Nazism and the Christian Heritage

By Robert Carr
PRobert Carr draws uncomfortable parallels between Christianity and Nazism.
At first sight, the very idea that Nazism bears any relation to Christianity seems absurd. Yet
before dismissing such an idea, we have we consider certain similarities. Certainly there were
marked Christian influences on Nazism. This article will look specifically at the expression of
Nazi anti-Semitism.
Christian Anti-Semitism
Nazi Germany was both a product of, and established in, Christian Europe. The Fhrer himself
was educated in the strictest of Catholic institutions - a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria. More
than that, hed been a church chorister. Without doubt, childhood experiences help to mould
adulthood. Christian influences certainly remained important in Hitlers life: his favourite bedtime reading was Martin Luther. Luther had particular advice to offer concerning those who had
failed to follow Christ - the Jews. Luther urged Christian action against them, including
concentrating them in certain areas, drowning Jewish individuals and even wholesale murder:
We are at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and the blood of the children
they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault
in not slaying them.
Christian protagonists and texts have levelled spiteful accusations at Jews since the advent of
Christianity. Part of the very foundations of the faith are ideas of Jewish betrayal, hardheartedness and deicide. New Testament characters such as Judas, Herod, Saul, the Pharisees and
the Jerusalem crowd (baying Crucify him!) have shaped, over centuries, European attitudes
towards Jews. Such accusations and the demonisation of Jewry are based on the Christian idea
that it has, as a faith and a civilisation, superseded Judaism. For Christians, God transferred his

covenant and favour to them; rather than being the chosen people, Jews simply became stubborn
unbelievers.
Antagonism between the new faith and Judaism has characterised aspects of Christian history
including the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the blood libel. Indeed, before Nazism even,
Theodor Fritsch argued, Surely Christian teaching arose as a protest of the Aryan spirit against
the inhumane Jew spirit.
Out with the Old, In with the New
There is an interesting parallel in terms of both Christianity and Nazism regarding themselves as
usurping Jewish culture. Christianity had to throw off the shackles of its Jewish heritage, i.e. the
laws of Deuteronomy, besides dietary, Sabbath and other rituals: Beware of those dogs and their
malpractices. Beware of those who insist on mutilation - circumcision (Philippians 3).
Similar to Christianity, Nazism offered salvation of a sort a new and perfect Aryan order to
replace the old. Indeed the debased culture the Nazis hated so virulently was much shaped by
Jews, including Einstein, Freud, Marx and Mahler.
Both movements sought to end Jewish culture, albeit in different ways. How though can it be
possible to regard Nazism in religious terms?
Nazism and Religion
Fundamentally, religion is a means of binding and supporting society. The overlap of nationhood
and religious practice is evident, for example in Japanese Shintoism, Judaism and the Church of
England. Nazi faith was in the same mould and, likewise, relied on indoctrination, preaching,
mass gatherings, rituals and shrines.
More than advocating supposed Aryan spiritual superiority, Nazism, like Christian institutions,
introduced laws and measures against Jews. All aspects of 1935s Nuremberg Laws had been

previously exercised in Medieval Christendom as a way of isolating Jews in society.

Interestingly, Hitler even framed Jew-hatred in religious terms: This was the time of the greatest
spiritual upheaval I have ever gone through. I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and
become an anti-Semite.
Regardless of proclamations and violence against Jewry, Hitlers regime was legitimised by
various Christian churches from the start. The Vatican state was the very first to recognise Nazi
Germany diplomatically. In 1933 the Deutsche Christen (the German Church) declared its
support for the unity of cross and swastika. More ominously, 1941s joint declaration of German
Protestant Evangelical leaders urged that the severest measures against the Jews be adopted and
that they be banished from German lands.
Ultimately, the Nazi regime did pursue abominable measures against the Jews. Just as Christian
mythology relied on the red-haired Judas race for vilification, so Nazism relied on its Jewish
scapegoat. Anti-Semitism was the very lifeblood of Nazism. Jews were demonised and, like the
devil, their treachery came in many guises. Following World War I, accusations levelled at Jewry
included the stab in the back and the November traitors ideas; further myths saw Jews acting
as international capitalists seeking unreasonable reparations and also as Bolshevik conspirators
working against Germany.
For such supposed transgressions, Jews were the target of the Endlosungsprojekt (Final
Solution). The Nazi regime put into motion modernised genocide. The transportation,
mechanisation and practice of Jew-murder relied on the knowledge and assistance of Christian
Europe - from Vichy France to the Baltic states. The phenomenal effectiveness of death pits, gas
vans and extermination camps relied on Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians alike. More
specifically, consider Rudolf Hoess who was a committed Catholic: My father had taken a vow
that I should be a priest, and my future profession was therefore already firmly laid down. I was

educated entirely with this end in view. Interestingly, Hoess swapped the idea of the priesthood
for employment as camp commandant of Auschwitz - the centre of Jewish slaughter.
Lower down the state hierarchy, Ernst Biberstein, as commander of SS Einsatzgruppen C , was
responsible for the murder of 75,000 Jews in late 1941. Biberstein could somehow reconcile such
work with his profession as a Protestant pastor and theologian. German clergy also served as
Nazi Jew-hunters in their role as Sippenforscher, i.e. tracing Jewish heritage through parish
records.
Conclusion
Without doubt it is difficult to measure individuals religious credentials. However, Nazism was
advantaged by the Christian mind-set of Europeans which included myths of Jewish treachery
and deicide. The Nazi movement exploited its apparent Christian agenda. As Julius Streicher
wrote in 1936:
We have dedicated our lives to the fight against the murderers of Christ if we always think of
Adolf Hitler then we cannot fail to receive strength and benediction from heaven.
What is certain is that both Christianity and Nazi-Aryanism defined themselves in opposition to
Jewry and promoted their own chosen people. The Christian text Revelation indicates that
punishment by tortuous death is set aside for the synagogue of Satan. Nazism almost delivered
what Christianity threatened, i.e. the elimination of Judaism.
Ironically, even the Nazi-led slaughter of Jews has a spiritual dimension: the term Holocaust
usually describes the burning of a religious sacrifice. While Nazism took inspiration and succour
from Church documents and protagonists, this article indicates how Nazism can even be
regarded as a racialised and deformed brand of Christianity.