Religious Aspects of Nazism - The Religious Beliefs of Leading Nazis

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.

Read more about this topic:  Religious Aspects Of Nazism

Famous quotes containing the words religious, beliefs, leading and/or nazis:

    This philosophy of hate, of religious and racial intolerance, with its passionate urge toward war, is loose in the world. It is the enemy of democracy; it is the enemy of all the fruitful and spiritual sides of life. It is our responsibility, as individuals and organizations, to resist this.
    Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)

    Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    you are leading me on
    To the spots we knew when we haunted here together,
    Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

    If the Nazis have really been guilty of the unspeakable crimes circumstantially imputed to them, then—let us make no mistake—pacifism is faced with a situation with which it cannot cope. The conventional pacifist conception of a reasonable or generous peace is irrelevant to this reality.
    John Middleton Murry (1889–1957)