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What religion are the German and Italian fascists. Strength in Unity

06.05.2021

Ivan Petrov

Despite the fact that Hitler was born into a family professing the Catholic religion, he very early rejected Christianity as an idea alien to the racist model. “Antiquity,” he said, “was much better than the present, because it knew neither Christianity nor syphilis.” He would later formulate his negative attitude to Christianity as follows:

Christianity is a religion that protects the weak and downtrodden.
By its origin, this religion is Jewish, forcing people to “bend their backs at the sound of church bell and crawl towards the cross of an alien God.”
Christianity was born 2000 years ago among sick, exhausted and desperate people who lost faith in life.
The Christian tenets of forgiveness of sin, resurrection and salvation are sheer nonsense.
Christian compassion is a dangerous un-German idea.
Christian love for one's neighbor is foolishness, because love paralyzes a person.
The Christian idea of universal equality protects the racially inferior, the sick, the weak and the poor.

In the early years of the Nazi movement, Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg tried to introduce a certain amount of Christian principles into the party program. However, over time, most of them were replaced by such "positive" aspects as racism, the revival of Nordic values, the cult of the superman. After becoming Chancellor of Germany, Hitler repeatedly stated that his government aimed at creating favorable conditions for religious life, and that he would make every effort to establish friendly relations with the church. Many Germans sincerely believed that Hitler was able to save Christianity from the atheistic "Red Terror" and ensure the truly free exercise of all religious needs in the country.

On July 20, 1933, Hitler concluded an agreement with the Catholic Church (see Concordat 1933), which guaranteed the inviolability of the Catholic faith and retained all the privileges and rights of Catholics. According to the treaty, all Catholic communities, schools, youth organizations and cultural societies were guaranteed the protection of the state if they did not engage in any political activity. By signing this agreement, Hitler expected to secure the confidence of the world community, since the Catholic Church had significant influence in the world. As subsequent events showed, the treaty was a diplomatic trick, the obligations of which Hitler was going to fulfill only as long as it was to his advantage.

However, Hitler failed to reach an understanding with the Protestant Church, as a result of which a call swept through the country to reject Protestantism and create a new “Germanic” religion based on combining the idea of “Bluth und Boden” (“Blood and Soil”) and the principle of the Fuhrer. In 1934, professor of theology Ernst Bergman published 25 theses of this new "religion".

The Jewish Old Testament is no good for the new Germany.

Christ was not a Jew, but a Nordic martyr, sent to his death by the Jews, and a warrior called to save the world from Jewish influence.

Adolf Hitler is the new messiah sent to earth to save the world from the Jews.

The swastika is the successor to the sword as a symbol of Germanic Christianity. German land, blood, soul, art are the sacred categories of German Christianity.

Speaking about the new Germanic religion, Bergman said: “Either we will have a Germanic god, or there will be none. We cannot kneel before a universal god who pays more attention to the French than to us. We Germans were left to the mercy of fate by the Christian God. He is not fair, and therefore we suffered defeat after defeat because we believed him, and not our German God.

The Christian Church around the world was shocked by such statements. Within Germany, the Bekentniskirche movement was born, a confessional church that fought to preserve the purity of the evangelical denomination. This movement refused to recognize the imperial bishop appointed by the authorities, convened its own council and declared that Christian tenets were incompatible with Nazism, its worldview and politics.

On March 29, 1934, in Barmen, a congress of pastors and laity representing 18 German denominations adopted a declaration condemning the Nazi ideology as anti-Christian. The result of this congress was the creation of the so-called "Confessing Church", consisting of people who had a negative attitude towards Hitler's policies, considering fascism to be neo-paganism, creating idols from Germany, racial purity and the Fuhrer himself. Subsequently, many of them lost their livelihood for this, ended up in prison or in exile, and even gave their lives. A striking example is the fate of Martin Niemeller, a German pastor who was not afraid to express his Christian position directly to Hitler, for which the Fuhrer called him his personal enemy. By his order, the pastor was arrested and spent 7 years, until 1945, in a concentration camp.

