"Nazism and Religion: The Problem of 'Positive Christianity,'" Australian Journal of Politics and...

Draft version only. This paper has been published as ‘Nazism and Religion: The Problem of “Positive Christianity,”’ Australian Journal of Politics and History 60, no.1 (March 2014), 28–42. All rights reserved © Samuel Koehne, 2014. The definitive version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajph.12043/full

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Abstract:

Current debates on Nazism and religion are focused around the notion that the Nazis

sought to promote a kind of Christian faith called “positive Christianity.” This article

challenges such perspectives. It establishes that “positive Christianity” had an existing

meaning in German society before the Nazi Party was formed–-dogmatic Christian

faith––and demonstrates that this was the same interpretation of religious faith that

Hitler appeared to advocate in Mein Kampf. By contrast to recent revisionist accounts, the

paper argues that “positive Christianity” had such a wide variety of interpretations that it

cannot be considered as a cohesive construct.


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Nazism and Religion: The Problem of “Positive Christianity”

here has been a great deal of Sturm und Drang in recent historical

considerations of Nazism and religion, much of which has come to revolve

around the notion (advocated by Richard Steigmann-Gall) that the Nazi

Party in and of itself was advocating a kind of faith called “positive Christianity.”1 The

reason for this is that when the National Socialist German Workers’ Party

(Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP) came to deal with the subject of

religion in their programme of 24 February 1920 they did so in only one section (point

24), which stated: “We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state so long

as they do not endanger its existence or offend the ethical and moral feelings of the

Germanic race.” The programme went on to claim that “The Party as such stands for a

positive Christianity, without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination.”2

In his revisionist work The Holy Reich, Steigmann-Gall drew on this point

specifically to argue that the Nazis stood for a “type of Christianity,” a “positive

Christianity” that “was not a loose, unarticulated construct, but instead adhered to an

inner logic.” Derek Hastings also focused on this aspect of the Programme, but has more

cautiously argued for the possibility of the influence of Reform Catholicism.3 There is a

1 Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945 (New York, 2003). See especially the responses to The Holy Reich in the special issue of Journal of Contemporary History 42, no.1 (2007): Doris L. Bergen, “Nazism and Christianity: Partner and Rivals?” (25–33); Manfred Gailus, “A Strange Obsession with Nazi Christianity” (35–46); Ernst Piper, “Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich” (47–57); Irving Hexham, “Inventing ‘Paganists’” (59–78); Stanley Stowers, “The Concepts of ‘Religion,’ ‘Political Religion’ and the Study of Nazism,” (9–24). See also Richard Steigmann-Gall, “Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A Response,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 2 (2007): 185–211. 2 Alfred Rosenberg, Wesen, Grundsätze und Ziele der NSDAP (Munich, 1923), 43. I have translated Sittlichkeits- und Moral-gefühl as “ethical and moral” because the German Workers’ Party foundational principles used the terms Moral und Ethik: Reel 3, File no.77 Hauptarchiv der NSDAP (Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace), microform. Hereafter I will refer to these NSDAP Central Archive files as: HA-File#. 3 Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 14-15; Derek Hastings, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism (Oxford, 2010); Derek Hastings, “How ‘Catholic’ Was the Early

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considerable historical problem, however, that has not been adequately dealt with and

that I wish to address in this paper. This is the issue that before we can deal with

arguments as to whether “positive Christianity” had any specific meaning in Nazi

terminology, we have to deal with the fact that it had an existing meaning: it meant the

traditional, dogmatic and orthodox teachings of Christian faith.

Although this has been largely ignored in the recent historiography it is relevant

to debates on Nazism given that this was both the meaning of “positive Christianity” in

German society at the time and that some Nazi propagandists were openly willing to

promote the NSDAP as if it were adhering to Christianity according to this traditional

meaning. As I argue, this leads us back to the question of whether the stated support for

“positive Christianity” in the Nazi Programme was strategic. What makes this murkier

still is that Hitler himself––when he discussed religion in Mein Kampf––made it clear that

the form of Christian faith he was apparently supportive of was dogmatic and

institutional Christianity (much as he might disagree with the content of such faith). This

creates the paradoxical situation that the Nazis were decidedly un-Christian if one takes

Hitler’s perspective on religion seriously.

First, it has to be made clear that there were undoubtedly leading Nazis who

viewed themselves as Christians, though it was of an extremely unorthodox form that

incorporated notions of an “Aryan Jesus,” of purging the Old Testament and of

“purifying” the New Testament––all notions grounded in the ultra-nationalist racial

ideology and antisemitism that formed the foundations of National Socialism.4 Points of

commonality could also be found between such National Socialists’ views and both

Nazi Movement? Religion, Race and Culture in Munich, 1919-1923,” Central European History 36, no. 3 (2003): 396. 4 See generally Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933–1945 (Cambridge, 1991), esp. 304–7.


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existing and continuing trends within German liberal or rationalist Christian theology.5

Yet this was the exact opposite to “positive Christianity” as it was commonly

understood.

