This official description of the Bible is a gentle one. At mass meetings other opinions appear: Gau-Obermann Krause described the Old Testament in the Sport Palace in Berlin as a “book for cattle-drivers and procurers”; and he was never reprimanded.
Officially, the Nazis demand the recognition of Jesus. But they convert him into a hero without fear, a Siegfried of Nordic stamp who waged war on the Jews until he was killed by them. Side by side with the gentler words intended for export, there are any number of Krause-like comments. The Fountain, in the Jan. 2, 1934, issue, declares: “How high Horst Wessel towers over that Jesus of Nazareth! That Jesus who pleaded that the bitter cup be taken from him! How unattainably high all Horst Wessels stand above this Jesus!”
It must be repeated that nothing can be said in Germany without official sanction. Thus, the words of journalists are, in their way, as “official” as government statements. Journalists write what Ministers think; but the Ministers are careful.
In the schools, too, the Ministers have helpers, with “Lines of Direction” and “Plans for Education,” which enlighten the populace as the Ministers desire. One group of Hanover teachers published a three-part curriculum for religious instruction.
1. God and Nature: Christian tradition and its explanation. The mechanical-materialistic concept of the world and its end-products, namely, Liberalism and Marxism [in France, Germany, Russia]. The modern scientific concept of the world and its religious meaning. Biology and Christianity. 2. Religion and Race: a. Hebraism and Christianity. b. Roman Christianity from the Council of Trent to the present time. c. Islam, Buddhism. d. The German Faith Movement. 3. Christianity and the Germanic Weltanschauung: Germanic faith in God and the Christian mission. The Savior. The ideals of monks and knights in the Middle Ages. Parsifal, Ekkehard. Luther [here the addition of suitable letters from Paul]. Arndt [a militarist playwright] and Schleiermacher [a philosopher whose place here is arbitrary] with retrospective accounts of Pietism and Idealism. Statesmen and soldiers: Bismarck, Hindenburg, W. Flex. Christianity and National Socialism. Struggles for a National Church in past history and in the present.
It would be superfluous to remark that the whole curriculum is an insult to the Christian religion, “Biology and Christianity” — it is difficult to find two other such remote concepts, anywhere. And “Hindenburg and Walter Flex” — a general and a writer on military subjects, in the religion course! Yet these gentlemen find room in their curriculum for “race,” “the ideal of knighthood,” “Arndt” — whatever pleases the Nazi leaders is taught. German children learn that Hitler is pious and reverent; this is one of the things they must believe — it cannot be proved. After the blood bath of June 30, 1934, they were informed that the Führer had piously and reverently retired to the solitude of his little house in Berchtesgaden, near Munich. He was visited there by a little old woman, who asked him how he hoped to accomplish his mission, and how he had come to arrange the blood bath. “Silently the Führer pulled a volume from his pocket… it was the New Testament.”
There is a “Twenty Questions” game in Religion, as there is in Geo-politics, and with the same purpose.
“Who, children, is it in these days who most reminds us of Jesus — through his love of humble people and his readiness for self-sacrifice?”
And the answer is: “The Führer.”
“Who most reminds us of the disciples, because of their loyal attachment to the Führer?”