According to Hitler's plan, the German churches were to serve the new ideology. However, here he encountered unexpected resistance. Yes, many priests and laity enthusiastically followed the Fuhrer, believing that the Germans are God's chosen people, and Hitler is the new messiah. But not everyone fell for this bait. This infuriated the Fuhrer, because he was convinced that "... they (that is, pastors and priests) will betray anything, so as not to lose their miserable parishes and salaries." Approximately half of the clergy formed the church opposition. They refused to turn a blind eye to the genocide of the Jews and to the attempt to create a new religion in which the Führer would play the first fiddle, replacing the Jewish Messiah. Yes, and quite loyal to Hitler, the bishops expressed dissatisfaction with the way the Nazis rule the Church. In response, Hitler did not stand on ceremony: “Christianity will disappear in Germany just as it happened in Russia! The Germanic race existed thousands of years before Christ, and in the future we will do just fine without Christianity. The Church must rely on the theory of purity of blood and racial characteristics. The shocked bishops declared that in this case they had no choice but to also go into opposition.

Then Hitler announced his submission Protestant Church the state. Church schools were closed, church property was confiscated, many pastors were fired, and others were restricted from preaching, which was supposed to undermine the power of church opposition. And although some part of the pastorate supported the Nazi regime, the majority, such as Dr. Carl Barth, refused to recognize Hitler as the new-found messiah. “I was professor of theology at the University of Bonn for 10 years,” recalled Dr. Barth later in exile. Until he refused to start his daily lectures by throwing up his hands and shouting "Heil Hitler!" I couldn't do that, that would be blasphemy." He was arrested by the Nazi authorities for his sermon dr. Martin Niemöller, pastor of Berlin's wealthy Dahlem district, who served as a U-boat commander during World War I. Despite the fact that the court acquitted him, Niemoller was again arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

The Catholic Church did not long enjoy the peace promised by the Concordat of 1933. Catholic bishops still tried to maintain good relations with Hitler, however, due to numerous violations of the terms of the treaty by the Nazi authorities, discontent increased in the middle and lower echelons of the Catholic Church. Many clergymen were arrested on ridiculous charges of smuggling gold from Germany. The Catholic press was subjected to severe censorship. Religious processions were banned, monasteries were closed, monks were subjected to show trials, accused of debauchery. The propaganda machine, headed by Joseph Goebbels, tried to sow disgust among Germans for the "moral excesses" of Catholic priests. The resistance of the Catholic Church also grew. The Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Faulhaber, showed open disobedience to the Nazi regime, for which, despite his diplomatic immunity declared by the papal legate, he was arrested. On March 21, 1937, Pope Pius XI's encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge ..." ("With deep concern ...") was read out from all Catholic departments in Germany, in which Hitler was accused of violating the terms of an agreement with the church and persecuting Catholics. In response, the Nazi authorities organized a series of trials of priests, monks and flocks.

Hitler's struggle with the church suddenly ended with the outbreak of World War II. The Fuhrer considered that it was more profitable for him to ease the pressure on the church so as not to undermine the morale of his soldiers. But he did not give up his ultimate goal - the extermination of both the Catholic and Protestant denominations. However, he considered it more prudent not to openly support the organization of a new paganism - the German Movement for the Faith.

Hitler's relationship with Christianity is not accidental, just as it is not accidental that the desire of every tyrant not only to rule unlimitedly, but also to put himself in the place of God and demand worship. This is exactly how the “spirit of antichrist” described in the Bible, which has repeatedly manifested itself in the past in different guises, operates. “This must not happen again,” the peoples of the world decided after the victory over fascism. However, there is no guarantee that in the future some new ideology, equally deceptive and promising, will not subjugate another. great country and even the whole world. But the experience of German (and not only) Christians shows that people for whom the most valuable thing is faith in Christ and submission of their lives to His will, and not to the will of the crowd or any political leader, are not so easily deceived by new ideas, even the most attractive ones. Even if everyone around is going crazy, those who know the truth will be able to recognize the lies under the beautiful mask.

