by Albert Hartl
Publisher’s
Introduction
Priest Power is translated from
the Third Reich original Priestermacht by Anton Holzner (Anton Holzner
was the pseudonym used by SS-Sturmbannführer Albert Hartl.)
Holzner here describes and condemns the methods, both
political and psychological, used by the most diverse priesthoods for their own
purposes as well as the unnaturalness of some religious doctrines.
The Emergence of
Priest Power in Germany
For millennia the German tribes lived according to the
laws God’s order of creation showed them. They shaped their life in the close
bond to great and glorious nature, with the stars in the sky, with the endless
sea and the deep forests. Their greatest pride was to always act honestly toward
friends and foes, true to the hereditary nobility of their blood.
That a God ruled in and over the world was
self-evident to our ancestors. Nature, life and history showed them day by day
the traces of the divine. They felt especially close to the Almighty during the
festivals of the annual cycle, at summer and winter solstice, and spring and
autumn harvest, on the holidays of the clan, at happy events and in the serious
and difficult hours. The oldest clan members and the tribal chiefs also
represented the community entrusted to them before God.
The holy places of nature and of the festival grounds
of the folk were simultaneously also the places for their plain, natural
religious service. Long, formal prayers and unnatural cult ceremonies were alien
to them. They expressed their relationship with their Lord God with a few words
and natural symbols. They did not feel like slaves toward him, after all. For
them, he was much more their great, good friend. But they also knew that they
could not force his help with magical means, rather that they could only then
expect God’s help, if they themselves concentrated all their energy.
But much has slackened over the course of the
millennia in this natural life- structure of the Germanic world. Much that was
clear has become dull and much that was fresh has become rotten.
In the period of the fourth to the fourteenth century
A.D. - through the church – a foreign world penetrated our folk’s life and
permeated it more and more with its spirit.
Under the influence of the New Testament doctrine of
Jesus, the church separated itself from Old Testament Jewry. The church began
its special life as a Jewish sect. Its apostles and priests originally still
celebrated the cult festivals with their believers in the synagogues in harmony
with the Jews.
Back then, influences – in part still intertwined
today – of other oriental doctrines flowed together with the flood of North
African spiritual bearing into the structure of doctrine of the so-called church
fathers, with the world of faith of Christianity gradually assuming its
independent, firm forms.
The actual scientific foundation for the
oriental-African world was then supplied by Greek philosophy. Plato and
Aristotle, as different as both are, became the chief witnesses of the new
church theology and have remained so to this day.
If the church wanted to conquer the world of that
time, it had to go to Rome. Certainly, at first the Christians could only lead
an illegal existence as burial and funeral associations. But the few centuries
of their illegal existence in Rome was for the church simultaneously the most
fruitful learning years in its whole history. The church took the whole
apparatus of its own hierarchy and communal order from the radiant juristic
structure and the excellent organization of the Roman world.
The church embarked on its campaigns of conquest in
the world of that time with this mixture of Asia Minor’s and North Africa’s view
of life and of the beyond, of Greece’s philosophical teachings and the strength
of the organization of the Roman world empire.
The doctrine of the salvation of people from the
world’s sinful, valley of woe to a better beyond had to form the foundation for
the erection of a priest rule precisely over this world.
The North African Augustin, Bishop of Hippo, supplied
with his publication “De civitate dei” (“Of the God-State”) the most important
building-blocks for this priest empire and simultaneously showed in his
publication “De doctrina christiana” (“Of the Christian Doctrine”) the best
methods for the propaganda of this God-State. It took almost a millennium until
the church had the Germanic world almost totally under its external power. It
worked toward that with the most manifold methods. But it has never succeeded in
the total inner Christianization of Germans. Nonetheless, it will always have to
be acknowledged in the history of the German folk that the German tribes found
external union in a Reich under the firm bond of a strict church organization
placed by the church over the Reich of Karl the Great [aka Charlemagne]
The contrasts between Germanic and church world led to
the centuries lasting conflict between German Kaiserdom and the Roman Popedom,
between kings and priests. In these conflicts, the church made use of the most
important forgeries in world history, which have become known under the name
pseudo- Isidorian decretals and Constantinian donations. The papal church in the
whole Middle Ages built its claims for rule toward Kaiserdom, above all, on the
Constantinian donation. According to this falsified document, Kaiser Constantine
was supposed to have bestowed all rule over the cities and lands of the occident
to the Pope in the fourth century and limited himself to power in the orient.
Today even the most zealous and talented church scientists must admit the fact
of these forgeries.
Although numerous schisms had taken place in the
orient, although, above all, a large occidental church had separated from the
Roman church, protests against clerical priest rule became ever louder
especially in the Germanic region. They finally took place in the Reformation,
which through its depth is separated by a whole world from oriental sectarianism
and from the great eastern religious schism.
This Germanic protest against the Roman Church also
did not, admittedly, bring the return to God’s natural laws. But it showed the
way to a further decline of priest power. Today it is splintered in hundreds of
sects and church groups. The ground is again free for the life-order prepared by
Providence, for the healthy further development of God’s work of creation.
In the life of folks, millennia often play a tiny
role. Seen from this view, denominationalism resembles a healing poison that
clots the forces of decay in the Germanic world and stimulates the natural
forces of the blood to new work and development. Germans can now put aside this
poison with gratitude toward Providence. It has fulfilled its task and again
brought recovery; further use could lead to death.
The Political Doctrine
of Denominationalism
At this time, two large churches and about 300 small
sects exist in Germany. All these denominations have their central in Rome,
Oxford, Boston or somewhere else outside the Reich.
All members of the respective denominations are
brothers among themselves, regardless, whether they are by race Jews, Negroes,
Slays or Chinese. The race problem is solved for the church through baptism.
Through the water of baptism, the Jew and Negro can become brothers with any
church-faithful Nordic or other race person.
The person living totally by the laws of the order of
creations feels himself, on the other hand, obligated first of all to his folk
comrades.
He knows that God has placed him in a specific folk,
with which he is, inwardly and outwardly, totally and unconditionally bound. The
natural, folkish world thereby clearly and distinctly contrasts to the churchly,
universalistic, supra- governmental world. One can best visualize the whole,
unbridgeable chasm, which separates both these views from each other, if one
considers that for a believing Catholic a syphilitic Negro child, if it has been
baptized, must be worth much more than a – racially in every way highly valuable
– child, that has not had the water of baptism poured over it.
For the church believers, the laws of the church are
the highest norms and mean the most sacred obligation for them. Any other law is
only valid insofar as it does not stand in contradiction to the laws of the
church. Any oath is only binding, if it can be reconciled with the regulations
of church morality.
The violation of state regulations can hence, from the
standpoint of the folkish state, be a crime, and from the standpoint of the
church a pleasing to God, yes, even a sacred obligation.
The preacher who agitates against state regulations
from his pulpit, the monks and nuns who damage the public wealth by millions
through their currency smuggling, feel themselves in their conscience completely
free of guilt. They have performed a service to the church through their
actions. And if they receive the punishment due them according to the state
laws, they feel themselves as martyrs of the church and not as pests of the
folk.
According to the Reich concordat of July 20, 1933, the
bishops swear an oath of loyalty to the Reich before the representative of the
state. At the same time, they swear in the hand of the Pope’s representative the
so-called bishop’s oath, through which they obligate themselves to promote and
increase the Pope’s power, and to the best of their ability to persecute and
combat all false doctrines, heretics, all who resist the Pope’s power.
They swear both oaths with a clear conscience, because
the oath of loyalty toward their folk only obligates them, after all, insofar as
it does not stand in contradiction to the oath of loyalty toward the Pope.
According to the church view, the official, the lawyer, the soldier and the
worker – in his whole bearing and his manner of action – is ultimately bound to
the regulations of his church morality. For the folkish person, there can be
only one obligation, which is placed upon him by the law of his blood, the
obligation toward his folk.
A Catholic customs official, for example, who is
inwardly a convinced follower of his doctrine, must come into an inner conflict,
if he is supposed to hinder a Catholic nun from currency smuggling. A police
official, who may be convinced of the doctrine of a Bible researcher, must try
to protect and cover the anti-state activity of this sect by every means.
Even state leadership itself is, according to the
church view, bound to church morality in all its measures.
A state leadership that does not totally submit to the
doctrines of Catholicism, the Protestant front of faith, the Adventists or some
other religious community, will be rejected and combatted by the representatives
of this church or sect.
So the Catholic Church fundamentally claims for itself
the right to depose heads of state who stand in opposition to the church, and
down to the present time it has also achieved this claim several times.
The churches and sects raise the claim that they must
permeate and fill with their spirit all spheres of public life, of economic,
cultural and political life. They raise a claim of totality in all spheres of
life.
The churches and sects claim that ultimately the
decision must belong to them, which publications may be made public, which
creations of art are reconcilable with their moral bearing and are hence
acceptable for the public, which films and radio programs are desirable and
allowed.
The most diverse church leaderships have hence
employed their own commissions and work groups for censorship of press and
magazines, for work in film and radio programs, for the arts. In the same
manner, according to the church view, all spheres of science stand under the
strict censorship of the church hierarchy.
The churches raise the same claim in the economic
sphere. Pope Leo XIII., for example, and Pope Pius XI have issued explicit
guidelines to the faithful about the ordering of economic life from the Catholic
perspective. Ultimately, according to these demands, every economic order must
be somehow adapted to God’s kingdom, which, according to view of the respective
priesthood, is realized in their church.
The churches demand that the youth in the schools are
not only given religious instructions in the church doctrines; they also demand
that the youth – in history class, homeland class, German class –should become
acquainted with German nature, German history and German homeland from the
Catholic, Evangelic, Baptist or whatever perspective.
From the standpoint of the folkish worldview, the
whole shaping of all life spheres should primarily consider the well-being of
the folk, must therefore above all be guided by the natural laws of blood and
not by the norms of a supra- governmental power.
The deep chasm between denominational life and folkish
life then expresses itself in the different view of the individual
manifestations and things of this life.
