From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist, Part 8 of 13

What Smith and Dawkins Did Not Bother Mentioning
Here I will provide a partial list of certain facts that both Richard Smith and Richard Dawkins did not bother mentioning in their comments of Hitler, Christianity and the Holocaust.

One of the very many things not mentioned by neither Richard Smith nor Richard Dawkins is just how influenced Hitler was by the concept of social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer's concept of "survival of the fittest" (which Darwin preferred over his own term "natural selection").
The only mention that Richard Dawkins makes of anything that comes close to assigning Darwinian-evolution inspiration to Stalin or Hitler is one sentence referencing the "unscientific eugenics theory."2 Incidentally, Richard Dawkins seeks to pave the way for neo-eugenics (From the Afterword).

Also not mentioned was H. G. Wells' vision of a racist utopia, New Republic (1917):

And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black?...the yellow man?...the Jew?...those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go....And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favor the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity-beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds....And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness...is death....The men of the New Republic...will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while.

This is the same H. G. Wells who upon meeting Joseph Stalin in 1934 described him as "candid, fair, and honest," and noted that "no one is afraid of him and everyone trusts him."3

Not one single mention of Freidrich Nietzsche's visions of ubermensch-supermen and the death of God. While it has never been reported that Hitler handed his henchmen copies of the Bible it has been reported that he did hand them the works of Nietzsche. "Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and published his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man."4

A handsomely bound copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra, now become a Bible for the goose-stepping, straight arm-saluting adolescents of Hitler-Jugend, had been solemnly placed, alongside Mein Kampf and Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century, in the vault of the Tannenberg-Memorial (commemorating the German's decisive victory over the Russians in the Autumn of 1914) as one of the three ideological pillars of German's Third Reich.5

The SS also studied the Bhagavad Gita and the Japanese Samurai (Bushido). "Tibetan Buddhism was particularly popular among the SS."6 Moreover, the race and nationalism based National Reich Church decreed that "On the altars there must be nothing but 'Mein Kampf', which is to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book, and to the left of the altar a sword" (Encyclopedia Database).

Not one mention of those who had previously attempted to construct secular religions based on humanism, reason, science and enlightenment such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Auguste Comte (1798-1857).

No mention of Thomas Malthus's "An Essay on The Principles of Population" (which influenced Charles Darwin, amongst others).

No mention of Francis Galton the originator of the "science" of eugenics.

No mention of Joseph Gobineau's "Essays on The Inequality of The Human Races" with his characterization of the Aryan race as, "A branch of the white race which had originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence and strength." Nor any mention of the German "Gobineau Associations."

No mention of "The Volkisch Movement" with its exaltation of nationalism and racial purity.

No mention of Madame Blavatsky's "Theosophical Society" with its focus on promoting the study of Aryan and other Eastern literatures, religions, and sciences. They also published the anti-Semitic book "The Hebrew Talisman."

No mention of Friedrich Eckstein's Viennese branch of the Theosophical Society.

No mention of Rudolf Steiner's "Anthroposophical Society."

No mention of Guido von List's "Arisophy" with its belief in a pantheism-like god-energy that found perfect expression in blond haired blue eyed Aryans and thus, lent support to eugenics.

No mention of Herbert Reichstein who saw Hitler as a god ordained establisher of the occult.

No mention of the astrologer Wilhelm Wulff whom SS Reich Commander Heinrich Himmler consulted. Nor that Himmler held to the Buddhist doctrine of Karma and incarnation.

No mention of F. Wehrmann who formed the "Swastika Circle" which was committed to exterminating inferior races.

No mention of Lanz von Liebenfeld's "Theozoology" and its influential occultism and anti-clerical books.

No mention of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" (1899) and its combination of eugenics and occultism. The Kaiser ordered this work to be read by all army officers.

No mention of Mathilde von Kemnitz's antichristian "German God-Knowledge." She once visited Hitler in prison and lectured to the Nazi Party Congress on "religion" in 1924.