The Meaning of Positive Christianity

teigmann-Gall apparently believed the term “positive Christianity” to be sui

generis.6 Yet by 1920 (when the Nazi Programme was proclaimed) positive

Christianity had an existing meaning, of two forms. One drew on Friedrich

Schleiermacher’s concept of “positive religions,” while the other simply denoted

conservative, doctrinal Christian belief––neither of which has received a great deal of

attention from Steigmann-Gall or Hastings.7 The famed religious encyclopaedia Religion in

Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG) noted both forms in the Weimar era, defining positive

Christianity as orthodox religious belief, but also referring to Schleiermacher’s definition

of “revealed” religions, as opposed to “natural” religions, positioning “positive religions”

against beliefs such as Deism. In this sense, Schleiermacher’s use of “positive” was

identical to “positive” dogmatic Christianity: positive being used to mean certain or

definite.8

This places it as the exact opposite of the kinds of “Aryanised” Christian faith

positions to be found amongst leading Nazis, or even to those of Hitler––who, as a

5 See Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill, 1996); Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton, 2008). Such connections were by no means limited to liberal Christians: see for example Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven, 1985), esp.115–19. 6 Steigmann-Gall argued “positive Christianity” embodied three concepts drawn from Point 24, though I have argued elsewhere that it did not: Samuel Koehne, “Reassessing The Holy Reich: Leading Nazis’ Views on Confession, Community and ‘Jewish’ Materialism,” Journal of Contemporary History 48, no.3 (July 2013): 423–45. 7 Franz Schnabel, Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1951), 286. 8 Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, ed. Hermann Gunkel and Leopold Zscharnack, 2 ed. (Tübingen, 1927–1930).

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recent work noted, is possibly best characterised as “deistic.” Already by the late

nineteenth century “positive Christianity” was widely understood as distinguishing

conservative Christian belief from liberal Christianity, derived from the theological terms

“liberal theology” and “positive theology.”9

It was not simply understood in this way within Germany, as is shown through

research in the British Library’s digital collection of nineteenth century newspapers.10

References to “positive Christianity” range from the very powerful to ordinary people.

For instance, in 1824 The Morning Post published an article which reported ordinances

issued by the Duke of Baden against rationalist trends in religion that challenged the

“pure and incorrupt teaching of the Gospel” and Christian doctrines:

instead of the eternal Divine word, human transitory ideas are taught and

preached...many Clergymen, wholly neglecting to preach the main articles

of faith of our holy religion, treat its moral ordinances as the main part;

others again favour a system of rationalism which directly undermines the

chief pillars of our faith in the Gospel revealed immediately from God

through our Divine Redeemer and Saviour, and but too clearly betrays the

tendency to set aside, as antiquated, positive Christianity.

As reported, the Duke was attempting to maintain such “positive Christianity” in the

church, including belief in the miracles of the Bible, and the “pure doctrines of the

Gospel.”11 Yet one could find the same understanding at the other end of the social scale.

A letter to the editor of The Morning Chronicle in 1851 attacked the “National Public

9 This follows an older tradition: see “Positiva Theologia,” listed under “dogmatic theology” in Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexikon (Leipzig and Halle, 1741; repr., Graz-Austria, 1982). On Hitler as “deistic”: Rainer Bucher, Hitler’s Theology: A Study in Political Religion, trans. Rebecca Pohl (London, 2011), 9–10. 10 For all subsequent references I am reliant on the 19th Century British Library Newspapers collection, available online through http://www.gale.cengage.com [accessed 12 August 2010]. 11 The Morning Post, 6 August 1824.


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School Association” for supporting a “creed of Theism.” The writer’s object was “to

expose the workings of the propaganda of this aggression upon positive dogmatic

Christianity.”12

It was also a term used in the Catholic Church, and a very significant example

could be found in 1872. Following Vatican 1 a schism occurred whereby Catholics

unwilling to accept papal infallibility formed the Old Catholic Church (Altkatholische

Kirche). A major meeting of this group in Cologne in 1872 neatly described “positive

Christianity”: “The ground on which they place themselves is that of positive Christianity

and whoever does not profess Christianity, as it is contained in the Scriptures and laid

down by the seven Ecumenical Councils of the Church, cannot be regarded as a

Catholic.”13 By the end of the nineteenth century the meaning was common enough in

Germany that even a general reference work like Meyers Konversationslexikon defined

“positive Christianity” (das positive Christentum) as a “scholastic-dogmatic form” that was

exclusive to the church.14

Robert Cecil made the point that “if we accept that the basic Christian beliefs are

that Jesus Christ was God, that through His death and resurrection man is redeemed

from original sin and that the soul survives the death of the physical body” then a leader

like Alfred Rosenberg “was no Christian.”15 Yet “positive Christianity” meant accepting

not only these aspects but also the doctrine of the Trinity and that the Bible as a whole

12 The Morning Chronicle, 22 December 1851. 13 The Pall Mall Gazette, 23 September 1872. 14 Referred to as a kirchlich abgeschlossene, scholastisch-dogmatische Form in a commentary on Apologetics: “Apologie,” Meyers Konversationslexikon (4.Auflage, 1888-1890) available in facsimile through Universität Ulm: http://vts.uni-ulm.de/doc.asp?id=5436 [accessed 15 December 2012]. This work was well known. 15 See Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology (London, 1972), 84. On Rosenberg and religion, see: Ernst Piper “‘Der Nationalsozialismus steht über allen Bekenntnissen,’ Alfred Rosenberg und die völkisch-religiösen Erneuerungsbestrebungen” in Völkisch-religiöse Bewegung im Nationalsozialismus, 337-53, esp.338-40.


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(Old and New Testament) was the divinely revealed word of God. By such criteria, no

leading Nazi could be considered Christian, given their general aversion to the Old

Testament and their rejection of the universality of sin and the universality of grace

(Romans 3: 22-24).16 From early on the Nazis declared “it is not confession, but rather the

race of a person that determines his actions…a Jew always remains a Jew” because

“baptismal water cannot wash away the in-born blood.”17

This is not to say that leading Nazis were aware of the theological niceties of the

term “positive Christianity.” But one did not have to be a theologian to be conversant

with this meaning, one only had to be socially aware. The term appeared in general usage

in the public struggle of Protestant Church elections between the parties of the

“Liberals” (Liberalen) and the “Positives” (Positiven): the first adhered to a theological

liberal position, the latter to “positive,” orthodox, Christianity.18 On occasion, the Nazis’

official newspaper the Völkisch Observer (Völkischer Beobachter, VB) reported these.19

