There is no question that there was religious motivated anti-semitism in 19th/20th century Germany. Of course not every Christian was an anti-semite, and there were many anti-semites who weren't Christians. It was a factor, although we can't exactly say how big it was. Of course the Nazis exploited previous anti-semitism - but this wasn't an one-way street. As the review I previously posted also mentionend (and this is something I very much agree with) - there was a strong fraction within the German churces that was authoritarian, anti-semite and, and this is also very important, anti-Marxist. Those people saw the Nazis as their way to a state more to their liking. This happened all over the country - some people thought the Nazis would get rid of their Jewish competition in business, some people (at least company owners etc.) thought they'd get rid of those damn trade unions etc. - I certainly don't want to say Christian were somehow special here (and of course there were many Christians who were opposed to the Nazis - and a big majority who was mostly passive and tried to avoid any trouble). That's what makes micro-studies about National Socialism so interesting. Mostly people tend to concentrate on the big figures - but if you lived in a rural village in the Alps, Berlin was very far away. And often people had their very own vision what National Socialism means - namely that what they could take advantage of. A trait it shares with Italian Fascism and it's use of Imperial Roman symbols (actual (religious) Neo-Pagans in the Italian Fascist party, while still existing, had much less influence though). But the influence of these ideas on Fascism should also not be overstated - there was some meaning to it, and people like Himmler took it really seriously, but it wasn't exactly mainstream. There was a bit of rhetoric, some festivities but not much more. Although some of those ideas played a role in the Nazi version of race based Germanic socialism, which should never be confused with Marxism.
Fascists have always used people's base motives and primal fears to achieve their ends. Like this for instance... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher 'In an interview for Granada Television's World in Action programme in January 1978, she said "people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture", arousing particular controversy at the time. She received 10,000 letters thanking her for raising the subject and the Conservatives gained a lead against Labour in the opinion polls, from both parties at 43% before the speech to 48% for Conservative and 39% for Labour immediately after.' TBH I think it's a bit of a mistake to identify nazi's as having ideals or a belief syste, (christian or otherwise), in any real sense. Like all hatreds, it's not something that one can particularly codify and establish the logic behind because, often, there isn't any. I also think it's a bit of a mistake to concentrate too much on the Jews because they were only the ones that most people remember. I remember seeing an excellent German made TV programme which detailed how things worked on a local level for Germans in the provinces. There was one example of a a German woman in her early thirties, who had no men friends and usually wore a dark business type suit. She had short hair and a rather gruff, deep voice. Although she was never actually accused of being a lesbian she was carted away because she was... well, a bit 'funny'!!! This gives some idea of the kind of witless mendacity of the sort of people that were attracted to national socialism. Most other people then fell into line because to stand out against that sort of thing takes either extreme bravery or extreme stupidity.
Fascism and National Socialism are both patchworks of different believes. I know a professor who like to point out that "the Nazis invented absolutely nothing. Nothing." And what they had could always be twisted if the situation needed it. Plus, there is a central theme of action for the sake of action and violence for the sake of violence in both ideologies. To quote Mussolini: "Fascism was not the nursling of a doctrine previously drafted at a desk; it was born of the need of action, and was action." Of course there were many victims of the Nazis that weren't Jewish (there's also excellent literature here). But what makes the Holocaust central for the topic of National Socialism isn't only the sheer number of victims or the methods used by the Nazis. It's also it's central meaning for the workings of the system. I hope it wasn't made by Guido Knopp, though (don't worry, this is most likely an inside joke that has only a meaning for Germans )
I mentioned the lesbian, (or not), woman because it ullustrates what I think is emblematic of fascists... that their ideas are a shifting sand, that they mean whatever they want them to mean. In other words the hatred and fear comes first and it's then directed at something or someone.
I commented on the German made TV programme because that Guido Knopp guy is a journalist that made a career out of doing documentaries on the Nazis for German TV. His films (of which he has done A LOT - 90% or so having the word Hitler in their title, e.g. "Hitler's Women") are very succesful and run on prime time on one of the biggest channels, but also very high on infotainment and pretty low on historical data - and therefore often made fun of by people like me .
So the Nazi's were far too diverse a group to make any conclusions about and Margaret Thatcher was a Fascist. What a great BS thread.
I'd actually consider "the Nazi movement was home to various sub-groups with differing religious world views rather than a monolithic block with a single religious dogma" a conclusion, but maybe that's just me. I'm not sure why you want a black-and-white answer. Your question was "Aside from one very odd person's beliefs, what did the Nazi's believe?". My answer was that, if we concentrate on religion, there were neo-pagan/occultist, Christian and Atheist currents within the party. If you want to go beyond religious believes, I also mentionend the most important major common ideological characteristics you'll also usually find in introductions into the topic of National Socialism. Of course those weren't quality answers, I know. But I'm curious what kind of answer you'd expect when asking a question like "what did they believe?" concerning a group with religious as well as anti-religious members other than "they shared common basic believes, which were most prominently layed out in Mein Kampf, but could have vastly different believes in other areas?"