According to the church view, this life is a valley of
woe from which man is supposed to save himself in a better beyond.
Every Catholic priest, for example, must after every
mass recite a prayer, in which it is stated: “To you we cry, we miserable
children of Eve, to you we sob, mourning and crying in this valley of tears.”
The naturally thinking person is pleased with this
life, stubbornly clings tight to it and puts himself with both feet in this
life. When he wanders through God’s wonderful creation and experiences the
mountains and forests and lakes of his homeland, he is proud of this homeland,
which is sacred ground to him. Then he stands silent full of admiration before
the omnipotence of the divine, then he is happy and glad, and does not have the
feeling that he strides through a valley of woe.
Work, according to the church view, is a result of the
original sin of the first human beings, Adam and Eve. It weighs like a curse on
the human being.
For a German there can be nothing more beautiful and
nothing more great than to be allowed to employ the whole strength of his
personality in tenacious work for his family, his folk and his homeland. If he
creates something great, then he is far from the thought that he has carried out
this work under the curse of original sin.
From the hereditary nobility of his blood, Nordic man
comes to the special emphasis of honor in his moral bearing. The concept of
honor is one of the most important aspects of life-formation. Therefore, the
honor of fellow man also means a lot to him. It is hence a basic trait of human
leadership among Nordic men that they likewise seek to make those entrusted to
their leadership proud, free, honor- conscious members of the folk community.
The church world works in the exact opposite
direction. With the help of original sin and fear of hell, with the help of
confession and sermon, people are kept small and base and cowed by the
priesthood. The feeling is bred in people by every means that they are pitiful,
inferior and guilt-laden earthworms.
The contrast between the church and folkish word shows
itself in a similar manner in all spheres, in the attitude toward joy and life,
in the position on woman, in the position on family and marriage, war and peace
etc..
The church claims the shaping of private and public
life, in every area, based on its bearing.
German man guides himself in everything according to
the life-laws given him by God. For him the divine is thereby a component of his
life-view. He advances no doctrines and dogmas about the beyond, because nobody
can pronounce sure facts about it. But he also contests the right claimed by the
church servants that they possess special jurisdiction and special knowledge
about the beyond. Hence there is no debate doctrines of the beyond for him. All
the more clearly and distinct can he replace the political-worldview doctrines
of the church will his own worldview corresponding to the laws of creation.
The Power System of
Catholicism
The various churches and sects possess an organization
tested in centuries, which they have to the greatest part taken over from the
old Roman Imperium and expanded into a mighty system of power.
This system of power is without doubt most dense and
effective in the Catholic Church.
At the head of the world power stands the Pope. He is
the ruler over the whole church. He presents himself to his believers as God’s
sole representative on earth and claims for himself infallibility in all matters
of faith and morality. Since practically all things in life can somehow be
brought into connection with faith and morality, his infallibility thus extends
into all spheres of life.
The first great net of the Pope’s coworkers, which
runs through the world, is the thick net of the church hierarchy, the church
priesthood. Basically, only bachelors can belong to the federation of priests.
Individually, the church distinguishes between a
consecration hierarchy and a government hierarchy. The consecration hierarchy
contains four lower grades, an intermediate grade and three higher grades.
Through certain ceremonies - for example, cutting off the hair cluster on the
back of the head by a bishop - one is accepted into this consecration hierarchy.
Over the course of their history, the four lower grades have lost their original
special significance. They only have a formal character and are called Ostiarait
(Office of the Door-Closer), Lektorat (Office of the Reciter), Akolythat (Office
of the Candle Carrier) and Exoszistat (Office of the Devil Conjurer).
The Subdiakonat then leads over to the three higher
consecration grades, the Diakonat (Diakonen Office), Presbyterat (Priest Office)
and Episkopat (Bishop Office). The members of this consecration hierarchy have
the right to carry out the respective authority of consecration owed them
(bestowing the various sacraments).
Much more important for the churchly system of power,
however, is the churchly government hierarchy. For a certain portion of the
members of this government hierarchy, membership in certain grades of the
consecration hierarchy is a prerequisite. The government hierarchy is divided
into the participants of the papal authority, namely the holders of a
jurisdiction derived from the Pope. To this first class of the churchly
government or administrative hierarchy belong the cardinals, legates, primates,
archbishops, apostolic vicars and prefects and apostolic administrators.
The participants in the bishopric government authority
are, above all, the members of the bishopric hierarchy and cathedral capital,
the diocese-consultors, deans, priests, priest-vicars and church rectors.
For the direction and administration of the whole
church, an extensive administrative apparatus in the papal authority stands at
the Pope’s side. The whole churchly power of the whole Catholic world church is
brought together here in the Vatican in the papal authority.
From here, the corresponding guidelines in all spheres
of life are sent out to the world church. The most important problems are
processed in twelve Vatican ministries, the so-called cardinal congregations.
The faith police or the Inquisition Ministry has the
greatest importance and the greatest prestige inside this churchly
administration, in churchly terminology called Holy Office.
All questions of church doctrine and moral issues
belong to the jurisdiction of this ministry.
One of the main tasks of these faith police is the
churchly book censorship (index) and the observation and punishment of heretics.
The papal consistorial congregation concerns itself
with the establishment and assignment of archbishoprics, free abbeys and
prelatures in those lands where the regular church organization has already been
carried out. At the same time, this church ministry is the personnel department
for the selection, checking and naming of the bishops in those lands in which
the bishop appointment must not be negotiated with the respective government on
the basis of concordat agreements.
The entire supervision of all bishops of the Latin
rite and the checking of their five- year reports also fall to this central
church office. In these five-year reports the bishops must – following a
detailed question scheme – report about the entire life, about the economic
situation, about the general conditions of the folk life etc. in their
bishoprics. They hence provide the sovereign of a foreign power important
material for the evaluation of the general political conditions in their
homeland.
The Vatican Eastern Ministry, the so-called oriental
congregation, concerns itself with the affairs of the oriental church
communities united with Rome. It is especially the task of this Eastern
Department of the Vatican to prepare the reunification of the separated eastern
churches with Rome. All efforts, publications, assemblies, congresses, education
institutes that serve this purpose stand under the direction of this oriental
congregation.
The sacraments congregation decides in all sacramental
questions, it especially issues freedom from marriage hindrances.
The council congregation checks the files of the
plenary and provincial councils and of the diocese synods. At the same time, the
supervision of the office management and life conduct of the lower clergy falls
under it.
The order congregation must perform the central
direction of all order communities of the world. What the head of this Vatican
Order Ministry commands, is hence binding for the monks and nuns of the
individual lands of the world. Not what their natural, blood-determined feeling,
not what the well-being of their folk demands from them, rather what this
supra-governmental, Vatican Missionary Ministry demands from them, is for them a
sacred obligation.
The Vatican Propaganda Ministry or the congregation of
faiths cares for the dissemination of church doctrine in the individual
missionary lands of the world. The activity of this office is shown by the fact
that in the years 1922 through 1935 alone 170 missionary bishoprics were newly
founded. The head of the Vatican Propaganda Ministry is considered one of the
most powerful personalities in the papal authority. In the popular vernacular he
is called the “Red Pope”.
The papal rite congregation is responsible for the
shaping of church liturgy. Aside from that, it functions as the court for the
proceedings of pronouncing blessed and sacred. If one considers that a
proceeding of pronouncing sacred costs a few hundred thousand marks, and that at
the present time alone about 500 such proceedings are underway, then one also
simultaneously grasps the financial significance of this congregation.
The ceremony congregation is charged with the
regulation of etiquette at the papal court.
The congregation of extraordinary churchly affairs
processes the most important church-political matters in the closest cooperation
with the papal state secretary. The papal Education Ministry represents the
congregation for seminaries and universities. It concerns itself with all the
study activity for the training of new clerics, with the Catholic colleges, the
Catholic cultivation of science and the churchly research institutes.
The congregation of the church administration of St.
Peter processes all matters connected to the financial and general
administration of the central church of Catholicism.
Aside from these twelve Vatican ministries, there are
still six Vatican special offices and three Vatican courts. Among the special
offices, first place is held by the apostolic chancellery, in which the papal
edicts and breves are prepared.
The apostolic datary is responsible for the bestowal
of benefices, which is reserved to the Pope. The apostolic chamber represents
the papal financial administration. The head of this office is also charged with
the task of taking care of the Pope’s burial and makes the technical
arrangements for the election of the Pope.
The most important office among these special offices
is the papal state secretary, whose head is the cardinal state secretary, who is
simultaneously practically the minister-president and foreign minister of the
world church. The cardinal state secretary is responsible for all church
politics and is simultaneously the Pope’s representative.
It is hence characteristic for the structure of the
church authority that the Pope’s representative is not the cardinal responsible
for means of mercy or religious instruction, rather the head of Vatican
politics.
The state secretariat is divided into three sections:
the first section concerns itself with actual church politics, above all with
the conclusion of concordats.
The second section is responsible for the bestowal of
papal titles and decorations. The third section takes care of the delivery of
important papal documents.
The press organ of the state secretary is the
“Osservatore Romano”, the Vatican daily newspaper.
The last of the six Vatican special offices are the
secretariat of breves to the rulers and the secretariat of Latin letters.
Three papal courts head the supreme church judiciary.
The apostolic on lessor grants or refuses reversal of excommunications reserved
to the Pope and administers the church dispensations.
The apostolic signature is the highest church court,
which above all decides formal questions about the conduct of proceedings.
The “Rota Romana” is the actual papal court for
marital matters.
There are also a series of commissions at the Vatican
for certain matters. For example, the commission for Russia, the commission for
the interpretation of the church law book, the commission for the codification
of oriental church law, the Bulgata commission, the Bible commission, the
archeological commission, the papal central commission for church art in Italy,
the commission for the art treasures of the Holy Seat, the crest commission and
the papal finance commission.
An extensive administrative apparatus hence serves the
whole church of the world at the papal authority of the central government. The
structure of this authority proves that the church does not merely occupy itself
with purely religious questions, rather that it aims at the conquest of the
whole world.
