"The Party never had the intention, and it has not the intention now, of engaging in any kind of hostilities against Christianity in Germany. Our aim has been quite in the opposite direction. We have sought to unite the various regional Protestant churches, whose conditions of existence were impossible, and create one great Evangelical Church throughout the Reich, without interfering in the slightest with questions of religious belief or practice. By concluding a concordat with the Catholic Church, the Party has sought to establish a state of affairs which would be beneficial to both sides and which would be of a permanent character.
[...]
Yet we shall carry on this fight for the purpose of preserving our public life free from those priests who have forgotten their vocation and practised politics rather than the care of the souls.
[...]
Under no circumstances will the National Socialist State tolerate that the politicization of the confessions be prolonged or even begun anew by any type of detour. And let no one delude himself as to the determination of the Movement and the State! We have already fought a battle against the political clergy and ousted it from the parliaments, and that after a long struggle in which we had no state authority and the other side had it all. Today we have this authority and will more easily be able to win the struggle for these principles. But we will never wage this battle as a battle against Christianity or even against one of the two confessions. But we will wage it in order to keep our public life pure and free of those priests who have mistaken their calling, those who should have become politicians and not clergymen."
• Adolf Hitler – proclamation read by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner – Nuremberg, September 11, 1935
"National Socialism is a Volk Movement in essence and under no circumstances a cult movement!
"Hence the National Socialist Movement will not tolerate subversion by occult mystics in search of an afterlife. They are not National Socialists but something different, and in any event, they represent something that has nothing to do with us. At the heart of our program you will not find any mysterious presentiments, rather you will find succinct realization and hence open avowal. Since we place the sustenance and securing of a creature created by God at the center of this realization and avowal, we sustain God’s creation, and it is in this manner that we serve this will. We do not do so at a new cult site bathed in mysterious twilight, but rather, in the open, for the Lord to see."
• Adolf Hitler - speech at the Culture Convention - Nuremberg, September 6, 1938
That’s another interesting subtopic – ‘nazi’ / ‘nahtsie’ / National Socialism’. I think ‘Nazi’ may well have been a legitimate abbreviation like ‘NatSoc’ when seen in German spelling. Goebbels himself wrote an article/essay titled “Nazi-Sozi: Questions and Answers for National Socialists”, but other than in the title, the word ‘Nazi’ does not appear in the text of the document itself, so it could even be that that very title has been ‘mongrelised’.
But I think the term ‘Nazi’ was popularised as a pejorative by Konrad Heiden in his book on Hitler. It’s a bit like ‘nigger’ or ‘chink’ … or ‘kike’.
You continue to make a compelling case for the moral character and legislative acumen of Chancellor Hitler in 1933, Julius. There is no question of the legitimacy and wisdom of this agreement between the Churches and the German State. I particularly like the item about non-Germans being able to worship in their native languages to the degree that Germans are able to worship in German in those countries. Very clever. I'll be including this somewhere.
Thank you again for popping by, Tereza. I am trying to inch away at my Rasputin articles but in the meantime I have added a couple more Hitler quotes here as comments.
"The Party never had the intention, and it has not the intention now, of engaging in any kind of hostilities against Christianity in Germany. Our aim has been quite in the opposite direction. We have sought to unite the various regional Protestant churches, whose conditions of existence were impossible, and create one great Evangelical Church throughout the Reich, without interfering in the slightest with questions of religious belief or practice. By concluding a concordat with the Catholic Church, the Party has sought to establish a state of affairs which would be beneficial to both sides and which would be of a permanent character.
[...]
Yet we shall carry on this fight for the purpose of preserving our public life free from those priests who have forgotten their vocation and practised politics rather than the care of the souls.
[...]
Under no circumstances will the National Socialist State tolerate that the politicization of the confessions be prolonged or even begun anew by any type of detour. And let no one delude himself as to the determination of the Movement and the State! We have already fought a battle against the political clergy and ousted it from the parliaments, and that after a long struggle in which we had no state authority and the other side had it all. Today we have this authority and will more easily be able to win the struggle for these principles. But we will never wage this battle as a battle against Christianity or even against one of the two confessions. But we will wage it in order to keep our public life pure and free of those priests who have mistaken their calling, those who should have become politicians and not clergymen."
• Adolf Hitler – proclamation read by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner – Nuremberg, September 11, 1935
"National Socialism is a Volk Movement in essence and under no circumstances a cult movement!
"Hence the National Socialist Movement will not tolerate subversion by occult mystics in search of an afterlife. They are not National Socialists but something different, and in any event, they represent something that has nothing to do with us. At the heart of our program you will not find any mysterious presentiments, rather you will find succinct realization and hence open avowal. Since we place the sustenance and securing of a creature created by God at the center of this realization and avowal, we sustain God’s creation, and it is in this manner that we serve this will. We do not do so at a new cult site bathed in mysterious twilight, but rather, in the open, for the Lord to see."
• Adolf Hitler - speech at the Culture Convention - Nuremberg, September 6, 1938
Interesting too that he never refers to a Nazi party, only National Socialism. And this as late as 1938.
That’s another interesting subtopic – ‘nazi’ / ‘nahtsie’ / National Socialism’. I think ‘Nazi’ may well have been a legitimate abbreviation like ‘NatSoc’ when seen in German spelling. Goebbels himself wrote an article/essay titled “Nazi-Sozi: Questions and Answers for National Socialists”, but other than in the title, the word ‘Nazi’ does not appear in the text of the document itself, so it could even be that that very title has been ‘mongrelised’.
But I think the term ‘Nazi’ was popularised as a pejorative by Konrad Heiden in his book on Hitler. It’s a bit like ‘nigger’ or ‘chink’ … or ‘kike’.
You continue to make a compelling case for the moral character and legislative acumen of Chancellor Hitler in 1933, Julius. There is no question of the legitimacy and wisdom of this agreement between the Churches and the German State. I particularly like the item about non-Germans being able to worship in their native languages to the degree that Germans are able to worship in German in those countries. Very clever. I'll be including this somewhere.
Thank you again for popping by, Tereza. I am trying to inch away at my Rasputin articles but in the meantime I have added a couple more Hitler quotes here as comments.
Thank you.