Hitler's Values and The Christian Right

Jerry Falwell may be gone, but his son, Jonathan, is alive and well, and perpetrating the same combination of political/religious horse hockey for which his father was famous.

In an article titled, "Our Dishonest Nation," Jonathan refers to a GAO report of a few weeks ago that revealed a high level of corruption among some federal employees. These employees had used government credit cards to purchase non-government items. A lot of money was involved. I think most people would agree this is all very disgraceful and those involved should be punished.

Jonathan, however, jumps from that particular and specific instance of government malfeasance to "imagine" that this kind of corruption is endemic among "businesses around the country." Why he moves from federal employee corruption to business corruption is not clear, but then he confuses the issue further by making another leap to castigate the whole nation: "We have become a nation increasingly comprised of me-first citizens who have no problem using deceitful practices to satisfy their personal needs or to enhance their lifestyles."

I'm don't think it is logical to conclude that because some federal employees engaged in "deceitful practices," we are "a nation .... of me-first citizens." I don't think its fair, either.

Nevertheless, because Jonathan has decided we're all bad, he has to ask the questions, "Where did America go wrong?" and "...how can we alter this course?"

Well, you know what's coming. The real problem, says Jonathan, is that all this badness reflects "our nation's continued departure from its Judeo-Christian heritage." .[I've got to say I've really come to hate that term - Judeo-Christian. I don't know what it means anymore, and I don't think people like Jonathan have a clue, either] Anyway, Jonathan continues: "This nation was founded on biblical principles, and those principles largely sustained us until about a half-century ago."

That would be hilarious if poor Jonathan wasn't serious. What "biblical principles"? The one that says kill all the natives, steal their land, enslave millions of Africans, and lynch people of dark skin? The biblical principles that gave us the Jim Crow laws? Or how about those that insist we work pre-teens for 12 hours a day, seven days a week? Perhaps he means the biblical principles that gave us the right to support ruthless dictatorships throughout Latin America in order to steal coffee, and bananas and oil? And how about those robber barons whose names still grace the marquees of many of our largest corporations? What biblical principles did they live by?

Jonathan thinks because we've "turned away" from the Ten commandments and other "biblical principles," our country has literally gone to hell: our people are "more dishonest and deceptive. Crime has risen, our schools have failed and our culture has become vulgar and crude." Oh, and don't forget how those nasty homosexuals are perverting our children!

Jonathan believes "it's all related to the ouster of God from our schools, our media and our society."

What can we do? Jonathan says we must start "a Christian uprising ... to confront and address the culture with reason and the truth of Scripture..." That's because "There is no hope apart from Christ." Pat Robertson, Jonathan Falwell (like his father before him) and others would say that the U.S.A. was founded as a Christian nation, and to save ourselves, we must "reclaim America for Christ!"


Is that the answer?

Let's take a look at what was considered to be a "Christian" nation; a nation based upon Christian principles; a nation that thought so highly of its churches it made them official and supported them with tax monies - the nation of Germany, circa the early 20th Century.

In spite of much rhetoric portraying the Germans as atheists, nihilists, or neo-pagans, the German census of 1939 indicated that 90 percent of the German people were, in fact, Christian: 54 percent were Protestant and 40 percent were Roman Catholic. Only 3.5 percent were neo-pagan "believers in God," and a mere 1.5 percent were atheists!

Six years into the Hitler era, Germany remained a very religious country, and a proudly Christian country. The Christian faith was enshrined in its political identity, and considered part of the nation's destiny.

Catholic and Protestant churches retained their status as official state churches throughout the war. "Religious education remained a part of the state education system, chaplains served the military, and theological faculties remained funded and active within the state universities. Article 24 in the Nazi Party Program always professed 'positive Christianity' as the foundation of the German state."

Adolf Hitler was brought up in a devout Roman Catholic family. He was a Catholic "in good standing" until his death. Many of those Hitler brought into leadership positions were Roman Catholics, including Joseph Goebbels. It is estimated that at least 1/3 of the German army, police force, bureaucrats, railway personnel, prison guards, etc., were Roman Catholic. Protestants made up an even larger percentage of these groups.

The point is, that the Nazis, far from being irreligious or atheistic, were quite religious and devoted to their respective churches.

It should be said, however, that initially the German churches -- both Catholic and Protestant --stood in opposition to Hitler and the Nazis. In the early 1930s, the Catholic hierarchy ruled that Catholics could not be members of the Nazi party.

That all changed in 1933 when the Papal Nuncio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII) and Hitler signed the Reich Concordat of 1933. Hitler was determined to gain the support of the church, if possible, and thus in the Concordat promised to respect and protect the Catholic church in Germany. Concurrently, in his "My New Order" proclamation to the German nation on February 1, 1933, Hitler said:

"The National (Nazi) Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family, as the basis of national life." [My emphasis]

You can see that any one of a number of American Christian right-wingers could give that exact same speech today (omiting any Nazi reference, of course) and thousands of the devout would jump up and down for joy and shout "Hallelujah!"


When the church joined with the Nazis, (the Catholic bishops lifted their ban on membership in the Nazi Party shortly after the Pacelli concordat) both Protestants and Catholics enthusiastically supported the Nazi regime. Protestant and Catholic churches provided the Nazis with church records to better determine which Germans were Jewish or had "Jewish" blood and which did not so all Jews (including those who had converted to Christianity) could be sent to concentration/death camps. The churches blessed their members who went off to fight for Germany and told the faithful to pray for a German victory.

