Luther and Hitler 1933

 I would like to know more about this poster.  It was issued in 1933 on the 450th anniversary of Luther’s birth.  I do not know anything more than that, and would welcome enlightenment.

The translation: “Hitler’s battle and Luther’s teaching are the German people’s sure defense.”

Nazi Satire about the USA (1943)

In 1943 the Nazi party’s illustrated magazine ran a series of back page cartoons titled “The Latest from God’s Own Country” satirizing the United States.  I find them interesting, and may add a page of them one of these days.  Meanwhile, here is an example from the Illustrierter Beobachter in March 1943.

The occasion was a report from the New York Times that Christ Episcopal Church in St. Joseph had turned itself into a nightclub for the youth. At the bar, a gentleman says “He would be happy if we occasionally sang a pious hymn.  Let’s do him that favor.”  At the bottom, the priest is praying under pictures of FDR and Stalin: “Dear God, give the President and above all Comrade Stalin the strength to clobber the Nazis! And I thank you from the depths of my heart for the great success of our night club! I can protect my sheep from evil and even make a few dollars.” The woman talking to the deacon says: “You know, Deacon, I have nothing against the nighttime activities here —there must be propaganda, I know — but this is the second time I found a bra underneath the pew during morning prayers — that is going a bit too far.”

Speech by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner (1936)

I’ve been gradually adding to a page of speeches and essays by the Nazi Gauleiter, the regional party bosses.  This material is rather difficult to find, and as always I welcome relevant material that I can add to the site.

Today I add part of a speech by Gauleiter Adolf Wagner, the party’s boss in Munich.  It takes on the Catholic Church for being unwilling to accept Nazism’s claims to total power.

A "German Christian" Pamphlet from 1934

The "German Christian" movement (the Deutschen Christen) was the Nazi attempt to reconcile Christianity with Nazism, a rather difficult task. Today I add a pamphlet by Gerhard Hahn, a leader of the movement, titled The Cross of Christ and the Swastika, which discusses the activities of the movement in Hanover. Things didn't turn out quite as well as Hahn predicts in the pamphlet.

A symbol of the movement is shown on the cover above — the Christian cross superimposed on the swastika. During World War II, an American poster used the same symbol in an entirely different context. The goal was to show the cross as the victor over the swastika. I do not know anything about the history of the poster. I'd be interested to know if it was modeled after the "German Christian" logo.

Nazi Attacks on Catholicism (1935)

I've added material produced by the Nazi Party's propaganda office on "political Catholicism." This was the Nazi term for Catholics whose faith influenced their behavior beyond the strict limits of religious activity. The Nazis claimed that the Church was free to carry out its spiritual activities independent of state interference, but that politics, economics, and culture belonged exclusively to the Nazi state. During the mid-1930's, the Nazis waged a major campaign against the Church on several fronts, of which this material was a part.

Intended for the guidance of the party's speaker corps, it formed the basis of thousands of speeches delivered in every corner of Germany.