The Philosophy of
Alfred Rosenberg
ORIGINS OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MYTH
——Ss——S
JAMES B. WHISKER
The Philosophy of
Alfred — Rosenberg
ORIGINS OF THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MYTH
See
NOONTIDE
The Philosophy
of Alfred Rosenberg
Origins of the National Socialist Myth
by James. B. Whisker, Ph.D. ©1990 by James B. Whisker
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Contents
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Introduction
Alfred Rosenberg was born in Reval [now Talinn], Estonia, on 12 January 1893. His ancestors were German who earned their living as merchants and artisans. In 1910 he graduated from a polytechnical high school in Riga, Latvia. During the First World war he was a student in Moscow, studying art and architecture. He was a witness to the October Revolution which brought the Bolsheviki to power in Russia. He returned to Reval and by November 1918 he had moved to Munich. Of the major National Socialist leaders who were of age during the war, Rosenberg alone was not a soldier.
Rosenberg became friendly with leading racists of the post war world. He knew the members of the Bayreuth Circle, led then by Houston Stewart Chamberlain. The Circle was a racist discussion group founded by Richard Wagner. Included in the circle were Richard Wagner’s son, daughter, daughter-in- law and widow. Dietrich Eckhardt was a welcome visitor and probably was responsible for introducing both Rosenberg and Hitler to the Circle. The principal work produced by the Circle was Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. Rosenberg planned his Myth of the Twentieth Century as a sequel to Chamberlain’s book. Rosenberg expressed his admiration for Chamberlain, and acknowledged National Socialism’s debt to Chamberlain, in Houston Stewart Chamberlain als Verkiinder und Bergriinder (Munich: Bruckmann, 1927].
Dietrich Eckhardt was probably responsible for introducing Rosenberg to Adolf Hitler in the fall of 1919. They formed a lasting friendship. Rosenberg probably introduced Hitler to the document located in Russia, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a highly controversial pamphlet. It was reportedly a master plan for Zionist domination of the world through control of banking and commerce. Rosenberg first
2 Alfred Rosenberg
edited a German edition of The Protocols entitled Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die jiidische Weltpolitik [Munich: Boppel, 1923]. He then built on the themes in two additional works: Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten [Munich: Eher, 1937]; and Unmoral im Talmud (Munich: Central Press of the NSDAP, 1943]. The same themes are used in The Myth of the Twentieth Century.
Dietrich Eckhardt helped Rosenberg define, clarify and sharpen his anti-semitism. Much of Rosenberg’s anti-Jewish political and philosophical thought was the product of interplay between Eckhardt and Rosenberg. Eckhardt also introduced Rosenberg into the Thule Society, another major racist discussion group. Rosenberg acknowledged his debt to Eckhardt in Dietrich Eckhart: Ein Vermdchtnis (Munich: Central Press of the NSDAP, 1938].
In 1921, as Eckhardt’s health failed, Rosenberg took over the editorship of the National Socialist newspaper Vélkische Beobachter. He remained the editor until 29 December 1937, although Rosenberg’s role was substantially diminished by late spring 1933. He also edited another National Socialist publication, N.S. Monatshefte, which he had founded in 1929. After the ill-fated Munich Beer Hall Putsch of 9 November 1923, and after Hitler’s subsequent imprisonment, Rosenberg led the Nazi Party. Following the election of 14 September 1930, Rosenberg served as a member of the Bundestag, the German parliament. His committee assignment at this period was foreign affairs. In 1933 Hitler appointed Rosenberg to head the Nazi Party’s Office on Foreign Relations. He also served the party as a member of the directorate on ideology and education. On 24 January 1934 Hitler appointed him to be Reich Leader for Total Intellectual Schooling.
Rosenberg was the only major National Socialist to have considerable first hand knowledge of the east and of the Slavic peoples. He had urged Hitler to invade Russia. On 17 July
Introduction 3
1941, following the invasion of Russia, Hitler appointed Rosenberg to be Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. In 1942 Hitler gave Rosenberg full responsibility for the political education and indoctrination of the German people, with special responsibility for the armed forces. |
There was much rivalry and competition within the NSDAP. The two extremes were represented by Rosenberg on the right and Dr. Paul Joseph Gébbels on the left. Many party members called Gébbels "the red Nazi." He was anti-plutocracy, a term for the West usually associated with Marxist jargon. He opposed traditionalism and thought of the cities as the future seat of German civilization. Rosenberg was more opposed to communism and more anti-Jewish than Gdbbels, although Gébbels picked up much of the latter rhetoric. Rosenberg loved medieval pageants and costumes and anything he could associate with the German folk-spirit. He disliked cities and preferred a rural peasantry to an urban population. He believed that country living was healthier and produced strong soldiers. To accomplish his ends Rosenberg founded the Kampfbund jar deutsche Kultur. Rosenberg’s appointments to posts dealing with education, propaganda and education may be viewed as victories over Gébbels. ;
Rosenberg was among the defendants at the first and major Niirnberg War Crimes Trials. He was charged with a wide variety of “war crimes," including war mongering and atrocities against prisoners of war and civilians as leader for the East. He was, of course, found guilty, and hanged on 16 October 1946. His body was cremated and his ashes dumped in an unknown ditch.
Of the major National Socialist leaders, Alfred Rosenberg was most interested in the religious revitalization of the New Germany. This was to be accomplished by and through the creation of a new German national church. Religion was a vital component of the National Socialist state if only because
4 Alfred Rosenberg
it was an integral part of the Nordic heritage. The religious rebirth Rosenberg envisioned would have been a second reformation, for it would have included the wholesale alteration of what Rosenberg called a corrupted dogma.
There are "positive" and "negative" religious sects within Christendom. The positive denominations included Aryan Christianity which were based on Nordic heritage. Negative sects were those which were heavily based on Jewish history and on the writings and codifications of Christ’s teaching by St. Paul (Saul), a Hebrew convert. St. Paul was the personification of "race-chaos" and the prostitute of the Aryan ideal. The Pauline doctrines of love and charity and universalism were entirely opposed to the values held by Aryan Christianity.
Rosenberg’s ideal state would not have to be coercive because of the demands the German people will place upon its leaders. Political power will emanate from the people, not from the state. The state will be merely the political expression of the people, but the true judgments about racial matters will be made by the Aryan masses, not the German political machine.
The world envisioned by National Socialism never materialized, not because the ideology was too weak or because its predictions were imprecise, but because the state that supported the ideology was aborted before it had truly come to life. The ghosts remained for some time, but the plan was forgotten. National Socialism was a counter-revolutionary movement designed to clear out what it considered to be "alien philosophies" of other races and peoples so that the indigenous people could make its will felt. The counter-revolution was to restore that which had existed as a dream of the Nordic racial soul.
More of the future might be seen in Hermann Goering’s Germany Reborn, although that work concentrated more on the immediate future. Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century, when it gazed into the future, looked at long range goals of the
Introduction 5
state. Hitler’s Mein Kampf looked at bits and pieces of both the immediate future and the longer range goals of the NSDAP. Hitler was interested in the task of recreating and restoring German national pride and identity and in attacking the Jews.
The new National Socialist state predicated citizenship on race. Only racial Germans would be permitted to hold German citizenship and nationality. This idea dates back at least to Machiavelli’s idea of the nation-state. Ideally, the population of any political entity would be comprised of members of the same group. They would share common religion, mores, folkways, customs and traditions. They would be of common ancestry, race and ethnic origin. These would comprise a mighty set of centripetal forces that would hold the state together in times of crisis. Their political expression would be the traditional nation-state which was much expounded in the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In Rosenberg’s terminology this meant the racial state.
They way to assure continuance of the racial-nation-state would be to nurture those elements which the racial-ethnic group held in common. The cultural activities would be of Volk Kultur [culture of the nation], the expression of the Volksgeist (folk spirit). They would emphasize those ancient and more modern folkways that the body-politic shared as an entity.
The Volk is unique because it has had experiences of individual people. The people as a collective body has also had experiences that it has undergone as a collective body. The people as a collective has developed its own unique mores, folkways, religion, customs, language, literature, myths and traditions.
eee eee
We may summarize Alfred Rosenberg’s ideas as follows:
(1) The German racial soul, once a major factor in all Germans’ constitutions, has been forgotten. The fermentation
6 Alfred Rosenberg
of the blood shed by German soldiers in World War I has reawakened the German and reestablished the myth of blood.
(2) In Germany there are two groups competing for power: the race and the anti-race. Jews were the greatest threat to German civilization simply because the Jews are the alien anti-race.
(3) The Catholic Church was also a threat to Germany because it had introduced Jewish-Syrian-Roman ideas to Germany. Catholicism taught a moral system of submission. This morality is suitable for slaves and weaklings, but wholly unsuitable for proud Nordic men.
(4) The city was a threat to the virtues of the German who was fundamentally a peasant. Cities harbored every conceivable vice, which vices would never have been tolerated in rural areas.
(5) Rural life was pure. The German racial soul can best be reawakened in small towns and the countryside.
(6) The highest material expression of the racial soul is found in art. Germany is permeated by alien art forms which distract the Nordic racial soul.
(7) Germany needs living space for her people. Colonies are unacceptable because they are inhabited by alien races. Living space may be found in the old German empire and in the East.
(8) Germany has no natural allies because it is a racial state which seeks to explore only its own past and present. It has no interest in alien cultures.
* * * kK * K KX OF
Alfred Rosenberg acknowledged many influences on his thought. Most of those who exercised considerable influence on Alfred Rosenberg’s thought were noted in his writings, notably in his most significant work, The Myth of the Twentieth Century. Frequently, Rosenberg acknowledged the most important influences on his thought by devoting a whole chapter or a
Introduction 3
section of the Myth to these persons. As his work became more popular and as the Nazi Party came to power, Rosenberg chose to extract parts of the Myth and to publish these with little change as separate booklets. We may note the following as having had significant influence on Rosenberg’s political and social thought:
(1) The Manichaeans and the Cathars. Because Rosenberg was so strongly anti-Roman Catholic he delighted in extolling the virtues of any anti-Catholic movement of the past. Moreover, those early anti-Catholic Christians whom Rosenberg admired most also rejected the Jewish writings [Old Testament] and influences [New Testament].
(2) Meister Eckhart. Rosenberg credited Eckhart with having rediscovered the German racial soul. He also liked Eckhart because the latter revolted against Roman Catholic teachings.
(3) Arthur Schopenhauer. While Rosenberg disliked the Oriental aspects of Schopenhauer’s thought, he was especially attracted to Schopenhauer’s emphasis on the primacy of the will.
(4) Friedrich Nietzsche. Rosenberg was attracted to Nietzsche’s concept of the superman. He also liked the way Nietzsche altered Schopenhauer’s concept of the will, making into the will to power whereby the superman attains his destiny.
(5) Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Arthur, Count de Gobineau. An English expatriate, Chamberlain moved to Germany where he wrote the Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. Rosenberg thought of his own Myth of the Twentieth Century as the sequel to, and fulfillment of, Chamberlain’s book. Arthur, Count de Gobineau was one of the last expositors of aristocratic conservatism. His Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races advocated permanent stratification [caste] of society as well as racial separation. He espoused white supremacy. Gobineau argued that only white and yellow
8 Alfred Rosenberg
races had ever produced civilization and that the yellow had declined to a point that it was unlikely that it could do so again. ee eee
Rosenberg had a marked preference for rural life which we have already explored to some degree. He saw cities as corrupted, full of sin and vice. They lure young men off the farms with the glow of neon lights and the promises of forbidden liaisons. They offer a real diversion from the repetitive routine of rural life. In their own way they are the habitat of the Anti-Christ. They seduce the unsuspecting youth and subdue the fragile folk soul. They more men away from contemplation of the folk soul. They are the centers of trade and the creations of Jewish investment capital.
Rosenberg’s future Germany would reemphasize the values and the virtue production of rural living Farm life would be reconstituted and the farmer given a place of prominence in the scheme of things. His contributions to the state would be recognized and he would remain medieval and what is called "alienation" in marxism would disappear. The politics of cultural despair would be vanquished by a healthy dose of farm living.
Where there was insufficient farm land, an aggressive German foreign policy would provide additional living space. Here the German rural worker would preserve the precious spark of the eternal, the human soul. The doctrine of living space had been invented as a reasonable way to provide an arena wherein the noble Aryan soul might flourish. The alternative was the negation of the soul in the arena of the devil, the city.
Rosenberg admired the caste structures of India and other Asian nations and found a parallel in the German aristocratic rule of many areas of Eastern Central Europe, notably of the Teutons in Czechlands and Poland. There remained an aristocracy, which, while permanently stationed above the peasants of a different race below, were not wholly
Introduction 9
separated from them. Yet they remained culturally and racially aloof so that they were not absorbed by the indigenous population. This aristocracy set standards of style and taste. They uplifted the lifestyles of the other races by setting standards of the racial culture. Without the Germanic influence, in Rosenberg’s view, there would be only a slow and painful decline of the non-German races. German rule guaranteed renaissance.
Other races were incapable of producing great music, art or drama on their own, but they could imitate and appreciate these essential German products. The Nordic aristocracy provided all other basic standards. The non-Germans, notably the Slavs, could not become Volk for they lacked the Volk-soul, nor could they wholly partake of the Kultur, for that, again, required membership in the Nordic race. The political-social control the Nordic racial aristocracy provided gave great benefits to all. Rosenberg’s plan was to reestablish the best of this system of the past by depopulating areas of the East and redistributing the lands among German settlers. The racial Germans could imitate the rule that had existed thousands of years before when Eastern Slavic populations brought in Nordic tule by men known as Vikings, Varangians, Rus and other names.
A typical resettlement of the East would involve something about like the following. There would be a general resettlement of most of those presently living on arable land. A manor house would overlook the large farm. Peasants of other races would live in smaller houses in nearby locations. Barns and warehouses would house animals, supplies, machinery and produce. Each farm would be essentially self-sufficient, producing nearly everything required for the support of the entire company. The farms would export agricultural surpluses to the cities of Germany, and even overseas. The nation would import only such basics as were required for a reasonable
10 Alfred Rosenberg
lifestyle: farm machinery, occasional foods not grown on that farm and a few luxury goods. The relationship between the German and non-German families would be based on the Nordic honor code. It would surely not resemble a slave system.
A vast network of autobahns, much like the American interstate highway system, would link the principal cities of Greater Germany and a system of secondary highways would feed into the autobahns. This would enable Germans to use private automobiles to go from the farms to the cities. A modern rail transit system would move passengers and cargo quickly. Cities could provide a wide variety of cultural benefits, provided the cities were regulated so as to guarantee public health, morality and -safety. Included in Rosenberg’s grand design was a plan that would assure that no crops would spoil in the fields because of inadequate transportation.
The real life of Germany would revolve around small towns. Here, all of the traditional German festivals, fairs, trade and companionship would take place. The towns would provide the basics of life, such as shops where one could buy foods, clothing and mechanical things. Conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste would be eliminated. The business of Germany would not be predicated on predatory, competitive capitalism wherein shoddy goods are peddled by advertising and sales techniques. Only what was essential plus reasonable luxury goods would be produced. To Rosenberg, waste and artificially induced consumption were the natural bi-products of Jewish plutocratic capitalism.
The towns would be much like medieval market places. One would come to discuss issues and ideas and to trade. The public forum would be a major part of the town. The best of early Greek democracy was to be reestablished. The towns would be small and an inhabitant or visitor from the nearby countryside would probably know nearly all other citizens.
Introduction 11
Rural life would permit the luxury of living in pure air in a healthy, hard-working environment. Health care services and the like would be available in the towns, but the general health would be better because of the healthy environment. Farms would be opened to the children of city-dwellers so that they might benefit from the new world of outdoor life. Each person would, thus, come to know, respect and honor the farmer, the salt of the earth. The farmer was the only true producer of the national wealth. In a sense, each person would have been a farmer at least at one point in his life.
Unlike the ordinary vision of the future city, the view Rosenberg offered maintained that farms, not cities, were the most desirable place to live. Urban blight and all of its attendant problems would be solved through a general moral and social uplifting of the people which would be the natural conclusion of the reawakening of the Nordic racial soul. Rosenberg had the remedy for the evils of the cities: a strong dose of Nordic racial Volk education and Kultur. The newly reconstituted Nordic cities would be reduced in size. An object of political power was not to concentrate, but to disperse, populations. The city was viewed as a device to perform certain essentials only. Cultural centers and industries would be concentrated, but not to the degree they were in Rosenberg’s time, in the cities. The cities would house those vital and necessary bureaucracies, foreign embassies and like governmental institutions that are inevitably present.
Urban transit systems would be of the most advanced models. Parks and recreation facilities would abound. Attention would be given to the aesthetic qualities of design and the architecture of cities would be of an acceptable Volk type. Only the very best of the past would be retained. In practical terms this meant that those events and individuals which added to the racial consciousness of the people and to the German myth were worthy of recollection. Monuments to military victories
12 Alfred Rosenberg
and great heroes would decorate the parks and streets. Cleanliness would be the key word.
The educational system would be totally revised. German youths need only be taught those racially-based ideas and histories that are related to the Volk soul. Alien history, to Rosenberg, was ordinarily useless. Occasional exceptions to this might be made on occasion for diplomatic personnel and a perhaps for handful of others. Rosenberg placed great emphasis on historical understanding. In his view one could not be a great racist unless he knew history. The great tragedy of traditional German historical education for Rosenberg was that it tried to teach the nation’s youth too many histories instead of concentrating on the history of the race. Just as it bothered Rosenberg that Nordics appreciated foreign art, so it bothered him that Germans often knew more of alien histories than they knew of their own history. A case in point was the knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology many Germans had to the neglect of their own mythology.
Kultur is learned from the earliest age. It is a product of historical understanding. At times one appreciates one’s own culture more, and more easily rejects alien cultures, if he learns at least a modicum of alien history and culture. Jewish history, Rosenberg thought, might be taught more as a contrast to Nordic culture and traditions than as a subject which might stand on its own merit. The young might need to be reminded of the dishonorable and alien souls of other races so that the they are immunized against their ideas. But, in general, the striving of the Germanic people for its own racial identity forms the backbone of the social science and arts education.
Only native art forms are discussed, for these alone form the soul, expose the inner most sentiments, of the German people. Anything else moves the German away from his own Kultur. Art is an expression of the racial soul. Nothing except religion does more than art to reawaken and determine the
Introduction 13
racial soul. Rosenberg considered himself to be a learned art critic. He devoted a substantial portion of the Myth of the Twentieth Century to a discussion of art and art forms. This topic consumes more attention in the Myth than any other subject, including racism.
ee EEE EE
Three major errors can be seen in modern German art according to Rosenberg. First, Germans had become enamored of foreign art. Japanese art is temperamentally, racially and culturally suited to the Japanese, Rosenberg’s favored Oriental [and generally non-white] racial group. But Japanese art is not suited to the Nordic soul. One ought to respect Japanese art as the expression of the Japanese racial soul. But no German should collect it or decorate his home with it.
Second, modern art was utterly without any redeeming social or artistic value according to Rosenberg. There was nothing that provoked his anger and hatred more than modern artistic expressions. He cared little for modern music, literature or drama, but it was painting and related art that brought out the worst in modernism. Its existence could not be justified even for non-Aryan peoples. Abstraction and impressionism may be singled out as being the worst of all artistic expressions, past or contemporary.
Third, Jews had come to dominate the arts in Germany. They had committed two grievous crimes. They had attempted to pass off their own products as being truly artistically meritorious and they had reduced art to a game of making money. While admitting that many Jews were talented performers in the musical area, Rosenberg denied that Jewish composers, writers or artists had ever created anything of value, even for the Jewish racial soul. Mostly, Rosenberg argued, Jews had made a monetary issue of the arts. It was less important in the plutocratic markets what the art had accomplished, or how it had contributed to the racial unity and understanding of the
14 Alfred Rosenberg
race, than what money was to be made from publishing, selling and distributing the items.
The new Germany would have strict control over the arts. It is not nearly as simple as saying that art must depict a politically acceptable theme. It did mean that art would have to idealize the Nordic racial soul. It need not illustrate only ideal beauty, but neither should it show the sordid and ugly side of existence. It might never offend the race or denigrate it, especially at the expense of another race. Cultural isolation would follow. The German Kultur would not be permitted to become contaminated by lesser art and cultural forms. There would be no need for cultural exchanges for Germany’s culture would appeal only to Germans. Alien products would not appeal to the reconstructed German racial soul. German Kultur would receive state support, both in economic terms and in the general dedication a society affords its artists and writers.
Rosenberg saw the need for a strong Germany in the foreseeable future. German power would have to be maintained, for a racially conscious Germany would exist in a hostile world, surrounded by jealous enemies, especially the Jews. He expected that even some Nordic nations presumably would remain in hostile hands. There was no hint of redemption for the other civilized Western European nations.
Within the context of Rosenberg’s work one must assume there is no agent of purgation that can wipe away the sins of miscegenation and of allowing Jews to dominate civilization. These people apparently cannot muster the will to drive the foreign demon from their homes. For Rosenberg they are beyond reclamation. Because they have allowed pollution of the race, France and other Romanized nations cannot partake of Volk-Kultur. A handful of overseas Germans might rejoin the fatherland.
Rosenberg argued that the Jews and their allies might try to overthrow the new order in Germany and reestablish the
Introduction 15
Jewish ideas that they had tried unsuccessfully to superimpose on Germans for two thousand years before the victory of National Socialism. In his book on the international Jewish conspiracy Rosenberg accused the Jews of following the plan revealed in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Rosenberg dwelled on this theme in several of his books. Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion und die jiidische Weltpolitik [Munich, 1923] was Rosenberg’s first successful book. It served to introduce a German audience, already well prepared to accept almost any anti-Jewish literature or argument, to the Protocols. He repeated the exposé in parts of the Myth of the Twentieth Century, Der Staatsfeindliche Zionismus and Die Spur des Juden in Wandel der Zeiten.
Rosenberg used a different line of attack in Unmoral im Talmud in which he chose to show, by selecting certain portions of the parts of the Jewish holy book, The Talmud, that it was both anti-Christian and anti-gentile. Moreover, Rosenberg argued, it permitted Jews to lie, cheat and steal in their relations with Gentile society.
There is no genuine alliance that is truly possible for the New Germany. There is only the tenuous possibility of a temporary alliance of expediency based on power politics because there is no other racially-related state. The temporary alliance with Japan could be justified on the ground that Japan
_ had created a racially select and conscious state. Following Dr.
General Karl Haushofer, he was willing to allow Japan to have a permanent sphere of influence in all of Asia. Germany had no interest in colonies in the West, let alone in Asia, so there was no sacrifice in ceding all of Asia to Japan. But there could be no permanence to a German-Japanese alliance because the Japanese were not Nordic types.
Had Rosenberg adopted Houston Chamberlain’s ideas of the Aryan race far different conclusions would have been possible. The Aryan was not a single, real race for Chamberlain.
16 Alfred Rosenberg
He allowed that many superior races could exist, all of which were "Aryan." The commonalty of type-forming racial groups could bring otherwise disparate powers together. Aryans need not have common racial features, color of hair, color of eyes, and like superficial characteristics. They need be only superior racial types. It would be in the common interests of all Aryan powers, from Chamberlain’s perspective, to guarantee the continued existence of all Aryan-dominated states.
None of this follows in Rosenberg’s thought simply because he rejected Chamberlain’s view. That negates the possibility of any other civilization having or being able to produce type-forming Volk-Kultur or Volk-souls. Rosenberg may admire other cultures from afar, but in the final analysis he really does not care anything about them. His philosophy was created only for his special Nordic racial types and no one else.
The theme to which Rosenberg constantly returns is that Germany alone has honor as its supreme value. This is a domestic virtue and need not be applied to the dishonorable world of international politics. Power politics of a Machiavellian type is the only basis for relationships with other states. Germany could freely practice autolimitation with any and all treaty arrangements. It had experience this with Italy in World War I. The Italians ignored the treaty they had made had prior to World War I with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Rosenberg’s New Germany would have to be so strong that it could, on its own and by itself, defeat any alliance among the Jewish, capitalist or marxist states. Rosenberg wished to create a state which, by its very existence, would threaten world Judaism, along with any ideologies (capitalism, plutocracy, marxism, socialism) it controlled or dominated.
Rosenberg viewed Judaism as a never ending threat, a dagger poised to strike at any moment. Germany must become an armed camp. Its paramilitary system would have to augment a strong and technologically advanced military. New weapons
Introduction 17
systems and defensive postures would have to be developed constantly. The Nordic soul of the past lived in a warrior. Racially conscious Germany of the future would revive the warrior mentality. The true Nordic man was prepared to defend his turf to the last drop of his blood. The myth of blood, reborn in the first world war, would make the new German into the mighty defender of his racial values.
Excepting the conceivable, but improbable, need for additional living space, after the initial growth of Germany in the East, there would be no need for a German offensive posture in the future. Once Germany had acquired its living space in the East, it would have a basically established population. It would require no additional space.
There is one other category of offensive war, known as the "pre-emptive strike" wherein one accuses one or more of his neighbors of planning an invasion and strikes first. That type of action requires an offensive capability. Because of the duplicity of her neighbors, Germany would have to be prepared in all ways of war making, including the pre-emptive strike.
The German youth would be taught the values of heroism and devotion to duty. The blood of the men killed in World War I, through its fermentation, created the myth of the twentieth century. It would be augmented by the blood myth of duty and honor. Germans would be dedicated to service, even to the sacrifice of one’s own life. The highest duty of the German was the protection of his racial Volk. A Germany surrounded by a ring of racially, culturally, theologically and normally alien peoples, would grow in the great racial values. Young people would be morally impelled to accept the resurrected racial values because they could see an immediate need and application for these values.
Rosenberg argued that the basic law of the German nation will have been rewritten so that legal values can be transvaluated. In the New Germany the greatest crimes will be
18 Alfred Rosenberg
anti-racial crimes. Such crimes, in one way or another, jeopardize the continued purity and existence of the Nordic race. Such crimes could never be expiated. Miscegenation of any type would be outlawed and these rules would be strictly enforced. Rosenberg argued that dishonorable peoples, notably the Jews, could be controlled only by intense applications of the law. Those Jews permitted to remain within the Reich would be subjected to an intensive code of behavior. Anti-state and anti- Kultur crimes would rank high in the list of criminal offenses to be regulated by law. Conversely, inter-personal crimes would be treated less severely.
Crimes against morality would largely be dealt with through proper moral education in the Nordic Christian Church and in the schools. The occasions of immorality would be reduced as houses of prostitution and dens of homosexuality would be closed permanently. The urban blight that affords occasion for red light districts and communities of degenerates would be demolished. Work camps for the reeducation of irresponsible citizens would be maintained.
Trade would be placed on a strict honor code. The shoddy merchandise that had been marketed by high-powered advertising would disappear. Factories would have to follow a strict code of quality. The policies followed by materialistically oriented merchants would soon disappear. What Rosenberg called the "Jewish mentality" would also disappear. More equitable barter would be used in lieu of ordinary plutocratic trade. Usury would be recognized as a crime against the race. That wretched practice, Rosenberg argued, flowed from Jewish domination of trade. Once that domination was ended unethical business and banking practices would come to an end,
Research and archaeology would be encouraged, but only in Nordic racial history. There remained research in Nordic history that had not yet been undertaken sufficient to occupy Germans over many generations. Adequate research in
Introduction 19
German and Nordic cultures could be of immense value to German religion, culture and education, and thus it is fully justified. Few states would ever offer the Nordic historian greater opportunity to utilize his skills or to have an impact on the present and the future than the racially conscious New Germany.
There would be no reason for Germans to study other races. Through such study the Germans might become culturally removed from their own race. Any research that Germans might undertake in the pre-history or history of other races would be of no consequence to Germans. While it might be of interest to some to see what was looted from the tomb of a long-dead Egyptian pharaoh, such research has no real impact on any living society. The present-day Egyptians, even if they were to be shown to be racially related to the builders of pyramids, could not use that knowledge in any meaningful way because they are not racially conscious. The excavation of any prehistoric, even historic, site in South America has no impact on any civilization for the makers of these monuments have long since died off. :
But in Germany it would have been an entirely different matter. The discovery and interpretation of an ancient Aryan symbol would have impact for the Nordic Christian Church. The excavation of an Aryan site would aid the present-day Germans in understanding their racial souls. The discovery of written records of a Nordic tribe adds to the myth of the people. Each finding will have an impact on the race, for the past has determined the present and the future. The Nordic race lives in the contemporary German racial national. He needs to comprehend his past so he knows his being and can thus better operate in the present. The German of Rosenberg’s future state is a better man because he knows--rediscovers-more of his being almost daily. The man who knows himself through his
20 Alfred Rosenberg
racial history is a higher being than one who is less conscious of his true being. * * kK * * K
Religion was a vital component of the National Socialist state if only because it was an integral part of the Nordic heritage. The religious rebirth Rosenberg envisioned was tantamount to a second reformation, for it included the wholesale alteration of a corrupted dogma.
There are "positive" and "negative" religions within Christendom. The positive aspects included Aryan Christianity and nordic heritages. Negative aspects included Jewish history and the writings and codifications of Christ’s teaching by St. Paul (Saul), a Hebrew convert. Saint Paul was the personification of "race-chaos" and the prostitute of the Aryan ideal. The Pauline doctrines of love and honor were entirely different from those of Aryan Christianity.
If Christianity was to be made acceptable to the National Socialists it had to be stripped of its Jewish elements. This idea antedates Rosenberg by centuries. Rosenberg discovered the Volk elements of German national Christianity as early as Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) and found reinforcement in the nationalistic writings of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and Paul LeGarde (1827-1891). Rosenberg saw himself as the tool for the fulfillment of a centuries old dream of German theologians and philosophers.
Rosenberg presented Saint Paul as a legalistic thinker concerned primarily with creating a new law for the Hebrew people to take the place of the Mosaic law. Paul’s efforts are thus those of first apostle and prophet of a new system of law. While Moses received the law from God, and the law was viewed as God’s handiwork, the fact that it had been offered through Moses gave Moses a kind of secular salvation. Jehovah created Moses as Hero. All who obeyed law were accepting Moses as well as Jehovah. The law given Moses is remembered
Introduction fa |
as the Mosaic Code, more than as the code of Jehovah. The beauty of the message of God was to be found in its simplicity and its morality.
The role of the two Hebrews, Moses and Saint Paul, was that of codifier of the law. This codification was tantamount to the prostitution of the message. What Moses had done to the law of the Old Testament, Saint Paul was to do to the new law of the New Testament.
The Roman mind, and the Jewish mind, sought legal formalities where none were needed and where none could do more than obscure the message. The Jew thus became not the prophet of the law, but the destroyer of the law. The law which Rosenberg was willing to accept was that which could be written romantically in the hearts of men, not in a formal and useless legal way. The law as written by the two Hebrew prophets was cold and formalistic and sought universal dimensions. The law sought by Rosenberg would be informal and applied as a necessary part of the Volk soul.
Although wholly accepting Luther as a Volk hero, Rosenberg rejected the bases of Lutheranism. Luther had discovered the message of justification by reading through Saint Paul. The Lutheran Paul was one who was anything but the formalist, the law-maker. . ~
Rosenberg had little difficulty in discovering anti-semitic
-elements in Luther. Paul had found it necessary to accept some
of the Christian elements taught and formulated by non-Jews, such as justification by faith alone, while adding his own rigid formalism to the law.
Saint Paul had been a necessary part of the Jewish corruption of Christianity. In Rosenberg’s reconstruction of the early days of the Christian church, the Jews had found it quite necessary to subvert the new doctrine from within, having failed to eradicate it completely from without. The crucifixion of Christ had not ended Christianity. It had given the new Nordic
Ze Alfred Rosenberg
sect a martyr and an incentive to grow and expand. The ideas of Christ were a danger to the Hebrews and their tightly-knit control over the peoples of the area.
Having failed to prevent Christianity from growing, the remaining alternative was to capture and Judaize it. This was Saint Paul’s mission. Saul was a persecutor of Christians, but he failed in his mission of destruction. He then converted and used Jewish legalism to undermine its principal, non-Jewish teachings. He created a bureaucratic hierarchy and a set of rules and modes of conduct which were essentially Jewish.
If Christianity became a Jewish sect, there would be little outside interference with its relations with the Jewish dependent government. The crucifixion of Christ would appear to have been merely an internal matter within Judaism, and not a
matter of competition between Jewish and non-Jewish
teachings.
Christianity could be used to subvert Rome in a way not possible with the traditional religious practices of the Hebrews. Christianity already offered a universalist outlook, one that could encompass all of the many nations of the Roman Empire. Still, it would have a Jewish legal basis and Hebrew control. Rosenberg saw Christianity, as developed by Saint Paul, as an active agent pursuing the fall of the empire. The destruction of Roman Power could foreshadow the re-emergence of the independent Jewish state in Palestine.
In the complicated conspiracy in which Saint Paul was either an active agent or sacrificial goat, the earth-centered Jew was acting as conspirator, according to Rosenberg. This was the first of many times the Jew would be made to appear as the manipulator of nations irrespective of the consequences that manipulation might have on other nations and peoples.
The Jewish religious conspiracy, as seen by Rosenberg, offered a universalist philosophy of mankind, via Christianity, for the non-Jewish people of the world, while, at the same time,
Introduction 23
retaining a non-catholic view of the Jewish nation. Judaism thus sought to destroy the nationalistic spirit of the Gentile nations while strengthening its own position as a unique people possessed of special characteristics and a special relation to their own god. Jews placed Jehovah in a unique position among all gods. He was the single deity, to the exclusion of all other gods, yet He was concerned only with the fate of the Jews. He was willing, especially in the Old Testament, to destroy non- Jews in order to provide homelands and other material things, while denying himself to them. The non-Jew was in a hopeless position. He could not become a Jew, and he could not find the true God without being Jewish.
Thus, Rosenberg, following German-Protestant nationalistic theologians of the 18th and 19th centuries, concluded that Christianity could be made acceptable to nordic peoples only by removing the Old Testament from the basic book of worship. The Old Testament was nothing more than a highly nationalistic history of the Hebrew peoples cast against a religious background. The Hebrews, as Rosenberg saw them in the Old Testament, had accomplished absolutely nothing in, of or by themselves. They were parasites who relied on J ehovah to kill off other peoples and provide them with a homeland. All they had their god had goven them.
Their holocausts against non-Jewish peoples had been justified by relating the events to the will of God. Their extermination of the peoples inhabiting the Promised Land was the work of the Lord of Hosts. This was realistic and moral because it was backed by the will of Jehovah. All secular events, especially wars of aggression, were designed by God. To suggest that such actions were morally wrong involved questioning the will and purposes of the single deity.
It was this tradition that prompted Rosenberg’s attacks on the Old Testament. Rejecting the notion that Christianity could somehow make the Old Testament acceptable to a
24 Alfred Rosenberg
restored Aryan Christianity, he merely did the simplest thing: he removed the Old Testament from consideration. * * * *¥ *
Rosenberg’s new religion would be a German national religion. It would not make universal appeals to non-Germans, nor would it see the brotherhood of man as a reality. It would be very much a part of an entire movement, encompassing all aspects of German life. Non-Germans would not understand it for it would be based wholly in the German racial-blood-Volk experience.
Johann. Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) had seen the varieties of mankind as a blessing. The races (nationalities) were aS many varieties of plants in a flower garden. Each was
unique and each had its beautiful points and each had its ugly
ones. Each had its own unique aroma and essence. Like most super-nationalists, Herder was not prepared to condemn members of other groups. What he saw were the virtues of his own species.
The religion that Aryans possessed had to be able to
match their racial accomplishments. It had to emphasize the racial qualities that had been developed within the Germanic peoples. It had to be willing to extol the race-virtues they had developed. The church had to be prepared to even condemn whole races, notably the Jews.
Just as the individual may awaken to his destiny, so also may the entire race reawaken. The mythical experience of the mystical event, World War I, is the event that Rosenberg believed would cause Germany to be reborn. This myth would touch the soul of all Nordic men and bring them to full racial consciousness. That myth will combine with the other metaphysically true myths out of the Nordic racial past and determine the race to become what is presently only its potential. |
The Roots of Christianity
Rosenberg believed that many of the traditional beliefs found among many Christians had Jewish roots. Traditional Christian theology had failed to remove these elements of the Hebrews from their beliefs. Jewish and Romanized Christianity had retained a basic and irrational belief in Jewish myths and superstitions that ante-dated Moses. . ;
These irrational elements were not to be found in Nordic races and their native religions. They would not have been a part of Nordic Christianity had the Jew, Saul, not brought them with him. Rosenberg argued that Christ was, after all, of Aryan, not Hebrew stock.
Early on in the Myth of the Twentieth Century Rosenberg provides his explanation of the racial origins of those peoples living in Galilee about the end of the first century, B.C. They were the descendants of Amorites, an Aryan people who came to the area circa 700, B. C. By 100, B.C. the Jews had established hegemony over the "Gentile district" of Galilee. Joseph returned to Bethlehem, the city of his forebearers, not as the sons of David, but as Gentile exiles expelled by the Jews.
Jesus had many traits, but those best suited to his alleged Hebrew ancestry were stressed by traditional Christianity, but only because of Saint Paul’s influence. Rosenberg believed that the texts of the New Testament had been altered by Saint Paul and his Jewish cohorts, especially as related to the ancestry of Jesus and to his teachings. The New Testament gave Jesus a Jewish lineage and gave his teachings a distinctly Jewish flavor. Had the true teachings and ancestry not been open to dispute at that time Saul would not have had to go to such great lengths to establish the vital connection between Jesus and Judaism.
As Rosenberg read the texts of the New Testament carefully he found hidden bits, disguised because of the J ewish persecution of those who denied Christ’s Jewish connections.
26 Alfred Rosenberg
These materials suggested to Rosenberg that the Gentile writers knew better. It served the interests of the Roman and Judaized church to show Christ and his message as the ultimate forms of humility and submission. Still, here and there, he said, one finds a strong inner will, a strength and nobility of character, a brusque and harsh nature that reveal his real identity. We see that in Christ’s chastisement of the money changers and peddlers in the temple. "My house be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." [Matthew 21:13].
Saint Paul and his fellow "converts" [whom Rosenberg regards as spies and traitors] had added the bits of Jewish superstition to the Aryan message of Jesus. They had Christ casting out devils and placing unholy spirits in animals. They had Christ involved in Jewish ceremonies, performing tricks there for the amusement of guests, as the wedding feast at Cana. [John 2:1-11].
Rosenberg saw in Paul a conclusive hypocrisy, in that Paul denied the traditional Hebrew Law, yet paid great attention to the development of the same kind of Law for Christians. He had seemingly rejected the Mosaic Code under as being too legalistic and binding, but had attempted to codify a Law for Christians which, Rosenberg said, was merely the Mosaic Code under a new name.
To Rosenberg, Paul was the grand conspirator. Seeing that the new religion of Christ could not be defeated, that it threatened Judaism, the Jews sent Paul to transform it. Because the New Testament blamed the Jews for the death of Christ ("His blood be upon us . . ." Matthew 27:25) it would or at least could take on an anti-Jewish character. So the Jews decided, according to Rosenberg, to send one of their own, in effect sacrificing him, to redirect Christianity. It was this simple: Christ had come unto his own, and his own received him not [John 1:11]. The Jews were thus outcast. But by redirecting Christianity, Paul made it seem that the Jews were not outcasts.
The Roots of Christianity 27
Rosenberg reasoned that the Jews were the guintessential example of racial bigotry and intolerance of other peoples. They had created a god out of their own prejudice and bigotry. When they came to Jehovah they found Jehovah to be an omnipotent, jealous, dogmatic, inflexible taskmaster who demanded that the Jews become his slaves. [Die Spur, p.93]. The Jewish will to power through control of money and commerce was caused in large by the feeling of servility they felt toward their Jehovah. Jewish character was fatally flawed. They demanded power, but did not understand it. They had power, but were unrestrained by any ethical standards, especially in their dealings with Gentiles. Their national god Jehovah treated nearly all non-believers as less than human. [Psalms 110:1; see also, Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Hebrew 1:13 and Acts 2:35]. He took their land and possessions freely for his Chosen People and said that such action was godly. {Genesis 17:8]. He demanded absolute obedience. [see 1 Samuel 6:19 and 1 Chronicles 13:9].
Saint Mark and, to a degree, Saint Matthew take a more Nordic approach to man and God. Human beings are noble and have a right to dignity and respect. Their writings respect the honor and nobility of humankind.
Saint John’s Gospel also rejects traditional Hebrew values. John begins with a non-Jewish polarity of good and evil. This derives from John’s Greek, not Hebrew, background. John provides a basis for the rejection of the idea that God had made both good and evil. It also provides a basis for criticizing the god of the Jews who destroyed what he had made and had shown anger toward men.
In Mark we find a Jesus who rejects the idea that he was the Jewish Messiah, forbidding his followers to speak of such things. It appears in Mark (8:29) that Jesus is not even clear what his disciples are talking about when they ask him if he is the "promised one." Jesus also cautioned his followers early in
28 Alfred Rosenberg
the gospels to avoid the Gentiles, and even the heterodox Jewish Samaritans. [Matthew 10:5]. After his home town and the Jews generally rejected Him, Jesus took his mission elsewhere. [John 1:11]. ,
Rosenberg characterized the Jewish Jehovah as a swindler, a promoter of lies, and a murderer. He especially points to the stories of Abraham and Sarah, and how Abraham passed Sarah off as his sister at the court of the pharaoh. [Genesis 20:2]. He accused Abraham of prostituting her and then profiting from her shame.
Jews and the Roman Church violated Jewish-Christian doctrine of humility when it became an impediment to world conquest and domination. God had ordained, as Rosenberg interpreted Paul, that the Jews should inherit the earth and control an earthly kingdom from Jerusalem. Since they had not the power to do this on their own they had to seek allies. By creating a cognate religion, Christianity, they could enlist volunteers for their mission without having to invite Gentiles into the elitist Judaism. Saint Paul shows that God had favored the Jews above all other peoples (Romans 3). Christ ordained that the Jews should govern, through Christ, from Jerusalem (Ephesians 1:21) and that those who believed in him could govern the world (I Cor. 6; 2-3). These earthly goals were typical of Judaism, not pure Christianity.
Jesus was a revolutionary only in the racial ideas Rosenberg believes are implicit in the true Christianity. Saint Paul on the other hand is revolutionary in that he wanted to unite the poorer classes and overthrow the Roman Empire (I Cor 1:1: 6: 2-3; Ephesians 1:21). This was merely a form of Jewish subversion of the poor Gentiles for Jewish ends. Saint Paul never intended to permit Gentile participation in the restored Jewish state, Rosenberg concluded.
