Saturday Afternoon: Christianity in the White Rose Society and in Hitler's Table Talk

Published by carolyn on Sat, 2013-09-14 12:31
 
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Sept. 14, 2013

The original members of the White Rose Society were all Christian, born around 1918 into devout families, who resented the emphasis on “service to the state” that National-Socialism was built around.

  • Hans Scholl‘s father was a minor Social-Democrat, anti-Hitler politician, his mother a Lutheran lay preacher, and Hans was always forming, and being active in, groups;
  • Sophie Scholl wanted to be a part of her brother’s secret group and was influenced by the writings of Catholic Cardinal Neumann on the duty to obey one’s conscience;
  • Alexander Schmorell was Russian-born, a faithful son of the Orthodox Church, who never felt “at home” in Germany, where he wanted to bring about a revolution;
  • Willi Graf was a Roman Catholic who didn’t like the way Church groups were replaced by Nat-Soc groups, and felt strongly enough to do something about it;
  • Christof Probst‘s father’s second wife was Jewish; his father associated with “decadent” artists of society, so Christof fell in naturally with the White Rose;
  • Hitler understood by 1941-44 that official Christianity could not bend toward a national state, but was trapped in it’s universalist dogma wherein the Church’s duty was to transcend race and national boundaries and to speak for all people, everywhere;
  • Hitler expressed his thoughts along these lines in many passages found in “Table Talk.”

Image: Alexander Schmorell, executed in the Third Reich for treason, is glorified as a  “New Martyr” by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. All the members of the White Rose Society have been glorified in film, media and other means in post-war Germany.

Comments

14 Responses

  1. Etienne

    September 14, 2013 at 6:52 pm

    I wasn’t so sure about some of this. Firstly, I agree that some of the White Rose leaflets were treasonous, but it would still have been better to imprison than execute them – for propaganda purposes, but also because they were well intentioned rather than criminal, as with Robert Brasillac, John Amery, William Joyce on the other side.

    Secondly, Caroline didn’t say why she accepted the Table Talk. Hitler’s remarks are different from the actual NS Policy platform (Point 24). The way it was carried out is presented here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIFLGqLUCP4
    It may be that he changed his mind after Mit brennender Sorge (1937) and the meeting with Cardinal Faulhaber (1938), but this is not certain from his own speeches:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoyOePAi1Z4
    Genoud admitted writing the end of the Table Talk and the rest is filtered through Bormann, who opposed Christianity. I think there is a specifically Catholic anti-clericalism that may be reflected in it, but it’s still a dubious source.

  1. Jason

    September 14, 2013 at 8:24 pm

    Etienne,
    So we are to believe Hitler’s personal friend and chosen biographer would go behind his back and alter this material?
    The material he was recording was some of the most important documentation in all of the Reich, and these documents would have been available to others, so if he were caught he’d be disgraced from the party and his friends would abandon him. Are we to believe that Bormann would do something like this? The man was a professional, the accusation that he would do something this petty and childish is laughable.

    A speech from a politician is hardly a good basis for a man’s personal views, even one as admirable as Hitler. Many of the speeches where he brings up Christianity, are in response to critics (like the White Rose society, most of the NSDAP’s political enemies had a strong Christian slant) and many were from around the time of the Vatican Concordat. Many are likely false as well, for example the one that says something along the lines of “we must not tolerate people who criticize christianity”, which is from The Holy Reich (written by a Jew) seems to be from a speech where there is no record of.

