German faith movement

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The German Faith Movement was in the era of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945 a religious, of völkischem embossed thought movement which rejected Christianity and replace it with "Aryan-Nordic" Faith wanted.

Religious-ideological origin

The German-Believing Movement , founded in 1933, derived its religious considerations from popular Christianity . The ideological origin is based on the " piety of the species " and finds its beginnings in ariosophy . The term ariosophy, derived from " Aryans " and " wisdom ", is intended to mean "wisdom of the Aryans". For the German Faith Movement, this meant that a “species-specific piety” was tied to a certain people or race . "Aryan" was equated with "Germanic". As a gathering movement, it encompassed numerous neo-pagan and free-religious groups and sought a corporation status comparable to that of the churches. According to a publication from the early Nazi era, numerous (formerly communist) free thinkers also took part in the new grouping . Herman Wirth was one of those who tried to reinterpret Christianity in the folkish sense and who propagated a Nordic origin of the original monotheism .

history

On July 29 and 30, 1933, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer brought together the most important free-religious , free-Protestant, religious-ethnic and German-religious groups in Eisenach . The various religious groups responded to a joint appeal “to the men of a Germanic-German religious movement” by, among others, Hauer, Ernst Bergmann and Arthur Drews as well as well-known representatives of the ethnic camp such as Ludwig Fahrenkrog , Bernhard Kummer , Gustav Neckel , Herman Wirth , Theodor Fritsch , Ernst zu Reventlow , Wilhelm Schwaner and Georg Stammler had been signed.

At the Eisenach conference, the Working Group of the German Faith Movement (ADG) was founded, to which the most important German-believing groups came together: The Germanic religious community , the people of the north , the Nordic religious community , the Rig-Kreis , the eagles and falcons , the German-faith community , the Nordic religious working group and members of the Friends of the Coming Community . At the head of this working group were Hauer and a leadership council. The Federation of Free Religious Congregations should also integrate into the ADG. The official free religious representatives joined the ADG during the Eisenach meeting, but immediately canceled this entry after a council meeting. For example, the ADG circular no. 1 of August 1, 1933 after the Eisenach conference said: “The membership of the free religious has not yet been announced”. If the free religious are counted as members of the German Faith Movement, an estimated six seventh (between 60,000 and 90,000) came from the free religious and not from ethnic circles.

In addition to Hauer, the members of the Führer Council included the philosopher Ernst Bergmann (1881–1945), the racial ideologist Hans FK Günther , the writer Ernst zu Reventlow ( Rosenberg's office ), the religious scholar Hermann Mandel , the historian Herman Wirth as well as Ludwig Fahrenkrog and Lothar Stengel- von Rutkowski (Adler und Falken), the religious scholar Otto Huth for the working group for biocentric research , at times Johann von Leers and Matthes Ziegler (Amt Rosenberg) from the same group.

In May 1935, most of the previous groups disbanded in favor of a conversion into the unified German Faith Movement (DG). The leadership council was dissolved, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer was elected first chairman and Ernst zu Reventlow as deputy. The members were allowed to state “German-believing” as the official designation in the civil status documents. Within the DG, however, there were great tensions between the nationalist leagues (e.g. the Köngener Bund ) and more liberal leagues (e.g. the free religious). The subject of conflict has been a. the discussion of how strongly the DG should orientate itself on assumed Germanic religious models or on modernity and how directly the Christian churches should be challenged.

The German Faith Movement pursued the goal of being an official non-Christian denomination and being on an equal footing with the churches. Only those who were not members of another religious community were allowed to become members. As long as the relevant exit certificate was not available, there was only the possibility of sponsoring membership.

On April 26, 1935, the German Faith Movement held an event in the Berlin Sports Palace . According to Fritz Gericke , head of the Berlin State Community and co-organizer, it had 18,000 participants; one of the main speakers was Hauer. On the fringes of the rally there were violent arguments with groups of Christians present, during which the future pastor Siegbert Stehmann , among others , was injured.