When the Jewish kingdom was restored the Christians would be taught obedience to the Jewish elite. This is why the
"encourage
The Roots of Christianity 29
Pauline doctrine of submission to authority is so important and why it is stressed so heavily. In the new kingdom-of-god-on- earth Jewish authority had to be made supreme over all non- lews. If the New Testament placed much emphasis on individuality, freedom, liberty, individuality and peace, then the Christian slaves of the New Jerusalem might rebel. Rosenberg looked at the Sermon on the Mount as a Jewish invention. Jews placed this in the bible to distort its true message and to submissiveness. Rosenberg condemned the "effeminate extravagances" of that message. This is a mere prostitution of the idea that the true kingdom of heaven is within us. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p. 607]. We must resist evil, Rosenberg argued. Nordic Christianity must reject the subversion of the German state. It must take up arms against evil. Only the cowardly races would rather suffer evil than fight it. If one removes the message of "cowardly" writings, like the Sermon on the Mount, one finds in
‘Christ’s message the requirement that men must fight evil in
order to be saved. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp. 134-35 and 140-41].
Rosenberg acknowledged that Jesus taught a message of love. If that love is properly defined it can become the source of much strength in the revitalized Christianity. True love is based on a pride of self, character and race. Those of the
‘superior race may love, in a condescending way, those of
inferior races, much as a master may truly love his pet.
Love is based on the recognition of inner value. If one dislikes or rejects what he is then he cannot love himself. One who does not love himself cannot love others. One must accept his self for what it is. In recognizing that the Aryan race is Superior, one comes to a self-satisfying love. This love leads one to love of country, race and God. To deny the love one feels for his homeland and his race is to deny that portion of God’s reation which involves us personally. If God had not intended
30 Alfred Rosenberg
his message to be of love he would not have allowed the love of race and nation to enter the pure hearts of the believers. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.159].
Rosenberg places the highest values on nation, race and state. It is noble to love one’s neighbors, but the love of the nation is of a higher order. It is reasonable to love one’s family, but one must understand that the family derives its value by virtue of its membership in the nation and race. Love of nation and race are the overriding values.
From its Jewish beginnings the church misplaced its emphases. It sought to combat evils in the world, but it chose to fight against the wrong ones. It turned on itself, combatting heresy within the church, when it ought to have expended its energies in combatting its external foes. The inferior races should have been made to submit to the superior races.
The Nordic state should have eradicated decadent Jewish customs. Racial pride should have curbed the excesses of "oriental" Roman. The powers of the church should have been brought to bear on the creation of racial cohesion among Aryan peoples. The church values should have been based on, and integrated, with Teutonic heritages. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p. 67].
The key to understanding Nordic Christianity is found in the doctrine of the "eternal personality." Each race has within it a unique and immutable personality, a set of traits expressing the racial values of the group. No one set is like any other set. Nordic personality is superior to all others. It cherishes certain ideals and rejects the ideals of other races. Christianity failed the Teutonic peoples precisely because it was given Jewish values, and because St. Paul had attempted to fabricate an artificial bond between Christian teachings and Jewish personality and values. If one would strip Christianity of its Hebrew associations he would find a set of Aryan values that would be compatible with his Nordic heritage. This is the job
The Roots of Christianity 31
Rosenberg outlined for Nordic theology.
Within the “eternal personality" there are many individualized expressions, the personalities of each man and
‘woman who are members of the race. The basic pattern is set
by virtue of being a member of, and participation in, the racial group. The individual expression of each person within those general guidelines is what accounts for human individuality. A religion may prostitute the meaning of race and destroy its racial values. This is precisely what Rosenberg accused Christianity of having done. Its bases are Jewish, and Jewish traditions are alien to Aryan peoples. Had Christianity retained its Aryan bases, those Rosenberg claimed were based on the true teachings of Jesus, all would have been well. Instead, Christianity became dominated by Pauline teachings. It repudiated its Aryan heritage and became a divisive element which alienated the Aryan from his racial heritage. If one purified the Christian doctrine and returned to the true message of Christ one would find that Christianity was quite compatible with Aryan racial consciousness. The two, Aryan eternal personality and Christian dogma, would become mutually reenforcing ideas. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.7ff].
. Germanic man is, by nature, free, brutal, self-assertive, egoistic, powerful, decisive and hardened. The Jewish-based Roman Church taught values which were wholly antithetical to Aryan racial characteristics. Jewish-Roman Christian emphasis on submissiveness weakened and destroyed the strong Nordic animal. Its emphasis on rewards.in heaven and long suffering on each were Jewish characteristics, not Aryan. Humility reduces the strong Aryan personality. Penance for sins brings humiliation to the superior beings. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.204].
The doctrines of fallen man do not apply to the Aryan world view. Man can be kept in servility by stressing the doctrines of sin and original sin. The Roman Catholic Church
32 Alfred Rosenberg
was tied to the doctrine of original sin. When the Reformation came, Martin Luther and John Calvin failed miserably to root out this Hither-Asiatic teaching. All the churches emphasized magic rituals to remove original sin from man and to restore man to his proper relationship to his God-given eternal personality. By placing emphasis on the inability of man to save himself, man is handed over to the caprice of God. Fear becomes the strongest motivating force instead of race and knowledge of the eternal racial soul. Man becomes defensive and unsure of self. All of these combine to place Aryan man in a constant state of submissive dependence.
Saint Paul found a protector and defender in a most unlikely place, in North Africa. This defense of Pauline Christianity came none too early for the Jewish-Roman Christianity was under severe attack from those Nordic peoples who had either remained in the Empire or had come into that area from their Northern homelands late in Roman history. They practiced what Rosenberg called the "Wotan Cult" but were moved to accept a Nordic version of Christianity. Saint Augustine (354-430) who may have been of black ‘African descent gave Pauline Christianity a complex theology. Saint Augustine had been a Manichaean cosmic dualist in his younger years, but became a Christian convert in middle age. His thought remained captive of Manichaeanism long after his conversion. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.12ff].
Rosenberg believed that just as the walls of Rome could not withstand their armies neither could Pauline Christianity withstand their assault on Jewish-Asian Christianity. But the disrupting figure of Saint Augustine appeared and Pauline beliefs were redeemed.
The Nordic-Aryan peoples had developed strong racial beliefs which had become manifest in two great figures: Zarathustra and Mani. Zarathustra had created an absolute dichotomy between good (Ahura-Mazda, "The Wise Lord") and
The Roots of Christianity BE
(Druj, "the Lie"). The world was full of daevas, the rshippers of evil. One must either stand with the Wise Lord fall with the Evil One. There will be a final battle in which will conquer evil and a final judgment in which the good be saved. The souls of good men, initiates to the cause of zda, will weigh out because they have shown the positive es, most notably the supreme value of honor. Only those who have acted with truth and honor can cross the bridge (Chinvat") to Mazda’s paradise.
As the Aryan influence in Persia waned a Hither-Asiatic class, Semites related to, or identical with, the Hebrews, the Magi, took over the priesthood of the Zoroastrian religion. They altered it, adding myths and magic spells to it. From their name, Magi, comes our term magic. What they offered was not revelation or true religion, but secular tricks, that is, magic. These Magi added polytheism, angels, demons and the like, and made Zoroastrianism into a ritualistic cult replete with potions and spells. This could not have happened had Zoroastrianism
_ remained in Aryan hands, but the interaction with the Hebrews
during the Babylonian Captivity and Persian rule over Israel brought about evil changes in the theology. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.81].
In orthodox Jewish and Christian studies there is a strong and impelling collection of evidence of interaction between Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Rosenberg saw the Median-semites as the cause of decline of this originally Aryan religion which, in its original form, was suited to Nordic peoples.
Zarathustra taught the values of an agrarian lifestyle. He did not like city life and rejected its tendencies to create new, alien values of degrading types. He believed in keeping the peace with one’s neighbors, being a good animal husband, and in acting with honor toward one’s neighbors. He rejected the roving bands of nomads who sought only to disrupt peaceful
34 Alfred Rosenberg
nations, taking their towns, animals and farms by force. Rosenberg interpreted this exclusion as a rejection of the Hebrews who had left Egypt and wandered as such roving bands until they happened to come into the arable lands of other tribes. They stole their lands, took over their towns and lived off their civilization which they could not have fabricated themselves. The type-forming personality of Zarathustra left its impression on the Aryans who continued to practice an
agrarian, rural lifestyle. The teachings of Zarathustra were revived by Mani
("Apostle of God"), the second great type-forming personality of the ancient Aryans. Mani was of Persian origins. He had probably learned much of the Zoroastrian system natively before receiving his own revelations at the age of 12. His public
mission began at the age of 24. His writings include the Shapuraka, the Epistula Fundamenti and the Kephalaia. So thorough was the persecution of his followers following his
execution (c. 276) that, until very recently, all we knew of him
was from the bitter attacks on his ideas launched by Saint Augustine and other orthodox Christian authorities.
Mani’s writings retain the absolute dichotomy between good and evil that marked Zoroastrianism. It was impossible, Mani claims, to trace both good and evil to the same source, so great is the distinction between the two. Evil is a force that exists on its own authority. It stands against all that is good, honorable and courageous. One must be saved or redeemed from the power of evil. Once one has recognized what constitutes evil he will immediately fly from it toward the power of good. He sees in evil the striking contrast that it produces in life: good and evil, darkness and lights, truth and lie, spirit and matter. God’s purpose in founding the world, or, rather, in fabricating it from pre-existing material, was to separate out, once and for all times, good from evil. Before, the universe was an admixture of good and evil, neither chaos nor cosmos. With
The Roots of Christianity 35 ’s help (as "God’s high ally") evil will be vanquished for
Note that Mani has posited an eternal world, a world of isting stuff, a world eternal in the same way that God is . He only made it over, as world artificer, not as creator. is fit well with Rosenberg’s claim that the Nordic type-former denied creation ex nihilo. This world serves to enable man God to render evil forever harmless and prevent a ence of intermingling of good and evil. Man has a pre-existing function of the soul that esponds to Meister Eckhart’s "spark" of the soul. It was with but God sent it into the world to aid him in his struggle evil. After death, that is, after it has cojoined with others with God in doing battle with evil, it returns to a contemplation of the Godhead. While here and present man t sort the iniquity from his soul. This is his individual task. ly if he succeeds can his soul become worthy of God. The cannot fly back to the Godhead unless it has purged the ‘kness from itself. Primal man knew both light and darkness. Darkness ked his soul and promoted greed and envy of the pure light. Man attempted to combat the darkness, but it was too ‘ong and he was defeated. According to the strength of his will and his connection to light, more or less darkness attracted him. One attribute of the power of darkness was its hold on ‘man to prefer material to spiritual existence. To the degree that ‘man prefers matter, he will be attracted to material possessions. ‘0 the degree he resisted darkness he is attracted to the light and rejects wealth in material things in diference to spiritual Wealth. —
As the Father of Greatness struggled against the powers of darkness the Darkness personified fabricated Adam and Eve. Through procreation they and their descendants dissipate light. The sin of Eve, implicating Adam also, set in motion a
36 Alfred Rosenberg The Roots of Christianity 37
prolonged chain of redemption. Their offspring, as mixtures of good and evil (light and darkness) struggle in this world for supremacy. One strain of Manichaean theology places good races in opposition to one another. To Rosenberg, this was a natural and logical development of Mani’s thought. The Nordic races represented light while the Semites represented evil.
The Talmud became a document registering the history of the children of darkness while the Aryan vedas and myths recorded the saga of the children of light. Augustine had taken Manichaean doctrine and twisted it so that, while other Semites, notably the Babylonians, became children of darkness, the Hebrews were transposed to become children of the light. Rosenberg argued that their conspiracy was completed when they took over the teachings of Jesus and repressed Mani and his followers. He thought that Mani had discovered the Hebrew conspiracy and that was why-his teachings were repressed and why Mani was assassinated (martyred?). By cleansing Manichaean teachings in The City of God, Augustine has served the Jewish conspiracy in his time just as Paul had served it in his time.
Had Mani’s followers been sufficiently strong they would
_have removed Jewish ideas from the Christian Church and
substituted their own. Rosenberg thought Mani’s teachings were closer to those of Jesus than the Christian doctrine as expounded by Saint Paul. As it was, they were too weak and disorganized. Their numbers were too few to stand against the Jews and their Hither-Asiatic allies. But they were strong enough to spread their ideas so that, even after the repression, their ideas remained in the Western Church. A few of their scrolls of teachings were preserved by a few heroes. In every. age, the teachings endured underground.
Mani had no monopoly on the truth. What he saw was a portion of the total truth preserved in the Aryan soul. His theology was somewhat imprecise and it was veiled in myth.
other type-former would be able, in another age, to pull out
truth elements. These would be, in the proper time, mbined with the ideas and myths of other Nordic type- mers. The ideas of Mani would be only one of the myriad of ts of the reconstructed Nordic religion.
Had it not been for Mani it is quite possible, said enberg, that the Nordic soul might have been crushed under heel of Jewish-Roman authoritarianism. However, the type- ming force of Mani was strong enough to offer an alternative y of thinking. It reinforced the Nordic values of honor and and courage. It reasserted the idea of eternal hostility to e forces of evil, darkness, and the redemptive promise of the rces of light and good. It suggested that "devilish falsity" of the ish history could be challenged and that the Old Testament st be purged from Nordic Christianity.
With the Augustinian conquest of Mani and the incorporation of his ideas, albeit falsely, the Nordic soul was ‘eonquered for 1500 years. The "Canaan monstrosity," creation nihilo, and all of its attendant ideas, would be dominant in ie West. The unmasking of Mani’s theology would prevail spite all efforts to eradicate it wholly.
Within the New Testament there are kernels of truth, provided one knows how to look for them. Rosenberg reasoned that if one knows, one might proceed by removing the Jewish lies that were typical of the race. The residue left over after lies had been expunged would be representative of the teachings of the true Jesus. Rosenberg had identified the objectives of the ews in subverting and taking over control of Christianity. Those things which served Jewish objectives were lies. Those which seemed to contradict or refute Jewish goals constituted the true Christian message. Fortunately, Saint Paul had been confronted by true Christians and could not wholly distort the truth and suppress Christ’s teachings. By the time personal witnesses had died the Christian writings had become so famous
38 Alfred Rosenberg
that the Jews could not complete the expurgation. Although one would ordinarily not expect the National
Socialist state to permit the study of "alien" civilizations, there ,
would be exceptions to that rule. Judaic studies provide the notable exception. The purpose of Semitics was to uncover the nature of Judaism in relation to Christianity. One would need to know what teachings the Jews held sacred and what meant little to them. One would need to understand “alien" ideas that had no corresponding form in the Nordic soul. For example, the idea of creation ex nihilo was quintessential to the Hebrew religion. All Hither-Asiatic conceptions of God depended on his being creator. Once such fundamentals were unearthed one could expunge these from the New Testament and renew the "true" teachings of Jesus. Since the study of Judaism would discover that the Old Testament was nothing but Jewish history and the extension of the idea of creation, it could be dispensed with quite easily. So also could all ideas associated with a Jewish prophet or redeemer be ignored. Jewish ideas could be removed from the New Testament and then its message would become clear.[Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.185}.
The remaining texts could be supplied by inferring what a true Nordic soul would place in an Aryan religion. These new texts would be expressions of the world-view and eternal soul of the Germanic peoples. While the texts might not be textually true, they would be substantively correct. Of course, the Aryan was not interested in the literal formalities; rather, he would be interested in the philosophical and conceptual content of the message of the Nordic Jesus. The reasoning, although circular, is reasonably consistent. If Jesus was God, as we should want that He was, He could not lie or deceive. Since He had to tell the truth, He had to have spoken of the nobility of the Aryan soul, and of the importance of racial consciousness, these things being necessarily and metaphysically true. He had to have warned of the deceit of the Jews since the Jews were evil
39
The Roots of Christianity
onified. He had to have spoken of the inferiority of the rnal personalities of the ignoble races, since races other than an had been created inferior to the Nordic peoples. He had have extolled Aryan virtues and urged Nordic peoples to w racial pride in their racial traits.
Even if it were to be proved that Jesus was not God, the ical Jesus of Nordic Christianity behaved as though He re God. Thus, as the mythical Jesus: possessed the qualities God, He would still be worthy of our admiration and ration as the personification of the Nordic God and as a type-forming personality. He could remain as a symbol of the Godhead.
Religion is internal, not external. Man does seek to externalize his internal sentiments. The Nordic Christ is not an object of worship, but an unnecessary externalization of the gnique, personal relationship between man and God. The emphasis would clearly be on God as found in the hearts of ‘men, not in the temples of men. Here the Lutheran doctrine of internalized religion emerges clearly. Rosenberg believed that the true message of Jesus was non-semitic, even anti-semitic. “The Jews took over his ideas when the new cult could not be curtailed otherwise, inculcated it with the Jewish spirit and made the Jewish ideals of love and humility its supreme values. They based its philosophy on the idea of creation ex nihilo. The Jewish Jehovah was placed at the center of the Christian godhead. The Hebrew Old Testament was appended to the Christian writings. All the sayings and teachings of Jesus were east in Jewish doctrines. The law of Moses was "fulfilled" in Christ.
By the time we arrive at Saint Augustine, all Christians, even a black African, as Augustine was reputed to have been, were prepared to defend Jewish teachings as though they were at the center of the ideas held by the historical Jesus. Only the Jews, Rosenberg held, knew that they had taken over and
40 Alfred Rosenberg
altered Christian teachings. Those other few persons, notably Justin Martyr and Mani, who discovered this were executed. Their ideas and writings were suppressed as being heretical and anti-Christian. Their followers were forcibly reconverted to orthodox Christianity or killed. Killing was preferable to reconversion because dead Manichaeans could not revert to their former religion, but converts could relapse into the heresy of which they had formerly been purged.
The idea of pride that was central to Christ was changed to the traditional Hebrew conception of love. Honor and duty were subordinated to church teachings and a body of literature grew showing that this benefitted both man and God. Love meant racelessness, race-mixing and race-chaos. The Jews remained aloof from these processes of disintegration and miscegenation. They alone retained a theology that warned against mixing with other races. For all other races there was to be a world of brotherhood and community and no reference was to be made to racial pride. The initial sacrifice of Saul to Christianity did not have to be repeated because of other Gentiles were willing to defend the Old Testament and Jewish- Christianity. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.130-31].
The Gnostic Origins of Christianity
It has been said that the Christian opponent of Judaism as two alternatives: to de-Judaize Christ or to deny Him. Jouston Stewart Chamberlain, following many theologians of niddle Europe in the 19th century, attempted to prove that ssus was an Aryan living in an isolated area of Galilee, and Separated racially from the rest of the peoples of the region. ne author of Foundations of the Nineteenth Century attempted » show that an isolated group of Nordics had been cut off from the mainstream of the nation, and that Christ was descended
‘om such people. Field Marshal Ludendorf and others merely denied the relevance of Jesus, and were anti-Christian as well @s anti-Hebrew. These two traditions accepted in common the jea that the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, was literal history. A third possibility underlies Rosenberg’s thought. The erigins are rooted in pre-Christian ideas and practices commonly known in the West as gnosticism. Like many other ‘generic terms, gnosticism is used by many to cover a wide variety of philosophical-theological thought. Because of the success of the Western Church, including its more recent Protestant forms, the systems which were vanquished in the long struggle for religious supremacy in Christendom are thought: of in a totally negative context. Such names as Marcionite, Manichaean, and Bogomilite, are pejoratives. Most of what was known about them was either secretly guarded or was learned from reading the refutations of opponents or the accounts of one or another Inquisition, including the interrogations (most often of unlearned members under torture) of those who were accused of heresy.
In the 20th Century there have been two major developments which have changed what we know about the various "heresies." One is the discovery of major documents
42 Alfred Rosenberg
and treatises either by leading gnostics or by their closest disciples and followers. The other development is the interest shown by leaders of the Third Reich in these movements, and the subsequent study of the ideology in terms of such thought. Among the major works to appear reinterpreting the National Socialist movement in such terms are Pauwels and Bergiers’ The Morning of the Magician (in French, and translated into many languages), Ravenscroft’s The Spear of Destiny and The Cup of Destiny and Angebert’s The Occult and the Third Reich.
Most of the authors who have rediscovered the gnostics and their influence on the Third Reich have assumed that the leaders kept the bases of knowledge secret, usually in the SS shrines and rituals,. and that this special knowledge was never intended for mass distribution. Only the few specially selected SS types could be entrusted with the age-old secrets. Even in the pre-Third Reich State, Rosenberg had distributed his essay on the origins of Nazi ideology (actually written before the NSDAP was formed). His Myth of the 20th Century discussed one particular gnostic sect, the Cathars (Holy or Purified Ones), in great detail, but stopped short of offering a simplified version of the Cathar religion-philosophy as the new religion (or reinstated religion) of Germany. It may be viewed as the basis of Nordic Christianity, but is still different from the Cathar doctrine.
In the area of religion, Alfred Rodeabes? s Myth of the 20th Century is quintessentially a gnostic work which attempted to set the stage for subsequent works which would have taken Germany back in time, to a stage in which a simplified, anti- Jewish religion was the common practice in the West among the common people. It was designed not as a final statement on the New Nordic Religion, but was to serve as a precursor of what was to come. In the early 1920s Rosenberg was not prepared to offer a final statement of his philosophy. The new religion had to be the old religion. A highly important task of
The Gnostic Origins of Christianity 43
the state, then, was to rediscover basic pre-Reformation
Christianity. The research necessary for the full recreation of early Nordic Christianity had not been completed in
Rosenberg’s time. There was only a promise of things to come. It was a quest which may, in his terms, be likened unto King Arthur’s setting the Knights of the Round Table on the quest for the Holy Grail.
The Grail Legend
Every German schoolboy knew the great folk tale of the Grail legend by heart. Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival was one of the greatest works of literature in the German (or any other) language. On the surface it is a familiar tale of a pure knight’s search for perfect love and redemption. It had been popularized in the late Nineteenth Century i in operatic form by the composer Richard Wagner. Few pieces of heroic literature had more impact on the nation-conscious Germans than Parzival [see "Scientific Racism" for a summary of pie as S opera on the Grail legend].
Within Germany many regarded the Grail as the lost, Secret book of the Aryan race. It had been entrusted to them Since eons past, and was lost and recovered on occasion. It represented a fair time, of what had ben, and because it had been, there was an inherent promise that this holy time might come again. What precisely it contained was unknown, and since it was written in symbols, the interpretation given these runes may differ from age to age. It was the one great treasure” of all Aryans, at all times. From age to age it had been the* uniting factor, one artifact that provided a rationale for the existence of the race.
‘John Boorman’s recent British movie Excalibur (1981) has given a similar, highly secularized, interpretation of the Grail myth. The movie views the Grail as an intermediary
44 Alfred Rosenberg
between ruler and ruled, a magic transmitter that guarantees that the king and the land are one, and that each will serve the other in a wholly natural relationship. When the king fails so does the land. It is the spiritual dimension of the Grail that allows for this mythical union. This is an interesting return to the Old Testament view of land and king. We may recall that Jehovah punished the land and people for the sin of adultery committed by King David and Bathsheba.
The Grail predated the creation of Christianity. To understand the Grail legend we must appreciate the antiquity of the artifact. This is related to the importance of the Grail as an artifact to the NSDAP and its leaders, notably the SS. Rosenberg in the Myth of the Twentieth Century viewed the Grail as an important basis of German objection to some aspects of Roman Catholicism. It provided direction to the German people, or at least a significant portion of it, when the people were confronted by orthodox Western church teachings which were alien to their racial heritage.
While the authors of the recent studies, notably Angebert and Ravenscroft, and to a lesser degree Pauwels and Bergier, have noted the importance of the Cathars of the 11th through the 14th centuries, they have not gone far enough in their research. It is true, as we shall see below, that the "Pure Ones" did preserve, for a time, the Grail and other related artifacts. However, they were relative latecomers, both doctrinally and in terms of interest in and preservation of the Grail.
The Marcionite Heresy
We must return to the Second century, A.D., to Marcion
of Sinope in Pontus, to see the development of the whole body-
of literature surrounding the Grail. The greater portion of what stood in contradistinction to both Western Catholicism and the
The Gnostic Origins of Christianity 45 er Orthodox schism from that church, can be seen at least inally in Marcion. He, like many, had struggled with the at problem of evil. The Church had not as of that time ided its own explanation of evil in the world. The question far from settled when Marcion was writing.
The Marcionites believed that evil was truly a real force, merely the privation of some good. One may, for lification, regard that evil power as the Devil, Satan, or the rd of the Flies. He is truly a power to be reckoned with. The rid was the source of sin and corruption, and was to be ided. It had been created just as the Old Testament had id, but not by God. There was a lesser being, or beings, much the classic Greek "world artificers.". Sometimes known as Demiurge, that creator had a spark of divinity, for he was a of God, an emanation from the Most High.
Man naturally longs for his true home, but that is own to him. He is trapped in a world of corruption and ination. As a matter of fact, the material world is not God’s ‘creation. The spirit of man longs for heaven while man’s body longs to the material world. God created spirit and heaven id the devil created matter and entraps man’s spirit within the rid. This is what we know as "cosmic dualism."
To Marcion, the Old Testament was a lie because it was the story of a false God, a deceiver: Jehovah. Most, if not all, of the various characters in the Old Testament were a deceit. The people of the One True God must reject the book of lies and falsehoods and deceit. It was the story of the Jews. They were the people of Jehovah, that is, a race dedicated to the false god. Marcion agreed with the Jews on one point: their ‘messiah had not yet come. Jesus Christ was not their redeemer; he had come to liberate men from the false religion of Jehovah. Jehovah was at home in the material world because it was his ‘mirror image, made in his (not the alien-God’s) image and likeness. In his anti-cosmic dualism, Marcion put the unknown
46 Alfred Rosenberg The Gnostic Origins of Christianity 47
God in opposition to the inferior creator-god, Jehovah. The salvation of mankind meant, in a word, liberation from Jehovah. Salvation was not of the Jews; it was rescue from the Jews.
The contrast between the two worlds and their respective: gods is very great. Marcion saw Jehovah as a warrior-avenger, interested in perpetuating a world of retribution. The gentle Jesus, the agent of the unknown (alien) God, is merciful and filled with love. The true God could not exist in this world, for he is pure spirit and is in direct opposition to the conflict and disorder which is inherent in matter.
The Marcionites rejected any and all things which tied one to the material world, or which seemed to tie one there, or which seemed to suggest physical redemption or conversion of material things. Thus they rejected baptism, except as a manifestation of their disdain for the material world. Holy Communion was a great contradiction, for it had as its primary content the transfixion of material things into the realm of the spirit and of the unknown God. Men must reject all earthly pleasures. These distractions were to be avoided because they tended to tie one to the temporal world. Sexual contact was another more serious tie to the visible world. Procreation of children meant that more sparks of the spirit were to be entrapped in the world of tears and deceit.
Because He is pure goodness and mercy, the unknown’ God adopted mankind, or at least that portion which as his own and to whom he could come, and who would accept and love: him. God gave us grace quite freely to aid in our salvation, but because we as lowly beings could not merit it. He gave us this precious gift because he loved us although he did not yet know us. This is Marcion’s doctrine of "pure grace," a quintessential part of Marcionite theology. God so loved the world that, although it was unknown to him, he chose to bring men to live with him so that he and men could come to know one another
a a world so far removed from the corruption of the present ne.
Morality was not regarded as conformity to some law of lature; nature was physical, and thus corrupt. God was in the orld. Natural laws were the embodiment of the demi-urge, tan, not the Unknown God. One ought to avoid contact with ature in all its visible forms, for it leads one away from the ie God.
_ While it is faith, not knowledge, that leads us toward od, we must have access to and know the special knowledge hat much of what passes as religion is false. We must know, in farcion’s schema, that the Unknown God is God, and that the creator of the world is only a demi-urge, an evil emanation rom God. Christ the Son of God came to bring us to know that hich we cannot know directly, in and of ourselves. That we are apped in matter without hope of redemption unless we know the correct faith is a matter of special, or gnostic, revelation. That God invites us strangers into his home without any ‘knowledge of us, or we of him, is a canon of faith which can be ‘known only through this special knowledge.
Marcion dropped elements of the New Testament that did not like. What remained were expurgated portions of the jospels (notably Luke), some of Paul’s letters, and bits of the s of the Apostles. It is noteworthy that the Western church had not, as of this time, codified the New Testament. Marcion was more restrictive than most of the priests of the time in his ‘choice of acceptable materials for the services. He rejected the Old Testament entirely, although one deviation of the time, possibly not Marcionite, devolved into snake worship, based on the Old Testament tale of the snake tempting Evil. Presumably, the snake was a good symbol for it was set in contradistinction to the ones Marcion had made evil characters. he snake was believed to be bringing certain knowledge of Satan, the creator of Adam and Eve.
48 Alfred Rosenberg
The Theological Background
In censoring the New Testament, Marcion excised those references made to an early childhood of Christ. Since Jesus was the messenger of the Most High, the Unknown God, he could not have been immersed in matter. Without having to materialize, Jesus had appeared to men to have a body and then only at Capernaum. He came to save those who would reject Judaism and Jehovah. What his precious blood purchased, in a metaphorical sense, was the freedom from the false god, Jehovah. He offered a baptism which would reject the world and all its material evils. One was to be "married" only to Christ so that child-bearing was avoided and man could escape the material world.
Two figures stand out as providing theological direction the Nordic Christianity Rosenberg advocated: Justin Martyr i Meister Eckhart. Both looked at extant Christianity as a iption of the true message of Christ. Both saw the need for counter-revolution in theology, a restoration of its basic hings as found in the ideas of Jesus Christ. Both rejected layers of law and ceremonial formalism that had marked hurch history until their own times.
The Church hierarchy branded Justin a-heretic. He @ught God not in the externals of formal religion but in the spths of the soul. Rosenberg believed that Justin had mstructed a "racial soul" which is attuned to a true theology precisely because neither could bear the burden of rigid malism. Man is his natural condition could not endure evil; sought the good, the true and the eternal by a natural Esposition of the will. Those who lacked a contact point with is natural morality sought refuge in codified volumes of law. shall look at each of these men separately. Justin identified the problem. Judaism had captured Thristianity. The leaders of the Hebrew people were, on the 1¢ hand, unwilling to accept Christ as the Messiah, while, on he other hand, remaining unwilling to cut Christianity loose ym its Jewish roots. Thus, Christianity, in its Pauline version, as nothing more than perverted Judaism. Converted Jews like aul took it over and added the traditional Hebrew emphasis en formal codes of law and canons of faith. The Church creasingly ritualized the Christian practices. The earliest and perhaps most significant of the post- \postolic church apologists was Justin Martyr (c.100-165 A.D.). de was born a pagan of parents of orthodox Roman views and ailosophy. Dissatisfied with the attendant theology, Justin embarked on an extensive voyage seeking after ultimate truth. An unnamed but "venerable" old man directed him toward one
The Theological Background 51
50 Alfred Rosenberg
mission as one of making the new Christian religion compatible ith Judaism. There is one powerful argument that he wanted to bring Christian theology into conformity with the vast complexity of Jewish law. While maintaining that this is not so, while disclaiming rigid formalism in his various letters (epistles), monetheless Paul instilled a sense of rigorous formalism heretofore not associated with Christianity. This Justin rejected fully. If it can be truly said of Paul that he sought to make Christianity compatible with, albeit the servant of, Judaism, en it might be said that Justin saw his mission as one of making Christianity compatible with Gentile, perhaps Nordic, ture. He certainly made the effort to reconcile Christianity with the non-Hebrew, non-semitic, non-Eastern world.
Rosenberg contended that there was a Nordic message in the writings of some of the early Gentile Christians. The Four Gospels were neither strongly pro-Hebrew nor strongly anti-Hebrew, although there are strong statements condemning the Jews for various transgressions against God and against his Son. It remained for Paul to bring in much Jewish formalism. Tradition that held that Jesus was the son of a descendant of David and others of the historical figures of the then extant Scriptures was not satisfactory to Justin. God the Father, whom the Greeks commonly called Logos, had pre-existed in the hearts and souls of all men, as the seed (literally, in Justin: sperm). This seed could be and was activated in non-Jews of yarious talents and persuasions. That is why pagan, non-Jewish thinkers produced the most significant works of theology and philosophy. Their ideas could serve as beacons of truth just as much as could the inspired writings of the Old Testament Hebrews.
Following his conception of the "seed of God" in each man, Justin assumed that, when the allegedly chosen people _ deserted God, or God’s representatives, most notably Jesus, the mantle of leadership fell from them. Jesus may or may not have
of the many Christian missionaries then spreading the word of God in Asia Minor. Now thirty years old, Justin cast off the philosopher’s robe and became a zealot after his new found religion. His fine mind quickly established him as a learned scholar and interpreter of Christian doctrine. His bitter attacks on the deficiencies of paganism earned him powerful enemies, the principal one of which was the cynic philosopher Crescens. Justin’s trial, in which he vigorously defended his faith, ended in a sentence of death after scourging. Justin seems to have actively sought that martyrdom, especially when accompanied by the scourging which was the ultimate compliment since Jesus had been scourged before his death. Justin was beheaded near Rome.
Many spurious works have been attributed to Justin at various times, but the only genuine ones still extant are his Apologia and a summary of that famous work. Much of the, Apology has been lost, but we have a good idea of its contents from the shorter summary. It was probably written to the Roman emperor Antonius Pius and the latter’s son, Marcus Aurelius. The second, wholly extant work is considered to be an appendix to the first when looked at from the context in which each work was written. Another work, the Dialogues with the Jew Trypho (Tryphone) is probably of later authorship although most scholars agree that is probably contains an excellent and true summary of Justin’s arguments and disputes on theological matters with its subject.
Justin was probably a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He had no knowledge either of Christianity or Judaism before his conversion to Christianity. He never thought of the teachings of Jesus as a fulfillment of some promises given to the Hebrew peoples, and he certainly had no interest in making it compatible with Judaism. There is no evidence that Justin sought out any contact with Hebrew theology or traditions, and it is likely that he disliked Saint Paul (Saul). Saint Paul saw his
32 Alfred Rosenberg The Theological Background 53
been divine in Justin’s thought. Justin is obscure on this point and his commentators disagree on the interpretation of Justin’s thought as well. Whether divine or not, Jesus was the instrument of the Divine Logos, the agent who instructed mankind in the desires of the Father. The Jews killed Christ and thus they are no longer, presuming they ever were, the chosen of God. Christians are now the chosen ones.
Justin really is not interested in determining the status of the Jews before New Testament times. The new covenant is now the only covenant. As a Gentile, Justin had no historical interest in the veracity of any agreement that never concerned him and which. has now been superseded by the final and lasting covenant. Justin’s writings were the first to refute de facto Paul on the necessity of a Hebrew-Christian synthesis. That confluence of traditions seemed both improbable and undesirable to Justin. His dialogues with Trypho show quite clearly that Justinian theology is non-semitic; it is very definitely Roman, not Etruscan-Near Eastern. Justin’s responses to Trypho make it very clear that he set up a Christian model that will stand in clear juxtaposition to Judaism. The second portion of the Apology reinforces that argument. Christianity is not merely a form of Judaism or Jewish or other sectarian-racial prophecies fulfilled. Christianity is the culmination of the seed of God being brought to fruition through the Son. Justin’s theology is clearly Gentile Christian, quite apart from and free of any Ebionitic taint. It is the principal and earliest exposition of a Alexandrian-Hellenistic conception and exposition of the true message of Jesus in the new, and now only important, Scripture. His is quite clearly and consciously a major departure from Pauline orthodoxy. Rosenberg argued that, in reality, Justin sought to return to the teachings of Christ as these existed before the corrupting influence of Paul took the place of Christ’s true teaching.
Some commentators have tried to mitigate Justin’s views
_by adding to his works spurious additions that suggest that he was an orthodox Pauline. For example, one work, Cohortatio ad Graecos, attempted to add the thought that only through Moses, Le., only through the Old Testament Jews, could one fathom the true nature and intent of God. This forgery suggested that Justin truly meant to say that the only truth in pagan writers was derived somehow from the Jews. Another work, Oratio ad Graecos, pointed to the complete folly and irrationality of all Pagan institutions and writings.
Justin approached morality and sin not from the perspective of Ebionitic or Hebrew theology, but from the traditional Stoic values of Greece. To Justin, it was irrational to try to work out a complex theology of right and wrong along the lines of the Law of Moses. He did not care to set such rigid written standards. An act was not to be carried before a council of judges to be measured against a longitude of wrong and latitude of right in exact minutes, degrees and seconds. Justin’s Christianity was eventually reducible to three major principles: (1) worship of God, mostly through private prayer and communication of being; (2) belief in an after-life with rewards and punishments for one’s actions in this world; and (3) the importance of leading a virtuous life in imitation of Christ and in obedience to his commandments. All else was unnecessary. Other canons of faith marked too rigid a formalism for virtuous man. Laws that detail man’s conduct in great detail are necessary for the peoples which have no morality of their own, but are wholly superfluous for a virtuous race.
Justin was not a racist in the common and ordinary sense of the word. He did divide mankind into various groupings for certain purposes. Some types or races of mankind possessed a native virtue, or, perhaps more accurately, a propensity for knowing what is right and what is wrong. This theory of moral sentiments merely showed a racial potential for combining with
54 Alfred Rosenberg
God. Certain races or groupings have developed a sense of morality because they are attuned to the divine message hidden deep inside the soul. This propensity for doing good and avoiding evil is developed over a prolonged period of time in the history of the race. One individual cannot either enhance it or sublimate this propensity. A people that has no racial sense
for morality must have an involved law elaborated for it in_
complex and precise terms.
Over and against the theology of Moses, Justin’s morality is freed from the letters of ceremonial formalist and legal complexity. In this sense Socrates and Parmenides, Heraclitus and Diogenes might be called Christians in that they innately possessed the idea of right and wrong. In another sense, Moses and Elias, Abraham and Jesse might never become Christians for their feel for morality derives solely from the law of God set in stone.
Along with a natural morality some races possess a natural logic or reason. These are the creative people, a special or chosen people, who do God’s work on earth. From natural reason alone some of the ancients proved the existence of all encompassing deity which, philosophically, approximated the God of Christians. These men or races of men are spiritually Christian. Justin could and did ignore the election of the Hebrews as the chosen ones. He chose instead those whose morality, culture, aesthetics, intellectual accomplishments and creativity matched the divine design. If the Old Testament Hebrews had been able to match Justin’s paradigm then they, too, might have become Christians. To the degree that they matched another, possibly self-serving Pauline paradigm, they were not to be considered the children of God, or Christians. A true Christian is an eternal concept with Justin, wholly transcending the historical period in which the bearer of this vital, type-forming idea actually lived. A great man of any
The Theological Background 55
period might be a Christian, provided only that he subscribe to the paradigm.
While earlier writers, following the more literal Hebrew interpretation of the coming of a Messiah, looked forward to an earthly reign of a Kingdom of God on earth, Justin expressed little interest in this world. This was true of the earliest Christian thought, before the Pauline corruption. Justin did not characterize his theology as genuinely orthodox. It seemed to him impolitic to give chiliasm marked prominence. He sought the martyr’s death and expected equal dedication of others. He was not looking for an earthly reward or an end to the persecution of the secular pagan rulers; indeed, the end of persecution would mark the end of a glorious martyrdom as well. To him, it was an unusual and undesirable confluence of
‘two highly divergent points of view to suggest that a synthesis
was necessary between secular rule of a restored house of David or Solomon on the one hand while speaking of a final spiritual realm on the other hand. He dared not reject this or other doctrines, for they had even this early been established as doctrine, but he could downplay their importance in hopes that such alien ideas be forgotten.
The true religious service in Justin’s theology was simple and direct. The center of the service was the Lord’s Last Supper. A brotherly kiss, a few simple prayers and the sacrament of the eucharist by the ministrant were all that was needed. This followed the basic assumption that morality existed naturally in a truly Godly people. God required nothing elaborate or highly ritualistic. Rigid formalism and ceremonialism did nothing but attract the uncreative voices of the literal law to a bureaucratic priesthood. There was no advantage to the moral body of the people. The New Testament had not been codified because Justin and his followers were not especially sanguine about so formalizing the Scripture that it could become an authoritarian voice for the suppression of free
56 Alfred Rosenberg
and independent ideas. Without a formalized Scripture no bureaucratic priesthood was mandated to codify, purify, protect and defend the integrity and interpret the contents of Scripture.
Rosenberg did not draw Justin Martyr out of some obscure page of history. His ideas had long had a minority following within the Western Church. Justin’s followers had, by Rosenberg’s graphic description, suffered martyrdom and persecution throughout the history of Christendom. The papacy had become "Romanized, Easternized and Judaized." Popes and church councils saw in these ideas the only true threat to its power and its position. Few, if any, other schools of thought had sustained the position so well as had these two that the real message of Jesus had been buried under the ill fitted outward garments of an "alien" theology and sociology.
Rosenberg saw the church in much the same way most Protestants had come to view it by the time of the Reformation: a seat of great wealth and inordinate secular power. Its great pageants and festivals brought untold wealth to the Vatican. Its indulgences and talismans accounted for huge profits. Its abuse of salvation through the use of interdiction and excommunication gave it wide control over wholly political matters. It could decide the choice of kings and emperors by using its powers jus tereni imperii over elections and successions. Its requirement that all men tithe in order to be saved gave the church a huge, guaranteed income. Its ownership of serfs, slaves and vast estates gave it more power than all the kingdoms in Christendom combined. The Catholic Church was universal in its secular as well as in its religious impact.
Had Justin’s appeal for a simplified Christianity based on free will and innate sense of morality prevailed, the great problems of the medieval abuses of power by corrupted popes might have been avoided. The hierarchy might never have grown within the Western Church. The Pauline influence might have been effectively countered. But Justin and his handful of
The Theological Background 57
followers lacked the administrative and propagandistic talents Mecessary to set their ideas in motion. He who has the administrative talents will favor the creation of a hierarchy. He who opposes such hierarchy generally lacks the organizational ability to oppose centralization, institutionalization and legalization.
Justin Martyr’s challenge awakened the opponents of formalism and renewed the conflict within the church between those who saw religion as a personalized internal experience and those who place great emphasis on rules and rituals. In Rosenberg’s view, Justin had reawakened the German racial soul. Had he been a better propagandist, his views, and not those of the Roman Catholic Church, would have prevailed.
The Nordic racial soul had the qualities of honor and integrity and pride. That soul had the qualities of honor and integrity and pride. That soul directed man toward his duty naturally. It did not reside in the law; rather, it directed in the most natural way possible. It was sufficient to point toward a duty and hear an inner voice saying, such is the noble man’s obligation. Action followed as night follows day precisely because Nordic man was duty bound to fulfill what honor dictated irrespective of the consequences.