The Soviet Union dubbed all the ultra-right who came to power in Europe in the 1920s and 30s fascists, by analogy with Italy, where they came to power for the first time - in 1922. The German National Socialists were also called fascists in the USSR. This definition has become commonplace, for example, in such a stable during the years of the Great Patriotic War phrases like “fascist German troops”, and simply “German fascists”.

This was explained by the fact that the word "fascism" in Soviet propaganda back in the 1920s became synonymous with the greatest political evil. The communists did not focus on the doctrinal and practical differences between the various national variants of the European ultra-right. Meanwhile, the Nazis themselves never considered themselves to be something ideologically close to the Nazis, and vice versa. The Germans in Soviet captivity were very surprised and offended by the fact that they were called fascists here: “These are pasta - fascists! We are National Socialists."

Jealousy about the exact designation of one's ideological commitment was caused by a long animosity between Hitler and Mussolini before the Second World War. There was a period when Nazi Germany was even considered enemy No. 1 in fascist Italy.

Mussolini on Hitler

The manners of Hitler and his partygenossen were scorned by Mussolini even at the time when they were going to power. The Duce considered German Nazism a barbaric parody of fascism. The Duce was especially dissatisfied with the fact that the Nazis copied his “Roman” party greeting. Much evidence exists of Mussolini's derogatory remarks about Hitler and Nazism made in the first half of the 1930s.

The Duce's hatred for the Fuhrer reached a particularly high intensity in 1934, when the Nazis and fascists argued for influence in Austria (and the leader of Italy temporarily triumphed). Mussolini then mobilized the Italian army, preparing to move it to defend Austrian independence from German encroachment. Hitler is an “extremely dangerous idiot”, “terrible, sexually perverted, degenerate creature” - such epithets at that time Mussolini awarded the Fuhrer in conversations with Acting Austrian Chancellor Ernst Staremberg. Here, even Soviet propaganda during the Great Patriotic War was far from such pearls.

The first meeting with Hitler calmed Mussolini a little. He decided that there was nothing to be afraid of such a person. "He's just a chatty monk," he told one of his associates after his first meeting with the German Fuhrer on June 17, 1934. During these negotiations, Hitler often, instead of discussing specific issues, began to quote at length from his book Mein Kampf. Once, during a break, the Duce, standing at the window, whispered: "Yes, he's just crazy!", referring to the Fuhrer.

Mussolini on Nazism

When the Nazis undertook the "Night of the Long Knives" on June 30, 1934, cracking down on opposition within their own party, Mussolini told French journalist Michel Campana: "I should have been pleased that Hitler was making his revolution along our lines. But they are Germans. So they end up ruining our idea. They are still the same barbarians as they were in the days of Tacitus and the Reformation."

It is well known how Mussolini scoffed at the Nazi "racial theory": "If it were true, then the Laplanders would be the highest race, since they live to the north of all." political system, created by Hitler in Germany, Mussolini called "barbaric and savage", "capable only of murder, robbery and blackmail."

Mussolini's attitude towards Hitler, of course, was transmitted to the entire Fascist Party and through it into the mass consciousness of the Italians with their centuries-old hostility towards the Germans, especially strong as a result of the First World War.

Follower Role

Perhaps in April 1945, Mussolini greatly regretted that he had once consigned to oblivion these deadly accurate descriptions of Nazism and its leader. But, probably, the Duce more willingly went at one time to a political rapprochement with the Fuhrer, because he felt his moral and intellectual superiority over him and hoped that it was he, Mussolini, who would become the leader in this tandem.
However, over time, for some reason, he succumbed more and more to the influence of Hitler's personality. Obviously, Germany's military superiority over Italy played a decisive role here. It was Germany that was the undivided leading power of the "axis", and Italy occupied a position in it only slightly higher than Romania and Hungary. Since 1940, German troops have repeatedly rescued the Italians, after the Duce imprudently got involved in World War II.