After the event, the tensions between the leadership of the DG around Hauer and Gericke on the one hand and their National Socialist sections on the other increased. Hauer's confidante, Fritz Gericke, resigned in July 1935, Hauer in March 1936 and shortly afterwards from the DG. Reventlow also announced his resignation. According to Ulrich Nanko (1993), the change in leadership in the DG was the result of efforts by National Socialist members to "impose their will on the DG" by all means. An active group of National Socialists wanted to make the DG the extended arm of the SS in the fight against the Christian churches. Either Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich or subordinate bodies from the SS and SD were behind the demands for resignation against Hauer and Gericke. NS-affiliated critics accused Gericke and Hauer, among other things, of conducting the confrontation with the Christian churches in a "noble tone". However, a tougher form of confrontation against the “main enemy” in Rome is required. The DG had to be the NSDAP's “vanguard” on this issue . Gericke and Hauer would not have met this requirement.

After Hauer and Reventlow left the movement, it came completely under the control of the SS and, according to Nanko, entered a phase of National Socialism. A suitable new "leader" could not be found. Finally, in the summer of 1936, Walter von Lingelsheim, a former member of the NSDAP Reichstag, became the new “Führer” and the writer Wilhelm Schloz became his deputy.

At the same time Herbert Grabert and Hans Kurth founded a new, but short-lived German - believing movement . Hauer founded the Friends of Comradeship of Faith Faithful to Faith and abstained from political and anti-Christian expressions of opinion. In February 1937, Hauer continued the magazine Deutscher Glaube , adjusted to an Aryan worldview and gave up its previous anti-clerical orientation.

In February 1937, the lawyer Bernhard Wiedenhöft became the "leader" of the DG, which on May 6, 1938, under pressure from Nazi agencies that were bothered by the term movement , renamed itself to Kampfring Deutscher Glaube . In November 1938, Hauer turned down the tour that he had been offered again. In November 1938, the Reichsring of God-believing Germans split off from the combat ring.

As early as 1936, the PhD philosopher and theologian Hans Pfeil came to the conclusion that "the German faith starts from assumptions and builds on assumptions that it does not prove, that contradict themselves and that are objectively false".

The ideology of the German Faith Movement describes Stefan Breuer as para- and anti-Christian, this side of religious, non-theistic and heroic-ethical.

Magazines

The magazine Deutscher Glaube served as a newsletter for members and as a propaganda organ until 1944 , with the subtitle magazine for species-specific lifestyle, worldview and piety . The circulation at the end of 1936 was 4,000. From 1936 it appeared under the new subtitle Zeitschrift für arteigene Lebensgestaltung .

In addition to the German faith , the magazine Durchbruch - Kampfblatt für deutsche Faith, Rasse und Volkstum was founded in 1934 , but was discontinued in 1937. The breakthrough was intended for an audience that was used to simpler lines of thought, was always aggressive and polemical, and particularly clearly anti-clerical . The Reichswart magazine published by Ernst zu Reventlow since 1920 . Weekly for National Independence and German Socialism was subtitled National Socialist Weekly in 1935/36 . Organ of the German Faith Movement .

