Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism

by Derek Hastings

Derek Hastings here illuminates an important and largely overlooked aspect of early Nazi history, going back to the years after World War I--when National Socialism first emerged--to reveal its close early ties with Catholicism. Although an antagonistic relationship between the Catholic Church
and Hitler's regime developed later during the Third Reich, the early Nazi movement was born in Munich, a city whose population was overwhelmingly Catholic. Focusing on Munich and the surrounding area, Hastings shows how Catholics played a central and hitherto overlooked role in the Nazi movement
before the 1923 Beerhall Putsch. He examines the activism of individual Catholic writers, university students, and priests and the striking Catholic-oriented appeals and imagery formulated by the movement. He then discusses why the Nazis embarked on a different path following the party's
reconstitution in early 1925, ultimately taking on an increasingly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian identity.

Genres: History

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hastings makes a persuasive case that the early Nazi movement (1919-1923) was influenced by a fringe group of ultranationalist and anti-Semitic Catholics who advocated for “Positive Christianity”. Many of these radicals were active in denouncing ultramontanism (papal supremacy over politics) in pre-1918 Bavaria. One example in particular, Leo Schronghamer, went so far as to suggest replacing the Old Testament with the Viking Sagas, in order to reject the Jewish influence of the former. Hitler’s political mentor, Dietrich Eckart, and Heinrich Himmler also fit well into this group. When the Nazis were criticized by a mainstream Catholic politician for their anti-semitism in 1922, Hitler proclaimed that “Christian sentiment points me toward my Lord and Savior as a warrior. It points me to the man who at one time, lonely and surrounded only by a few followers, recognized the Jews and called for battle against them...”

Despite this early affinity between Positive Christianity and National Socialism, things started to go sour in 1923. Hitler joined the party to the Kampfbund, which was also nationalist and anti-semitic, but anti-catholic as well. Once the Beer Hall Putsch failed, the Nazi party went into disarray, and the anti-catholic general Ludendorff became a figure of greater prominence. This was a sign to many that Catholics were no longer welcome. When the ban on the Nazi party was lifted in 1925, it was rebuilt into a more anti-clerical movement.

Hastings traces this shift to anti-clericalism in some interesting ways. In 1923 a German saboteur named Leo Schlageter was executed by the French Army in the Ruhr for trying to blow up a railroad track. The Nazis immediately turned him into a martyr and capitalized on his Catholicism and his party membership. They particularly emphasized his request for communion and confession before his execution, which was granted but hurried along by the French. By the time the Nazi regime came to power, Schlageter was still commemorated, but only as a nationalist hero, and no longer in a religious context.

Some of the early advocates for positive Christianity, like Alban Schachleiter, tried to rebuild the connection between the movements once Hitler came to power in 1933. Schachleiter was allowed to attend the Nuremberg party rally in 1934, but his efforts proved to be in vain. He tried to convince Hitler to disavow Alfred Rosenberg’s anti-clerical Nazi manifesto “Myth of the 20th Century” to no avail.

The book concludes with a persuasive argument for labeling the Positive Christianity movement “Catholic” even though it was criticized by the mainstream church as a kind of heresy dabbling offshoot. If the church is not exactly a monolith, even though it may appear to be, this argues for including dissenting groups under the Catholic label.

Although this is a very interesting and subtle book, it fails to really demonstrate the significance of this early influence on the Nazi Party. Hastings makes some intriguing statements about the Nazis borrowing from the Catholic liturgy for their public ceremonies, but leaves this idea largely undeveloped. In view of the party’s later anti-clericalism, it doesn’t seem like much influence was really preserved after 1923. It also seems fair to point out that a Catholic inclusive attitude was probably the only viable option for a new political party in 1919 Bavaria, despite whatever anti-clerical prejudices some of the Nazis held behind closed doors.

[Michael Laflamme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent study!

A needed close examination of the Catholic role in the early Nazi movement. Very few authors have given this much examination to the Catholic community of this time. An impressive work.

[Jason Jeffries · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMG I finally finished the book...the last bit seemed like a bit of a slog and I thought I'd never finish but the last 40% of the book was all footnotes. I figured this book would be a slow read because it focuses like a laser on Munich from 1900-1935. The volume of footnotes speaks to the extensive research by the author, who details myriad players in the area at the time: Adolf Hitler, priests, pastors, and what seemed like hundreds of other völkisch leaders and participants along with the general sentiment of the time.

In times like we live in today when Know-Nothings paint Hitler as a leftist, Nazism as anti-religious or exclusively anti-Christian, and revisionist hacks proposing the Nazis were homosexuals, and on-and-on, it's always preferable to read something rooted in harsh reality. I'm a history buff and often a student of totalitarianism, fascism, and the like, because history repeats. I'm also an atheist so admittedly some of the reasons I chose to read this book were scurrilous. But I was surprised to find the eventual climax to be very even-handed. I even finished the book thinking Nazi-related critiques of Pope Benedict XVI were unfounded and that the Catholic church by-and-large did repudiate the Nazi movement (more so than their fellow Christian Protestants). So while I did not find what I was expecting, I did find a very detailed review of the Christian (and anti-Christian) influences in Bavaria and Munich specifically in the early formative years of the NSDAP, and that was worth the read.

A few excerpts:

“the fact that such an elaborate völkisch-eugenics model was already laid out among Reform Catholic nationalists in Munich in 1914 is significant"

“to accelerate and radicalize anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist attitudes among Munich’s overwhelmingly Catholic population. The perceived linkages between Bolshevism, atheism, and the Jews”

“the most pressing threat being the issue that so consumed Faulhaber and others, the Jewish-socialist separation of church and state and the impending removal of mandatory religious instruction from Bavarian schools.”

“This speech is significant on at least two levels. First, it pledges Hitler’s personal devotion to his “Lord and Savior” in no uncertain terms and embodies the type of activist warrior Christianity that the Nazi movement would utilize to great effect over the course of the following year"

“In a well-publicized speech to the Ortsgruppe Augsburg on 13 June 1923, Haeuser emphasized the virtues of warrior Christianity, proclaiming, “We need men of action. If only there were more men like Hitler… who would put the words of Christ into practice: ‘I have not come to bring peace, but rather the sword.’"

“in contrast to the NSDAP which, unlike secular non-Marxist parties, served as the most uncompromising defender of the Christian faith”

“Once held up as paragons of the Nazi spirit of Positive Christianity, Catholic students were now forced to strip themselves of their overt Catholic identities in order to comply with the imperatives of the Third Reich.”

“It is possible, indeed necessary, to deplore the tragic and errant nature of inquisitorial zeal in thirteenth-century southern France while also recognizing its problematic, yet nonetheless real, contextual Christian legitimacy"

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books about war are never my favorites. Despite liking the occasional horror novel, I'm no fan of violence. Hastings, however, is less about war and more about the early phases of the Nazi movement, and, in particular, the Catholic nature of the earliest stages. The book doesn't suggest Catholicism supported Nazism. In fact, the Catholic Church is far more diverse than it might seem, as this book clearly demonstrates. Nazism eventually moved away from any kind of faith-based identification, but the early years are fascinating, and Hastings provides plenty of material to ponder from that time period between the wars. I wrote a bit more about this on my blog: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my Amazon Review

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1TO080V...