And in 1943, Hitler also saved Mussolini himself, when he was overthrown and arrested on the orders of the Italian king. However, that may have been a disservice.
If Mussolini had remained in the custody of the Italian government, which had gone over to the side of the Western allies, then after the war Mussolini would have been tried and would hardly have been sentenced to more than life imprisonment, which could then be mitigated. Supporting Hitler to the end, personifying the hated occupation regime in the eyes of the Italians, the Duce ended up knowing how.

"Pasta"

In Germany, the attitude towards Italian fascism, on the contrary, was respectful for a long time. Hitler deliberately copied many forms and attributes of the fascist movement and always admired the personality of the Duce. Back in 1926, barely out of prison, the Fuhrer of the nascent Nazism wrote to Rome with a request to send him a photograph of Mussolini with the Duce's personal autograph. The Italian Foreign Ministry left its embassy in Berlin to inform the importunate addressee in the form in which it deems necessary that the Duce does not consider it appropriate to satisfy such a request.

But the Germans also had their own sense of superiority over the Italians, especially reinforced by racial theory. During his first visit to Italy, Hitler had a long rant to Mussolini about the heavy mixing of Italians with "inferior races." In 1938, under direct pressure from Hitler, Mussolini adopted "racial laws", although six years ago he called anti-Semitism "a purely German evil." However, these laws were issued, as is believed, for the sake of appearances and were almost never implemented, and the Jews in fascist Italy were not subjected to persecution.

German contempt for the Italians grew rapidly during World War II, as German troops won victories and the Italians suffered defeats. The Germans had to bail them out either in North Africa or in Greece. When in 1943 the Germans and Italians were waiting for the Anglo-American landing in Sicily, the German soldiers joked: "When we conquer America in 1950, pasta will still sit here." The Italians did not sit: when the Western allies landed on the coast of their country, the Duce's army simply fled.

Adolf Gitler

In the history of Ukraine, there have already been attempts to create a certain church structure that would be completely subordinate to the state will.

At the beginning of his reign, Hitler positioned himself as either a Catholic or a Lutheran. It depended on the pre-election goals that he set for himself. But as a result, Hitler guaranteed himself significant support from a large part of both Catholics and Lutherans.

The priests of the "new Germany" greet Hitler

Later it became known that his attitude towards Christianity is extremely aggressive. Very soon, Hitler became fascinated occult sciences and even created a whole special department called "Ahnenerbe", which was engaged in the combination of "paganism of the ancient Germans" and "true", not yet "poisoned by the Jews of Christianity and the occultism of the last century", that is, the creation of a specifically fascist religious worldview.

Such a worldview deified the state, and his faith was faith in the ideology of the ruling Nazi party. The practice of destroying all dissidents was also quite common, which was based on the “evidence” of one of the leading employees of the organization Herbert Jankun (he was an SS Obersturmbannfuehrer, but, despite this, he lived a rather long life and died in 1990 at the age of 85 years).

However, this does not mean that Hitler was indifferent to Christianity. Germany, as you know, is a Christian country. And so the head of the Nazi Party in Germany had to try to find mutual language with representatives of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches. He repeatedly stated that the German government would take care of the religious life of the country. But what exactly he meant by these statements became known somewhat later.

Hitler made a number of attempts to unify the teachings of various Christian denominations in Germany and create a kind of unified Church, which would include both Lutherans and Catholics.

In 1932, a fairly large part of the Lutheran Christians in Germany united in a movement that appropriated the name "German Christians". They saw the de-Judaization of Christianity as their main task, that is, they wanted to free Christianity from any hint of its Jewish roots. For example, they called for the destruction of the Old Testament, and also denied the inclination human nature to sin. Also, the "German Christians" fully accepted the Aryan ideology of the Third Reich.

