Nazi

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Technically, a Nazi is a member of the German National Socialist (Nazi) party. Since very few true Nazis are still living, the term is often used more generally in reference to various authoritarians, especially those who focus on hate and racism. The Nazis were strong adherents to Fascism, and eventually became the dominant fascist force in Europe. Today, many people conflate the terms nazi and fascist.

Godwin's Law:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.[1]

The Nazis were also proponents of Horbiger's Cosmic Ice theory,[2] which held that the stars were made of ice. They also imagined they had superior intelligence, which seems a bit at odds with the previous sentence.

They contended that the novel "Dawn in Atlantis" by Edmund Kiss was based on truth - that the Aryan Race was descended from the crew of a crashed alien space craft and established Atlantis, before being overrun by inferior races. The SS (the Nazi secret police) employed a team of archaeologists searching for proof of these theories, similar to that featured in the Indiana Jones films. The antics of Nazi communities on the internet can be observed at "What is going on in the Fourth Reich?".

Contents

[edit] Religion in National Socialism

The role of religion in the National Socialist ideology has been a much discussed and controversial question. Hitler made a distinction between "Master religions" and "Slave religions". According to Hitler, Master religions would help the Aryan master race to dominate other races. Religions which preached love and tolerance would hinder the master race in dominating others. Such religions were considered slave religions and persecuted. [3]

The claim by some that Nazism is an atheist ideology can be rejected out of hand. Nazism includes many near-mystical elements drawn from several different types of religion, and the early Nazi party was also involved in several direct conflicts with atheist and freethinker groups in Germany as early as the 1920s. This hostility continued after Hitler took power in 1933 when atheist movements were banned in Germany.

On the other hand, nor is the opposing view that Nazism is essentially based on Christianity very credible, although this is a much more complex issue. Elements and themes drawn from Christianity often figured prominently in Nazi propaganda, but these were invariably twisted to fit with the National Socialist context. Overall, it is probably better to see Christianity as carrying out a legitimizing function for Nazism, rather than as a part of its ideological foundations. Eventually, however, a specifically National Socialist brand of Christianity evolved, known as Positive Christianity.

On a more practical level, the Nazi ascension to power in 1933 resulted in the unification of the Protestant regional churches in each of the 28 federal states into one church known as the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche (German Evangelical Church). This new church was from the beginning dominated by the strongly pro-Nazi Deutsche Christen movement, whose leader, the theologian Ludwig Müller, was also appointed as the first Reichsbishof. However, strong political and theological conflicts inside the Church and waning interest from the Nazi leadership prevented the DEK from ever assuming any prominent role in the Third Reich, and it had faded from significance by 1935.

Many smaller Protestant churches remained outside the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche, and in 1934, many of these joined together in the movement known as the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), which aimed especially at opposing the influence of the Deutsche Christen. Although many of its members were against the unification of the churches for theological or confessional reasons rather than anti-Nazi as such, the Bekennende Kirche were seen as an opposition group by the Nazi government and were eventually persecuted, especially after 1937.

The Roman Catholic Church generally tried, ineffectively, to oppose the Nazi regime. [4] Despite this, some people seem dead-set on convincing themselves that the Catholic Church in general or Pope Pius XII were somehow complicit in the Nazi crimes - for some reason. [5][6]

Hitler seems to have used a mixture of beliefs to justify National Socialism. This included distortions of Christianity, distortions of Nordic mythology, and his own belief in the spirit of the time (Zeitgeist), etc. There was also something about the spirit of the German people and the Führer as its embodiment. How did Hitler reconcile his Christianity with the Nordic religion? Christians believe that they should not have other gods. The author doesn't know. Probably the reconciliation was along the lines of, "I'm the Führer. I decide."

[edit] The case against Nazism

The horrors of the Holocaust are obvious evidence that Nazism causes harm. The destruction and death of the Second World War is similar evidence. Another argument is that Nazis have never shown any reason why one group of humans is more “evolved” than another, however evolved is defined.

Yet another argument is that favorable mutations can clearly occur in all human populations. "Racial mixing" can therefore benefit mankind because those mutations can be spread throughout the species.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
  2. ↑ See Wikipedia
  3. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Religion
  4. ↑ Besier, Gerhard and Francesca Piombo: The Holy See and Hitler's Germany (2007)
  5. ↑ See, for example, this biased and selective website.
  6. ↑ John Cornwell's disaster hack job book Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII is probably the most prominent example.
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