Axis

Members: 4,555
Threads: 15,625
Posts: 195,314
Online: 156

Newest Member:
GregP

 
 
 
Go Back   World War II Forums > General Discussion > Information Requests
Register FAQ Gallery Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read


Information Requests Doing research? Working on a project? Need Help? Ask Here.

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
  #26 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 05:00 PM
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 20
schizuki is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Skipper, sorry to correct you but SS belt buckles bore the legend 'mein ehre heist treue' or 'my honour is loyalty
Yep. "Gott mit uns", IIRC, was on Wehrmacht buckles, and pre-dates the Nazis by well over a hundred years.
Reply With Quote
  #27 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 05:09 PM
Skipper's Avatar
Kommodore
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: France
Posts: 5,227
Skipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really nice
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

My Mistake Stefan. So where did I see the" Mitt uns" (without Gott) inscription? was it Wehrmacht then ?
__________________
Reply With Quote
  #28 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 05:13 PM
Skipper's Avatar
Kommodore
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: France
Posts: 5,227
Skipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really nice
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Thanks for the confirmtion Schizuki but the buckle I mentionned did only have two words "mit uns" without the first word "Gott" that had been used for decades.
it was maybe an abandonned or unofficial project.
__________________
Reply With Quote
  #29 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 05:21 PM
Erich's Avatar
Alte Hase
 
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 9,925
Erich is a jewel in the roughErich is a jewel in the roughErich is a jewel in the roughErich is a jewel in the roughErich is a jewel in the rough
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

so are we talking the national socialist demo party- Nazi's or the Heer ? there is a difference
Reply With Quote
  #30 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 05:27 PM
Skipper's Avatar
Kommodore
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: France
Posts: 5,227
Skipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really niceSkipper is just really nice
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Found it Erich! I have found a picture of the "Mit Uns" inscription on an enamel plate that used to be put on the houses of party members. So we are talking about Nazi party members. if I find another example of this "Godless" use of the old inscription I will post it for you.

__________________
Reply With Quote
  #31 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 06:48 PM
Stefan's Avatar
Cavalry Rupert
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Sheffield/Herts, England
Posts: 3,513
Stefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the rough
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Erich, I think we are using Nazis in this sense to mean 'followers of Nazi doctrine and ideology,' the problem is that it's pretty difficult to pin down Nazi doctrine and ideology to any real specifics.
__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Reply With Quote
  #32 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 07:11 PM
Kai-Petri's Avatar
Kenraali
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Kotka, Finland
Posts: 13,450
Kai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really nice
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

In the movie Stalingrad just before entering the city the priest says that " God is on our side". I always wondered who´s side God is on if both claim the same...
__________________
Reply With Quote
  #33 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 07:14 PM
Stefan's Avatar
Cavalry Rupert
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Sheffield/Herts, England
Posts: 3,513
Stefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the rough
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

"If god be for us, who could be against us?"

Romans 8:31-39

It does make you think though
__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Reply With Quote
  #34 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 07:17 PM
Herr Oberst's Avatar
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Nord
Posts: 520
Herr Oberst has a spectacular aura aboutHerr Oberst has a spectacular aura about
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians? Of course remember the Inquisition?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Ahh but you see it is easy enough to argue that Fascism was presented as a religion in and of itself. It could provide moral guidance, a description of how to live your life, a leader(Al Gore) and a plethora of other hallmarks of religion.
Sort of like global Warming today.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Then again, the Soviet Union was never truly communist.
Well you can make an argument that it was a dictatorship, but since the cornerstone or Communism and Liberalism for that matter, is the dictatorship of the proletariot, then I find it hard to give credibility to your statement that it wasn't truly communist.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Economically facism and democracy are similar EXCEPT under fascism the economy was controlled by the government, I would describe that as a fairly massive difference, though it's also not totally true.
Wasn't the Five year Plan the brainchild of Stalin who was the government?
And in Germany the Nazis allowed the War materials Industry to make their profits and later infiltrated that industry to try and create their own, SS run with camp labor.

The Germans, Nazis were Christian, not all of them, many agnostic, many renounced their religion for favor in the SS, many practised in secret. Bavaria was predominantly Catholic. Parts of the North, Protestant, Lutheran.

If you ask if they acted as good Christians my answer would be no.