    Also the views seen in “Table Talks”, are similar to those seen in “Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin”, and by in Hitler quote in his “Road to Resurgance” pamphlet, which was given to German Industrialists in 1927″:
    ” Marxism’s irrational castelike behavior and estrangement from its own folk has a parallel only in the early history of Christianity, which also established itself as a state within the Roman state, outside the general community of interests, and thereby became the cause of the extraordinary collapse of a world empire which no longer could muster the resistance of the whole state to counter the impact of the technologically and organizationally far inferior Teuton bands”

  1. Carolyn

    September 14, 2013 at 9:28 pm

    I agree that some of the White Rose leaflets were treasonous, but it would still have been better to imprison than execute them – for propaganda purposes, but also because they were well intentioned rather than criminal,

    Treason is treason – the punishment is death. If you see the White Rose as well-intentioned, you’re showing your susceptibility to Christian ideals of Love and Forgiveness for enemies. If they were only imprisoned, they would have been released in 1945 and would have almost a lifetime yet to spew their hatred of National-Socialism. The idea of good propaganda working for us if we are “nice” is a chimera – these same enemies do not care and will give you zero credit. Hitler learned that at Dunkirk.

    Secondly, Caroline didn’t say why she accepted the Table Talk.

    Yes, I did. From what I was told by Shoabloger http://shoabloger.wordpress.com/ and then read at David Irving’s site.

    Hitler’s remarks are different from the actual NS Policy platform (Point 24).

    24th Point of the Party Platform: “We demand a freedom of religious confessions in this state, as long as they do not endanger the nation’s existence or interfere with the moral sense of the German race. The NSDAP party argues for a positive Christianity, although it is not bound to any single confession. The NSDAP party fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit in and around us. We are convinced that the healing process of our nation can only be continued on the basis of the principle that public welfare has priority over individual welfare”

    The Platform was written in the early ’20′s. The Table Talks were in the early ’40′s.

    It may be that he changed his mind after Mit brennender Sorge (1937) and the meeting with Cardinal Faulhaber (1938), but this is not certain from his own speeches:

    What he would say to a friendly Cardinal in 1938 is certainly not the same as he would say speaking to trusted N-S friends around the dinner table. You wouldn’t expect it to be.

    Genoud admitted writing the end of the Table Talk

    If so, then it’s already been deleted, hasn’t it?

    and the rest is filtered through Bormann, who opposed Christianity.

    I do not have a low opinion of everyone who opposed Christianity. I don’t think Bormann would alter his Fuehrer’s words. And it was Bormann who suggested taking the notes in the first place. Hermann Giesler had a good opinion of Bormann as a trustworthy secretary who always reported to Hitler exactly as the information/requests/etc were reported/given to him.

    I think there is a specifically Catholic anti-clericalism that may be reflected in it, but it’s still a dubious source.

    I no longer think it’s a dubious source. Previously, I only thought the Christianity parts were unreliable anyway. So now I’m going to read it. It’s about time!

  1. Edward

    September 15, 2013 at 1:44 am

    Everything about Jesus Christ was against the JEWS who he called the children of their father the devil.

    Carolyn you need to reread “Mein Kampf”, Adolf the Great, like Luther before him understood the manipulation of Christianity by the JEWS, as some of us today see the distortion of Christianity in our time by monsters like John Hagee.

    Christianity based on the King James bible “New Testament”, as interpreted by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the “Declaration of Independence, is the basis of Western Civilization and America, and the antithesis to satanic Talmudic Judaism.

    “The Jewish doctrine of Marxism repudiates the aristocratic principle of Nature and substitutes for it the eternal privilege of force and energy, numerical mass and its dead weight. Thus it denies the individual worth of the human personality, impugns the teaching that nationhood and race have a primary significance, and by doing this it takes away the very foundations of human existence and human civilization.

    If the Marxist teaching were to be accepted as the foundation of the life of the universe, it would lead to the disappearance of all order that is conceivable to the human mind. And thus the adoption of such a law would provoke chaos in the structure of the greatest organism (nationhood and race) that we know, with the result that the inhabitants of this earthly planet would finally disappear.

    Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the people of this world, his Crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago.

    And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.” -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

  1. Etienne

    September 15, 2013 at 6:55 am

    Jason,
    Someone with very good shorthand can take down most of what a speaker says, but what is more usual is a summary. The Table Talk is selective, so we are dependant on what caught the note taker’s attention and what they thought was important. So it is not laughable to think distortion will creep in, moreso when the material has been edited (by Bormann), passed through the hands of a forger with ideological commitments (Genoud) and been translated twice.