Its own papal nuncios are established at the state
governments as the papal seat’s officially responsible representatives. They are
the Vaticans diplomatic representatives and have the same rights as the
emissaries of whatever worldly states.
At this time such papal nuncios exist at about thirty
national governments, namely in Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, San
Domingo, Chile, Columbia, Costa-Rica / Nicaragua, Cuba, Germany, Estonia,
France, Haiti, Honduras-San Salvador, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Yugoslavia,
Latvia, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary
and Venezuela.
In the countries where the Vatican has not yet been
able to achieve open diplomatic representatives, so-called apostolic delegations
are often set up as the Pope’s internal church emissaries. Such delegations are
found in England, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, the United States of North
America, Egypt, Bulgaria, Greece, Iraq, Persia, Syria, Turkey, Central Africa,
Australia, China, Japan, Indo-China, East India, the South African Union and in
the Congo colony.
Inside the individual countries the church is divided
into church provinces and bishoprics. At the head of each church province stands
the archbishop. At the head of the bishopric or diocese stands the bishop.
Today, the archbishops basically only have an honorary
advantage over the bishops. In governmental powers, aside from the leadership of
the provincial councils, they are just entitled to the performance of certain
official bishop actions, if the diocese bishop does not perform the duties of
his office. The courts of the archbishop authority function as courts, the
second appeal aside from the bishop court.
The bishops are the Pope’s representatives for their
office region. The bishops owe accountability for their work to the Pope. They
swear an oath to him. His orders are higher for them than the orders of any
state leadership. The duties toward the Pope are more important to them than the
duties toward their folk community.
Their own administrative apparatus stands at the
disposal of the bishops, which are designated as bishop authority or bishop
ordinary. The representative of the bishop in the performance of consecration
authority is the consecration bishop, in the performance of governmental
authority the general vicar and in the performance of the judiciary the bishop
ecclesiastical official.
His own official experts (usually cathedral
capitularies and cathedral vicars) are entrusted with the individual work areas.
There exist in the individual ordinaries their own officials for youth work,
influencing males, spiritual care for women, churchly finances, the church’s
cultural work, the church press, church rallies and assemblies, church
educational work and exercises etc.. His own bishop chancellery, diocese archive
and a bishop secret archive, a bishop finance chamber, a bishop literature
commission and similar institutions complete the official administrative
apparatus of a bishop.
The next agent of the bishop inside the diocese is the
dean, dean or archpriest. He is the bishop’s eyes and ears, to whom falls the
whole observation and monitoring of life in his area. Fifteen to thirty parishes
are united under one dean.
The parish represents the outpost of the church priest
apparatus. In larger parishes, the priest again has at his disposal his own
assistant priests, chaplains, cooperators, preachers and catechists. The
election of the Pope falls to the cardinal council. General or world councils
make important decisions in questions of faith and morals, provincial and
diocese synods bring important contemporary events to discussion.
The Fulda bishop’s conference was created to assure a
unified political of the whole German episcopate. The Fulda bishop’s conference
has no juristic powers. It is simply about uniformly aligning all the German
bishops and to consider common tactical action in certain questions.
Numerous laymen stand as valuable coworkers at the
side of the priest hierarchy, who are simultaneously the holders of whatever
papal honors and decorations. Every country is covered with a net of papal
secret chamberlains and honorary chamberlains, who are usually big
industrialists, nobles, important politicians or otherwise influential
personalities of public life. Priests who have served the Vatican especially
well receive the honorary title of protonotar, papal house prelates or
monsignor.
In times when the Vatican turns a special eye to a
certain folk, an especially abundant blessing of orders and a river of papal
decorations usually also flows down to that country.
Aside from the priesthood, Catholic orders represent
the second great net of the churchly power system.
While the priesthood is structured similarly among the
various denominations, the orders are preserved in this form essentially only in
the Catholic Church, where it has, above all, found entry from African
tnonkhood. Only insignificant attempts for the introduction of its own orders
exist in the Protestant church.
The supreme leadership of all orders lies in the hand
of the papal Eastern Ministry. Aside from that, each order has its own general
chief as the representative of the order at the papal seat. The characteristics
of the essence of Catholicism find expression in a very special way in the
Catholic orders. The orders are also supposed to be, after all, in a very
special way the assault troops of the church for the conquest of the whole
world.
The order societies bring the church’s
supra-government bearing most clearly to expression. All blood ties to the
relatives, all love for homeland and fatherland must be cast off by the order
members and make way for the love of the supra- governmental order society. In I
art, they devote themselves more to the education of the youth, like school
brothers and school sisters, in part they try, by means of medical care, to win
people for the church, like the Merciful Brothers and Merciful Sisters. Other
order societies concern themselves more with the conquest of the rural people,
like the capuchin monks, for folk missions, like the Nedemptorians, for the
nurturing of general cultural lite, like the Benedictine friars, or the
influencing of important personalities, like the Jesuits.
Extensive economic enterprises, breweries and liquor
factories, sawmills, workshops, electric works, bakeries, shoemaker shops,
tailor shops, slaughterhouses, mills, large agricultural holdings etc. are often
the property of the most diverse cloisters. The monks and nuns are active in all
areas of public life, in art and culture, science and literature, school and
education.
Through their special three-fold oath, the order
members are bound to the churchly supreme leadership in a very special way. In
the Greater German Reich over a hundred thousand monks and nuns form a battle
troop for the power efforts of the church.
As an additional thick net in the intricate power
system of Catholicism, extensive church clubs cover the whole world. Thousands
of diverse denominational clubs seek to encompass and influence the masses of
the folk, to win them for the church or to keep them for the church.
In the cultural area there are their own churchly film
and radio associations, denominational artist and art organizations, economic
associations of the church, educational associations, clubs for press and
literature, for artists and jurists, in short, for everything in the cultural
area. In the same way, the church has organized its own professional clubs in
the various countries for workers and merchants, for officials and clerks, for
journeymen and master craftsmen, for sailors, hotel employees, automobile
drivers and airplane pilots.
The church has always especially turned its eye toward
its denominational youth organizations. Aside from that, there exist the
church’s own charitable and its own economic associations. Next to these clubs
likewise serving the conquest of the whole of public life, the purely religious
prayer clubs and churchly brotherhoods, are very secondary.
But in various countries the church has had, for
tactical reasons, to again and again resort to downsizing, camouflaging or
temporarily eliminating this great apparatus of ultimately political clubs.
The Catholic Action with its laymen apostolate was
then built up as a substitute for the churchly clubs, which especially in recent
years declined ever more.
This Catholic Action does not have the rigid character
of a club with firm membership. It is instead a loose union of the most active
fighters for the church’s supremacy. All Catholics – who somewhere at an exposed
spot exert themselves for the church’s interests – are carriers of this Catholic
Action and participate as lay apostles in the priesthood’s hierarchical
apostolate.
The Evangelic church and various sects have created
parallel battle troops in their community helpers and similar organizations.
With this dense power system the church has previously
managed to gain great influence over the masses. In previous centuries, a person
could hardly escape this churchly net of human influence. From the cradle to the
grave, a human being was exposed to this churchly influence. Whatever threads
led from all life situations and occupational groups to this church system. This
dense net reached into the smallest towns, and even in the largest cities, the
poorest neighborhoods and the most prominent houses were not safe against the
tentacles of this power. Like a great spider web, this church power sat over the
folks and carefully watched out so that no human being should escape its net.
The Church’s Political
Methods of Conquest
All methods that whatever political power applied in
whatever time for the influencing and conquest of human beings and folks, were
also adopted and administered by the church as well over the course of history.
It has proven in every century that in its methods it differs in no way from the
general political powers.
Wherever the church was in possession of power, it has
in every time used the methods of brutal force. In Verden on the Aller and in
Cannstadt, in Stedingen or at the time of the various religious wars, in
missionary work among the most diverse folks and in the most diverse centuries –
millions of people have fallen victim to the church. In the medieval witch
trials, hundreds of thousands of German women and girls, as the carriers of
German blood and German worldview, were burned by the church as witnesses and
executed. Hundreds of thousands of other people were often destroyed humanly and
psychologically through the applications of the most brutal means, the most
horrible economic boycotts and psychological subjugation.
Wherever the church was in possession of power, in has
in every time also worked through open politics, it has always dropped its
religious cloak and openly shown itself to the world as political power. One
does not just have to remember medieval church politics, one can also just
remember the church’s political parties before 1933. The Catholic prelates of
the church sat as delegates of the political parties – Prelate Las and Ulitzka,
Linneborn and Schreiber, Schofer and Leicht, Scharnagel, Wohlmuth, Eggersdorfer,
Lohr etc. – and often waged their fight against National Social together with
the Marxist parties.
Today as well, the Vatican very distinctly shows
itself as a political power that has its representatives in the most diverse
countries of the world, and that the Pope’s first representative is the head of
Vatican politics.
Wherever the church is in possession of power, it
sometimes goes over to active resistance against state authority. Repeatedly,
Popes and bishops have deposed kings and rulers and released their subjects from
the oath of obedience toward the state authorities. Repeatedly, the church’s
representatives have incited to active resistance against the state authority.
Wherever the church did not feel itself in possession
of power, it naturally applies more sly methods for the achievement of its
goals.
The church shows itself especially skillful in the
execution of passive resistance, regardless, whether it shows itself in economic
sabotage, in moral boycott or in some other form. Frequently, the church’s
passive resistance is hard to get a hold of juristically. It is often very
difficult to prove that the Catholic chaplain beat the “Pimpf’ [Hitler Youth
boy] merely because he is in the “Jungvolk”; one usually cannot prove that the
Catholic teacher suddenly gave bad marks to a girl merely because she is in the
“BDM” [Federation of German Girls]. But a hundred such similar experiences show
that this here is practically silent sabotage on a small scale. In the political
struggle, one suddenly stands as if before a cold wind that is almost
insurmountable. One often encounters icy rejection and only at closer
examination determines that here passive resistance instigated by the church is
being practiced. Many a political fighter has been economically ruined by this
passive resistance, by this silent sabotage work by church circles, many an
honest man has become a social outcast through moralistic battue-beating under
the church’s influence.
