The German churches: a center of opposition to the Hitler state

Abstract

National Socialism in Germany was more than a political party, it was a movement, a "way of life." It was nourished on the discontent that followed the defeat of Germany after World War I. It was "based on the mystical concept of the "folkish" state, the belief that the Aryan race was superior to all others; its creed was "blood and soil," and its Messiah was Hitler. For the Alfred Rosenberg of the Myth of the Twentieth Century the German's national honor was the highest human value. It admitted no equally valued force such as Christian love, Rosenberg was a major prophet of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and the Mythus, along with Mein Kampf, was a bible for the National Socialist doctrinaire. National Socialism presented the concept of an absolute which claimed supreme authority over the individual.