Political religion

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The term political religion is an interdisciplinary explanatory concept that is intended to explain in particular the functioning, the emergence and the appearance of totalitarian systems of rule .

origin

The term "political religion", like that of totalitarianism , was coined in the 1930s. The new, totalitarian regimes in Europe could not be adequately described using traditional terms such as “ dictatorship ” or “ tyranny ”. Thus new concepts were developed to explain the functioning of these systems of rule; one of them was that of political religion.

The term became known through Eric Voegelin's 1938 treatise The Political Religions . Christian theologians such as Paul Tillich and Paul Schütz also used this concept. After the Second World War , the term only rarely appeared in scientific discussions until it was taken up again - first by Klaus Vondung (1971), then by Emilio Gentile and Hans Maier in the early 1990s. In the meantime, the concept is present as a model for the analysis of totalitarian systems in particular in the theoretical discussion, but its reception compared to the concepts of totalitarianism and fascism theory is still limited.

Other authors who have described the totalitarianisms of the 20th century as political religions include Raymond Aron , Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch , Michael Burleigh , Michael Ley and Klaus Vondung.

Premises

A prerequisite for speaking of political religion is a broad, functionalist concept of religion : “In order to adequately encompass political religions, we must therefore expand the concept of the religious to include not only the religions of salvation but also those other phenomena that we believe to be recognized as religious in the development of the state; and we have to examine the concept of the state to see whether it really does not concern anything other than worldly-human organizational relationships without any relation to the realm of religion. ”In addition, ideological motifs that show parallels to Christianity , as well as the way of representation of totalitarian regimes, became the starting point for the Use of the term.

Differentiation from the concept of civil religion and theocracy

The term must be distinguished from the terms “ secular religion” and “ civil religion ”, even if the concepts have some similarities. The political religion thesis relates in particular to totalitarian regimes and movements such as National Socialism and Stalinism . On the other hand, civil religion means a form of sacralization (ie additional support for the community that appears religiously, cf. Jean-Jacques Rousseau civil religion) of politics and its symbols in democracies , such as can be observed in the United States . Authors who identify civil religions in Europe too, e. B. Hermann Lübbe , reject the designation political religion mostly because the two terms would often be thrown into each other without differentiation. Lübbe, for example, advocates speaking not of “political religions” but of “ anti- religions” , since totalitarian regimes have always explicitly rejected religions.

The approach of political religion should not be confused with the theocracy . In theocracy, the political leadership invokes divine legitimation. Researchers, who start from the assumption of political religions, only want to explain the functioning of extreme systems of oppression by crystallizing elements similar to religion.

Broad concept of political religion

The basic thesis of the draft of political religion is that totalitarian systems have structural similarities with religion in terms of their function or appearance and that the following of the masses in such systems can at least partially be explained with the help of religious categories and terms.

Representatives of this position cite the following arguments in particular to support their statements:

Stalinism, Maoism, Fascism and National Socialism as products of secularization processes

Since the old cohesion has been lost through religion, new cohesion is established in totalitarian systems through “mass ideologies of class or race , economy or blood ”. Viewed from this perspective, which is shaped by religious anthropology or psychology, religion, which is increasingly being pushed out of the public eye , is returning to society as a state ideology through the back door in view of the unsatisfied religious need of people .

The utopian element

Another connection in the way totalitarianism and religion work is seen in the fact that totalitarianism is dependent on fiction . As an example, the fiction of the “ Jewish world conspiracy ” against the German people propagated by the National Socialists is cited.

The role of rituals and celebrations

Furthermore, both of totalitarianism, and the religion is noted cultic rituals and festivals built. The political liturgy in the form of military parades, the staging of the Nuremberg party congresses of the NSDAP , or the youth consecration in the GDR would have brought about a sacralization of politics.

Totalitarian movements as esoteric movements

Hannah Arendt saw decidedly esoteric movements in totalitarian systems . For example, she saw the ancestral passport as a means of constructing a circle of those "included" in the community (here: in the community of the Aryan race ), which is different from the "excluded".

Totalitarianism as “conqueror” of secularization

According to another justification, totalitarianism is religious because it seeks to abolish the separation of church and state , and thus a sacralization of political life, as it is known from antiquity ( Raymond Aron ).