Another method with which the church works is the
method of camouflage. The Jesuits have developed into masters of camouflage over
the course of history. They are often camouflaged outwardly. In their order rule
it is stated that the Jesuits should wear whatever clothing is especially
conducive to the execution of a special task. If it is especially conducive to
the execution of a given task, the Jesuit goes about like a fine gentleman in
tuxedo and cylinder, as merchant or as sports-man or in whatever uniform.
Hundreds of examples from past and produce can be produced for this.
When the Pope once formulated the plan to subjugate
China to his power, it sent a whole detachment of Jesuits there. They appeared
in the colorful garb of the Chinese mandarins, as mathematicians, as engineers,
and reformed the Chinese calendar and taught the Chinese how to forge canon.
When the Pope formulated the plan to make Queen Christine of Sweden Catholic, he
sent two Jesuits to Sweden, who officially visited Sweden as Italian nobles for
the purpose of study. The Jesuit Possevino travelled disguised as a noble,
dagger at his side, double-pointed hat under arm, on secret papal assignment,
and the Jesuit Abraham de Georgiis presented himself as an Armenian merchant.
Under a thousand masks, in all the disguises one can
image, Jesuits have been active in every time. The newer order societies have
learned this method of camouflage from them. The women of the house of Nazareth,
for example, have their members – after taking the triple order oath – turn up
days as factory workers or as clerical workers in offices in order to gain the
corresponding influence over their work comrades and over public life.
Today one can see monks and nuns in civilian clothes walking the cities’
streets on whatever church assignment.
But the church does not just work in the personnel
camouflage, it puts much more effort in the hypothetical camouflage of its
actual goals. Today it often tries to conceal its political intentions and
supra-governmental goals behind Christian humanitarianism, behind social
caregiving or concern for ethnicity [folkdom], behind promotion of the economy
and of cultural life etc..
The church has displayed very special skill in the
camouflage of its organizations and its financial apparatus. Under harmless,
general designations are often hidden mighty church enterprises and powerful
church positions.
Another method of church politics is the method of
adaptation, which in the theological vernacular is called the accommodation
method. The church here bases itself on the words of the Apostle Paul, who in
one of his letters said: “I have become everything to every-body.” By this
method of clever adaption, the church overcame ancient Greece, by this method it
annexed the Germanic Middle Ages. It simply took over old German custom and then
gradually gave it a different, a churchly, meaning.
In this method as well, above all the Jesuits have
displayed special skill. They have even gone so far that in the now famous
accommodation conflict the Franciscans and the Dominicans appeared as the
Jesuits most bitter opponents and accused them of treason against the church.
The conflict between the supporters and opponents of churchly accommodation went
back and forth for almost 200 years, until finally a Pope rejected the Jesuit
accommodation method. Only in the most recent time has the church, after an
official decision of the papal propaganda congregation, against resorted to this
method.
After 1933, the representatives of the church have
often tried to outwardly adapt to National Socialist ideas and National
Socialist concepts. One could suddenly read proclamations to join the bodyguard
of Christ and the prayer companies of the Catholic Action. Its own membership
cards were printed for prayer company X of the Kolping family in Cologne. In
sermons, heavenly hereditary farmsteads, heavenly work service and heavenly work
front were suddenly mentioned. In a foreword to pious songs it was written: “May
these songs give you all strength and joy”. Whereas previously the church’s
saints were only portrayed as patient souls and sacrificial souls, one suddenly
presented them as heroic people and heroic figures. Whereas one previously could
hear about the crying women along Christ’s way of the Cross, suddenly the
mothers of heroes were mentioned as Christ’s battle comrades. The leadership
concept was suddenly applied to the bishops and soldierly language suddenly
became the language of the church clubs.
This church adaption went especially far in church
celebrations. Over the course of the last years, choruses, battle songs and oath
ceremonies have been integrated into these celebrations, so that church events
practically became political demonstrations. In part, one even went so far as to
outwardly adapt in terms of ideas as well. One suddenly says that the church
also represents a positive race doctrine, a positive anti-Semitism etc..
The church works with the method of decomposition in a
very special way. It endeavors to get its confidants, its laymen apostles or
community helpers in all important positions of public life. The goal of the
church efforts is to get to the point where there is a layman apostle or
community helper of the church in every house block, in every plant, in every
office, who must there learn everything that happens in this house block, in
this plant, in this office. If a new family moves into a house block, this
layman apostle or community helper must ascertain this family’s attitude toward
the church, whether a young, newly moved in married couple got married in
church, which organizations it belongs to, which newspapers it reads, which
circle of acquaintances it has, which possibilities of influence it is open to.
All this information is then evaluated for the parish card index, so that the
parish can immediately see at a glance at his parish card index what the
external church situation looks like on a certain street, in a certain part of
the town.
In the plants and offices of public life, these laymen
apostles must observe which officials or important personalities of this area
are open to the church’s work and which reject the church. They must ascertain
the mood among the workers and clerks and special events. If then difficult
conditions someday emerge somewhere and as a result the morale has temporarily
fallen somewhat, then the churches know immediately that they can exploit this
situation for themselves, that now the people are especially receptive to their
whispers.
In part, these community helpers and layman apostles
behave 300% state-loyal and folk-bound. They participate in every assembly,
never miss roll-call, punctually pay their dues, are everywhere found in the
foremost ranks at every rally, but always just have their eyes and ears wide
open in order to learn as much as possible, to experience as much as possible,
in order to then be able to inform their church positions. One often counters
people who are correct to the extreme on the job, of whom one cannot prove the
slightest outward offense, but with whom one always has an unpleasant feeling,
of whom one senses that something is not right with them, that somehow the inner
bond with them is lacking.
But there are always people who constantly just
complain and criticize, who everywhere only see the negative and dark side, upon
whom an impression is only made by whatever is not completely in order, whatever
has not yet achieved its ideal condition. In every person and every institution
they see the dark side; only in the church do they see light and goodness. These
people seek to influence their fellow human beings, that they should only
entrust their children to the church, because there alone the salvation of their
soul and their moral purity is assured. They seek to influence their work
colleagues to only take their vacation trips with church travel associations,
that they pay their charitable donations solely to church charitable
institutions, that they only read the church press, because one only finds the
truth there. These people try by all means to alienate their fellow human beings
from the folk community and lead them to the church. Everywhere, they are
collection points of decomposition, complaining and dissatisfaction, they are
pests against the folk.
Another political method of the church is the method
of encirclement. In domestic politics and in foreign affairs, the church has
tried again and again to throttle the German folk and encircle it with a block
of opponents. In the years 1919-1933, the church’s political delegates tried by
every means, with the help of Marxists and democrats, to prevent the German
folk’s folkish awakening and to suffocate the folkish forces in the German folk.
But especially since 1933, the church strives to work with the most diverse
other state enemies in order to form a unified block against the National
Socialist worldview.
The church works with Jewry. After all, due to its
fundamental position toward Jewry, a close bond between church and Jewry is
clear from the start. The founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius von Loyola,
expressed this bond with these words: “I would consider myself lucky, if I were
a Jew, for I would then, after all, be a blood brother of Jesus Christ and of
the holy virgin Mary.”
Close personnel entanglements exist in all countries
between Church and Jewry. Important Jesuits and leading personalities of the
church were in the most diverse times pure-blood Jews, and even today priests
and pastors who are pure-blood Jews are active on both the Catholic and the
Evangelic side.
A specific publication for the hypothetical
cooperation between church and Jewry was founded in the years after 1933 under
the protectorate of Viennese Cardinal Innitzer, which has the pretty title “The
Fulfillment”, and whose circle of coworker consists of Catholics, Protestants
and Jews. No less close is the economic cooperation between church and Jewry. On
both the Catholic and the Evangelical side, a special assistance committee for
needy non-Aryans was founded, and the German and the American episcopate have
untied into an especially close work association for the support of poor
non-Aryans.
Freemasonry as well was used by the church for its
political work. Numerous influential pastors were – up to 1933 – members of
what-ever Freemason lodges, numerous pastors were even high-level Free-masons.
But the Catholic Church as well created a communications line to Freemasonry
through the Congress of Aachen.
For the achievement of its political goals, the church
does not shun the coworkers of Marxism. The trial against the Dusseldorf
Catholic Chaplain Rossaint produced proof that in part the very closest
communication existed between Church organizations and Marxist circles.
Visa-versa, readiness for cooperation with the church in the struggle against
the folkish movement also revealed itself on the Marxist side.
A unified front is often formed by the church
emigrants and the other Marxist or Jewish emigrants. The Protestant theology
professor Barth, the Catholic Jesuit priest-monk Friedrich Muckermann, the
Catholic emigrant Dietrich von Hildebrandt and the most diverse other church
emigrants have in recent years, in the vileness and depravity of their agitation
against Germany, in no way stood behind the worst Jewish filth.
The churches have managed to harness for their
purposes even mutually opposing political directions. They work with Marxist
elements in the same way as with reactionary and monarchist circles.
The church endeavors just as much for Germany’s
world-political encirclement. It was one of the successes of Vatican diplomacy
that the French-Russian alliance against Germany came about as a preparation for
the World War. And especially after 1933, the Vatican has striven to forge
France, England, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States and the Balkan states
into a firm ring against Germany. World Protestantism, however, has – from
England and America – stirred up the agitation against Germany and thereby
worked hand in hand with the Third Reich’s international opponents.
So one could list all other methods that were ever
employed by a political power in the political struggle and simultaneously prove
the utilization of each of these methods by the church. A religious power, which
presents itself as a purely religious movement, but seeks to achieve its goal
primarily with political methods, can no longer be viewed as a purely religious
community. Just as the church wages the fight against the folkish state and
against the folkish worldview with all political methods, so must the folkish
state defend itself against these attacks with all political means.