16 A leading Protestant theologian, Hermann Sasse, pointed this out at the time: Evangelische Kirche Deutschland, Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die evangelischen Landeskirchen Deutschlands, ed. Hermann Sasse, vol. 59 (Gütersloh, 1932), 65–6. 17 Their emphais. This quotation appeared as part of a repeated series of large-font inserts on “agitation against the Jews” in the Nazi newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (VB): VB-37 (12 May 1921). In September 1921 Hitler’s notes argued ‘Jewish Christians’ were always still ‘jewified’ by ‘blood’: Adolf Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen: 1905–1924, ed. Eberhard Jäckel and Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart, 1980), 478. On the VB: Detlef Mühlberger, Hitler’s Voice: The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920–1933, Nazi Ideology and Propaganda, vol. 2 (Oxford: P. Lang, 2004); Detlef Mühlberger, Hitler’s Voice: The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920–1933, Organisation & Development of the Nazi Party, vol. 1 (Oxford: P. Lang, 2004). 18 For instance, the Bavarian Historical Lexicon records “Inner-church conflicts between Liberals/Rationalists as against ‘Orthodox’ and ‘Positives’” in the provincial church or Landeskirche. In the 1927 church-vote, the Liberalen won 44% of the church-vote, and the Positiven 38%: Klaus Bümlein, Evangelische Kirche der Pfalz, http://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/artikel/artikel_44489 [accessed 16 April 2012]. 19 See for instance the brief article on “Church Voting in Berlin” in 1932 which recorded the votes won by competing groups, including the “Positive” and “Liberal” parties, though by this point the VB was promoting the “German Christians (National Socialists)”––a newly unified group of völkisch Christian organisations: VB-316/321 (16 November 1932); On the German Christians: Bergen Twisted Cross, 5–6, 14–17; John S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933–1945 (London, 1968), 12–13, 45ff.


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The term “positive theology” also continued in use, as in the 1923 Brockhaus

which defined it as the opposite of “rational or natural theology,” stating “positive” had

come to be synonymous with “ecclesiastical-conservative.” In terms of the vernacular,

Holborn points out that from the mid-nineteenth century, “‘Positive’ Christianity became

the religion of the old ruling classes, the rural population, and the lower middle classes in

the towns”––populations that the Nazis targeted and drew on for membership.

Hermelink, writing four years after the demise of the Third Reich, noted that the central

points of “positive Christianity” were orthodox teachings “of sin and of redemption.”20

In a popular sense then, positive Christianity meant “according to Protestant terminology

of the time, conservative, fundamentalist and nationalistic Protestantism.”21 Given this

common understanding, the term was at the very least an ambiguous point in the Nazi

programme.

Looking Back to 1920

art of the issue is that we have to look back to the programme of 1920 over a

mass of redefinitions of “positive Christianity,” especially after the Nazis

came to power. There is no doubt that systematic attempts were made after

1933 to redefine the terms, not least that by Reich-Bishop Ludwig Müller. His book

What is positive Christianity? was sent out “in the conviction, that the term ‘positive

Christianity’ is able to be filled with new German content just as well as the word

‘Socialism.’”22 This incidentally accepted that the term had an existing meaning, even

though his work was an attempt to redefine it.

20 “Positiv,” Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1923); Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, vol. 2 (London, 1965), 494; H. Hermelink, Geschichte der evangelischen Kirche in Württemberg von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1949), 219. 21 Hartmut Lehmann, “The Germans as a Chosen People: Old Testament Themes in German Nationalism,” German Studies Review 14 (1991): 269. 22 Ludwig Müller, Was ist positives Christentum? (Stuttgart, 1939), 5.

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Already by 1976 James Zabel considered “positive Christianity” at some length.23 It

is curious that Steigmann-Gall omitted any discussion of the traditional meaning of from

his book, given that he was clearly aware of Zabel’s work.24 When he came to consider

positive Christianity, Zabel began by noting the “pre-Nazi history” of the expression

specifically as a “traditionalist anti-liberal theological position.” However, he believed this

had “little, if any, relationship” to Point 24, going on to examine the very disparate

interpretations by German Christian groups, which included “orthodoxy, neo-paganism,

heroic faith, anti-intellectualism and moderation.”

This both demonstrates the diverse interpretations made after the Nazis came to

power and illustrates at a fundamental level that “positive Christianity” was vague and

open to interpretation. It was so broad that Zabel concluded it could “mean almost

anything.” His analysis shows that even very theologically-aware Christians who were

interested in Nazism could not agree on what the term meant. As he concluded, “the

definitions of ‘positive Christianity’ varied greatly” such that: “There was no commonly-

held interpretation.” As a result, he believed that the “lack of definition” was “[t]he most

important thing about the use of the term in the Party platform.”25

Positive (doctrinal) Christianity and the Nazi Party

learly one interpretation was orthodox faith and “positive Christianity”

could also be used to denote doctrinal belief in the völkisch movement, out

of which the Nazi Party itself had arisen.26 An example of its use in this

23 James A. Zabel, Nazism and the Pastors: A Study of the Ideas of three Deutsche Christen Groups (Missoula, Montana, 1976), Chapter 5, 111–29. 24 Their summaries of Friedrich Andersen and the League for a German Church are markedly similar: Zabel, Nazism and the Pastors, 9–11; Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 74–75. 25 Zabel, Nazism and the Pastors, 111–12, 128–29. 26 The term völkisch is difficult to translate, though it carried connotations of ultra-nationalism, antisemitism and racism. For excellent summaries, see Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London, 1991), 86–90; George S. Williamson, The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and

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sense was the pamphlet issued by the German-Völkisch Freedom Party (Deutschvölkische