Totalitarianism as “heir” of Christianity

In contrast to the religious- psychologically and anthropologically- oriented representatives of the approach, who see the willingness to follow political religion primarily an attempt to compensate religiously needy people - the homo religiosus - for the "disenchantment of the world" ( Max Weber ) in the course of secularization , various scholars have emphasized the transmission of Christian motifs in totalitarian ideologies and thus justified the use of the concept in terms of religious history . As in Christianity, “in the modern regimes of violence, there existed“ pure doctrines ”,“ holy books ”, heretics and heretic courts, punishable concern for“ faith ”and“ custom ”, heresy and inquisition , dissidents and renegades , apostates and proselytes ."

With a view to National Socialism, Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch also emphasized the importance of Christian " apocalyptic , satanology and anti-Judaism in the New Testament" for Nazi ideology.

The promise of salvation and redemption

Instead of belief in a transcendent redemption kicking "myth of redemption" (Hans Maier) in this world. The fixed point is no longer the relationship to an extra-worldly God, but redemption is in parts of the world z. B. the social class or the " race " sought. The promise of salvation and redemption proclaimed by the political religions therefore has as a direct consequence in the exercise of power absolute power and its absolute justification through an incontestable and thus quasi-religious ideology (cf., for example, Alfred Rosenberg's myth of the 20th century as a political religion).

The leader as the Messiah

It is argued that the extreme cult of the leader takes the place of the supernatural savior, the Messiah, in extreme situations (especially wars) . So was Adolf Hitler both as a prophet as was also seen as a quasi-supernatural savior of the German people. The decisive factor here is not the actual qualification of the respective “leader”, but rather the belief of the “led” in supposedly supernatural abilities or the “fateful” mission of the “leader”. In many German households, images of Jesus have been replaced by images of Hitler. Under the Vichy regime , the Our Father was changed to the Führer Philippe Pétain . After the unexpected and complete defeat in the Blitzkrieg, France found itself in such a desperate situation that it longed for a deliverer from the hardship. This longing was finally projected onto Pétain.

Limits and criticism of the concept

The research approach "Political Religion" is limited primarily to mental and psychological aspects of the implementation of the leadership principle and personality cult . According to Hans Maier, a combination with the more formally aimed totalitarian theory of rule makes sense. Critics of the concept, on the other hand, criticize the empirical basis of the conceptual research and the terminology of the concept. Numerous studies, in particular on the political religion of National Socialism, were not based on studies of the history of mentality, but on the interpretation of writings by individual leadership figures, which is why conclusions about motivation and willingness to follow the population could not be substantiated in this way. In addition, with the classic ideology term and the term Charismatic Rule, coined by Max Weber and used by historians such as Ian Kershaw and Hans-Ulrich Wehler , an analytical vocabulary already exists, at least for the history of National Socialist rule, which grasps historical reality more precisely.

