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The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945, by Richard Steigmann-Gall. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. xvi, 294 pp. $30.00 US (cloth).
It was once taken for granted that the Nazi regime was monolithic in structure and anti-capitalist, anti-modern, and anti-Christian in ideology. Historians have since revised many of these interpretations. Today, Nazism is more often characterized as a modern phenomenon, one friendly to capitalism, whose institutions were mired in polycratic in-fighting. Yet Nazism is still deemed to be something that, at its essence, was the very opposite of Christianity. Michael Burleigh's recent The Third Reich: A New History (2000), for example, re-asserts how much the Nazis "despised" Christianity. Richard Steigmann-Gall, in contrast, thoroughly questions what has become a truism. In The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945, he reaches some very different conclusions about the relationship between Nazism and Christianity. Many Nazi leaders were devout, believing Christians, he argues, and even those most hostile to the established Churches displayed an ambivalent, often appreciative attitude toward Christianity itself. The Nazis' vision of a "positive Christianity," intended to span Germany's deep confessional divides, was no mere political ploy to win elections: it was a real, internally logical religious system. Even in the face of their more vigorous attacks upon the Churches after 1937, the Nazis' position on Christianity was marked by ambiguity and contradiction. Nazism, SteigmannGall thus maintains, was never wholly anti-Christian, as most historians have always alleged.
The Holy Reich's story is compellingly told. The author's extensive archival research and thorough readings of contemporary literature reveal a determined and commendable attempt to grapple with this intriguing topic. The first three chapters focus on the Nazi "text" about Christianity, while the final four concentrate on Nazi "action" toward it.
Chapter one addresses what several leading Nazis, including Hitler and Goebbels, had to say about Christianity generally before 1933, and about the concept of "positive Christianity" more specifically. To many Nazis, this version of Christianity, which embraced the idea of a non-Jewish Jesus and rejected the Old Testament, was a "central aspect of their movement" (p. 49). By focusing on their private discourse alongside their public statements, Steigmann-Gall shows how deeply felt were the religious beliefs of several Nazi leaders. However, while the positive Christians claimed to profess a kind of "supra confessionalism," they clearly preferred Protestantism over Catholicism. Chapter two outlines the generally amiable relations between Nazism and Protestantism. Chapter three turns to the "real" anti-Christians of the Nazi movement, the so-called Paganists. Here Steigmann-Gall is at his most convincing. Many leading Paganists, including Alfred Rosenberg, did not reject the figure of Christ completely. Moreover, while they may have denounced Christian doctrine, their attitude toward the Protestant faith was rarely as consistently antagonistic. Chapters four and six, albeit with different emphases, both deal with the relationships between Nazi policy and Christian ethics.
Chapter five examines Nazi efforts to create a Protestant Reich Church. Here Steigmann-Gall critiques the still-dominant view that the attempted coordination of the state churches aimed not at strengthening Protestantism in the new Germany, but rather at neutralizing its power and influence. To the Nazi regime, he suggests, the "coordination of an institution was more often acknowledgment that something was worth coordinating" (p. 189). It is flashes of insight like this that make The Holy Reich such a compelling read. Chapter seven analyzes the growing anti-Christian sentiment and actions of the Nazi Party after 1937, which led, ultimately, to a "fundamental rupture in party-church relations" (p. 259). Yet Steigmann-Gall adheres to his thesis, noting the persistent disagreements about the place of Christians and Christianity in the movement even at this late stage.
In the long run, though, The Holy Reich leaves a number of questions unanswered. It offers numerous examples of what avowedly Christian Nazis said about the role of religion in the movement, but little about their day-to-day religious lives or involvement in church-related activities. Did these men take part in the varied excursions, outings, and other events organized by the churches? Were they active members in their charity campaigns? What about actual church attendance? In short, were these leading Nazis part of an everyday, Christian social milieu, in addition to professing their Christian faith? The reader is left uncertain.
More problematic than what was omitted, however, is Steigmann-GalFs central thesis. The Nazis, as he depicts in great detail, were anti-Catholic, anticlerical, and hostile to the established Church. They departed from previous Christian practices and conventional Christian theology, especially in wanting to get rid of the Old Testament and claiming that Jesus was not a Jew. Traditional Christian values like tolerance, compassion, and humility were anathema to the Nazi regime; instead, the regime preached a gospel based on violence and racial hatred. And yet, Steigmann-Gall claims again and again, these traits did not make the Nazi movement inherently anti-Christian. Here, The Holy Reich fails to convince. We cannot help but ask: if these characteristics do not an essentially antiChristian movement make, what else possibly would?
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