No mention of the Theosophist Yuliana Glinka who may have inspired the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." In any case, Hitler was highly influenced by this conspiracy theory.

No mention of Grigori Bostunitsch who came to be known as Schwartz-Bostunitch when he joined the SS (he became an SS colonel). He concocted a mixture of occultism and anti-Semitism.

No mention of Alfred Rosenberg's "The Myth of the Twentieth Century," which to Nazism was considered second in importance only to Hitler's own "Mein Kampf" and which referred to the Old Testament as "stories of pimps and cattle traders." A phrase later popularized by "German Christian" Nazi supporter, Reinhold Krause. Rosenberg was also influenced by the "The Protocols" and mixed nationalist and occultism. While Hitler was in prison he appointed him as party leader and later appointed him as official Nazi party philosopher.

No mention of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), the father of "Liberal Protestantism," who wrote that "belief in God, and in personal immortality, are not necessarily a part of religion; one can conceive of religion without God, and it would be pure contemplation of the universe."7 It may be of interest to note that Hitler stated, "When understanding of the universe has become widespread…Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity." 8

No mention of Richard Wagner whose German nationalism was joined with the concepts of Gobineau and Chamberlain and whose works Hitler greatly admired.

No mention of Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), concocter of the "Documentary Hypothesis" (upon which Richard Dawkins appears to rely, see essay here). "Solomon Schechter, the founder of Conservative Judaism, stated his concerns in a 1903 seminary address titled 'Higher Criticism-Higher Anti-Semitism.' Schechter believed that the Documentary Hypothesis would lead to an attack on Judaism and ultimately an assault on the Jewish people. Jewish historian Marc Zvi Brettler summarized Schechter's comments, which in hindsight seem rather prophetic: [He] equated Wellhausen's approach with 'professional and imperial anti-Semitism,' calling it an 'intellectual persecution' of Judaism.9 In The History of Israel and Judah, Wellhausen predicted that Judaism and the Jewish people would become extinct: The…emancipation [i.e. assimilation] of the Jews must inevitably lead to the extinction of Judaism wherever the process is extended beyond the political to the social sphere. For the accomplishment of this centuries may be required.10"11

No mention of Rudolf Hess, Hitler's second in command, and an adherent of "Anthroposophy."

No mention of Karl Wiligut, Himmler's mythology advisor, and member of the "Thurle."

No mention of F. Krohn, member of the "Thurle" and the "Deutschen Arbeiterpartie" the "German Workers' Party." He compiled a collection of books for the Nazi party, "Volkischer" books from which Hitler read.

No mention of Lanz von Liebenfeld's "Ostara" which was read by Hitler.

No mention of Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) who though that retaining the Jew's Old Testament was a mistake, "to conserve it after the nineteenth century as a canonical text in Protestantism, was the result of a religious and ecclesiastical paralysis."12

No mention of Gottfried Feder, another member of the "Thurle," whom Hitler praised in "Mein Kampf" and who formulated the program of the Nazi Party.

No mention of "Thurle" member Dietrich Eckart who influence Hitler's Nazism.

No mention of Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller, who in 1934 stated, "We must emphasize with all decisiveness that Christianity did not grow out of Judaism but developed in opposition to Judaism. When we speak of Christianity and Judaism today, the two in their most fundamental essence stand in glaring contrast to one another. There is no bond between them, rather the sharpest opposition."13

Not one mention of the Norse and Aryan mythology which influenced Nazism.

No mention of SS colonel Walther W&#bc;st who based the concept of a Nazi religion on Vedic and Buddhist writings.

No mention of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, SS captain and founder of the "German Faith Movement," who based his vision of the Nazi war machine on the Bhagavad Gita and Buddhist works.

No mention of SS brigadier Karl Maria Wiligut who claimed to work with the Tibetan Lamaist monasteries.

No mention of Ernst Schafer and Bruno Beger who were SS Tibetan researchers who lead the SS Tibet expedition and who were highly influenced by the concepts of war in Tibetan Buddhism.

