Nazism was not a religious movement. Islam is.

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jan 27, 2006 at 09:26

Dear Gerhard , you wrote :

> In his article of 25 January, Ali Safari observes that the current "Oriental totalitarianism" of Iran has distinct differences to "Occidental totalitarianism such as Nazism" mainly "in its strong religious overtone", implying that Nazism was not a religious movement.

The psychologist C J Jung, having evaluated Hitler during the 1930s, diagnosed him thus: "He belongs in the category of authentic wizards. His body does not suggest strength. He has in his eyes the expression of a prphet. His power is not absolutely political, it is magical. Hitler listens and obeys. The true leader is always one who is well led. The idea is confirmed by the word "Madhi", the Islamic Messiah, which translates to 'He who is well led'.

> From Hitler's private table talks, particularly those recorded verbatim by Heinrich Heims, and from SS publications in the 1930s, it is clear that the underlying basis and aim of Nazism was religious. Professor Heinar Schilling, who wrote for the SS journal "Das Schwarze Korps", explained in his book "Germanisches Leben" (Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1936) that the swastika, a sun symbol, and the symbol of Nazism, was to herald a revival of the sun cult practised by the Aryan forebears in the Early Bronze Age. The Sonnenwendfeir ceremonies held at the solstices, in which thousands turned out to celebrate with huge bonfires and to worship at a pagan altar, both home and abroad, indicate the fervour with which these Nordic beliefs were held.

> Hitler stated his objections to Christianity as being that "Jesus Christ was not divine, but simply a revolutionary, and all the promises he made in the New Testament are invalid." Christianity was simply a Jewish hoax for a political purpose. The truth of existence is Reincarnation, he asserted, and "Whoever does not see God in a tree or in all Nature, but only in a tabernacle, cannot know Him, that person cannot be truly pious." This is pure pantheism - God is IN everything, or perhaps God IS everything.

> A clue to the motivation behind Hitler's National Socialism and the present political activists of "the Orient" is that their totalitarian objectives are primarily religious in nature, and both share a common enemy upon whose ultimate destruction both are intent. In 1934, when Rudolf Hess made a radio broadcast swearing in the entire Nazi Party to Hitler in a mass spectacle, he proclaimed: "By this oath we again bind our lives to a man through whom - this is our belief - Superior Forces act in fulfillment of Destiny."

> This was no mere rhetoric, it was a statement of creed.

Privately, I have always found this obsessively recurrent analogy between nazism and Islam (summed up in the famous collocation 'Islamofascism"), athough understandable and excusable for cultural reasons, rather overstretched and inaccuarte.
Times and culture that gave birth to nazism and its nature were quite different from Islam. It was a product of the fatal failure of the Western civilization due to the suicidal war of 1914-1918. Islam was born not to save the defeated and humiliated Arabia.
Islam was born in a backward barbarian country. Nazism rose in one of the most developed industrial country.
Islam was a religious movement, nazism despite appearances wasn't.
Islam is shrouded in profound myths thanks to its cunningly destroying most negative sources about itself and general illiteracy of the times. Nazism is a well and objectively documented movement despite its efforts to do the same as Islam did to the negative sources. So myth-making has not deformed it as much as is the case with Islam which we can see in almost every posting by a Muslim that looks and reads more like a little Oriental fairy tale than a rational statement we are accustomed to in this rationalistic civilization.

What you write about Hitler as a nazi Mahdi, although it might sound probable, is hardly borne out by his acts. The above information pertains to what was done by his associates and not Hitler. True, he might be at times quite critical of Christianity , but it did not influence his actions as your statement might imply. Let me quote Albert Speer, a quite authoritative source in my opinion, to illustrate what I mean :

"When Hitler heard around 1937 that due to the initiative of the NSDAP and SS innumerable followers of his had left the Church, because the latter was stubbornly opposing his schemes, finding it opportune he ordered his most important assocaites, first of all Göring and Goebbels to join the Church again. He himslef would also stay on as a member of the Catholic Church although he had no inner attachment to it. And so he remained a Catholic until his suicide."(...)
"The Church is surely necessary for the nation. It is a strong and preserving element" - he (Hitler) could declare on another occasion in his closer circle." (...)
"Even in 1942 Hitler still underlined in one of his table talks in Obersaltzburg that he considered the Church to be absolutely necessary (unbedingt notwendig) in the life of the state." (...) On that occasion he violently denounced the struggle against the Church as a crime against the future of the nation , as it is impossible to replace the Church with a "Party idelology" (Dabei verurteilte er den Kampf gegen die Kirche als in scharfer Weise als ein Verbrechen gegen die Zukunft des Volkes, denn es sei unmoeglich , durch eine Parteiideologie" die Kirche zu ersetzen.] (...) "A new party religion would only entail a regress into some medieval mysticism . It is shown by the SS myth and "The myth of the 20th century which no one can read."
Albert Speer, Erinnerungen ,UllsteinVerlag, 1969, p.109

So let's blame Hitler for things that are Hitler's and Islam for things that are Islam's without mixing them up too much.

Jan

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