Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

[ljadw]

For scientists in the 19th century,science was the new religion with its own dogmas and coexistence between science and religion was out of the question .
Most of the educated classes voted for the liberals and these were hostile to religion, to all religions . .
About the claim that the Catholic church was the primary target of the KKp : the German Emperor was very hostile to the law imposing the civilian marriage which was the work of the Liberals ( Adalbert Falk ) who were opposed to all religions .
Bismarck was hostile, not to the Catholics and the Catholic Church,but to the Zentrum (party for which voted a lot of Catholics,but at certain moments only a minority of them ) and he was convinced that the Zentrum obeyed the orders of the German bishops (which was not true ) ,as he could not forbid the Zentrum party, he attacked the Catholic Church, but not religion ,

[ljadw]

Even today, a lot of scientists are hostile to religion :
Maria Squicciarini 18 August 2019 : the French Catholic Church promoted ( in the 19th Century ) an anti-scientific program .

[gebhk]

Even today, a lot of scientists are hostile to religion :

That is true. However, just because some or even many are, that is not evidence that all or even the majority are. I would hazard a guess that just as in the general population, the majority subscribe to some form of religion - that is certainly the case with my circle of acquaintances (albeit I would be happy to concede the point if some reliable and more general evidence to the contrary can be provided). And vice-versa, a lot of non-scientists are also hostile to religion. I would not be surprised at all if those who practice science are more likely to be hostile to religion (or simply non-religious) than the population average because science naturally attracts those who place more trust in reason than they do in blind faith, but that, in the absence of hard data, is as far as it goes.

And what do we mean by religion? A system of personal beliefs of the individual, public religious observance or the institutions of religions (the churches)? Something incorporating various elements of these in endless combinations? And that's the point here. The beef that the propagators of the Kkpf was not with catholicism or religion as such but with the Catholic Church. The obvious reason being that it was powerful enough, organised enough and independent enough to be able and willing to challenge the power of the state and the onward march of state-sponsored projects in a way that Protestantism could not. The Catholic Church, therefore, was an obstacle to the kulturkampfers achieving their goals (for example in their attempts to eradicate Polish Nationalism) not catholicism per se, much less religion in general.

PS with very litle effort one can obtain actual data as opposed to makebelieve. Ecklund et al. Religion among Scientists in International Context: A New Study of Scientists in Eight Regions (2016). As I predicted, scientists are less likely to be religious than the population average in the West. However, in half the regions studied (those where the population avarage was more religious) over half the scientists were religious and their religiosity mirrored or even exceeded average religiosity. Interestingly, the majority view of the scientists themselves, particularly outside of the UK, was that there was NO conflict between science and religion, rather that they operate in different spheres.

Given that the above study and many others suggest that the religiosity of scientists is linked to that of the population avarage, it would be reasonable to assume that in the period we are interested in, a significant majority of scientists would have been religious.

[gebhk]

For the record, Mara (not Maria) Squicciarini is not (at least in the paper in question: Devotion and development: Religiosity, education, and economic progress in 19th-century France) hostile to religion or catholicism. She provides statistical evidence that suggests areas with high 'religiosity' (a term defined in the text) showed lower levels of industrial and economic development. However, her beef is not with religion per se but with conservatism and the reactionary institutions of religion (ie 'religious conservatives') who prevented adoption of technical education in primary schools and obstructed the spead of new ideas.

[George L Gregory]

@ljadw

Who banned the Jesuits in Bavaria in 1851?

A quick Google search didn’t find any sources to confirm your claim. Do you have a source to support your claim?

I strongly suspect this will be one of your many unfounded claims that you will dodge over and over again when asked to provide a source.

[Boby]

About all these claims about the strength of Pan Germanism in AH before 1914 , the fact remains that in the last elections in Cisleithania before the war (1911 ) the strength of the DVP ( German nationalism ) was 1,58 % .
In 1907 Schönerer got 3 seats in the Reichsrat that had 516 members .
That was the political strength of German nationalism before 1914 .

Hallo ljadw

This is misleading, as Cisleithania was more than just "german inhabited" areas. Anyway, DVP got 21/232 from the german nation. 9 percent.

