Belief in Jesus, Religion, and the Nazis

I have often wondered where the Germans who called themselves "Christians" were as Hitler was killing Jews. What happened? Why didn't they try to stop Hitler and the Nazis?

In a country where the first book every printed was printed, and it was the Bible!!

I have spent some time lately researching this issue. Here is what I have found. This is scary. It seems a short stones throw away from life today.

To my surprise the Nazis were cleaning up the world in ways I had never heard before. The Nazi political agenda was very close to church righteousness positions (both protestant and Catholic) on many subjects. These familiarities allowed a partnership to evolve.

Please be patient as I move back and forth to explain.

First, Hitler is/was a Catholic! However, as a young man he stopped going to confession. In Germany, if you were a church going person you became a member of the church you attended. As a member, your name was on a register and you paid a "church tax". Hitler continued to pay his "church tax", he never took his name off the church register. Interestingly, Hitler was also a supporter of the protestant church. He believed that the protestant church should have a chain of command like the Catholic church. The protestant church was not organized enough to have one voice speak for all protestants. The Catholic church had an Archbishop, or some official who would speak for the Catholic church. Hitler liked that. Hitler told a close comrade "I will always be Catholic" (this was discovered in a friends diary after the war). And finally, Hitler, to this day has never been excommunicated from the Catholic church.

How were the Nazi party and church beliefs similar?

The church was against prostitution, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, and other stuff. So was Nazism! Passionately! The Nazis wanted to clean this stuff up. It was a blight on there beloved Homeland. Sounds familiar today.

The Nazis did not invent anti-Semites (prejudice against the Jews). Since before Martin Luther (a German priest who began the Protestant Reformation in 1517) there was a strong resistance to the Jewesses of Jesus and that the Jewish race was as much a problem to the world as pornography and abortion and other evils. Think about this, the Jews have been kicked all around the world for more than a thousand years. This is history we all should know. It was only after WW II that Israel became a state/country again.

In the late 1920's there was some resistance to the Nazi party from a few clergy. But by the early 1930's the clergy supported the Nazi party. The few left that resisted the "party" were disappeared. By the mid 1930's to the early 1940's there was no resistance from the church. In fact, the church supported the Nazis.

But wait - who is the church? Only the pastors and priests? No. The people are the church. Unfortunately the people also went along with Nazis. Why? How could they do that? Because the Nazis were going to bring righteousness to Germany. Remember Jews had already looked down upon for being a Jew for hundreds of years. Although it seemed wrong, it was acceptably to over looked that Jews were being rounded up and put into camps because they were low on the totem pole.

Amazingly the one thing Hitler and Germany hated more than the Jews, was Communism! If you every wondered why Hitler created a two front war when he attacked Russia, now you know. Wait! I thought Hitler was a communist! No. Hitler hated communism more than he hated Jews. No way! Yes. And next on Hitler's list was Socialism. He hated that too! Communism and Socialism were the real Nazi enemy. Jews and abortionists and homosexuals, they were the "lite" work. Getting rid of these people would create a superior race. You know, get the bad genes out by killing anyone who had them. Made sense to the Nazis. Also, eliminating communism and socialism as a form of government would make way for a righteous government to rule the righteous people leftover.

As Nazism spread, by invading other countries, the Jews and such were put into camps. Even for non-Jews it was very much like the "Spanish Inquisition", become a Nazi or die. Europe became concerned with "Nazi Expansionism" and started to fight back. Hence World War II.

Hitler and the Nazis were trying to make a perfect world according to the way they viewed the world. No Jews, no prostitutes, no abortion, all Nazis - you get the picture.

An interesting fact is that the Nazis believed that the church and state should be one. This made perfect sense. Instead of just talking about righteousness in church, the state could force you by law to be righteous, or put you in prison if you resist. It would be very difficult for a Jew to become unJewish so I guess they were doomed.

Remember the "church tax"? The church registered the names of its members and kept records of name changes. These same so called "Christian" churches gave lists of names to the Nazis so they could roundup the Jews. Ugly but true.

I find it hard to understand how the same people who claim to believe in the same Jesus I do could do this. Jesus said, the greatest commandment is to love God and love your neighbor. So how could a believer in Christ do this?

Here is my thought. Religion (not unlike the law) is a bunch of rules which forces people to act in a certain way in order to belong. To me this resembles a political party. Actually from where I am sitting now the only difference I see is the agenda. Both are just as passionate about their belief systems and some will stop at nothing to force their beliefs on others.

Jesus said, all the law and the prophets (the Bible) are summed up in this , "love God and love your neighbor". I think love is from the heart, it cannot forced by law.

The lesson I learned from all this is how easy it is to buy into something that sounds like what I believe. The easiest way to be deceived is to forget love. When we forget to love we lose our tolerance. Intolerance leads to division, division leads to separation, separation leads to conflict, and conflict results in death.

So where were the so called "christians" "church goers" in Germany as the Nazi party came to power? They were joining, eager to rid the world of all they saw as evil. And Nazism (not love) was the perfect tool to get the job done.

Footnote: The word "Christian" comes from the Bible, in the Book of Acts, where in the city of Antioch the followers of Jesus were called "Christians" because they were acting like Him. They did not call themselves Christian. That would be pretty pompous. They called themselves "believers". But this is a whole nother blog.