literature

  • Hermann Franke: What does the German Faith Movement want? (= Church in Time , Issue 1), published on June 1, 1934, published by the Episcopal Main Office, Düsseldorf.
  • Kurt Hutten : The German Faith Movement , in: Walter Künneth , Helmuth Schreiner (Ed.): The nation before God. On the message of the Church in the Third Reich (1933) , Berlin 3rd edition 1934, pp. 506–533.
  • Johannes Lorentzen : The Christian Confession and the German Faith Movement. A discussion with Count Reventlow and Professor Hauer , Breklum 1935; reprinted in: Karl Ludwig Kohlwage , Manfred Kamper, Jens-Hinrich Pörksen (eds.): “You will be my witnesses!” Voices for the preservation of a denominational church in urgent times. The Breklumer Hefte of the ev.-luth. Confessional community in Schleswig-Holstein from 1935 to 1941. Sources on the history of the church struggle in Schleswig-Holstein. Compiled and edited by Peter Godzik , Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-7868-5308-4 , pp. 19–40.
  • Hans Treplin: Neither Hauer nor the German Church. A popular word from Schleswig-Holstein about the struggle for the Christian faith , Breklum 1935; reprinted in: Kohlwage, Kamper, Pörksen (eds.): “You will be my witnesses!” ... , Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-7868-5308-4 , pp. 42-65.
  • Hans Pfeil: The basic tenets of the German faith. An evaluation and rejection , Paderborn 1936.
  • Hans Buchheim : The German Faith Movement , in: ders .: Faith Crisis in the Third Reich. Three chapters of National Socialist religious policy , Stuttgart: DVA 1953, pp. 157–202.
  • Karl Rennstich : The German Faith . Stuttgart 1992 Ev. Central Office for Weltanschauung Issues Information No. 121 (1992) (PDF; 97 kB).
  • Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement. A historical and sociological investigation . Religious studies series, Vol. 4. Diagonal, Marburg (Lahn) 1993, ISBN 3-927165-16-6 .
  • Karla Poewe, Irving Hexham : Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's New Religion and National Socialism . In: Journal of Contemporary Religion 20 (2005), pp. 195–215.
  • Schaul Baumann : The German Faith Movement and its founder Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1821–1962) . Religious studies series, Vol. 22. Diagonal, Marburg (Lahn) 2005, ISBN 3-927165-91-3 .
  • Horst Junginger : The German Faith Movement as the ideological center of the ethnic-religious movement. In: Uwe Puschner, Clemens Vollhals (ed.): The ethnic-religious movement in National Socialism: A history of relationships and conflicts. 47. (Writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-36996-8 . References to the German religious movement throughout the text. Excerpts online Google Books .

Web links

  • History workshop: The Confessing Church in Schleswig-Holstein and its impulses for the design of the church after 1945 , page publications of the ethnic-religious groups and answers from the Confessing Church (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The "Aryan" Jesus and "Species Own Religion" - New Study on a Spiritual German Special Path
  2. ^ A b Gunther Schendel : The Hermannsburg Missionary Institution and National Socialism: the path of a Lutheran milieu institution between the Weimar Republic and the post-war period. LIT Verlag, Münster 2008, p. 300 ff
  3. ↑ Walter Künneth, Helmuth Schreiner (ed.): The nation before God. On the message of the Church in the Third Reich. Berlin 1933.
  4. ^ A b Stefan Breuer : Die Völkischen in Germany . Darmstadt 2008, p. 259.
  5. ↑ Theological Real Encyclopedia, Study Edition, Part 1, p. 556.
  6. ^ Karl Barth , Eberhard Busch (ed.): Karl Barth: Briefe des Jahres 1933. Theologischer Verlag, Zurich 2004, p. 382.
  7. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 242.
  8. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 149.
  9. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 178 f.
  10. ↑ Baumann 2005, p. 95.
  11. ↑ Hans Buchheim: Faith Crisis in the Third Reich. Three chapters of National Socialist religious policy . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1953, p. 171.
  12. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 276.
  13. ↑ Nanko 1993, p. 286.
  14. ↑ Nanko 1993, p. 281.
  15. ↑ Nanko 1993, p. 279.
  16. ↑ Nanko 1993, p. 286.
  17. ^ German newspaper (Tartu). Vol. 12. No. 168 of July 27, 1936, p. 3 ( online at DIGAR - the digital archive of the Estonian National Library ).
  18. ↑ Schaul Baumann: The German Faith Movement and its founder Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1881–1962) . Marburg 2005, p. 76.
  19. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 257 f.
  20. ↑ Hans Pfeil: The basic teachings of the German faith - an evaluation and rejection , Paderborn 1936, p. 125f.
  21. ↑ Stefan Breuer: Orders of Inequality - the German right in the conflict of their ideas 1871-1945 . Darmstadt 2001, p. 300
  22. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, pp. 254, 271, 277, 347.
  23. ↑ Biogram Hans Treplin (online at geschichte-bk-sh.de)