025-2 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-29024-1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-29025-8 (pbk) Contents List of illustrations v Abbreviations vii Preface ix 1 Introduction 1 2 An overview 17 3 Hauer and the Bünde: becoming a National Socialist 33 4 The push toward Nazism: youths and leaders 46 5 Hauer’s view of religion 57 6 The Germanic-deutsch leg of Hauer’s German Faith 75 7 Organizational help from Wehrwolf and the SS 86 8 Hauer and the war of attrition against Christianity 99 9 Werner Best: Hauer’s contact in the SS 113 10 The faith of the Nationalists: narrative and the Third Reich 124 11 Scientific neo-paganism and the extreme Right then and today 139 12 Conclusion 152 Notes 155 Bibliography 180 Index 190 List of illustrations 1.1 Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, founder of the German Faith Movement 2 1.2 Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy 4 1.3 Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi ideologue 6 1.4 Dietrich Klagges, Nazi ideologue and founder of the Working 10 Community of German Christians 1.5 Friedrich Nietzsche 12 1.6 Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, liked comparison with Nietzsche 12 2.1 Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss, anthropologist and race psychologist 20 2.2 Gustav Frenssen, writer 23 2.3 Johann von Leers, anti-Semitic agrarian history professor at 23 Jena, on the board of the German Faith Movement 2.4 Walther Wüst, Ahnenerbe SS, talks about Hitler’s Mein Kampf 25 before SS leaders in München, 1937 2.5 Leo Frobenius, anthropologist who researched the organic life 29 of culture accessed by living intuition 2.6 Hauer’s SS-approved marriage to Annie Brügemann, 1939 31 3.1 Martin Buber, völkisch philosopher of religion and participant 44 in Hauer’s Workweeks 6.1 Ludwig Klages, philosopher, co-founder of the German 76 Graphology Society 6.2 Houston Steward Chamberlain, inspired by Nazi ideology 76 6.3 Hans F.K.Günther, social anthropologist and raceologist in 83 Jena, Berlin, and Freiburg 8.1 Rudolf Hess, 1933 107 9.1 Werner Best, Hauer’s contact in the SS 114 10.1 Adolf Hitler with Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Streicher, Frick 125 10.2 Hans Grimm, Conference of Nationalist Poets 126 10.3 Hans Grimm and family, 1931 127 10.4 Joseph Goebbels, Reichspropagandaminister, 1940 128 10.5 Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer, nationalist writer linked to Grimm 130 and Hauer 10.6 Nationalist author Rudolf Binding at Grimm’s Lippoldsberg 131 Conference, 1935 10.7 Ernst Krieck, Nazi pedagogue 132 10.8 Erwin Ackerknecht, librarian, later Director of Schiller National 137 Museum, Mar bach 11.1 Mathilde and Erich Ludendorff, 1935 140 11.2 Ludendorff house today 141 11.3 Mathilde Ludendorff, 1957 143 11.4 Erich Ludendorff’s pagan grave 147 Abbreviations ADGB Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Glaubensbewegung AF Adler und Falken AfBF Arbeitskreis für biozentrische Forschung AfFRP Arbeitsgemeinschaft für freie Religionsforschung und Philosophic BAB Bundesarchiv Berlin BAK Bundesarchiv Koblenz BdF Bund der Freireligiösen BDU Bund deutscher Unitarier BF Bündischen Front BFG Bund der freireligiösen Gemeinden BfG Bund für Gotterkenntnis BFGD Bund freier religiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands BfFG Bund für freireligiöse Gemeinden BGDG Bund der Gemeinden Deutschen Glaubens CDU Christlich Demokratische Union CNAG Christlichnationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft CR Conservative Revolution, Conservative Revolutionaries DC Deutsche Christen DCA Deutsch-Christliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft DG Deutscher Glaube DGG Deutschgläubige Gemeinschaft DGB Deutsche Glaubensbewegung DKB Deutsch-Katholizismus Bewegung DLA Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach DNVP German National People’s Party DRB Deutschreligiöser Bund DUR Deutsche Unitarier Religionsgemeinschaft FA Freie Akademie FKG Freundeskreis der Kommenden Gemeinde GDE Gemeinschaft Deutscher Erkenntnis GGDC Glaubensgemeinschaft Deutscher Christen JNB Jungnordischer Bund KG Kommende Gemeinde KGRNS Kampfgemeinschaft revolutionärer National Sozialisten KVP Konservative Volkspartei NPD Nationaldemokratische Partei NRA Nordisch-Religiose Arbeitsgemeinschaft NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei NSLB Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund RDDJ Reichsausschuss der Deutschen Jugend Bünde SD Sicherheitsdienst SF Schwarze Front SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SS Schutzstaffel VFG Verband der freireligiösen Gemeinden Preface This book was written to answer the question that has been burning in my mind for several decades, namely, how Germans came to support the National Socialist worldview that ended in the Holocaust and the loss of countless lives. How could Germans of the time think themselves into such a dead end? I began to glimpse the beginnings of an answer when, after my most recent research trips to Namibia and South Africa, I decided to study Berlin missionaries who had served there. In the Archive of the Berlin Mission Society I came upon Knak’s unpublished history of the Berlin Mission from 1924 to 1949. Knak described heated debates held during the 1920s in the new auditorium of the then Berlin University between representatives of the Mission or Christianity and fanatical defenders of Germany’s new religions. Apparently supporters of the völkisch movement, especially academics, were trying to turn Icelandic sagas into an alternative type of religion that was given respectability by linking it to German mysticism, Luther’s perspective on faith, and the religious perspective of German classical writers such as Goethe (Knak n.d.: 28b). I had seen the making of new religions before, and became curious (Hexham and Poewe 1997). According to Knak, pseudo-scientific constructions of new religions were so widespread that Rosenberg (1930) saw it as opportune to build his Mythus upon them. The use of their “religions” as political weapons by people who described themselves as neo-pagans and, as I discovered later, by seemingly agnostic Nationalists clearly served to prepare the religious politics of the Third Reich. Here seemed to be the answer to my question. When I came upon the work of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, who, along with Ernst zu Reventlow, founded the German Faith Movement, I dropped my research on the Berlin Mission. The problem
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