In Rosenberg’s view, races were of two types: those which had honor and those which were without honor. The Jews had no honor so to them a rigid law was granted. They could not exist without such a law. They lacked, in his estimate, true substance of character. Their God mandated pain-pleasure stimuli because honor was never motivating to inferior races unless it was accompanied by a profit. Thus, a Jew could never be expected to choose to follow a directive of moral character unless it placed in jeopardy his life or his property. Additionally, Rosenberg doubted if Jews had such an inner light to point them toward the truth.
58 Alfred Rosenberg
Let us pursue this idea of conscience with Rosenberg. If
the Jew had once had a conscience he had lost it because the weight of the law conditioned him to look externally, to the law, never again internally, to the factor of conscience. The more rigid the law became, the more the law was codified, the less the existential requirement of looking inwardly to weigh the morality for one’s own self. Jews neglected conscience over long periods of time. Conscience became, metaphorically, a vestigial organ, an obsolescent, perhaps, wholly obsolete, function of man. In such inter-personal relationships as the law did not cover the Jew could not, if he wanted to, act in a moral way. In short, if the Jew had ever had a moral sense, it had long ago disappeared.
The Nordic man, conversely, knew intuitively right from wrong. He had no formal law as none was required. He had to look only to conscience to set his standards of behavior. As increasing awareness of a natural morality grew in Nordic man he developed a reinforcement in terms of an honor code. That became the key symbol of his existence. In all relationships man had to mystically, intuitively and existentially do that which was honorable irrespective of cost or inconvenience.
To Rosenberg Justin Martyr had been a singular voice crying out for the honor code. He was noble, that is, Nordic, in
habit. Justin had opposed the Judaism of Paul and emphasized
a Nordic Christianity grounded in a non-semitic world. Rosenberg claimed that Justin had taken a major step. While Luther had disappointed Rosenberg because the architect of the Reformation had relied on the self-same corrupter of the church, Paul, the message of Nordic Christianity had been sounded. It was a call that struck many other reformers who wished to recreate anti-and non-semitic Christianity.
The Manichaean Heresy
Alfred Rosenberg wrote very little on the heresies within the Western Church before the Cathars, c. A.D. 1000. The Cathars were generally called Manichaeans and their heterodox theology was heavily dependent on the earlier Manichaeans. There is no direct proof that the Cathars had access to the legends and writings of the earlier heretics. It is true that ideas are rarely eradicated, even with the most diligent effort. Manichaean traditions, or at least parts of the traditions, perhaps now only myths, passed through many minds before arriving in the Cathar theology.
From the beginning there had been divisions within the Western Church. The challenges were primarily doctrinal, but their success was based on the individual prestige and preaching ability of locally known priests. Whole communities generally supported orthodoxy or fell to heterodoxy. Much of the teaching was individualized to the private thoughts of a teacher and need not refer to scripture for its authority.
Saul (Saint Paul) had written of those who worshipped "another Jesus" and followed another doctrine, spirit and Gospel [2 Cor. 11:4; Gal 1:6]. Much of Paul’s energies were directed at establishing an orthodoxy, this in spite of his strong condemnation of legalism and law and rule making. Heresy and heterodoxy, of course, can exist only in reference to an established set of rules, laws, beliefs and tenets called orthodoxy. Once orthodoxy was established anything that rejected or violated it was obviously heterodoxy, or erroneous teaching. The idea of choice among several, even many, competing factions within a given philosophical-theological school was well established in biblical times. Paul preferred unity and single-mindedness to choice. Saul discussed these camps of Christianity [1 Cor. 11:18-19]. He specifically condemned pluralism and factionalism in Christianity [Titus 3:10-11]. His idea of the Latin terms hairesis and schisma was
60 Alfred Rosenberg
not the traditional tolerance. He was not interested in opposing -
in debate alternative ideas, views and interpretations of Christ’s
mission and teaching. He viewed those challenges to orthodoxy .
as discordant and theologically deviant. [1 Timothy 6:3-5; 2 Tim 4:3-4]. Virtually all later suppression of heterodoxy refers back to Paul’s defense of orthodoxy and condemnation of heresy and error.
There was little question that there ought to be only one correct doctrine [Matthew 16: 15-19 and Matt. 28: 16-20]. Only established authority can suppress, correct, condemn and repress heterodox views. The Church from the beginning had two choices in dealing with heterodoxy. Using caritas [love, charity], the Church sought to guide, instruct and correct erroneous views. It urged the heretics to repent of their evil ways and to return to the correct teachings of the church and community. It also sought to reason together to find the answers to disputed questions. Most of the original church councils were held in the spirit of caritas to decide orthodoxy and to seek to persuade those with contrary opinions to join the fold. Its teaching authority was sufficiently strong to prevent fragmentation of Christianity.
As the church gained authority and power it increasingly abandoned reason and caritas in favor of potestas (legal coercion of heretics and those who believed in error). The Western Church was responsible for martyrdom of early figures such as Mani as well as for full fledged wars (crusades) against those holding heterodox views. They found support in Peter: "Israel had false prophets as well as true; and you likewise will have false teachers among you. They will import disastrous heresies ... bringing swift disaster upon their own heads .... In their greed for money they will trade on your credulity with sheer fabrications." [2 Peter 2:1-9]. There was no room for fusion of several factions or: camps; and no room for compromise and negotiated settlement.
The Manichaean Heresy 61
An example of an early major challenge to Christian orthodoxy came in the second century after Christ. Montanus of
Phrygia raised the question of continuing revelation. Was what
God had revealed in the New Testament complete, or might there be additional, perhaps continual, revelation? Claiming to be the only true form of Christianity, Montanism held as a matter of faith that revelation was continual, and certainly not complete. Many have returned to this position, even down to the present day. | | .
The Arian heresy was the only early heterodoxy to trouble both the Roman and the Germanic worlds before the eighth century. It was thus of greater interest to Rosenberg than most other heterodox theologies. It began with a dispute between Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, and the local bishop, Alexander. What was the correct way to explain the relations between the Father and the Son? Arius’ teachings subordinated the Son to the Father and denied that Christ was co-eternal with the Father. The question was taken up at Emperor Constantine’s order and decided at the Council of Nicaea in 325, A.D. This did not settle the dispute and it continued throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, A.D. The German invaders took up the dispute in the fifth century as the Roman world crumbled and succumbed to the German invaders.
Few religious deviations in the Western church had greater impact or longer-lasting effect than Manichaeanism. Founded by Mani in Mesopotamia about 242 A.D., it was a major rival to orthodox Christianity. Mani was martyred by the Western Church in 276 A.D. Among the early adherents was the great apologist for the Catholic Church, Saint Augustine, who practiced its tenets from about 373 to 382. His City of God has strong Manichaean tendencies in its absolute dichotomy between good and evil, and between the city of man (visible world) and the City of God (realm of the spirit).
Mani reflected the gnostic background of the area and
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the times. The origin of evil lay in the nature of matter itself. Its multiplicity is radically opposed to the simplicity and spirituality of the True God. Matter is an evil which can never be redeemed; it is essentially and eternally evil. The soul is divine, for it is immaterial and simple, and both emanates from the Divine and reflects the perfection of the Divinity. Man’s body is but a prison in which the soul is entrapped. Redemption is nothing more than the liberation of soul from body and is found only in death.
The Manichaean Heresy 63
religion, and openly sought martyrdom for their beliefs. A Significant portion of the community’s time and effort was devoted to prayer and fasting. The membership was dependent on the lodging and hospitality of the common believers. Strictly speaking, the Manichaeans were not Christians. They did accept Christ as having been a divine being, or, at least, a being who was guided by the Holy Spirit. But so too did they accept all of the major religious leaders: Buddha, Lao-tzu and others. They did reject the idea of incarnation that is the
The Demiurge, or lesser creator, created the visible world out of particles which belonged to the powers of darkness. These powers are opposed to the True God and the whole realm of the spirit. They are forever entrapped in the world of matter. They entice man to use his sexual powers to continually procreate so that bits of the spirit are continually entrapped in the bodies of men. Otherwise, human bodies would be lifeless, hollow shells, and there would be no one for the powers of darkness to control. at
This absolute dichotomy between matter and spirit is called Cosmic Dualism [or anti-cosmic dualism]. It underlies all of the major works of gnosticism,, but is especially evident in Manichaeanism. Sin is concomitant with life itself in the material world. Only the spark of life, the human spirit, is fit for godly action or thoughts, and for redemption. Necessarily this dualism concluded that whatever is merely finite (hence limited in this time as well as space) is evil. Whatever is eternal is good, and the spirit of man is a spark of the eternal fire of God.
Manichaeanism had a rigid ethic. Mankind was forbidden to kill animals or otherwise to shed blood. Sex was condemned for reasons noted above. One was to reject Satan, the world, all material things, and all happiness based on enjoyment of material goods. The elect or perfects travelled without money or possessions, begging for their daily food. They ignored secular laws which were in any way antithetical to their
cornerstone of Christianity. Jesus only appeared to be a man. He was not crucified on one cross; he was, at all times and places, omnipresent. Some of the critics of Manichaeanism @ccused cult of pantheism. It is true that the Manichaeans had mo special use for many of the Christian beliefs. They rejected Holy Communion on the ground that it was worthless because of the omnipresence of Jesus. They rejected the maintenance and adoration of relics, such as the cross, partly because the artifacts were material and partly because they had no more felevance than any other physical item, since God was everywhere.
The term Manichaeanism has come to represent any and all varieties of dualism in which matter and spirit are mecessarily and essentially opposed. The movement died out probably for two reasons. It was too anti-social in its rejection of sex and because of its exclusiveness. It went too far for many rejecting war, violence and bloodshed in an age that was far
tempted to war in both conquest and defense.) The term anichaean and many of its major tenets and ideas lingered on, the vital spark carried by others. Agapius (c. 450 A.D.) was one early religious teacher who attempted a fusion of Manichaeanism and orthodox Christianity. He retained the Manichaean belief concerning an
il One, a self-subsistent force that is both eternal and opposed to God. He urged rejection of the whole of the Old
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of evil and persecution and suffering. On it the Jews had really or symbolically crucified Christ. Even if one attempts to reconcile the dualism which precludes Christ from having a body with the hatred of the Jews as "Christ killers" one is left with the idea in Bogomilism that the Jews had condemned Christ along with His teaching. The Bogomili interpreted the cross as symbolically representing that condemnation and Tejection.
The Bogomili made no distinction between priesthood and laity. This group was a democratically-run organization with no ‘hierarchy, at least until about 1200, A.D. They were more contemplative than Paulicians and more given to direct and forceful action. Although they had a powerful military force. during most of their history, they did not attempt to create a temporal regime.
The usual rejection of the sacraments marked Bogomilism. Marriage leads to continued creation of material bodies. Holy Communion is an attempt to do the impossible: sanctify matter which is evil and cannot be blessed. They rejected material holy relics, and formal churches for the same reason.
The Phundagiagitae may be regarded as a form of Bogomilism and, to a degree, Paulicianism. This new movement was probably founded by John Tzurillas in Bulgaria about 1050, and spread through Bulgaria and Byzantium. It was more willing than the Bogomili to pay lip service to those artifacts and doctrines of organized Orthodox Christianity. Its adherents were hard to discover during the many persecutions of heterodox Christians in both Bulgaria and Byzantium.
The Phundagiagitae were accused of being devil worshippers, and of having a developed satanology. That accusation probably came from a misunderstanding of their interest in Satanel. Like their predecessors the Phundagiagitae held that Satanel was a son of God and was the creator of this
The Manichaean Heresy 69
vorld. God had created six heavens. Satanel had made the femaining one. Satanel had tricked other devils (then angels) o rebelling against God. Realizing that they had been tricked, other fallen angels set about to create a race of beings which would help mankind. This they did by fathering a race of ants by the daughters of men ["there were giants in the earth in those days" Genesis 6:4]. = Moses had led the Jews astray, the Phundagiagitae gued, by worshipping only Satanel, and in offering men the which was written by Satanel, not by God. Other men ebelled, urged on by the giants who had been instructed by t fathers. In retaliation, Satanel caused the Universal. Deluge which killed all but Noah who had remained loyal to im. In this cult, very few of the Old Testament figures were hy of other than eternal damnation. Satanel had stolen the spark from God which became spirit of man. This was represented metaphorically as the ght of the sun set against the eternal darkness of night in tanel’s realm. The spirit of man cried out for redemption so od sent his son Jesus Christ to the rescue. After having saved men, or that portion to whom he came and who received him, Jesus returned to heaven. On the ascent he bound Satanel, and removed from him the last vestige of his godliness, after which devil became Satan, the "el" having been appropriately dropped. The "el", as we have seen, indicated “of God." The aching of Jesus was designed exclusively to liberate men from Satanel and his servants on earth, the Jews, followers of the teachings of Moses and Noah.
The Legacy of the Early Heretics In the Myth of the 20th Century Alfred Rosenberg spent
much space discussing the Cathars, also known as the Albigensians or Pure Ones. He clearly preferred their brand of
70 Alfred Rosenberg
Christianity to the Roman Catholic version. They were the carriers of the Manichaean tradition, as influenced by the Bogomili, Paulicians and others, into Central Europe, in the three years prior to the Reformation. Had the Cathars been more militarily active and adept it would have been them, not Luther and Calvin, who would have won the place in history as the reformers of Christianity and the successful rebels against the Church. As it was, they were successfully contained by the Catholic Church and allied princes.
Some gnostics had made great use of Paul, but in a way so highly symbolic that a fair statement of the situation might be that they merely used Paul as a point of departure for their esoteric ideas. Martin Luther placed even greater emphasis on Paul. It is with Paul, especially a literal interpretation of Paul, that Rosenberg had his greatest problem with Christianity. Had it not been Paul, Rosenberg argued, Christianity would have been as the "heretics" like the Bogomili, Manichaeans, Paulicians, or Cathars. It would have rejected the Old Testament, removed the Jews and their Jehovah, and founded an anti-Jewish religion.
Bibliography
Angebert, Jean-Michel. The Occult and the Third Reich. New York, 1974. Borst, A. Die Katharer. Stuttgart, 1953.
Broeckx, E. Le Catharisme. Hoogstraten, 1916.
Brooke, Christopher. "Heresy and Religious Sentiment, 1000-1250" in C. Brooke (ed.) Medieval Church and Society. New York, 1972.
Brown, Peter. "St. Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion," 54 Journal of
Roman Studies (1964), pp. 107- 16.
. Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine. New York, 1972.
Conybeare, F.G. (ed., intro.). The Key of Truth (Oxford, 1898). This is allegedly a Manichaean work that had been lost and now rediscovered. Many disagree with Conybeare’s introduction.
Cumont, F. Recherches sur le manichéisme. Paris, 1908.
The Cathars
The Cathar theology was quite diverse. The common factor among the many groups called "Cathar" is opposition to the established church. It is virtually impossible to catalogue and systematize them. There was no single wellspring of Cathar thought. Movements for reform touched all aspects of medieval fife. There was much in the church that needed reform. Reformers and reform movements grew and were often either ehecked by the church for real or supposed heterodox views or they fell into moral laxity themselves. The inquisitors who tortured and questioned real or suspected Cathar heretics saw far greater homogeneity than was the case in reality. Most of what we know about the Cathars came from records of the Tnquisition.
We find the Cathars by about 1025 A.D., in Germany, Ttaly and France, and spreading to England and Flanders. Originally the established church called the heretics simply "the mew Manichaeans." The church sent the Holy Inquisition to weed out the recurrent heresy. Although there were prominent and powerful Cathars supporters, especially in Languedoc, the Cathars appealed first and foremost to the common people. These uneducated laymen and women were hardly able to match theological arguments with the select, trained inquisitors of the established church. It is likely that under torture many orthodox Christians succumbed to pain, fear and theological entrapment. No book similar to the (ancient Armenian?) Key to Truth has, to date, been discovered, translated and disseminated to explain the Cathar side of the controversy over their doctrines. Last, we must note that the Cathar heresy existed clearly for more than two centuries and it had no central authority similar to the papacy to set doctrine universally.
There are many legends about the founders of the Cathar heresy, but no single figure or group can be credited
72 Alfred Rosenberg
with the development and spread of Catharism. Gerbert of Aurillac, Archbishop of Reims in 991 made a declaration of principles which were decidedly gnostic and Manichaean, but he cannot be said to have led or encouraged the spread of Cathar religion. In 1028 William V, Duke of Aquitaine, summoned a council of bishops to deal with the heresy, and there it was held that it had spread northward from Italy. Ademar of Chabannes believed that a certain woman and another peasant had carried the doctrine into France, perhaps from Italy. Modern scholarship suggests that a portion of it, at least, came from Bulgaria, Armenia, and/or the Byzantine Empire. Another portion came out of the Moslem Empire, where there was an unusual tolerance for strange gnostic sects. Guibert of Nogent wrote of "Manichees" practicing their religion at Soissons in 1114. Saint Bernard wrote of their doctrine in his Sermon on the Song of Songs.
The Cathars were clearly dualists in the classical Manichaean sense. The earliest references to them state that
there was a new outbreak of the Church’s old nemesis,
Manichaeanism. Intermittently thereafter the Cathars were called Manichaean. Authorities have not decided, based ont he available testimony, whether the Cathar dualism was of traditionally opposed eternal gods, or whether it was of the monarchical type. There may have been shades of each heresy existing simultaneously. The monarchical dualism suggests that the power of evil is a being in all ways inferior to God, and that evil force will disappear when the material world ends. Traditional dualism, based in some part on the teachings of the Persian sage Zarathustra (Zoroaster) suggests that there are two equally eternal and powerful beings, one good and one evil.
The Cathars accepted the usual limited scriptural writings, and excluded the bulk of the Old Testament. Several books of the Old Testament, to which the New Testament referred often, were retained, notably the Psalms. Jehovah of
The Cathars 73 Jews was dismissed as being either an incarnation or form Satan, or as being merely a world artificer and not God. ey gave esoteric interpretations to Scripture, including cription against the eating of meat. The portions of the ew Testament which did not suit their purposes were oved, usually with the justification that these had been ded by the Jews to confuse or confound the faithful.
There was a significant distinction made between.the srfects and the laity within Catharism. The laity were those o were learning the true Christianity. They could marry, or continue to live in wedlock, if they wished. The initiates who had taken the final vows of the cult could not have sexual intercourse or live in a family environment. The training period often lasted several years or even a decade or more. Many Cathars held off taking the vows until they were near death, so that they were not obliged to follow the much stricter moral code required of the Perfects.
The great sacrament of the Cathar religion was the Consolamentum. It was held in the home of a Perfect or a sympathizer. The sacrament began with a communal confession of sins and failures called the Servitium. All those present, Perfects or followers, participated. A senior Perfect held aloft a copy of the approved Scripture. The transcriptions of what the ceremony consisted of have come down to us, and as reported contain nothing that is shocking to, or antithetical to, orthodox Christianity. The closest it came to heresy was the emphasis placed on the sins one could commit of a material type, notably the sins of the flesh. |
The candidate’s initiation into the final rite of the Perfects was reasonably simple. It was flavored with writings from the accepted Church fathers and the edited. Scripture. Primarily it consisted of the rejection of things which were offensive to the group’s ethic. They were not to lie, cheat or swear. The Roman Catholic Church alleged that it was at this
74 Alfred Rosenberg
point that the rejection of all things Catholic took place. The catechumen was reminded that here, before God, he swore eternal allegiance to his religion. Doubtless, he was required to renounce the Sacraments, since these were tied to the material world, and several canons of faith.
The Cathars drank no wine, and they objected to Holy Communion on the ground that nothing material could be made holy or purified in the sight of God. This is standard in anti- cosmic, gnostic dualism. Confession was an open affair, and not made to the priest. The cross was most objectionable, on the traditional heterodox theological ground that it was the symbol of Christ’s passion, even though they generally believed that Christ had no body and only appeared to suffer. The fact that the Jews sought to crucify and condemn Jesus was sufficient reason to hate the cross, even if Christ was not actually crucified.
Some Cathars appeared to be Adoptionists. This faction believed that a man like any of us, but a Gentile [i.e., a non- Jew] had been born, out of the flesh of Mary. He was fathered probably by Joseph and was not born of a virgin. Jesus was not born of one eternally exempted from sin. This to say that the Adoptionists rejected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. At the time of the baptism by John, when God spoke the words "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased [Matthew 3:17]," Jesus was transfixed or possessed by God. The "adoption" remained through the crucifixion, and possibly God removed himself from the man either at the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross ("My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34]). Most among those accepting Adoptionism believed that the man, not the man-God, was crucified.
Probably the mainstream Cathars believed that God had not, and could not, become flesh, because flesh is material and thus corrupt. He only appeared to men to have’a body, as a
The Cathars 1S
onvenience to men to see him. That point of view had a ‘Secondary benefit: it precluded having to be concerned with Whether Christ was a Jew. That was a problem of some iderable concern for a group which had a fully rejected aism and the writings, prophets, thoughts, and laws of the Old Testament.
Traditional teachings on Heaven, hell and Purgatory € unacceptable to the Cathars. Earth, as the material world the Devil and corruption, was a kind of hell. Only those who enounced the flesh and Satan could be assumed into Heaven.
e Consolamentum was the purgation of the evil and ption from man, that is, the de-materialization of man. Thus, there was no need for a second place in which this
ansing could occur. That is to say, most believers among the
dead had made it to the Heaven, thus escaping the corruption the material world. These needed no help from the living. Dthers continued to have their spirits entrapped in the world. None of the works consulted on Catharism have taken p the question of reincarnation, but it seems to be a logical equence of the religion. If a soul was not able to escape matter, would it not be forced to return to try again? Or was that a soul which failed to rise from the material world in that single attempt of the lifetime spent here was eternally ‘trapped in matter in some way? The idea of spirit entrapped in matter strongly suggests that spirit must try time and again ‘to escape, for the union of matter and spirit is an impossibility. his dilemma must be solved, for it is an essentially unstable combination. One might also ask if it was necessary to the Cathars to believe that all men had his spark of the Eternal God. This question is not taken up in the extant sources either. One legend suggested that Satan invaded the celestial abode
76 Alfred Rosenberg The Cathars 77 sufficiently well enough to capture one-third of the spirits living there. These he entrapped in earthly bodies. However, the legend does not state clearly that this number was sufficient to account for all mankind. This, precisely, is the major problem in the Cathar teachings: they spoke in myths, parables and legends. Not infrequently various factions contradicted themselves.
Except in a highly symbolic sense, the Virgin Mary had no role in the Cathar teachings. Some held that she was a virgin and others held that she was merely a woman who had given birth to many children, including one adopted by God. She was a symbol for the Church in its most abstract form. One faction held that Mary was a vehicle through which an eon [demi-urge] passed on its way to earth; and a variance allowed Christ to have passed through her, but through her ear, not through the usual birth route.
The Inquisition accused the Cathars of being pantheists. In a spiritual sense, something of God may be said to be present in all things. Conversely, nothing material could house God because all material reality was evil in Cathar theology. The Cathars rejected Holy Communion because God was the antithesis of materialist diversity and multiplicity. God was single and simple and perfect. The Cathars generally responded to questions about God’s presence in Church or in Communion by saying that God was no more present there than anywhere else.
was both an evil and a false god, a form of Satan (or Satan incarnate). Abraham and Moses were inspired by the Devil. The various characters who destroyed, or who had a hand in destroying, the original inhabitants of Canaan to obtain the "land of milk and honey" were condemned.
The Cathars transvaluated some familiar figures of the New Testament. John the Baptist was evil because he baptized in water (i.e., a material thing) instead of baptizing in the spirit. They were ambivalent on Saul (Saint Paul), with a few accepting him and his epistles and others rejecting his theology. Some Cathars accepted only Saint Luke whom they believed to be a Gentile. |
Cathar beliefs prospered in a Europe that was tired of the corruptions of the established church. Rome, seat of the Papacy, was the worst offender in Christendom. Popes had taxed the clergy throughout Europe to finance a massive building program. More offensively, popes had lavished huge sums of money on their personal entertainment. The papacy used money to influence politics throughout the continent. It financed crusades against non-believers (notably Islam) and heterodox Christians. To acquire funds sufficient for its purposes, the papacy instituted a series of devices to squeeze ven more money from the hungry peasants. Jubilee years encouraged pilgrims to visit Rome. Travelling circuses carried real or faked artifacts of Christendom, charging the faithful an admission fee to view these "holy" items. Some roving preachers peddled indulgences which remitted punishment due for sins.
. The Cathar movement grew in northern Italy, southern France and into Germany. Its sects were strongest in Languedoc and northern Italy. The Church sent in its most experienced preachers to counter the attractions of Manichaeanism. In the mid-twelfth century, Peter the Venerable and Saint Bernard were its most successful representatives. The Church had only
Some Cathars evidently believed that God, being all- powerful, could enter matter, or take on the appearance of matter, at will, to deceive the Devil and rescue the Men of Light from their material prisons. Thus, at any given time, God may be present in any apparently material thing, to appear to all, Satan included, as a material thing.
The Cathars inverted the moral standing of most of the beings named in the Old Testament. Jehovah, the Jewish God,
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temporary success with caritas. Relapses in church discipline and continued abuses neutralized the best preaching efforts.
It was difficult to raise a campaign against the Cathars for a variety of reasons. Its adherents were generally men and women of the highest moral character. Their lives were singularly free of sin and corruption. The Perfects asked for nothing more than simple shelter and basic food. Many of the leaders were women. The consolamentum was not restricted as to gender. Many Perfects were women, including the mothers, sisters and wives of potential crusaders. Orthodox Catholic families were frequently closely related to Cathars. To wage war against the Cathars meant to wage war against one’s own relatives.
By the mid-thirteenth century the Church was prepared to use full force against the heretics and a crusade was sanctioned. In 1212 Simon de Montfort entered into the Albigensian Crusade. By 1244 the last major Cathar stronghold at Montsegur in France had fallen. The siege had been long and bitter and ranks among the classics of medieval siege warfare. The Perfects, at least 300 in number, chose to die by immolation at the stake rather than relinquish their beliefs. Some of those who did not take the consolamentum repented of their heresy and were taken back into the Church. The field on which so many were burnt is still recalled and marked. While there have been authors who claimed that the Cathars were contained by theological and philosophical reason, argument, logic and preaching, most scholars have concluded that the Cathars were defeated by two factors: the Holy Inquisition and the Crusade.
Despite the major challenge the Cathars presented to orthodox Christianity, the Church and the papacy had learned little. The underlying economic and social conditions that had supported the heresy were as much present after 1250 as before. The preachers who had helped to turn many
The Cathars 79
sympathizers back to the bosom of Holy Mother the Church were replaced by lesser talents. Corruption among local clergy continued. The Holy See at Rome encouraged or at least Permitted the revival of the offensive practices of simony, selling of indulgences, Roman jubilees and display of alleged Doly relics. The failure to reform cost the Church dearly when the next round of heterodox theology was advanced.
Rosenberg and Gnosticism
The Cathars served as a convenient take-off point for Alfred Rosenberg’s attack on both the Catholic Church and on Judaism. It is impossible to say whether his disdain for these two powerful institutions flowed from a general dislike of them, or from his analysis of their doctrine or their history. Perhaps it was a combination of the two factors. There are many references throughout the Myth of the Twentieth Century to both groups. He concluded that both the Catholic Church and the Jews had been responsible for the corruption of Christianity and of God’s true message. |
One may assume that Rosenberg’s constant favorable reference to the Cathars suggests that he believed they possessed the key to true Christianity. They may not have been perfect, wholly uncorrupted Christianity, but they were closer than any other extant or known religion to the truth. Rosenberg insisted throughout his writings and speeches that he was a Christian. He criticized the Roman Church on the ground that the Reformation had not gone far enough. The Calvinists had Started in the right direction, but had faltered.
After the fall of the last Cathar stronghold, in October 1244 A.D. at Montsegur, a few of the group made it through the Roman Catholic lines and carried off the treasures. Among these was reputed to be a Holy Grail, and on it the initiate knowledge the Cathar gnosticism required for salvation. This is
80 Alfred Rosenberg The Cathars 81
éocumentation, say that a black ritual devoted to Satan worship, ad based, in part, on Cathar theology, was offered to certain S officers. The Black Order was to be devoted to black magic, éemonology and all sorts of evil things. Ravenscroft believed at Hitler was a black magician and master of many of the ecult sciences. One might point out that similar charges had been prought against the Cathars, and without proof of their truth. he Cathars had offered a whole new interpretation of istianity and had suffered burning at the stake and other inful martyrdoms. Until the documents which still may exist e released, we can only say that it is within the context of Rosenberg’s published works that he studied what was available the Cathars, and perhaps other medieval Manichaeans, and hat the ideas as he understood them were to be the basis for s reconstituted Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church acted swiftly, and for the irst time in many centuries attacked a specific work, Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century, in an encyclical ntitled Mit Brennender Sorge [With Greatest Sorrow]. The issuance of an encyclical in the vernacular was itself more than tly irregular and indeed noteworthy. The Roman Catholic Church has also taken the position of exonerating the Jews for especial guilt in the death of Christ, placing the blame more ‘universally on all humankind. That action has taken place since the Myth of the Twentieth Century was written and, to some considerable degree, the encyclical may be viewed as the Church’s specific and official reaction to Rosenberg and the National Socialist position.
the great theme of both Ravenscroft’s books, and of the Angebert’s The Occult and the Third Reich. Otto Rahn’s Crusade Against the Grail, published during the pre-war years, suggests that the location of the greatest of the Cathar treasures was known. Possibly, too, the SS had located long lost books of Cathar theology, or books showing the esoteric Cathar interpretation of the New Testament books they accepted. The SS may have located the Cathar commentaries on books long used by Manichaean sects, including apocryphal books like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Adam and Eve, The Gospel of Thomas, or the Childhood of Jesus.
Ravenscroft believed that the spear of Longinius had long before been located, in Vienna, at the treasure-house of the hereditary Austrian kings. The spear, as he calls it in his book title, The Spear of Destiny, was a talisman of power in and of itself He suggested, but did not clearly state, that it may be much more.
Of what did the Cathar treasure consist? More to the point, of what did Rosenberg believe it would consist? And what of that material did Rosenberg study and consider? Presumably, Ravenscroft and Angebert, in researching their books, spent much time in considering answers to these questions. Both agree that Hitler and the National Socialists possessed the Spear. Neither author is evidently willing to commit to the Nazis’ possession any other specific object or writing. One might even ask if, indeed, the Cathars had a treasure, and, if they did, if any of it has survived.
Angebert’s The Occult and the Third Reich suggests that a substantial portion of what the SS gathered on religion was put into use by the SS under Heinrich Himmler and that a special stronghold had been provided Himmler for the express purpose of indoctrinating select SS leaders in the new cult. Pauwels and Bergier, whose work, Morning of the Magician, is noteworthy for the wild statements made without any
Bibliography
John F. Benton (ed.). Self and Society in Medieval France. New York, 1970. Guiraud, J. Histoire de Vinquisition au moyen Age. Paris, 1935-38.
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Hannedouche, Simone. Manicheisme et catharisme. Cahiers d’etudes cathares,
1967.
Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion Beacon, 1963.
Lambert, Malcolm. Medieval Heresy. New York, 1977.
Moore, R.L.. The Origins of European Dissent. New York, 1975. . "The Origins of Medieval Heresy," 55 History (1970), pp. 21-36 . The Birth of Popular Heresy. New York, 1976.
Mustard, Helen M. and Charles E. Passage (eds.). Parzival: A Romance of
the Middle Ages. New York, 1961.
Obolensky, Dmitri. The Bogomils. Cambridge University, 1948.
Pauwels, Louis and Jacques Bergier. Moming of the Magician. Paris, 1960.
Peters, Edward. Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe. Philadelphia, 1980.
Ravenscroft, Trevor. The Cup of Destiny. York Beach, Maine, 1982. . The Spear of Destiny. New York, 1973.
Runciman, Steven, The Medieval Manichee. Cambridge, 1955.
Russell, Jeffrey B. Religious Dissent in the Middle Ages. New York, 1971.
- "Interpretations of the Origins of Medieval Heresy," 25 Medieval
Studies (1963), pp. 26-53.
Schmidt, C. Histoire des Cathars et Albigeois. Paris, 1849.
H.J. Schroeder (ed.). Disciplinary Decrees of the General Church Councils. St. Louis, 1937.
Soderberg, H. La Religion des Cathars. Uppsala, 1949.
. Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages. Berkeley, Ca., 1965.
Sumption, Jonathan. The Albigensian Crusade. Boston, 1978.
Wakefield, Walter and A.P. Evans. Heresies of the High Middle Ages. New York, 1969.
Walter L. Wakefield. Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southem France. Berkeley, 1974.
Wakefield, Walter and Austin P. Evans. Heresies of the High Middle Ages. New York, 1969.
Weston, Jessie L, (editor). Parzival: A Knightly Legend by Wolfram von Eschenback. 2 volumes. London, 1894.
Meister Eckhart
Mysticism in Alfred Rosenberg’s thought began with ister Eckhart. There were many earlier mystics, most idered to be heretics, or at least viewed with considerable icion, by the Roman Catholic Church. Joachim of Flores {¢.1135-1202) was a Cistercian mystic who developed a complex Trinitarian philosophy of history. There were three ages of the d, each connected to one of the Blessed Trinity, with ‘eorresponding religious characteristics. His teachings inspired ‘many of the poverty loving sects in the next several hundred ‘years; and several generations of mystics whose interest lay in the second coming of Christ and the fulfillment of the tic vision of John in the Book of Revelations. Angela ‘ef Foligno (c.1248-1309) was a devout mystic who was the subject of visions and special revelations. So exhausting were ‘these experiences that she was frequently mute and motionless for eight days after. Her Book of Visions and Instructions was designed to instruct those interested in taking the twenty steps of penitence which might lead one to the mystical life. Ubertino de Casale (1259-c.1330) was influenced by mystics such as Angela of Foligno, John of Parma and Joachim of Flores. Ubertino was best known for his bitter attacks on the corrupt clergy and for his love of poverty. Pope John XXII sought to try him on charges of heresy, but was unable to locate him. None of these figures seems to have been known to Alfred Rosenberg, but they certainly constituted the source of Eckhart’s mysticism.
Of those major figures discussed at length in Alfred Rosenberg, especially those who are significant for their contributions to theology, Meister Eckhart is the least known. Johannes Eckhart was born in Hochheim, near Gotha, Germany, about 1260, a son of a steward in a knight’s castle. When he was about fifteen years of age he entered the
84 Alfred Rosenberg
Dominican Monastery at Erfurt and began a nine year program of study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. He moved to Cologne to continue his studies. The medieval master and mentor of St. Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, taught at Cologne until his death in 1280. It is possible that Albertus, the "Universal Doctor," taught Eckhart.
In 1300 Eckhart was Prior of Erfurt and Vicar of Thuringia, a position of considerable power and influence. Although Eckhart was himself a mystic, he practiced his mysticism within the Church. Among the challenges he faced in his position of power and responsibility was the spread of heresy, notably of the mystic type, operating outside of, and in opposition to, the Church. The Friends of God, the Beghards, the Beguines and other radical groups challenged the corruption within the Church and disputed major points of theology. Eckhart’s reputation as a preacher and defender of the faith, and his personal piety and integrity, earned him a wide audience within his charge.
Shortly after 1300 Eckhart moved to Paris, there to earn Licentiate and Master of Arts degrees in 1302. After receiving the second degree he was known as Meister [Master] Eckhart for the remainder of his life. In 1303 he was appointed Provincial of the Dominican order in Saxony. This charge included nearly all of middle and lower Germany. In 1307 he became vicar of Bavaria, adding yet more of his homeland to his responsibility. This was to be his last elevation. In 1309 he was nominated for the position of Superior of the Dominican Province of Germany, but the Pope did not confirm the promotion. He then made a second visit to Paris. By 1313 he was Prior of the Dominicans at Strassburg. About 1320 he was appointed professor of theology at the Dominican College of Cologne.
On 24 January 1327 he was ordered to appear at the court of the Archbishop of Cologne to answer a number of
Meister Eckhart 85
arges of teaching and preaching doctrines that were in error id that were antithetical to the truths held by the Church. On 13 February 1327 he appeared in Cologne, but as a preacher, mot as an accused heretic. He offered to debate any specific item on the list of alleged heresies. Were he to be proved wrong on any count he would retract his errors and recant. The public, no doubt, hoped that a great debate would occur. Eckhart was enormously popular with the public. In medieval times the debate of theological matters was a pleasant diversion. The "disputed questions" were listed and the positions ‘of the debaters were avidly followed. There was little interest at the time in political questions simply because monarchy reigned and citizen-based political participation was unknown. But the debate did not occur, perhaps because of Eckhart’s reputation and perhaps because of his following among the prospective audience.
While in Frankfort Eckhart was charged with heresy for allegedly being in a league with the Beghards and the Brothers of the Free Spirit, both of which the Roman Catholic Church considered heretical. He aroused the enmity especially of the Archbishop of Cologne. Initially vindicated before a papal tribunal, Eckhart was rearrested and tried by the Archbishop’s ‘special Inquisition. He was then forced to retire to teaching in Cologne where he died.
The final disposition of Eckhart’s case came some two years later after his death. In 1330 a special papal commission whose verdict is said to have been reviewed personally by the pope found him suspect of heresy. More precisely, the clerics assembled by the pope to examine his work found 28 of his propositions to be heretical, leaning toward pantheism. ‘Seventeen of these ideas were clearly contrary to Catholic ‘teaching and eleven were held to be dangerous to the faith of believing Christians.
The Church continued to pursue Eckhart. On 22
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February 1327 Pope John XXII officially denied Eckhart’s direct appeal. By 27 March 1329 John XXII made reference to
Eckhart, noting that he was dead. On 27 March 1329 John.
XXII announced that Eckhart had, before his death, retracted his erroneous teachings and acknowledged his grievous errors. There is little doubt that this statement was a fabrication. The noble lie allowed the Church to condemn those of Eckhart’s teachings which it did not like while continuing to praise the man who had become a saint in the popular mind.
The papal bull determined that Eckhart had denounced his errors before dying, but there is no evidence that was so. The bull also noted Eckhart’s willingness to submit any and all of his writings to the Holy See for its approbation. This is partially true. Eckhart defended with great vigor those ideas said to be pantheistic by the commission, but he did stand ready to retract whatever ideas he advanced that could be shown in fair debate to be in error. He generally defended himself by saying that his ideas were misrepresented, contents were taken out of context and that more was read out of them than he had intended. He had the force of conviction which could be overturned by a superior logic, but he stood ready to accept or reject any ideas, including his own, on their intrinsic merit and logic. Eckhart advanced ideas which then might be read and discussed by superior minds which were open to the truth. Even if compelled by threat of Church discipline including excommunication to recant and withdraw, his ideas were still available to such scholars as wished to examine them and decide the issues for themselves. Eckhart favored only that ultimate power of the world, logic; he disliked the arbitrary coercive power of church and state in the vital area of the freedom of conscience.
The cult died out rather quickly. His following proved to be fickle and gave its attention to others. The Church was delighted to forget the controversial preacher whose
Meister Eckhart 87
troversial teachings had proved to be so popular. The ‘Church was content to allow history to record that Eckhart had ‘been deceived and seduced by the Devil. His teachings had been posthumously condemned and there was no reason to “encourage additional devotion to Eckhart.
It would be easy to name Eckhart as a spiritual and theological father of the Reformation in Germany, but Scholarship universally disagrees with this conclusion. The contemporary mystics led by Tauler and Suso, leaders of the Friends of God, had clear and definite influence on later Protestant movements, notably, Calvinism, the Anabaptists and Society of Friends. But we must recall that Eckhart had opposed the teachings of the other, radical mystics, and that he also opposed reformation of theology and corruption through any method except those situated within the Church. He had no quarrel with the ecclesiastical establishment. He recognized quite clearly "dangerous mysticism" which led humans away from the true Church. Eckhart was able to reconcile his mysticism with the teachings of the Church, but others, less brilliant and less educated, were unable to create a satisfactory synthesis.
Meister Eckhart was a scholar of the first rank. The number of authorities he cites is amazing. It is a veritable who’s who of the known theologians and philosophers that was available to medieval man. Authorities were used only as springboards for his own ideas. As a product of scholastic education he was used to making fine distinctions, and of dealing with highly abstract concepts. He applied his thought to one thing only. He wished to lead the common man to God. He preferred to demonstrate the great truths of the Godhead tather than condemn and punish those whose ideas differed from his own. Truth would win if properly stated, and Eckhart offered his own conclusions, richly illustrating these truths with his own mystical experience.
88 Alfred Rosenberg
Eckhart had taught that man’s relation to God began with and in the soul. There was something divine within the soul of each human being, called grund, a spark of the Godhead. Humans could fly to God and unite with Him in a timeless and will-less state of ecstasy, love and contemplation. All truths were already contained within the human soul; or, as the Gospel says, "The Kingdom of God is within." In each soul we find something that was not created, a tiny particle of the uncreated and the divine.
Without that spark of the Godhead humans were nothing. Nothing but God truly exists. Every human trait is but an accident attached to that tiny spark of the divine, in the sense that Aristotle taught substance and accidents. As Eckhart taught, "All that is not God might not exist .... Creatures of themselves are pure nothings." [Defense, IX, 30 & 46]. :
Humans are not God, but they are tied to God, and God to them. Metaphorically, God’s blood flows within our bodies. The Church had taught that the faithful might partake of God in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and the Precious Blood. No preacher had taken so seriously this physical tie between Creator and creature.
The medieval mind had long sought to define God. St. Anselm had written of a God which is that greater than which can be conceived. No doubt this definition influenced Eckhart who yearned for a "God who is more than God." There were other limitations. He cannot be defined. "It is God’s nature to be without a nature." [Fragments, 30]. God is evidently less. than Truth. "Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go." [Fragments, 18]. God cannot choose when, where and how to give grace. “If I am pure, God must give Himself and dwell in me ...." [Fragments, 8].
The soul of man is central to his relationship to God. God is the "tireless lover of the soul." The inner spark of the
Meister Eckhart 89
Soul seeks to dominate man’s personality. Whenever man gives up his outer self for the sake of the spark of God in his soul he moves ever closer to God. Man comes to know God as the Creator and as the Father of all things. He becomes his true self only when he denies his material being. He must pray in general terms, for union with God. When he looks for material things and asks for material prosperity in this life he is praying to the world and not to God.
The soul is home to a divine spark which is a part of
God. Eckhart sought here within the soul proof of the existence of God. Man demands to know that God exists, but he cannot know of His existence beyond his self. Man can know God only from within, by examining the spark of God in the soul. This is the intellectual and spiritual basis of Protestantism. More important to Rosenberg was the use of Eckhart’s ideas as a basis of the Nordic Church that the Nazis espoused.