    The passage you cite criticises the early Church, not Christianity as such. It is interesting nonetheless.

    Carolyn,
    “Treason is treason – the punishment is death.” Yes, but people are loyal to different things – races, classes, individuals – as well as states. When there has been a revolution – as in 1918, 1933 – people’s loyalties are divided. If the radical right is to win power in Europe & America, it will have to convince at least some of its political opponents. Endorsing the killing of political activists will marginalise you in most political circles. You don’t know what the Scholls would have done after the war – people change their minds. Brutalist interpretations of national socialism were cultivated by its enemies in the 1930s and 1940s.

  1. Carolyn

    September 15, 2013 at 8:58 am

    Etienne – Are you a National-Socialist? What is your definition of the radical right in Europe and America?

    Endorsing the killing of political activists will marginalise you in most political circles.

    Political activism is not the same as treason. Robert Scholl was a political activist. His children were traitors. If you read all the White Rose leaflets, you must admit the language went way beyond ordinary political activism, in a time of total war.

  1. Carolyn

    September 15, 2013 at 9:17 am

    Edward – You need to re-listen to the program. Quoting from Mein Kampf on the subject of Jews doesn’t repudiate remarks he made about “Christianity” in 1941-43.

    Also, your own selected passage includes these phrases: “the aristocratic principle of Nature” — “nationhood and race have a primary significance” — “the structure of the greatest organism (nationhood and race) that we know” — all these ideas are opposed by the Churches and thus the vast majority of Christians on the basis that they “worship” Nature, nation and race, when Christians can only worship the one universal God and Christ.

    Further, referring to “the Almighty Creator” is not the same as bowing to Christian beliefs.

  1. Konrad Rhodes

    September 15, 2013 at 2:53 pm

    Dear Carolyn, Etienne, and all,
    Race, Ethnos, Nation, Aristocratic Principle, Fuhrer Prinzip, National Socialism are totally compatible with Traditionalist forms of Christianity which I define as the corporate hierarchical bodies, Churches, with a priesthood and parishes of laity sharing a spiritual bond in faith as well as blood and roots in the land. This is, of course, almost gone today but can still be found among Traditionalist Catholics, Traditionalist Orthodox, but NO not the majority of Orthodox Christians today and I could go on and on and how upset I get when all the Russian Orthodox are generalized as some kind of hold over from the pre-liberal past which is, frankly, bullshit! Also there are some High Church Protestants such as Anglo-Catholics, Missouri Synod Lutherans, to an extent! and a few other groups I don’t feel I need to mention which are compatible with National Socialism and in practice historically clearly placed Race, Blood and Soil Nationalism, and community, the common good, the greater good of the Nation, the people/race at the center of their identity.
    Personally I feel ambivalent today about my own Old Believer Russian Orthodox beliefs and the various Traditionalist factions which fight due disagreements which relate to various prelates affected in one way or another by Modernism and Ecumenism. But I won’t go through a long explanation about why this is. BUT let me tell you we don’t all honor the so-called ‘saints’ who fought the ‘damn nazis’! A lot of us are Nazis! and a hell of a lot, the best of us anyway, Orthodox Christians fought for the Reich and the Crusade against Bolshevism! The Cossack division being one!
    If you will allow me to add a more personal comment which relates to the comments, personally I used to dismiss as weird and “schizo” looking deeper into Esoteric Hitlerism as written about by Miguel Serrano who drew from Otto Rahn’s research into the Cathars and the research of the Ahnenerbe, met with various National Socialists, including Leon Degrelle, and he met with famous psychologist C.G.Jung whom he respected and corresponded with but had an essential disagreement and divide with. I don’t mean to provide a meaningless digression but just to add that what I have pulled from reading Serrano is that Jupiter, Ius-Pater, Zeus, Wotan, All-Father, Krishna-Vishnu, that the Racial belief in a warrior king God, who may or may not be the Creator but who is abiding in our blood is REALLY who most traditional White Christians worship and to my mind when I think deeply and am honest I can’t really see much difference between how I felt and worshiped and believed in Christ seeing him voluntarily taking on the Cross and bleeding and coming back to life in 3 days and how Wotan hung from the Tree of terror pierced his side and hung for 9 days. It is definitely NOT the same BUT who did I see and connect with in my heart? It was definitely a White Aryan God-King-Priest-Warrior-Chief who through the BLOOD sanctifies and blesses and empowers those in His communion of the Blood and Body. He blesses the waters on Theophany/Epiphany, on Easter his rebirth sanctifies the very air and land and the sun is said to dance amongst the Orthodox who celebrate all night until Easter Sunday morning sunrise, on Pentecost the Church colors are green and the interior is festooned with leafy branches celebrating the beginning of summer, etc. When my in-laws first went to the Church my wife and I were married in they reacted like it was a pagan temple, and perhaps that is what I am getting at. For me and many I think that is on a deep subconscious level what it really is!
    The de-racinated modern Judeo-Christians, which DOES include all mainstream Orthodox Churches though I think that a lot of the laity are still ‘old school’ so to speak and basically Nationalist/Racialist in their worldview, are the enemy and there is no doubt about that!
    As far a the Table Talks, I think that Hadding or someone who knows German and is familiar with the original German Table Talks and can point out how the sections on Christianity were mis-translated should comment because I really do not have the familiarity with the language needed to point these sections out and how the English is a mis-translation but from all I have read Hitler loved the Christ who chased the money changers out but he really disliked weakness and the historic corruption and often treasonous activities of all Church corporate hierarchies.