The church has tried to then interpret this as
religious persecution and persecution of faith and publicly brand it as such.
There are only a few people who still fall for this lamentation of the church.
Today the eyes of the world, and especially of folkish-thinking people, have
been opened, they know the church’s political battle methods. An opponent whose
battle methods are known is only half as dangerous; a church that has lost its
appearance of holiness, and whose political methods are clearly recognized, is
completely disarmed. One no longer believes it that it’s about religion, it is
evaluated objectively and soberly and treated like a political power.
The Psychological
Means of Human Influence by the Priesthood
Due to their almost 2000 years of experience, the
churches possess tremendous skill in influencing people. All the laws of
individual psychology and of mass psychology are known to the priesthood. In a
long, 14 year training, the priests are systematically introduced to the secrets
of handling people.
One of the principles of psychology is that man is not
a rational being of reason, rather he simultaneously has a spirit, a mood, a
feeling. A person hence also wants to see, hear, experience something and to
himself act. Parades and pilgrimages, church buildings and church liturgy are
built upon this viewpoint. For the simple country woman from the Eifel or
Bavarian-Austria, who during the whole week only knows work and effort and who
is hard at work from earliest morning until late in the evening, the Sunday
religious service forms an inner change of scenery in her life. The pretty
church building with the rich stucco and the colorful paintings, the altar with
the gold and silver decoration and the burning candles, the priest’s mass robes
with the pretty points and gold-braid, the scent of incense, the organ music and
the choir song, the priest’s sermon, all that works together in order to portray
a psychological experience in her work week. That is especially true for the
solemn Easter service, the Corpus Christi procession or the Christmas service.
Many people only know church life, know no other
celebration, no other recreation, know no film and no radio, no theater and no
big folk festival. Many people especially know no natural holiday joy and are
hence totally under the spell of this church liturgy.
Another law of psychology is that human life does not
play out in a straight line, rather in a constant up and down of happy times and
serious hours, in a constant rhythm. The natural cycle of seasons, the
alteration of spring, summer, autumn and winter, the summer solstice and the
winter solstice, the celebrations of name- giving and marriage and funerals, as
well as the celebration of the folk’s historical days of remembrance, represent
the natural rhythm of life. The church has opposed this natural cycle of
celebrations with the artificial cycle of its church year. Over the course of
centuries it has managed to turn the Christmas holiday and the Easter holiday,
Lent and Advent, the up and down of church holidays and the serious church times
into the life rhythm of the folk. Through this artificial life rhythm, an alien,
largely orient derived world is brought into the folk’s life, the folk’s life
rhythm is filled with oriental content.
As much as the church has subjugated the nation, as
much as the church seeks to impose the curse of original sin upon nature, just
as much does it seek, on the other hand, to also exploit peoples’ invincible joy
in nature for its human influence. Field crosses and forest chapels, valley
processions and forest religious services, herb blessing, horse blessing, cattle
blessing, fire consecration and flower decoration, all that ultimately only
serves the goal to lead people along this detour to the church’s power and the
church’s influence.
Another experience of psychology is that people are
especially easy to influence, if they are relaxed and excited by whatever great
joy or great suffering. At a marriage or baptism, the priest can get a lot
across to people at the baptism feast or the wedding feast, which he would
otherwise never manage. At a burial, he can extract from the deeply moved family
members many a promise about religious education of children or funding of
masses and similar things. When somebody has become tired in a long illness, and
his psychological and physical strength is exhausted, it is often very easy for
a tender nun, as a nurse, to assert her psychological influence and to lead the
ill person to the church.
Another common human experience is that the drowning
man grasps at anything that could save him. This is also true of psychological
distresses. The priesthood hence often seeks to systematically bring people into
psychological conflicts and psychological distress in order to make them
dependent on them in this way.
The most valuable German youth is systematically
ruined psychologically in this manner. Hundreds of thousands of German women and
girls in confession are driven into conflicts in order to be chained to the
power hungry priesthood.
Over centuries of systematic influence, man has been
inoculated with a yearning for miracles and a belief in miracles. Many people no
longer rely on the natural forces of life and no longer trust in God’s natural
laws, they always expect supernatural, extraordinary and miraculous
interventions by the creator. This faith in miracles and this yearning for
miracles by people is systemically nurtured and again and again stimulated anew
in countless pilgrimage locations, in the honoring of impossible relics, in the
sale of frocks, medallions and other souvenirs with allegedly miraculous powers;
the people are in this way led again and again to the church’s sites of mercy.
Nordic man loves the heroic, loves struggle and
resistance against an opponent. This inner bearing is promoted by the church
especially among young people. The martyrdom disposition and the heroic attitude
against the state – which is presented to them as opponent – is systematically
called forth. In sermons and religious services, at church assemblies
and pilgrimages, this martyrdom disposition is artificially produced with
intricate psychological skill, the heroic ideal of German man is hence put on a
false track.
Much unnaturalness, anti-naturalness and hence
inferiority is produced among diverse people by the churches through the fight
against the sterilization law, through celibacy, through hysterical
manifestations among stigmatics on the Catholic side as well as among the most
diverse sects. But people who are not self-aware, who constantly live with
feelings of inferiority, who always feel like pitiful, guilt-laden earth worms,
can be influenced especially easily.
Numerous other ways could be listed by which the
churches, through utilization of all the laws of psychology, seek to make people
dependent upon them. Religious secrets lose their wonderful veil, the means of
mercy their supernatural power, if one reveals the priesthood’s natural means of
human influence. They are the means that a sly politician or skilled businessman
masters and applies in his profession just like the priest makes use of them to
earn his bread and for his power politics. What could otherwise appear to
someone as miraculous means of divine mercy and Providence, reveal themselves
here as simply sly psychological or demagogic tactics. The person who knows
these means is already protected against the dangers of this human influence by
the priesthood. God’s laws, after all, then mean more to him than the trickery
of a skillful priesthood.
The Political Battle
Methods of the Church
In its doctrines and its methods, the church shows
itself as a political power. Political, however, are also the methods with which
it works. All means that any other political power puts into the service of its
propaganda and in the service of its human conquest are also utilized by the
church for itself. The most important means for any external power is the
financial foundation. The church possesses the most manifold sources of income
in abundance. In many countries it receives state support for its activity,
state funds. In many countries it can levy church taxes or church dues among its
faithful and thereby assure itself a large portion of its material and personnel
requirements from these means. The priests also have certain sources of income
from their cult acts, from burials and marriages, from baptisms and sacraments,
yes, often the performance of routine prayers.
Certain taxes are to be paid for the bestowal of
churchly honors, titles and offices. Fees are to be paid for granting whatever
churchly dispensations.
Aided from that, the churches have their own sources
of income in independent enterprises, which are admittedly usually camouflaged
on the outside. They are often stockholders in large enterprises, banks and
industrial concerns. Their schools and hospitals, their welfare institutes and
orphanages, are frequently only outwardly splendid works of Christian charity,
but in reality very often simultaneously quite splendid sources of income. Often
huge sums flow to the priesthood from their own agricultural operations,
breweries, liquor factories, electricity works, industrial enterprises and
artisan shops.
Countless believers donate substantial sums to the
church at assemblies. Many people leave inheritances and donations to the
church.
The net of the church’s sources of income are as
intricate and diverse as the net of the church’s power system is intricate and
dense. Corresponding to its nature, one denominational organization possesses
more of this, and the other more of that funding possibility.
Another means for the conquest of power is the
splendid organization. For centuries no power on earth could match the
intricately branched web of the church organization. The Pope’s church here,
too, stands at the top of its sister churches and other denominational
communities. Its system has therefore already been portrayed. The church was
especially careful to not only build up a splendid administrative apparatus and
a firm organization of the priesthood, rather also, above all, to ensnare the
masses with a manifold system of institutions, welfare offices, clubs etc.. Only
in the face of the large mass movements of the present has the church
organization gradually proven itself outdated, slack and powerless.
The priesthood makes use, above all, of cultural means
for the conquest and assertion of power. The church seeks to utilize for itself
as well all the cultural forces that have ever stood at the disposal of whatever
political power in its struggle.
Extensive book publication promotes, deepens and
defends the church doctrines. Among the most diverse folks, denominational
literature had a monopoly position for centuries. Through the papal index and
manifold church book censorships, all non-church literature was kept away from
the public. All life spheres were conveyed to the folk in church literature
solely from the denominational viewpoint. Wherever a certain church possessed
the prerogative of sole rule, the picture of the world of the respective folk
was in this way shaped one-sidedly, supra- ethnically and universalistic.
Wherever several denominations feuded among themselves in a sibling quarrel or
indeed native folkish ideas stirred, the respective folk was torn by worldview
discord and thereby lost inner and outer strength.
Aside from book literature, the church possesses
extensive brochures, leaflets and fliers. Here, contemporary ideas spread among
the masses in an edition of many millions or hostile attacks are fended off.
Modern sects like the Bible researches, the Salvation Army, Christian Science or
the Adventists make use of these political means of power just as skillfully as
the larger churches.
Among the rural populace, the church is often active
and very successful with a tremendous calendar literature. Over the whole course
of the year, denominational propaganda penetrates the folk through calendar
stories, daily slogans, daily saints, patrons and exemplary church figures.
Simultaneously, these folk calendars often also represent a substantial source
of income.
The effect of this literature is deepened and expanded
through countless church periodicals. In 1933, there were in Germany alone over
400 Catholic periodicals. They also occupy themselves with all spheres of life.
There are denominational publications for art and the sciences, film and radio,
fashion, sports and technology, folklore and holidays, general entertainment,
religious instruction and denominational edification.
In a planned out system of institutes and clubs, of
cultural concentrations, societies and assemblies, it is attempted to influence
and to dominate the whole of folk educational. From small child to oldster, the
human being is supposed – through a multitude of institutions – to be totally
integrated into the denominational world of ideas and held firm in it.
