Documents Show Nazis Planned to Eliminate Christianity
January 11, 2002 4:37 AM Subscribe
Documents Show Nazis Planned to Eliminate Christianity interesting for those who care.
How wonderful that this historical material finally came out of hiding!
posted by Carol Anne at 5:23 AM on January 11, 2002
posted by Carol Anne at 5:23 AM on January 11, 2002
See, they weren't all bad!
(Of course that was a joke. Or should I wait for someone to be offended before I say that?)
posted by Jart at 5:33 AM on January 11, 2002
(Of course that was a joke. Or should I wait for someone to be offended before I say that?)
posted by Jart at 5:33 AM on January 11, 2002
Here is a page which details some of the ways the Nazis tried to Aryanize the church in Germany (sidebar) as well as the Barmen Declaration supported by Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others declaring, among other things:
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfil the vocation of the Church as well.
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.
Bonhoeffer and other Christians were involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler, for which he and others were sent to a concentration camp and hanged.
posted by straight at 5:35 AM on January 11, 2002
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfil the vocation of the Church as well.
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.
Bonhoeffer and other Christians were involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler, for which he and others were sent to a concentration camp and hanged.
posted by straight at 5:35 AM on January 11, 2002
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, the inhumanity of it all, how could you offend me so.
Now you can clarify, Jart.
posted by bittennails at 5:39 AM on January 11, 2002
Now you can clarify, Jart.
posted by bittennails at 5:39 AM on January 11, 2002
Jart: I was going to say that as well, but you got there before me. Except I would only have been half joking.
posted by salmacis at 5:43 AM on January 11, 2002
posted by salmacis at 5:43 AM on January 11, 2002
This reminds me of another radical group that was going to try and wipe out christianity... they were called The Nazis!!
oh, wait, we are talking about the nazis. nevermind.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 6:10 AM on January 11, 2002
oh, wait, we are talking about the nazis. nevermind.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 6:10 AM on January 11, 2002
[Jeez.] I wonder what Pope Pius XII would have done when his tribe were put in boxcars. Probably not nothing!
posted by boardman at 7:48 AM on January 11, 2002
posted by boardman at 7:48 AM on January 11, 2002
Why do the bad guys always get the cool uniforms?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:29 AM on January 11, 2002
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:29 AM on January 11, 2002
Anyone notice that the annoying article that was linked to goes on and on and on about how the documents came to be published, but spends about two sentences describing what the documents say? Gawd, that's terrible journalism...
posted by Holden at 9:40 AM on January 11, 2002
posted by Holden at 9:40 AM on January 11, 2002
I went to Rutgers to see if I could read the original but it was Acrobat, sideways, small print, and overcopied so it was hard to read, and probably in german anyway, though I gave up before discovering that.
I'd like to know how definitive a plan it was though, as there was a fair amount of infighting in the Nazi party. Ernst Roehm was 2nd in command until he was killed in 1935, and was actively homosexual, thought of it as a sign of virility etc - obviously he would have opposed putting homosexuals in the camps. Himmler, however, hated homosexuality intensely and created false documents to convince Hitler that Roehm was going to try to overthrow him... anyway. In an organization so full of hate and distrust, it's a wonder they could agree on anything.
posted by mdn at 10:44 AM on January 11, 2002
I'd like to know how definitive a plan it was though, as there was a fair amount of infighting in the Nazi party. Ernst Roehm was 2nd in command until he was killed in 1935, and was actively homosexual, thought of it as a sign of virility etc - obviously he would have opposed putting homosexuals in the camps. Himmler, however, hated homosexuality intensely and created false documents to convince Hitler that Roehm was going to try to overthrow him... anyway. In an organization so full of hate and distrust, it's a wonder they could agree on anything.
posted by mdn at 10:44 AM on January 11, 2002
It's always easy to hate the jews, mdn. No one in history has had problems doing that....
BTW, the posting on Rutgers gets better when you scroll down, and it's in English. Bizarre as that it...
posted by aacheson at 1:20 PM on January 11, 2002
BTW, the posting on Rutgers gets better when you scroll down, and it's in English. Bizarre as that it...
posted by aacheson at 1:20 PM on January 11, 2002
Sorta reminds me of Illinois Nazis.
