Religion...?

Discussions on every day life in the Weimar Republic, pre-anschluss Austria, Third Reich and the occupied territories. Hosted by Vikki.
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oRion
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Religion...?

#1

Post by oRion » 14 Mar 2007, 11:58

What was the main religion of the Third Reich? I have seen many times in photos of german graves that instead of a cross they had other symbols. And don't forget that the SS were using symbols to many items that didn't show catholicism or Cristianity in general.

ManfredV
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#2

Post by ManfredV » 14 Mar 2007, 15:46

Most Germans in Third Reich and still today were christians. Today nearly all of them belong to 23 regional protestant churches united in EKD (a Union of Lutherans, United and Reformed churches) and to roman-catholic church. Most Nazis and especially Himmler and Rosenberg disliked christianity, so they made a kind of pseudo-germanic "Ahnenkult", but not many people joined that (In private circle Hitler made his jokes about Himmler´s believe). Of course, many people were members of churches but didn´t really believe (same situation today).
The graves: in Germany usually we have names and dates of birth and dead at gravestones. Date of birth is signed with a little star * and date of death with a cross. Often people have symbols and figures, too: crosses, roses, Jesus, Saints, angels and sometimes a bible vers or little poem. So if there´s no cross on a gravestone that won´t mean this man or woman wasn´t christian.
But some not-christian people - and that was sometimes made in Third Reich - don´t use star and cross as symbols for birthday and death, they have old german runes on their graves: "life rune" for birth day and "death rune" for the day they died. So if you have runes on a grave, thats usually a sign this is a grave of a nazi or some sort of esoteric.
Sorry, I´ve got no pictures of graves to give examples.
Some informations:
http://www.ekd.de/index.html
http://www.katholische-kirche.de/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes


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oRion
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#3

Post by oRion » 14 Mar 2007, 15:54

Thanks ManfredV, this was quite helpful! :D

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RTFREY
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IDENTITY CARD KENNKARTE for CATHOLIC PRIEST

#4

Post by RTFREY » 07 Apr 2007, 17:33

Standard Civilian identity card KENNKARTE but for a Catholic Priest.
PETER MARIA GOSEF HAHN
Born 1907
ID issued April 1940
Attachments
PRIEST KENNKARTE 1.jpg
PRIEST KENNKARTE 1.jpg (172.76 KiB) Viewed 6187 times

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faf_476
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#5

Post by faf_476 » 08 Apr 2007, 11:17

Nice photo.
Thanks, :)

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#6

Post by Bob Hartman » 14 Apr 2007, 03:41

Another "religion" that was Nazi sanctioned was Gottglaubig although I believe it was unpopular and only had about 5% of the people who were "believers".

Bob

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faf_476
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#7

Post by faf_476 » 15 Apr 2007, 13:31

I can believe that Nazis were Catholic, as I rely on their symbols, they are all using the cross signs, starting from planes and in any other vehicles.

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Mimi
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Religion

#8

Post by Mimi » 19 Apr 2007, 07:04

Hitler planned to dechristianize German society and install instead a sort of Pagan religion of which he would be the semi-God. The SS followed in those steps and developped a paganistic sort of religion based on occultism and a very dark fraternity. Officially Hitler was Christian but he hated the Churches -Catholic or Protestant- and not only persecuted them but tried to eradicate them. The Protestant Churches of Germany went quite far into collaboration with the Nazis as this site explains very well :http://schikelgruber.net/religion.html

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Re: Religion

#9

Post by Karl » 19 Apr 2007, 14:39

Mimi wrote:Hitler planned to dechristianize German society and install instead a sort of Pagan religion of which he would be the semi-God. The SS followed in those steps and developped a paganistic sort of religion based on occultism and a very dark fraternity. Officially Hitler was Christian but he hated the Churches -Catholic or Protestant- and not only persecuted them but tried to eradicate them. The Protestant Churches of Germany went quite far into collaboration with the Nazis as this site explains very well :http://schikelgruber.net/religion.html
this is fascinating and you have commandeered my interest.

For the onset I think it best to keep it one step at a time (for this is truly revelatory and I desire to understand a topic of such terrific import through and through) so please, be patient and explain this incredible news please.

Let me suggest a good starting point being a source other then the site cited above, preferbly hardcopy of a sort and just to further a little; how about two or three more independents and then link them nicely together so as to present us with the identical conclusion which was so eloquently drawn above.

Karl

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MacX
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#10

Post by MacX » 19 Apr 2007, 19:04

For the general German people you can say, most were christian, protestant in the northern and catholic in the southern part. There may have been a certain percentage of atheists or "non-believing" christians, just like today with the exception that today there are less christians in East-Germany because of communism.