Orphanages, nursery schools and kindergartens,
denominational schools, girls and boys boarding schools, home economics and
occupational schools, folk education clubs, reading halls and folk libraries,
denominational theater, church amateur theater companies, church choir and
orchestra associations, film slide-show presentations, poetry evenings and
lecture circuits, denomination hiking trips and travel associations,
denominational sporting events and homeland weeks, free-time camps and rural
school homes, museum excursions and folk colleges, college weeks, assemblies and
congresses, in short, everything that was sometime and somewhere thought up and
employed as a means of human influence and folk education, is used by the
priesthood for the conquest of human beings.
The promotion of art and science as well is, in the
hands of the priesthood, only a means for the conquest of power. With the help
of scientific research institutes, libraries, church universities and colleges,
with the help of scientific collections and individual investigations, of
scientific meetings and congress - all areas of science are supposed to be made
dependent on the church and then, on their part, again provide the building
blocks for the priesthood’s further plans for the conquest of the world and of
human beings.
The churches have been especially successful in
putting art in their service. Music and painting, sculpture and architecture,
literature and theater stood for centuries totally in the service of the
priesthood. On roads and public squares, on country paths and on mountains, in
public buildings and private residences - the testaments of denominational art
introduced people to the churchly world and held them firmly under its spell.
The church very soon also integrated into the great
apparatus of its power the newest achievements of human researcher spirit. When
film technology was invented and had as a result the creation of film art, the
faithful were admittedly at first warned against the visit to movie theaters in
numerous shepherd’s letters and sermons. Films were branded as the devil’s work.
But the priesthood very soon recognized that one could also very effectively use
this work of Satan for the conquest of the world.
Their own church film organizations, film production
companies, film loan enterprises, film theaters and film periodicals were
created in order to put this modern means of propaganda into the service of
church work. The priesthood also established its own radio transmitters, or
leased radio transmitters for special events, it has sought to influence radio
programs, organized church morning celebrations and striven to fill the entirety
of radio programs with its spirit.
The church has simply adopted all the other means of
modern propaganda as well. Mass demonstrations and choruses, huge marches and
rallies – the priesthood has copied all means of modern advertising from, above
all, the large mass movements of the present.
The priesthood stresses again and again the purely
religious character of its churches and sects. But it proves again and again
that it cannot bring its ideas to victory by purely religious means. It again
and again confirms the fact that it requires all political power in order to
conquer people and to assert its power position. It thereby again and again
admits the political character of its power.
The so-called
Religious means of the Priestly Human Influence
Aside from all the political means of struggle that
also stand at the disposal of any other political power, the priesthood also
possesses quite special, so-called religious means for human influence.
According to church doctrine, man – as a result of original sin, or the
influence of demonic powers – is only conditionally educatable and only
partially influenceable. In order to be able to nonetheless reach a goal in the
beyond, man hence requires so-called supernatural, religious means. The natural
means of human influence do not suffice for the education to the beyond,
according to priestly doctrine.
All these religious means already work on the priests’
faithful with magical power from the start, because they see in the priest who
employs these means God’s authorized representative and ascribe to these means
themselves supernatural, divine powers. The so-called religious means of human
influence are hence elevated for the priests’ followers from the common
psychological sphere of effect into a magical, mystical sphere.
Among the religious means used in the same way among
all priesthoods is the sermon. It differs in several ways from the normal
propaganda and educational lectures of general public life. The sermon is,
firstly, usually held in the half-dark of cult rooms. It is as a rule
ac-companied by whatever cult acts and ceremonies. The priests of all religions
claim of themselves that in their sermons they proclaim God’s direct words.
According to the corresponding churchly regulations, an especially ingratiating
tone should distinguish the sermons. The faithful also do not receive the
sermons with liveliness, with applause or rejection, like common lectures,
rather let the sermons flow over them with reverence.
In their own theological discipline, in the Homiletik
[the teaching of the sermon and its history], the priests are thoroughly trained
in the technical requirements of the sermon. In years of practice, they are
introduced practically to the mastery of this means of human influence. So the
sermon often becomes a very notable means of power for the church, above all,
among women. The figure of the preacher, his personal manner, his appearance and
his acting abilities play a great role, as is known from experience.
A means of churchly human influence employed with the
sermon is so-called religious class or catechism. All denominational groups
endeavor, for understandable reasons, to introduce the youth already at the
earliest age to the spirit of their churchly world. Given the folk-alien nature
of many religions and sects,
the priests must usually limit themselves to carrying
out this religion class similarly to the sermons in churches, other cult
buildings or church-owned rooms. Occasionally, larger religious communities have
also managed to harness the whole state power apparatus, the public schools and
public education for the special purposes of the priestly religion class. Since
the taught content of this denominational instruction does not grow out of
natural faith in God, rather consists of rigid church dogmas and so-called
direct divine revelations, the usual psychological laws for processing the
material to be learned do not apply to religion class. But the priests do indeed
try, usually by very natural means, to deepen and to simplify the understanding
of the so-called divine truths with vivid pictures, figuration portrayals,
punishments, rewards etc..
Extraordinary educational events as well are given a
religious framework and supplied with a religious character by the priesthood.
They serve to deepen church influence or to introduce certain people and groups
of people to a special task of the churchly power system. These events carry
designations such as silent hours, religious free-times, days of reflection,
exercises, folk missions and the like. They are organized for children and
adults, workers and academics, soldiers, officials and teachers, businessmen and
clerks, engaged couples and married people, in short, for all social strata,
ages and life conditions. Their visit is frequently tied to special religious
decorations, bestowing of mercy, dispensations and promises of special divine
assistance.
Especially effective means of human influence are the
cult buildings of the priesthood itself. They differ from the festival and
celebration halls of the natural communities. Mystical half-darkness, lavish
pictorial and figurative decoration with religious motifs, especially extensive
use of secretive and foreign symbols, incense scent and candlelight and much
more bestow a unique influence on the cult buildings of all churches and sects.
The denominational cult buildings receive their special stamp, because according
to the priesthood’s doctrine God himself has taken up residence in the cult
buildings. A secretive awe hence passes from the cult rooms to the people
believing in the priests. If they seek strength or help, if their innerness
drives them to atonement for an injustice, if they suffer distress or pain, they
seek out the cult building in order to find peace and help there in God’s
immediate vicinity. The prerequisite, however, is naturally, as always, complete
trust in the priesthood’s doctrines and words.
Their own cult community events are then carried out
in the cult rooms, ceremonies performed, liturgical prayers spoken and
sacrifices of the most diverse kinds made in order to thereby – according to the
respective Christian doctrine – pay the tribute owed to the respective God. The
priests function as
God’s representatives and receive for this
representation a corresponding payment or voluntary donations from the faithful.
All natural festivals and celebrations, all important
occasions in human life are surrounded with cult acts and ceremonies by the
priesthood. After birth, the child is immediately accepted into the
denominational community through a unique cult act and only then receives,
according to the priests’ doctrine, actual life value. At the transition of
people from childhood to adolescence or from adolescence to maturity, unique
cult ceremonies are frequently carried out. Marriage first receives its actual
validity and its blessing through a cult act before the priest. Before death and
at burial, unique denomination ceremonies take place. A refusal of this church
burial is presented as a great shame and is often of great political
effectiveness. All these ritualistic acts serve to keep people dependent on the
church or sect from cradle to grave. These cult acts are supposed to represent
special means of mercy, are supposed to tie people to God in a special way, but
in reality chain them to the priesthood.
According to the doctrine of numerous priest
federations, devils or demons can gain full power over individual people. Amidst
manifold and often very strange ceremonies, the priests then perform exorcisms
on these people. In the Catholic Church, such exorcisms are performed with great
ceremony according to the regulations of the Ritus Romanum. In a more simple
form, exorcisms are performed by the Catholic priesthood on all newborn children
at baptism, and are performed on animals and objects. Through these cult
exorcisms and devil conjurations, the prestige of the priesthood is surrounded
with a secretive magic and awe. They are attested power over the most dangerous
enemies of man, devils and demons.
Various churches and sect communities have introduced
their own ceremonies of forgiveness for the mistakes and transgressions of men.
They are usually connected with certain prayers, little penitence exercises or
sacrificial gifts. Priest federations whose striving for power is especially
pronounced tie demands for public or secret confession of guilt to the
ceremonies of forgiveness, such as, for example, the Catholic Church. Through
confession the priests learn the most secret things in their sphere of activity,
which usually remain hidden from all other people. With shameless questions they
penetrate into the most personal affairs of people, into the most intimate
matters of marital and family life, especially among young women. With
incredible brutality they bring countless young people into the most difficult
psychological conflicts at confession. Many a marriage is shaken in this way,
much youthful happiness destroyed. In this inner distress people then often
become, through confession, submissive tools of the priesthood. At confession
they receive their regulations and rules of conduct for all questions of private
and public life. Since the secret of the confession is only meant for the
personal protection of the person confessing, and the priests can evaluate the
knowledge won from the confession for the direction of the church at any time,
confession simultaneously gains tremendous political importance for this reason
as well.
People, animals and objects are consecrated by the
priesthood with special blessings. They are supposed to thereby be removed from
the influence of demons, sanctified for God’s service and equipped with special
luck. According to the rituals of the most diverse priesthoods, there are
blessings for children and adults, blessings in the morning, at noon and in the
evening, blessings before a trip, a war or work and before a storm, blessings
for women before birth and purification ceremonies with blessings after birth,
blessings for ill and dying, blessings for animals and stalls, for horses and
automobiles, ships and airplanes, blessings for houses and residences, for the
bedroom and workplace, for plants, grain and fruit, for wine and water, clothes
and shoes, fields and grain, in sort, there are blessings for people in all life
situations and blessings for everything with which people somehow come into
contact. Man’s whole environment is thereby supposed to receive a sanctified and
consecrated character. But the great, wise man who can do and does do all that,
who – utilizing often downright secretive ceremonies – blesses everything and
destroys all evil forces, is the priest.
