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Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1989 4(3):311-322; doi:10.1093/hgs/4.3.311
© 1989 by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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Articles

‘Christian Confrontations with the Holocaust’

GERMAN CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM: ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE HOLOCAUST*

ARLIE J. HOOVER

Abilene Christian University Abilene, Texas

The Protestant clergy of the Great War (1914–1918) helped create a favorable climate of opinion in Germany that contributed to the coming of the Third Reich and, by implication, the Holocaust. They taught a special brand of religious ethnicity, a romantic–integral nationalism that was close to racism. They stressed that each Volk was a special creation with unique traits. They suggested that Ausländerei, imitation of foreigners, was a sin against the God who loved variety. They saw the Spirit of God coming upon the German people in August 1914, to empower them to defend the national essence. This made it easier for the Nazis to implement Gleichschaltung or ‘coordination’ and to recommend special treatment for those who were gemeinschaftsfremd — ‘community strange.’

*This is a revised version of the paper presented at the ‘Remembering for the Future’Conference, Oxford, 10–13 July 1988.


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