For the Nazis, I would say they were non-christians but didn't believe in norse gods or something. But they prefered the pagan religion to Christianity, since it originated in Judaism.

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Runes and some other links

#11

Post by Ingvar » 22 Apr 2007, 23:11

Hello All,

There are pictures of the "peace sign" runes used on graves in this collection of photos. Beware though, there are a lot to go through: http://community.webshots.com/user/summitphotographics Sorry, but I don't know where they are in the collection.

But perusing them is well worth it if you have the time. I really appreciate the work that collector did to get his stuff on the net. Included in that collection is a picture of a Roman Catholic mass being celebrated at an altar surrounded by mortars, machineguns, submachineguns and rifles. It is a little mind boggling, at least to me, also an RC.

Here is a late war Nazi Christmas pamphlet: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/weihnacht44.htm

They seem to have removed as much Christianity from Christmas as they could.

I have heard the argument that German Christians would have supported Hitler because he was anti-communist. I don't know what to make of this argument given that they were allies at the beginning of the war.

Among the Christians who opposed Hitler were Dietrich Bonhoeffer (executed late in the war), perhaps the best known, and an Austrian man named Franz Jagerstatter who refused to serve in the Nazi military in any capacity. He also was executed. He was a Catholic and faced opposition from his bishop and parish priest in his stand. There are similar stories about Jehovah's Witnesses, though the ones I know about survived the war. All the best.


Ingvar

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#12

Post by Pendragon » 01 May 2007, 17:01

The two main christian religions were still very strong (just like nearly everywhere in the world back in that time?).
My father in law didnt liked the Hitlerjugend very much because they always had to meet sunday at 10 o'clock in a neighboring village and because of that the priest of his home village had no altar boys.

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#13

Post by David Thompson » 01 May 2007, 18:11

For readers who have more than a passing interest in the interaction of Nazism and Christianity, see:

IMT Indictment: Nazi Suppression of Christian Churches
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=91789
IMT: Documents on Suppression of the Christian Churches
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=92566
Bormann Decree on the NSDAP and the German Churches
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=60800

openmind
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#14

Post by openmind » 12 May 2007, 00:10

If you run into an old friend on the street, any evidence you may have seen as to his death, no matter how compelling or well documented, can be probably be considered inconclusive. That's pretty much the reason most of us believe in the concept of Habeas Corpus. Contemporary human rights groups complain of the state subsidy to churches and collection of religious taxes by the state in Germany; this practice was solidified by the Third Reich (through the Concordat of 1933 with the Vatican and other similar agreements with the Protestant churches) and continues to this day. This was an amazingly odd opening gambit if the eventual objective was to oppress the same religious organisations and their integrants on religious grounds.

Doubtless, anything that even remotely smacked of 'political' intervention by churches or their officials was dealt with employing the usual heartless zeal; while at the same time the State, faced with a wartime economy, was still subsidising the parent organisations. This kind of double-dealing (smile to your face whilst stabbing you in the back) is the sort of thing that leads to the theory that Germany might well have been a 'Führer-state' without a Führer.

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Eddy Marz
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#15

Post by Eddy Marz » 23 May 2007, 14:05

Here's an 'invocation' that children from Köln were instructed to recite at the NSV children's lunch program (source : J. Neuhäusler "Kreuz und Hackenkreutz : Der kampf des Nationalsozialismus gegen die katolische kirche und der kirliche Widerstand" - Munich Verlag Katholische Kirche Bayerns, 1946) :

"Führer, my Führer, bequeathed to me by the Lord,
Protect and preserve me as long as I live !
Thou has rescued germany from deepest distress,
I thank thee today for my daily bread.
Abideth tou long with me, forsaketh me not,
Führer, my Führer, my faith and my light !
Heil, mein Führer ! "

'I thank thee today for my daily bread' indeed ! There seems to be no ambiguity at all here.

Also, in a 1942 conference, entitled "National Socialism and Christian Concepts are Incompatible", Martin Bormann states :

"Any influence that would impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by the Führer with the aid of the NSDAP has to be eliminated. To an ever increasing degree the people must be wrested from Churches and their agents, the pastors."

As further insight into nazi mystique, this rarely mentionned declaration by Reinhard Heydrich (1939-1940 ?) either at Ordensburg Vogelsang or Crössinsee :

" We have therefore emancipated those fine minds from common reality as perceived through the five senses and claim the existence of a more real reality that hides behind sensitive things. It demands that we develop a sixth sense so as to become aware of it".

Wow...

Regards
Eddy Marz

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