Blessed or consecrated objects are established by the
priests’ faithful as cures and good luck charms, for protection against harmful
influences and to convey divine blessing, in residences and stalls, in silos and
on fields, or carried by the people themselves at work, on trips, in danger,
while sleeping, during illnesses etc., worn around neck or arm or sewed into
clothing. Religion-scientific collections and ethnological museums often display
a colorful jumble of such means of magic, good luck charms, means of mercy and
objects of reverence. These things often represent very splendid financial
sources of income on the side.
People who are somehow supposed to be consecrated in
the service of the divinity in a splendid manner are consecrated among the most
diverse priesthoods with anointments, complicated ceremonies and long prayer
formulas. Temple virgins and nuns, monks, priests and priestesses of the most
diverse grades and ranks are introduced into their hierarchy through their own
cult act. They thereby take on the character of inviolable people, elevated from
the folk, designated for something higher, somehow belonging to the court of God
himself. These consecrations thereby again become a unique means for the
elevation of the priests’ reputation and power.
Beyond that, there also exist among various churches
numerous other, so-called religious means. They may indeed take on different
forms among the various religions, but they display the same foundations among
all priest federations.
Finally, prayer should be mentioned. The natural
God-believing man thinks about the divinity out of his innermost on the most
diverse occasions in free, unforced form. Through the priesthood, prayers are
reshaped into rigid formulas, long prayer texts and litanies. With the
assistance of prayer bells, prayer belts and prayer mills, the same prayers are
recited often for hours. Long prayers are read off from certain formula books.
This manages to submerge the faithful again and again into the church’s world of
ideas. This often manages to simultaneously concentrate the whole psychological
energy of millions of church-faithful on the same prayer contents, so that
millions of people are filled with the same requests and wishes and inwardly and
outwardly are totally aimed along the same line. What significance this has for
mass influence is known by anybody who knows the laws of psychology. For many
people prayer is furthermore a means for inner calming, for release from this
life, for steering toward the beyond. But through the priesthood, supernatural
successes and mercy are attributed to prayer, but only the natural,
psychological effects are addressed. Prayer as well thereby becomes, like all
other so-called religious means, a magical instrument of the priesthood and a
means for their power politics. Aside from these common religious means, in
special cases extraordinary religious means as well are employed for human
influence by the priest federations, such as visions, stigmatizations and
alleged miracles of the most diverse kind.
Many things that manifest themselves with these
so-called religious means of the priesthood can also be found among the basic
elements of natural faith in God. But the priests have expanded this religious
basic elements into an elaborate net of institutions, events, acts, ceremonies
etc. and misuse them as tools for their power. They have torn many religious
things from the natural sphere of the life laws and built them into the
artificial organism of their power system. Whoever wants to know the
priesthood’s political means of power, must therefore not bypass these so-called
religious means of the priestly human influence.
The Psychology of the
Priesthood
For centuries, people have trembled before the power
of the priests. They have seen in the priesthood an internally solid, sworn,
unified power. The sober look at reality, however, shows that the priesthood is
indeed chained together by a firm outer band, that the priesthood’s power system
is indeed close knit and splendidly organized, but that the priesthood itself
largely lacks inner unity. One can indeed see a general priest type, which in
all churches and sects displays certain uniform characteristics, but one must
admit tremendous differences of inner bearing within this priesthood.
There are plain, simple, modest priests who led a
calm, patriarchal life in their community. They have become priests, because the
father was also a pastor, or because it was the mother’s most ardent wish that
the son become a priest. They see that many church regulations and doctrines do
not fully agree with life, but they don’t feel repealed by them, they hold more
to life than to dogma. They see their task in functioning as their community’s
fatherly advisor, to soothe psychological conflicts and suffering of every kind
insofar as it is within their power, they give the people courage and comfort,
when they need that, and are silently pleased with the people about their
successes and their happiness. They are no fighters and no combatants, they also
have no desire to rise to great deeds or to fill their faithful community with
great ideas. A commonplace, bourgeois life is the world in which they feel
comfortable, which they also do not transcend. They are not big shots in the
church, but also not great enemies of state or folk. Only as links in the great
chain that holds the priesthood together do they have significance. They must be
judged not just as human beings, rather as outposts of the church’s power
system.
There are priests who are intellectually talented and
physically vibrant. They have chained themselves to their profession, but with
their natural abilities and insights they again and again come into conflict
with church dogmas and regulations. The human being within them is in constant
conflict with the priest. They are tormented by doubts in their own doctrine and
in these conflicts nonetheless cling again and again – half full with trust and
half full with desperation – to these doctrines. They experience the
contradictions between the laws of life and the norms of their church or sect.
Life draws them to itself, and again and again they seek to flee from life into
their artificial, priestly world. From their nature and their countenance one
sees that they live in constant conflict with themselves, that they are
constantly tormented by conflicts, that they are inwardly totally divided. They
are unfortunate people, who have become victims of their profession, because
their faith in their denominational doctrines was so great that they no longer
found their way back to life. Sometimes they seek to suffocate their
psychological conflicts through horrible bodily self-mutilations with lashings,
penitence belts, penitence shirts and other unnatural tools of torture. Often
they torture themselves for so long until they perish bodily and
psychologically. But the special tragedy of their inner bearing is that they can
no longer do otherwise than to push the people entrusted to them, especially
women and youths, into the same inner distortion, into the same unnaturalness
and opposition to nature. Millions of the most valuable people have over the
course of millennia been psychologically and bodily ruined in this manner.
There are priests who see in their idea a great
religious-political power. They are honestly convinced that precisely the
doctrine of their church or sect is suited to bring happiness and peace to
mankind. They hence fight for this idea with fanaticism and enthusiasm. Their
goal is to shape all public life on the basis of this denominational spirit.
They openly admit that their goal is not a purely religious one, rather
encompassed all spheres of life. They feel themselves as teachers of the
politicians and rulers and as the God ordained directors of the fates of
individual people and of folks. The religious program usually does not stand in
the foreground with them, yes, it often recedes far behind the claims of
worldview and political power. These combative and active priests are the great
organizers and church rulers, the great writers and journalists, the great
diplomats and politicians of the churches. They are often talented and pliable,
schooled and well-educated, and familiar with all life situations. They also
know how to conduct diplomatic negotiations, how to represent. They can act
sovereign and condescending or self-aware and reserved, just as the
circumstances and political necessities require. Various churches with an old
tradition possess their own educational system for the political new recruits of
their priesthood. Various churches have over the course of centuries developed
their own political tradition and own diplomatic style. One often designates the
Jesuits as the elite of priestly diplomacy. The course of world history in the
last five millennia has often been substantially influenced by this kind of
priest. They belong to the most important bearers of priest power.
There are other priests who come to the priesthood,
because nature has given them a soft, sentimental inclination and a petty
vanity. They feel drawn to the priesthood, because they like to parade around in
long coats and colorful clothing, because they take pleasure in the theatrical
ceremonies of many cult acts, in the scent of incense and flickering candles, in
mystic half-darkness and melodic church song. They are often harmless natures
who would like best to play around all day with their liturgical ceremonies and
show themselves to the folk in luxurious garments. Their inner greatness is so
tiny that this vanity and softness is able to completely fill them. Their
sermons, like their other religious advice, drips with sentimentality and
shallow babble. They have no backbone and no strength inside. They are hence
also only able to draw people just as weak into their orbit. There are still
other priests who may have still joined their priesthood with a certain
idealism. But they have then – amid the dangers, which precisely priesthood
brings with it for weak character – slid down to sensuousness and the slavery of
the lowest instincts. The moral history of all millennia reports - precisely of
the priesthood – of especially base behavior, repulsive perversions and
cruelties. With effort they uphold the reputation of their profession outwardly,
but inside they are totally given to the vice. Outwardly they preach of pretty
virtues, but whoever really comes close to them, they seek to drag into their
own mud. Occasionally, these totally fallen priests also vent their cruelty and
base instincts in horrible atrocities and inhuman harassment against their
underlings. They have a desire to torment and to pain their fellow human beings
and frequently select quite special victims for their passionate cruelty. In the
medieval witch trials this priestly sub- humanity became a downright public
plague. Hundreds of thousands of people, above all women and girls, fell victim
to these derailed priest instincts. Hundreds of thousands of people were ruined
psychologically by this brutality.
Another group of priests leads a frivolous
double-life. It has become clear to them that an unbridgeable chasm exists
between their priesthood and life. But they have accepted that they have landed
in this profession. Out of comfort they draw no consequences from their inner
conflict, rather simply seek to skip over this conflict. They preach full of
enthusiasm about whatever church doctrine and do not believe their words
themselves. They admonish their faithful to whatever virtue, but they themselves
do not think of seeking this virtue. They warn their community against whatever
vice, but unscrupulously give in to this vice themselves. They apply all
religious means of mercy among the faithful, but they themselves do not believe
in the effectiveness of these means. They have their own personal sphere, which
stands in total opposition to what they preach to their followers. They have not
inwardly grown together with their priesthood, they only wear it superficially
in public, just as they temporarily put on their robe for their cult acts. Their
whole life is trickery, a theater, a great deception. Their priesthood is
usually just a way to earn a living. Inner strength cannot flow from them.
There are also isolated so-called holy priests. They
are filled with whatever virtue and merge into this virtue. Many of them have
chosen for themselves the oath and meekness as ideal. They see their whole life
from this viewpoint. They endure all suffering, abuse and persecution with a
downright fanatical patience and devoted meekness. Any difficult conflicts
between priesthood and life cannot arise in them, because they concentrate their
whole life energy in the practice of meekness and patience. They become
one-sided in their so-called heroism, but they at least have a set goal to which
they are totally devoted. For many people, this degree of virtue has something
wonderful and attracting. They become the enthusiastic followers of these
so-called holy men. Many priests also devote themselves with complete
self-sacrifice to charity. In the history of human charity, many priests of the
most diverse churches and sects have a great name. They have not concerned
themselves with dogma conflict and church discipline, they have simply devoted
themselves in a selfless manner to the soothing of distress in the most diverse
form. With glowing fanaticism, they have consumed themselves in their works of
charity. They were so filled with this charity that whatever inner conflicts
could no longer find space inside them. Whole churches and sects have been
nourished by the deeds of their idealists for centuries, a single so-called holy
priest had to again and again give thousands of other priests their
justification for existence.