Freiheitspartei, DVFP). This was a group which sought to connect itself to the Nazi Party,

particularly on antisemitic grounds. In 1924, it released a pamphlet attacking the German

Nationalists (presumably the Deutsche Nationale Volkspartei, DNVP). This argued that the

DNVP claim that they protected “positive Christianity” was false, mostly on the grounds

that this party had leaders who were “liberal pastors” and “liberal Protestants.” One of

their main concerns (like the Nazis) was that there be no intermixing of religion and

politics, and that anyone who was nationalist could join their party, proudly proclaiming

that their own ranks contained “positive,” “liberal” and “German-Christian” Protestants

and Catholics. This was a völkisch organisation in 1924 using “positive Christianity” in the

same sense that it had always been understood: as the opposite of “liberal Christianity.”27

The key question, of course, is whether the Nazis used “positive Christianity” in

its traditional sense: because if they did so, it was probably being used as a political ploy.

Certainly one of their prominent propagandists did in the early years. Hastings noted that

a priest named Lorenz Pieper repeatedly propagandised for the Nazi Party in 1923,

including on the topic: “Can a Catholic be a National Socialist?”28 As reported in the VB,

Pieper was arguing against the notion that the Nazis were “direct opponents and

corrupters of Christianity and supporters of a aggregate Christianity that is free of Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche (Chicago, 2004), 285–88. See also Uwe Puschner, Die völkische Bewegung im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich: Sprache–Rasse–Religion (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001); Uwe Puschner and Clemens Vollnhals, Die völkisch-religiöse Bewegung im Nationalsozialismus: Eine Beziehung- und Konfliktgeschichte (Göttingen, 2012); Handbuch zur “Völkischen Bewegung”, 1871–1918, ed. Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz, and Justus H. Ulbricht (Munich, 1996). 27 See Evangelische Christen, schützt Euer Christentum vor Parteipolitik, HA-843. 28 When Pieper joined the NSDAP, an article in the VB declared his affiliation and noted his “positive Christian-German world-view” and the “struggle for the salvation of the Christian-Germanic spirit”: VB-84 (4 May 1923). On Pieper, see Hastings, Catholicism and Nazism, 119-20, 126-29. Hastings was more interested in Pieper’s possible role as a bridge between Reform Catholicism in Munich and a “Nazi” form of Christian faith. More generally on Catholic clerics and their involvement in the Nazi Party: Kevin P. Spicer, Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism (DeKalb, Ill., 2008).


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dogmas (dogmenloses Christentum).” He addressed this in two ways, first arguing that the

Catholic Church did not dictate membership in any particular political Party, and then

that Catholics could join the National Socialists “without detriment to their religious

conviction.”

Pieper repeatedly stated that the Nazi Party stood “on the basis of positive

Christianity,” but what he meant by this was adherence to dogmatic Catholicism, the

commonly understood meaning of the term. Pieper certainly referred to the authority of

Catholic Bishops and the Pope in the report of his speech of 26 June, endorsing their

authority. He argued that the Nazi Party was the “warmest and most energetic defender

and fighter for the true Christian view of life and the world.” But he went further, and

asserted that “the Catholic church and its adherents are able to fulfil their religious tasks

and duties unhindered” under Nazi precepts.29

He spoke again on this topic in August, continuing to confirm the authority of

“the Pope and Bishops” and claiming that members of the Nazi Party should “fulfil their

duty” within “their religious societies and confessions.”30 He further argued Catholics

could adhere to any party “that stands on the basis of positive Christianity and proves

this conviction also through action,” rejecting the Social Democrats and Democrats on

these grounds. The first, he argued, stood for atheism and the second “do not positively

represent the Christian world view, but the Jewish-liberal and free-thought direction of

ideas.” Pieper went so far as to argue the Nazis fought for “Christian education and for

confessional schools.”

He relied on a racialist interpretation of the orders of creation as a “sacred”

notion: “Next to religion is a high sacred notion, the fatherland: that is, the entirety of all

29 VB-135 (7 July 1923). 30 VB-151 (1 August 1923); VB-152 (2 August 1923).


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German comrades by blood, destiny and Volk….God Himself has created the diversity

of the peoples in blood, nature, and race and hence also desires the difference of blood,

of the peoples, of races.” On this basis he argued “racial purity” was desired by God, and

came to the conclusion that “a convinced Christian and Catholic has to be an

antisemite.”

Yet it was particularly emphasised that “because the National Socialist Party

stands on the basis of positive Christianity, theoretically and in practice, it is self-evident,

that its Catholic members also identify with all the individual dogmas and moral precepts of the

Catholic Church.” This included the Catholic Catechism (in which the professions of

faith are the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed).31 This was a statement of “positive

Christianity” in dogmatic form, apparent support for an orthodox faith position that

included all the “basic beliefs” outlined above.

Alongside this second article the Nazi Party reported the opposing viewpoint. A

Jesuit priest, Rupert Mayer, had raised questions about the use of “positive Christianity,”

arguing that Nazism was emphatically “un-Christian,” because “it rejects the Old

Testament that has been inspired by the Holy Spirit; it confers so to speak a new content

upon positive Christianity; it teaches not only hatred against the Jews, but also against

our enemies.”32 What both Pieper and Mayer were talking about in 1923 was not religion

free of dogmas, not a liberal or rationalist religion, but dogmatic Catholicism––positive

31 His emphasis; in German: “sei es selbstverständlich, dass ihre katholischen Mitglieder sich auch identifizieren mit allen einzelnen Glaubenssätzen und Moralgesetzen der katholischen Kirche.” He stated that Party gatherings were not the place to discuss individual questions of the Catechism: VB-170 (24 August 1923). These points are omitted by Hastings, who slightly misread some of the original, translating “Neben der Religion ist ein hoher heiliger Begriff das Vaterland” as “Beneath religion comes the elevated holy ideal of Fatherland”: Hastings, Catholicism and Nazism, 128. Pieper consistently argued in favour of racial purity as the desire of God and that the NSDAP was Christian (even of “an extreme Christian position”) because it fought “atheistic” political parties: see for instance VB-152 (2 August 1923). 32 VB-170 (24 August 1923).