Who said you couldn't make ANY conclusions about the Nazis?... and Thatcher was a fascist. What's the problem?
As I'm currently in the mood, I'll add some stuff... Of course you can't say that there was no distinct Nazi ideology at all. Elements like the racial theory of the Nazis, the idealization of German peasants and a mythic Germanic heritage (as well as other things already mentioned) certainly qualify as a ideology. There were many things on which the official party policy was quite clear. But this doesn't mean that there was a logical political theory behind Nazism (rather than a collection of different believes). But outside of this very core they were the differing wings struggeling for power and influence. And especially the actual Neo-Paganism for example was mostly carried by a small, yet infleuntial, group. This doesn't mean that, outside small sect-like groups, people started to worship Wotan or stuff like that.
Almost as if they believed that there was the concept of a superman and that the genetic definition of human should be changed towards it. But I'm sure there's no philosophy behind that.
8 pages of nonsense. Knighted? Why in the world would anyone care for sucha backward primitive tradition. The sad part is, little Rushdie has made no contribution to England.
Team Melli, and USMNT are my favorite football teams. Plus, my cousin plays in I dont know whats it called, but a very professional league in the US, and hopefully one day she'll be called to play for the national team. SPEAKING OF USMNT, 1-0 BABY!!! ahh ********, 1-1 I'm outta here, later!
Sure, I'm not sure if you read my post, as I said that there was a NS ideology, based on various believes like a racial theory. Eugenics, which itself was very popular among various political groups in the late 19th/early 20th century (and not limited to Germany), was also a part of this.
So the Nazi's were just one of many diverse groups who advocated issues that were common in the early 20th centry.......... please I don't want to give you an overly hard time. It's fairly well established who the Nazi's where, what they believed and their philosophical underpinnings. That doesn't mean the all individuals were exactly in tune with that nor that they didn't share some beliefs with others. Despite all the individual trees, there still is a forest.
The Nazis went further thn any other state, but yes, eugenics (ignoring your trick of switching from one issue - we were clearly talking about eugenics here - to "issues" again) were advocated by diverse groups during the early 20th century. The Nazis didn't invent eugenics, and democratic countries like Sweden and others practiced forced sterilizations. The Nazis took the eugenics program to it's logical extreme by also starting gruesome experiements, but it would be extremely dangerous to think that eugenics was limited to them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics The only thing that could give me a hard time would be your consequent ignoring of most of my posts. National Socialist ideology is a topic I'm pretty well aware of. There was absolutely nothing new within their ideology, but what made the Nazis special were the extremes they took those elements too and the dimension of the crimes they committed. We started with religion, were the difficulty of finding one common position within the Nazi-movement is especially difficult and for some reason you switch to eugenics, which is a part of one of the most important core elements of NS (namely racism/the NS-race theories, pretty early mentioned as one of the core elements by me in this thread iirc). I'm fine with talking about either, but it's an interesting jump. Ok, let's make it easy: as it's pretty clear what the Nazis believed: Were they pro or anti-Capitalist? What were their religious believes?
This is from the "25 Point Program" adopted by the NSDAP in 1920 -- if formed the basis of the Nazi's beliefs. 11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery. 12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits. 13. We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts). 14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries. 15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare. 16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality. 17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land. Not exactly Communist Manifesto, but closer to that that Milton Friedman I'd say. To the extent that Nazism, Italian fascism, Spanish Falangism (which really was an amalgamation of Catholics, nationalists, Carlists, and fascists) and the various other fascist movements had a coherent economic program (and I would argue that they didn't), the general principals were anti-Capitalism (as the weaalth is considered "owned" by others, Jews or foreigners) and corporatism. Corporatism does not mean government by the corporations. rather, it means that all individuals and all segments of the economy belong to corporate bodies. That means that labor belongs to a labor corporation, all pharmacists belong to a pharmacists corporation, etc. And the government ensures prosperity and social order by making the corporations work together. There is nothing inherently totalitarian or fascist about this -- post War Japan and Italy both retained some corporatist elements through "cordination" of industries by the government and labor's annual coordinated "wage offensives." You could argue that the Netherlands and Belgium with their "pillarization" structures also had some features of corporatism. I feel it leads to stagnation but it is not necessarily bad. The facsists just made it bad of course.