Yet the Godless communist ideal worked pretty well when motivating men under arms.
__________________
Coir a glaive

Nemo me impune lacessit
Reply With Quote
  #35 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 07:25 PM
Kai-Petri's Avatar
Kenraali
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Kotka, Finland
Posts: 13,450
Kai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really nice
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Stalin knew how to motivate in all ways: Mother Russia, religion....

Joseph Stalin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During World War II, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, after the NKVD had recruited the new metropolitan, the first after the revolution, as a secret agent. Thousands of parishes were reactivated until a further round of suppression in Khrushchev's time.
__________________
Reply With Quote
  #36 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 07:30 PM
Herr Oberst's Avatar
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Nord
Posts: 520
Herr Oberst has a spectacular aura aboutHerr Oberst has a spectacular aura about
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kai-Petri View Post
Stalin knew how to motivate in all ways: Mother Russia, religion....

Joseph Stalin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During World War II, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, after the NKVD had recruited the new metropolitan, the first after the revolution, as a secret agent. Thousands of parishes were reactivated until a further round of suppression in Khrushchev's time.
Good post, shows that both Communism and Nazism used Christianity for their own desires. Churches in Russia were opened when Moscow was under threat of being overrun. Heers units had Chaplins, not sure of the SS.
__________________
Coir a glaive

Nemo me impune lacessit
Reply With Quote
  #37 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 08:42 PM
Stefan's Avatar
Cavalry Rupert
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Sheffield/Herts, England
Posts: 3,513
Stefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the rough
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians? Of course remember the Inquisition?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Herr Oberst View Post
Sort of like global Warming today.
Or indeed the 'war on terror' eh?

Quote:
Well you can make an argument that it was a dictatorship, but since the cornerstone or Communism and Liberalism for that matter, is the dictatorship of the proletariot, then I find it hard to give credibility to your statement that it wasn't truly communist.
Think about certain basic elements of communism, equality (people in the soviet union were by no means equal, those with power used it to gather wealth and lived a better quality of life than the workers), worker control of the means of production (the workers of the soviet union had very little of this), the ability to be accomplished in whatever sphere you choose and apply yourself to (again, this was never the case in Soviet Russia). There are so many ways in which Soviet Russia failed to achieve a truly 'communist' state, hell, as you pointed out they had a dictator, it wasn't a dictatorship of the prolitariat (an autocratic system where the working class have absolute power) but a despotism. Not a communist idea at all, the theories and principles were abused by those in power.

Quote:
Wasn't the Five year Plan the brainchild of Stalin who was the government?
And in Germany the Nazis allowed the War materials Industry to make their profits and later infiltrated that industry to try and create their own, SS run with camp labor.
Sorry HO, didn't make myself clear enough, POS stated that economically Nazism and Democracy were similar EXCEPT that under the Nazis the economy was state controlled. I simply pointed out that a) that is a pretty massive difference and b) isn't totally true because as you say the level of state control over industry in Nazi Germany was limited in many ways.

Quote:
Yet the Godless communist ideal worked pretty well when motivating men under arms.
I think though that is more to do with the historical motivations of Russian soldiers and the different kind of patriotism you encounter rather than religious issues.
__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Reply With Quote
  #38 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 09:27 PM
Herr Oberst's Avatar
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Nord
Posts: 520
Herr Oberst has a spectacular aura aboutHerr Oberst has a spectacular aura about
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians? Of course remember the Inquisition?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Or indeed the 'war on terror' eh? .
I guess you don't mind your London subways being bombed and don't remember the dead horses and people in the streets from the IRA.

For that matter the bastards that were caught recently, weren't they doctors or med students planning something new?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Think about certain basic elements of communism, equality......
Too bad I don't have the ability to put a sound byte of a record scratch here.

There is no equality in communism.....It is the dictatorship of the worker by a select few. All workers are treated equally bad(exploited) and if they don't like it they are all equally put in gulags. That is defacto communism, if you actually buy that crap Lennin and Marx wrote, then I have a bridge in New York for sale, real cheap, you can send me a check.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
Sorry HO, didn't make myself clear enough, POS stated that economically Nazism and Democracy were similar EXCEPT that under the Nazis the economy was state controlled. I simply pointed out that a) that is a pretty massive difference and b) isn't totally true because as you say the level of state control over industry in Nazi Germany was limited in many ways.
Don't say your sorry(Band of Brothers, some brief levity)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
I think though that is more to do with the historical motivations of Russian soldiers and the different kind of patriotism you encounter rather than religious issues.
Well, I think after awhile it is simply the motivation for survival on both sides of the front.
__________________
Coir a glaive

Nemo me impune lacessit
Reply With Quote
  #39 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 09:44 PM
Stefan's Avatar
Cavalry Rupert
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Sheffield/Herts, England
Posts: 3,513
Stefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the rough
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians? Of course remember the Inquisition?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Herr Oberst View Post
I guess you don't mind your London subways being bombed and don't remember the dead horses and people in the streets from the IRA.

