Too Early A Stage To Draw Conclusions?

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jan 29, 2006 at 07:03

Dear Gerhard,

>" The dictionary definition of "religion" includes:
"(a) a set of beliefs, values and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader" and
"(b) a cause, principle or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion."

These seem to be quite modern secular definitions. And where is e.g. "God" in the above definitions? How to distinguish between metaphysical religions and quite sober philosophies like Platonism which are also "beliefs, values and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader"?

> Whereas it may be, for all I know, that Islam is a religion par excellence, National Socialism is a religion under either category above. Simply because there are those vast political, social and religious differences between Nazism and Islam to which you have drawn attention, these do not invalidate the proposal that Nazism was a religion.

Again , in that case any social or political movement (Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Gaullism etc) must be defined as "religion".

> The spiritual influence in Hitler's life was not Nietzsche but Schopenhauer:
"Throughout the entire First World War I carried all five volumes of the works of Schopenhauer around with me in my gas-mask case." (Hitler's Table Talks, 19.5.44)

I once read memoirs of a German captive officer in Siberia during the First World War. What did they read there ? "Lebensweisheiten"! Hitler was not the only to do it if he did as from what is known in the hell of Flandern battles there was not much time to spare for reading.

> Kant and Nietzsche were to be honoured with Schopenhauer by the erection of statues to the three philosophers in the Inner Hall of the Great Library at Linz. Hitler was known to be so impressed by Schopenhauer that he committed vast texts of the work to memory. Schopenhauer's ideas were mainly Buddhist and of the Egyptian Hermetic tradition. Hitler's success is said to have been based on a profound knowledge of magical causes occasioned by his reading of Schopenhauer's account of the Hermetic tradition. Schopenhauer suggested a means by which the Universal Will can, in full consciousness of its nature, act through an individual, and this was probably confirmation for the belief that Higher Powers acted through Hitler in the fulfillment of Destiny.

But what is strange and striking ("befremdend") is that Schopenhauer's philosophy is so unlike that of Hitler's - pessimistic, contemplative, passive. Look at what sort of life the philosopher praised and lived himself. And Hitler should be the follower of "die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung"? I can hardly see any spiritual relation (Verwandschaft) between the two. Where is antisemitism in Schopenhauer? Where is Hitler's demagoguery, political engagement, his angry temper ? Where in Hitler can you see Schopenhauer's cosmopolitism, atheism, buddhistic renunciation of the world ?...

> I have to confess that the so-called "Christianity" of the Nazis looks rather similar to my own. Born and baptized a Christian, I believe in reincarnation, do not accept the divinity of Jesus as Son of God, and I accept the Virgin Mary as my personal Saviour on the basis of the mariological apparitions. You will not find many Churchmen to swear on a bible that a person holding such beliefs is a Christian, he is a Pagan.

What's so wrong about paganism (especially Hellenic)? I myself find the ideas of the so called "paganism" more undertsandable and realistic that those of Christianity with its oriental word-twisting and sophistry.
Besides , as we know , Germany was the land where enlightment ideas had deep roots and enlightment was to a large degree critical of Christianity, if not simply anti-Christian.

> Why did Goering and Goebbels leave the Church so that they had to be ordered to rejoin it? This act required a signed document of renunciation. Had they ceased to believe, or was it a political ploy?
Now, were such a thing possible, the Powers That Be might well order Goebbels, Goering and myself to rejoin the Church as full members, and perhaps we might even turn up on Sundays and chant the Apostles' Creed with the best of them, but that would still be no guarantee that any of us believed it.

Who cared about your beliefs as long as you performed the prescribed rituals? And what even if you didn't? Unlike in Islam no capital punishment was foreseen for unbelievers.

> Temples were not erected to Hitler because HE was the Temple. The raising of the arm in the Hitler salute and the use of the phrase "Heil Hitler" was the salute to the Divine Force acting through the person of Adolf Hitler.

Wasn't "der Deutsche Gruss" just a revival of the Roman greeting ? After all Hitler was an admirer of antiquity. And so he was quite impressed as Antonescu told him about the emperor Trajan and his descendents - the Romanians.
And it is known that he used to mock "medieval mysticism" and was always much more interested in the recent developments of science and technology as he knew that the way in the future led through rationalism and not a return to the middle ages' mentality. His was a contradictory character. Much depended on his mood, time and circumstances. But in no way did he share Muhammed's uncouth obscurantism.

I am not unaware that Germans are the most eager to make their past and especially nazism the worst the world has ever seen. I understand that perfectly well in view of the crimes that have been perpetrated under nazism. And still I feel they overdo or are simply wrong. There are much worse things in this world than nazism. Islam is one such thing. Saying that ' nazism was more of a religion than Islam" is - to put it in German - 'Verharmlosung des Islams' or making Islam look more innocent than it is. Nazism lasted and committed crimes for just 12 years. Islam has been committing crimes against humanity for 1400 years and is promising to do even more. The crimes of nazism are well known and few Germans would deny them. The crimes of Islam are praised as virtues and excellency by Muslims around the world. Read some of their postings here if you have doubts about that.
Nazism has completely disappeared together with its 'spiritual leader'. Islam has intensified and grown more aggressive after the disappearance of its spiritual leader and is now more threatening and sadistic(suicide bombers). In any case it is as warlike and virulent as ever.

With best wishes
Jan

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