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Christianity in its traditional sense. Yet this is not what leading “Aryan Christian” Nazis

adhered to: theirs was not the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, but belief in an Aryan Jesus.

Nor were the Nazis necessarily dissociating themselves from the völkisch movement and

its stranger religious trends, including paganism. In this regard, there were some curious

contrasts to be found alongside reports of Pieper’s speeches.

For instance, the same VB column that reported one of his lectures noted that a

local branch of the Nazi Party had held an evening of discussion specifically on Theodor

Fritsch’s racial-religious work The False God.33 Alongside the VB reports on Pieper and

Mayer there was also an article recommending the fourth “German Day” (Deutscher Tag)

to members of the Nazi Party. This was not only meant to discuss the “position of the

völkisch movement” but give participants the “spiritual-mental stimulus” to continue

“their struggle for the German Volk-soul.” Four lectures were listed, the first two of

which were “The Germanic tribes (Germanen) 2000 Years Ago” by Franz von Wendrin

and “The Results of Research into the Edda” by Otto Siegfried Reuter.34

Franz von Wendrin was a völkisch author who was well on the way to his

supposed “discovery of paradise” (that is, biblical Eden) in Mecklenburg.35 In 1923 he

already believed that he had “discovered conclusive evidence that all civilisation on this

globe has originated [from] his Germanic ancestors in Scandinavia.”36 Reuter, on the

other hand, was probably speaking on his work The Riddle of the Edda and Aryan Primal

33 See Kulmbach report, VB-151 (1 August 1923); Theodor Fritsch, Der falsche Gott: Beweismaterial gegen Jahwe, 9th ed. (Leipzig, 1921). On Fritsch and his influence: Dietrich Eckart, Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin: Zwiegespräch zwischen Adolf Hitler und mir (Munich, 1924), 34n.107; Handbuch zur “Völkischen Bewegung”, 1871–1918, 341–65. 34 VB-170 (24 August 1923). The other lectures were on “racial hygiene” and antisemitism. The Edda refers to the Norse poetry: Ursula Dronke, The Poetic Edda, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1997). 35 Franz von Wendrin, Die Entdeckung des Paradieses (Braunschweig, 1924). 36 The Argus (Melbourne), 15 September 1923. The review was by Augustin Lodewyckx, who believed this had more to do with a “tendency [in Germany] to turn from the miseries of the present time to the glories of the German or even Germanic past…”


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Faith.37 Uwe Puschner describes Reuter as having had an “influential authority” in the

völkisch movement and as “one of the most important” ideologists of the “pagan

völkisch-religious movement.” In 1909 he had written a work Siegfried or Christ? which

found “great resonance” amongst the neo-pagans, as it had argued against “Christianity

as a so-called racially foreign (artfremd) religion” and called for “the revival of pre-

Christian Germanic-german religiosity.” 38 The promotion of such events and such

important figures as Reuter did not distance the Nazi Party from the broader völkisch

movement (including pagan trends).

This problem is more neatly illustrated by Pieper’s speech “Can a Catholic be a

National Socialist?”. Hastings stated “the outspokenly Catholic Max Sesselmann” was

“often” present at Pieper’s presentation of this speech and represented the “committed

Catholic Nazi layman.” This is incorrect on a number of levels. On a minor point, the

VB reports recorded that Max (sometimes also Marc) Sesselmann was only present at the

event on 26 June with Pieper. More importantly, at this event he did not describe himself

as Catholic and spoke only on the aims and nature of the Nazi Party, which means that

the principal evidence Hastings provides for his repeated assertions of Sesselmann’s

Catholicism in the period to 1923 were that his family were prominent Catholics.39

The largest issue with the notion that Max Sesselmann was “ouspokenly

Catholic” is that when he had declared his own views on religion, Sesselmann advocated

37 Otto Siegfried Reuter, Das Rätsel der Edda und der arische Urglaube, vol. 1 (Sontra in Hessen, 1922-23); Otto Siegfried Reuter, Das Rätsel der Edda und der arische Urglaube, vol. 2 (Sontra in Hessen, 1923). 38 Uwe Puschner, “Reuter, Otto Theodor Ludwig Sigfrid,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie 21 (2003): 465–67, available online at http://www.deutsche-biographie.de [accessed 8 January 2013]. Although first published anonymously, Reuter became reknowned for this “ground-breaking publication”: Friedrich Andersen, Der deutsche Heiland (Munich, 1921), 137. 39 Hastings, Catholicism and Nazism, 126-27; for his evidence, 209n.98, the “Bekanntmachung” refers to Hans Georg Müller. Hastings refers variously to Sesselmann as a “professing Catholic,” a “völkisch-Catholic collaborater,” a “believing Catholic” (66, 89, 150-51). In this last, he noted that Sesselmann spoke in 1924 at an event with the theme “Can a Catholic be völkisch?”


