Posted on 03/16/2006 5:00:19 PM PST by Atlantic Bridge
This is a fascinating dilemna. Especially for me as a Jew
I think they should keep it, but put it into context. I'm not sure if its appropriate as a house of the Lord anymore, but it certainly would be incredible as a museum and important to preserve the aesthetic.
There are for sure much more, but usually nobody makes a big issue out of it. Some churches were used by the nazis as their temples. I.e. the St. Servatii church in Quedlinburg was turned into a "altar" of the SS*, since King Heinrich I is buried there. Heinrich Himmler was convinced that he is the reincarnation of Heinrich (which had the same name) that died 936 anno Domini, appearing exactly 1000 years later (1936 a.D.) in nazi Germany. What a idiot.
* Behind the Christian altar they removed Jesus to replace him with a gigantic swastika. Of course those monstrous desecrations vansihed after 1945.
As a Christian from ethnic Chinese backgrounds I have always wondered how they could mix Christianity with an ideology that adovates ethnic genoicides. I have read literatures about Nazism that say the Nazis did have a plan that, after they conquer the whole world, they will kill off every living person on the planet except white Aryans at the end.
Having a "Church of Nazism" just does not square with the essential Christian gospel.
...I also doubt that rebuilding the Stadtschloss of the Hohenzollern, the family of Wilhelm II, is a good idea. In difference to the Frauenkirche in Dresden, which reflects the will of the German people to rebuild a shattered temple for our Lord, the Stadtschloss does not bear this deep symbolism. We all know that the last emperor was a idiot and in parts responsible of the first world war with his childish war games.
Speaking of the Hohenzollerns, are there real support to put the Hohenzollerns back as the German head of state? The plan could run like this: Germany's political institutions remain, but we replace the Federal President with a Hohenzollern as monarch. The monarch rubber stamps what the Bundestag and Bundesrat have agreed - sort of like what Queen Elizabeth II does in the United Kingdom.
Also ping to Michael for comments.
No of course not. :-)
This would be the real end of civilisation in Germany. The Hohenzollerns and their notorious heritage of family cretinism are much worse than islamization or the widespread refusal of birthing. Maybe Claudia Roth of the Green party is comparable.
The Nazi eagle is copied from the Roman eagle -- the Roman Empire was also in Syria, so no wonder it would resemble it's far-off cousin, the NAzi eagle....
The Nazi philosophy was & is not compatible with Christianity -- the Catholic Church was against Naziism and many priests were kept in concentration camps. Hitler and the top brass were all pagans, preferring the military Nordic gods to a Jewish Christ.
Ouch, she's ugly LOL!
Oh certainly. It is a mystery why the Lutherans would be sucked into supporting them.
Wilhelm II was an idiot. Still a restoration of something from the unification of Germany would be nice.
History is what it is.
not all of the lutherans. martin niemöller is an example for the lutheran resistance.
these pictures are certainly disturbing.
Thruth is a tricky thing. Although it is for sure true that many priests were kept and killed in the concentration camps, Hitler and his scum had many friends in the curia in Rome and among the German cardinals and bishops. I.e. the first institution that recognized Hitler through the so called "Reichskonkordat", a treaty that gave the catholic (and protestant) churches the right to collect taxes in Germany, was the Catholic church. This German tax is -until today- one of the biggest sources of income for the Vatikan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax
In the Concordat, the German government achieved a complete proscription of all clerical interference in the political field (articles 16 and 32). It also ensured the bishops' loyalty to the state by an oath and required all priests to be Germans and subject to German superiors. Restrictions were also placed on the Catholic organizations. This also effected the dissolution of the Centre Party. However, the main achievement of the government was that the Concordat countered distrust among the Catholic population against the NSDAP with its anti-Catholic manifesto.
Do you remember who was sold for 30 pieces of silver??!
On the significance of the Reichskonkordat, Guenter Lewy, author of The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, has written: There is general agreement that the Concordat increased substantially the prestige of Hitler's regime around the world. As Cardinal Faulhaber put it in a sermon delivered in 1937: "At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government. This was a deed of immeasurable significance for the reputation of the new government abroad."
We see that the brave catholic resistance was obviously a grass-root movement while some (not all) of the leaders arranged themselves chicken-hearted with Hitler and Mussolini. The dignity of a high charge doesn't mean that the holder is nessecarily a dignified man, although we Christs believe that the leaders of our church are people chosen by God. Anyway there were heroes like Maximilian Kolbe, Clemens August Graf von Galen, Rupert Mayer or those 3000 priests in Dachau. Their selfless sacrifice and their courage washes the church clean from all the dirt that some false people threw on it.
Ping!
They did have cool looking moustaches though. : )
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.