Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg (January 12, 1893–October 16, 1946) was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi party, who later held several important posts in the Nazi government. At Nuremberg he was tried and sentenced to death as a war criminal. He is considered the main author of key Nazi ideological creeds, including its racial theory, persecution of the Jews, Lebensraum, abolition of the Versailles Treaty, and opposition to "degenerate" modern art. In his public statements Hitler distanced himself from Rosenberg's rejection of orthodox Christianity in favour of a Nordic "religion of the blood", but in practice Rosenberg's neo-Paganism remained an important influence on Nazi policy.

Religious theories

Rosenberg argued for a new "religion of the blood", based on the supposed innate promptings of the Nordic soul to defend its noble character against racial corruption. He believed that this had been embodied in early Indo-European religions, notably ancient European Paganism, Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism. Following the ideas of Chamberlain, he condemned what he called "negative Christianity", the orthodox beliefs of Protestant and Catholic churches, arguing instead for a new "positive" form of the religion based on Chamberlain's fantasy that Jesus was a member of a Nordic enclave resident in ancient Galilee who struggled against Judaism. For Rosenberg religious doctrine was not important, what mattered was that a belief should serve the interests of the Nordic race, connecting the individual to his racial nature.

Related Topics:
Indo-European - Zoroastrianism - Vedic - Hinduism - Galilee - Doctrine

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These ideas were influential within the party, especially with explicitly anti-Christian Nazis such as Martin Bormann. Hitler, however, presented himself as a Christian in his public pronouncements. After his assumption of power he moved to reassure the Protestant and Catholic churches that the Nazis were not intending to reinstitute Germanic paganism, and he strongly attacked the atheism of Communist Russia. Hitler's private views remain difficult to determine, but may have been close to Rosenberg's. http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlerchristian.html Rosenberg and Bormann continued throughout their careers to seek to weaken the influence of orthodox Christianity in Europe.

Related Topics:
Martin Bormann - Germanic paganism - Atheism - Communist

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