  1. Carolyn

    September 15, 2013 at 3:34 pm

    As far a the Table Talks, I think that Hadding or someone who knows German and is familiar with the original German Table Talks and can point out how the sections on Christianity were mis-translated should comment because I really do not have the familiarity with the language needed to point these sections out and how the English is a mis-translation

    Konrad,

    Both “rafikorn” at shoabloger.wordpress.com and David Irving know German well and are better translators than Hadding. Not to put down Hadding at all, but it’s just so. Why insist that it is mistranslated because you want Hitler to have said something different. But if you want Hadding to check it over for you, write to him. His email address is public knowledge; it is on The International Jew Program page on The White Network. You could also write to Germar Rudolf and ask him to translate it for you.

    I’m glad I’ve gotten into this because so many Hitler fans are not honest about Hitler but are quite selective in their examples of Hitler’s sayings about Church and Christian matters. I want to know Hitler as he really was, not as I want him to be.

  1. Markus

    September 15, 2013 at 6:48 pm

    I didn’t even know the Scholls were Christian, even though I went to Scholl-School in Germany. They are portrayed as fighters for Democracy and as Lefties.

    This Russian guy seemed to get his propaganda from Moscow because he constantly calls the Germans Fascists, which is like calling American Republicans Monarchists. There are similarities in ethics etc, but it would be an insult to equal the groups.

    The German Jews in exile started calling National Socialists Nazis. They must have known who to hate. Jesus was from Nazareth and a Nazirite or Nazir. Germans (and I guess these German Jews included) have a tendency to give all political classes or ethnic groups nick names ending with “i”, so instead of Nazir, these German Jews came up with Nazi.
    You have Ami for Americans, Ruski for Russians, Studi for student, Zivi for civilian state servant, Etc.

    Criticism of Christianity is not anti-Christian at all. In fact, the Catholic Church (especially Vatican II), Judeo-Christianity, Zionist-Christianity are good examples of misdirections of Christ’s words.

    I think if the Scholl siblings didn’t have this Russian on board, they wouldn’t have been so radical and rather voice their opinion in philosophy class or debate with the Deutsche Christen (DC).