No mention of Karl Haushofer, who based Nazism on Shinto state fascism.

No mention of Eugen Herrigel and Karlfried D&#bc;rckheim who taught Zen Buddhism as a corollary between Nazism and Zen philosophy.

No mention of Julius Evola, who based his fascist philosophy on Buddhist and Tantric concepts.

No mention of Otto Rahn, SS mystic, who was heavily influenced by Buddhism.

No mention of Jean Marques-Riviere, Head of the French secret police who collaborator with the SS and who was heavily influenced by Tibetan Kalachakra Tantra.

No mention of Jacques Bergier, Louis Pauwels and Trevor Ravenscroft, who conceived the "Nazi mysteries" and drew correlations between Nazism and Indo-Tibetan Shambhala myths.

No mention of Wilhelm Landig, Rudolf J. Mund and Jan van Helsing who correlated Nazism with Tibetan - Mongolian Lamaism and stated that the esoteric teachings of Nazism both have their source in Atlantis.

No mention of Miguel Serrano who was influenced by Tantric works and considered Hitler to be an avatar of Krishna-Vishnu.

No mention of Eugen Herrigel and Karlfried Durckheim, who correlated Zen Buddhism and Nazism.

Lastly, no mention of a litany of philosophers who influenced Hitler which I quote from Joe Keysor who has conducted an survey of these and beginning with a reference to H. S. Chamberlain (1855-1927) as:

the racist anti-Semitic philosopher who endorsed Hitler and had a lot in common with him…wrote at length on the Jewish threat. His views were close or identical in many ways to those of his father-in-law, Richard Wagner [(1813-1883) who]…had a deep hatred of Jews, saw them as the source of Germany's social ills, and is claimed by many to have had a deep influence on Hitler through his anti-Semitic writings….[Chamberlain] wrote a book, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (published in 1899), that contained many parallels to Hitler's thought (not only Aryan supremacy, but also anti-Semitic phobias…). He fervently embraced Hitler and identified him as the coming savior of Germany when the latter was still a minor figure with no apparent chance of success….the 25 points of the Nazi party platform were identical to Wagner's agenda….

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)…expressed the idea that the Jews wanted to obey God only for the sake of the blessing she would give them, for material benefit…they were 'materialistic,' indifferent to higher philosophical truths, and selfishly sought nothing but their own earthly advantage. This became a standard theme of later Folkish anti-Semites and of the Nazis as well. Hitler stressed it in Mein Kampf [ vol. 1chapt. 11, 'Nation and Race']….

It has been asserted that Kant set the stage for modern secular anti-Semitism...Kant's fundamental antinomy (free enlightened humanity versus Jews enslaved to materialism) provided the framework for future anti-Semites, notably the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel and the musician Richard Wagner. Since Wagner in particular was a cultural hero for Adolf Hitler, Kant's own anti-Semitism can be seen as having a far-reaching effect….

If someone who lived 400 years before Hitler and wrote in the Protestant Reformation could have a great influence, or if someone who lived many centuries before in Roman Palestine could have an influence, could someone who died less than a century before Hitler was born also have an influence? Luther made negative comments about Jews-so did Kant. Hitler used the latter's reasoning, not the former's…
'Kant was a particular favorite among academic philosophers of the Third Reich!' This seems rather improbable, yet at his trial Adolf Eichmann made some comments about Kant that indicate how this might have been possible. Discussing Kant's ethics, Eichmann said 'for someone like myself fit is not possible to understand all of the subject of Kant completely; instead, I only took from these writings what I could understand, and what my imagination could somehow grasp'…

[French philosopher and champion of the Enlightenment; Voltaire (1694-1778)] His views of Jews were less enlightened: 'They are all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and The Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not someday become deadly to the human race.' Voltaire went on to condemn Jews for 'their stubbornness, their new superstitions, and their hallowed usury.' Addressing the Jews directly, Voltaire wrote, 'You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct, and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny'….