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the bizarre and esoteric work of Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (Adolf Lanz). From 1919 he

was a leading member of the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP, which

became the NSDAP) and an editor of the VB. He was also the leader of the German

Socialist Party (Deutschsozialistische Partei, DSP) in Munich and it was as such that he

attended the DSP conference of 24-26 April 1920. In a discussion about religion at this

event he stated: “Dr Lanz Liebenfels is the spiritual propagator for this movement. An

Aryan religious idea has to permeate our movement.” This was exactly two months after

Sesselmann had opened the Nazi (DAP) meeting of 24 February 1920: at which they

proclaimed themselves for “positive Christianity.”40

Liebenfels was well known for his journal Ostara, which many have argued was

read by Hitler. When Liebenfels summarised his own ideas, they were that “our holy

scriptures provide proof, that the dark races and untouchables were the result of a

sodomitic intermixture of Aryans who had lost a consciousness of race, particularly

female Aryans, with animal-people and pre-humans.” This referred to the degradation of

Aryan “god-men” through bestiality (he believed “the gods once actually lived upon this

earth”). To Liebenfels “the nature of the religion of the Bible was simply ariosophical

racial hygiene, eugenics, was antisimitism, that is the battle against the Ape-men and sub-

humans, and not monotheism and altruism.”41

40 DSP-Parteitag, 27. This is the report from the conference of 24-26 April 1920 in Hanover: HA-109; page numbers appear on the top-right corner. 41 J. Lanz-Liebenfels, Das Buch der Psalmen teutsch, das Gebetbuch der Ariosophen, Rassenmystiker und Antisimiten, vol. 1 (Düsseldorf-Unterrath, 1926), 4–6. Goodrick-Clarke noted this was the “single Lanz monograph” to be found in what remains of Hitler’s library. On Lanz and his ideas, see Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935 (New York, 1992), 90–4, 194, 276–79; Handbuch zur “Völkischen Bewegung”, 1871–1918, 131–46. “Antisimitism” was deliberate: Liebenfels viewed “antisemitism” as meaning “anti-simia” (that is, against the ape). It is “most likely” Hitler read Ostara, though “we cannot be certain”: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (London, 1998), 51.


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What we have then is a self-declared advocate for Liebenfels speaking alongside a

priest who was arguing that the Nazis stood on the basis of “positive Christianity” and

there was nothing in Nazism that was fundamentally in opposition to “Catholic

teaching.” But perhaps they were not standing that far from one another. As was publicly

reported in the VB, Pieper argued in favour of Joseph von Görres as one of the “most

significant” of those who “reawoke in [our Volk] the sense for our great past, for its

divine revelation in history and saga, in myth and fairy-tales, in word and tone.”42

This was not “positive Christianity” that adhered to the dogmas of the Catholic

Church. Indeed, it was more in line with writers like the “Wotanist” (or Odinist) Guido

von List, who argued that key sources to rediscovering the faith of the Aryan “religion of

light” were “myths, fairy-tales, sagas, opinion and custom, as well as our Germanic Bible

the Edda.”43 Yet Pieper was a prominent propagandist willing to promote “positive

Christianity” as if the Nazis were using it according to its usual meaning.

The Paradox of Hitler’s Dogma & the Uses of Christianity

he issue of defining “positive Christianity” becomes even more problematic

when one turns to Mein Kampf, which was a widely accepted official text on

National Socialism. What has not been noted in the literature until recently

is that when Hitler came to write specifically on the formation of religious faith in this

autobiographical work, he referred precisely to Christianity in its traditional, dogmatic

42 In German: “göttliche Offenbarung in Geschichte und Sage, in Mythus und Märchen, in Wort und Ton”: VB-134 (6 July 1923). Hastings cited this report but eschewed mention of the myths and fairy-tales: “Pieper portrayed Görres not only as a deeply religious Catholic but also a ‘warrior’ who was willing to fight for his convictions”: Hastings, Catholicism and Nazism, 127. A series on “prophecy and fulfillment” in fairy-tales had run in the VB beginning in VB-38 (11/12 March 1923). The author was Georg Schott, author of Weissagung und Erfüllung im deutschen Volksmärchen (Munich, 1925). 43 “Mythe, Märchen, Sage, Meinung und Brauch, sowie unsere Germanenbibel, die Edda”: Guido List, Die Rita der Ario-Germanen, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1920), 58. On List’s “Wotanism and Germanic Theosophy,” Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots, 49-55.

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form. As Rainer Bucher notes in his fascinating analysis of Hitler’s Theology the reason for

this emphasis was not an agreement with the content of Church dogma, but his belief

that two lessons could be learned from dogmatic form for the Nazis’ “political

confession”: certainty and intolerance.44

Essentially, Hitler’s argument was that belief (whether religious or political) did

not truly become faith until it was dogmatically defined. At this point, it was of use for

“the masses.” Hitler argued that “the practical existence of a religious faith” was “not

conceivable” without “the dogmatic foundations of the various churches,” seeing dogma

as the means by which “the wavering and infintely interpretable, purely intellectual idea

[is] delimited and brought into a form without which it could never become faith.”45 It

was due to Hitler’s belief in the amorphous nature of faith (religious or political) that he

defended dogma. This, in turn, drew out an instance when Hitler argued that the Nazis

could learn from the Catholic Church:

[W]e can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its

doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with

exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so

much as one syllable of its dogmas.

It has recognised quite correctly that its power of resistance does not lie

in its lesser or greater adaptation to the scientific findings of the moment,

44 Bucher, Hitler’s Theology, 19–28. The study of Hitler’s religious beliefs is a large (and growing) field, see for instance Friedrich Heer, Der Glaube des Adolf Hitler. Anatomie einer politischen Religiosität (Munich, 1968); Michael Rißmann, Hitlers Gott: Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators (Zürich, 2001); Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch, Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus: Die religiöse Dimension der NS-Ideologie in den Schriften von Dietrich Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg und Adolf Hitler (Munich, 1998). However, Bucher notes that it is “extraordinarily difficult” to ascertain “personally held beliefs” for any individual, and focuses instead on Hitler’s “political project and its theological structures of legitimation”: Bucher, Hitler’s Theology, 9–10. 45 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim (1943; repr., London, 2004), 243. I am reliant on Bucher’s argument: Bucher, Hitler’s Theology, 22–24.