For that matter the bastards that were caught recently, weren't they doctors or med students planning something new?
Sorry, whilst the threat is real the method by which is dealt with is more to do with controlling the population than their safety. I do remember the bombs on the underground, I was sitting reading the reports that reached the civil authorities before they made it to the news, worrying about friends I knew to be there, but frankly none of that tallys with the political endevors of those propogating the WOT, but that's for another thread eh?

Quote:
Too bad I don't have the ability to put a sound byte of a record scratch here.

There is no equality in communism.....It is the dictatorship of the worker by a select few. All workers are treated equally bad(exploited) and if they don't like it they are all equally put in gulags. That is defacto communism, if you actually buy that crap Lennin and Marx wrote, then I have a bridge in New York for sale, real cheap, you can send me a check.
And here you demonstrate what you have missed, all that 'crap' Lenin and Marx wrote was the theory of what a communist state would be, any state that doesn't achieve that is therefore by definition not communist, exploitation of the workers is by definition the opposite of communism. Communism is a theory, a state that is not drawn up along the lines defined by the theory is no more communist than Nazi Germany was a democracy!

Quote:
Don't say your sorry(Band of Brothers, some brief levity)
I prefer Nathan Brittles point of view, even if it is at odds with my British upbringing (a people who apoloise for everything, regardless of who is at fault).

Quote:
Well, I think after awhile it is simply the motivation for survival on both sides of the front.
True enough, but I think you may have to meet a few Russian vets to understand where they were coming from.
__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Reply With Quote
  #40 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 10:05 PM
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 20
schizuki is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Websters defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." In practice, it was a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalted nation and often race above the individual and that stood for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Websters defines Communism as "a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism." In practice, it is, and was, and ever shall be --- a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts the collective above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

They are birds of a feather, and completely different animals from Western liberal democracy.
Reply With Quote
  #41 (permalink)  
Old January 19th, 2008, 11:01 PM
Stefan's Avatar
Cavalry Rupert
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Sheffield/Herts, England
Posts: 3,513
Stefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the roughStefan is a jewel in the rough
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Yup. Hope no one thought I was claiming otherwise...
__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Reply With Quote
  #42 (permalink)  
Old January 20th, 2008, 08:59 AM
WotNoChad?'s Avatar
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 145
WotNoChad? has a spectacular aura aboutWotNoChad? has a spectacular aura about
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan View Post
So to summarise, Nazi religious beliefs were a mess.
Quite, although they did a good line in exploiting or hijacking those of others.





Reply With Quote
  #43 (permalink)  
Old January 20th, 2008, 10:35 AM
SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer's Avatar
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 166
SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

The problem that exists for Communism is that it has never been achieved. It is partly to do with it's complete inability to police itself. For example ,it was not held accountable via the vehicle of democracy.

Communism also had a problem with the liberalisation of the economy. ie it was centrally controlled.

Equally Capitism in it's purest form is also doomed. Whilst , Adam Smiths so-called invisable hand is perfectly capable to setting a value for a can of bake beans it is clearly incapable is revealing the socail value within a nations health or education.

Schizuki's post above is very interesting because some Stalinist Communism Partys within Europe never really saw Fascist as the beast , it's was always international capitalism. Trotskite Partys are not considered Communism but rather extreme leftwing socialists. I think it's fair to say there is a difference.


__________________
Reply With Quote
  #44 (permalink)  
Old January 20th, 2008, 11:32 AM
Kai-Petri's Avatar
Kenraali
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Kotka, Finland
Posts: 13,450
Kai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really niceKai-Petri is just really nice
Unhappy Re: Were the Nazis Christians?

"Interesting" that both Stalin and Hitler as the leading figures for communism and nazism considered the Jews the enemy?!
__________________