Hitler’s Lutherans Have Been Born Again as Trump’s Evangelicals
By
David Gottfried
A few days ago, David French wrote that Trump’s Evangelicals were a lot less religious, and much more political, than Evangelicals were in the past. Many of them do not go to Church, are not conversant with the Bible (And Protestant theology historically held that the entirety of their faith must be based on the Bible) and are culturally and politically Evangelical. Presumably this means that they have a propensity to like guns, Nascar racing, country music and hectoring shock jocks of the Alex Jones variety. (Alex Jones, you may recall, held that the massacre of 6- and 7-year-olds at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, was a myth created by the anti-gun lobby and the “evil” parents of the slaughtered children.).
The Seeds of Fascism in the Rants of Martin Luther
Trump’s Evangelicals remind me of the development of the Lutheran Church. Most people in America are not very familiar with Martin Luther because this is, after all, a predominantly Protestant country and it tends to camouflage that which disturbs its composure. Although I readily agree that Luther’s critique of Roman Catholicism had some good points (The Catholic clergy’s excessive and arbitrary power, the stifling of individual thought, the sale of indulgences), his good points did not fuel support for his “theology” and did not spark the Protestant Reformation.
The masses liked Martin Luther for his chauvinism and bigotry. Among other things, Martin Luther criticized the Pope of his time for being A) Insufficiently anti-Jewish and for B) contending that the Native Americans of the new world were our brothers as they were also children of G-d. Martin Luther repeatedly cursed the Jews, and he contended that the Native Americans of the new world were an inferior race.
In Martin Luther, and in the Protestant Reformation, lie the origins of what I call “Modern European Racism.”
Also, the Roman Catholic Church is an international Church. By contrast, the various Protestant denominations of Europe are tied to specific nations. Just as the Lutheran Church is the German Church, the Anglican Church is the English Church. Because Protestantism is tied to various nations, it is accursed with nationalism. And extreme nationalism is chauvinism. And national chauvinism is only a few degrees away from the furnaces of fascism.
The nationalism, racism and anti Semetism of the Lutherans of the 16th Century persisted in the Lutherans of the 19th Century and the first part of the 20th Century. For example, when the modern German State was created by Bismarck in 1870, Protestant Prussia swallowed Catholic Bavaria. The Protestants promptly inaugurated what they called their “Kulturkampf,” or cultural War or Struggle, to strangle pacifism, pluralism and notions of brotherhood in Bavaria; many priests were put to death.
Of course, Prussian pugilism waxed with cataclysmic wrath as the 20th century unfolded its evils like Macbeth’s witch’s cauldron. One of the leading Lutheran theologians of Germany, one Gerhard Keitel, decreed, in 1933, that the solution to the Jewish Problem required the eradication of the Jews. (See “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”)
Also, some leading Lutherans, in their effort to rid their church of the Hebraic origins of Christianity, actually bled Lutheranism of Christianity. Some Lutherans argued that Mein Kampf should be coequal with the Bible in importance in the Church. Many Lutherans wanted to adorn their churches and altars with swastikas. Above all, they sought to de-emphasize and mute the moral concepts of Christianity. Good Lutherans were not the sort of people who read and studied the Sermon on the Mount. Good Lutherans were cultural Lutherans just as Trump’s evangelicals are cultural Christians and don’t give a damn about doing that which is morally upright. Hitler’s Lutherans stressed the importance of Christmas trees, Hams on Easter and other cute and quaint distractions from the stark and beautiful moral command to Love thy neighbor as thyself. A good Lutheran knew that many neighbors, such as Poles, Frenchman and Jews, belonged underground, in a mass grave.
Of course, some people think that the Nazi era was the product of one man, Adolf Hitler, and that everybody else in Germany was innocent. Consider a German general’s estimation of the value of non-German life:
“We Germans must number twice the population of our neighbors. Therefore, we shall be compelled to destroy one-third of the population of all adjacent territories. We can best achieve this through systematic malnutrition -- in the end far superior to machine guns – starvation works most effectively, especially among the young.”
