Church and State

Contrary to most modern thought, particularly in the Western world, Hitler didn't subscribe to the idea of a separation of church and state. He proclaims "not only does man live in order to serve a higher ideals, but that, conversely, these higher ideals also provide the premise for his existence. Thus the circle closes" (380).

He goes a step farther on the same page to say, "Without clearly delimited faith, religiosity with its unclarity and multiplicity of form would not only be worthless for human life, but would probably contribute to general disintegration."

This quote in particularly seems like an awfully roundabout way of saying there's only one true faith, but it is consistent with the rest of his ideology. Any kind of impurity - racial, religious, or otherwise, is a source of conflict and instability.

He then goes on to say that religious unity is as important, and closely related to political unity. What follows, at least as I understood it, is hard to make up:

"one man must step forward who with apodictic force will form granite principles from the wavering idea-world of the broad masses and take up the struggle for their sole correctness, until from the shifting waves of a free thought-world there will arise a brazen cliff of solid unity in faith and will" (381).

Of course the reason this is interesting is because it doesn't just step away from the increasingly popular contemporary idea of separation of church and state, it goes a step further to say, as I understood it, that an effort should be made to prevent the free-thinking of individuals.

And although his intentions are good - I consider unity a good intention I suppose, this kind of ideology is entirely contrary to both the contemporary and modern ideas of free thought, diversity, and the 'marketplace of ideas'. But ideas that aren't Hitler's aren't ideas at all -just obstacles. He makes this obvious with the word phrase 'sole correctness'.

Hitler was a propagandist, after all. It should come as no surprise that he actually believed in the possibility of total, state-wide conformity to an ideology.