Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview (41 page)

15
Joseph Keysor,
Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible
(New York: Athanatos, 2010), 171.

16
Keysor,
Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible
, 180.

17
Heinz Höhne,
The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS
, trans. Richard Barry (London: Pan Books, 1969), 147.

18
Calic,
Reinhard Heydrich
, 215.

19
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 99.

20
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 99–100.

21
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 99.

22
Mitchell Geoffrey Bard, ed.,
The Complete History of the Holocaust
(San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001), 76.

23
Höhne,
The Order of the Death’s Head
, 150.

24
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 128.

25
Calic,
Reinhard Heydrich
, 242.

26
Richard Weikart,
Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 67.

27
Calic,
Reinhard Heydrich
, 242.

28
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 100.

29
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 100.

30
Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich
, 100.

31
Höhne,
The Order of the Death’s Head
, 149.

32
Ralf Georg Reuth,
Goebbels
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 304.

33
Calic,
Reinhard Heydrich
, 215.

34
Reuth,
Goebbels
, 415.

35
Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel,
Dr. Goebbels: His Life and Death
(London: Greenhill, 2006).

Dr. Alfred Rosenberg:
The “scribe of the new gospel” of Darwinism

INTRODUCTION

A
lfred Rosenberg (January 12, 1893 – October 16, 1946) was a major ideological leader in the Nazi party, especially at its inception. Rosenberg was “the father of Nazi ideology and the author of the book that had a profound effect on Hitler, namely,
Der Mythos des 20 Jahrhunderts
(
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
) published in 1930.
¹
This influential racist anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic book also had an influence on early Nazi party policy. Rosenberg also contributed to the book
Germany’s Renewal
, a volume Hitler recommended that all party members read.
²

Through his writings, Rosenberg became the “scribe of the new gospel,” the philosophy of Nazism based on social Darwinism.
³
This philosophy was racist, anti-Semitic, pan-German, militaristic and pseudo-religious. He was called the Nazi theorist of the Holocaust.
⁴

As editor, and later publisher, of the main German newspaper that Hitler read daily,
Völkischer Beobachter
(“People’s Observer”), Rosenberg played a major role in shaping the thinking of millions of Germans.
⁵
His influence was so great that he became the “cultural leader” of the Third Reich.
⁶
He was also, some claim, the author of the designation “The Third Reich” for Hitler’s government that was envisioned to last a thousand years. In the end, it lasted
only
a dozen years. Hitler recognized that he must have a philosophic basis for his programme, and for this he turned to one of his earliest allies, Rosenberg.
⁷
Rosenberg’s ideology was

ultimately related to race (racism, Nordicism, racial soul, ethnicity, blood-and-honor, etc.—terms which he used largely interchangeably). Certainly his contributions to the idea of anti-Semitism, to the National Socialist concept of the state, to anti-universalism and to Germanic or Germanicized religion are closely allied to his pervasive ideology of race.
⁸

Furthermore, he often covered the topic of

racial admixture (adulteration), cross-breeding and miscegenation (most frequently referred to by him as racial shame, disgrace, and infamy). Essentially, Rosenberg believed Nordic racial purity spearheaded the battle of white Europe against racial destruction (“blood poisoning”); it was vital, he admonished, that racial purity be considered a principle not only of domestic, but also of foreign policy. For Rosenberg this was not the responsibility of Germany alone.
⁹

For example, in his 1927 book,
Zukunftsweg einer deutschen Aussenpolitik
(
The Future Course of German Foreign Policy
), Rosenberg formulated a crude method for guaranteeing worldwide racial purity.

In the early 1940s the Holocaust became one of Hitler’s main objectives for Germany. On March 1, 1942, he signed a decree on Germany’s “systematic spiritual struggle against Jews, Freemasons, and their allies” ostensibly because these groups were all opponents of the goals of National Socialism.
¹⁰
This “necessary war mission” decree ruled that not only Jews, Freemasons, and their allies but also the ideological opponents of National Socialism must be annihilated. Furthermore the Nazi directive stated that these groups were

the authors of the war presently directed against the Reich. The systematic spiritual struggle against these powers is a necessary war mission. I have therefore instructed
Reichsleiter
Alfred Rosenberg to carry out this mission in conjunction with the chief of the high command of the
Wehrmacht
. His operational staff for the occupied territories is authorized to search for relevant materials in libraries, archives, lodges, and other ideological or cultural institutions of all types, and to have this material confiscated for the ideological work of the Nazi Party and subsequent research work at the National Socialist Academy.
¹¹

Presumably, this project, which Rosenberg had a mission to carry out, would aid Hitler and his academic supporters who were going to “research” the confiscated material to find evidence to support their goal of exterminating those regarded as inferior races.

Rosenberg’s life goal, which he partly fulfilled, was “to become the custodian of the party ideology and the author of his
magnum opus
which would provide National Socialism with a definitive theory of history as a function of race.
¹²
Rosenberg believed, in contrast to the biblical account and historical Christian teaching, that God created separate human races, and that the Aryan race was superior to all others. Historian Raymond Feely concluded that as early as 1940, “Outside of
Mein Kampf
, Herr Rosenberg’s [
The
]
Myth of the Twentieth Century
is in one sense the most important treatise in the Third Reich.”
¹³
It has been translated into English and is kept in print by many of the white supremacist groups existing today.

Next to
Mein Kampf
, this two-volume work became the most important book of National Socialism and sold close to two million copies.
¹⁴
How much
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
was actually read and understood, though, is unknown. Historian Paul Roland claimed that the massive book, with its hundreds of footnotes, has the distinction of being one of the most unread bestselling books in history—nonetheless, it still had a seminal influence on early Nazi ideology.
¹⁵

The Myth of the Twentieth Century
also “made a direct and deep impression on Hitler” at least during the early period of the Nazi movement.
¹⁶
Dutch claimed that Rosenberg “imported into Hitler’s original program…the doctrine of racial value, that is the superiority of German Aryan blood.”
¹⁷
Professor Richard Evans documented that Rosenberg, more than anyone else “turned Hitler’s attention toward the threat of…a Jewish conspiracy. …through Rosenberg, Russian anti-Semitism, with its extreme conspiracy theories and its exterminating thrust, found its way into Nazi ideology in the early 1920s.”
¹⁸

Hitler was happy to learn that
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
was given a large boost in sales when the German Cardinal von Faulhaber of Munich condemned the book and placed it on the Catholic index as a heretical work.
¹⁹
After its formal condemnation, its sales picked up considerably. Its flaws were such the even Hitler ridiculed parts of it to his insiders.

Rosenberg’s importance is further illustrated by his inclusion among the ten people regarded at the Nuremberg Trials as most responsible for the Holocaust still living at the end of the war. Called “the theorist of the party,” he “gathered together the confused ideas of Hitler and clarified them.” The result was that Hitler built on “Rosenberg’s ideas and allow[ed] himself to be influenced by Rosenberg in all his decisions.”
²⁰
According to a former insider, Rosenberg’s role changed when, for various reasons, he lost some of his Nazi status after 1940.

Rosenberg also actively promoted other racist authors, giving them both more credibility and sales. One example was Professor Hans Weinert, who discussed racial policy designed to foster evolutionary progress in his book on the origin of human races. He concluded that the path to higher levels of evolution included eugenics and a prohibition against racial mixing.
²¹