Rosenberg wrote an essay on Eckhart, Die Religion des Meister Eckehart (Munich, 1934], which was really an expanded _ essay taken from The Myth of the 20th Century. He considered Eckhart to have been an heroic, anti-Roman Catholic religious teformer of the first rank. The creation of the German national church was the product of neither the Reformation nor the Renaissance; it was the product of Eckhart’s discoveries. Eckhart was "the greatest Apostle of the Nordic West, who gave us our religion." [Myth, p.219]. He was the German who discovered God within his own self. With that discovery he founded the true Nordic Church. He was the first German to teach the primacy of the soul and the desire of the soul to be one with the Godhead. The Nordic soul was capable of unfolding unto itself and revealing to man his true self and
God. His church was stripped. of its Jewish and its "Syrian" Toots.
Rosenberg liked the emphasis Eckhart placed on the soul and the special relationship that existed between man and
90 Alfred Rosenberg
the soul. Eckhart had argued that no church was genuine that prevented the soul from unfolding or which prevented man from knowing his soul. As Rosenberg saw it, the real reasan
that corrupt Pope John XXII had charged Eckhart with heresy.
was that Eckhart had taught the Nordic principle of self- determination of the soul. Eckhart knew the pure German soul well through the process of self-examination. God can be "born" only in a totally free soul. The proud Nordic soul faced God as an equal because it was of and from God. As Rosenberg wrote, "In place of the Jewish-Roman Weltanschauung Eckhart envisions the Nordic-Western soul-religion, as the center of Germanic man, of the Nordic race." [Myth, p.252].
Traditional organized religion, Rosenberg reasoned, was of no use to Eckhart. The soul was sufficient in and of itself. As the equal of God because it was a spark of the Godhead it
determined the self-sufficient man. Eckhart separated the soul —
from any and all extraneous things. Perhaps other races lacked the proud Nordic soul. For these inferior souls Roman Christianity, with its emphasis on humility and self-sacrifice, was the appropriate religion. Rosenberg concluded that what Eckhart had written for all souls applied only to the Nordic race. Nordic man with his pure soul was nothing less than the
quintessence of the German character. He had the attributes of _
honor and inner strength.
It is true that ideas of humility, mercy, kindness, charity and other good works were of little interest to Eckhart. Love was not traditional charity; it was strength of soul in union with
God. He respected the ability of the pure soul to demolish all
obstacles in pursuit of the Godhead.
Grace, so vital in Luther’s thought, did not rank high for Eckhart. For Rosenberg this was one more proof that Eckhart had denied the Jewish roots of Roman Christianity. Grace was alien to Germanic thinking. It was tied to the inferior concepts of subservience and slavery. It came from Saints Paul and
Meister Eckhart 91
Augustine who were much given to thoughts of tormented souls writhing in hell fire and punished with eternal damnation because they had failed to be God’s good servants. Rosenberg had little use for Paul because he was a leading Jew. He had little more good to say about Augustine because of his African origins. Rosenberg, like many other Germans, suspected that Augustine was of mixed racial heritage.
To Rosenberg the institution of the papacy and its associated teachings were remnants of the mystical near eastern civilizations, products of Jewish and related peoples. As such, these were antithetical to the German spirit. Rosenberg argued that Eckhart had been the first to discover that the bases of the Nordic Church were northern European. The Church in Germany had made a grievous error by denying the myths of the Germans while accepting the Jewish and Syrian myths. The Jews and the Syrians did not comprehend the soul of Nordic peoples. They could not understand the human soul and its a to the Godhead because they were bound to the material earth.
Rosenberg saw the Manichaean conclusions about Roman Christianity being repeated in Eckhart. The "Syrian- Jewish" conclusions about man and the human soul were inappropriate for proud Nordic man.
Meister Eckhart had taught that Nordics should look inwardly, toward that freedom of the spirit that cannot coexist with creationism. He was silenced and his works placed on the Roman Index of Forbidden Books which Catholics could not read under the penalty of mortal sin. Because the Roman Church claimed the power to "bind" on earth, they could commit God to punish those who violated its precepts, including the Index. :
Eckhart was not speaking anew when he wrote of the "Inner light of the soul which is both unoriginated and uncreatable.". God did not grant freedom to man; this is an
92 Alfred Rosenberg Meister Eckhart 93
Asiatic lie. The freedom of the soul is a fact of being (Dasein); a grant from God would be a different type of form of being (Sosein). This doctrine that man has a special relationship with God as a being co-existing with God from all eternity comes from the most ancient Aryan texts. Eckhart, as a true, deeply religious, dedicated Nordic man of God could feel both his religion by ascending to God and know the racial truths of his people. By looking inward with a true and courageous heart, Eckhart’s man was able to soar toward God.
Eckhart had declared that there were three elements that demonstrated that one had a nobility of soul. First, a man had to possess a “glory of being" that he also described as a "heavenly agent." Secondly, the noble soul had a potency known nowhere else in all of creation. Third, it was known by the fecundity of its works. Before it could enter the real world it had to come to know its "unique beauty" of substance and contents. According to Rosenberg, these items showed that Eckhart had a Nordic soul.
Rosenberg’s Nordic man and Eckhart’s superior soul both approach the world as beings (Dasein) who have certain values, most notably the supreme virtue of honor. From honor one shows obedience to duty, a sense of obligation in his relationships with others and an honesty of character. In short, one prepares his soul in the inner depths of his mind, in the recesses of his being, and he then wears such virtues as he developed visibly, for all the world to see. Virtues are not abstract conceptions to be discussed in theoretical dialogues; they are, instead, preparations for concrete action. Rosenberg wrote of Greek warriors who fretted over an impending battle because they had not prepared spiritually for the engagement, just as Eckhart had written of religious men who had worried over receiving sacraments because they had not adequately prepared. Nordic man, Rosenberg argued, would have made preparations early as a natural part of preparing his soul for
The man of honor might die for honor or principle, but is an iron law of necessity. If one is to live honorably he be totally willing to die honorably. There is no alternative.
One who has philosophically prepared his soul is ready ascend to heaven, both figuratively and literally. The inner of reaching for the kingdom of heaven can be undertaken when the soul is free. The search for that freedom of er and of soul is a highly individualistic quest. One’s history can help and it can impel one to begin the search, it cannot make the search for the person. The person who talizes the nature of his journey has already progressed along
mandated route. Thus, man concludes that the externals of ip are generally an impediment to the quest. Externals are substitute for the true internal truth. Nordic theology placed emphasis on the ceremonies or rituals of mass religion; d, they drew man toward himself. An individual who does know himself can only lose his very tenuous grip on self if is immersed in mass pageants.
Eckhart distinguished between the good mystical roach to God and the bad. Rosenberg saw this as ttressing his own distinction between the true, typeforming and the untrue myth. Under direction less able than art’s, mysticism became radical heresy. Rosenberg atgued it under direction less able than his the myth-bound state me a lie. The well-springs of Nazi teachings on the soul id on Nordic religion, for Rosenberg, were to be found in eister Eckhart.
Eckhart pointed the way toward salvation. He rejected it Rosenberg called the Roman-Jewish concept of love, for the only love that impels the noble soul is that which unites us with God. Love can never unite us with men; only honor can do that. Love at its best draws us toward God and forms the substance that unites our will with his. This love is purifying in that the unity with God is necessarily purifying. God’s love is |
94 Alfred Rosenberg
such that "God cannot help but to surrender himself to our lonely hearts," said Meister Eckhart. This love involves no surrender of self, no self-humiliation, no self-abuse. The purified soul seeks only to be a rest, at peace, with God and with itself, It does not lead us toward others. Should man attempt to use his love to unite with beings of his own or of lesser orders (lesser men as well as beasts), it would detract from that unique substance and that unique relationship that brings us to the closest proximity with God.
Meister Eckhart had revived the idea despite the oppressive scholasticism of his Dominican order. The soul of Nordic man need never crawl toward God as did the Hebrew. He could "fly" toward the Godhead, contemplate it as pure being, and know the ideas as God knows them perfectly. He could stand proud and erect before God as the uncreated co- eternal being that he is. He could point to pride to his racial groundings and the light of his soul. He could see God as only a true child of light can see him, uncorrupted by the imperfection and evil of darkness.
Proud Aryan man could communicate with God as one whose being is to uphold the true supreme values as conceived in the mind of God. He would not approach the Godhead as one who has been corrupted by slavery or false humility and meekness. He would stand erect as the co-equal in timelessness of the Godhead. He would have approached God in a one-to- one internalized relationship, not through meaningless externals. He, the inheritor of untold thousands of generations of Nordic Kultur, rejects worldly materialism as the externalization of inner darkness and corruption. He would display the pride in racial consciousness that accepts the true Godhead over those idols that promise worldly kingdoms.
While the English-speaking world has largely ignored Eckhart, his was among the most profound minds of that highly
Meister Eckhart 95
ictive era. He is proper i Drcdectate - perly considered the founder of the Like most of the medieval thinkers Eckh define God before moving to other areas of srrniale sera theological inquiry and speculation. Like the pseudo-Dionysus _ God "nothing" meaning that God’s existence is fuller any conceivable being’s existence. As Creator God cannot be described in such terms as apply to his creation. God is above being since he created it. In comparison with God the world is nothing; and nothing that can be said of the world can apply rightfully to the concept of the divinity. Man seeks a union with God, but that jointure cannot possibly be on the logical or philosophical or physical planes. Union comes only tame for the gap between creature and its Creator is cn, el Od -- nearly infinite -- that no conventional The highest goal of man is the union wi i God the Father as Creator, which transpires eereeeae The birth of God in man, that is , the coming of Jesus into hie mortal soul, can occur only if and when the soul itself is wholly purified. This becomes a mystical union of wills, certainly not of the intellects. Grace is the great catalyst. The union of wills can be effected only by redeeming and healing grace which is a gratuitous gift of God, perhaps through the Holy Spirit. Man cannot earn this healing gift of grace; it derives from God according to a divine plan which man cannot fathom. However, one nr Li the — by, as it were, cleaning the vessel malicious an servi isti a ora one self-serving and hedonistic thoughts Meister Eckhart was a Dominican, indeed th the entire membership in Germany oat 1312 pemind others of his order in this time frame he was compelled to note the importance, even dominance, of Thomas Aquinas, the leading Aristotelian of the Dominicans in the Scholastic
96 Alfred Rosenberg
movement. Eckhart rather consistently wrote on two levels. On the one level he used the best Thomistic jargon and expressions. On the other level he wrote much as an Augustinian in apparent defiance of Thomas. For the record, and to comply with his order, he paid lip service to Thomas and accepted basic Thomistic conclusions. On the other hand he wrote his own philosophy which clashed sharply with Thomas and more closely followed Augustine. Even here, he gave precedence to his own ideas.
Eckhart distinguished between the Godhead (Deitas) and the Trinity (Deus). The Godhead in "the ground of God" and is indescribable. To provide a more comprehensible format, through a process of externalization, the Godhead manifests itself as the Persons of the Trinity. Truly religious men can approach both the Trinity and the Godhead. There is, within the man who is capable of having a mystical experience, a "ground" (Grund, also called Funklein or scintilla) which can "fly" to the Godhead. By and through proper contemplation man can achieve or uncover or discover this ground or "spark." He then soars above the mundane affairs of men and unites with the Godhead. The discursive and imaginative activities that ordinarily characterize conscious life are left behind. Man unites with the Godhead through a mental state which defies description because it is not translatable in conventional terms or interpretive in images.
Man knows the Godhead as it is, but he cannot convey this knowledge to others save in the poorest way in myth. To know the Godhead in this way man must himself experience the mystical union with the Godhead. During this union man loses all sense of time, for the Godhead exists beyond time. The Godhead is timeless, experiencing all things simultaneously. By uniting with the Godhead man can also enter a timeless state. Man loses a sense of being subject and of the Godhead being object. Man does not, however, lose, in an objective sense, his
Meister Eckhart 97
being. That is, man does not disappear into the Godhead. Godhead does not subsume man. Only in a relative and mal sense does he lose the sense of being himself.
The soul of man operates on five levels in Eckhart id of on the three levels of Thomas and of Aristotle. Man as a body with such powers as sensation and digestion. md, he experiences the things of the "lower intellect" mmon sense" level), knowing desire and passion. Third, he the reflective and contemplative powers of the higher lect. These are Thomas’ modes or levels of human tence. Fourth, man knows the pure ideas (Plato) as God ives of them. Fifth, through the spark of the soul, man the Godhead as it is.
The notion of the spark of soul can be interpreted to ly that man’s soul is uncreated and, at least that portion of is eternal. The creation that God is involved with extends only the external, physical world and not to the highest level of soul. It is possible to read in Eckhart more the World- Artificer or Greek Logos than the God of the Hebrews who created the world ex nihilo. The expression that God created the world in the same "eternal now" in which the Trinity evolved from the Godhead can be construed to imply the eternity of the stuff from which the world was shaped. Just as the Persons of the Trinity emanated from the Godhead without teference to now, before or after, so the world may have emanated without reference to the extension in time. The world itself however measures time as a sequence of events with reference to before and after, so the world may have emanated without reference to extension in time. The world itself however measures time as 4 sequence of events with reference to before and after.
A clearly original thought on the nature of God underlies the non-, even anti-, thomistic ideas Eckhart advanced. While paying lip service to Thomas’ definition of
98 Alfred Rosenberg
God as that whose essence is to exist, Eckhart defined God’s essence (in the Godhead) as intelligere. At the vital core, the Godhead can understand and be understood, at least mystically. Thomas Aquinas had defined God as the Trinity of Persons as the only being whose essence is to exist. He wrote that God is unlimited. God is not a finite being of our experience. God is esse, pure, perfect and unadulterated being.
Many of Eckhart’s writings show that he accepted the doctrine of creation ex nihilo even though other writings implicitly deny this. This was an idea that Rosenberg denied absolutely. Eckhart’s idea of creation clearly leaned toward the continuous and continual creativity of God. Creation was not a one-time act. He wrote on occasion of God and the Godhead as one. Other times he wrote that these were two wholly separate notions, something Thomas would not have accepted, Eckhart also defied Thomas by suggesting that, on the levels of being acceptable to Thomas, man knows only partial truths, never pure truth. Until we mystically unite with the Godhead through the spark of the soul we can have only truth mixed with a great amount of untruth.
Eckhart was clearly a mystic. He is not a Thomistic rationalist, although he did use the Thomistic method of philosophical inquiry typical of the Dominican order. His additions to Thomistic philosophy are comprehensible only if one accepts mysticism as a necessary part of man’s existence as man. By nature and definition, mystical experiences cannot be discussed on a philosophical plane. Without his mysticism Eckhart’s system and ideas would fall flat. With its addition his theology-philosophy soars.
One reason we would classify Eckhart as a mystic is his doctrine of the internalization of religion. Man must "get right" with God insofar as is humanly possible. Man must seek, by an internal arrangement of the will, to unite his being with God’s will. Externalization of religion is essentially meaningless, Man
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Ot unite with God through external acts. That would ssem Suggest a physical or essential unity of man and God, ideas ich Eckhart had already rejected. The internalized experience have its outward manifestations, but external works, acts deeds are useless if the will of man is not attuned to the
ivine Will. Thus, Eckhart paid only lip service to festivals, ades, public meetings and demonstrations and other external ions. He did not attack them; he merely ignored them and ested, de facto, that they were far more a source of distraction than of salvation. A second reason for Eckhart’s mysticism is found in relation to his doctrine of knowledge. In his epistemology he Sought to establish an essential unity between subject and object. Only by intuition can a subject truly come to know an object of its desire. Intuition is that vital faculty wherewith all finite things can unite with and sink into the substance of the deity. This unique intuition of creature and God binds the two in an inseparable union that cannot be transcended in any way. This mystical unity of creature with God is akin to thomistic metaphysical knowledge.
In Eckhart there is a highly personal relationship of wills which moves man toward religious knowledge and brings on a religious experience that is much like a deep aesthetic experience. This experience defies description. No creed or canon of theology can adequately establish a union of wills between God and that which is His creation. Man wills to make himself like unto God. The true substance of religion is thus felt, not written in codes of canon law.
Because the unique relation each man establishes with God is wholly his own it cannot be subjected to parameters established by religious authorities such as pope or a council of a church or the college of cardinals. Creed is unimportant. Creeds exist, as they would later for William of Ockham, as matters of this world only. We find no differences among creeds
100 Alfred Rosenberg
in God’s realm. Man would be foolish to kill others over a point of theology, such as in the difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation. Such as a matter would have no eternal corresponding image.
A noble band of mystics appeared in Germany in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries who were profoundly influenced by Eckhart’s theology. A work known as The German Theology appeared anonymously and was published by Martin Luther in 1516 at which time Luther ascribed authorship to John Tauler. Tauler was a fellow Dominican who signed the manuscript best known to us today under the pen name "A Friend of God." That MS was found in 1950 and has been used ever since, being considered the definitive text. This manuscript antedates by some years Luther’s published version of 1516. The author did not offer itas an original work but merely as an exposition of the theological ideas of Meister Eckhart. Tauler also published some thirty short sermons that appeared in print by 1498. While these sermons contain some new points, by and large they are orthodox Eckhart.
John Tauler was born in Strassburg and died in that city in 1361. It is probable that he was a student of Eckhart’s, perhaps during his last years when he was relegated to the position of private tutor while his works were being examined by the papal commission. Tauler is known to have been especially dedicated to his parishioners during the Black Death which visited Strassburg circa 1335. At the same time the city was placed under interdiction for reasons of alleged heresy. By 1341 Tauler had retired from active preaching and ministry and began writing in earnest. His most important work which rejected Eckhart’s pantheism while meditating on its mysticism was The Imitation of Poverty of Christ. That work was long ascribed to certain French authors, but its authorship has now been conclusively shown to belong to Tauler.
Another mystic was the wealthy merchant Rulman
Meister Eckhart 101
tswin of Strassburg. Late in life he sold his possessions and ired to a monastery that he bought with the proceeds of his . He was granted visions and these reinforced his mysticism his dedication to Eckhart’s theology. Merswin’s principal tk was The Book of the Nine Rocks, an invective against the terial corruption of men of all classes. He saw religion as wholly internalized and thought of laws as the works of fools who lacked inner conscience and a natural morality.
Adding to the existing ideas of piety and simple worship was The Master’s Book (1346) assigned now to Nicholas of Basel. It tells of a great master of Holy Scripture who preached in an unnamed city and whose fame spread quickly over his native land. A certain layman, again unnamed, is directed to go to the great preacher and instruct him in the true faith. Through divine intercession the layman is able to direct the preacher and to show him that he has not yet attained the true consecration that he must have because he has been shackled by an international, corrupted doctrine. Realizing that he has not yet purified his mind and that he has been too much concerned with externals, the preacher withdraws to meditate which he does over a two year period. After that time he is able to fathom the mysteries of a union man’s will with that of God. He learned piety and humility. He finds that the true path to salvation lies in the mediation and in penitential exercises.
In general, the German mystics set the stage for the creation of a German national religion. They presage the purified church cleansed of its Hither-Asiatic, Etruscan and Roman trappings. They defied Roman Catholic orders to approach religion as externalized, institutionalized religion. They disliked the emphasis they saw in the traditional Western church on the content of dogma and ritualized theology. Despite their intellectual attachments to the scholastics, they openly defied them on points of theology. The mystics were not interested in the proverbial hair-splitting of theology and
102 Alfred Rosenberg
philosophy they saw in scholasticism. They disliked Roman
Catholic rigidity in doctrine. They saw a natural conscience that could and did guide purified man who truly sought unity with God.
They taught a personal honor code instead of an
established and codified law. They thought the law useless for
those without personal integrity and honor. Those devoid of morality and honor would violate the law anyway. The heroic
man would not need the law and would, more than occasionally, feel confined by it. Development of the written law gave rise to a hierarchy and a bureaucracy, neither of which served any purpose to the moral man.
Eckhart returned to that call. He had far greater support for the Germanic customs had continued through the Dark Ages and into the Medieval times in the Germanies where he preached and taught. It was as though Eckhart had struck a chord deep down inside that cried out that is was true and right for a man to internalize religion.
Bibliography
Alfred Rosenberg. Die Religion des Meister Eckehart, Munich, 1934.
Raymond B. Blakney. Meister Eckhart. New York, 1941.
von Bracken, Ernst. Meister Eckhart: Legende und Wirklichkeit; Beitriige zu einem neuen Eckhartbild. Meisenheim am Glan, 1972.
Degenhardt, Ingeborg. Studien zum Wandel des Echhartbildes. Leiden, 1967.
Jones, Rufus. Studies in Mystical Religion. New York, 1909.
Landauer, Gustav. Meister Eckharts mystische Schriften. Berlin, 1903.
Oltmans, Kathe. Meister Eckhart. Frankfurt; 2d ed., 1957.
Quint, Josef. Meister Eckhart Deutsche Predigten und Traktate. Munich, 1955.
Schuermann, Reiner. Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher. London, 1978.
Schulze-Maizaier, F. Meister Eckhart. Leipzig, 1938.
The Roman Catholic Church
Several of the important leaders of National Socialist y were nominally Roman Catholic, including Adolf er and Dr. Paul Joseph Gdbbels. It is not clear what tionship these men had with the Roman Catholic Church they became leaders of the Third Reich. Rosenberg was tant and undoubtedly shared some of the traditional judices of Prussian Lutherans against the Catholic religion. nberg was critical of it more on the grounds that it had -German bases than on the traditional religious grounds. He more conscious of his critiques against the Catholic Church he was of his attacks of Judaism. There is no similar se to the Jewish attacks on his fundamental work. He just not care what Jews had to say about his book and his ideas.
In 1935 Rosenberg wrote An die Dunkelmdnner unserer it: Eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den Mythus des 20. uunderts [To the Dark Men of Our Times: A Reply to the lacks Against the Myth of the Twentieth Century] as an answer Catholic reviews of his Myth of the Twentieth Century in the ien zum Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts [Studies of the Myth of Twentieth Century] published by the Diocese of Miinster. In 1923 the Congress of Constance condemned National Socialism as "the greatest heresy" of the Twentienth Century. The pope placed The Myth of the Twentieth Century on the Roman Index f Forbidden books, which Catholics could not read under the penalty of mortal sin. Rosenberg cared little about that particular act of censorship because he had not written The Myth for Catholics. The Catholic Center and Christian Democratic parties in most of Europe, following the Congress of Constance, attacked National Socialism. They feared that National Socialism would absolutely separate church from state and remove the Catholic Church from the legal political parties in Germany.
104 Alfred Rosenberg
Rosenberg liked the Gospels, especially that of Saint John and many elements of his writings show that influence. Conversely, he attacked Saint Paul [Saul], referring to him as the corrupter of Christian doctrine. It was Saint Paul who had made the new religion into a form of Judaism. It was Saint Paul who emphasized its compatibility with Hebrew traditions and with the Jewish writings. Before John, the new religion had Nordic, not Jewish, bases.
Who was the real historical Jesus? There are a number of possible answers to that question and Rosenberg carefully considered the opinions of various authorities on this point. His philosophical-ideological mentor, Stewart Houston Chamberlain, had concluded that the real Christ was an Aryan, and was surely not Jewish. Some of the highly nationalistic authorities of the German religious community in the Nineteenth Century had come to like conclusions.
A second approach was to assume that Jesus Christ was Jewish, but that the Jews of his time were not the European Jews of the present day. Rosenberg and others traced contemporary Jews to Asian, not Middle Eastern, roots. They concluded the Old Testament Jews were of another, perhaps non-semitic race. Jews of Biblical times were acceptable. Most were converted to Christianity and absorbed into other non- semitic populations.
_ Yet another possibility was that Jesus had been born of Jewish parents, but was only God, not human, and, thus, the racial connection made no difference. Having seen more closely what the Jews were like Christ repudiated them, taking his message to the Gentiles and away from the Jews. In the past the Jews were the Chosen People, but they are no longer, having lost that status to the Gentiles.
Rosenberg did not believe that Christ came as the Jewish messiah. He did not believe that he came as the redeemer of the Hebrew people. Jesus did not assert that he
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came as one who would restore grandeur to the Jews or resurrect some Golden Age of the Temple of Solomon. And Rosenberg certainly did not believe that Jesus came to bring Some special message to a chosen people. [Tradition und Gegenwart, p.261].
Some of the writers on whose works Rosenberg drew had come to a conclusion that Christ had come to fulfill promises given to the ancient Hebrews, but, on arrival, had concluded that the Jews were unworthy of such special treatment and consideration. [John 1:11, "He came unto his own and his own received him not."]. After his mission began, Jesus concluded that he ought to pick out another people and chose the Nordic peoples who were living in the Roman Empire. That position was not strong enough for Rosenberg.
To Rosenberg there was no question that Jesus was an Aryan, a descendant from a tribe of Nordic peoples expelled at the time of the Exodus and the entry into the Promised Land. These people had been isolated in Galilee by the Jews.
Rosenberg joined a long list of dissenters whose mythical or mystical interpretation of the Bible went beyond empirical evidence. Mystics do not arrive at a conclusion through wholly rational or historical means. They arrive at their conclusions and insights only through irrational and romantic means.
What Saint Paul could not do in subverting Christianity from the outside he accomplished by boring away from within. Saul Paul’s interest was not in spreading the true word of Christ. His interest lay in taking over the new movement, making adjustments in Christian doctrine to suit the purposes of Judaism. ;
Saint Paul purged Christianity of most of its anti-semitic doctrines. Rosenberg was certain anti-semitism was part and parcel of Christ’s true message. Paul was unable to expunge all anti-semitic references. He mitigated the impact of most anti- semitic parts of the New Testament. But Paul could not remove
106 Alfred Rosenberg
all anti-semitic references because the people were aware of what Jesus taught. Since the Gospels had been written after Paul’s epistles Paul was no longer available to censor these writings. Paul experienced little opposition to what he was able to mitigate and expunge because the other apostles were not equal to the challenge.
Some of the disciples may have been Jewish, Rosenberg argued, and they were easily intimidated into returning to a more orthodox religion. Others may have resisted but lacked the intellectual capacity to challenge Paul’s trained legal mind. Still others, having never known Jesus directly, were misled by tricks and arguments. Some of Christ’s following never knew exactly what Christ was saying and lacked perspective on his attempted reforms. So Paul was able to win the day. Since Paul maintained (presumably) clandestine ties with the Jews, he was probably able to direct their political power against the minority positions, thus martyring those whose opposition might have been substantial, even telling.
We know that throughout its history, the Catholic Church was deeply involved in suppressing heterodox views. Many of these counter-movements taught ideas which seemed reasonable, and sone taught ideas and held doctrines that are unclear to us today. Since these were vanquished, we have only the reports of the victors, by and large, as to what ideas these heretics preached. In some few cases, the doctrines of the heresies survived sub rosa and constantly turn up in writings of the scholastics and mystics. Many of the true ideas of the "Nordic Christ" survived underground and are thus known to us today. Many were known to the reformers like Luther, and many before Luther. These ideas had been suppressed by the Jews who had sought to alter Christianity for their own reasons. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.390-91].
Heresies had challenged the Roman Catholic Church, which, in Rosenberg’s writings, had been captured by the Jews.
The Roman Catholic Church 107 of what Rosenberg called the problems of the Catholic ch were based in the Jewish problem which we have ssed separately. Provided one can separate the correct from the heretical ones, one can use the suppressed-ideas a basis for a reconstructed Nordic Christianity.
How do we know which ideas are true and which ideas are false? Even those people who have Nordic blood could arrive at false conclusions regarding God. Mythical or metaphysical truths, whose substance forms and the subject and title of Rosenberg’s book, guide Nordic man. Rosenberg would expect the Nordics to receive the Holy Spirit whose guiding hand would cause him to be able to separate the theological wheat from the chaff.
All great movements among the Nordics have been created and led by type-forming individuals. Such a person need not be complete in and of himself. Luther and Eckhart were Such type-formers, but only up to a certain point. In Nordic Christianity there would be much of the traditional, but corrupted, Bible and much of Eckhart and Luther remaining. The ideas that emerged would be new. They would consist in the theology of God as handed down by his Germanic purifying Servants. One might not be able to recognize the individual ideas of any one scribe, but the synthesis would approach the true message of the Nordic Christ.
The purified scripture would clearly be Protestant, for the Roman Catholic Church remains the great symbol of corruption. Rosenberg saw Protestantism as a movement seeking to clarify the Germanic conception of freedom. It moved away from the slavery of Rome. Roman Christianity to Rosenberg is the moral code of weaklings and slaves. Germans were free by the nature of their souls whereas Romans and those of the East accepted slavery as a natural condition of man. The racially corrupted remains of Hither Asia and the Etruscans who remained in Rome as Christianity triumphed
108 Alfred Rosenberg
were perfectly willing to believe Paul’s teachings that slavery was a correct and godly sanctioned condition of man. They were willing to live for the moment when they would be liberated to live forever with the God of all nations. They were willing to endure all manner of hardship in this world because they knew that a perfect world followed. They rejected all personal attributes of man while awaiting the Millennium.
These things were not suitable for Nordic man. The proud German could not reject honor or live with a God who created all men equal or who demanded that men live in shackles. He did not wish to worship or live in Paradise forever with a god who made men into slaves and who condoned slavery. Such a god was Hebrew or Etruscan or Hither Asiatic, but he was not German. Nordic man could not believe in a God who, on the one hand, created races of differing levels of achievement and quality of soul, and, on the other hand, demanded that all men sit down as equals at the table of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Roman form of Christianity accepted and taught the Canaan monstrosity throughout the areas dominated by Roman Catholic teachings.
The Protestant movement had begun as a revolt of one national people, the Germans, against the miscegenated rule of the Roman pontiff. So, in Rosenberg’s view, the purified church would be national protestant and it would teach and uphold Nordic racial values in the face, and despite, of the Roman teachings. Nordic Christianity had to extol the Nordic values of be defeated. It would have died of non-support if it sought to return to the racially mixed teachings of the Roman Church. The national spirit of the German people would be crushed under the weight of continued lies and mis-statements unless the teachings and doctrines of their church were turned around,
Against this background Rosenberg sought a type- forming religious figure who would reconstruct Christianity and bring the germinal ideas of Eckhart and Luther to a fruitful
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mclusion. The Myth of the Twentieth Century is filled with this ense of longing for the type-former. Rosenberg thought of the »e-forming person as one who was yet to come. Much of the ational Socialist ideology went wanting for fulfillment because the war. The destruction of the Third Reich meant that the Jea fell stillborn from the pen.
The myth which National Socialism filled grew out of the ermented blood of fallen heroes of the First World War. The n of Nordic Christianity would also grow out of the fermented blood of the fallen warriors. Great wars are itably followed by periods of great national religious akenings. The population of Germany after the Great War ready for conversion. A great, type-forming leader would have little difficulty in attracting a mass following. The type-
ormer was not found and Nordic religion had to wait. Much of the exact detail of the Nordic Christianity would have been worked out, inspired and directed by the type-former . whose ideas would direct the course of the new religion. The mew religion would be grounded in the German national character. Its supreme value would be honor. It would be compatible with the concept of individual and national honor ‘and pride. The true Nordic man is a proud man. He has pride in his accomplishments, his home and his family, but, above all, he has pride in his race and his national heritage. This sustains in him the supreme value of honor which he can never betray. Such pride and honor are unparalleled in the annals of Judaeo- Christian religion, for, as Rosenberg concludes, the Hither- Asiatic peoples generally, and the Jews particularly, are without pride in the Nordic sense. They are nations without racial or personal honor. The Christian religion as comprised to date had
0 interest in Nordic values generally, and the honor-pride supreme value specifically. [see Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.604].
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Rosenberg realized that traditional Christianity had de- emphasized the values of pride and self-assertiveness, but his nationalistic sentiments dictated that a true Nordic Christian Church be representative of the Germanic values. There is no humbleness or withdrawal from the real world in the new religion. Drawing in large on Saint John in particular, and on the Gospels generally, Rosenberg concluded that Christ had the "fire" of a true Aryan in incidents such as the one involving the money-changers in the Temple. This man who lashed the evil ones who were obsessed only with the idea of coins and profits was not a passive figure. Such strong, direct, positive action required a Nordic spirit. There was nothing of a moral code of weaklings and slaves there. Christ’s actions were representative of a true Nordic enforcement of an honor code over and against those who were without honor. The trans-evaluation of values in Nordic Christianity represents nothing less than a return to true Christian doctrine, presuming that we mean by Christian those teachings truly flowing from Jesus.
In the world of religion there are positive and negative theologies. The Etruscan-Roman-Jewish theology of the Roman Church is a negative one. Rosenberg envisioned the Nordic Church as the representative of the positive type of theology. The Roman Church is ennobled only through and by the actions of German participants. Rosenberg asserts that the Roman Church is incapable of the duty-honor supreme value except by and through the participation of German peoples and the philosophical writings of Nordic clerics. [see, Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.13ff].
Negative theology has its positive form, if only in a small way. One cannot reform that which is corrupt, that is, negative, but must replace it or at least make major alterations. This was the mistake of Luther. He tried to reform the Roman Church. His Evangelical Protestant Church was of higher stature because it was a German national church. Lutheranism was still
The Roman Catholic Church 111 lerlain by corrupted Asiatic doctrines. Still, Luther’s tributions were significant, for the flame of German reme values might have been snuffed out completely had he precipitated the Reformation. One must then proceed along clearly defined battle lines to change all of the alien tive elements, replacing them with wholly positive tituent parts. [see, Protestantische Rompilger: Der Verrat an er und dem Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts).
The Roman Catholic Church built on the foundations of e, but Rosenberg concluded that the love was false. Instead ‘of emphasizing the positive elements of love, such as honor and duty and devotion to family, state and ideals, the Roman Church looked at love as a tool of submission to God. In ‘practice, Rosenberg argued, this meant complete submission to the vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman pontiff. The Roman ‘Catholic Church sought to rule through love in a material, political sense. Dominion over men’s soul came to mean dominion over men’s actions and society. Love meant that a ‘man could not choose his own destiny in an individual way. The will of man and the will of his race were subjugated to the power of the church. The Roman Catholic Church made love into a one way street wherein one offered unlimited devotion to the Roman Church and God, but received no guarantee of reciprocity. One was to accept whatever unfortunate events or catastrophes occurred, giving up his consequent sufferings to God. The Roman Church served to mediate with God and to expiate the sins which had precipitated the crises. The Church taught that love meant blind obedience to its authority and blind acceptance of all that came, giving up to God as his will being done.
Little of Roman Catholic theology would be useful in reconstructing Christianity. Proud Aryan man could not be a pawn in the hands of the Roman pontiff. He could not blindly accept the evils of the world as the will of God. He could not
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merely accept whatever came without challenging the authority of the Roman pontiff to determine the proper course of action. He could not accept the authority of an alien ruler. He could not work with a system that removes individual responsibility or honor or duty. Man had to decide certain things for himself without interference from a non-Aryan cleric. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.70ff].
Rosenberg’s man believed strongly in the deity. But that deity bore little resemblance to the one offered by the Church of Rome. The ideas that had been suppressed by the Church survived precisely because God had willed that they survive. Periodically, God had raised up a prophet like Justin Martyr or Meister Eckhart who risked all by speaking the truth. Without such intercession the true ideas of Jesus would have disappeared without a trace. But God had willed that a single spark be kept burning against the day when a type-forming individual would arise who would pull together the ideas that God wished to convey to the German nation. This would happen in God’s own time. Meanwhile, mortals would continue the quest for truth by upholding the racial values of duty and honor. This racial preparation would enable the true chosen people, the Nordic race, to come to an immediate acceptance of the true message of the type-former. His supreme values, those already ordained by God for the German people, have been inculcated since eternity as attributes of the Aryan soul. Nothing can prevail against these values excepting the ultimate prostitution of racial essence, racial bastardization.
Roman theology, like Rome of the Empire, and, indeed, all of Asiatic and similar cultures, had been built on the premise of the love for all peoples and the equality of all nations. Such an idea was repugnant to the Nordic ideals. German man could never accept the obvious limitation of race mixing and racial brotherhood.
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Apostles of miscegenation suggested that the racial es of different people should be altered. All cultures should homogenized. Values would be universal, meaning that the que supreme values of Nordic nations would be challenged md disappear. This would leave only a corrupted love with ich Nordic man would be at odds. His values would be dated in the sea of race mixing. The race-mixing required by Roman Catholic Church id deprive this religion of any type-building strength. Type- ers are the product of various strong races. By definition are linked to the purity of races and cannot occur in mixed ial types. The type-forming strength of Greeks disappeared en the Greek society opened its doors to the various Hither iatic races and allowed the type-forming Nordic strength to overwhelmed by alien elements. The same is true for Rome. admitted the Etruscan and Hither Asiatic elements late in the public. They precipitated the decline of the Empire. [Myth of Twentieth Century, pp.81ff]. The love the Roman Catholic Church offered as its ipreme value was false, as Rosenberg saw it. Its falsity is ed by the fact that its love did not permeate the upper Strata of the religion. Its leaders were driven, Rosenberg lared, by the motives of greed and profit, not by true istian love. The leaders were interested in playing power politics using all of the highly innovative tools they created,
‘such as excommunication, interdiction and crusades. The
Catholic Church ruled by hate, not by love. Its hate was expressed in the force of its religious tribunals, such as the infamous Inquisition. It sought entry to a country, but as soon as it triumphed it lost its outward trappings of benevolence and toleration. It used existing state powers to destroy its enemies or, when the state was reluctant to abuse such power, it used the powers which its philosophers and its canon lawyers invented. Had the Roman Catholic Church had any true type-
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forming skills, had it not been the product of alien and bastard cultures, it would have demanded that its leaders practice the virtues it offered for mass consumption. Its leaders did not themselves practice the love of Jesus. That proves that the whole idea of love was, from beginning to end, a hoax. [Dunkelmanner, pp.13-18}.
Only in Oriental worlds do we find the great dichotomy between a religion with a supreme value designed for mass consumption only and one with a different highest value designed only for the leadership. The Christian religion in its Roman Catholic variety was a “canaan monstrosity" of Hither Asiatic origin, not of Nordic origin. This explains why Roman Catholicism lacks type-forming strength in the Germanic sense.
In a true religion the type-forming men would be the most eloquent spokesmen for the supreme value of the race and its national religion. Type-formers show by their heroic acts what the values truly mean. They would practice values so that other might imitate their lives. They do not seek to force other men to follow; they could not bring themselves to lead by coercion. The only force involved would be the force of principle and the compulsion of example. If the type-formers cannot command their followers by their own individual courage then they are not a true type-formers. They fail only when the people are not racially attuned to their leadership and their highest values.
Rosenberg illustrated his point by telling the story of the pagan German king Radbod. He received the missionaries of Pippin, Duke of the Franks. He had heretofore persecuted all Christian apostles sent to him. Upon questioning this especially devout group and threatening them with all manner of tortures, he found them resolute in their beliefs. They were willing to accept martyrdom if that was required of them, but they would not reject their faith. Seeing men of such great devotion, type- formers who truly believed in their faith and who were willing
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offer love to those who offered none in return, Radbod ed them to Pippin, but only after doing them great honor. disliked their religion and would not reject the gods of his ers, but he admired men of courage and dedication. Reversing the story, Rosenberg says that had Radbod t equally courageous men to the court of the pontiff, he Id have either converted them or killed them. The Roman ch admired courage only among it own adherents. It ised such courage in others. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, ‘pp. 603-04]. Following this story, Rosenberg discussed the conversion of Germany to Roman Christianity and its consequences. The Roman-Etruscan-Jewish system was eager to gain acceptance and so it was flexible in allowing the various native peoples to retain most of their old religious practices. Many of the old gods reappeared as saints in the Church. Many of the native festivals were retained and given only superficial alteration. That toleration was undermined little by little. So gradual was the process of incremental change that the generations hardly noticed that changes had been made. Nordic racial values were changed to alien, Asiatic ones, although a second process also began.
Irrespective of its alien essence, the Christian Church was ennobled by and through the devotion of millions over many generations of Germans. Much of the Church’s negativity was ameliorated by the primal and determining German character.
Germany was able to contain the expansion of the Roman Empire in a way not duplicated elsewhere. The Roman generals, including Julius Caesar, expressed their admiration for the heroism of the Germans. Eventually even the stone wall of German power gave way, not to the military power of Rome, but to its corrupted religion. It might have been better had Germany been conquered by the racially pure Roman armies
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of the Republic. When the conquest did come it was at the hands of their racially impure later Romans who based their philosophy on Jewish ideals.
Rosenberg characterized the Romans and Greeks in their early stages of development as Nordic types. This was untrue of the later empires of these nations. Germany became the third Aryan nation to be overrun by Hither-Asiatics and Jews. Germans could as little escape this struggle as could the other two great Nordic nations before them, the Greeks and the Romans. Neither was able to stem the tide of migration. As the civilizations of Nordic peoples withdrew from the South and East, they bore within their ranks the human flotsam of Asia. Along with this mass of aliens came their alien ideas. They bore the ideas of Hither Asia over the Alps and into the heart of Germany. They could not comprehend the Nordic values so they sought to destroy them.
Rosenberg characterized the Germans as a peaceful and hospitable people who welcomed new ideas and different religions. Their generous nature permitted the aliens to infiltrate their nation. They never gave a thought to. the Weltanschauung of the new jetsam of Hither Asia and Rome. It never occurred to Germans that these alien peoples would have ideas and ideals that would run counter to the German culture. They naively presupposed that all men thought in the same way and shared the same values and all men gave great value and honor and duty and courage. Their national character made them vulnerable to the money-grabbing, self-serving, dishonorable peoples of another race. This naivety continued for some considerable period of time because the idea of another people being vicious ran so strongly counter to all they believed in. It took a leader of special courage, devotion and historical insight to discover this fact. It took real courage to convey this wisdom to the German nation.
The Roman Catholic Church 117 The Roman Church despised German ideals and the true supreme value. The Roman Church very carefully cloaked its opposition under the rhetoric of love. The German people lay quite vulnerable through the Dark Age and the Middle Ages and even into the present times.
Luther never fully comprehended the nature of the Roman Church. His Reformation remained woefully incomplete. He resisted the Church of Rome, but. for incomplete reasons. It is not that his break was accomplished 0n wholly erroneous grounds, but, rather, that he never saw the true reasons for opposing the Western Church. He thought of profound theological reasons why the Roman Church was wrong, but the classical arguments, such as_ the transubstantiation versus consubstantiation debate over the eucharist, had no real bearing on the basics of the need for reformation. Luther never saw the Roman Church as a vehicle for the Jewish ideas that ran counter to Nordic ideals. He never ‘Saw that the Roman Church was yet another, albeit lower, mass, form of the Hebrew doctrines that Jesus had opposed. [see Protestantische Rompilger, pp.10ff].