[ljadw]

But : what are the ''german inhabited ''areas " ?Present Austria , ''Sudetenland '' ...Prague ? 7 % of the inhabitants of Prague were ''Germans '',25 % of the inhabitants of Vienna were born in Bohemia and Moravia , there were Italians in Tirol, Slovenians in Carinthia .
Some 30 % of the family names in present Austria had a non German origin.

[ljadw]

@ljadw

Who banned the Jesuits in Bavaria in 1851?

A quick Google search didn’t find any sources to confirm your claim. Do you have a source to support your claim?

I strongly suspect this will be one of your many unfounded claims that you will dodge over and over again when asked to provide a source.

My source is : Jesuits in Germany .Post-Restoration .
.
The text was :
they were banned from Switzerland from 1847 til 1973 and in Austria from 1848 til 1852 .Thus, not Bavaria . My mistake .

[Boby]

But : what are the ''german inhabited ''areas " ?Present Austria , ''Sudetenland '' ...Prague ? 7 % of the inhabitants of Prague were ''Germans '',25 % of the inhabitants of Vienna were born in Bohemia and Moravia , there were Italians in Tirol, Slovenians in Carinthia .
Some 30 % of the family names in present Austria had a non German origin.

In elections, you have to look for parties, not geographical areas. I don't expect a croatian in 1911 to be pan-german, or a pole, or a czech, or a ukranian...

From all the "german nation" parties elected, DVP got 9% in seats.

[gebhk]

Incidentally the history of the various bannings and suppressions of the Jesuits quite strongly supports the view that they reflected conflict between state and Catholic Church for power and infuence and not any religious conflict. It was Catholic countries (Spain, Italy, France, Portugal etc) where the Jesuits were suppressed most thoroughly (and at times savagely) and most frequently (3 times in Spain, in 1932 most recently) while the order survived its lowest ebb (1759-1814) mainly because it was permitted to operate or even actively supported in non-catholic countries, most notably Russia but also, among others, the United States and, most relevant to our discussion..... Prussia.

I don't think it is too much of a stretch to hypothesize that suppression of the Jesuits had little to do with religious dogma and everything to do with the level of challenge they presented to civil government. The banning of the Jesuits in Germany in 1872 quite clearly falls into that pattern.

[ljadw]

Incidentally the history of the various bannings and suppressions of the Jesuits quite strongly supports the view that they reflected conflict between state and Catholic Church for power and infuence and not any religious conflict. It was Catholic countries (Spain, Italy, France, Portugal etc) where the Jesuits were suppressed most thoroughly (and at times savagely) and most frequently (3 times in Spain, in 1932 most recently) while the order survived its lowest ebb (1759-1814) mainly because it was permitted to operate or even actively supported in non-catholic countries, most notably Russia but also, among others, the United States and, most relevant to our discussion..... Prussia.

I don't think it is too much of a stretch to hypothesize that suppression of the Jesuits had little to do with religious dogma and everything to do with the level of challenge they presented to civil government. The banning of the Jesuits in Germany in 1872 quite clearly falls into that pattern.

I can agree with most of it (Josephinism in Austria did not disappear with the death f Joseph II,even Metternich was something of a Josephinist ),but, the question remains : why were the Jesuits banned in Germany in 1872 and not in Prussia before 1872 ? Bismarck was already PM of Prussia in 1862 .If the Jesuits challenged the civil government in 1872, they did it also before 1872 .
Maybe the hidden reason is to be found in the elections for the Reichstag who were giving a dominance for the 3 Liberal parties,who were waiting for a war against religion .And this dominance forced Bismarck to follow them in their war to death against religion .
% of votes
1871 :
Liberals : 40,4
Conservatives : 23
Center : 18,6
1874 :
Liberals : 39,3
Conservatives :14,1
Center :27,9
1877 :
Liberals : 34,9
Conservatives :17,6
Center :24,8
1878 :
Liberals : 29,8
Conservatives :26,6
Center :23,1
1881 :
Liberals : 35,8
Conservatives :20,5
Center :23,2
1884 :
Liberals :35,2
Conservatives :22,1
Center : 22,6

[gebhk]

Clearly all such developments have multifactorial origions and the exact makeup varies from country to country and situation to situation. Prussia, a protestant-dominated country, had little to worry about from the influence of the Jesuits. Indeed in the 1700s, cut adrift from the papacy, the Jesuits were entirely in Frederick's pocket and no challenge whatsoever - in fact by supporting the Jesuits he was sticking two fingers up at the papacy.

