9 - Culture War at the End of the Weimar Republic

Summary

The final chapter examines the impact that the intense struggle over secularism had on German politics in the years 1930 to 1933. This chapter examines the many camps involved in this struggle. In particular it aims to demonstrate that antisecularism became a key binding agent for formations on the right that were promoting authoritarian solutions to the deepening political crisis. It looks at the role of church leaders in elaborating the slogan of “cultural Bolshevism” and promoting church militancy and calling for a “Christian front” to battle godlessness. It will make an original contribution to the significant recent scholarship on the collaboration of the Christian churches and National Socialism but bringing to the table not the religious, but rather a confessional basis of collusion. The affirmation of “positive Christianity” in the 1920 program of the NSDAP reflected the party’s commitment to an ecumenical struggle against secularism and Judaism. Hitler repeatedly placed his party’s position on religion in a quasi-confessional context.