Luther blindly accepted Saint Paul’s teachings. He discovered his doctrine of justification by faith alone in the writings of Saint Paul. Luther was strongly and irresolutely anti- Semitic, but he never understood that his prejudices against Jews should be extended to Saint Paul. And Luther never understood that the real reason Roman Christianity was corrupt was that it had Jewish roots. Luther had felt Nordic racial stirrings in the very depths of his being, but he had partially misinterpreted their full meaning. The soul of his Nordic race was crying out to him, Rosenberg argued, to remove Judaism from Christianity. A mere doctrinal or theological dispute with Rome was insufficient. Luther had to remove the Jewish base of Roman Christianity. [Myth of the Twentueth Century, pp.614- 15].
118 Alfred Rosenberg
The Nordic clerics of the Scholastic period had thought in Germanic terms, and Luther admired their ideals. Neither he nor they had understood that their ideas were essentially restatements of the Nordic national soul and spirit. These ideas ran counter to the Roman Church’s ideas precisely because of racial differences that were insurmountable. William of Ockham, Duns Scouts, Nicholas of Cusa and John of Paris along with Marsiglio of Padua had taught that the Roman pontiff was incapable of honor and that his constant meddling in temporal affairs had brought corruption in the Western Church. They did not see that the very conception of a Church hierarchy, something that they generally opposed to for wrong and incomplete reasons, was antithetical to the Nordic idea of freedom. The inordinate emphasis on canon law and doctrine repelled them, but again they were uncertain as to the real reasons why they opposed these things.
Ockham especially opposed the exclusiveness of the Church and taught that men of good will who lead heroic and exemplary lives would be saved irrespective of religious beliefs. He believed that differences in theologies occurred in this world only. God permitted the differences of creed to occur to confuse the unworthy. Ockham knew that creed was unimportant and that too much law exposed a people that was incapable of virtue on its own. Therefore, he opposed codification of volumes of law as an action that was unworthy of true believers. Men had better concentrate on developing honorable ideas of duty and service to the community.
Most heterodox medieval clerics opposed the doctrine of papal infallibility in matters of faith and morals. Unable to break from the idea of a supreme authority and the Jewish code of laws for man’s behavior, they turned to ideas such as a general church council to replace the pope. A few heterodox theologians could see that church policy had to be nationally based. They looked at the whole body of the faithful as
The Roman Catholic Church 119
constituting the final authority in matters of faith and morality. ‘The entire membership of the church would collectively, but fever individually, decide matters of faith and morals. This was the traditional German way to do such policy-making.
Others, mostly non-Germans, were unwilling or unable fo relinquish their clerical powers. They gave control over the church council to the clerics and thus retained a hierarchy. All wanted to retain some secular functions, notably responsibility for teaching and training children. These things gave. them Special powers, privileges and immunities and insured their
continued special position within the state. It is very difficult to
find clerics of the pre-Reformation period who were willing to give up the idea of a hierarchical church.
This denial of an elaborate hierarchy remained, to Rosenberg, one of the great contributions of Luther as a counter-revolutionary. Luther had tried to restore Germanic values to the Church. Luther disliked hierarchy and chose to dismantle most, if not all, of the upper strata. Election of church authorities by the people instead of by an elite marked 4 return to Nordic folk values. So, also, did Luther’s doctrine of "every man a priest" serve to dismantle the Jewish style hierarchy which gave to certain people an exclusive right to communicate with God for the people as a whole. The clergy could be stripped of power only by removing that special power of intercession with God on behalf of the people and this Luther did with a single stroke. [Tradition und Gegenwart, pp.130-31 and 613-14].
Action taken against the church hierarchy was nothing less than the result of Luther’s type-forming personality grounding itself in the traditions of the Nordic peoples. Nordics had always resisted institutionalizing power in this way, so Luther’s counter-revolution struck a note deep inside his race.
120 Alfred Rosenberg
Rosenberg thought highly of the traditional theology of the Nordic peoples and referred to it constantly in his treatment of the Roman Catholic Church. He argued that the Teutonic religion was quite profound and that many of its deepest thoughts were stolen by the church as it moved northward. Nordic primal strength was strong enough to resist Roman invasion for some considerable period of time. The Roman religion was taught as mythology in most schools. [Protestantische Rompilger, pp. 49 and 72]. .
Rosenberg argued that many of the Nordic symbols and customs had devolved from Teutonic religion to Christianity. The crucifix, the most important symbol of Christendom had originated some 3000 years before Christ was crucified as a mythical and mystical Teutonic sign. The original Roman gibbet on which Jesus was assassinated was replaced with the Aryan cross because Nordic peoples more readily identified with it. The Nordics had presumed that the cross had great power for several thousand years before the T-shaped instrument of Christian power had emerged. The Church stole and used effectively the heavenly power of the sun. It reappeared as the halo attached to and rising over the heads of Christian saints. The Nordic figures of Wotan on horseback appeared as symbols of other saints in many lands, most commonly as Saint George in England. The Church took the slaying of the dragon, an important sequence as Siegfried slew Fafner, and copied that act of heroism in the legend of Saint George. [Myth of the
Twentieth Century, pp.162-63]. ie
Various natural signs that Teutonic religion used ritualistically appeared again in Christianity. Notable was the power of lightning. Wotan as the eternal wanderer was an archetype for the many wandering saints we encounter in much Christian literature.
The Church resurrected many pagan customs of Germany of the pre-Christian era. Pagan rites of spring
The Roman Catholic Church 121
remained. Rosenberg saw the celebration of the winter solstice in Teutonic legend as the natural choice for the birthday of Jesus. Celebrations of resurrection connected with Ostara were transformed into the resurrection of Christ from the tomb on the third day. In short, the Roman Catholic Church had been captured by the Nordic theology. It assumed forms known to have existed in Northern Europe for centuries before Christ’s birth. Mythological figures have become familiar to Germans as well as to others in the form of Christian saints.
Christian missionaries thought that they could spread the new faith as easily in Nordic areas as they had in Rome, but they were sadly mistaken. The inner power of native Teutonic religion was infinitely more resilient than the missionaries had imagined. The German national religion did not fall in a single Stroke as had the Roman pantheon of gods. Roman religion left almost no visible impression on Roman Christianity, but this was not true of the German faith.
The Roman Church was influenced by the Nordic race and its national religion, although no credit was given to them. Therein lay one of Rosenberg’s greatest quarrels with Roman Catholicism: the Roman Church took the Nordic religious Strength, made it its own and refused to share credit with it. The Roman Church acted as if all these things were built by the alien clerics out of nothing that preexisted. The Roman Church adopted Nordic customs out of need, but then refused to give credit for the virtues that need had spawned, allowing the richness of Teutonic virtues of life to fall to the Roman Church
_as though it had never interfaced with the Teutonic theology or
Seen Teutonic symbols. This Rosenberg described as "grotesque." [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.219f]. Eventually, the Roman pontiff in the person of Boniface VIII saw that either Rome or Germany must be predominate. Boniface therefore sought the help of other non- and anti- Nordics and they attempted to rip apart the fabric of Roman
122 Alfred Rosenberg The Roman Catholic Church 123
Catholic belief by removing what is Teutonic from it. But Boniface and his allies like Louis the Pious of France were too late. There was too much that was Nordic and too little of substance that was Roman. That which was Nordic was stronger in texture and fabric and could not be torn out without a total disruption of the theology. There were frightful purges of the Germans within the Church and many were slaughtered to "restore" Roman domination of the religion. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.185].
According to Rosenberg there were millions of German heretics and many thousands were exterminated in a horrible bloodbath. The pontifical action did not end with this one stroke. Rosenberg wrote that the church continued its persecution of those who were German nationals and those who retained a belief in German supreme values. Persecution continued even through his time. The church could not countenance that Germans knew something of the German origins of the best of Catholicism. The Church would prefer not to have that fact broadcasted. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.70-71 and 159].
The Roman Catholic Church of Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century was willing to seek allies at any level to achieve its aim of universal acceptance. There were many secular rulers who shared the drive for secular power exhibited by so many popes. The Church invited them to become "accomplices" in Rosenberg’s words provided they shared a universal outlook. The Church rejected any national movement; it sought universality exclusively in its scheming. The Roman Church counselled the great figures of the Middle Ages to come within the fold and to join in its intrigues that stemmed from its romantic power plays. It offered these leaders the opportunity to exploit its virtues of love, humility, resignation and submission as fodder for the human cattle who followed Church
Church-approved state. [see Myth of the Twentieth Century, 97 and 118). The Roman Church rejected nationalism because ationalism reflected the Germanic values of honor, dignity, ide and self-assertiveness. Nationalism was incompatible with oman Catholicism because the latter was born out of Judaism ich was itself universalist in outlook. It despised nationalism that movement alone could successfully challenge the oman Church’s universalist power.
Rosenberg was especially critical of "feminist epigrams" Roman Christianity. He singled out for scorn concepts such @s “children of God." He saw no reason why the Catholic ‘Church would delight in Saint Francis’ preaching to animals and irds. Most of all, he loathed the ideas of forgiving one’s emies [Matt. 6:12] and of turning the other cheek when an ‘enemy smites one [Luke 6:29]. Likewise, Rosenberg rejected the ‘analogy of Christ as the Lamb of God. [Revelations 5:6]. He preferred symbols of pride and nobility. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.607]. The Sermon on the Mount offered a feminine ibmissive attitude. It presented "Christ the Submissive." [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.604].
Rosenberg disliked Christian emphasis on the cross. There was nothing heroic about the Crucified Christ. In a Nordic Church heroic acts would replace the emphasis on ‘Christ’s passion. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp. 616-17]. Rosenberg preferred Christ as a powerful preacher and great teacher. He saw something of Nordic heroism in the attack on the money changers in the Temple. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.604]. It was for his resistance to the Jews, and not for his passivism, that Christ had to die. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.604].
The Nordic conception of love differs significantly from the love taught by the Roman Catholic Church. Christian love teaches one to feel empathy with and sympathy for those
124 Alfred Rosenberg The Roman Catholic Church 125 : and destroy these alien and corrupting elements that featen its continued high existence. [Myth of the Twentieth , pp. 156 and 560].
Nordic racism would not tolerate acts of charity toward ase who could not shoulder their own loads and who depend society for their continued existence through public and. ‘vate doles. The strong, racially conscious state rejects minal behavior and punishes it very severely. The unhealthy becomes a raceless scheme that lusts for unity with other ed Societies and this unity results only in an unhealthy gation to the Roman pontiff or some other like-corrupted thority. Raceless, charitable states invite the wrath of nature they have violated the mandates of heaven.[Blut und Ehre: esengefiige, pp. 72 and 156].
As Rosenberg wrote, "The dogma of all-embracing love ad the equality of all human beings before God, on the one nd, and of democratic human rights’ founded neither on race ron national honors of the other hand, were the bases-on nich the European brotherhood of nations had developed. equently, [Europe] became the custodian of the inferior, stippled, of the criminals and the rejects..." [Myth of the entieth Century, p. 169].
The Roman Church invites participation in those values at teach one to humble and subjugate himself to the authority the pontiff. It invites one to accept the will of the pontiff astead of one’s own will. It suggests that an un-Catholic hought is an unholy thought whose host will surely go to hell. teaches obedience to the discipline of the same papal thority which itself is undisciplined and authoritarian. If offers special means of expiation through the sale of indulgences of _Kinds. It alone has the magic key to open doors of paradise not only for those still living but for those who have lready died. In the sacrament of penance (reconciliation, Presently), the Roman Catholic Church possesses one of the
inferior to himself. Nordics could not summon up the sentiments of pity for one in trouble, Rosenberg says. They) could only answer calls based on honor or duty. Germanii
nobility dictates that one not extend a condescending love to his racial inferior. Christian love according to Rosenberg consists in a submissive humility that is alien to Germans. Nordic character must be uplifted through various human acts. Acts are strengthened by a will act and reawakened in the consciousness of honor and duty. Sympathy is a feeling that is alien to Germans who are conditioned by the supreme value of honor. Sentimentality, Rosenberg wrote, accounts for the "greatest devastation of our total life." A feeling of sympathy invokes an act of the will toward the crippled, the criminal, the inferior and the sick of society. In short, sentimentality is directed toward the human flotsam that a society must naturally reject if it is to
Christian teaching as voiced in Roman Catholicism has a special, high place for the lesser beings that exist in the state This is a natural consequence of teachings about God's boundless love and mercy, and of democratic ideas of equality of all races and peoples. Democratic racelessness leads the Church toward a defense of equality of human rights for all peoples irrespective of ethnic origin or status before the great tribunal of mankind. Such democratic ideals, never permitted on major questions within the church, are consequent to Roman Catholic teachings about the meaninglessness of racial divisions.
Christian ideas of love, brotherhood and charity destroy the basic rules of nature such as survival of the fittest. They teach that the weak and the corrupt have a right to continued existence on the.same level with Germans who have served the honor code. Ideas of equality disrupt the laws of nature intended to protect the soul of the species and to give life-form to the people and the state. A racially conscious state would not pity what is weak or corrupt within it; rather, it would reject,
126 Alfred Rosenberg The Roman Catholic Church 127
great prerogatives of all time. It can bind or loose things in heaven, adding penalties to the unrepentant while aiding the contrite sinner. Its power extends so far that God will cooperate in the process of binding and loosening. Through confession the Church learns how to control men, fathoms their innermost thoughts and controls their actions by setting the penance that must be fulfilled. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp. 185, 361-63 and 603].
The Roman Church became corrupted and had to be cleansed by a force exterior to itself. The Roman church was externally corrupted because of its inner degradation. It had accepted the teachings of the Old Testament and had incorporated the Hebrew ideas as part of its own teachings. Its teachings required that the body of the faithful view Israel as the Holy Land. It held that God had chosen the Hebrews as his own people. It favored Jewish occupation of the lands of the Middle East. It’accepted the Jehovah of the Jews, that God of vengeance and wrath, as the true god.
Rosenberg especially disliked the Jehovah which must be approached to one’s knees and with face buried in the dirt. He hated the idea of having to prostrate proud Aryan man before the selfsame deity which had made him proud. Rosenberg wrote, "The Old Testament as a book of religious instruction must be abolished once and for all. With it will end the unsuccessful attempt of the previous 1500 years to make us all spiritual Jews." [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.603].
Once the Catholic Church became involved with expanding temporal power it had to undergo corruption in its essentials according to Rosenberg. The sale of indulgences and other religious intercessions brought it to precisely the same point that the Jewish religion was at when Jesus was born and when he chased the money-changers from the Temple. Jesus was disgusted with the emphasis on material things in Judaism just as Eckhart, Luther and others were disgusted with
tholicism and its sales of talismans and indulgences. Such ‘Sorruption was the result of the Jewish influences on the itholic Church. Rosenberg argued that such corruption would mot have been possible in a truly national church which teflected the Nordic supreme values. Rosenberg was critical of Luther because he concluded that Luther had recognized the perfidy of the Jews but still had placed great emphasis on both Paul’s writings in the New Testament and the writings of the ‘Old Testament Hebrews. [Dunkelmanner, pp. 13-18].
; _The Jehovah of the Hebrews with his arbitrary and Sapricious acts could not have been the product of an Aryan civilization. Nordic man could not conceive of creation ex nihilo. Nordic man would reject the idea of God interrupting the natural order with periodic miracles that violate the essential laws of nature. Neither could Germans accept the ‘Syrian-Etruscan-African" assertion that God created the world for his glorification. A Nordic God would have been self- Satisfied that He was perfection and would not have demanded constant worship or incessant reassurance of his own glory and perfection. The Roman Catholic Church taught that man’s soul was vastly inferior to the essence of God.
Aryans posit man’s equal existence with God on the moral-spiritual level on which the soul operates. More in keeping with the Germanic idea of the soul is the ancient Aryan teaching that man and God (Ahura-Mazda) share in the same Struggles against evil. Germanic theology rejects the inequality of souls between man and God.
The Germanic conception of the soul suggests two things that are conspicuously absent in the Catholic teaching. First, it teaches that the soul must be spiritually free. The old racial idea of God among the Germans absolutely posited the “Spiritual freedom of man. Second, it taught the inner direction of spirituality. Man did not seek God over him or away from him or in externals. Rather, man looked for God within.
130 Alfred Rosenberg
certain if he is truly free, or, like Leibnitz’ stone, only possibly free.
To return to our two German terms, the Jewish-Catholic idea of being suggests that Sosein best explains existence, that man lives in a world as given by the creator. Nordic man lives in a world described by Dasein, a world which from all eternity was equally the property of man and God. Nordic man’s world demands that God and man become allies in the pre- determined struggle of order against disorder.
Man and God. are equally determined with a prejudice against chaos and toward cosmos. Luther read this idea, making man God’s "high ally" but then was unable or unwilling to.do anything about it.
Rosenberg was nearly as critical of Luther as he was of Catholicism for both accepted the creation ex nihilo from the Old Testament. Luther was more culpable because he was a racial German and he should have known better. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.184ff]. The Roman Church sought to serve the Jewish idea, and it did so consciously, although later scholars probably accepted this idea without thinking out the other alternative and without giving thought to the differences in consequences that result from pursuing the two different premises.
Occasionally, some deep religious thinker of German origin found, in the depths of his soul, a longing to return to the racial ideal of his people. Then, a thinker like Eckhart would reject the idea of creation from nothingness and return to the concept of an eternal world. Luther’s rebellion was obviously not as great in Rosenberg’s judgment as it had been in the judgment of the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation (or perhaps even in the Catholic Church’s view today). Luther had broken over a few externals (corruption) and over a few generally meaningless points of doctrine (transubstantiation or consubstantiation) but he retained the
The Roman Catholic Church 131
same Jewish and other African and Hither Asiatic and Etruscan roots. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.81].
Rosenberg concludes that by forcing Sosein on us instead of Dasein the Roman Catholic Church made us "spiritual cripples" whose only refuge would be within the folds of the Roman Catholic Church. There is nowhere else to go for man cannot be a high ally of the being who created him; he can only be his toy or his pawn or his lackey. Man cannot communicate with his creator directly because he is a low being. This is the correct conclusion from creationist doctrines, and Luther and Calvin knew it, preaching it thus in their theologies. Created man cannot climb toward God. [Myth of the Twentieth Century,
pp.238ff].
The reason that man cannot earn salvation according to Rosenberg’s reasoning, is not because of “original sin" but becausé of man being the creation of God. Luther and Calvin were correct in their assessments of man’s predicament within the context of Jewish-Catholic teaching. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.183]. Unfortunately, they arrived at this correct conclusion through faulty reasoning. Perhaps they knew better, that is, they may have known the true reason (creation) why man could not approach God but clouded it in the rhetoric of original sin rather than telling men the truth. They were unwilling to break with Jewish-Catholic teaching on this vital point and so allowed man to wallow in the mire of separation from God. They offered instead of mediation through the many devices of the Roman Catholic Church (indulgences, confession, prayers, other forms of intercession) the idea of healing and redeeming grace offered by a condescending and pitiful God gratuitously given by Him for reasons known only to Him. [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.615].
In Rosenberg’s judgment Luther and Calvin attacked only one symptom instead of the real problem. By transferring the method of salvation to God and by democratizing the clergy
132 Alfred Rosenberg
they robbed the Roman Catholic Church of its monopoly on methods of salvation. That may have undermined the power of the Roman Church, but it really did nothing for man. He was, more than ever, at the mercy of God. He could not buy salvation through the indulgences and other devices sold by a religious establishment. He was thrown into the hands of a deity and still could not determine his fate. Only by returning to the non-creationist doctrines of Aryan-Nordic theology could he escape this cruel fate. [Protestantische Rompilger, p.49}.
No creationist was willing to allow man to stand proud and free before God; this was permitted only in non-creationist theologies. No existing Christian religion had, up until Rosenberg’s time, dared to contradict this fundamental Jewish- Catholic teaching. By leaping into native, nationalistic theology man could escape the grasp of predestination and fate. The rejection of creationism would become the pillar of Nordic Christianity. This represented the true theology of Jesus. This was his message, but it had been obscured by the Roman- Etruscan-Jewish-Asiatic pre-set doctrines. This was the reason Christ had to die, and why Paul had to become Christian. This is why orthodox Judaism feared original Christianity. It was the reason that Christ had fixed the idea of co-terminous existence in traditional Nordic-Aryan religion. It was the only way Nordic Christianity could defeat the "Canaan Monstrosity." [Myth of the Twentieth Century, p.683].
Nordic religion echoed true Western man and his civilization. The doctrine that held that salvation was possible only through the intercession and good offices of the Roman Catholic Church was antithetical to Nordic thought. That doctrine was the invention of the Asiatic peoples. It was promulgated by the Jews with their emphasis on the exclusive nature of their religion.
Nordic religion posited the unfolding of the human soul in a way that encouraged a "flight" to the Godhead, man to
The Roman Catholic Church 133 equal to equal. The retreat from the wrath of an angry was the invention of non-Aryan peoples and was an idea lien to Nordic men. German mystics had found it necessary to eat within their own selves, finding "strength from above" by meditating within their souls. There, deep within their being Meister Eckhart and his followers found true peace. y discovered that "Divine Valhalla arose from the infinite, isty-vastness buried within the mortal breast." This led them discover "the imperishable freedom of the soul (which) ... tituted saving grace." Necessarily, this. discovery was olutionary vis 4 vis Catholicism and has been a history of bellion against Roman Catholic teachings. The authoritarian ys of the Roman Church have not been strong enough to se this idea because Western racial stirrings have been too ‘ong, having been based in 5000 years of tradition and belief. (Myth of the Twentieth Century, pp.252-53].
The Reformation and the Renaissance were not periods of culmination of Western spiritual values; neither were they the highlights of true culture. They were periods of social upheaval and of external stagnation and cultural despair. They were periods when true religion was being born, but the agony of these birth pains did not guarantee that belief would be made true to the Word. The maturation of the correct theology has continued in the West through present-day.
Rosenberg envisioned the emergence of true religion, the feconstitution of the message of Jesus, coming in the Third - Reich. He argued that the National Socialist age would be a time of German national rebirth in all fields. It was to be a time of suppression and rejection of all alien ideas. It was to be a time when true spiritual freedom would result from the rejection of Jewish-Catholic myths of creation. It was to be a time when the prerequisites for a Nordic Christianity would be present.
134 Alfred Rosenberg
Then, man would turn toward the free self which could look for and discover his racially motivated ideas of God and theology. Protestantism as well as Catholicism would have to fear these changes in theology, for each had grounded itself in the myth of creation as taught by Judaism.
Men would reject the doctrines of Jewish Christianity not because they are physically or psychologically compelled to do so, but, to the contrary, because the physical and psychological threats that had impelled them toward an alien myth will have been removed. Rosenberg taught that the state’s role was more that of acting as an agent to prevent spiritual perversion by
interposing its power between the Jewish-inspired churches and
men than by forcing men to believe in something. The state would guarantee that men would be free to accept that which was racially determined by five millennia of history. They would come to know themselves as Aryans.
Aryan religion was not directed at blacks or Asians, Jews or Mediterraneans, Alpines or Celts. It was to be designed only at those whose racial history preconditioned them to accept it: those of Aryan-Nordic ancestry.
The Nordic Christian Church
In Alfred Rosenberg’s view a gigantic battle was being ed in Germany for the control of men’s souls. At stake was total German character. The ancient orthodoxy of Rome alien to the German soul. A new, totally Aryan, orthodoxy needed. This new religion was to be based on western, not stern, values. The center piece of the Nordic religion was s the Hero, a God worthy of Europeans. This Christ was opposite of the humbled, resurrected Christ preached by (St. Paul). Rosenberg devoted an entire chapter in The h of the Twentieth Century to the Nordic Church, yet, after iting this lengthy dissertation, Rosenberg admitted that he not certain precisely what the new church would be like th, p.14]. As Rosenberg wrote, "the greatest task that remains to this century is to satisfy the Nordic racial soul with © a German People’s Church." [Myth, p.615].
As in other cases, Rosenberg’s treatment of the subject is primarily negative. He is much more adept at telling his reader what something is not than he is at telling what a thing is. We must begin by summarizing Rosenberg’s objections to traditional Christianity of both Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant varieties.
Rosenberg argued that originally Nordic man was not interested in philosophy. "When the German man first entered into the world he. kept away from philosophy completely. However, that which is most significant for his nature, that is, the dynamic character of his physical and spiritual life, joined of necessity with an antipathy to any kind of rigid monotheism and church dogmatism of the kind that was forced on him ... [these things] became a weakness at a time when the original age of his race ended. While the old gods were dying Nordic man was still searching .... The fundamental fact of the Nordic European spirit is that a distinction between two worlds is made consciously or unconsciously. [Myth, pp. 130-31].
136 Alfred Rosenberg The Nordic Christian Church 137
Rosenberg rejected the idea, following his understanding of traditional Nordic-Aryan theology, of creation ex nihilo. Such a creationist view of God makes it impossible for man to bridge the gap that necessarily exists between Creator and his creation. This Rosenberg views as an Asian-Jewish idea, passing from Paul (Saul) through the Roman Church to Luther. He preferred, instead, to assume that the Aryans were correct in their five thousand year old tradition that God and man existed
~co-extensively and co-terminously; that God did not create man and that God and man are "high allies" in combatting evil.
The doctrine of one, already completed, revelation, as taught by Jews and Christians alike, was, to Rosenberg, a static idea. It denied the possibility of progress and human advancement. He used terms such as, "eternal flow of nature" and "dynamic command of life" to illustrate the importance of continual change. Rosenberg showed himself here to be a product of twentieth century existentialism. Revelation, like man, is always becoming. It is not a single event and it will never be complete. [Myth, pp. 134-35, 140-41]. Religion was not limited by the events of history. It was spiritually independent. It would assert itself separately for each people, nation, age, circumstance and character. [Weltanschauung un Glaubenslehre, p. 9).
Rosenberg assumes that all being (Dasein) has a built-in prejudice against disorder and that God and man cooperate in building order (cosmos) in the face of disorder (chaos). There never was a time when there existed only God and nothingness. Rather, there was a time when disorder generally prevailed. But all being began at eternity. The idea of God the Creator (Jehovah) began when the ancient Semites were looking for a device to: make their national deity supreme over all other deities. Only a Jewish Jehovah would create something (Sosein, dependent being) out of nothing. Creation made man dependent on this deity for his very existence. This was true for
material reality. Man could be reduced to nothingness, for was from nothing that he had come and from which he had een fabricated. The humbled man sought relief and protection an essentially angry and capricious deity. Thus, the clerics, class separate (Levites in Judaism) from other mortals, gained ontrol over all men. Roman Catholicism, Rosenberg argued, accepted this Canaan monstrosity" and set itself up as the only true mediator etween fallen man and God. It had effectively created and Stained that the myth that without the magic spells and arms, indulgences and the like, that only the priesthood could Spense, man could have no hope to be saved. Man was educed in character so that he had to love, practice charity, his ego, swallow his pride, reject his nobility, be humble ad contrite. In general, man was required to reduce his being » the lowest possible level. The Church grew and so did a onsequent hierarchy whose final authority was vested in a e. Because he had power of salvation or damnation over all uman beings, kings included, the pope grew in temporal power ad prestige. Inevitably, corruption grew. By the Middle Ages ost of the operatives, popes and clerics alike, had been fully pted. ; A few scholars rejected the papal claims to sovereignty over all men in all ways, and some even denied the papal power 2 "loose and to bind" in heaven as well as on earth. A few fetreated from the world and found solace only in private neditation. Luther’s Reformation sensed that the corruption of the Roman Church made it vulnerable to revolution. But the early reformers broke only on matters of church power, church Bierarchy and church dogma. These were not the important elements. [Myth, pp.183-85]. Rosenberg blamed Luther especially for his lack of courage. Luther had stopped short of making the major jjustments needed. He knew of the "perfidy" of the Jews, but
138 Alfred Rosenberg
he continued to accept both the Old Testament and the falsification of Jesus in the Epistles of the Jew Paul (Saul). Rosenberg believed that Luther, as a racial German attuned to
Nordic impulses and traditions, truly knew that Paul had
fabricated the message that he had attributed to Jesus.
Rosenberg suspected that Luther knew that Paul had been sacrificed by the Jews. The Jews had designated one of the most able of their number to take over and to subvert Christianity. This was done so that the Jews could take over the growing new religion and manipulate its dogmas for its own purposes. They wished to make these ideas compatible with Judaism. Judaism remained as the elite religion of the Chosen People (Jews) while Christianity of the Roman type was a mass religion which the few, the Jews, could manipulate. Christianity was the tool of the Jews to control Gentiles. As Gentiles worshipped their God, the Supreme Being was, simultaneously, the central figure of Judaism as well. Each time a Christian paid homage to his God, he paid homage to Jehovah of the Jews as well. The Jews had never wanted Gentiles to convert to their national religion, but they did seek to enslave and control Gentiles. The foundation of Christianity had given them a perfect opportunity. Gentiles would be Christians, and Christians would accept, through Saul, all of the Old Testament myths and beliefs. Rosenberg wrote, "The Old Testament as a book of religious instruction must be abolished once and for all. With its destruction will end the unsuccessful attempt of the last 1500 years to make us all spiritual Jews." [Myth, p.683].
Justin Martyr, an early Christian writer, had been the first to realize that the true Christianity was antithetical to Judaism. In his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho (c.146, A.D.) Justin had argued for the clear separation of Christianity from Judaism. The early Church Fathers, many of whom were Jews, and many of whom were disciples of Paul, were prepared to charge Justin with heresy. The Romans killed Justin for his
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igion. He was ever known as Justin Martyr, and not as St. tin. The fact of his martyrdom could not be denied, and killed for their religion were ordinarily considered to be ints in the Christian Church. Many hated Justin for his ferodox views, and thus they played a technical game. He uld be recognized for his death, but not called a saint be se of his theological views.
Christianity, Justin argued, was something quite different m Judaism. Jesus had come to restore true religion and to denounce the hypocrisy of the religion of the Hebrews. For that crime Jesus had been crucified. Justin Martyr had taught that Christians should avoid Jews and view themselves as a religion wholly distinct from Judaism--a religion built on different ideas and premises from Judaism. For that Justin was martyred.
Luther had freed man from the shackles of the Roman Church and from its requirements such as confession and indulgences. He failed to become sufficiently revolutionary. His use of creationism enchained man again, this time to that gratuitous gift of God, healing and redeeming grace. Man was still impossibly removed from God. He was creature dependent upon his creator. His lot was no better than it had been under Catholicism.
Lutheranism had failed to continue Luther’s attack upon Rome. It had faltered from a lack of courage and conviction and because the church had become rigid and ossified. It had created its own bureaucracy and hierarchy and had thus been conquered by the Roman spirit. The new Lutheran myth was nothing more than a revived Roman myth, complete with all of the worst features of Christianity against which Luther had protested so vigorously. Luther had begun a revolution but his successors had failed to carry through with all that he had recommended. After 400 years Lutheranism still resembled Roman Catholicism in all but acceptance of papal authority. The Reformation moved toward Rome. Lutheran church men
140 Alfred Rosenberg
were concerned far more with holding on to their power than with the de-Judaization and de-Romanizing of Christianity.
With the failure of Lutheranism to Germanize Christianity came also the Judaization of the Evangelical Church. Luther himself had loathed Jews. He warned of their conspiratorial propensities, but his successors had not heeded his warnings. The Church had lost out to Jewish universalism, and in doing so, had lost its mission to the Germans. Communism, Masonism and bourgeois democracy were in reality all Jewish conspiracies. Had the Evangelical Church followed Luther’s warnings it would have avoided all Jewish ideas. In part because the Evangelical Church was spiritually weak it had failed to resist atheistic communism, a point made by popes beginning with Leo XIII about the Roman Catholic Church. The Lutheran priesthood had been captured by Masons, allies and co-conspirators with the Jews. Lutheran ritual had been taken over by Masonic ideas and teachings. Lutheranism had sold out to Jewish bolshevism and Jewish bourgeois democracy. These are the major points made in Rosenberg’s Treason Against Luther and Myths in the Twentieth Century.
Rosenberg repeated, but in stronger and more absolute terms, Luther’s call for the purgation of what he called near eastern, Roman and Etruscan themes from Christianity. He referred to many Roman Catholic traditions as the products of "Semitic fatalism or Syrian fatalistic magic." He looked at the pope as the "chief magician" in a magic based religion. [Myth, p.397]. He looked at the dogma and teachings of the Roman version of Christianity as nothing more than superstition. It taught internationalism instead of nationalism. It made ‘no attempt to adjust its teachings to the special needs and situation of Nordic man. It taught submissiveness to the proud Nordic man.
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Roman Catholicism taught that man should practice wharity (love) toward those who were unable to help xemselves. Its greatest interest was the outcasts of society: the It, the lame, the blind, the mentally retarded, and the ntally incapacitated. It loved the cripple more than the aysically sound and the mentally retarded more than the nius. Its teachings sickened the strong man by attempting to zake him sympathetic to the defective. It taught sentimentality its worst. Misplaced sympathy boded evil for Christian Nordic ations in the future. The German character was disposed to more in accord with the laws of natural selection. Aryans knew that the weak, neurotic, mentally unbalanced and other fectives must die off rather than to allow them to enter the ne pool. The state should aid the healthy citizens and not the tmfirm. Rosenberg’s perfect man was noble, honorable, and prepared to fight for tribe and nation. [Blut und Ehre, p.156; h, p.560]. "The teachings of a universal love and of the equality of all human beings before God and of democratic muman rights founded neither on race nor on national honor sre the bases on which Europe developed. [Thus Europe] became the protector of the inferior, the sick, the handicapped, ‘and of the criminal and the nasty character ...." [Myth, p.169].
Where men were not handicapped, that is, were born nole, the Asiatic-Roman-Jewish Church conspired to make hem spiritual cripples. The doctrine of original sin held that no man was noble as he came naked into the world. Just as miracles might make the physically impaired man whole, so Some magic of the Church might make men spiritually whole. The German people, in Rosenberg’s teaching, were not slaved by the doctrine of original sin., They were not tainted upon arrival in this world and the sins of the fathers did not descend to the sons over many generations. Original sin was incompatible with original nobility which Nordic man accepted. All Nordic man needed to regain his nobility was a healthy and
¥
142 Alfred Rosenberg The Nordic Christian Church 143
full dose of Nordic tradition. [Protestantische Rompilger, pp. 26- 32].
like unto Germans. The emphasis was on personal, tribal ¢ national honor, those noble sentiments that uplift Nordic Although there was no theological value in German nology, there was considerable value in the creation and intenance of the noble Aryan virtues that marked that gion. [Myth, pp. 162-63].
Against this background Rosenberg suggested, in broad dkes, the attributes of the New Nordic Christianity. The new arch must recreate and honor the traditional Nordic values. a religion that sprang from German soil would be suited the German character. Only a natively grown religion would ognize honor as the preeminent value. Only a native nern European religion could ensure true social justice and tural fellowship. [Weltanschauung und Glaubenslehre, pp.14-
Rosenberg made no claim to be a new messiah or @ counter-revolutionary himself; neither did he claim to be a "voice crying in the wilderness" to prepare for the new type- forming leader. He merely anticipated his coming for German was now at a period in its history when the new leader could find credence for his claims. The national socialist state was dedicated to the guarantee of "true spiritual freedom," ready to use its protective power to protect the seeker by interposing itself between the individual and the religion that constantly sought to coerce him into accepting its dogmas.
The ideas that stirred Luther were, for the most part, false issues. Matters of faith consumed his energy. He became embroiled in such arguments as those of transubstantiation over consubstantiation. These, and indeed, nearly all of Luther's Much would be gone and few familiar signposts would famous theses for debate, were false issues. The real issue at smain after the purging of Jewish ideas along with those other hand was the de-Judaization of the Church and the re- Struscan, Hither Asiatic and African practices that had marked Germanization of it. He was unwilling to transvaluate values Roman Church for nearly 1900 years. Fortunately, and to remake Christianity in the image and likeness of Nordic asenberg believed, the German national soul, implicit only in man, with honor as the key virtue. [Myth, pp.390-91]. mbers of the Nordic race who had not been corrupted by a
But the task of creating a satisfactory alternative to the stardization of the race, would sustain man and he would traditional churches had not been performed to Rosenberg’s hically know what was right for the members of his race. satisfaction, at least to date. "As yet no religious talent has Myth, pp. 134-35; 140-41]. appeared in any of the German lands to set before us a new Rosenberg would revitalize Christianity by ving it to that religious type in distinction to the existing ones. This is which one knows deep in the recesses of his soul. The nearly important because no responsible German is entitled to ask Wj) two thousand years of Jewish-Catholic domination of the West those who are still bound in faith to their existing churches to ave not yet destroyed the ability of the soul to respond to the abandon them." [Myth, p.599]. ‘all to truth. This suggests an amazing resiliency of the Nordic
In Germany the traditional pagan religion had as much oul. Its regenerative capacities were in Rosenberg’s view influence on the religious makeup of man as had Roman ufficient to regain true religion.
Christianity. The old myths of the German gods Wotan, Loki, The spark of truth had remained, almost miraculously, and others had a powerful influence on the development of the been nurtured over the interim by the writings of a few men national character. While the gods were myths (i.e., lies), they like Justin Martyr and Meister Eckhart. The heresies that the
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Roman Church had suppressed so forcefully over centuries contained the germs of truth out of which a true Nordic type- forming personality could reconstruct the Christian beliefs championed by Jesus.
Each creative drive of a "heretic" writer like the Cathars, Meister Eckhart or Martin Luther moved the Nordic race ever closer to the goal, even if that goal remained somewhat obscure. Each soul that poured out its racial longings for truth had its role in reconstructing Christianity along Aryan-Nordic lines. In the depths of time and space souls of Nordic men had been dispersed and scattered. The "inner light" of historical Nordic racial type-formers drew men away, inexorably, from the Jewish-Roman externals and toward the truth that remained within. [Myth, pp. 13-15; 129-34].
Rosenberg, in his practical role as Minister of Culture, used the resources of his office to redirect studies of ancient Aryan and Northern European religions toward the counter- revolution. The knowledge these scholars could bring to bear on the truth of ancient legends and epics would enhance the new religion. These truths offered insights into cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology and ethics that would form the groundwork and scaffolding against which these trappings could be added. Such investigations had to be carried out in an atmosphere of freedom of spirit. Men whose contributions would be causal had to be liberated from Jewish-Roman dogmas, canons of law and authorities such as the pope.
God does not compel man to accept either his being or his truths by either a gratuitous gift of grace or by forcing compliance through predestination. Only the truth known by the heart in a mystical way can compel man to become God’s high ally. We must emphasize that Rosenberg, following Eckhart, freely and whole-heartedly accepted the idea of William of Ockham [c.1285-1349] that differences of creed are of the present world only and have no correspondence in heaven.
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-onsequent to this Ockham emphasized the idea of living a y0d life. To Rosenberg, living a good life is synonymous with tainment of salvation and with doing all that God requires of n. He who is true to self acts honorably and it is the honor ode that formed the supreme value of the Nordic race. ading a good life means little more than knowing one’s true sif and acting so that one may freely confront that self and so at he may permit others to see what he has honed to tfection by ideas, philosophy and acts. Rosenberg quoted eckhart, as, "They soul will bear no fruit until thou hast scomplished thy task and neither God nor they self will vandon thee if thou hast brought thine to the world. Otherwise, thou wilt have no peace and thou wilt bear no fruit." h, p.225].
The Son of God was truly born into this world. Rosenberg has no quarrel with that idea or with the more neral idea of a transcendent God, provided only that creation kept out of the discussion. He followed Eckhart in assuming that God became God-man not to expiate the sins of Adam or of man, but to bring man to a full realization of himself. As he quoted Eckhart in The Myth of the Twentieth Century, "I answer (the question, why was God born into the world): so that God will be born in the soul" of each man. When man allows god to enter his soul he ignores time, for time no longer has meaning. The soul ascends and stands full and proud before the throne of God. The soul knows God and God knows it. There is nothing concealed any longer from the soul, and the soul is now naked before God. The soul can know whatever it needs to know and it knows fully and completely. God reserves nothing from his high ally. [Myth, p.224].
The noble soul becomes the supreme value of Nordic religion. It is the axis around which all things revolve. It is the
beginning and the end of all things. The noble soul exists only
in the heroic and proud man. It reinforces the supreme value
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peoples approached God was of an ("aristocratic") order far different from the way Jews or Romans or Africans approached God. Each of these races would differ the other in its theology. For several reasons Rosenberg chose not to pursue the theologies of non-Aryan races. For one, Rosenberg believed that one had to be a member of a race to understand its theology fully, and Rosenberg was a Nordic. For another, he had no interest in their religious beliefs, for he was quite definite in his belief that one was foolish to seek comprehension of ideas that, for racial reasons, were alien to his own civilization. For a third, Rosenberg thought that the Western civilization had already had enough of an alien exposure in the miscellany that coalesced to Roman Catholicism. These alien religious elements he discussed, and we have examined, separately. [Myth, p.67].
A people--Volk in German--knows a religion intuitively because the theology, like all other major traits and habits, becomes ingrained in it after a period of time. The Germanic value of honor which underlies all other values at all levels was developed over a long period of time in the Aryan and Nordic cultures dating far back into antiquity. A people cannot reject what is its heritage without altering its essence and prostituting all that past generations have stood for. A people is in the middle of a continuum which it dares not break, for it falls to it from the past and it requires that the people pass it along to future generations as yet unborn. It is far more than a kind of family treasure chest that he can waste. Even if some, perhaps many, generations should repudiate their racial heritage so long as they remain racially uncontaminated their trove of values and preferences from the past remains.
The overall values of the Nordic race cast a mold into which the religion must fit. The supreme value, by definition, requires that there be no values in the religion (or elsewhere) that contradict or clash with it. The values of a people
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ermine its religion. This is not a marxist historical terminism here. Rather, the Volk community developed, long efore Christianity, a total structure much like the-Greek polis. nis community encompasses all other human activities and stitutions without itself being encompassed by any. It is a total and systematic approach bringing about an integrated man. That being stands in direct and marked contrast to the divisions man is now fitted into, e.g., "economic man," "social man," and ‘eligious man." As a totality the community concerns itself
ith all human activities by assuming that man does not cease, &t some arbitrary point, being "economic man" and immediately puts on the garb of "religious man." Honor and duty bound Man is always and everywhere "religious man" and "ethical man." Ethical considerations affect how man behaves in his sconomics. Supreme values determine what religious man may ept in his theology. The supreme values of the race were forged on the anvil of all human behavior of the race. There is @ reciprocal relationship among all of man’s various institutions, alues and activities. [Myth, pp.67-71].