I hate Illinois Nazis!
posted by tsarfan at 2:12 PM on January 11, 2002
I hate Illinois Nazis!
posted by tsarfan at 2:12 PM on January 11, 2002
Is it just me? Or does the article say nothing about the Nazis' plans to eradicate Catholicism? Shouldn't the title of the article have something to do with its contents?
posted by xammerboy at 2:32 PM on January 11, 2002
posted by xammerboy at 2:32 PM on January 11, 2002
Message for Nazis: You lost. Your plans don't matter any more. Please stop making them. kthxbi.
posted by majick at 4:22 PM on January 11, 2002
posted by majick at 4:22 PM on January 11, 2002
In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew... Then they came for the Catholics. I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up.
- Rev. Martin Neimoller
Has anybody never heard this? The Nazi's were actively working on a "state religion" to replace all others, that was no secret at the time. These papers are interesting but hardly surprising.
posted by RevGreg at 5:23 PM on January 11, 2002
- Rev. Martin Neimoller
Has anybody never heard this? The Nazi's were actively working on a "state religion" to replace all others, that was no secret at the time. These papers are interesting but hardly surprising.
posted by RevGreg at 5:23 PM on January 11, 2002
RevGreg: Glad you cited that. There are several versions of the well-known statement attributed to the German anti-Nazi activist, Pastor Martin Niemöller.
posted by Carol Anne at 6:24 PM on January 11, 2002
posted by Carol Anne at 6:24 PM on January 11, 2002
We get the oversimplified "WWII-Nazi" view of Germany on the TV, constantly. It is only on occaisions like release of these historic papers that our general public gets exposed to the true story behind its Germanic heritage. We are a very Germanic country, after all, rather than an "Anglo-Saxon" one, and calling the Germans "Saxons" just doesn't cut it. IMHO, the ongoing popularity of the nebulous racial description "white" stems from the fact that so many people needed to dissociate themselves from their German origins at the time of the World Wars.
Neither the "Bekennende Kirche" of Niemoller nor the role of the East German church in the anti-nuclear movement appear to be very well known in the US. Conveniently for the Republican Party, all those Lutheran Republican senators come from communities that forgot their German in a hurry during WWI and WWII. What would our so-called "Anglo-Saxon" population do if we discovered that we not only had Nazi cousins, we are descended from draft dodgers escaping the Kaiser's wars, from people who believed in Bismark's social welfare health insurance schemes, from German *socialists*, communists, trade-unionists, bargirls, and girls who served more than beer? This loss of the German language also makes it much easier to accuse Green activists of being Nazis- aren't Germans always Nazis?
If the Nazi plans to wipe out Christianity come as a surprise, we can take this as a good sign. It means that our skinheads and death metal types are earning their goth-like complexions by honest decadence and dissolute behaviors, not by staying up late with "The Crisis of German Ideology."
posted by sheauga at 7:23 PM on January 11, 2002
Neither the "Bekennende Kirche" of Niemoller nor the role of the East German church in the anti-nuclear movement appear to be very well known in the US. Conveniently for the Republican Party, all those Lutheran Republican senators come from communities that forgot their German in a hurry during WWI and WWII. What would our so-called "Anglo-Saxon" population do if we discovered that we not only had Nazi cousins, we are descended from draft dodgers escaping the Kaiser's wars, from people who believed in Bismark's social welfare health insurance schemes, from German *socialists*, communists, trade-unionists, bargirls, and girls who served more than beer? This loss of the German language also makes it much easier to accuse Green activists of being Nazis- aren't Germans always Nazis?
If the Nazi plans to wipe out Christianity come as a surprise, we can take this as a good sign. It means that our skinheads and death metal types are earning their goth-like complexions by honest decadence and dissolute behaviors, not by staying up late with "The Crisis of German Ideology."
posted by sheauga at 7:23 PM on January 11, 2002
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Really.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:18 AM on January 11, 2002