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which in reality are always fluctuating, but rather in rigidly holding to

dogmas once established, for it is only such dogmas which lend to the

whole body the character of a faith.46

On one level, this was a mockery of Catholicism, given that Hitler viewed it as out of

step with modernity and science. But he clearly believed a political movement could learn

from this example.

Hence, Hitler described the Programme as a “political creed,” asking “how shall

we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread

uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure?”47 In this, he was

also attempting to delineate Nazism from völkisch thought more generally. Hitler desired

that the masses have “blind [political] faith,” but this was made difficult by the disparate

nature of the völkisch movement, encompassing “All sorts of people, with a yawning gulf

between everything essential in their opinions.”

Hitler offered a definition of the term völkisch via an interpretation of the word

“religious” in a statement which presents his view on the necessity of bounded faith,

whether religious or political, and argued for the necessity of “clearly delimited faith”

from the “purely metaphysical infinite world of ideas.”48 Whatever his personal religious

views, Hitler’s public defence of dogma meant that the type or form of Christian faith

that he was supporting was “positive Christianity” in its conservative sense: doctrinal

faith. That said, Hitler specifically rejected orthodox views when they did not fit with

what he believed to be a key issue: the solution of the “Jewish question.”49 Moreover, his

46 Hitler, Mein Kampf (Manheim ed.), 417. Cf. Bucher, Hitler’s Theology, 24. 47 Hitler, Mein Kampf (Manheim ed.), 416–17. There is a curious parallel to Revelations 22:18–19. 48 Ibid., 344. He viewed völkisch and “religious” as equally “vaguely defined, open to as many interpretations and as unlimited in practical application.” Hence his positive view of dogma. 49 Ibid., 103, see also 307.


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notions on “original sin” were certainly unorthodox: “The sin against blood and race is

the original sin of this world.”50

His support for intolerance is probably best illustrated by the fact that Hitler

wrote of Christianity as having introduced “spiritual terror into the far freer ancient

world.”51 Again, he believed the Nazis could learn from the Churches: “Christianity

could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to

undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance

could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute

presupposition.”52

Bucher traced such notions to a Nazi Party newsletter of 26 April 1922, in which

Hitler had expressed these ideas in talking about disparities in the völkisch movement.53

Two major points raised his ire, one being the notion that a variety of völkisch groups

could work separately to the same ends, and that they should coordinate simply by

means of “working groups.” In attacking these concepts, Hitler emphasised Christianity,

and attributed its success to “the rejection of every compromise.” Apparently still

referring to Christianity, he went on to argue that “the greatest power in this world is

blind faith in the correctness of one’s own aim and in the complete rectitude of the

struggle for it.”54

50 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich, 1936), 272. This view was conceptually in line with Liebenfels and Artur Dinter, Die Sünde wider das Blut: Ein Zeitroman, 15th ed. (Leipzig, 1921). 51 Dogmatics does indeed include intolerance, in the form of a rejection of all that is not doctrinally established: “All doctrines should conform to the standards set forth...Whatever is contrary to them should be rejected and condemned as opposed to the unanimous declaration of our faith”:The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (St. Louis, 1959), 464–65. 52 Hitler, Mein Kampf (Manheim ed.), 412–13; Bucher, Hitler’s Theology, 21. Ironically, as Bucher also notes, Hitler argued “this type of intolerance and fanaticism positively embodies the Jewish nature”: Hitler, Mein Kampf (Manheim ed.), 225, 412–13. 53 Bucher, Hitler’s Theology, 20. 54 Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen, 636. My translation.


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The usefulness of a dogmatic faith that would not compromise was clear to

Hitler: “The future of a movement is conditioned by the fanaticism, yes, the intolerance,

with which its adherents uphold it as the sole correct movement, and push it past other

formations of a similar sort.”55 Ultimately, it appears that he held himself out as the

“preacher” he believed was required for such a movement. “one man must step forward

who with apodictic force will form granite principles from the wavering idea-world of

the broad masses and take up the struggle for their sole correctness, until from the

shifting waves of a free thought-world there will arise a brazen cliff of solid unity in faith

and will.”56

This perspective is neatly summarised by page headings in Mein Kampf: “From

religious sentiment to an apodictic belief / From völkisch feeling to a political

confession.”57 Bucher did not make the link between this definition and the traditional

meaning of “positive Christianity” as such an absolutely certain (apodictic) faith. Yet the

fact remains that in Mein Kampf when Hitler wrote on the uses of religion Christianity was

being defined in its traditional form. This was an astonishing level of apparent support

for institutional religion––what was commonly called “positive Christianity.”

Such statements led to an assumption that this is what the term meant. The

Protestant Pastor Hüffmeier wrote in a criticism of Rosenberg: “Until now we have had

the definite assurance that the Party understood by Positive Christianity what was

embodied in the two great confessions.”58 The Catholic Alfons Steiger, who was a vocal

critic of the Nazis as a “neo-pagan” group, also argued that “positive Christianity” could

only be understood to mean “the faithful acceptance” of the “doctrines and moral

55 Hitler, Mein Kampf (Manheim ed.), 317. 56 Ibid., 314, 346. 57 Hitler, Mein Kampf (1936 ed.), 417–18. 58 As translated in: Heinrich Hüffmeier, Rosenberg’s German “Mythus”: An Evangelical Answer ed. Sidney M. Berry (London, 1935), 22.


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precepts of the Christian religion, as they are laid down in Holy Scripture and dogma.”59

He went on to add that no such form of faith could be found in Nazism, particularly

given that the Nazi Programme advocated measuring religion by the “moral feelings of

the Germanic race.”60 What we arrive at then is the paradox of Hitler’s dogma. In his

most public statement it is clear that Hitler defined Christianity as a religious system

precisely in terms of dogmatic faith. It is equally clear that those leading Nazis who

declared themselves to be Christian adhered not to a dogmatic form like that the

Catholic or Protestant orthodox position, but to a radical and “Aryanised” form of faith.

