At the time he was rising to global power, Hitler’s audience was Catholic, but his announcement of the Concordat with Rome (the papal agreement, July 5, 1933) had meaning to Protestants as well.
The message was obvious and clear: Friendly relations—relations that are inclusive of the church—must be the norm in a resurgent Germany. “The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie.”[i]
Hitler was even more effusive about the value of Nazism to benefit the church:
While we destroyed the Center Party [a Catholic political party[ii]], we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road, which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co-operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.[iii]
Furthermore, it was essential to separate the realms of personal faith from political action. Hitler’s “spheres of function” were altogether essential insofar as the church’s dominion was concerned, for without the spiritual health of Germany, there would be no political health. But he also took a hard line to distinguish their responsibilities: The church was to look after the spiritual and moral health of the flock—the state would tend to its material need:
The German Church and the People are practically the same body. Therefore there could be no issue between Church and State. The Church, as such, has nothing to do with political affairs. On the other hand, the State has nothing to do with the faith or inner organization of the Church.[iv]
The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.[v]
So long as they concern themselves with their religious problems the State does not concern itself with them. But so soon as they attempt by any means whatsoever—by letters, Encyclical, or otherwise—to arrogate to themselves rights which belong to the State alone we shall force them back into their proper spiritual, pastoral activity.[vi]
In other words, both church and state must reassure its denizens the institution exists to provide for their well-being. But it is, from Hitler’s perspective, necessary that they split duties. Keep the church’s message personal and positive while the state should keep on its message of economic welfare for all (sound familiar as of late?). And of course, the supremacy of the state must be upheld. It was never to be questioned. The state dictated the role of the church. Furthermore, it mandated that any criticism of the state would not be tolerated.
Movement afoot for a new National Socialism between politics & religion?
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Moreover, upon close inspection, Hitler would “gerrymander” the territory of the state whenever it suited him. Some theological modifications would be necessary. In a Germany liberated from the “old-fashioned” faith, the church should dismiss any talk of humankind’s sinful inclinations and its need for repentance. Evil must be mitigated—more specifically, downgraded—and reduced in substance to “mistakes” and not the more menacing notion of sin. Defects in human behavior amount to little more than “poor choices.” Thus, with sin redefined and evil eliminated as a “metaphysical reality,”[vii] the gospel was compromised and the church complicit. It could then pray reverently with the Führer:
We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, and our will. We ask not of the Almighty, “Lord, make us free!”—we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: “Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is no longer the people of dishonor, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.” “Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.”[viii]
Furthermore, while the Führer did not directly confront Christian sensibilities, his prayer led one to conjecture as to what “positive Christianity” involved, and exactly what its opposite—“negative Christianity”—would entail. No doubt his listeners let the matter drop without questioning the meaning behind his exhortation for accentuating a “positive Christianity.” In contradistinction, like observing a lit firecracker failing to pop, we should be very alarmed when such a loaded phrase lies dormant for too long. Observers must be asleep if they have no apprehension about when the firecracker will detonate.
To the wary spectator, Hitler’s statement anticipated a pause “for the other shoe to drop.” And yet, assuming nothing but good intent from the Führer, the audience did not worry one iota that another shoe would hit the floor. Instead, they were enraptured by Hitler’s acclamation:
MY LORD AND SAVIOR…IN THE BOUNDLESS LOVE AS A CHRISTIAN…HE HAD TO SHED HIS BLOOD UPON THE CROSS. My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them [Peter should take up his sword, rather than put it away]. This is God’s truth! He was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.[ix] (emphasis added)
The notion that the Messiah was himself NOT Jewish was a view propounded by Richard Wagner, the famous German composer whose operas were expressions of the nineteenth-century German zeitgeist (the “spirit of the age”). Unquestionably, Hitler’s favorite composer, Wagner, stirred Hitler’s soul to envision a revived, irrepressible, and vengeful Germany. During World War II, Wagner’s legacy lived on as his music filled the putrefied air of Holocaust death camps. As a result, survivors would forever associate Wagner with Auschwitz. This was no disservice to Wagner—for he believed that Christ was Aryan, not Jewish. And like Friedrich Nietzsche, the “Philosopher Emeritus” of the German people (a good friend of Wagner until their falling out), he believed the German soul must not be dragged down by the “slave mentality” of the Jew. Consequently, it logically followed that Jesus could never be considered a Jew. To the aspiring German mindset, the Jews were a millstone about their necks. The Hebrew religion bestowed nothing but restrictive laws and depressive guilt. It was time for Germany to cast aside the Jewish mentality and its stifling effect upon the soul of humankind, but especially their Aryan race!
As to Nietzsche, he famously asserted a philosophy known as the will to power. To the extent Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified, to that same extent Jesus was Himself the anti-Christ. For Nietzsche, Jesus’ commitment to die for the sin of the world was nothing but a death wish to be condemned and repudiated. For him, Jesus’ willingness to lay down His life remains the source of so much nonsense contaminating the true purpose for religion. Instead, a “true confession” encourages struggle! (Mein Kampf, of course, means “My Struggle.”) For Nietzsche, suffering saves no one. Moreover, this must be the stalwart creed of all true believers. The gospel of Wagner, Nietzsche, and especially Adolf Hitler held in common a disdain for the Jew.
