The German Christian Rally at Berlin’s Sportspalast, 28 February 1934: Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller, Dr. Christian Kinder Respond to the Kirchenkampf

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Hitler and Christianity: Some Trends in Interpretation

Ryan Buesnel

From: Ryan Buesnel, The German Christian Rally at Berlin’s Sportspalast, 28 February 1934: Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller, Dr. Christian Kinder Respond to the Kirchenkampf, Journal of Church and State, , csaa103, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csaa103

On February 28, 1934, about twenty thousand members of the various German Christian movements and their supporters gathered at Berlin’s Sportpalast to hear speeches given by theologians and clergy who supported Hitler and the Nazi movement. The purpose of the gathering was threefold. Firstly, the meeting functioned as a propagandistic exercise in virtue-signaling. As a movement that went to considerable lengths to publicly demonstrate its endorsement of the Third Reich, German Christian gatherings such as this one were marked by their outward displays of Nazi ideology, ritual, and imagery. Secondly, this rally served an educational purpose. In the speeches given by movement leaders, German Christian pastors and laypeople had their support of the Nazis legitimized on theological…

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Hitler and Christianity: Some Trends in Interpretation

 

Ryan Buesnel

A question was recently put to me by a reader who was curious to hear my thoughts on whether Hitler should be considered a “Christian” or an “atheist.” What had spurred this on was this reader’s consideration of the somewhat ambiguous topic of “Positive Christianity” — the allegedly Aryanized form of Christian doctrine that was to have served as National Socialism’s official form of religion.

Issues surrounding Hitler’s views on the person of Jesus Christ and the institution of the church are frequently obscured by prior ideological or religious commitments. On the one hand are those who have sought to restore the integrity of Christianity in light of accusations that it played an important historic role in the justification for anti-Semitism. This process of reconstruction required identifying occasions where Nazi ideology was opposed to the normative framework of Christian ethics. The suggestion was that the outcomes of Nazi policy were…

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