Christianity arrived after the values had been created. Nordic man found it impossible to accept certain things that Roman-Jewish Christianity taught because these ideas had been hammered out on a far different anvil. Christianity bent to a considerable extent as we have already shown in discussing Rosenberg’s criticisms of the Roman Church. Many symbols were changed into a Germanic form and many ideas were cast in the Nordic mold because the essence of the Roman Church was not fixed. It was transparent, reflecting, as was necessary and appropriate, Asian, Hither Asian, African Etruscan, Jewish, or Germanic values and ideas. But it: retained a few of its Asiatic trappings and essentials as it moved northward. Some of these violated the conscience of Nordics. [Myth, pp.77-81].
Nonetheless, Christianity triumphed and Nordic racial (Volk) values were sublimated, but not destroyed. These values
150 Alfred Rosenberg The Nordic Christian Church 151
will underlie the Nordic Christianity. Rosenberg believes that these unique Volk conceptions will form the basis of a religion that will attract only Germans because it fits only their national culture as developed over 5000 years of racial consciousness.
The Nordic Christian will speak of honor as the value which will predetermine Germany’s strength. In that sign, Rosenberg argued, Germany will conquer. The will always begin at that point, and all things will be judged against a standard of honor. Courage is a closely related secondary value meant to mandate that one behave honorably. One will perform honorable acts because of the third value, the sense of obligation we call duty. If there is a trinity of Nordic values it is: honor, courage and duty. These are the essentials of religion.
The Nordic conception of personalized Volk religion
or slaves and inferiors who tremble before their capricious and ndictive gods. Strong, noble, honorable men stand erect and nud before God. [Myth, pp.183-85].
The Volk spirit of the Germans provides them with a far er and infinitely less complex moral-religious system. Rosenberg saw no reason to multiply laws without real mecessity. Complex laws suited other races. Simplicity of law arked a superior race and a superior soul. Inferior races with inferior souls required more laws to be written and codified. Canons of theology fitted Jewish needs. But Germans could cut hrough this, reducing religion to the highest values of the race nerally. Honor, courage and duty were sufficient as directions for the Nordic civilization.
Rosenberg emphasized the cultural background of the Nordic religion as the necessary pre-condition for the mitigates against extremes in the codification of religion. The italization of Nordic Christianity. At the same time he Pauline emphasis on law and canons of theology and rules that oported adjunct programs that looked for the true identity of are forever fixed were a source of anxiety to Justin Martyr. As the Nordic peoples. This involved re-reading the long a Nordic spokesman, Justin knew that only an inferior breed of werlooked Nordic epics and stories with an eye to bringing out people needed written, codified law. The race that had true those things which were suggestive of religion. New translations ethical standards because of personal purification in the sight of old tales were ordered. These would be annotated and of God needed no extensive written law. Each man knew updated in language and expression so they conveyed in: the instinctively, mythically what was required of him. The law need clearest possible language what the writers had in mind at the not exist and neither did man need coercive power. An honor time they were set down. New "inspired" translations sought to code directed man to do what he must with and to all men and ‘convey cultural patterns and philosophical assumptions. to and with his God. He did these things because duty called Symbols were clarified as to meaning for the German from deep inside. community. Long lost manuscripts were searched out. and Only a corrupt and bastardized race with no racial sense, updated so the Volk could read them. Classes and instructional no honor code and no sense of duty immersed itself in complex programs were set up in German Volk themes. [Myth, pp.129- codes in religion. Despite having the most complex of all 34). One of the most important of these activities was the
religious codes, the Hebrews of the Old Testament and the Jewish-Roman Christians of the corrupted New Testament Volk festival. These were staged all over Germany. Local customs, especially those with the pre-Christian Volk
found sin to be common among their subjects. They despised free men because free men need no codes. Canons of law are orientation, were revived and underwritten by the Ministry of
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Culture. Native costumes and dress were revived and paraded at special fairs. Dances and other physical activities were encouraged. Anything that could be remotely connected with pre-Christian religion was especially desirable.
These activities were instruments of cultural revival. They were to encourage Germans to become involved with the long-suppressed Volk culture. They were thought to revive the moral sentiments of Nordic people who had lost touch with their cultural heritage. Against that background the Volk soul would reawaken. Long forgotten racial attachments would stir within the Germans. These things would create the desire and demand for a German religion. If the type-forming man were to be anywhere within Germany he would see that the demand existed for his power and his message. Rosenberg had long - believed that this figure was "hard by the door" and that, given the least encouragement, he would appear to lead and inspire the Germans in their new Nordic Christianity. The demand would not be the artificial one created by advertising, but would be the real one based in the racial stirrings of millions of Germans. —
Rosenberg saw such a leader as though in a vision. Obviously, he would be a racial Nordic German whose heritage was pure. He would be a great leader, a man of courage as well as of honor. His vision would not be a personal one; rather, it would be for his people. He would come not as a messiah or as a deliverer, but as a type-forming personality whose inspiration would impel others to look inwardly to find their own salvation though a highly personal love of God. He would come only for racial Germans. His message would not inspire or move members of other races.
The type-former would draw on the great type-formers of the past such as Justin Martyr, Meister Eckhart and Luther, but his message would be his as well. It would be the spirit of the people. In Nordic nations law and custom were never the
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uct of king alone. He dared not promulgate things as did despotic kings of Asian, African or Roman states. The king rely affirmed what the Nordic community had already ed by its actions. So it is with Nordic religion, past and nt. The people commit themselves spiritually and reflect tacial essence of Nordic peoples. The type-former gives the itment substance and depth and perspective. He reassures faithful. [Myth, pp.183-85].
The religion would be, as suggested above, highly personal and generally devoid of form in the conventional nse. It would have a few written laws or canons of faith. It would not permit the establishment of a priesthood nor allow elaborate rituals to be developed. Nothing roughly corresponding to indulgences, sacraments and the like would be permitted. Few books would be required. Those books that uld be used largely historical and biographical, concentrating on the great ideas, people and events out of Germany’s past. Whatever ritual and law there would be would fall in the category of the remainder of one’s racial origins. Pageants that glorified the past, such as Volk festivals would be reminders of what people thought and how they lived in former times, but they would not be religion per se.
The religion would stress the importance of the inner strength and personal commitment to the supreme values of the nation. There would be great reciprocity between religion and politics. Religion would be a simplified return to the revisionist message of the Nordic Christ. Precisely what else would emerge from the counter-revolution. of Nordic culture and religion would be determined by the type-former. Certainly, the Nordic Church would avoid the scholastic hair-splitting over non- essentials such as the nature of communion.
On the great questions, those essential to the Nordic religion, there would be no compromise. Rosenberg denied creation ex nihilo and all attendant ideas. This he saw as flowing
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from the great Nordic soul. It predated even written history that the world and some function of the soul are eternal with God. So it had been written in the Aryan philosophies of India and Persia and in the writings of men of the Christian era like Mani and Justin Martyr. It was to be found in the Nordic legends of Germany and Scandinavia.
Aryan religion is made up, according to Rosenberg’s design, of the awareness of being Aryan. It is a form of true racial pride. It cannot be other than racial for the Nordic peoples are children of the light. They stand in stark contrast to the other races which are primarily, if not exclusively, the children of darkness and materiality. No other link is expressive and no other point of contact is necessary for what is the Nordic equivalent of salvation.
To the degree that houses of worship are necessary they would be more like colleges designed to educate Nordic man on how to liberate his racial self. They might serve a second function as places wherein man could be freed from the limitations of time and space while uniting with the Godhead. However, man can do this anywhere, not just in a designated house of worship. The new religion would clearly be a German national religion. It would not make universal appeals to non- Germans, nor would it see the brotherhood of man as a reality. It would be very much a part of an entire movement, encompassing all aspects of German life. Non-Germans would not understand it for it would be based wholly in the German racial-blood-volk experience. If one did not share in these elements he would be lost in trying to establish a connection with the Nordic Volk-church.
The Protestant Reformation had suggested, without wholly pursuing, this idea. It was not as simple as removing the Lutheran churches from the control of Rome, nor was it wholly tied with the idea of the creation of an established church. The Reformation carried with it the rejection of ties with all things
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’ The new churches were to seek nationalistic ties with spiritual heritage of the peoples they served. Without the ing tide of nationalism the Protestant Reformation might not succeeded. Lutheran theology lacked the rhetoric of ionalism, but accepted most of its conclusions. It was willing be carried along by its sentiments without fully articulating slogans. Still, its theology was tied to the Roman church and itional Christianity. It may not effect any major theological olutions that can be ascribed to national sentiments. Rosenberg would have carried the reformation a step her. All things not necessarily tied to the Nordic heritage juld be rejected. National Socialism would have to render istianity acceptable to Nordic ideals. Those things which ported nationalism and which supported the nation-state ld be képt. The National Socialist state would support ¢ teachings which sustained Nordic virtues and which tied with Volk traditions. Rosenberg would have considered adding to the canons id reposits of faith Nordic writers whose reinforcement of German spiritual values were useful and perhaps even dispensable to the cause. He returned to the heritage of the lordic peoples which he argued was unique among nations. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) had seen the varieties of mankind as a blessing. The races (nationalities) were as many varieties of plants in a flower garden. Each was unique and each had its beautiful points and each had its ugly ones. Each had its own unique aroma and essence. Like most supernationalists, Herder was not prepared to wholly condemn members of other groups. What he saw were the virtues of his own species. Being of that variety gave one prejudices that ‘made him think that he was glad to be of that species, without directly condemning the other races. He was not especially interested in analyzing the other races.
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156 Alfred Rosenberg
yuld probably have been easier in the long run to invent a jle religion than to revamp the existing churches. In the short run, both Hitler and Rosenberg were willing allow churches to accept some reforms while still existing in the National Socialist state. In the long run, the National falist revolution required that all things, surely theology ded, be wholly within the confines of National Socialist dlogy. Religion was too important to matter to trust to non- pologues. This was one of Mussolini’s abject to failures, so far as ssenberg was concerned. He had bought peace with the nan Catholic Church, but he had failed to exercise control sr its ethical and political teachings. The National Socialist Jers had no intention of repeating this mistake once their sology had been completed. A revolution in religion would have brought Germany to 90int in history much like that wherein ancient civilizations i developed a priesthood that was synonymous with the itical elite. In ancient religions the political leader was »inted as God’s chosen one so he was dependent on religion his position. This idea was institutionalized by the Roman Yatholic Church in Medieval times with the doctrine of jus ereni imperii, the right of the church to confirm or deny secular ywers to rulers. The idea of legitimacy was advanced by rging political and religious power. If one could establish at God speaks through the Fiihrer then anything that leader yuld do would necessarily be of divine origin. Any anti-
Rosenberg created a hierarchy of races. The Germ variety had a superior culture. All other races were indee unique, but they were also necessarily inferior. They posse virtues, but not in’ abundance. They lacked the heros dimensions that were to be found among Nordic peoples.
No other race could possibly create as good or as intens a culture as the Aryan civilization had. Rosenberg attributed part of the success of the Nordics to their superior morality ar value consciousness. Aryan morality had to be able to mate their other racially conscious accomplishments. Their morality had to emphasize the racial qualities that the Germanic people had developed within. The Aryan morality had to be willing t extol the race-virtues they had developed. It had to be essentially superior to others. This recognition of superiorit must extend not only to man’s physical or mental abilities, but to his moral qualities. The Nordic racially-based morality hae to recognize inherent characteristics, not in the solitary good man, but in the solitary superior race.
Where the Christian churches had heretofore recognized the spiritual accomplishments of the good man by canonizing him and by proclaiming him blessed and a saint, they had ne to be prepared to do the same thing to a whole race. The kind of distinction acknowledged between man before the fall and man after the fall from God’s grace was now to be made between races. Indeed, the church had to be prepared to even condemn whole races, as in the case of the Jews. Between the Nordic race at the top and the Jewish race at the bottom came allt other races in a perfect hierarchical order. slitical act would also be an anti-theological act, an offense
Needless to say, no orthodox Christian church was sainst the Godhead who created or permitted the creation of _ prepared to do these things. Therefore Rosenberg had te ie state. fabricate his‘own church. Doubtless, had one of the churches Ideological control was a vital element in the recreation accepted these doctrines, there would have still been other sf the Greek polis, a community wherein political, economic, problems of dogma with which he would have had to contend. ocial and religious activities are all merged into one super- idea. Religion and politics would become one mutually
The Nordic Christian Church 159
158 Alfred Rosenberg
reinforcing system of regime and leader support. They wo operate in two ways and with two sets of assumptions, bt tian Church. . would necessarily arrive at the same conclusion and merge 1 Even medieval life had been corrupted despite the the confluence of the state. ength of the Volksgeist which opposed alien ideas. Witch While the leadership of a new Nordic Christian Chure is and burnings at the stake were part and parcel of Roman- would necessarily be German, the leaders, especially Hitler an ish-Christian teachings for Rosenberg. No true Aryan would Rosenberg, expressed great admiration for the Jesum accepted a theology which included angels, devils, demons organizational system. Himmler had organized the SS along j evil spirits. Rosenberg noted the absence of such ideas in lines of the Jesuit system of hierarchy and given it a Jesuit-li ¢ Fourth Gospel (attributed to St. John), assuming that such semi-religious ritual. That was the elitist training for the secu “as were omitted precisely because they were offensive to the priesthood. The masses would be organized in a far differer # flickering remnant of Nordic-Hellene culture to whom this manner, for they were not to be trained in the same initiate aspel was addressed. German, and most other, scholarship of rites as the SS. ws. is period denied that the Fourth gospel was written by a Jew. The organization of the Nordic Christian Church wo iwas the proper and true message of an Aryan Jesus. With the have been a Roman-style hierarchical one. The SS would hay erstition that marked Hither-Asiatic and Roman-Etruscan served as an elitist directive force, although not necessarily < sologies removed, Aryan Christianity would deny a priesthood in the sense of a group that administers to the srmediate, especially evil, beings that somehow stood in the masses. Those chosen to share the final truths and mysteries of of man’s flight upward, on Eckhart’s fifth level of the soul, National Socialism would have been initiated into thos unite with the Godhead. experiences and final truths through the SS. The SS along with Rosenberg rejected the idea of creation ex nihilo. He Rosenberg’s Ministry of Culture certainly would have served as i that doctrine was the "Canaan Monstrosity." The Nordic the final censors of all religious publications. w of God, man and all reality posits an eternal world, that is, Rosenberg would have founded the Nordic religion upe continual existence of all that is. There was no creation of a peasant base. Rosenberg had a strong and marked preferene smething out of nothing. Man can approach God as an equal for the German farmers and small town dwellers. To him, they because each is equally uncreated and each existed from all were the only true producers of wealth and the protectors of rnity. Both are equally uncreated and equally spiritual. God’s the Volksgeist and Kultur. Urban life and city living dull the xistence is greater as God, but God is no more spirit than man perception of these fundamental concept for they are unnatural Instead of having to approach God as unequal, as creature conditions of Nordic man. The Volk is shown in a concrete way » Creator, man can fly toward the deity and approach him as in its medieval folk rituals and pageantry. The historical 1 equal. research and archaeological skills of experts would be brought to bear on the reconstruction of the folk ways, mores, customs and traditions of the town or rural peasantry. Rosenberg tied all of this together and formed the base of Nordic Christianity. He
ald have incorporated Medieval Volk rituals into the Nordic
Rosenberg and Nietzsche
Friedich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) offered a new quite original perspective on the nature of reality. His ideas und an audience in some highly unlikely places. These ideas e used in ways that Nietzsche would not have approved. ed Rosenberg envisioned a new philosophy, and he chose tzsche’s philosophy as a convenient and popular vehicle erewith to express his vision. One chapter of The Myth of the ieth Century is entitled, "Nietzsche the Prophet." As the nd world war ended, Rosenberg commemorated the one dredth anniversary of Nietzsche’s birth in a speech, later blished in essay form. That essay was Rosenberg’s last blication under the Third Reich. Rosenberg used and ified Nietzsche at will. Rosenberg did not attempt to ent "true" Nietzsche, for that was not his purpose. senberg intended only to add legitimacy to his ideas by lowing Nietzsche. It is difficult to think of Rosenberg’s ilosophy if one does not think first of Nietzsche. Rosenberg ricated portions of his thought out of Nietzsche’s ideas, but presented them in his own way and for his own purposes. Nietzsche was, first and foremost, a classicist. His study, is books and his professorship all related to classical, primarily reek, literature and the arts. Rosenberg had begun his studies, ecially in the Myth of the Twentieth Century, with the Greeks. ‘osenberg considered the early Greeks to have been Nordic es who possessed most of the desirable Aryan racial aracteristics. Nietzsche’s perception of the Greeks doubtless lored Rosenberg’s presentation of them in the Myth.
The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) luenced Nietzsche to a considerable degree. Schopenhauer had dabbled in Eastern philosophies, and concluded with them, and against mainstream Western thought, that existence was evil. We are hard pressed to find another major Western inker who begins with the thought, "to be is evil." The world
!
164 Alfred Rosenberg Rosenberg and Nietzsche 165
Christian religion, the sad figure of the crucified Christ. A sample of the synthesis can be seen in Birth of Tragedy (1872) where he spoke of the "sublime as the artistic conquest of the grotesque."
Since the Apollonian culture grew out of the initial, halting steps of the original Dionysian to create cosmos (order) from chaos (disorder), the synthesis is reasonable.. What is unreasonable is Nietzsche’s suggestion that man changed from his early acceptance of Apollonian culture to the disordered culture of the savage and barbarian Dionysian in the first and original sense of Dionysian cults. Man chose only the synthesis Dionysian culture, primarily because it represented a spark of fire within the believer that counterbalanced overwhelming order that has become conformity.
The Dionysian-Apollonian synthesis is quite hegelian, except that in Nietzsche’s synthesis the conflicting elements are preserved so that one can pick out, even after joining, the distinguishing feature of each. The Greeks had exhibited more slave than master mentality in the Dionysian cult, and more master than slave mentality in the Apollonian. The Greek in the first instance sought to preserve self through self-indulgence and in the second instance through willed fulfillment of character. This suggests a human nature that is quite fluid, in the state of flux, and working out its identity according to its potential.
Rosenberg makes a distinction between Apollonian and Dionysian approaches to life among the Greeks. He was influenced to a considerable extent by Nietzsche’s perspectives on this subject. Over fifty pages of the Myth are devoted to this topic.
It was in the basic conception of humankind that Nietzsche influenced Rosenberg the most. Nietzsche saw that man was in the process of becoming, unless he should choose, at some point, to override this tendency toward development.
ature in and of itself was limited in its number of expressions. had a certain number of types or patterns of existence and no re. These it repeated endlessly, without change or variance. - With the superman Nietzsche was able to introduce the possibility of secular salvation. The superman would create a ole: new pattern of existence which he alone uniquely ated. Thus, man’s salvation would come in the fact that even Nature could not alter this new pattern which the superman had eated.
Whereas Nietzsche was concerned only for the fate of 1¢ individual human being, Rosenberg identified the duty of the superman as the salvation of his race. Rosenberg’s Superman would liberate his fellow Aryans who had lost the iordic Truth and were thus suppressed, subjugated and ‘downtrodden. The new Superman would necessarily be racially conscious. He would give birth to the New German, a man rooted deeply in the Mother Earth for his personality. The Superman would help to rediscover the lost myth of the Germanic peoples. He would awaken the racial soul which would become the supreme value of the people. Thus, the whole race would become supermen.
A new morality was needed to aid the superman in attaining his destiny. Nietzsche transvaluated values. He rejected traditional Judaeo-Christian morality as a moral code fitted only for weaklings and slaves. Such a moral system prevented the strong man from obtaining the tools wherewith to attain the secular immortality Nietzsche promised. Christian morality, as taught by the traditional church fathers, sickened the strong animal, teaching humility and meekness. The new morality Nietzsche offered was the dialectical opposite of Judaeo-Christian morality. It taught that the overman must assert himself, be strong, clever, and proud. The transvaluated values included all those things that are primitive in man and
Rosenberg and Nietzsche 169
168 Alfred Rosenberg
treated time as immaterial to the causes. Each and every act is the one that recreated the world.
Nietzsche idolized Richard Wagner, calling him the greatest composer and poet the modern world has known. He was prepared to acknowledge Wagner as a true superman until, suddenly, he broke with him. Wagner had made his heroes seek and find redemption in and through heroic acts. Bravery was the overriding virtue. Then Wagner wrote Parsifal. In that opera Wagner has the hero reject Greek life in favor of the Christian culture. Instead of conquering Fate or laughing at it ("yea the morrow") and acting honorably, Parsifal succumbs to it by kneeling to the crucified Christ and his vicar on earth, the Pope. At first indirectly in Human, All too Human and then directly in The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche posited his own being and creativity by denying that which made him "comfortable" and happy, his friendship with Wagner. He was prepared to take the step toward secular immorality (becoming an overman) by acting singularly as creator.
The overman must be prepared to "live dangerously." If one denies his own creativity, one cannot "give style to one’s character" and that would be the ultimate prostitution of one’s self. It would be suicide and there is nothing suicidal about Nietzsche. In that he differed significantly from Schopenhauer whose philosophy is centered on racial suicide as the only means of conquering evil existence and the irrational will to live and thus escaping this world.
In The Dawn (1881) and The Joyful Wisdom (1882) Nietzsche returned to the idea of raw power as the motivating factor in all beings. He believed that man was impelled to strive to overcome and surpass his neighbor,if only in his own mind. The "complete list of the history of culture" is nothing more than "a long line of degrees of this secretly desired overwhelming” of all his potential competitors. He drew up a plan, fixed as a ladder, showing the will to power. At the top
e the ascetic and the martyrs. Others who had sought type- T ing powers followed in a precise order. The martyrs set ide all other strivings and appetites and attempted to imitate u ist whom they had chosen as their model. They attempted imitate his power to the point of excluding all other desires id appetites. Some may even have surpassed Christ in rsonal sacrifice, and thus have become type-forming rsonalities.
By and large Nietzsche’s Dionysian personality is a nitrolled will to power. He sought conquest in the arts, ciences, humanities, and, above all, philosophy. He specifically id not look to the control of others as type-forming or fitable for the development of the personality. His creative nius "suffers life" but masters self. In his paradigm of great n Nietzsche notes that all had mastered self in a way men ely do, and that is what made them great. Among the great en he named Julius Caesar, Plato, Socrates, Wagner and Goethe. Caesar, for example, is more admired for his mastery of self, control over his own destiny and his creativity than for his soldiering and military skills.
Early in his intellectual development Nietzsche had become interested in the hegelian materialism of the leftist Young Hegelian movement generally, and David Friedreich Strauss (1808-1874) particularly. Their attack on conventional morality and Christian ethics was of great interest to him because he had already decided to transcend Christian morality and transvaluate its ethic. Strauss published his Das Leben Jesu Kritisch bearbeitet (Life of Jesus Critically Examined), in 1835-36 ‘in two volumes. He concluded that the four Gospels were recollection of the memory of exceptionally great personalities. They were not the work of divine inspiration. What they did offer was an unusually good insight into the life of the Jewish people of the Hellenistic period and their climate of opinion that was full of messianic expectations. They summarized and
170 Alfred Rosenberg Rosenberg and Nietzsche 171
synthesized notions peculiar to the Hebrews regarding world d much of its beauty of expression. He did not like Strauss’ history, creation, the nature of God and the like. That age, like le Old Faith and the New (1872) and its inordinate emphasis all other times, was a mere step in the path of final and the morality of Judaism and its type-forming effect on complete pantheism. The Gospels did not prove that any divine Christianity. intervention in the affairs of the world had ever taken place. _ Nietzsche called Strauss a Kulturphilister (cultural They did show a certain consciousness in the general, mystical istine) and attacked the heady way Strauss handled his sphere of religious experience. leracy success. Strauss’ Life of Jesus was among the most What Strauss, and, to a degree, the other Young ecessful theological works of the nineteenth century. His Old Hegelians, had retained from the Gospels was a strong sense of igion and the New was nearly as successful. Nietzsche thought morality and ethical obligation. Unconsciously, the authors of Strauss as one who enjoyed his fame and the admiration he the four Gospels had given us poetic renderings of a man’s feceived from radical elements, but who was unwilling to desire to transcend the finitude of the particular moment in suffer" and truly put into practice what his tracts taught. The history cast in an ethical mold. While they had reduced the ry success of the works made him wealthy and "comfortable." Gospels to the level of pagan legends, the Young Hegelians only apparent reason Strauss had not abandoned had, at least in their own view, salvaged something of their christianity was that he was entrapped by the idea of some content as a reasonable, if uninspired, basis for morality. The orality and had absolutely nothing to offer that was equal to aesthetic accounts of the good life in the Gospels had been better than the Christian ethic. surpassed by the freedom that modern science and technology Nietzsche was prepared to make that quantum leap in had produced, referring especially to the liberal state. However, nought. He was in the midst of developing an ethical system liberalism had not yet brought, and was unlikely ever to bring, uited to the master morality. He was prepared to suffer any a new and superior morality by which men could live. sonsequence of abandoning Christianity completely, for it was Nietzsche reacted with scorn. Strauss had acted in bad nly in such a complete desertion that the cult of the superman faith, for his intellectual radicalism had propelled him away sould be developed and sustained. Although filled with the idea from Christianity. Modern conventions of society and his guilt of love, Christianity had sustained the slave morality and thus feelings forced him to return to conventional, Christian ad retained the factor of resentment that marks the slave and morality. Strauss had not recognized, said Nietzsche, that when parates him from the master. The necessarily inferior position one renounces supernatural religion and enshrines technology of all men is central to Christianity because it was based on in its place one can no longer attribute to man a unique Jewish morality. The Epistles and the Gospels had retained the supernatural nature or morality. Man cannot maintain his orst of Hebrew literature and ethics, forcing proud master dignity as the "high ally" of God. e Nietzsche had some considerable admiration for the Old Testament and its type-forming power. It had created a certain type of ascetic, albeit obedient, even subservient, personality. It had a powerful influence on the prophets. Besides, Nietzsche
Nietzsche was horrified to hear that there were some ho thought that his highly individualistic philosophy might, one day, become the basis for a political ideology. When his friend
172 Alfred Rosenberg
Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) wrote him that his theory of the superman might be used for partisan political purposes Nietzsche dismissed the idea as idiotic. Nietzsche held no nationalistic views. He was concerned that others might, in the name of nationalism, subdue the German creative spirit in favor of the German state. His concern was for freedom of inquiry and creativity not the national spirit per se. He had held patriotic views in his youth but these had long since passed. Occasionally, one finds nationalistic statements, or, at least maxims among his later collections of thoughts that are suggestive of nationalistic sentiments. His brother-in-law Bernhard Forster was quite nationalistic and anti-semitic and some of his ideas occasionally appeared in Nietzsche’s correspondence. The Antichrist, not published until 1895 (after his commitment to an asylum), is strongly anti-semitic. It identified the Jew as the Antichrist.
; Burckhardt’s warning was a harbinger of things to come. Rosenberg had no use for abstract ideas unless they contributed in some measure to his political and social philosophy. Nietzsche’s philosophy was indeed made for political
interpretation. His attacks on Christianity and Christian ethics and character fitted Rosenberg’s ideas well. He, too, saw Christian ethics as suited to a lesser group, but one that was racially composed. He, too, saw that Christian ethics forced prostrate, inferior man to crawl to a creator who was infinitely above him. Such a theology was well fitted for the Jews, but not
Nordic peoples.
Rosenberg also readily agreed that Christianity became the dumping ground for obsolete, archaic, and abusive Jewish ideas. As Nietzsche’s described it, the worst of Judaism had been incorporated into Christianity. Jesus had ideas that were never understood properly. Therefore his ideas had been corrupted immediately after his death. Nietzsche was right in observing that the last Christian had been crucified at Calvary.
Rosenberg and Nietzsche 173
th could agree that Jesus had offered a dominant, type- ing personality that had been misread and rejected. The ues Jesus had actually taught were not prepared for slave f ntalities, but had been prepared for masterful personalities. Nietzsche thought about reconstructing Christianity and he chose Zarathustra to deliver his messages. Rosenberg accepted Nietzsche’s conclusion that one cannot have a metaphysical man one denies the possibility of that branch of philosophical inquiry, and that one cannot have supernatural man or morality ‘if he denies God. Rosenberg wanted a supernatural system so the chose to resurrect Christ.
But Rosenberg wanted more. He wanted a secular power of the type-forming personality. He wanted the superman ine. He cherished the idea of having a philosophy based in the will to power. The entire German people might become ‘overmen while the lesser races remained captives of the slave morality of the Old Testament in one or another version. To achieve the superman several things were necessary.
; First, the nation’s will would have to be forged into a single entity that would become hard as steel. If that will became sufficiently strong nothing could prevail against it. The entire nation would suffer life collectively. The German people ould appear as one in a whole new world history. Together, they would shape the will to power.
Second, the forging of the will would be carried out not through a single act of multitude, but through the single act of national super-leader. The people would provide the proper material for such a transformation, but the real work itself would be the product of the great leader. Such a person is best recognized as a type-forming personality in Rosenberg’s writings. His effect is not so much on his own individual being id personality as on the entire nation. In a sense, such a type- former would be an overman from Nietzsche, but it is most important to see him as a great deal more. He would be a
176 Alfred Rosenberg Rosenberg and Nietzsche 177
ires of Nordic types that they perform acts of bravery. jothing else can take their place as the supreme values of the . Only events wherein acts of heroism can be demonstrated of value in proving the worth of a man or a race. While enberg has great respect for the farmer and his way of life, ding him to be the true producer of wealth, there is nothing roic in working the farm. But the farm does produce sturdy Idiers and strong militia. The heroic farmer must find heroism where on the field of honor. It is the duty of the state and leaders to provide the arena wherein acts of heroism can r and wherein honorable men can demonstrate their llegiance to the honor code. The state at war provides the portunity for the honorable men to act heroically and morably. Nordic men may regard a state of war as natural. It uuld be insufficient to prove heroism or honor in a less than crete situation or in a test or theoretical case. Men must k out, in each generation, a war wherein they may act in a ly, honorable and heroic fashion. Such may not be the case x men in their civilizations, inhabitants of other lands or mbers of races with different supreme values. These are the requirements for the heroic race as posited by Nietzsche and by Rosenberg. Other races value honor and heroism very little. Power is at the bottom of every governmental system.
Government is simply organized and concentrated power. No other organization, excepting the Catholic Church of Middle Ages, enjoys such concentrated power. Nietzsche had assumed the superman was interested in power and its exercise. His will was precisely the will to power. The emphasis that Rosenberg gave to Nietzsche’s will to power gave a rationale to the National Socialist party to control the state mechanism. It had to concentrate in its hands enough power to achieve its aims. This Nietzsche had suggested. Rosenberg had no reason to disagree. Nietzsche had given his sufficient power to his struggling superman so that he might achieve his destiny and_
ideologically and physiologically are also members of his own race. If one believes in a religion, an ideology or in any other thing, one should look like the other believers.
The German pattern of beauty of physical form is substantially, essentially, quite different from the Hither-Asiatic and Jewish ideals of beauty. The Apollonian ideals of beauty are quite different from those of Nordic-Aryan. The Chinese standards differ from Occidental generally.
Nietzsche and Rosenberg enjoyed yet another common ground. Both saw history as dominantly the chronology of heroes and battles. Richard Wagner’s tales of an heroic struggle of the honorable Nordics against a wide variety of dishonorable types influenced both Nietzsche and Rosenberg.
Rosenberg clearly derived the idea of an heroic struggle of a type-former against Fate from Nietzsche. Nietzsche, commenting on Wagner’s early, great opera, The Flying Dutchman, noted that it was in the Dutchman’s struggle against Fate that heroism was born. After the redemption of the Dutchman and his crew by Senta’s act of selfless love Wagner ended the story for there was no longer any heroic element. The audience quickly loses interest after the heroic event has taken place. In studying history generally we are interested only in the type-forming events of the nation. Mundane and common events draw no attention. What draws our interest are the great acts, such as heroic defense of the fatherland and heroism on the battlefield of honor. These are added to the rich trove of folk lore. Occasionally, we hear of acts of cowardice and dishonor on the field of conflict. Nations then carry these cowardly events with great shame as something they must avenge and erase through heroic acts. Cowardly acts are a source of national mourning and unquietness as well they should be.
The essence of Nordic life is found in its search for honor and heroism. Honor is the primary Nordic value and it
180 Alfred Rosenberg Rosenberg and Nietzsche 181 1, the fifth of which clearly taught that there was an immoral, rnal "spark of the soul" which flies to the Godhead as equal equal in terms of being uncreated existence. That idea would ing from the depths of the soul of the entire Nordic race, but would require proper statement and perspective and this uuld be the work of the type-forming personality. Rosenberg’s cept of the type-forming personality does not create a new ttern of existence ex nihilo as it does for Nietzsche.
The type forming personalities in the philosophies of osenberg and Nietzsche are identical. Both are types of beings hich establish a new pattern of existence. In this way the type- er gains secular immortality. Each and every type-former ould be permitted to use society in any way he deemed cessary. Each would transvaluate values in such a way as to leny the traditional Jewish-Christian values based on love.
The whole Christian idea of love is unworthy of consideration in both type-forming Supermen. Germany of the Weimar has strayed away from the assertive values of the race and accepted an artificial value system that mandates love of inferior. This is the legacy of the "Canaan Monstrosity." It is the logical result of the acceptance of the idea of creation ex nihilo. Until these ideas are purged from the German state evil and corruption will remain. The value system is the consequence of the alien, Hither-Asiatic idea of creation. Neither Nietzsche nor Rosenberg could accept the idea of creation ex nihilo. Nietzsche’s classical rejection is based on the acceptance of the myth of the eternal return. He led the way, showing Rosenberg that pride in race. Nietzsche taught Rosenberg that the myth of the type-forming superman was incompatible with the Jewish idea of creation ex nihilo. Rosenberg denied Nietzsche’s eternal return myth, but accepted his idea of attacking the Jewish-Christian idea of creation.
bred over many generations past and fed into us just like the blonde color of hair or the blue of our eyes. If enough miscegenation occurs our biological and psychological ideological traits may be destroyed through a natural process of attrition. But so long as the racial Nordic characteristics remain within us as the strong dominant element the true German cannot deny his heritage. Against this background the Nordic type-former finds a ready audience. Neither he nor his audience could explain why alien ideals are repugnant or why the native ideals are attractive, but each of the type-formers finds that fertility of the ground has been predetermined ages ago. A race is what it is. It has a racial destiny which it seeks to fulfill. Recurrent type-formers, appearing throughout the ages of the race have sustained and revitalized this heritage. Their secular salvation is guaranteed when the type-formers have cast the race in a certain mold. They can add to, but not work against, the essence of the race to whom their messages are directed. The true national awakening is the highest intellectual achievement of a the hero. It is the greatest service he can perform for his race. Ordinarily, acts of honor and heroism on the battlefield are man’s highest acts. These acts must take a distant second position to the service the type-forming hero performs. The hero becomes the special missionary of the race. The type-former constantly reminds members of his race that, in the Nordic peoples, heroism and honor are supreme values. These values have become the highest values of the race because the type-former practices and encourages the acceptance of these virtues. Members of his race accept them because the hero accepts them.
Rosenberg’s philosophy is incomplete without the concept of the superman who is the type-former of his race. Rosenberg’s theology awaited the type-former. That hero would purge the idea of creation ex nihilo from Christianity and replace it with the reconstruction of Eckhart’s five levels of the
182 Alfred Rosenberg
Bibliography
Baumler, Alfred. Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker. Leipzig, 1931. . "Nietzsche und der Nationalsozialismus" Studien zur deutschen Geistesgeischichte. Berlin, 1937.
Brinton, C.C. "The National Socialists’ Use of Nietzsche," Journal of the
"History of Ideas 1 (April 1940), pp. 131-50.
Charles, Pierre. Nietzsche. Harvard University, 1948. .
Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Anti-Christ. Princeton University; 4th ed., 1974. ,
Knight, A.H.J. Some Aspects of the Life and Work of Nietzsche, Cambridge University, 1933.
Scientific Racism
Racism assumes that there are groups of individuals who are certain common physical characteristics -- race -- who are erally superior to another such group. The Nineteenth mtury produced a whole new dimension to racism; it based its sumptions on certain findings related to new and existing entific knowledge. The science of racism rejects simple ejudice based in traditional hatreds. It concludes its prejudices r and against according to scientific findings. It may then to the same conclusions that other, older racist doctrines id earlier to come to, but the reasons are entirely different. ie founder of modern scientific racism was Arthur, the Count
Gobineau, a French aristocrat who began his academic eer as a student of the Orient. His work was carried on by ‘ouston Stewart Chamberlain, an Englishman who was the son- -law of the racist composer Richard Wagner.
A number of works have been published, beginning during the Second World War, examining the influence of these inkers of Alfred Rosenberg, and on Adolph Hitler and other ‘national Socialist ideologues. Generally, these books concluded that there was nothing new in Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century and that Hitler had drawn his ideas from pamphlets common in the streets of Germany and Austria long fore anyone conceived of the NSDAP. [see, especially, P.G.J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. New York: Doubleday, 1970].
__ If one could prove that National Socialism was the oduct of the total German culture, from Martin Luther to Frederick the Great to the present, then the entire German Society could be condemned. The Allied powers were free to bomb and destroy people at all levels and strata and from all classes in Germany in a total war. This made it easier to fight the Germans generally. It also made it a great deal easier for the Allied powers to assign guilt for war crimes to the entire
184 Alfred Rosenberg Scientific Racism 185
population. It made it a simple task to ridicule the intelligene of Nazi leaders and dismiss their ideology.
1 Putsch, what he learned from the Circle probably came rectly through Rosenberg during Hitler’s term in prison. Hitler showed the Bayreuth Circle that there was a tie ween their abstract ideas and real action. Rosenberg had sught the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion from Russia with He showed these documents to the Bayreuth Circle, »osing the members to them for the first time. Although the sup had clearly held anti-semitic views prior to this time, Die s#tokollen gave these views a whole new perspective.
Richard Wagner expressed most of his ideas in his as. Early in his career Wagner composed The Flying hman. This is a story of selfless and uninhibited love. The stain of the ship, The Flying Dutchman, had cursed and thus i damned himself and his crew. Fate allowed him to come hore once every one hundred years. Senta had previously len in love with a portrait of the Dutchman and renewed that ve when the real Dutchman made one of his appearances. She ificed herself and the ship, captain and crew were released ‘om their punishment.This is a simple and straightforward tale love and honor, the German racial values.
From the beginning of his career Wagner had thought of
ringing Nordic folk tales to the operatic stage. He thought of
iting only on the hero Siegfried, but eventually expanded the ory to encompass four operas. Collectively known as The Ring the Nibelungen, the set tells the story of heroism in an age corrupted by money. The principal Nordic God, Wotan, known on earth as The Wanderer, wishes to have a great fortress built in Valhalla. He employed the race of giants who lived in Reisenheim and were led by Fafner and Fasolt. They demand he gold of the Rhine maidens as their payment. Wotan stole the gold belonging to the Rhine maidens and tricked the dwarf Albrecht into surrendering the magic tarnhelm and his magic ring. To complete payment to the giants
The Bayreuth Circle
Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a member of prominent British family whose love for things German broug? him not only to that land but into a place of considerab prominence. He married Richard Wagner's daughter and joine the Bayreuth Circle. That group, led by the master compose had a highly restricted membership of superior intelle ability. It consisted of Wagner and his wife, Cosima, the daughter of Franz Liszt; the composer’s son Siegfried and his English born wife Winifred; the poet and mass leader Dietric Eckhardt; Chamberlain and his wife; Alfred Rosenberg, anc after 1923, Adolf Hitler. After Wagner’s death in 1883 ni widow assumed leadership of the group. They published the Bayreuth Bulletin, a newsletter of restricted circulation that discussed aspects of scientific racism and anti-semitism. The Bayreuth circle was never close to the masses and made ne attempt to mobilize them for practical political purposes. It was a discussion group and think-tank, no more, but no less.
By the end of the First World War, Cosima Wagner ane her son Siegfried had died and leadership passed to Winifred who became a very close friend of Adolph Hitler. At one time it was rumored that she and Hitler might wed, but that neve came to pass. Hitler was introduced to the Bayreuth Circle b Eckhardt and Rosenberg. Although the ideas of the Circle were much the same as his own, it is doubtful whether the circle really had much formative power over Hitler's politics. The same can be said of Rosenberg. His ideas were well-formed before he joined the Bayreuth discussion group. Since Hitler was just becoming aware of the Circle at the time of the Beer
186 Alfred Rosenberg
Wotan had to give up all his ill-gotten treasure, including the tarnhelm and the ring of the Nibelungen.
Wotan has fathered a superior race, the Walsungs. The last two, brother and sister, are Siegmund and Sieglinde. They do not know one another, having been separated in youth. Sieglinde is married, but readily submits to Siegmund’s advances. Her husband pursues Siegmund who is the superior warrior. To punish Siegmund for violating the marriage vows Wotan uses his spear to fragment Siegmund’s sword Nothing. Siegmund dies, but his pregnant sister-lover is saved. Wotan’s daughter Brunhilde saves her and for disobeying Wotan’s command about allowing Siegmund to die, Brunhilde is made into a mortal.
Sieglinde died in childbirth and her offspring Siegfried was raised by a Nibelungen Mime, brother of Albrecht. Siegfried and Mime hate one another, but Mime needed Siegfried to kill the remaining giant Fafner. Fafner killed Fasolt and then changed himself into a dragon in order to guard his treasure. Siegfried grew to manhood and forged Nothing into a great sword, something Mime has been unable to do.
Siegfried knew nothing of fear and Mime told him that Fafner will teach him fear. Siegfried killed Fafner. After inadvertently tasting the dead dragon’s blood he could understand the song of a forest bird. She told him to kill Mime for his own protection. She related also the story of a beautiful maiden (Brunhilde) who lay on a rock surrounded by fire. Siegfried found Brunhilde and aroused her from her sleep. They pledged mutual and undying love. Siegfried left her to seek new adventure.
On his Rhine journey Siegfried encountered his father’s ancient enemy. He drank a magic potion and forgot Brunhilde. The king enlisted Siegfried’s aid in bringing Brunhilde to court to become the king’s bride. Siegfried fell in love with the king’s sister. When he brought Brunhilde to court she could not
Scientific Racism 187
derstand why Siegfried could not recall her. Feeling betrayed, told the king to kill Siegfried. The greatest German hero died and his bride rode her horse into the flames of her lover’s eral pyre. The fire spread to Valhalla and the old world was sumed.
Siegfried was the archetype of the Nordic hero. He was ve, honorable and adventuresome. He sought to recover his facial history. He earned his redemption by performing acts of heroism. He did not prostrate himself to any god. Indeed, he defied The Wanderer (Wotan) during his quest for the girl on the rock. He cared not for the future. He lived each day as though it will be his last. He asked no forgiveness, and made no apology, for what he is.