In the German Empire which came into being in 1871, just a year before the Jesuit Law was enacted, things were very different. All of a sudden the state had acquired a number of lands where the Catholic Church was well entrenched and the Jesuits back in their familiar role as the Papacy's 'stormtroopers'. They, it was felt, had to be dealt with if the projects the government had in mind were to come to fruition.

Needless to say there were numerous other factors, such as the party political pressures you describe, the growing interest of governments in the lives of its citizens and other geese, such as the suppression of Polish nationalism, that could be cooked in the same fire.

[ljadw]

The whole thing is even more complicated by the silent de facto collaboration between the German catholic Church and the Prussian state against the demands of Polish Catholics /Catholic Poles in East Germany, who demanded first that German priests could speak Polish and later that these priests would be replaced by Polish priests,something the catholic hierarchy refused .
The same problem existed in the Ruhr where 300000 Poles had immigrated who wanted Polish priests .
Sources are :
The Prussian State and the Catholic Church in Prussian Poland .
A Forgotten Chapter of Regional Social History : The Polish Immigrants to the Ruhr : 1870-1939
German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics :1870-1914 .

[gebhk]

Good point. These sorts of manouvres are an inevitable aspect of large organisations. In this instance I suspect the de facto collaboration was an accidental confluence of interests rather than an intentional collaboration. In much the same way, the British Catholic hierarchy was very pleased to see the large influx of Polish Catholics into Britain during and post WW2, who they hoped would boost church numbers. They were not best pleased when, instead, the Poles organised their own parishes with their own priests. Worse still these parishes, rather than being absorbed into the normal regional Church structures, remained part of the Polish Catholic Mission which grew like Topsy to become, in effect, a diocese in its own right; financially and in every way that matters, independent of the British Catholic establishment. Needless to say that does not sit well with everyone and low-level political skirmishing continues to this day even without any governmental policy of 'Britishization' of immigant Poles.

In relation to the Jesuits in Poland, the irony in the context of this discussion is that while the rump Polish Republic complied with the 1773 papal suppression of the Jesuits, in those parts of Poland that had been annexed by Prussia and Russia a year or so earlier, the Jesuits continued as before because both Catherine and Frederick dismissed the papal order. Arguably therefore, it was Frederick the Great who was responsible for Bismarck's and the Prussian Catholic Hierarchy's problems with Polish Catholic Nationalists later on!

[George L Gregory]

The present of Poles in the German Empire actually helped Hitler form his pan-German views.

Not only in Austria, however, but also in the Reich, these so-called national circles were, and still are, under the influence of similar erroneous ideas. Unfortunately, a policy towards Poland, whereby the East was to be Germanized, was demanded by many and was based on the same false reasoning. Here again it was believed that the Polish people could be Germanized by being compelled to use the German language. The result would have been fatal. A people of foreign race would have had to use the German language to express modes of thought that were foreign to the German, thus compromising by its own inferiority the dignity and nobility of our nation.

Mein Kampf, The State.

A few years later he stated similar thoughts in his second book that was never published during his life:

The National Socialist Movement, on the contrary, will always let its foreign policy be determined by the necessity to secure the space necessary to the life of our Folk. It knows no Germanising or Teutonising, as in the case of the national bourgeoisie, but only the spread of its own Folk. It will never see in the subjugated, so called Germanised, Czechs or Poles a national, let alone Folkish, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of our Folk.

The völkisch State, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make Germans out of them some day. On the contrary, it must muster the determination either to seal off these alien racial elements, so that the blood of its own Folk will not be corrupted again, or it must, without further ado, remove them and hand over the vacated territory to its own National Comrades.