Occasionally, one also encounters pronounced cynics
among the priesthood. They are usually priests whose former idealism was totally
destroyed by some very bitter experience, by some severe blow. They are inwardly
totally burned out and no longer capable of a new beginning. They still perform
their priestly functions, but they are inwardly no longer touched in any way.
They do not practice superficial trickery, rather they systematically tear down
with conscious cynicism any positive values among everybody with whom they come
into contact. With diabolical openness they destroy any idealism, and they seek
to drag everything that is good, beautiful and noble in the dirt. One can seldom
encounter greater cynics than among this kind of priest.
For another group of priests their profession is
solely a trade or a business going well. But in the process they are not always
good businessmen with an orderly business operation. In their church office they
frequently have disorganized records and no real business methods. Their
enterprise is often based on deception and swindle. They themselves are
deceitful swindlers. With miracle herbs and means of magic they often ensnare a
large following and earn huge sums with their acts of magic. From the
naiveness of their followers they often draw
tremendous profits. But like all swindlers, they know how to blind externally
and make a lasting impression on many people.
Many priests totally collapse under the conflicts
which the doctrine and the moral bearing of their church or sect bring with it.
They do not have the necessary physical energy in order to again recover from
their psychological collapse. Mechanically, they still perform the priestly
activities falling to them. Their energy no longer suffices for their own
activity, their own stirrings of the mind or of the soul. Physically as well,
they are usually hard hit by their psychological collapse. The little energy
still remaining for them they must use to laboriously care for their body. In
their community they often arouse compassion and with the compassion a lot of
sympathy as well. Therein then also lie the sole possibilities for their
priestly effectiveness. They are poor, unfortunate people, who have completely
fallen victim to their profession.
In all the centuries apostates have also existed among
the priesthood. They are priests who experienced the conflicts between priest
power and God’s laws and then still possessed so much strength that they
rebelled against this priest power, to which they themselves belonged. They are
then immediately expelled from their communities as traitors and Judas souls.
They are outlawed and defamed by all conceivable means. The priesthoods and
their faithful seek to annihilate these apostates, to make them morally
impossible, to deliver them to distress and abandonment, to brand them for their
whole life as lepers.
A portion of these apostates consumes itself in
senseless, subjective, one-sidedly hateful, furious fighting against the
priesthood. Another portion of these apostates soon gives up the fight and
devotes itself to a bourgeois profession, without – as a result of the years of
one-sided education to be priest – having gained the inner satisfaction and
inner freedom characteristic of natural human beings. In all times priests of
all churches have also – after long inner fighting and changes – again totally
found their way back to the natural laws of life. The outward return to the
natural folk community went hand in hand with their inner separation from the
priest power. They have again journeyed back to God’s natural work of creation
and have found their life joy in living according to these natural laws of God
and working with holy enthusiasm for this order of creation.
One could still find many other small groups within
the priesthood, and one observes many overhangs from one group to another. But
the basic traits of these groups will be identified again and again among all
the priest powers of this world. What is true of the priests, is also true in
the same way of the priestesses, of the monks and nuns. Certainly, the priest
power loses a large portion of its magic and majesty under an objective and
sober examination. The guilt for this certainly does not lie above all in the
method of observation, rather in the priesthood itself.
Religious Service and
Priesthood
The natural, God-believing human being stands with
both feet firm in life. He sees his world from this life. To this world,
however, also belong the divine force that rules in and over nature. This God
faces man like a mighty and simultaneously kind friend. All of daily life and
festive life brings him again and again in close contact with his Lord God. His
relationship to the Almighty is direct and immediate. When he faces him, he
needs no mediator. But when a family, a clan or a folk wants – with a great
request or full of deep gratitude – to turn to Providence, then the head of the
family, the clan elder or the leader of the folk are the natural mediators
between God and human beings. Great cult acts are not required for this. Work,
joy in nature, effort for folk, care for the works and gifts of the creator, in
short, the fulfillment of the human life goal and the observation of the natural
life laws, is simultaneously the best and most beautiful religious service. This
religious service is so infinitely sublime over all the unnatural cult
constructions, because it corresponds to the laws of the order of creation and
grows out of God’s laws.
The priesthood has pushed itself between God and human
beings. All priest federations of the world claim for themselves that God
himself bestowed precisely upon them his representation on earth. Every
priesthood of the world sees in the thousands of other priest guilds heretics
and teachers of false doctrines, heathen priests and magicians. Every priesthood
traces precisely its institutions and cult means to direct divine investiture
and wants to preserve precisely its doctrine as direct, divine revelation.
The belief in God and God’s laws must – among churches
and sects – all too often step behind the belief in the church and behind the
laws of the church. Churchly striving for power again and again overgrows the
naturally belief in God. Throughout all the centuries of church history,
religion was again and again misused by the priesthood for power political
purposes. So-called holy shrines again and again become churchly agitation
centrals, priestly houses of business and sites of human subjugation. The
priests had themselves called God’s servants, but they were usually just church
servants or church officials.
Whoever did not bow to the power of churches and sects
was branded as godless, as materialist or atheist and made despicable. Today the
natural laws of life have again made a breakthrough. Man by man and folk by folk
again find their way back to these eternally old and eternally new laws of the
order of creation. Free and happy, proud and devout, full of confident
certainty, more and more people affirm this very great idealism, this natural
belief in God, this honest religious bearing.
Source Literature
Of the extensive literature used, only the most
important publications are named here.
The Emergence of Priest Power in Germany
Dr.B. Kummer, Midgards Untergang, 3.
Aufl. 1937. Dr. M. Ziegler, Illusion und Wirklichkeit, 1938.
Dr. Fr. Murawski, Die politischen
Kirchen und ihre biblischen Urkun-den, 5. u. 6. Aufl. 1938.
Dr. Carl Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte
des Papstums und des Romis-chen Katholizismus, 5. Aufl. 1934.
Hugo Koch, Rosenberg und die Bibel
1935.
Wilhelm Kammeier, Dogmenchristentum
und Geschichtsfaschung, 1938. Dr. Seppelt, Papstgeschichte, 1938 (kath.).
Dr. Fr. Banner, Konige und Priester,
1939.
H. Wolf, Angewandte Kirchengeschichte.
The Political Doctrine of
Denominationalism
Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des XX.
Jahrhunderts. Alfred Rosenberg, Blut und Ehre.
Alfred Rosenberg, Gestaltung der Idee.
Buchberger, Lexikon für Theologie und
Kirche, 1931 ff, (kath.).
Die Religion in Geschichte und
Gegenwart, 1927 ff. (prot. Kirchen-lexikon). Ernst Kaempfer, Der politische
Katholizismus, 3. Aufl. 1938.
Rainer Volk, Die katholische Aktion in
deutscher Sicht, 1937. Kurt Eggers, Rom gegen Reich, 2. Aufl. 1936.
The Power System of Catholicism
Dr. E. Eichmann, Lehrbuch des
Kirchenrechts, 4. Aufl. 1934 (kath.).
J. Sägmüller, Lehrbuch des kathol.
Kirchenrechts, 1925 ff. (kath.). Staatslexikon der Görres-Gesellschaft, 1926 ff.
(kath.).
Dr. Erwin R. von Kienitz, Die Gestalt
der Kirche, 1937 (kath.). Adam, Das Wesen des Katholizismus, 7. Aufl. 1934
(kath.).
Franz Xaver Kother, Vom Geheimnis der
Papstkirche, 2. Aufl. 1935 (kath.). Josef Bernhart, Der Vatikan als Thron der
Welt.
The Church’s Political Methods of
Conquest Hoensbroech, Der Jesuitenorden, 1928. Joh. Haller, Das Papstum.
Adamow, Die Diplomatie des Vatikans
zur Zeit des Imperialismus.
Dr. Konr. Algermissen,
Konfessionskunde, 1939 (kath.). Anwander, Die Religionen der Menschheit, 1927
(kath.).
R. Hendrich, Wandlungen des
weltanschaulichen Kampfes, 1937. Siehe dazu vor allem die Literatur zum 2.
Absatz.
The Priesthood’s Psychological Means
of Human Influence Schüch-Plz, Handbuch der Pastoraltheologie, 1925 (kath.).
Hans grunewald, Die pädagogischen
Grundsätze der Benediktinerre-gel, 1939.
von Dunin Borkowski, Miniaturen
erzieherischer Kunst, 1929 (kath.). Rud. Allers, Das Werden der sittl.
Persönlichkeit, 1935 (kath.).
Anton Holzner, Das Gesetz Cortes, 2.
u. 3. Aufl. 1939.
The Political Battle Methods of the Church
See the previous literature.
The so-called Religious Means of Priestly Human
Influence Eisenhofer, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik, 1932 f. Heiler, Das
Gebet (prot.).
The Psychology of the Priesthood Hoensbroech, 14 Jahre
Jesuit. Lintl, Flucht aus dem Kloster.
Rugel, Ein Trappist bricht das
Schweigen.
Paul Maria Baumgarten, Ordenszucht und
Ordensstrafrecht, 1932 (kath.). Also see the numerous priest novels of
world literature.
Religious Service and Priest Power
Alfred Miller, Völkerentartung unter
dem Kreuz, 1933.
Gottfr. Hager, Warum sind wir Christen
die Bluthunde der Menschheit? 1933. Alf. Vierkandt, Naturvolker und
Kulturvölker, 1896.
Bernth. Kummer, Mission als
Sittenwechsel.
Mathes Ziegler, Kirche und Reich im
Ringen der jungen Nation, 1933. Bernth. Kummer, Die germanische Weltanschauung
nach altnordis-cher Überlieferung.
Siehe
welter dazu ds wichtigste gottglaubige Schrifttum
