Nazis v. Jesus Christ

In Germany last week nothing was clearer than that Realmleader Hitler either cannot or will not cause Nazis to desist from their attack upon Jesus Christ. The attack last week was in fuller, more exuberant cry than at any time since the Nazis took power. It was more vituperative than China's anti-foreignism of 1926-27, and was exceeded in blasphemy only by Soviet Russia's campaign against all religion a decade ago.

Rosenberg, The philosophic basis of the Nazi campaign has been firmly laid by Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, arrogant right-hand idea-man to the Realmleader. In his The Myth of the Twentieth Century he laughs the Old Testament out of court by describing its most famed characters as "pimps and cattle-dealers." Jesus he takes seriously but concludes:

"The religion of Jesus was undoubtedly the preaching of love . . . but the German religious movement, which wishes to develop into a people's church, must declare that it unconditionally subordinates the ideal of neighborly love to the ideal of national honor . . . The churches, handed over to it again, will, little by little, put the fiery spirit of the hero . . . in place of the crucifixion."

Youth. The principal agent of the Rosenberg philosophy is the Nazi Youth organization. Youth spoke thrice last week:

1) "Besides the rock of Jesus Christ there is another: Adolf Hitler. It remains to be seen which of the two is stronger. On the one sit the old women. On the other stands the young generation."-- Youth Leader Hartmann-Lautenbacher.

2) "The number of those who have decided to turn away from Christianity entirely is greater than is generally realized. Dr. Alfred Rosenberg's Twentieth Century is a book that . . . points the way. . . . The religious faith of the German people must be decided by political elements, the Storm Troops and the Hitler Youth."-Youth Leader Joachim Benedicte.

3) "The time has come to take up the fight against Christianity. Germans! Liberate yourselves from the cultures of alien priests! . . . Abandon the Jewish-Christian conception of sin, pity and loving the enemy! Be hard! Pity and mercy be damned! Praise that which steels. Christianity's totality claim is a thing of the past. Germans shall and must realize their conversion to Christianity was a crime against the race and the people which put them completely at the mercy of powers outside the State."--Youth Press Agent August Hoppe.

Pagan Cults. That the German people were betrayed into Christianity by Emperor Charlemagne 1,100 years ago is a proposition only recently established by Dr. Rosenberg. Charlemagne represented an "alien principle" (Christianity) whereas the Saxons with whom he did battle were archetypal Nazis fighting for "blood and soil." Charlemagne slew 4,500 Saxons at Verden and there this spring Dr. Rosenberg had a monument of 4,500 stone blocks erected in their honor. Unmoved by twits from the Catholic press for rewriting history to suit his own beliefs, Dr. Rosenberg orated: "After, 1,000 years . . . the will of the old Saxons became victorious through national socialism."

Dr. Rosenberg is not entirely unreligious. Indeed out of his revised history and his Nordic mythology he has erected a pagan worship which substitutes Odin for Moses, Siegfried for Saul, and 2,000,000 World War heroes for Christianity's company of saints. His pale eyes glowing, Dr. Rosenberg shouts: "The new mythology cannot be downed!" And throughout Germany strange little pagan cults pop up like autumn crocuses. Latest of them is the Nordic Religious Community, founded last week, which is pantheistic and rejects the doctrine of atonement. The pagan cultists are genuinely, if boisterously and truculently pious, and in their ranks are not a few Herr Doktors brandishing dissertations and theses.

Last winter a Manchester Guardian correspondent attended a Berlin meeting of the German People's Church. He reported it noisy, enthusiastic, a theological free-for-all. Its members sang the Horst Wessel song, interrupted the speakers with shouts of gleeful agreement. When a Dr. Krause made the usual reference to "pimps and cattle-dealers." they cried "Filth! Laute Schweinereien! Loud swinishness!" When another speaker advocated that preachers of the teaching of "Rabbi" (Saint) Paul should be thrown out, they cried "to Oranienburg!" -- Germany's most famed concentration camp. When the same speaker dubbed the doctrine of atonement, "racially alien," his hearers again shouted "Oranienburg."

"There must," cried Dr. Krause, "be an end to the state of affairs in which the most objectionable race on earth, the Jews, are represented as The Chosen People. The 'Aryan Clause' must be applied finally and rigorously. Pastors of Jewish origin ought to go where they belong, to the synagogue! (Loud cheers.)

"The lives and utterances of great Germans must be considered equal to the Bible as revelations. . . . Man is the child of God, a part of God, and does not face God with those feelings of inferiority proclaimed by the Rabbi Paul. This is the German faith, everything else is a mere watering down in Pauline fashion."

Hitler. Protestant and Catholic journals in Germany last week were apprehensive as to the spread of the pagan movement. Undoubtedly confined at present to the wild fringe of the Realmleaders followers, it nonetheless caused churchmen to wonder if Hitler can and will make good his promise to protect "the two great Christian confessions." Possibly he feels that by its very nature and because he refrains from abetting it, paganism will not spread dangerously far. In any case he did not deign to mention it in his Coblenz speech (see p. 20). Repeating his promises and explaining that all he had done so far was to take politics out of religion, Hitler said: "Our work is certainly not one which is unblessed by God."

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