The evil dwarfs were symbolic of the Jews. They thought only of money. They used their gold to control others. They lived only to acquire more gold. They contributed nothing Positive or constructive. They were physically as well as Spiritually repulsive. They were constantly scheming. They manipulated men of honor for their own devious purposes.
Every German schoolboy knew the great folk tale of the Grail legend by heart. Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival was ‘one of the greatest works of literature in the German (or any other) language. On the surface it is a familiar tale of a pure knight’s search for perfect love and redemption. It had been popularized in the late Nineteenth Century in operatic form by the composer Richard Wagner. Few pieces of heroic literature had more impact on the nation-conscious Germans than Parzival.
Wagner’s opera opens with the aged Knight, Gurnemanz, Tecalling the legend of the Grail. Titurel had been fighting the Pagans without success when, suddenly, he was visited by a band of angels. They gave unto his keeping the Holy Grail, from which Christ drank at the Last Supper; and the Spear of Longinius, the lance used by the Roman centurion to pierce the
188 Alfred Rosenberg
side of Jesus as he hung in agony upon the cross. Titurel had built a great stronghold at Monsalvat to house these treasures, and had gathered around him those knights who were pure in heart wherewith to guard these great talismans of heavenly power. These knights rode forth to fight injustice and tyranny throughout the world.
Klingsor was an applicant, but he could not vanquish lust and passion from his heart, and so was rejected for - membership. He then built a great garden of evil in which, through enticements of the flesh provided by a variety of beautiful women, he lured the pure ones from their stronghold, and enslaved them in his evil service. Titurel sent forth Amfortas to carry the sacred lance into the evil place and end its temptations. Klingsor sent the lovely Kundry to tempt Amfortas. She seduced him and delivered the sacred spear to Klingsor. The evil sorcerer wounded Amfortas with it, and although Amfortas escaped his wound would not heal. Amfortas believed that he was condemned for his sin of the flesh.
An Innocent Fool, Parsifal, appeared on the scene, seeking his identity and destiny. After a brief scene in which the _ Holy Grail is unveiled, he went to Klingsor’s castle. Kundry was sent to seduce him, but, suddenly, Parsifal had a vision and was transfixed. He was told that should he fall to Kundry’s seduction there could be no healing of Amfortas’ wound and no salvation for him or the Grail Knights. He gained the grace necessary to reject Kundry. Klingsor attempted to kill him with the spear, but it hovered over the youth’s head. The sensual paradise collapsed and Klingsor vanished. |
After many years Parsifal returned from his wanderings throughout the world. He found that Kundry had taken the robes of a penitent and that Gurnemanz had become a hermit. It was a Good Friday. He was told that Titurel had died and that Amfortas still lay wounded and unable to consecrate Holy Communion. Parsifal went to Monsalvat, touched Amfortas’
Scientific Racism 189
jund with the sacred spear and revived the knight. The spear d the Grail were placed in the sanctuary.
The Grail legend is interpreted in two ways. Generally, is viewed as a story of Christian love and the redemption of ankind. The second is the mythical interpretation. The Grail Said to contain a coded message known only to a few, and iderstood by a tiny number. It is this interpretation which is Sccepted by Ravenscroft in The Cup of Destiny (1981) and Angebert in The Occult and the Third Reich (1974). -
Lucifer was a Prince of Heaven before the sin of pride
ompted God to cast him to Hell. On the descent to the Jnderworld his crown fell to earth, and from it fell a huge emerald. This was used by men of antiquity to fashion a inking cup to be used in occult rituals. Here we find the most ncient relic accepted by both Christians and gnostics. The cup ringed with unusual special signs, symbols, runes and the like, all depicting the ascent of man through various stages to a final state of blessedness. The Grail had become the sacred essel of Initiate Knowledge. It contained on its exterior the great trove of primordial knowledge and tradition which linked the past to the future. That primordial knowledge can bring man back into the natural and only true condition for him, the rimordial state of consciousness. Nietzsche broke with Wagner over his operas Parsifal and Lohengrin because in these musical dramas Wagner broke ith his previous statements on Fate and redemption. Wagner no longer sought salvation through the practice of the traditional Nordic virtues of courage and honor. He had submitted to Christianity, and to the Roman Catholic version of Christianity. Rosenberg, who was born after Wagner had composed all his operas, was less outraged than Nietzsche, but still preferred the Ring of the Nibelungen to Wagner’s later works.
190 Alfred Rosenberg Scientific Racism 191
The influence of the Bayreuth Circle on the developme! of National Socialism is overstated in several of the studies @ the roots of the Third Reich. [see Peter Viereck, Metapolitice Roots of the Nazi Mind]. The two groups, the Bayreuth ci and Hitler’s National Socialists came to parallel conclusi Because the Bayreuth circle antedated the other does no guarantee that the first group caused the second to act in similar way. It shows that the two groups drew on a comme heritage.
Hitler had been exposed to the ideas and perspective and writings of many Nineteenth Century racists long before h knew of the Bayreuth circle. Hitler never knew Wagner directly. He did not think of Wagrier in any way other than as the greatest of the German composers and poets. Rosenberg had seen the Protocols while still a student in Russia before Bolshevik Revolution.
When the two parallel schools of finally met they gloried in their similar views. Each group honed its anti-semitism b drawing on the other. Given the intensity with which each group held its ideas and ideologies, each group would have been far too inflexible to have allowed the other group’s ideas to substantially modify its views. What probably emerged was @ more precise and systematic statement of the position and a more precise form of the ideology.
tears of happiness flowed from his eyes. By the time senberg had completed the Myth Chamberlain was an old in confined to a wheelchair.
Both of these men sought to create, foster, encourage d develop a superior race of beings. Both believed that mankind was divided absolutely into superior and inferior ngs. No moral sentiment, charity or human action could e it otherwise. The superior must not commit "racial sllution" by sexually intermixing with inferior beings. It would best if the inferior and the superior did not live together at
Each work was considered by its author to be a seminal of the major forces that were coalescing in, and forming future of, their respective centuries. The future was etermined by the rightful ordering and manipulation of these’ orces. Neither attributed the kind of historical necessity to his pice of history that Marx gave to a dialectical and historical materialism, The human volitional element is determining in he works of these two men.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain thought of the Aryan race s a probable fiction. It may have existed, but this is uncertain. ven if it were to be proven that there never was an Aryan ace," he wrote, "we should want that there be one in the future." This was heresy to Rosenberg who considered that here had been such a superior race. It had existed in the ages ast among Nordics and it had type-forming power. It had created the supreme values, honor and courage, for the entire Nordic race. It had existed and made laws and developed culture and worshiped God. It had discovered laws of the universe and cosmic truths which were passed down mythically to the German people. Truth was written in the hearts of members of the German nation who had only to look inside to discover, in a mystical way, these pathways to the divinity. The primal and formative power of the great racial past leads
Houston Chamberlain
Alfred Rosenberg planned The Myth of the Twentieth Century as a sequel and as a tribute to his intellectual mentor, Stewart Houston Chamberlain. Houston Chamberlain was overjoyed at the prospects of a sequel being published to his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. He regarded Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century as the continuation of his work. Reportedly, when he first read The Myth of the Twentieth
192 Alfred Rosenberg
Rosenberg’s man to resist the Asian-Roman elements of J ewish- Roman Christianity. Without this type-forming power the myth of creation derived from Judaism would have entirely displaced the Nordic myth of an eternal world. |
Chamberlain thought of a race as something that could be created by the will-act of mankind or by accident. One begins with superior stock, "but if someone asks me where that stock comes from, I have to answer, I do not know." That stock is then isolated from the outside over a period of many generations. During that time it is completely homogenized. A thorough mixture guarantees that all members will share in best elements of all that the basic stock has to offer. If all has gone well, and if the stock was potentially superior, a superior race will necessarily emerge. Careful breeding requires that inferiors be culled out as they appear. "The lessons of eugenics have been learned in the horse barns and cattle farms," Chamberlain said. Inferior beings who exhibit undesirable traits will be destroyed, or at least sterilized so they can produce no offspring.
Rosenberg has no problem determining where the superior stock came from. It was comprised of Nordic racial types. Superiority of the Aryan race is a given. It is ana prion gratuitous assumption. It is a mythical truth, known in a way transcending mere physical proof. One cannot understand Rosenberg unless one understands this first principle.- The Nordic race is superior and all other races are inferior to it in varying degrees. .
The Nordic race has a five thousand year old history. It is but one of several separate and distinct races and is unrelated to the black, yellow, Asian-Jewish, Mediterranean, Celtic and Alpine races, or to any other racial group. Only the Nordic racé can produce or may become the Superman. The Superman is a product of the superior race. No inferior race ever produce a superior being.
Scientific Racism 193
Chamberlain suggested that there may be several, even many, Aryan races, since the term Aryan applies not to a ecial ethnic-racial grouping, but is used synonymously with uuperman. "They may have the most varied color of hair and yes, skin color, and body and facial configurations," he wrote. ne group of Aryans will seek out other Aryan groups to share Jeas and cultures and to communicate all manner of things. here is no single area in which the overman can or does live. 30 long as the proper stock exists one may find any race oducing Aryans.
Houston Chamberlain’s ecumenical approach to the ryan races was wholly alien to Rosenberg. In his view there is definite Aryan racial type, the "blue eyed, blonde haired race" s Nietzsche had called them. It is inconceivable that there sould be an Asian or black Aryan grouping in Rosenberg’s hought. The Aryan lives in Northern Europe, although he has chosen to migrate all over the globe. So long as he maintains his racial purity he may continue to live in other areas. But he sannot expect to find other Aryans in the far corners of the globe. | ,
Nordic man’s Volk culture would not appeal to other taces, nor would theirs be of interest to him. In his discussion of aesthetics Rosenberg specifically warned of the dire consequences of taking on an alien culture and making its cultural-art forms one’s own. Each culture produces its. own tacially based artifacts. Rosenberg argued that the native racial soul would be damaged through prolonged exposure to the
artifacts of alien cultures.
Houston Chamberlain would have had his Aryan seek out the cultural artifacts and products of other Aryan cultures. One Aryan culture would not adopt another Aryan culture’s artistic style and incorporate it into its own. It would admire the products of another superior culture as an expression of the superior mind. Rosenberg had no objection to that.
194 Alfred Rosenberg
Rosenberg credited Houston Chamberlain with another very important idea: psychic forms determine physical forms. The Nordic soul creates a certain psychic form; the Jewish yet another, and so on. There is a tie-between the racial soul of the individual and what would then be a predetermined form. If races mixed the result would be the creation of a hybrid soul that would not have its full compliment of Nordic (or any other racial) attributes. The alien soul would more likely emerge from this union as the dominant. The product. of an illicit love between a blonde haired, blue-eyed German and a woolly- haired, dark-haired Jew would more likely look Jewish, not Nordic. Rosenberg concluded that the Nordic soul was a delicate, precious and precarious thing. A single incident of miscegenation could have grave consequences for generations to come, so brittle is the Nordic soul.
Rosenberg shared some of Houston Chamberlain’s basic ideas on racism. They generally agreed on a total rejection of non-Aryan cultures. Neither would consider the black race to be capable generally of accomplishing much of anything. Both men shared the general European historical view of the Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century that only white cultures had created civilization or were capable of creating civilization. The only place that black and brown states and cultures had in history was that forged when they came into contact with the superior European civilizations. Essentially, the same is true of Oriental culture. While the Chinese had created civilization in the past, they had stagnated over the last several millennia.
There are substantial, perhaps irreconcilable, differences between Rosenberg and Chamberlain. They share the racist view of history. Rosenberg is the more inflexible racist. He also placed greater emphasis on maintaining racial purity in northern Europe.
Scientific Racism 195 Arthur, Count de Gobineau
Perhaps the best know racist work of the Nineteenth mtury was the Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races itten by a French aristocratic conservative, Joseph Arthur pte de Gobineau (1816-1882). Gobineau accepted the istence of only three races in the world: white, yellow and lack.
His true research interest was the Orient and he was sidered one of the leading Western scholars on Oriental istory and culture. The Essay was the result of his comparison t with West. His passion for the Orient led him to conclude it there were many values in that area of the world. Among ie yellow race, there was much that justified consideration and en emulation.
He was also interested in black races. He researched extant Western records on Africa, and, to a degree, on the Indian and Pacific Ocean islands inhabited by blacks. His first nclusion was quite simple. He completely dismissed the black race from historical consideration. Gobineau concluded that lacks were incapable of producing a culture worthy of study. They were "forever forced to grovel at the feet of their white ters." Blacks, Gobineau argued, are lethargic, even lazy. Left to themselves, blacks will accomplish nothing of value. They do little except that absolute minimum necessary to survive. They hunt and gather food and plant only when necessity forces this on them. They are of interest to the West only because they live in areas which contain vital, natural resources. They cannot harvest or utilize these materials themselves. It is just and right that Caucasian peoples exploit the resources and direct the natives. A caste system in which white men direct and order the natives benefits both races.
Much of Gobineau’s writing is concerned with how various peoples and races provide food, clothing and shelter.
198 Alfred Rosenberg Scientific Racism 199
Rosenberg was not an aristocrat and he had no stake © interest in governance by an aristocracy which had inherited its. powers. His elite was an aristocracy of race, or merit and of knowledge. Entry was guaranteed primarily through strength of the Volk will and through ability to express the racial essence as a type-former.
Gobineau divided the Oriental race into several sub races: Altaics, Mongols, Tartars and Finns. He referred to the black race as the Himatics, and no sub-division, excepting racial mixtures, was needed. He divided the white race into three racial sub-groups: Semites, Caucasians and Japhetics. He established a hierarchy established among both the white and the yellow races. Gobineau recognized that there was no pure strain to any race, and all the races and sub-races had at least traces of alien peoples in their blood. To a degree this is very good. Imagination is a quality lacking in the white race generally, and this must be supplied by "a drop" of black blood.
Within the white race the Teutonic Caucasian sub-group was clearly superior. Gobineau assumed that it was the least "polluted" or intermixed sub-group. He considered the Semites to be the most bastardized. The Caucasian sub-group alone produces high culture and true civilization. It was exclusively for this reason, the existence of the Teutons as the dominant force in Europe, that Gobineau chose Western civilization over the Oriental race. He preferred Oriental rule to that of the Semites. Gobineau had a pre-determined bias against Jews long before he developed his scientific and cultural racism. Gobineau objected to any and all things that the Jews had produced. Many of those objections brought him into serious conflict with the Roman Catholic Church.
Rosenberg classified the Jews and other Semites as members of the Oriental race. He lacked Gobineau’s appreciation of, and penchant for, Oriental civilization. His
bjections to Nordic scholars spending time studying alien ultures is discussed, below, separately under aesthetics. Rosenberg and Gobineau agreed on condemning the general decay and decline of French civilization. Richard gner had concluded that France was wholly corrupted after is exile in France. The narrative in The Myth of the Twentieth followed Gobineau’s indictment of French civilization imost completely. Wagner, Rosenberg and Gobineau all oncluded that France was completely overrun by Jews. Jewish fluence was greatest in the arts and culture. The French race d become mixed with the widest array of other races. It was ardized beyond salvation. Western Europe could seek its vation only from Nordic-Teutonic Germany. Should Germany ome racially mixed there would be no source of protection or Western Europe Culture.
The Protocols of Zion
Few documents in history have raised as many questions ind receives as many reviews as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. These documents form the basis of modern anti- Semitism. These documents were well known in Russia and uch of Eastern Central Europe before the First World War. Rosenberg was responsible for carrying them into Germany, introducing them to the German people and popularizing their contents. Editions of the Protocols have appeared in many anguages, including English. The American industrialist, Henry Ford, used them as the basis for his The International Jew published originally in his Dearborn Independent and then edited into book form.
In his Der Weltverschwérerkongress zu Basel (Munich, 1923) Rosenberg traces their history to the Zionist Conference in Switzerland in 1896. Rosenberg edited a German edition of
202 Alfred Rosenberg Scientific Racism 203 Jews will not practice agricultural skills. They migrated to cities that other races had built, there to practice commerce, trade and usury. They avoid working the soil whenever possible. ey have no agricultural skills. They just do not want to work any useful trade. [Die Spur, pp.130-31].
Nordic values favor nationalism. Jewish values favor internationalism,. Jews, Rosenberg wrote, are incapable of any form of patriotism. They retain their own separation while ging others to accept alien races and to practice miscegenation. [Schriften aus den Jahren, p.103; Der kunfisweeg einer deutschen Aussenpolitik, p. 41].
Rosenberg’s historical romanticism led him to prefer the
rue medieval, and thus principally rural, life. The peasant and he man engaged in light production, wood-cutting and mining ere only real producers of national wealth. Rosenberg is more in step with Doctor Quesnay and the French physiocrates than ith any other school of economics. Mercantilism with its emphasis on the accumulation of material wealth in national treasuries was in keeping with the Jewish economic thought. The Jews paid not an iota of attention to the wealth of the peasants. Rosenberg studied the Talmud and concluded that the Talmud and other Jewish writings directed men away from the oil. There were few Jewish farmers in Germany. Most were engaged in trade, commerce, and banks and the stock exchange. Rosenberg made all of those professions targets of ridicule and corn in the Myth. [see, also, Unmoral im Talmud]. No people that rejected farming and looked only to a parasitical existence, ing off the earnings of farmers could be good.
Rosenberg blamed the Jews for many vices, especially hose which he associated with urban life. His list of "Jewish ices" included homosexuality, prostitution, miscegenation, iodomitic behavior and general licentious living. These, he gued, were the heritage of Jewish domination of urban
Protocols provided very powerful ammunition and he used it with great enthusiasm. Rosenberg’s political attack on the Jews came at a time when the average German was more politically aware, the result in large measure of the Weimar democracy. The time was ripe for racists to renew the attack on the Jewish race. Since religious anti-semitism no longer drew the support it once it, Rosenberg supplied a new formula for anti-semitism. The Myth was a political work, although it had religious sections. :
Rosenberg used references to the past, to Fichte, Jahn, the Schlegels and others very effectively. This gave a greater legitimacy to his political anti-semitism than would have been possible using The Protocols alone. By invoking the past, people accepted Rosenberg’s arguments more readily.
Scientific Racism
Rosenberg justified his scientific racism by arguing that the Jews were an alien race which threatened the indivisible and organic Volk. Jewish ideas were wholly alien to Nordic: racial ideas. Those alien ideas were at odds with the Volk Kultur and the spirit of the nation, Volksgeist. Rosenberg argued that the Jews held a different set of values. Their acts and deeds were inspired by a different racial soul. They are not, if Rosenberg’s analysis, honorable. They are not prompted to ac by the typical Nordic motivating factors of duty and obligation. Their values represent a dishonorable tradition based on @ national penchant for accumulation of wealth. Their suprem values are based on accumulation of money irrespective of th consequences for non-Jews with whom they deal. They are driven to commerce and money-lending. Their supreme value are greed and avarice. Their drive for materials things follows from their supreme values. [Die Spur, pp. 130-31,153].
204 Alfred Rosenberg
culture. The lure of these vices brought young men off the farms and charmed them into living where the Jews could control them more easily. Unscrupulous Jews offered fame and wealth and luxury to young women who then ended up in red light districts. These wicked ways could be circumvented if Germany turned its people back to farming. [see Schriften aus den Jahren, pp. 120ff; Unmoral in Talmud; Die Spur, pp.280ff].
In an obscure essay, The World-centered Jew Lacks a Soul, Rosenberg argued that a few Jews should be left in the state after the Nazi counter-revolution. They would provide an excellent example of what the German is not. By continuing to know the Jew, the state could continue to retain its immunity to his "disease".
Rosenberg offered an analogy to the human body fighting off an alien organism. A few of the disease-carrying organisms are left purposefully so that the body’s immune system will continue to produce anti-toxins to protect itself. Germany fell prey to the Jews because it knew him not. It gave all men the benefit of doubt, thinking that all men were honorable. When Nordic man discovered the Jew lacked these Aryan characteristics he was unable to resist. By that time, the Jew had gained a secure foothold which he would not relinquish.
The carnage and bloodshed of World War One gave rise to a new weapon in the German national struggle against alien ideas and foreign races, the Mythus. As used in Houston Chamberlain’s Die Grundlagen des XIX Jahrunderts (1899) the term implied a mysterious (i.e., mythical) hyper-national, willful infusion of spirit (Geist) into the Volk. The Mythus could bind the Volk to the nation. Its national values (including religion) and those mysterious forces of nature carry special messages for the German people.
The fermenting of blood of the German heroes killed in so many battles of the war, a war without honor in victory,
Scientific Racism 205
‘oved that the honorable, brave men did not die in vain. It was eir putrefying lifeblood that awakened or created a new ling, supreme level of Kultur. So powerful was the effect of is blood-serum that the nation could be immunized in a single ep against the evils and debasing powers of alien races. This the myth of the present century. It required immediate ion by the Volk or its magic powers would be lost forever.
Race and Anti-Race
Rosenberg shared a plan in particular with Adolf Hitler. th men wanted to create a racially homogenous state in middle Europe. They would strip a vast area of all non- tmans (anti-races) and repopulate where requisite with Tmans (race). There might be outlying areas wherein non- rmans would, under the control of German overseers, ovide the physical labor. One of the lesser known National cialists, Doctor General Karl Haushofer, a former German iaison with the Japanese military, espoused the idea of living ace. Germany had no interest in colonies in Europe, the Americas or Asia. What Germany needed was living space in
uurope. That was to be the primary goal of future German reign policy.
Other nations had recognized the right of nations to cially constitute their soil. Many nations had done so. The und National Socialist policy recognized the racial uniqueness all peoples. Their had an absolute right of self-determination their own racial territory. The main problem of history was simple. Many states competed for the same land because there had been a racial state ruled by their ancestors. Because empires had arisen and had fallen it was the tragedy of history that only a few states might ever operate in their ancestral homelands.
Each Race has its soul and each soul belongs to a race .... Each race in the long run cultivates only one supreme ideal. Will this be transmuted or even dethroned by overwhelming infiltration of alien blood and alien ideas? Certainly the consequences of this internal change will be marked externally by chaos and periods of catastrophe. For this supreme value of race demands a definite grouping of other life values which are conditioned by it. To tolerate at the same time and at the same place two or more Weltanschauungen each one related to a different supreme value which these people are presumed to share, means an ominous interim solution which carries the germ of a new catastrophe. Should this invading system succeed ... it would mean the death of the cultural soul which would disappear from this earth. The life of a race
208 Alfred Rosenberg
of people is not to be understood as a logically developed philosophy, nor result of a process which conformed to natural laws, but the unfolding of # mystical synthesis, an activity of the soul, which cannot be explicated by reasow nor conceived as a causal process .... The real fight today is not so much for externally shifting power ... but rather for a rebuilt soul structured to Nordic peoples, a reinstatement of their right to dominate their ideas and values from which comes the preservation of the racial substance. [Myth The Twentieth Century, pp. 116-17, 119].
The National Socialists charted a hierarchy of races. The Germans and other racially related Nordics were the race. The Jews and related peoples such as Gypsies were anti-race. The great struggle in Europe was between race and anti-race. Rosenberg had no particular objection to the anti-race in a homeland of its own, or in foreign nations. He saw no future to a Germany which was racially mixed.
Soul means race seen from within and vice-versa. Race is the outer form of the soul. To bring a race-soul to its full potential means recognizing its supreme value and also assigning to other values their [lower] organic place in the state system, in art and in religion. That is the great mission of our century: to create a new human type out of a new life myth. [Myth, p. 2]
From the beginning Judaism was less a religion than it was a militant institution designed to preserve Jewish racial identity and advance Jewish interests. [Blut und Ehre, p.15}. Rosenberg had three basic objections to this principal anti-race, the Jews. First, he objected that they had no homeland of their own, or had lost it, and had settled as aliens among the Gentile populations of Europe. He accused the Jews of seeking to racially intermix with their hosts. Rosenberg accused them of dominating the economy of Gentile nations and using the usurious profits and ill-gotten gains to advance international Judaism.
Second, Rosenberg accused the Jews of subverting Christianity. Having failed to eradicate the Christian message,
Race and Anti-Race 209
t by crucifying Christ, and then by persecuting his followers, y sent Saul to control the theology. Saul (or Saint Paul) und Christianity inexorably to Judaism. The Jews made ist’s message into a continuation of Judaism. Jews had an ential role in salvation. "Salvation is of the Jews" [John 4:22].
Third, Jews invented Bolshevism. Rosenberg wrote that Ishevism was the highest form of Judaism. In this Rosenberg lowed the lead of Dietrich Eckhardt’s Bolshevism from Moses Lenin. Without Jews, beginning with Karl Marx and mtinuing through Lenin and his Jewish Politburo, Bolshevism the ideology of an alien race.
If Christianity was to be made acceptable to the National ialists it had to be stripped of its Jewish elements. Many ermans had made this argument long before the birth of ed Rosenberg. Rosenberg discovered the volkish elements of German national Christianity as early as Meister Eckhart 1260-1327) and found reinforcement in the nationalistic itings of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and Paul Garde (1827-1891). Rosenberg saw himself as the tool for the fulfillment of a centuries old dream of German theologians and philosophers. Certainly, Hegel’s ponderous efforts at the recreation of Lutheran Protestantism and Luther’s nationalism could be construed to be within the Aryan religious tradition.
The Jews and Christianity
Rosenberg presented Saint Paul as a legalistic thinker concerned primarily with creating a new law for the Hebrew
people to take the place of the Mosaic law. Paul’s efforts are
thus those of first apostle and prophet of a new system of law. Moses received the law from Jehovah, and the Old Testament viewed these laws as the handiwork of God. That the law had been offered through Moses gave Moses a kind of secular salvation. The Jewish God created Moses as Hero. All who
210 Alfred Rosenberg Race and Anti-Race 211
to eradicate it from without.The crucifixion of Christ had not ended Christianity. It had given the new Nordic sect a martyr id an incentive to grow and expand. The ideas of Christ were a danger to the Hebrews and their tightly-knit control over the peoples of the area. Having failed to prevent Christianity from growing, the remaining alternative was to capture and Judaize it. This was St. Paul’s mission. In Rosenberg’s view the Jew selected Paul because he was the most brilliant scholar and the most able propagandist available.
___ Rosenberg’s explanation is compatible with the Nordic Teconstruction of Saul’s career, provided one accepts a secular, not a religious, reconstruction of Saul’s conversion. Saul admittedly had persecuted Christians, but he had failed in his mission of destruction. He then converted and used Jewish galism to undermine Christianity’s principal, non-Jewish teachings. He created a bureaucratic hierarchy and a set of tules and modes of conduct which were essentially Jewish.
: If Christianity became a Jewish sect, there would be little outside interference with its relations with the Jewish dependent government. The crucifixion of Christ would appear to have been merely an internal matter within Judaism, and not a matter of competition between Jewish and non-Jewish teachings.
; Christianity could be used to subvert Rome in a way not possible with the traditional religious practices of the Hebrews because it attracted Gentiles. Thus, Judaism need not recruit Gentiles into its elite racial circle, but it could use Gentiles to fight the Jewish war for Jewish causes. Christianity already offered a universalist outlook, one that could encompass all of the many nations of the Roman Empire. It would have a Jewish legal basis and Hebrew control. Thus, Rosenberg saw Christianity, as developed by Saint Paul, as an active agent aimed at the destruction of the Roman Empire. The destruction
obeyed law accepted Moses as well as Jehovah. We remember the law Jehovah gave Moses as the Mosaic Code, more than as the code of Jehovah. The beauty of the message of Jehovah was to be found in its simplicity and its morality. Two Hebrews, Moses and Saint Paul, filled the roles as codifiers of the law. Their codification was tantamount to the prostitution of the message. What Moses had done to the law of the Old Testament, Saint Paul was to do to the new law of the New Testament.
The Syrian-Roman mind and the Jewish mind sought legal formalities where none were needed and where they could do nothing more than obscure the message. The Jew thus became not the prophet of the law, but the destroyer of the law. The law which Rosenberg was willing to accept was that which could be written romantically in the hearts of men. It need not be expressed in a formal and legalistic way. The law as written by the two Hebrew prophets was cold and formalistic and sought universal dimensions. The law sought by Rosenberg would be informal and applied as a necessary part of the volk soul.
Although he wholly accepted Luther as a Volk hero, Rosenberg rejected the bases of Lutheranism. Luther had discovered the message of justification by reading through Saint Paul. The Lutheran Paul was not the Hebrew lawyer. As Luther saw him, Saint Paul was anything but the formalist, the lawyer's law-maker. Still, Rosenberg had little difficulty in discovering anti-semitic elements in Luther. Perhaps Paul had found it necessary to accept some of the Christian elements taught and formulated by non-Jews, such as justification by faith alone, while adding his own rigid formalism to the law.
Saint Paul had been a necessary part of the Jewish corruption of Christianity. In Rosenberg’s reconstruction of the early days of the Christian church, the Jews had found it quite necessary to subvert the new doctrine from within, having failed
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of Roman power could foreshadow the re-emergence of the independent Jewish state in Palestine.
In the complicated conspiracy in which Saint Paul was either an active agent or sacrificial goat, "the earth-centered Jew" was acting as conspirator. Rosenberg suggested that this was the first of many times the Jew would be the manipulator of Gentile nations. The Jews performed this manipulation irrespective of the consequences that manipulation might have on other nations and peoples.
The Jewish religious conspiracy, as seen by Rosenberg, offered a universalist philosophy of mankind, via Christianity, for the non-Jewish peopled of the world, while, at the same time, retaining a non-catholic view of the Jewish nation. Jews sought to destroy the nationalistic spirit of the Gentile nations while strengthening their own position as a ‘unique people possessed of special characteristics and a special relation to Jehovah. Jehovah held a unique position among all gods which had been known heretofore. He was the single deity, to the exclusion of all other gods, yet He was concerned only with the fate of the Jews. In the Old Testament He was willing to destroy non-Jews in order to provide homelands and other material things, while denying himself to the Gentiles. The non- Jew was in a hopeless position. He could not become a Jew, and he could not find the true God without being Jewish.
Rosenberg, following German-Protestant nationalistic theologians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, concluded that Christianity could be made acceptable to Nordic peoples only by removing the Old Testament from the basic book of worship. The Old Testament was nothing more than a highly racist and nationalistic history of the Hebrew peoples cast against a religious background. The Hebrews, as Rosenberg saw them in the Old Testament, had accomplished absolutely nothing in, of or by themselves. They were parasites. All they had been given to them by Jehovah. They, alone among peoples
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mentioned in the Old Testament, had not earned their livelihood by the sweat of their faces [Gen. 3:19].
The Jews had justified their holocausts against non-Jews by relating the events to the will of God. Their extermination of the peoples inhabiting the Promised Land was the work of the Lord of Hosts. This was realistic and moral because it was backed by the will of Jehovah. All secular events, especially wars of aggression, were imposed on the Jews by Jehovah. To Suggest that such actions were morally wrong required that one question the will and purposes of the single deity.
y So long as Saint Paul was successful in relating Christianity to Jewish traditions, there would be no question about the genocidal policies of the Jews in earlier years. Saint Paul had made Christianity into the child of Judaism, and had substituted Jewish history for the real teachings of Christ. All non-Jews who accepted Jewish-Christianity were to long for the day when the New Jerusalem was instituted and the Jewish homeland restored to the Hebrew peoples. This unique bridging of the religious experiences gave the Jews a special place in Christian teaching. They were not separated in any way from the mainstream of Christianity as an alien people, but were made into an integral part of the millennium which would end only when the Jews once again held a homeland in Palestine.
It was this tradition that prompted Rosenberg’s attacks on the Old Testament. Rejecting the notion that Christianity could somehow make the Old Testament acceptable to a testored Aryan Christianity, he merely did the simplest thing: he removed the Old Testament from consideration. A few National Socialists attempted to prove that the Jews of the Old Testament were Aryans. Other National Socialists thought that the trué Jews had all converted to Christianity and been assimilated by other, non-Jewish peoples, while leaving their heritage to a handful of Asiatic stragglers who were racially
unrelated to the historical Jews of the Old Testament fame. But
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these ideas, although periodically discussed, were not in the mainstream of National Socialist thought.
It is most important to understand the full consequences of Rosenberg’s new reformation. While most Protestant theologians had rejected only a few of the very last books of the Old Testament, books retained in Roman Catholic Bibles, there remained a general acceptance of the Old Testament. Orthodox Christians thought the Old Testament was a source of considerable inspiration to the faithful. Some Protestant groups, notably the Puritans, had accepted the Hebrew ideas of a theocracy. They had attempted to create political covenants based on the Old Testament, as in the Massachusetts Bible Colony in America. It appeared that Jehovah and the Old Testament meant more to John Calvin and many of followers than did Christ and the New Testament. Many Protestant fundamentalists defended a literal interpretation of the Old Testament, including the whole of Jewish history. During the Age of Enlightenment, both Roman Catholics and Protestants defended the literal interpretation of whole of the Bible. Catholics and Protestants united against the atheistic charges levelled at Christianity by apostles of science. Nowhere within orthodoxy had there been a serious suggestion that Christianity should be reconstructed without the Old Testament.
What Rosenberg offered was a Christianity based only on "the true teachings of Christ," absent its Jewish elements. This meant not only removing the Old Testament, it meant the removal of all Pauline writings. Rosenberg would add to the Bible German-Nordic-Aryan writings, writings that rejected the idea of the universality of humankind and substituted ideas based in race consciousness and class.
Where the Christian churches had heretofore recognized the spiritual accomplishments of the good man by canonizing him and by proclaiming him blessed and a saint, National Socialism was prepared to do the same thing to a whole race.
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In this, Rosenberg was emulating the Jewish idea of a chosen people. They substituted the Germans for the Jews. The distinction philosophers heretofore had made between man before the fall and man after the fall from God’s grace the National Socialists made between the Nordic race and the Jewish anti-race. The Nordic church would be prepared to condemn whole races, notably the Jews. Between the Nordic tace at the top and the Jewish race at the bottom came all other races in a perfect hierarchical order.
No orthodox Christian church was prepared to do these things, leaving Rosenberg to fabricate his own church. Had an orthodox church accepted the racial pre-condition that Rosenberg imposed, there would have been other problems of doctrine to overcome as well. Rosenberg concluded that, in the long run, it would be easier to invent a whole new Nordic teligion.
Jews and the West
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion contains most of Rosenberg’s critique of the Jews in western nations. Rosenberg was probably more responsible for making Germany aware of this publication than any other person. Reportedly, The Protocols were prepared by Zionist leaders in 1896 at Basel, Switzerland, as a secret part of the plan to create a homeland in Palestine for European Jews./The authors purportedly were Zionist spokesmen Theodore Herzl and Max Nordau. The Jews would control commerce and the money supply. In this age in which nations used the gold standard the Jews would seek control of large quantities of this precious metal.
Rosenberg developed and expanded on The Protocols in three other books: Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten [Munich: Eher, 1934]; Der Staatsfeindliche Zionismus; and Unmoral in Talmud (Munich: Central Press of the NSDAP,
216 Alfred Rosenberg
1943]. Many portions of the Myth of the Twentieth Century returned to the themes of The Protocols.
Rosenberg’s idea of the Jew was simple: the Jew was motivated only by the desire for profit. Individual profit was acceptable, but it was even more praiseworthy for a Jew to advance the economic well-being of all Jews. They had a "self- chosen" preference for trade and money-lending ("usury"). They migrated from nation to nation in pursuit of ever greater profit. [Die Spur, pp.130-31]. Another way in which the "Jewish penetration" occurred was by and through control of alcoholic beverages.
By controlling international finance the Jews could precipitate international financial crises. They could bring economic ruin and financial chaos to Gentiles and to nations. They made capitalist enterprises rise and fall according to their will by manipulating the stock market. The stock market was itself a Jewish invention. They made money by causing stocks to rise and fall, while adding nothing to a nation’s production by this manipulation. As Rosenberg wrote, "In Jewish materialism rested the entire strength and weakness of the Jew. His strength is in the life of nations, his influence is in all areas which concern the ego: trade, economy, economic life." [Schriften aus den Jahren, pp.121-23].
A Jewish state was an impossibility because in the areas in which Jews had lived historically, they have developed horizontally into a limited number of trades. There was no vertical organization among Jews because they would not sink to work a manual trades or agriculture. Their numbers included no farmers, craftsmen, tradesmen, artisans, technicians, engineers, warriors or philosophers. Jewish statesmen had no real experience in nation building, for they were internationalists. Zionism as a true mission to found and maintain a state with minimal or no outside support was a hoax and a lie. Zionism really sought to control all western nations
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economically and financially. Jewish parasitical instincts could not be restrained, even by living in their holy land. [Myth, p.464].
The Jews had created and underwritten bourgeois parliamentary democracy. They had manipulated parliamentary elections and had made laws favorable to their maintenance of power in representative bodies. They controlled the democratic press and made certain that their newspapers published only the news that the Jewish leaders approved. All the work the Jews had done in support of liberal democracies they had done to achieve a master international state and a superinternational bureaucracy and administration [see Die Protokollen, pp. 36, 40- 41, 43-45, 48, 50-53, 61-63, 81-83].
The Jews had no creative talent. They could imitate what Gentiles had created. If a Gentile wrote a great symphony or concerto the Jews would take it over. But they could not create a great piece of music. Their race was. culturally barren. They controlled the market in artistic creations, such as painting and sculpture. Through their control of the newspapers and magazines they created their own sterile standards of artistic achievement. Jews hated the Nordic peoples especially because Nordics had been the true creators of great art, music, literature, drama, painting and sculpture. [Myth, pp.127-28].
The Jews also lacked the ability to contribute scientifically to the material well-being of the Gentiles in whose land they lived as a parasites. Jewish science was built on faulty premises and assumptions and could never lead to any good. [Schriften aus den Jahren, p.99; Die Spur, p.143]. They fantasized about how an idea could be marketed rather than concentrating on refinement of the idea. No single creative idea in science had originated among the Jews [Die Spur, pp.291-93].
: Neither was the Jew adept at writing philosophy. That was because the Jew had far different aims in his philosophy than had the Nordic man. Philosophy must serve the Jew’s
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material aims, whereas Nordic philosophy served immaterial aims. [Die Spur, pp. 282-84]. Their interest in medicine was developed only so that they might manipulate and control the ill and dying. [Die Spur, pp.291-93].
Jehovah gave special instructions to the Jews: control Gentiles in any way that control can be established. He would care for his people materially in this world. So long as the Jew traded with the Gentile there were no limits on what he might do to make money. He could lie, cheat and misrepresent his product. Jehovah was less a spiritual god than a material one. The Jewish Jehovah imposed no limitations on his chosen people. [Die Spur, p.93].
Jews had rarely been patriotic. They knew no national loyalty except to their own race. "Objectively, Jews are traitors to their nation with every step they take." [Die Spur, p.109]. Without loyalty to the nations in which they lived, they were "born conspirators." [Die Spur, p.232]. Rosenberg advocated the denial of citizenship to Jews "so long as the Jews are permitted to live on German soil." [Myth, pp. 578-79].
Jews and Communism
Rosenberg’s principal work on communism was Pest in Russland: Der Bolsvhevismus seine Haupter, Handliinger und der Opfer (Munich: Eher, 1922]. He wrote of communism, which he consistently called bolshevism, in other works. As a witness to the October 1917 Revolution in Russia as a student in Moscow, Rosenberg was more familiar with communism in practice than the other National Socialists. He wrote from eyewitness, first hand observation.
Karl Marx was a Jew, although his father had converted to the Lutheran religion in order to better communicate with the Prussian state. There is no evidence that Karl Marx was ever a religious Jew. Marx had denounced the Jews in an essay
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ittle known in the West, A World Without Jews. But the ational Socialists argued that the Jews were a race, not a feligion, and Marx was a racial, if not religious, Jew. Marx had created a world view whose aim was the eradication of western ivilization. Marx wrote of the working class although he had er been a worker and knew precious little of manual labor. His conception of the working class was a far cry from reality.
Nikolai Lenin was half Jewish in his racial heritage. nin’s principal assistant and deputy leader, Leon Trotsky, had been born Lev Bronstein, and was a racial, although not teligious, Jew. Trotsky had brought Jewish money from New York to finance the bolsheviks in the October Revolution [Die Protokollen, pp.36, 40-41, 43-45, 48, 50-53, 61-63 and 81ff]. The other members of the communist Politburo and Lenin’s inner circle were Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Platykov and Bukharin were racial Jews. Of those who had made the Revolution, only Stalin, a Georgian, was not Jewish. More than any other race, the Jews had contributed to and advanced the cause of communism. [Blut und Ehre, pp.341, 345-46].
"Bolshevik blood" had dominated Russia for some time before the Revolution. The Nordics had brought civilization to Russia through the Varangians. The latter was a German elite, brought to the land of the Rus to govern. The Varangians had accounted for the prosperity of Kiev and Novgorod until the Mongol invasion. Asiatic blood had defeated the Nordic blood. When Moscow rejected Mongol rule, it was forced to come to the Nordics again to provide artisans, craftsmen and tradesmen. [Myth, pp.112-13]. With the introduction of bolshevism, Asiatic blood once again defeated German blood in Russia.
The other, contemporary communist leaders of Europe were also racial Jews. Although Lenin was responsible for their deaths, Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg were of Jewish extraction. Marx had denounced his contemporary communists such as Ferdinand Lassalle. Simply, the powerful and more
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articulate Jews who were in power (Marx, Lenin and Trotsky) had crushed the less successful dissidents (Kautsky, Lassalle and Luxemburg).
Rosenberg had witnessed the mass executions of anti- communists in Moscow, and heard of many more vendettas. He had spoken with refugees from all parts of the old Russian Empire and from Béla Kun’s six month regime in Hungary. He knew that the essence of bolshevism was violence directed at the anti- and non-communist peoples of all nations. The liquidation of the educated and religious people was natural to bolshevism. : 4
Marxism was a form of secular humanism. Judaism as a religion had served a certain purpose in the early history of the Hebrew people. It was exhausted. A new secular idea, more suited to the contemporary world, would replace Judaism. Marxism was not a mode of economic explanation; it was a new form of the old materialist conception of the world. [Die Spur, pp.315-18].
Dietrich Eckhardt had argued in Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin that the Jews had devised ideas that would allow them to control other peoples. The Jews developed the magic idea and sold it to the Gentiles. It mattered little what the exact contents of the ideology-religion was. What mattered was that the Gentiles had to pay homage to the Jews through the Jewish ideology-religion.