Flag of the "German Christians" movement

They insisted on the abolition of the federal structure of the Evangelical Church with 28 autonomous regional Churches and its replacement with a single centralized "Imperial Church" (German: Reichskirche). With the support of Hitler and the Ministry of Propaganda, this Church was successfully established.

On September 5-6, 1933, the "Prussian General Synod" was convened in Berlin. The clergy who participated in this "synod" elected Ludwig Müller as their bishop and almost in full force signed the document with the so-called "Aryan clause": not a single Jew has the right to occupy the church chair of the country. However, 7,000 of the 17,000 Lutheran priests in Germany did not agree with the decision of this "synod" and united in the so-called "Confessing Church", whose representatives tried to resist the state fascist ideology. Although the “Confessing Church” did not achieve any significant success in this regard, the German government managed to split it into several currents and ultimately completely neutralize its influence.

At the same time, the Reichskirche, that is, the "Imperial Church", eventually acquired great importance in German society. Based on the ideas of National Socialism and emphasizing the superiority of the Aryan race over all others, this pseudo-religious structure skillfully used the patriotic feelings of the Germans, replacing them with the teachings of Christ. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the "Imperial Church" sanctified militaristic moods in German society, which was reflected in temple architecture and temple art. For example, the interior of the famous Martin Luther Memorial Church in Berlin included many elements demonstrating the ideology of the Third Reich. The carving on the pulpit depicts Jesus Christ surrounded by helmeted soldiers, Aryan women and children, a helmeted stormtrooper is depicted on the arch, and a man in the form of SA (NSDAP paramilitary detachment) is depicted in the baptistery.

Even tougher than the Protestants, Hitler treated the Catholic Church. Despite the fact that in 1933 that guaranteed the inviolability of the faith. Very soon, the government launched a large-scale struggle against the Catholic Church. Church property was confiscated, parochial schools were closed, and Christians were fired from government positions. Falsified charges of all mortal sins were brought against priests, monks and other prominent representatives of the Church, and finally, in 1937, all members of the Nazi Party of Germany announced their withdrawal from the Catholic Church.

After this came the document known as the "National Program of the Imperial Church", written by Rosenberg. This document, among other things, attributed full control to the "Imperial Church" over all other Churches within Germany. In addition, the Reichskirche declared a fight against crucifixion, images of saints, and tried to introduce pagan elements into Christian rites.

At the same time, a special church department was created in the Gestapo, which was engaged in the study and control of the religious situation in the country. However, his main task was not only control over church structures, but also their maximum destruction, the so-called "atomization". In other words, the state created and then kept afloat many church schisms. For example, it is Hitler who is credited with the following words: “We must avoid having one Church meet the religious needs of large areas, and every village must be turned into an independent sect. If some<…>want to practice black magic<…>we must do nothing to prevent them.<…>Our policy in the wide expanses should be to encourage any and every form of disunity and split.”

Any clergyman who spoke out against the state church line was accused of serving the enemy, excessive interference in politics and was immediately repressed. On January 30, 1939, Adolf Hitler declared that he did not feel any pity for the repressed priests, because they serve the enemies of the German state. Here is a quote from that speech: “Therefore, one should not show pity or sympathy for those God-damned rulers who aroused the interest of their citizens in certain representatives of the German clergy who are in conflict with the law, but it is worth showing interest in the enemies of our German state. However, let's not forget: we will protect the German clergy in their duties as God's vicars, but we will destroy those of them who turn out to be an enemy of the German state..

Therefore, it is not surprising that with the outbreak of the war the situation worsened. More than 2,500 priests and monks died in Polish concentration camps, and in the Dachau concentration camp there were "priests' barracks", through which about 2,600 Catholic priests passed, many of whom also died. In total, during the war years, about 9,000 trials were launched to accuse Catholics and other Christians of treason.

Benito Mussolini once said that “in a fascist state, religion is regarded as one of the deepest manifestations of the spirit, therefore it is not only revered, but is protected and patronized”. However, as we were able to see, the very concept of “religion” was rather specific for the Nazis, and “patronage” extended only to that “religion” that fully corresponded to the ideology created by the Nazis. It becomes scary when you think that this story can repeat itself ...