literature

  • Gerhard Besier , Hermann Lübbe (Ed.): Political religion and religious policy. Between totalitarianism and civil liberty (= writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research . Vol. 28). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36904-2 .
  • Eric Voegelin : The political religions. 1938, new edition 1993
  • Klaus Vondung : Magic and Manipulation. Ideological cult and political religion of National Socialism. Göttingen 1971
  • Emilio Gentile : Il culto del littorio. La sacralizzazione della politica nell 'Italia fascista. Rome / Bari 1993
  • Hans Maier (Ed.): Totalitarianism and Political Religions . Paderborn, Munich et al. 1996 (Volume 1)
  • Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch : The political religion of National Socialism. Munich 1997
  • Michael Ley : National Socialism as a Political Religion. Bodenheim 1997, ISBN 978-3-8257-0032-4
    • dsb. with Gilbert Weiss: Voegelin in Vienna. Early writings 1920–1938 , Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85165-751-7
  • Richard Faber (Ed.): Political Religion - Religious Politics. Wuerzburg 1997
  • Hans Maier Hg .: Paths to violence. The modern political religions. Frankfurt 2000
    • dsb. with Michael Schäfer Ed .: Totalitarianism and Political Religions Paderborn 1997 (Volume 2)
  • Markus Huttner: Totalitarianism and Secular Religions. On the early history of totalitarian concept and theory formation in Great Britain. Bonn 1999
  • Emilio Gentile : Le religioni della politica. Fra democrazie e totalitarismi. Rome 2001
  • Robert Chr. Van Ooyen: Theory of totalitarianism against Kelsen and Schmitt: Eric Voegelin's “political religions” as a critique of legal positivism and political theology; in: Zeitschrift für Politik, 1/2002, pp. 56–82.
  • Michael Ley: Apocalypse and Modernity. Essays on Political Religions. Vienna 1997.
  • Michael Ley: A Little History of Anti-Semitism . Munich 2003.
  • Hans Maier (Ed.): Totalitarianism and Political Religions. Paderborn, Munich et al. 2003 (Volume 3)
  • Klaus Hildebrand (Ed.): Between Politics and Religion. Studies on the origin, existence and effects of totalitarianism. 2003
  • Hans Otto Seitschek: Political Messianism. Criticism of totalitarianism and philosophical historiography following Jacob Leib Talmon. Paderborn, Munich et al. 2005
  • Jürgen Schreiber: Political Religion. Historical perspectives and criticism of an interdisciplinary concept for researching National Socialism . Marburg 2009.
  • Michael Burleigh : Earthly Powers, Divine Salvation. The history of the struggle between politics and religion from the French Revolution to the present day. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3-421-04229-3
  • Franz Wegener, series: On the political religion of National Socialism. 7 Bde. Kulturförderverein Ruhrgebiet KFVR, Gladbeck, 2003–2010
  1. The Atlantid worldview and the integral tradition. National Socialism and the New Right in search of the (sic!) Sunken Atlantis
  2. Alfred Schuler , the last German Cathar . Gnosis , National Socialism and the mystical blood light
  3. Celts , witches , holocaust. Human sacrifice in Germany
  4. Heinrich Himmler . German Spiritism , French Occultism and the Reichsführer SS
  5. HA Weishaar and the secret society of the Guots. Ariosophy and Kabbalah
  6. The alchemist Franz Tausend . Alchemy and National Socialism
  7. New Vineta. The racial settlement plans of the Ariosophers for the Darß and Zingst peninsulas . Contents, literature also available as e-book. Overview of all 7 volumes of the series and the links to them
  • Rainer Hering : Paul Schütz : The political religion. An investigation into the origin of decay in history , 1935, Hamburger Historische Forschungen 4, edited and introduced by Rainer Hering, Hamburg 2009
  • Klaus Vondung: German ways to redemption. Forms of the Religious in National Socialism. Munich 2013

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rainer Hering: Paul Schütz: The political religion. An investigation into the origin of decay in history , 1935, Hamburger Historische Forschungen 4, edited and introduced by Rainer Hering, Hamburg 2009.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Schreiber: Political Religion. Historical perspectives and criticism of an interdisciplinary concept for researching National Socialism , Marburg 2009, p. 12 ff.
  3. ↑ Eric Voegelin: Political Religions , ed. by Peter J. Optiz, Munich 1993, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Hans Maier: Political Religions, The Totalitarian Regime and Christianity , Freiburg i. B., p. 29.
  5. ↑ Hans Maier: Political Religions, The Totalitarian Regime and Christianity , Freiburg i. B., p. 7.
  6. ↑ Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch: The political religion of National Socialism, the religious dimensions of the Nazi ideology in the writings of Dietrich Eckart , Joseph Goebbels , Alfred Rosenberg and Adolf Hitler .
  7. ↑ Jürgen Schreiber: Political Religion. Historical perspectives and criticism of an interdisciplinary concept for researching National Socialism , Marburg 2009, pp. 73 ff.
  8. ↑ (Longer) contents of all volumes, personal registers and detailed literature on each volume see the link in Volume 7, at the bottom of the page by forwarding to the individual volumes
  9. ↑ according to Duden however: the Atlantis. - First year 2000; 3. strong adult Edition 2014 ISBN 1493668668 Text can be viewed in online bookshops.
  10. ↑ that is Kurt Pählke