Influence of The Book
Thanks to Nazi support, the book had sold more than one million copies by 1944. However, Adolf Hitler is said never to have read the book, and declared that it wasn't to be considered the official ideology of the Nazi Party:
| “ | I must insist that Rosenberg's "The Myth of the Twentieth Century" is not to be regarded as an expression of the official doctrine of the party. The moment the book appeared, I deliberately refrained from recognizing it as any such thing. In the first place, its title gives a completely false impression... a National Socialist should affirm that to the myth of the nineteenth century he opposes the faith and science of our times... I have myself merely glanced cursorily at it. | ” |
According to Konrad Heiden, Rosenberg had given the manuscript to Hitler to vet before its publication. After a year Hitler still had nothing to say. Hitler gave the still-unread work back to him saying, "I feel sure that it's all right." In his diary Joseph Goebbels called the book "I believe, very good" when he first read it, but he later said it was a "philosophical belch".
Its overt statement of anti-Christian sentiment made it difficult to give Rosenberg any position of prominence when the Nazis ascended to power. Many of the attacks on the book after its 1930 publication came from its explicit anti-Christian message. Rosenberg wrote two supplements to the work, replying to Catholic and Protestant critics. The first, On the Dark Men of Our Times: A Reply to Critics of the Myth of the Twentieth Century, in which he acccused Catholics of attempting to destroy the national character by promoting separatism within Catholic parts of the country. His second reply. Protestant Pilgrims to Rome: The Treason Against Luther and the Myth of the Twentieth Century, argued that modern Lutheranism was becoming too close to Catholicism.
Read more about this topic: The Myth Of The Twentieth Century
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