  1. Etienne

    September 16, 2013 at 12:14 am

    I am clearer about supporting the national liberal tradition of the Kaiserreich and Austria that Hitler admired and criticized and that National socialism grew out of. National socialism was partly a doctrine of its time and place directed at German foreign policy. Europe’s main problem now is immigration and demographics, which means that we have to reintroduce the idea of race into politics. The right in general is inegalitarian and radical means principled, as opposed to conservative or Gaullist (NF, BNP in Britain, FN in France – these are partly populist, but can be centres of debate). It would be good to be clearer about the Table Talk, but the science Hitler praises in it is as universalist as Christianity.

  1. Markus

    September 16, 2013 at 2:42 am

    I may add that there are many many forms of Christianity and there is no reason to verbally attack or even bombs these people. You have Russian Orthodox, Coptic Christians, Mormons, and many more.

    Positve Christianity was just another sect if you will of Christianity. The Anglican Church can also be wrong in certain aspects and is state-controlled by the Monarch. Does the US boycott British goods for this reason?

    All this anti-Positve Christianity is just another form of Nazi-bashing.

    I recently exchanged emails with a Christian scholar of a ministry, who said that Marxism and National Socialism are the same basically. This guy is very intelligent and well-intended and speaks of freedom of religion etc, but when the German people and their state form a freely chosen Christian interpretation, he is intolerant and ignorant.

    By his logic, Utah should be firebombed as well. (Not that I want to directly compare Mormonism with Positive Christianity, though.)

  1. Carolyn

    September 16, 2013 at 11:10 am

    the science Hitler praises in it is as universalist as Christianity.

    Have to say something about this. Today’s science is funded by Governments, is necessarily Politically Correct. It’s not science per se, but the power structure and who has all the money. We let Jews take over the money!

    Science itself is the study of the natural world, in every kind of way. That is not the same as the “materialist” Jewish world view. Science is pure; it’s people who distort it.

  1. Edward

    September 16, 2013 at 7:56 pm

    SEARCH: “Christmas banned in Germany”.

    Satanic Judaism has always been at war with the teachings of Jesus Christ and his followers. Look at what the JEWS did to Christian Russia and the Easter bloc under jewish Bolshevik Communist rule. Look what the JEWS are doing to the Christians in Syria today, and every other country they occupy. American Christians are next on their list to try and murder.

    SEARCH: “US Army Training Instructor Classifies Catholics, Evangelicals as Extremists”.

    Why can’t people understand that if the JEWS oppose and despise Christianity; then it must be good.

    “Pilate saith unto them (the JEWS), What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.

    And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they (the JEWS) cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

    When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude (of JEWS), saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

    Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us (the JEWS), and on our children.” – King James Bible

In Mein Kampf Hitler rightly says Christianity has a "Jewish way of thinking" and embodies "a downright Jewish nature" and asserts it as a FACT(German word in Original German edition: Tatsache).
Corroborating to this in Goebbels Diaries, Dr. Jospeh Goebbels records Hitler saying that "Christianity is an offshoot of the Jewish Race."
Here is the full quote: https://ibb.co/0ndpcyh
 
Mein Kampf: Christianity has a "Jewish way of thinking" and embodies "a downright Jewish nature".
Goebbels Diaries: "Christianity is an offshoot of the Jewish Race."
 
There is no difference between the two statements since it is understood that Hitler says [in Mein Kampf] Christianity has a Jewish way of thinking and embodies a downright Jewish nature BECAUSE "Christianity is an offshoot of the Jewish Race[Goebbels Diaries].

You are being dishonest here, to the extent that I have to question your motives. In what you linked to: https://ibb.co/0ndpcyh  Hitler does not say "Christianity" was Jewish or an offshoot of the Jewish race, but it's determination to destroy Paganism was Jewish-like intolerance. He was not saying, anywhere in Mein Kampf, the same things Goebbels wrote in his diary. You're purposely and deceptively trying to equate the two. Shame on you! 

First of all thanks for approving my comment and replying.

