Page 161 - Fascism: The Bloody Ideology Of Darwinsim

Fascism's Hatred Of Religion 161

death by the Nazis because of this subversive attitude.
Between 1933 and 1939, a large number of Catholic priests were
arrested. Erich Klausener, the leader of German Catholic Action, was killed in
the purge of 1934. Catholic publications were banned. The Nazis also attacked
a number of Protestant churches.
However, those among the clergy who abetted the Nazi ideology were
rewarded. One of these was Dr. Hans Kerrl, Hitler's Minister for Church
Affairs. In an address he gave to church leaders on February 13, 1937, Dr. Kerrl
openly declared Christianity a tool of Nazi ideology, "The party stands on the
basis of Positive Christianity, and Positive Christianity is National Socialism...
National Socialism is the doing of God's will." 111
At the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938, Protestant clergymen,
submitting to Nazi terrorism, took an oath of loyalty to Hitler, and thus sealed
the surrender of the religious establishment. Hitler thereby enforced his
domination over all spheres of life. Even the church was in his hands. But his
real goal was to do away with all divine religions, and take Germany fully into
paganism. In a secret decree dated June 1941, Nazis' aim of destroying religion
was described in this way:

More and more the people must be separated from the churches and
their organs, the pastors... Never again must an influence on leadership
of the people be yielded to the churches. This influence must be broken
completely and finally. Only the Reich government, and by its direction
the Party, its components, and attached units, have a right to leadership
of the people. 112

The True Meaning of the Nazis' Anti-Semitism
In order to understand the Nazis' religious ideas and policies, we must
examine their fanatical hostility to the Jews and Judaism.
The Nazis' anti-Semitism was a part of their hatred of religion. Because,
according to Nazi logic, the Germans had first been a warrior-pagan society, until
they had abandoned that culture with the spread of Christianity, a continuation
of Judaism. The Nazis' hatred of Christianity stemmed from the fact they saw it
as a "Jewish conspiracy." That the Prophet Jesus, himself of Jewish origins, should
be loved and respected by the Germans, whom they considered the "master race,"
was an idea the Nazis found unacceptable. In the Nazis' opinion, it was not
prophets of Jewish origin who should light the way for the German people, but
the cruel and barbaric warriors of pagan German culture.