Gobineau (1816-1882), a Frenchman, has been called the father of modern racism. His belief that racial purity was essential to the survival of a people, that pure races rose and dominated while impure races decayed and fell, was popular in Germany and became central to the Folkish movement. It was also a theme Hitler stressed in Mein Kampf and was basic to his 'philosophy'…historian Paul Johnson states that just as Marx presented a theory of history driven by material, economic forces, so Hitler presented a theory of history driven by racial conflict (p. 296). He doesn't mention the importance of Gobineau, who articulated this idea long before Hitler. This is not to deny significant differences between Gobineau and later German racists - Gobineau was not anti-Semitic, for example. Lenin also modified Marx's ideas, but the connection is still indisputably there…

Dietrich Eckart, known by historians to have had a significant influence on the young Hitler, wrote 'The Jew has no sense of the experience of what is eternal or of the need of immortality. Ergo: he has no soul, and is therefore the opposite pole of the Germans, who are always striving for something higher. They are as light is to darkness'…

In The Antichrist at any rate, Nietzsche described Jews as bloodsuckers and vampires who destroyed Roman civilization through their invention of Christianity. He found some good qualities in the warlike early Hebrews (hence a few positive comments about Jews that Nietzsche's defenders emphasize), but saw later biblical Judaism as a traudulent invention of the priests. He identified Judaism as the source of Christianity which he loathed, and explicitly equated Jews with Christians. The Antichrist, which not only reveals a flaming hatred of Jews but also advocates the extermination of the weak and glorifies pitiless cruelty as a virtue, has been consistently misrepresented by Nietzsche's disciples...

Georg von Schonerer (1842-1921) was the leader of the Austrian Pan-Germans, a racist and anti-Semitic organization that has been identified as an immediate ancestor of the Nazi party. Hitler commended von Schonerer for his correct understanding of the Jewish question, but criticized him for his inability to connect with the masses and for his lack of effectiveness as a political leader [vol. I chapt. 3, 'General Political Considerations Based on my Vienna Period'].
Von Schonerer had an 'Away from Rome' policy, and Hitler's comments on this shed light on his own policy toward the churches. Hitler stated that von Schonerer's policy served only to alienate large numbers of people and cost him much valuable political support. Moreover, von Schonerer's attacks on Rome did not harm the church in the least but only intensified the devotion of its followers. It was much better, Hitler stated, to focus on a single enemy and thus draw supporters from different camps. The relevance of this to Hitler's policy of trying to limit the churches without attacking them head on does not need to be elaborated on."14

1. 1. Joachim C. Fest, The Face Of The Third Reich (1963), p. 27 citing "Speech at Kulmbach on 5th February 1928, quoted by Alan Bullock in 'Hitler. A Study in Tyranny'"
2. 2. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), p. 279
3. 3. Martin Amis, Koba the Dread (London 2003), p. 21 citing Martin Malia's The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991
4. 4. William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960)
5. 5. Curtis Gate, Friedrich Nietzsche (New York: the Overlook Press, 2002), p. 576
6. 6. Joe Woodard writing in The Calgary Herald (May 22, 2004, p. B8) referring to Prof. Karla Poewe's New Religions and the Nazis
7. 7. Cited in Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (Praeger University Series, 1961), p. 26
8. 8. Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 (Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc. 1953), published in Britain as Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944 (Oxford University Press), pp. 49-52
9. 9. Marc Z. Brettler, How to Read the Bible (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005), p. 4
10. 10. Julius Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, 3rd Edition (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1891), pp. 201-203
11. 11. Stan Meyer, Hitler's Theologians: The Genesis of Genocide
12. 12. Adolf Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium Von Fremden Gott (Leipzig, Germany: J.C. Hinrichs, 1921), p. 248
13. 13. Doris L. Bergen, The Twisted Cross (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 21
14. 14. Joey Keysor, Hitler, the Holocaust and the Bible (Athanatos Publishing Group: pre-release review ed., 2009), pp. 76, 77, 97, 136, 137, 138, 202, 212, 214-215