Carolyn: Hitler does not say "Christianity" was Jewish or an offshoot of the Jewish race

In the link which I gave Goebbels clearly records in his diaries Hitler saying:

"It[Christianity] is an offshoot of the Jewish race." — Goebbels Diaries 29, 1939

Yes in Mein Kampf Hitler nowhere says explicitly that Christianity is Jewish, but as you said he says Christianity's "determination to destroy Paganism was Jewish-like intolerance.", but he doesn't say 'Jewish-like', but he outrightly asserts it as a fact, regrets for that being the case and goes on to say such traits are alien.
In this paragraph he just says Christianity has Jewish traits, the reason is later found in Goebbels diaries where Hitler says Christianity "is an offshoot of the Jewish race".
It is clear from these two quotes(from Mein Kampf and Goebbels Diaries) that Christianity had to destroy pagan altars and such phenomena are "specifically Jewish way of thinking... this kind of intolerance and fanaticism embodied a downright Jewish nature" because Christianity "is an offshoot of Jewish Race" so it has all the character traits of the Jews.

You're repeating yourself. What Goebbels writes in his diary has nothing to do with anything Hitler actually says himself. I do not accept hearsay no matter who it's from. Also I take into consideration that Goebbels' Diary is not accepted as authentic by all serious scholars, and rightly so. There are many questions about it.

What Hitler regards as a "fact" in the MK quote is that "intolerance and fanaticism is embodied in the Jewish nature." He precedes this by noting (with regret) that "Christianity" felt the need to not only build its own alters [churches] but to destroy the pagan alters [temples]. He sees this level of intolerance as something that had previously not existed in world history.

Goebbels, 15 years later, allegedly writes in a personal diary that Christianity is "an offshoot of the Jewish race". He does not attribute this to Hitler directly, if you notice. G. writes "He (Hitler) sees Christianity as a symptom of decline." Separately, G. then writes "It is an offshoot of the Jewish race." This is clever innuendo but not what you are trying to make it.

I would like to know the translation source used in these very unreliable Internet images you're going by. Where in MK is this quote found, so I can look it up in the Dalton translation, to compare them? (You don't know and you don't care.)

It's important to point out that Hitler never left the Catholic Church, but kept his dues up to date until his death. The takeaway from that is that he felt the upside of the Church, overall, outweighed it's downside. I don't think Joseph Goebbels was of that same opinion. (G. and H. were not identical twins!!)

NOTE FROM CAROLYN: The below is only part of Willi Stoph's reply to me. I withheld most of it because it was a repetition of what he already said, and I will not give space on my site for such pointless, long-winded arguing. But because I asked him a question, I'm publishing his answer out of fairness and for the readers' consideration. Notice the lack of any direction as to where to find either the "original German Auflage text" or the page number or other direction in the Dalton translation (which is not "exactly the same"). I looked in Dalton but didn't find it where I thought it might be.
____________________
 
 carolyn:I would like to know the translation source used in these very unreliable Internet images you're going by. Where in MK is this quote found, so I can look it up in the Dalton translation, to compare them? (You don't know and you don't care.)
 
I use the original German version of MK(Auflage 1943 / Edition 1943) and Goebbels Diaries,
I also looked up Thomas Dalton's translation. The meaning comes out to be exactly the same.

"Christianity was not content with erecting an altar of its own, but rather first had to destroy the pagan altars. [...] It may be objected here that such phenomena in world history arise from mostly a SPECIFICALLY Jewish mode of thought; indeed, that such fanaticism and intolerance embody the SPECIFICALLY Jewish mentality. This may be a thousand-times true, and it’s a deeply regrettable FACT. The appearance of fanatical intolerance in human history may be both deeply regrettable and foreign to human nature.." — Thomas Dalton's translation.

The phrase 'SPECIFICALLY Jewish' and "embody DOWNRIGHT Jewish Character" appears in original German('spezifisch jüdischer';  'geradezu jüdische Wesensart verkörpere'' )  too(which I used).