If you quote the party program, I'd like to add the following foot-note, which appears in the later editions, though: "Adolf Hitler proclaimed the following explanation for this program on the 13 April 1928: Explanation Regarding the false interpretations of Point 17 of the program of the NSDAP on the part of our opponents, the following definition is necessary: "Since the NSDAP stands on the platform of private ownership it happens that the passage" gratuitous expropriation concerns only the creation of legal opportunities to expropriate if necessary, land which has been illegally acquired or is not administered from the view-point of the national welfare. This is directed primarily against the Jewish land-speculation companies."" Unfortunately I never have the neccessary books at home when writing here (especially economy is one of the topics were my knowledge often isn't that deep, therefore I'd need to rely much more on secondary literature as when writing about some other historical topics) - as I don't want to cite authors out of my memory I'll leave it to two links, one of them a wikipedia article, by now as I mainly want to show some differing points of view. I chose this example because the question if the Nazis were "Socialists" or "Capitalists" is one for which various differing answers exists. The point that the party program "formed the basis of the Nazi's beliefs" can also be argued, for example. I usually side with the authors that underline the role of capitalism in the Nationa Socialist economy - but again I only intended to show that those are questions where a clear black-and-white answer isn't that easy. Especially for Attacking Minded: this doens't mean that you can't or shouldn't say anything about it. It's still perfectly legitimate to have a certain theory. I think it's reasonable to consider the German economy during the Third Reich a capitalist economy with sometimes heavy state intervention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology http://aida.econ.yale.edu/seminars/echist/eh04-05/buchheim102004.pdf
No one said that "Eugenics" was limited to the Nazis. I have presented no tricks. You have bounced around this issue trying, at first, to say the Nazis never rejected Christianity and that there were quite a number of Christians who were Nazis. Christianity most certainly DOES reject Eugenics and those who believe in Eugenics are most certainly not Christians, no matter what they might say. This is clear. It is true. As true as 2+2=4. Not Christian.
I don't "bounce arround". I'm not a theologian. Those people believed they were Christians, which for me is the most important thing. I'll side with the historians here and leave the religious dogma to other people. Personally I don't consider the inquisition or witch hunts all that Christian either, but they were based on a certain interpretation of religion that made sense to people back then (especially witch hunts were already rejected by many contemprorary Christians at that time of course). I'm certainly not going to claim authority about who is or who isn't a Christian (you can also insert any other religious group here if you wish), and I don't think that this is the task of history either. It's clear that you don't want to see any Christian influence here, but I'm not going to tell you what you should believe in. If it makes you feel more comfortable, be my guest, though.
given that the NAZI heartland was Bavaria, one of the most staunchly catholic areas in europe, to say they weren't christians is a bit of a stretch. It's almost certain that most were. That doesn't mean they did what they did because of Christianity, just that being Christians and being complete and utter bastards aren't mutually exclusive.
the inquistition was totally a christian thing, carried out by christians who believed they were furthering christianity by doing so. You might not be able to point to references in the bible justifying what they did in any sense, but they clearly believed it, and enough others thought they had a valid viewpoint to allow it to continue. Witch burnings weren't really a religious thing - they were just anti-devil. It's been proven that there is a fungus which can grow on rye in certain conditions, which if consumed can lead to mental instability, garbled non-sensical talking and wild convulsions (which to the 17th century eye would no doubt pass for demonic possession) which had more affect on the weak such as the ederly or children. And there's a strong correllation between where and when witches were burned, and rye growing regions and years where the weather would cause the fungus to be more likely. The last such outbreak was in France in the 1940s, and these girls were filmed, and having seen the footage it's easy to see why people might have assumed there was something supernatural happening.
I know about both things (although there are some theological justifications for witch burnings actually, e.g. by Martin Luther, based on the bible). When I say the inquisition, or the burning of heretics or whatever wasn't a very Christian thing I mean the act itself. Of course people thought it was the right thing to do (one could certainly say that the inquisition actually had "good intentions" - although completely misguided of course, imho). Saint Thomas More supported the burning of people because they were Protestants, but he thought that this was what he had to do as a Christian. Of course those topics, especially witch hunts (where again we have various theories trying to explain them), are much more complicated than that - but I wonder why we can say that Thomas More was a good Christian (good luck if you want to try to convince the Catholic Church that he wasn't) although he played a role in some pretty unchristian behaviour (at least according to my outside view on Christian principles). Can you burn innocent people and still be a Christian, but as soon as you start with eugenics you stop being one? I'm sure there are theological explanations that say that that's exactly the way it is, but I wonder what Jesus would have thought of his Protestant burning followers. I agree with Attacking Minded that Christianity as I understand and define it (although I'm not a Christian myself) doesn't support eugenics. But for me "supporting eugenics means you aren't a Christian, doesn't matter if you think otherwise - therefore no Christian has ever participated in eugenics and we can claim moral highground" sounds a bit like an easy way out when facing such a thing like the German Christian movement, who defended the Nazi ideology by the selective reading of Christian writings.
One thing that needs to be said here is that the Nazis' support was MUCH stronger among Protestants then it was among Catholics. The extremely strong ties of the German Catholics to the Catholic Center party, who dated back to the time of the Second Reich, made it extremely difficult for the Nazis to gain support there. One of the Nazis main bases of support were the Protestant rural areas of Northern Germany. But other than that, I completely agree with you.