ORGANISED RELIGION

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

ORGANISED RELIGION

THE NAZI SUBSTITUTE

(By

H.E..C.)

"In the totalitarian State there is not even room for organised religion.” So stated Herr Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth Movement to a gathering of young Germans called to disciwhat attitude should be adopted towards fellow countrymen who believed it possible to be loyal followers of Herr Hitler, to support unhesitatingly the Nazi political programme, but to remain at the same time loyal to ; their church. In that belief some young Germans had visited Rome on the occasion of a Catholic festival. On their return they were met at the German frontier with abuse and actual maltreatment, and the occasion was taken by Herr von Schirach to expound the policy of the Nazi “Christian” Church.

Most people are aware that there has been conflict between the German churches since Nazi rule began. The church, like all other public services, was called upon to recognise and obey Nazi overlordship unquestioningly. Up to a point there was no difficulty, but when a Nazi interpretation of dogmas which the churches believed were founded upon Scriptural authority was also demanded the fight began and is still being waged. Were only dogma concerned there would be little interest aroused outside Germany; were the question but one of church government there would be less. _

But it is not so much the Germany of to-day as it is the Germany of tomorrow that must be considered by other nations. There are. international agreements being made and suggested which contemplate a universal interpretation of what constitutes honour and reliability. For that reason a study of the mental and moral atmosphere in which young Germany is being nurtured, is of ‘ much graver importance than whether a new branch of the church universal should be one of the Nazi contributions to European evolution and the general progress of civilisation. Any student of history knows that the challenge of youth has had a revivifying influence upon mankind and his affairs. To that challenge, speaking broadly, may be traced much of the progress civilisation can claim, and there is nothing perturbing in the fact that young Germany should challenge •religious as well as political tenets. What is likely to cause misgiving is the nature of the policy and the principles of the Nazi “Christian” Church. Its policy is the destruction of “institutional” Christianity, and even that proposal would not cause fear among those who have seen the Church survive many attacks and emerge stronger than before. It is the principles upon which Nazi religion is said -to be founded that give cause for perturbation. They are such a travesty of the conception of Christian ideals as to raise wonder whether a nation that can interpret as “Christian” what appears the most blatant paganism will not have interpretations just as inexplicable for international.agreements in regard to armaments and territories. Here are some of the clauses of the Nazi “Christian” declaration of faith set out for university students:—“Article 1. We believe that God is revealed to us in our German blood, our German conscience, ottr ? German, home and in German history. This is our German faith. "Article 4. We do not recognise any international human religion because peoples and races differ from one another. That is why we German Pagans do xiot desire any foreign Jewish faith in God. We -no’ longer believe in the Holy Ghost—-tfe believe in the Holy Blood (i.e. German blood). ' ’ - “Article . 5: Jesus Christ says Sin and Redemption. Nordic Paganism, says “Blood and Honour.” “Article 9: The youth of Germany do not find their ethical hold in the Bible to-day, but in their knowledge of heredity and race and in their faith in Germany.”

An equally dogmatic expression of the “Nazi Christian Church” has. been given by Herr Alfred Rosenberg, whose book, “The Myth of the Twentieth Century” is reviewed in the June number of “Current History” by M. Charles Sarolea, formerly Professor of French Literature at the University of Edinburgh. Rosenberg, he says, opposes the religion of Wotan and Siefried to that of the churches, Greek, Roman or Protestant; the swastika to the Cross; the religion of the Superman to that of the weakling; the “elemental German virtues” of honour and freedom to the “debilitating Christian virtues of pity and charity,” and he maintains that the creed of all churches “has been a principle, of decay, a creed of slaves.” He claims that “successive waves of German migration,” starting from Scandinavia, colonised and civilised Europe and Asia. Thus it is the German racial element that j always and everywhere evolved order out of chaos, light out of darkness ... The introduction of Christianity has been the beginning of European decay.” The noble Germanic blood that enabled the Nordic Superman who preserved his racial values, purity and virtues, “his love of freedom, his aggressive, heroism, tested and hardened in daily fighting,” to impose his will upon the whole world, was tainted by “Mediterranean, Alpine, Oriental and especially Jewish blood,” and thus the virtues of the German race were “undermined by the demoralising influence of Christian charity and humanitarian pity.” Therefore, says Rosenberg, the present religious struggle in Germany is an issue of life and death. The task of the Nazi Christian Church is “to restore the old Nordic values, to purify and rejuvenate the German people. with the assistance and authority of the Nazi State, to liberate them from the corrupting influences of the historic churches, to enthrone the mystical religion of the blood and the heroic religion of honour and valour,” with the ideal, no doubt, that once more the German will shall be imposed upon the whole world.

To call such theories Christian is a travesty. To put them forward as a code of personal ethics is amazing, but to think of this heady teaching as the mental food upon which a young Germany that has just “thrown off the yoke of foreign interference” is being nurtured provokes grave disquietude. Herr Rosenberg is no nonentity. He is Director of the Foreign Press, and editor-in-chief of a chain of Govern-ment-controlled papers. There is all the less chance therefore of his teaching being counteracted by outside opinion for that must not be even studied by the loyal Nazi. The teaching is skilful justification of the Jew-baiting and other brutalities that have been features of Nazi domination. Gravest of all, it is an interpretation of moral values that may have serious effects upon those in whose hands will rest before many years pass the destiny of a mighty nation, including the control of its relations with- the rest of civilisation.