Religion in the Third Reich

Despite the fact that Hitler was born into a family professing the Catholic religion, he very early rejected Christianity as an idea alien to the racist model. "Antiquity," he said, "was much better than the present times, because it did not know either Christianity or syphilis." Later, he would formulate his negative attitude towards Christianity as follows:

German girls perform a neo-pagan rite to magically influence the fertility of the earth

1. Christianity is a religion that protects the weak and downtrodden. 2. By its origin, this religion is Jewish, forcing people to "bend their backs at the sound of the church bell and crawl to the cross of an alien God." 3. Christianity was born 2000 years ago among sick, exhausted and desperate people who lost faith in life. 4. Christian dogmas of forgiveness of sin, resurrection and salvation are blatant nonsense. 5. Christian compassion is a dangerous un-German idea. 6. Christian love for one's neighbor is stupidity, because love paralyzes a person. 7. The Christian idea of universal equality protects the racially inferior, the sick, the weak and the poor.

However, Hitler failed to reach an understanding with the Protestant Church, as a result of which a call swept through the country to reject Protestantism and create a new "Germanic" religion based on combining the idea of "Bluth und Boden" ("Blood and soil") and the principle of the Fuhrer. In 1934, professor of theology Ernst Bergman published 25 theses of this new "religion".

The Jewish Old Testament is no good for the new Germany.

Christ was not a Jew, but a Nordic martyr, sent to his death by the Jews, and a warrior called to save the world from Jewish influence.

Adolf Hitler is the new messiah sent to earth to save the world from the Jews.

The swastika is the successor to the sword as a symbol of Germanic Christianity. German land, blood, soul, art - the sacred categories of German Christianity.

Speaking about the new German religion, Bergman said: "Either we will have a German god, or there will not be any. We cannot kneel before a universal god who pays more attention to the French than to us. We Germans were left to the mercy of fate by the Christian god. He is not just, and therefore we suffered defeat after defeat because we believed him, and not our German god."

Meanwhile, Hitler announced the subordination of the Protestant church to the state. Church schools were closed, church property was confiscated, many pastors were fired, and others were restricted from preaching, which was supposed to undermine the power of church opposition. And although some of the parsons supported the Nazi regime, the majority, such as Dr. Karl Barth, refused to recognize Hitler as the new-found messiah. “I was a professor of theology at the University of Bonn for 10 years,” recalled Dr. Barth later in exile. “Until I refused to start my daily lectures by throwing up my hands and shouting “Heil Hitler!” I couldn’t do that, it would be blasphemy.” Dr. Martin Niemeller, pastor of Berlin's wealthy district of Dahlem, who served as a U-boat commander during World War I, was arrested by the Nazi authorities for his sermons. Despite the fact that the court acquitted him, Niemeller was again arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

The Catholic Church did not long enjoy the peace promised by the Concordat of 1933. Catholic bishops still tried to maintain good relations with Hitler, however, due to numerous violations of the terms of the treaty by the Nazi authorities, discontent increased in the middle and lower echelons of the Catholic Church. Many clergymen were arrested on ridiculous charges of smuggling gold from Germany. The Catholic press was subjected to severe censorship. Religious processions were banned, monasteries were closed, monks were subjected to show trials, accused of debauchery. The propaganda machine, headed by Joseph Goebbels, tried to sow disgust among Germans for the "moral excesses" of Catholic priests. The resistance of the Catholic Church also grew. The Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Faulhaber, showed open disobedience to the Nazi regime, for which, despite his diplomatic immunity declared by the papal legate, he was arrested. On March 21, 1937, Pope Pius XI's encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge ..." ("With deep concern ...") was read out from all the Catholic departments of Germany, in which Hitler was accused of violating the terms of an agreement with the church and persecuting Catholics. In response, the Nazi authorities organized a series of trials of priests, monks and flocks.

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