General Von Rundstedt addressing the Berlin Military Academy in 1939 or 1940.
Source: “Seeds of Destiny,” a film produced by the United States Department of War in 1946 and the film at the commencement of this essay
American Fascism, with a big helping of “Hoppin’ Johns” and other Fried Southern Foods
Very simply, Germans worshipped the State instead of G-d. And today’s evangelicals seem to have much the same point of view. When foreigners cross the border, our irreligious evangelicals deem it good and proper to confiscate their children and put them in cages. Just as Lutherans in Hitler’s Germany preferred Mein Kampf to the Bible, evangelicals seem to prefer Fox News to the Bible. They may praise Jesus, but they are not interested in the mercy that Jesus and Mary advocated. Their lord is not Jesus. Their lord is Herr Trump.
The Nazi Delusion that Hitler and Trump were Chosen by G-d to Lead Us
Just as Nazis believed that Hitler could do no wrong and that one must accept his every command without the slightest scintilla of dissent, American evangelicals also are getting into the Nazi spirit of things: Trump has been circulating an advertisement with an updated version of the good news of the gospel: Trump was chosen by G-d to lead America.
This video, alleging that Trump was chosen by G-d, is a carbon copy of basic Nazi ideology. Study the opening scene of Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda movie, “The Triumph of the Will,” which lauded and lionized a Nazi Party Rally, in Nurenberg, in 1934:
In the opening scenes we see Hitler coming out of the clouds as his plane lands in Nurenberg. Hitler’s descent from the clouds is symbolic of Hitler’s alleged descent from Heaven to guide the German people.
Unfortunately for us, Riefenstahl’s film, and the aforementioned film saying that Trump was chosen by G-d to be our caretaker, presupposes that we are more primitive and perverse than the people of Hitler’s Germany. The Hitler propaganda film only suggests that Hitler was chosen by G-d; presumably Riefenstahl knew that an explicit assertion to that effect would have seemed laughable to the German people, who were, incidentally, among the most educated people on earth (The proportion of Germans, who had doctoral degrees in 1933, was greater than in any other nation on earth – of course, as history has proven, doctoral degrees and high IQs are no inoculation against moral rot.) In any event, the American people have, somehow, regressed so far back in time that they resemble gullible and superstitious peasants from 16th century Germany, or from Salem Massechusetts, and they are ready and happy to buy the notion that G-d chose Trump to be our leader – and they can’t wait to round up people they don’t like and burn them at the stake for witchcraft.
A Few Lose Ends About Jews, Catholics and Myself
I made a few favorable comments about Catholicism here. To my Jewish friends, I must say: Don’t Worry. I am not defecting to the Catholic Camp. Although I find some of Jesus’ talk inspiring and beautiful, Jesus is too much of a pacifist for me. I could never stand that line “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” I am the sort of Jewish socialist who admires the valiant fighter for the good and the right. Also, I can’t accept the notion that he was divine.
Some people might find fault with my assertion that the Lutherans tended to be buddies with the Nazis and that the Catholics may have had the foresight and moral acumen to realize that Nazism was hideous. After all, during World War Two, various Catholic States were solidly Nazi (Vichy France, Croatia, Austria – which was more antisemitic than Germany) or tended to support the Hitlerite “Weltanschauung,” or world view, including the Baltic States, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine (Especially Western Ukraine; eastern Ukrainians often belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church and its orientation was toward Russia)
I think the Catholics were poised to do great things but failed to do them because of Pope Pius and the Nazi Vatican Concordat of 1933.
In Germany, the German Catholic Party was a nucleus of resistance to Hitlerism. They really were a great bunch of brave and good men. However, the Pope made a deal with Hitler and instructed the German Catholic Party to dissolve. The Pope agreed that German Catholics would refrain from criticizing Germany’s domestic or foreign policies, its militarism and its persecution of the Jews. Instead, Catholics would only concern themselves with the inner workings of the Catholic church, and the German state wouldn’t interfere with any internal issues of the Catholic Church.