Ordinary Germans were accustomed to looking toward their churches for guidance and thus "gave their total commitment to the nation's cause; not only because of deep-felt fears of the terrible price (that) nonconformity would bring or the warm surge of satisfaction accompanying nationalistic or patriotic identification with the war effort, but also because [their] most cherished religious values had been called into play to encourage [them] to take [their] post 'on the field of honor' 'in the defense of Volk and Vaterland.' (the people and the fatherland)."

Change was in the wind by 1936, however, and Hitler moved to separate church and state, fearing the potential power of the churches. Thus, we have the spectacle of the Nazi Party demanding that churches remove the swastika from church newsletters and church altars. This led to loud protests by the church leadership. "Pastors who had placed the swastika on the altar, next to the cross, claimed the swastika was a key element in the religious life of the congregants. Church officials who placed the swastika on the masthead of their church newspapers meant thereby to proclaim their support for the regime."

Note carefully, that the churches didn't turn their backs on the swastika. They were forced to give it up by the Nazis.


For most of the war, however, the churches continued to support Hitler and his policies. Further evidence of this support is found in the role and responsibilities of Catholic and Protestant chaplains who served the German military forces. How did they reconcile their religious beliefs with what they saw happening in Germany and in the other countries Germany invaded and captured? For example, did the hundreds of Catholic chaplains serving on the Eastern Front, in the thick of the slaughter of innocent Jews, believe that the actions of the German soldiers and the SS were wrong? Did they give these soldiers and blackguards Holy Communion? Did they hear the confessions of these ruthless killers?

Did they call them to repentance?

Probably not. One source says that "...the great majority of German military chaplains, Catholics and Protestants, 'weighed in on the side of the perpetrators, condoning and blessing their crimes through words, actions, and silence. One of the most obvious manifestations of this function was the provision of group absolution for soldiers.'"


There are at least two other things to consider that reinforce the sense in which Nazi Germany remained a Christian nation with the support of religious authorities, including the Vatican.

The first has to do with the Roman Catholic "Index of Forbidden Books," which today is defunct. In the early 20th century, however, it was an important adjunct to the Vatican's enforcement of Catholic morality around the world. A "good" Catholic would never read a book that appeared on the Index.

In 1933, Hitler's vile treatise, "Mein Kampf," was to be found at the top of the German best-seller lists, alongside the Bible. "Mein Kampf" was never placed on the Index! Yet, it was clear, even in the early 1930s that if any book published since the invention of the printing press deserved to be on the Index, it was "Mein Kampf"!

The Protestant Church was as culpable as the Catholic Church, but lacked a pope. The Nazi-loving Protestant bishop, Muller, who had been placed in authority of the non-Catholic churches, was chosen precisely for his approval of the Nazi regime. There were a few Protestant clergy who did publicly voice their disapproval of Hitler and his gang, and a number of them paid for their disloyalty by imprisonment and/or death, one of the more famous being Deitrich Bonhoeffer (though his "heroics" are muted by his anti-Semitism).

And in spite of the fact that Hitler thought Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church, to be one of history's greatest theologians and even though he borrowed Luther's suggestions on how to deal with the Jews, and even though Hitler continued year after year to murder millions of innocent people, the Vatican failed to call him to account at any time during his reign!

But fifty years previously, the Catholic Church had declared that priests who cooperated with Chancellor Bismark against the Catholic Church were automatically excommunicated.

Excommunication is the ultimate Roman Catholic punishment as it removes a person from the grace of the Church and the grace of God and consigns one to eternal condemnation in hell.

Hitler was never excommunicated; he was never threatened with excommunication! In fact, the only high-ranking Catholic Nazi to be excommunicated was Joseph Goebbels. He was not excommunicated for his involvement in killing millions of people (mainly Jews), however, but for only one reason: He married a Protestant woman!

Shortly after the end of WWII, the pope did excommunicate all communists. He "crushed the liberal 'Worker Priest' movement in France." The Nazis he left alone except when he put the Vatican to work 'underground' to get some of the worst of the Catholic Nazi war criminals out of Europe to safety -- often in Latin America -- using Church resources.


In Germany, in the 1920s and 1930s, Christians in general were supportive of values like discipline, punctuality, cleanliness, and respect for authority. These were some of the values promoted by the Nazis.

Generally, in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, Christians were very much opposed to "godless" Communism. Opposition to Communism was another Nazi value. Hitler liked to present himself as a strong anti-Communist.

In the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, Christians generally rejected "modern tendencies toward urban, secular culture...They did not like the fast lifestyle of the roaring twenties or the open, democratic practices of the Weimar Germany, which advocated freedom of speech and belief and practiced tolerance toward the culturally diverse. Hitler attracted Christians by criticizing the liberalism of democratic government and by advocating a tougher, law-and-order approach to German society. He opposed pornography, prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, and the 'obscenity' of modern art, and he awarded bronze, silver and gold medals to women who produced four, six, and eight children, thus encouraging them to remain in their traditional role in the home."


Please understand that I am not equating the Christian Right with Nazism, but when you look at the list above it appears that much of the Christian Right in America today would be right at home in Nazi Germany. They share many of the same values promoted by Adolf Hitler!

Nazi Germany, according to the criteria promoted by the Christian Right, was a Christian nation.

Somehow, I don't think that's what Jonathan or the others want to hear, though.