The Religious Beliefs of Leading Nazis
Within a large movement like Nazism, "it may not be especially shocking to discover" that individuals could embrace different ideological systems that would seem to be polar opposites. The religious beliefs of even the leading Nazis diverged strongly.
The difficulty for historians lies in the task of evaluating not only the public, but also the private statements of the Nazi politicians. Steigmann-Gall, who intended to do this in his study, points to such people as Erich Koch (who was not only Gauleiter of East Prussia and Reichskomissar for the Ukraine, but also the elected praeses of the East Prussian provincial synod of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union) and Bernhard Rust as examples of Nazi politicians who also professed to be Christian in private.
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