Hitler’s own definition meant that the Nazis were decidedly “un-Christian.”

Conclusion

n simple form, the Nazis were trying to have it both ways, and this tension could

be found in the NSDAP Official Commentary (by Gottfried Feder) which

formed Volume 1 of the National Socialist Library. Discussing the programme

requirements in detail, Feder listed a series of individual points in a section specifically

designed “for practical advertising” of the Party or as translated in both English-language

editions of the time: “It will make for clarity, when enlisting new members, to make use

of the programme in the form which follows.” This was the form in which the

programme was to be promoted. Feder dealt with the concepts of Point 24 in discussing

the means by which the Nazis would achieve their “cultural policy,” including through:

27. Complete freedom of religion and conscience

28. Special protection of the Christian creeds

59 Alfons Steiger, Der neudeutsche Heide im Kampf gegen Christen und Juden, 2nd (Katholizismus und Judentum) ed. (Berlin: Germania, 1924), 188. In German: “Wir können unter positivem Christentum nichts anderes verstehen als das gläubige Hinnehmen der positiv gegebenen Glaubenslehren und sittlichen Gesetze der christlichen Religion, wie sie niedergelegt sind in Heiliger Schrift und Dogma, und das praktische Leben nach dieser Ueberzeugung.” 60 Ibid., 185–88.

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29. Suppression and obstruction of doctrines which are contrary to the

German moral sense and whose content is of a character destructive to

the state and Volk.61

These three points are significant and when the Nazis came to power, freedom of

religion and conscience became very controversial. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy,

proclaimed “freedom of conscience” in religious belief in a statement issued on 13

October 1933. He was publicly responding to a declaration by Ludwig Müller to the

effect that no pastor would suffer detriment if he was not a member of the German

Christians. Hess turned the statement around to focus on the Nazi Party: “I order that

no National Socialist shall be disadvantaged because he does not commit himself to a

particular faith or confession, or because he does not belong to any confession whatsoever.”

This was hardly reassuring to the German Christians, who up to this point believed that

they were the true adherents of “positive Christianity” and were supported by the

NSDAP as such. 62

The second point is even more intriguing. The Nazi Party promised “special

protection of the Christian creeds”–Glaubensbekenntnisse, literally “confessions of faith.”

This was support for positive Christianity in its traditional sense: doctrinal faith and

adherence to the Christian confessions.63 If “positive Christianity” meant something

other than adherence to the creeds then this was subterfuge. It also means that if the

61 Gottfried Feder, Das Programm der N.S.D.A.P. und seine weltanschaulichen Grundgedanken, Nationalsozialistische Bibliothek, Vol.1 (Munich, 1934), 30–33. See also Gottfried Feder, Hitler’s Official Programme and its Fundamental Ideas (1934; repr.. New York, 1971), 64; Gottfried Feder, The Programme of the NSDAP and its General Conceptions, trans. E.T.S. Dugdale (Munich, 1932), 29. 62 Hess, as quoted in Die Warte des Tempels 90 (1933), 161. My emphasis. On this declaration: Klaus Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918–1933, vol. 1 (London, 1987), 525, 673; Peter Matheson, The Third Reich and the Christian Churches: A Documentary Account of Christian Resistance and Complicity During the Nazi Era (Edinburgh, 1981), 38. Cf. Hitler, Mein Kampf (Manheim ed.), 514. 63 “Glaubensbekenntnis,” Karl Breul, A German and English Dictionary (London, 1928). The specific example provided was the “Apostles’ Creed (Apostolisches Glaubensbekenntnis).”


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term was meant to indicate a particular “Nazi” form or type of Christian faith, then this

was akin to secret knowledge or Gnosticism. As advertised to its own members, the

NSDAP was protecting orthodox Christianity.

Finally, the Nazi Party promised to suppress doctrines that opposed German

moral sense. 64 Officially, the Nazis were simultaneously supporting traditional

Christianity and completely undermining it. Members of the Nazi Party could apparently

adhere to the existing creeds of Christian faith so long as the doctrines of their faith were

“Germanic” or Aryanised––which destroyed traditional Christian faith. From all of this,

one gains the sense that from the outset there was no “commonly-held interpretation”

for positive Christianity in the Nazi Party and that it was a “loose, unarticulated

construct.” It could apparently mean anything ranging from the dogmas of the Catholic

Church and Papal authority through to Liebenfels’ views.

As I have shown, we are faced with a great deal of uncertainty about “positive

Christianity” and to argue it formed a particular Nazi “religious system” is problematic.65

It is unclear how a well-established theological term came to be incorporated in the Nazi

Party Programme, although three points are clear. First, the generally understood

meaning of “positive Christianity” (including in the vernacular) was orthodox faith.

Secondly, this was the exact opposite of the sort of liberal-rationalist Christianity that

could form the closest connection to Nazism. Thirdly, if this term was not in fact

describing orthodox faith, then it was already in the realm of a political ploy––and was

actually used as such. In light of these conlcusions, far more research needs to be

undertaken as to how “ordinary” Christians in Germany understood positive

64 For a further consideration and a statement of my own position, see the forthcoming article: Samuel Koehne, “The Racial Yardstick: ‘Ethnotheism’ and Official Nazi Views on Religion,’ German Studies Review (October 2014). 65 Steigmann-Gall, Holy Reich, 49.


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Christianity, including as it appeared in the Nazi Programme. In addition, much greater

care needs to be taken in the historiography in considering the variety of meanings of

positive Christianity.

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