The essential ingredients of bolshevism were universalism and the class struggle. National Socialists rejected the notion of warfare between the "haves" and the "have-nots." The notion of class warfare created a smoke screen that hid the real war, which was between race and anti-race. Jews had a great stake in pitting German worker against German capitalist. As long as race fought against race, race could not fight anti- race. Bolshevism created a dictatorship in which it claimed the elite ruled as, and on behalf of, the workers. By emphasizing
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class the bolsheviks were able to get all the people to forget about establishing a racial state. Marxism called for civil war. Anti-nationalist civil war would destroy all the Gentile accomplishments of western civilization. [Die Spur, pp.315-18].
Marxist ideology was necessarily internationalist. Jewish internationalism was diametrically opposed to German nationalism. In foreign policy the Jews sought to unite all the working people of the world into a single political entity. By uniting all people, the Jews could control them more easily. The Jews could manipulate them for their own purposes. On the domestic level the Jews would work against recurrent nationalism. They would subordinate all national interests to Jewish international interests. Rosenberg argued that the reason the Jews fought against nationalistic sentiments was that they
had no feelings for state or- nation, beyond the Zionist
homeland and race. They migrate to nations where they have the best opportunities to advance their racial interests.
The battle in Germany in the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s had been between Jews and Germans, between nationdlists and internationalists, and between the race and the anti-race. Bolshevism had succeeded in Bavaria, and it had almost expanded into all of Germany. The red flag flew Over many parts of Berlin for most of 15 years. Evenings in most German cities were marked by clashes between the communists and the National Socialists. The National Socialist line was consistent: Germany will either be ruled by National Socialism or bolshevism. To the end, Rosenberg warned the West that the real enemy of western civilization was Jewish bolshevism.
The Reawakening of the Racial Soul
As a spiritual attribute of humankind, the racial soul is unlocked only with the spiritual key. One cannot will to know
222 Alfred Rosenberg Race and Anti-Race 223
his soul or the secrets he carries within him. He can come te know these things only by a mythical or mystical experience. One knows things to be supremely true to such a degree that one needs no empirical verification. No genetic engineering cam alter the ethnic experiences that have necessarily made up @ race’s psychological profile. Races are what they are because of the racial history of the people. Only race-chaos through race mixing can alter the nature of the any race. The Jew and the Aryan are what they are because of their racial souls. These Jewish and Aryan souls are poles apart and cannot possibly be reconciled.
The racially determined soul can respond meaningfully only to the theology of the people. One cannot comprehend the other. The human cannot comprehend what it is like to have the consciousness of an amoeba, or vice-versa. One can never experience the stimuli that move amoeba to act or to not act. One cannot see the world through an amoeba’s eye. Any effort to act like an amoeba is predestined to failure. Man must perceive the world as a man, for that is what he is. But he is not only a man, he is a member of a race with an ethnic history and Kultur. Each race has its own world-view and its own theology. If one chooses to view the civilization of Western Europe he must be a Western European, not a Chinese, not a black and not a Jew. Should a human ignore these racial stop- signs he will lose his own Kultur without being able to join in the culture of an alien race.
The supreme value a race holds determines its behavior toward the inner self, the exterior world, and God. A Nordic man enjoys the supreme value of honor. He will always carry that potential within him, and so will his children provided only that he does not destroy its vitality by race-mixing. He may behave dishonorably, but deep down inside he will feel the voice crying out, "Thou must not." On the surface a Nordic man may practice the Jewish religion, but he will always and
cessarily retain in the recesses of his soul his own racial eology and characteristics. When mythically awakened these ‘operties will vanquish the alien ones, for they are of the soul hile the alien determinations are only of the flesh.
Just as the individual may awaken to his destiny, so also y the entire race reawaken. The mythical experience of the mystical event, World War I, is the event that Rosenberg believes will cause Germany to be reborn. It has touched the ul of all Nordic men and bring them to full racial consciousness. That myth will combine with the other metaphysically true myths out of the Nordic racial past and determine the race to become what is presently only its
tential.
Then, alien cultures and civilizations in Germany will be toppled and replaced by an entirely Nordic Kultur. Racially motivated philosophy and theology will drive the alien forms from the state. The Aryan race will expel the alien races from its soil. All Nordic racial types will return to the fold. The new world of Germanic design will reshape the future city and town. A new Nordic Christianity will return to the message of the Nordic Jesus, and repudiate the Pauline doctrines that made Christ’s message into a new form of Judaism.
Art and Politics
Next to religion, art is the highest embodiment of the Volk spirit. Art is a product of race. Rosenberg spent considerable space in the Myth of the Twentieth Century discussing his aesthetic theories as well as his ideas of good, degenerate and political art forms. He also took up the theme in earnest in Revolution in der bildenden Kunst? ( 1934) and, to a slightly lesser degree, in Tradition und Gegenwart: Blut und Ehre IV (1943) and Gestaltung der Idee: Blut und Ehre IT (1936).
Good art is that which shows the true nature and the racial essence of the Nordic people. Degenerate art depicts racial bastardization and seeks to ennoble alien peoples. Degenerate art also included the "modern" forms of expressionism, cubism and surrealism. Political art ennobles the state and its ideology. Degenerate political art would tend to denigrate the political forms that a noble people has created for itself. >
One great difference between Rosenberg’s right wing of the National Socialist party and Gébbels’ left wing can be found in their respective philosophies of aesthetics. In his editorial, "Revolution in der bildenden Kunst," in Vélkische Beobachter [July 6 and July 17, 1933] and reprinted in a collection of Rosenberg’s speeches, editorials and essays, he argued his position that art is an expression of the racial soul. He denounced Gébbels as an advocate of modernism, especially expressionism. Hitler sided with Rosenberg strongly on this matter. Rosenberg especially liked volkish themes in art while Géobbels had no use for these relics of the past in art or in any other field. Gébbels saw expressionism as a voice of revolution and as the logical and correct product of intellectual naturalism. He thought that only a movement as thoroughly unconventional as artistic expressionism was consistent with National Socialism’s philosophy and character. Rosenberg saw expressionism as too radical. It was undisciplined and could
,
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never accept the mission of all artistic expression: the strengthening of the state and the awakening of the racial soul of the Volk. It was inconsistent with the aims of National Socialism. It-was an unhealthy movement that was best tied to degenerate bourgeois plutocracy and marxism.
Art in Classical Antiquity
The Greeks, in their classical, racially pure period showed a remarkable ability to make ideal forms concrete in all of their art forms, including sculpture, painting, sketching and poetry. Their pure racial spirit was captured in epics like the Odyssey and the Iliad. The statues of their gods glorified ideal human forms. Such beauty is indeed "a joy forever." Its character transcends the ages. A Nordic archaeologist who discovers a classical Greek sculpture finds that the true Nordic character is unchanging. He feels a kinship with the figure and with the artist who created it. Conversely, the repugnant realism of the later period shows racial decline and miscegenation. Its ugliness again transcends the ages and is as revolting to the German today as it must have been to the Nordic Greek 2300 years ago.
Rosenberg described the degenerate art of Greece in much the same way he described the Jew in art. Both resembled demons because both were the products of racial bastardization. He spoke of the heads as being " ... round and fat, the forehead swollen the proportions of a hydrocephalic, the nose short and bulbous, the lips protruding." The classical Nordic Greeks who remained after alien populations from Hither Asia had become predominate noted this decline, but were powerless to stem the tide in politics, art, or history. These Nordics disliked the portraits of "hairy men with long beards . . . (and whose) profiles show fleshy thick necks." They found the new figures to be “animalistic, idiotic caricatures."
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From this brief look at Greek art we can conclude certain general principles about art. Good art is always the expression of the organic racial soul. It has a timelessness that captures the hearts of all generations of the pure race. It is a collective feeling, resisting any form of atomization of society. It offers solace to the members of the race in their individual or collective grief. It gives them a racial standard of true physical beauty. It embodies many values in its essence, including the good, the true, the just, the harmonious and the symmetrical. It is designed to put the individual at rest. It must not cause him to become emotional, irrational or upset. It draws upon the ancient racial soul, awakening it, without loosing the base appetites. It is not only timeless; it also transcends time itself. One who enjoys the aesthetic experience loses trace of time, place and distance. He is drawn into its greater meaning, its message. The lessons it teaches and the meanings it conveys are fundamentally the same for all members of the race. It does not attempt to convey messages to alien and unrelated races.
True art shows the racial beauty of its people. It gives them a racial standard of true physical beauty. Nordic ideals of beauty require that the subject be well-proportioned, with long slender limbs and slender torsos. When hair color is shown it will be blonde or light brown. Noses and lips are medium to small size. Eyes will be blue when colored, and show a vivid, lively and intelligent look. [Myth, pp. 4-5 and 290-91].
Unaesthetic Art
- Art in other nations will show the racial characteristics of the indigenous population. African art will tend to show a black ideal with wooly black hair, thick and enormous lips, and narrow head. African art will tend to show primitive body decorations and distortions of the parts of the body which
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natives of various tribes induce because of their unusual, albeit bizarre, ideas on bodily improvement. Asian art will show the slanted eyes and jet black hair and yellowish skin tones and similar racial attributes.
The Jew will appear with his unusual racial characteristics. He will have the oversized hooked nose, the wooly hair with waves or kinks, the yellow-orange skin tone and short torso with elongated arms. He will have a conniving and untrustworthy look, showing his devious character. Ordinarily, he will be bearded and dressed in his racial garb. Rosenberg had no objection to depicting the Jew as he is, in the usual stylized manner of Western art. Indeed, it would be quite improper to show him with Aryan racial characteristics.
Rosenberg’s objection is to the inclusion of Jews ‘in Western art forms except as an object of scorn. He excoriated those Nordic artists who showed Western heroes with Jewish racial features. He also objected to the painting and sculpture of Jews with Aryan racial features. Rosenberg would have heroic figures always presented with Nordic physical characteristics. Evil figures, such as blacks or Jews, preferably the latter, would be offered with a full complement of their racial characteristics. When Old Testament figures were heroic, as rarely occurred, they might be shown with Aryan features, for, if they were truly heroic, they must have been Aryans. Deceitful, lying, cheating Jews from the Old Testament were to be depicted with Jewish racial features,
Rosenberg found many of these "bastard" types to have "hairy-negroid Eastern racial type" appearances making them "short, stunted, animalistic demons." He found like figures in the paintings of Rembrandt who was a "good Biblical scholar" who followed Jacob Katz’ Dutch Folk book, Trouringh, and depicted Old Testament figures with Jewish-Asiatic-Negro features. Rembrandt generally pleased Rosenberg because the heroic subjects of much of his art were Nordic. He pleased
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Rosenberg in part because he painted evil Biblical figures as racial Jews. Perhaps he was the product of confusion that is typical of those who were influenced simultaneously by the Nordic racial heritage that they knew in their souls and felt in the recesses of their minds, while, on the other hand, being influenced by degenerate, racially mixed Italian artists and Jewish-Roman Christian ideas. Rembrandt depicted his mother in a portrait that now hangs in Petrograd as a German and his Diana (also in St. Petersburg) has strongly marked Nordic features. There is a marked irony to this painting because the Jewish figures are caught on canvas in the midst of a lie. Joseph is shown gesturing with one hand, protesting his innocence after being caught in an evil act by the husband of Potiphar. Later Biblical paintings Rembrandt executed such as The Lost Son gave Aryan characterizations to Old Testament figures. Even in The Jewish Bride Rembrandt gave the central figure "a course but tender Nordic feeling." His Christ in Emmaus has Nordic, not Jewish, features.
Rosenberg suggested three explanations for Rembrandt's (and other artists’) choice of Jewish figures in religious paintings of Old Testament (and other Hebrew-theme paintings). First, there was the Jewish-Roman-Christian influence, noted above. Second, many of the artists, including Rembrandt, struggled early on in their careers financially and were forced to live in Jewish ghetto areas where they became friendly with Jews and where they had readily available Jewish models. When they left the ghettoes they rejected the Jews whom they had known and they found Nordic figures for models. Third, they came, in maturity, to realize that the Jewish figures were incompatible with the culture of their age and location. Wealthy patrons were Gentile and were unwilling to pay for Jewish figures unless they were objects of ridicule or scorn. Mature, true artistry seeks to fulfill the Volk-spirit of the people and using Jewish models just did not fit, Rembrandt and
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others may have felt, early in their careers, that realism was desirable, but, later, they returned to Nordie racial types who were familiar in their own experiences. Fulfillment of Volk needs and spirit took precedence over realism.
Rosenberg claimed to be the first to have discovered the first, most important and indispensable precondition for 4 proper aesthetics: race and the needs of the nation-state. Since a true aesthetic philosophy had not been written one must assume that artists who had created their great works embodying racial types must have done so unconsciously, that is, without the benefit of the directive force of true philosophical aesthetics. They had come, because of the deep call of racial ethics, to know that true aesthetics requires a distinct racial relationship if it is to be accepted by the potential audience. No great artist could present to a Nordic audience a work of art that adequately depicted the majesty of God, his strength and glory, while using a Jewish model. Ideals of beauty, harmony, symmetry, duty and honor required that the model to be used was capable of such virtues. That meant that the audience demanded that the accomplished artist had to use a Nordic ideal.
Rosenberg discusses this in depth. The God that
Michelangelo used to awaken Adam appeared as a Nordic type (German: Typus). That master even used the same head, albeit with a few changes, for the Hebrew patriarch Moses. Dutch as well as German and Italian-Nordic painters saw that it was possible to project the grandeur of God and the Old Testament only if they employed the Nordic model. Rosenberg had great admiration for Jan van Eyck, noting his type-forming strength in using Nordic types for all his paintings. Again and again, van Eyck reiterated the common representation of Nordic racial beauty. Other artists imitated, often with greater artistic ability, van Eyck’s types. His work showed the clearest racial forms.’
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In contrast, Rosenberg noted, no artist and no German or Northern European audience could ever comprehend the positive values should these have been cast in the Jewish racial mold. One could not visualize a god worthy of worship in Nordic nations with a Jewish face or body. Such a rejection of an externalized Jewish God tells us why we must reject the internalization of the Hebrew Jehovah. The type-forming work of artists of Nordic descent prepared the way for the work of Nordic type-forming prophets of an Aryan Christianity.
There are three highly desirable subjects for Nordic racial art: important Nordic-Christian figures, God and great German-Nordic heroes. Not every art work need be tied to a religious theme. [Myth, p.319]. Some of the religious works, such as those discussed above by Michelangelo and van Eyck are quite suitable and might be used to engender devotion to a Nordic Christ. Many paintings and many sculptured works depicting such heroic figures as Frederick the Great and Karl I (or Charlemagne) already existed throughout Germany. The state would also commission other works. As Minister of culture Rosenberg used state funds to encourage artists to sculpt and paint such works.
There might be a place for "pop art" because of its consequent propaganda value. In fascist Italy the state sponsored annual contests and gave political themes for aspiring artists to fulfill. Some of the themes the state chose were: the impact of one of Il Duce’s speeches on an audience; Mussolini himself; and fascist rallies. Rosenberg never discussed such mundane art forms, concentrating on high art.
Rosenberg was more interested in using art to awaken long forgotten feelings of Volk spirit than in any other use of art. Art was to demonstrate in a very practical way what German racial types looked like and what its racial ideals were. By charging the nation with such Volk-oriented energies Rosenberg hoped to make the nation more interested in
232 Alfred Rosenberg
national politics and national religion. Art was only to a small degree a thing in itself. It was of much greater interest what could be made of it and how it affected men.
Rosenberg thought that one of his most significant contributions lay in his discovery that art is the embodied will of the people. His great contribution to aesthetics lay in his insistence that art never has its impact in a vacuum. Art will do something to the mind and spirit, but the question is, what will that be? Its impact might be for good or for evil. It might be to turn men away from politics or it might serve to support the state and its racial-national ideology. Rosenberg thought of the state’s role as directing art so that it simultaneously inspired men to accept racial types, act freely in spirit as they soared toward god, act in a racially and nationally conscious way to keep their race pure, and to resist alien and foreign influences.
A Typology of Artists
Rosenberg created a simple typology of Nordic artists. The first type-forming personality was the one who wished to master all knowledge so that he could attack truth from all sides. Such a figure would encircle truth like one surrounding a fortress. He would seek to subdue the unknown through a universal, world-embracing strategy. Nothing would escape his attention. He would prepare a broad strategy. He would use all his forces, attacking first here, then there, then at another point, always seeking to use the tool that penetrates secrets best, but never afraid to try any and all weapons in his arsenal. Rosenberg named the following persons as examples of this type: Leonardo DaVinci, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Goethe.
The second type is less universalist in his outlook. He would not share in the broad striving and exploration of the first. He would approach being from only one perspective, attacking problems with a single assault. That single storming
Art and Politics 233
of the fortress would require the expenditure of large amounts of energy. This type would assume that there is a vital essence which he must expose, so he would stop at nothing to accomplish his aim. Rosenberg suggested poetically that this type of man "grasps" Fate by the throat." He prefers direct action and makes no attempt to conceal his strategy. This man’s strength is in his opinions. These are essentially a moral powers. Rosenberg identified some examples of this second type: Michelangelo, Richard Wagner, Schopenhauer and Beethoven.
Rosenberg found the impatient, forceful, one- dimensional genius of the second type to be out of step with his
own time. This was a time of destruction of old values along
‘many lines and the replacement of these traditional values with new ones. The strategic method of the first type which looks for targets of opportunity, places of weakness and strategies of reason was more in step with national socialist needs in the first part of the twentieth century. After the struggles for power and change were completed there would be room for each personality type.
The creative intuition that leads the painter and sculptor also directs the composer of great music to give of his soul. Rosenberg noted two composers with greatest interest: Beethoven and Wagner. Beethoven "subdues and captivates the heart" by showing his music the "whole world in ferment” and "the willful, the titanic." He "grasped the being which lives in our moment (and) ... embodies this to the highest degree possible." Beethoven "dashes" over a desolate and "ruined" world making the bits and pieces of shattered hopes and dreams into the building blocks of a new will-shaped world. His heroic music inspired heroes to perform great deeds for the Fatherland. His music in the Third, Fifth and Ninth symphonies provides a heroic background suitable for bringing all Germans to their racial fulfillment.
234 Alfred Rosenberg
Wagner’s genius was of a different order. To many of the pre-National Socialist German political philosophers he is the epitome of musical composers. He was the greatest of the
German poets. Wagner was a Nietzsche’s superman who:
created a whole new pattern of musical expression: the music- drama with a Volk base. He combined music, dance and drama into a whole new lyrical expression, the likes of which the world had never seen before. Beethoven had suggested a portion of this possibility by combining great music with the sounds of human voices singing Volk songs in his Ninth Symphony which used Schiller’s Nordic "Hymn to Joy." This great composition had no movement and no dramatic qualities. Oratorios and operas (including Fidelio by Beethoven) had existed before Wagner, but had little dramatic and almost no Volk base. The spoken portion (librettos) had been composed by some poet and the composer contributed just the music.
Never before Richard Wagner had there been anything like the Ring of the Nibelungen. In contained all of the vital elements of the music-drama. Comprised of four long operas, each a masterpiece, the Ring cycle retold the Nordic Volk story of creation. It had everything one could ask for. There was action, as when Siegfried killed the dragon. There was adventure when Seigfried left his Bride Brunhilde to visit an alien castle down the Rhine River. There were many tales of heroism and duty and obligation, especially surrounding the Walsungs, children of Wotan the Wanderer. It extolled all the Nordic virtues and had no objectionable features or characters, save for those who were intentionally shown as the loathsome enemy.
Each of the several arts Wagner had combined had been pushed to the limits of creativity and productivity heretofore. Wagner had had the type-forming racial strength to transcend these limitations, thereby creating an entirely new pattern of existence. He overcame the sterility of his times and the self-
Art and Politics 235
imposed limitations of his contemporaries. The music by itself was hollow, not permitting new type-forming beyond that accomplished by Beethoven.
Dance had been prostituted, removing it from its natural base, the Volk. Dancing had always been associated with the
peasants, but in recent years this connection had been broken and their contribution had been forgotten or ignored. Free form dancing was introduced. Therein there was no spirit and no tie to the Volk. It was neither dance nor artistic expression for it lacked soul and substance.
Drama had been used to convey Volk themes for years, and it still had possibilities. Left to itself, drama was dry and could use uplifting. Many of these plays prostituted completely the lyrical art which they might have embodied. Some plays, and the number of these was ever increasing, were self-enclosed tragedies which could never be played meaningfully. Authors forgot that their spare and stylized prose allows a reader to attach more meaning to the words than actually meets the eye. This does not always translate well to stage productions.
Wagner had fought successfully against such a conventional and vulgarized world. He conquered it by force of his will with his Volk-based productions. To Rosenberg, the achievements of Bayreuth "will stand for eternity." The word- and-tone drama, the union of the three arts, was an achievement that only the truly superior man could bring about. Dance returned to German racial nationals. It was tied to folk music and peasant songs. It was no longer a cacophony of unnatural leg, arm and body movements without relation to the rhythm and without form. This union offered a new dimension of the Aryan mystique.
The world of art is completely different since Wagner. He stands as the standard against which all future art will be measured. His.type-forming power will inspire others to follow his artistic example. Moreover, his music-drama will help to
236 Alfred Rosenberg
form the religion and ethics of the state. His art does precisely what political art of the value positive type is supposed to do: inspire actions in others.
Wagner did not represent an artistic dead end. His work remained incomplete in Rosenberg’s opinion. His was one of the few criticisms of Wagner published in the National Socialist period. Rosenberg pointed out what a new kind of "poetic license" had been given to Wagner. When great scenes demand immediate action, frequently the participants must stand rigidly while some long aria is sung. While the audience will naturally direct its attention at the singer, nevertheless there is a lull in there action at precisely the wrong moment. It is most unnatural for one who is about to strike a blow at his enemy to stand, singing about it for several minutes. Admittedly, there are many examples of that sort of thing. A new type-forming personality might find ways to combine several arts in such a way as to be able to allow the motion to continue unabated while expressing the moment in joyous and heroic song. Rosenberg does not say how this can be done, merely that it is a worthy goal.
Rosenberg uncovered yet another facet of Wagner. His critique of the great composer concludes that Wagner knew the Nordic soul better than any other artist. Wagner knew that the German soul is not contemplative and that it does not become lost in an individualistic, atomistic psychology. It wills to know cosmic and universal spiritual laws and it is architecturally constituted. Wagner embodied each of three major factors which constitute Nordic collective aesthetic life: the Nordic ideal of beauty; the inner strength of the heroic Nordic will, and; the Nordic supreme value of honor along with the associated values of truthfulness, duty and obligation and courage. Additionally, Wagner offers caricatures of the racially degenerated, bastardized races who represent Germany's enemies.
Art and Politics 237
National Socialism staged Wagnerian festivals periodically, usually at least once a year at the great opera house that the master himself had designed at Bayreuth. These productions were elaborate to say the least for they required a highly elaborate revolving stage. Even with such a stage as Wagner had designed the settings were still quite static and artificial. Wagner had recognized these limitations. The cinema was still in the future when Bayreuth was designed. The moving picture provided an outlet for greater creativity than even Bayreuth provided. It is surprising that, given the interest Hitler and Rosenberg had in Wagnerian opera, no large scale motion picture of the Ring Cycle was made during the Third Reich. Such a production might have provided remedies for many of the problems Rosenberg discussed.
Motion Pictures as Art Forms
Rosenberg was acutely aware of the motion picture as an art form. He deplored what he saw as the Jewish domination of the film industry. But he saw that, like the legitimate stage, the film industry could be made to serve the Volk spirit. The movies, still in the early stages of development when Rosenberg wrote his Myth of the Twentieth Century, were to play a great tole in the National Socialist state. Perhaps the greatest documentary film ever made, Triumph of the Will, was and is a masterpiece. In the last days of the Third Reich Goebbels, Rosenberg’s philosophical and ideology rival, spent millions of Reich marks on a film on Frederick the Great. In the time between the manufacture of these two films, the National Socialist state produced literally dozens of films depicting either Volk themes or the depravity of alien races, notably the Jews. Many anti-semitic novels like Sweet Jew [Jud Siiss] were filmed and distributed widely. Likewise, the state used films to buoy up the war effort in the last years of fighting. Many of these final
238 Alfred Rosenberg
films developed the Nietzschean theme that Germany was the last remaining unbastardized protector of the Nordic race and of Western civilization.
Rosenberg’s hatred of plutocracy and industrialized society generally led to the conclusion that art should be essentially preindustrial in outlook. Rosenberg infinitely preferred rural life to the urban concentrations that he equated with the general corruption of civilization and all forms of human degradation. He associated prostitution and homosexuality with urbanization. Such depravities stood in stark contrast to the healthy rural life that medieval peasants had led before the peasants had been forced or lured from their farms. Films made under Rosenberg’s direction inevitably pointed back to a better, happier more simplified life style. The peasant customs and costumes and pageants that Rosenberg loved dearly were rural, not urban, and many of these were captured on film as short subjects that could be shown in theatres across the nation. He designed these films to have a type-forming effect on the Germans.
Rosenberg Had suggested that one of the first fronts to be opened against Jewish control of German artistic life should be waged in the areas of the film and the legitimate stage. He proposed that the state should create an Aryan theatre in which only Nordic types could perform plays and dramas. All plays staged therein had to be of German origin. Jews would be barred from acting, directing, writing and all other roles. The state would support this stage by creating of a German racial trade union of actors and actresses. In the Myth he lamented the initial failures of both of these ideas, but he felt that the aims would still be accomplished as racial Germans became conscious of the importance of preserving their Volk heritage.
Rosenberg’s interest in the film industry and his staunch support for Wagner’s revolutionary, superman-producing music- drama showed that his aesthetics was hardly conventional or
Art and Politics 239
conservative. He was reactionary in his attacks on city life and urban lifestyles. He was hardly progressive in his views on sex, prostitution and homosexuality. His emphasis on medieval pageants and all that went with them was quite reactionary. Rosenberg was progressive and adventuresome in his willingness to accept new media for the presentation of old, racially based ideas.
Art and Race
Rosenberg was anti-modern in the sense that he rejected the emerging schools of modern art. After National Socialism came to power they used the state to curb the creation and display of degenerate art. Impure forms of expression included nearly all the major schools of the present century. Art was to depict racially-linked themes in an idealized manner. It was to convey values. It was never "value free." It was not pacifist or internationalist or universalist. It did not include the surrealist school or cubism or expressionism. Because the Nordic soul was not contemplative, art was not to become a vehicle to encourage men to liberate their minds so that they flew on alien trips into hostile, racially impure worlds. The duty of the state in aesthetics was to remove degenerate work that was on occasion a sin for Nordic peoples. The state was to suppress those things that were evil and corrupted in and of themselves when measured against the needs of the Volk.
The true artist has received a great gift. It is, in reality, the product of the collective race and its consequent racial soul. The artist must share his gift with his people. He must not prostitute his work. That would be nothing less than betrayal of the race. In the final analysis his is a great debt to his race. He can uplift and direct their souls toward racial values and spiritual freedom if he chooses to serve his fellows. This is not a charitable obligation; it is the fulfillment of his racial honor.
240 Alfred Rosenberg
The artists of the nineteenth century failed to produce Volk art in sufficient quantity to overcome the disruptive power of degenerate art. The sin of the nineteenth century was that few artists felt duty and honor bound to create for the race those aesthetic values it cried out to receive. For every Wagner there was a Mendelssohn. For every Beethoven there was Mahler. German conductors and art critics praised the works of Jews while ignoring much of the racial art of Nordics. Increasing race consciousness would serve to right this matter.
Popular culture emphasized African jungle-beat music. In some countries white performers gave legitimacy to jazz and other African music forms, These art forms had their place as expressions of the vivid imagination of the black race. Such noises had no place in Aryan nations. They took the place of Nordic racial folk and classical music.
Chinese art forms had become the rage in many of the better homes of Western Europe and America. Chinese art reveals a great creative soul, but it is a form suitable for Oriental, not Nordic peoples. Two things happen when Western men concentrate on such alien art forms. First, they become frustrated for they can never understand the art fully because they are related to an entirely different soul.
Second, the individual becomes aesthetically a man without a country. While one cannot comprehend the alien art, neither can he continue to relate to his own cultural patterns and art forms. He loses one world without being able to join the other.
What Rosenberg wrote of Chinese art and culture applied to the archaeological studies of the art and cultures of other nations. Jews might be able to dig up Semitic civilizations with profit, but there is none to be had for racial Germans. They can relate somewhat better, but still not fully, to Greek and Roman ruins, especially those related to the pre-invasion
Art and Politics 241
periods. While these peoples had some Nordic relations, they are not truly pre-Germanic cultures.
Rosenberg had emphasized the need for greater archaeological work in pre-German civilizations. He thought that scientific study of early Aryan civilization might aid in the development of a high form of Nordic Christianity. Archaeological discoveries of past Aryan civilizations might also help reawaken and recover the Nordic racial soul.
Rosenberg urged that more work be done on extant manuscripts of the early Nordic civilizations. Much more work was needed in the comparative study of languages of the various Nordic cultures. Aryan signs and symbols had influenced Roman-Jewish Christianity as we have seen above. Much more work was needed in the study of all art forms and cultural patterns. These tasks Rosenberg thought to be much more productive for Nordic scientists and scholars.
Rosenberg wanted to bring all powers of the mind to bear on the creation, discovery and preservation of realistic Nordic race-linked art. Art is, next to religion, the highest activity of man. Like his religion a man’s art has to serve the type-formation the newly emerging racially-oriented state needed. Art contributes to the culture (Kultur) of the Volk; it completes it, honing it to a high state of perfection. It expresses the ideals of the race and the highest values of the race.
Bibliography
Brenner, Hildegard. Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozialismus. Hamburg, 1963.
- "Die Kunst im politischen Machtkampf 1933/34" 10 Vierteljahrsshefte
fiir Zeitgeschichte 1 (January 1962), pp.17-42.
Hinz, Berthold. Art in the Third Reich. trans. by Robert and Rita Kimber. New York, 1979.
Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmuth. Art under a Dictatorship. Oxford, 1954.
Mosse, George L. Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich. New York, 1966.
242
Alfred Rosenberg
Bibliography The Works of Alfred Rosenberg in chronological order 1920
Unmoral im Talmud. This volume discusses anti-Christian ideas in Jewish Talmud. Many of its themes were repeated in The Myth of the Twentieth Century and in other works.
Die Spur des Juden im Wandel der Zeiten. One of Rosenberg’s principal attacks on Jews, the book traces the "tracks" of the Jew in the world.
1921
Der Staatsfeindliche Zionismus. One of several of Rosenberg’s expositions of the Zionist conspiracy.
Translation of Gougenot des Mousseaux, Le Juif. The German edition was entitled, Der Jude, das Judentum und die Verjudung der christlichen Vélker. The ideas that Mousseaux set forth were quite acceptable to Rosenberg who considered them of importance and nearly equal in value and impact to the ideas of Arthur, Count de Gobineau.
Die Totengriiber Russlands. Rosenberg denounced the Jews as the leaders of Russian communism who will destroy that nation.
1922 Pest in Russland: Der Bolsvhevismus, seine Haupter, Handliinger
und Opfer. This book was yet another discussion of Jewish control of Russian communism’s Jewish roots.
244 Alfred Rosenberg 1923
Die Protokollen der Weisen von Zion. This is the most important and best and most widely known work on the Jewish conspiracy. Rosenberg edited this, the first German edition and provided an introductory essay.
Wesen, Grundsdtze und Ziele der N.S.D.A.P. This is a commentary on, and elaboration of, the "25 points" that Anton Drexler drew up as the basis of the Nazi Party. After the National Socialists came to power it became the official interpretation of the party program.
1924
Bérse und Marxismus oder der Herr und der Knecht. In this work Rosenberg explored the relationship between plutocracy and communism.
Der Volkische Staatsgedanke: Uberlieferung und Neugeburt.
1925 Die Internationale Hochfinanz als Herrin der Arbeiterbewegung in allen Liindern. This was an attack on Jewish controlled finance, the principal ideas of which were originally stated in Die Spur des Juden. . ..
1927
Houston Stewart Chamberland als Verkiinder und Begriinder einer deutschen Zukunft. This was a more elaborate version of an earlier, shorter tribute to Rosenberg’s spiritual mentor. Most of this text later appeared in the Myth of the Twentieth Century.
Bibliography 245
Verbrechen der Freimauerei. This was one of several attacks Rosenberg wrote on the conspiracy of the Freemasons and of their cooperation with the Jews.
Der Weltverschworerkongress zu Basel. This was a discussion of the origins of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. It argued that these papers were drawn up at the First Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland in 1896.
Der Zukunftsweg einer deutschen Aussenpolitik. This work sets expounds the idea that expanded living space in Europe and the depopulation of areas in Eastern Central Europe were the necessary cornerstones of future German foreign policy. He advocated Dr. General Karl Haushofer’s idea of German Lebensraum. Many parts of this book were admitted as evidence against Rosenberg in the post war trial of "war crimes" at Niirnberg.
Dreissig Novemberképfe. This was an attack on the Weimar Republic.
1928
Dietrich Echart, ein Verméchtnis. Dietrich Eckhardt died in 1923 and Rosenberg edited this collection of his works in tribute to one of his principal mentors. He also wrote a very flattering introduction to Eckhardt’s essays, designed to be a tribute to one of the major influences on National Socialism.
Der Sumpf: Querschnitte durch das "Geistes" Leben der November-Demokratie. This was an attack on the Weimar Republic that compared it to a swamp because it was a place of disintegration and decomposition.
246 Alfred Rosenberg 1930
Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts. This is Rosenberg’s magna opus. It incorporated many ideas from his earlier books and essays.
1931
Der Fall Ludendorff. General Lundendorff had marched with the Nazis in the ill-fated beer hall Putsch and this is Rosenberg’s tribute to him as a companion in arms. Rosenberg took this opportunity to compliment and extol the merits of National Socialist philosophy by referring to this national hero who had been a supporter.
1932
Judentum, Jesuitismus, Deutsches Christentum. This was Rosenberg’s attack on the Jesuit order of Roman Catholic priests and their theology. He reluctantly admitted admiration for their organizational abilities. The book offered a comparison of Jesuits with the Jews.
Das Wesensgefiige des Nationalsozialismus: Grundlagen deutscher Wiedergeburt. Rosenberg argued that a renaissance of German culture could come only through Nazi leadership.
1933 Die Entwicklung der deutschen Freiheitsbewegung. Rosenberg
here argued that German freedom can be ensured only through National Socialist leadership.
Bibliography 247 1934
Der deutsche Ordensstaat: Ein neuer Abschnitt in der Entwicklung des Nationalsozialistischen Staatsgedankens. This is a reprint of a speech of 27 April 1934. He argued that National Socialists must have sufficient power to achieve their goals.
Krisis und Neubau Europas. Rosenberg here argued that the rebirth of Germany will bring about the salvation of all Europe. He disputed this thesis in other works.
Neugeburt Europas als werdende Geschichte. Much the same as Krisis und Neubau Europas, above, this essay linked Europe’s renaissance to the rebirth of German Volkgeist.
Protestantische Rompilger: Der Verrat an Luther und der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts. This was Rosenberg’s response to Protestant attacks on the Myth of the Twentieth Century. It was similar to An die Dunkelmdnner unserer Zeit, the response to Catholics.
Weltanschauung und Wissenschaft. This is a general statement of Rosenberg’s political philosophy.
Meister Eckehart’s Religion. This was a reprint of portions of the Myth of Twentieth Century that discussed the theology of with the medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart.
Revolution in der bildenden Kunst? This was a commentary on the arts and parallels themes developed in The Myth of the Twentieth Century.
248 Alfred Rosenberg 1935
An die Dunkelmdnner unserer Zeit: Eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts. This was principal of Rosenberg’s several responses to Catholic attacks on the Myth of the Twentieth Century. It contained many of the same arguments found in Protestantische Rompilger, his response to Protestant attacks.
Blut und Ehre, ein Kampf fur deutsche Wiedergeburg, Reden und Aufsiitze von 1919-1933. This was another collection of Rosenberg’s speeches and contained little that had been not been offered in other works.
Der Bolschewismus als Aktion einer fremden Rasse. This was another attack on communism as a part of the International Communist Conspiracy.
1936
Gestaltung der Idee, Blut und Ehre II. Band, Reden und Aufsdtze von 1933-35. This was yet another collection of speeches which extolled the National Socialist philosophy.
1938
Europa und sein Todfeind; vier Reden iiber das bolschewistische Problem. This booklet was a collection of four speeches Rosenberg made against Soviet communism. The essays repeat the accusations of earlier works, that communism is a part of the International Jewish Conspiracy.
Bibliography 249
Kampf um die Macht, Blut und Ehre III. Band, Aufséitze von 1921-1932. This was a collection of essays, largely from the newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter.
Autoritat und Freiheit: Vortrag auf dem Kongress des Reichsparteitages 1938 der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei. This booklet contains speeches given to the N.S.D.A.P. party faithful on the mission of the Third Reich.
1939
Novemberképfe. This book was an attack on the Social Democrats. It denounced them for their role in corrupting German values in the Weimar Republic.
Miissen weltanschauliche Kampfe staatliche Feindschaften ergeben? This essay is available in translation as "Are Ideological Struggles Bound to lead to International Enmity?" [Berlin: Miiller, 1939].
Neugeburt Europas als werdende Geschichte. The ideas expressed are similar to Miissen weltanschauliche Kampfe staatliche Feindschaften ergeben?, above.
Weltanschauung und Glaubenslehre.
1940 Der gestchichtliche Sinn unseres Kampfes; Rede von Reichsleiter Rosenberg vor Soldaten der Westfront, 16 April 1940. This was a
late war propaganda piece designed to improve morale in war- torn Germany.
250 Alfred Rosenberg 1941
Das Parteiprogramm: Wesen, Grundsiitze und Ziele der N.S.D.A.P. This was a commentary on the National Socialist party program.
1943
Tradition unde Gegenwart: Blut under Ehre, IV. This was yet another collection of Rosenberg’s speeches concerning National Socialist philosophy and the war effort.
Der Weltkampf und die Weltrevolution unserer Zeit. This was another exposition of National Socialist political theory.
1944
Deutsch und Europdische Geistesfreiheit. In this, one of Rosenberg’s last works, he explored the relationship between Germany and Europe.
Friedrich Nietzsche. This was a speech Rosenberg made on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the philosopher’s birth. This was the last work published before Rosenberg’s death.
Works published posthumously
Letzte Aufzeichnungen; Ideale und Idole der nationalsozialistischen Revolution. Translated by Eric Posselt as Memoirs of Alfred Rosenberg (Chicago, 1949). It was written while Rosenberg was awaiting execution.
Bibliography 251
Portrait eines Menschenverbrechers nach den hinterlassen Memoiren des ehemaligen Reichministers Alfred Rosenbergs. edited by Serge Lang and Ernst von Schenck. St. Gallen, 1947. These writings are said by the editors to be Rosenberg’s memoirs.
Politisches Tagebuch aus den Jahren 1934-35 und 1939-40. Edited by H.G. Seraphim. This volume contains what the editor claimed were Rosenberg’s diaries for the years indicated. Whether more diaries exist is unknown.
H. Haertle (ed.). Grossdeutschlands, Traum und Tragédie: Rosenbergs Kritik am Hitlerismus. Munich: 2d ed., 1970.
English Sources
George Mosse (ed.). Nazi Culture. (New York, 1966). This book has several items, including an essay on women and "The Earth Centered Jew Has No Soul."
Robert Pois (ed). Race and Race History and Other Essays by Alfred Rosenberg. (New York, 1974). The editor has translated 163 pages from the Myth of the Twentieth Century and other sources.
(ed.). Selected Writings of Alfred Rosenberg. London, 1970.
Charles A. Beard (ed. and intro.). Mythus I: The Worship of Race. London, 1936.
< (ed. and intro.). Mythus II: The Character of the New Religion. London, 1936.
252 Alfred Rosenberg
Josiah C. Wedgwood (ed. and intro.). Mythus III: International
Implications of the New Religion. London, 1937.
Letzte Aufzeichnungen. Gottingen, 1955.
Secondary Sources . Bollmus, Reinhard. Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner zum Machtkampf in nationalsozialistischen _ Herrschaftssystem. Stuttgart, 1970.
Cecil, Robert. The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology. London, 1972.
Fest, Joachim. The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership. New York, 1970. :
Field, Geoffrey. Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Stewart Houston Chamberlain. Columbia University, 1981.
Hart, Franz. Alfred Rosenberg: Der Mann und sein Werk. Munich, 1935.
Jacobson, Hans-Adolf et al. World War II Policy and Strategy: Selected Documents with Commentary. Oxford, 1979.
Nova, Fritz. Alfred Rosenberg. New York, 1986.
Rothfelder, Herbert P. "A Study of Rosenberg’s Organization
for National Socialist Ideology." Ph.D. dissertation, University -
of Michigan, 1963.
among the most profound of the German contributions to the philosophical underpinnings
i
hi losophy of Ifred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg is the least known of all the major National Socialists, yet his works, notably The Myth of the Twentieth Century, are
of the National Socialist ideology.
Rosenberg conceived The Myth as the sequel e i] to Houston Stewart Chamberlain's immensely Alfred Rosenberg influential The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. The Myth was first published in 1930 when Rosenberg was elected to the Reichstag as NS Deputy for Hassen-Darmstadt. By 1942 it had sold more
philosophers, some dating back to the pre-Christian era. Justin Martyr, who | argued that Christianity was not a Jewish sect, figured prominently in Rosenberg’s thought, as did the heterodox religious movements of the Manicheans, Bogomili and Cathars, which argued that the old Testament was story of the Devil's people and which denied the supremacy of the Pope.
Meister Eckhart, who first conceived of the elevated uniqueness of the Ni soul, and Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that the Jews were the te, that men could become supermen, profoundly affected Rosenberg’s own outloo!
Rosenberg’s wing of the National Socialist party preferred traditional Nordic _ folklife to the modern urban culture. It taught that art should reflect the racial ‘ soul of its creators and audience, and sought to aid the individual in self- fulfillment—but only as a member of his race. Nordic Christianity, it held, mus be devoid of any Semitic, Roman, Etruscan or Asiatic roots or influence.
In this book, Professor Whisker has condensed Rosenberg’s vast and often h abstract rhetoric to a manageable, comprehensible level—presenting a highly readable introduction to the man, his complex thought, and its contribution to oe origins of the National Socialist myth.
than a million copies. Rosenberg’s ideas were heavily influenced by a number of theologians and
James B. Whisker is Professor of Political Science at West Virginia University. He earned his B.S. at Mount Saint Mary’s College; his M.A. degrees in history and philosophy at Niagara University; and his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland. He is the author or co-author of 23 books and numerous articles.
THE NOONTIDE PRESS ISBN: 0-939482-25-8