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Abstract
Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1881–1962) was a missionary to India and later both a professor of religious studies at Tübingen and a founder of a new religion, called the German Faith Movement (Deutsche Glaubensbewegung, DGB). According to Hauer, his movement was the essence of National Socialism. Because some contemporary scholars try to distance Hauer's scholarship and the DGB from National Socialism, this paper reviews existing literature about the Hauer phenomenon. It does so in light of the authors' research in the Federal Archives of Koblenz and Berlin and the German Literature Archive in Marbach. Hauer's personal development and determination to further Nazism are traced. Together, the literature review and Hauer's view of religion show that his religious thought and his Nazi politics are inseparable.
Notes
Karla Poewe and Irving Hexham are professors in the Department of Anthropology and Religious Studies respectively at the University of Calgary, Canada.CORRESPONDENCE: Department of Anthropology and Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4.
1. All translations from German texts are by Karla Poewe.
2. According to CitationHexham and Poewe (Understanding Cults xi; New Religions), new religions are based on a framework that consists of primal experiences, new mythologies, and aspects of the great Yogic and Abramic traditions. Hauer's DGB falls within this framework, although the Abramic tradition is violently opposed at the same time as he sees his religion as having emerged from it. Mathilde Ludendorff, founder of Gotterkenntnis and a major competitor in the religious-philosophical market-place of Weimar, attacked the Yogic elements in Hauer's religion (Ludendorff 50–4). The concept of ‘new religion’ is sociological in nature and is here used independently of whether or not Hauer liked it. At times he denied having founded a religion, at other times he did not.
3. German scholars call their discipline ‘science of religion’ and ‘history of religion’ instead of ‘religious studies’; this is because the latter gives no indication of the methods used by scholars in their research of religion.
4. See also the correspondence between Hauer and Dr Erika Emmerich (30.11.1933 and 5.12.1933 N1131 56, Bundesarchiv Koblent, BAK).
5. Köngener comes from the name of the Köngen castle by the Neckar river where the Bund was founded. Even as a professor, Hauer was a cult figure. His followers called him ‘chancellor’ (Kanzler) and addressed him with the informal Du. Also in the 1920s, words like Heil and Führer were used in Hauer's correspondence.
6. The organization was first known as Working Community of the DGB (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Glaubensbewegung). A year later, in 1934, it became the DGB.
7. During a seminar at the C. G. Jung Institute, Hauer spoke about Kundalini Yoga (1932). Regarding the word satyagraha he said that it was a symbol that had been adapted to political life and set free certain powers that were working in people; in this situation they are mobilized by a genius. “There is no situation for which man has not a remedy; out of some depth in humanity which we do not see, springs that helpful power” (CitationHauer, Indiens Kampf 65).
8. CitationMohler does not discuss that the Conservative Revolution was responsible for the success of National Socialism, but Neurohr, who first wrote his manuscript in London in 1933, does. According to him, Mohler's definition of conservatism is untenable, because he excludes virtually all historical forms of conservatism, except that which has as its inner core Nietzsche's revolutionary idea about the “eternal return” (Neurohr 11). Trying to give voice to silenced ex-Nazi writers and scholars after 1945, CitationMohler (Konservative Revolution 63–7) singled them out as the minds behind a ‘Conservative Revolution’ rather than National Socialism. Evidence does not support Mohler's claim (Herbert, Best; “Legitimisation”; Neurohr). Regarding the phrase ‘conservative revolution’, Hauer claimed to have first coined it while applying it to himself.
9. Geuter (17) quotes a witness of the 1920s who estimates that 30% of the young men had inclinations toward their own gender. A wave of sexual inversion (Inversionswelle), characterized the times (286). It is not that homosexuals ‘came out’, although that too happened, rather love toward boys and men was discussed (287). Machtan (109) quite rightly concludes that “In short, ideologically charged homosexual eroticism and sexuality were cornerstones of the fascist male-bonding culture prior to 1933”.
10. N1131 57, Doc 63; 13.11.1933 N1131 57, Doc 61, BAK.
11. Discussions about matriarchy were popular among völkisch thinkers and go back to Ludwig Klages and Alfred Schuler's (1865–1923) popularization of Bachofen's (1815–1887) Das Mutterrecht (1861). These thinkers were just as inclined toward Nordic and racist ideas as the National Socialists were. See, for example, Struve, who sees Bachofen and Morgan as the two pillars of a new world picture. CitationStruve (150–2) criticizes “Nietzsche, the philosopher of power” for his proclamation of a “hysterical kind of Herrenmoral [masculine morality]” and argues that with WWI, the world became intoxicated with this “man-based amoral Herrengeist [masculine spirit]”. Nevertheless, she sees Versailles as an attempt to deliberately destroy the German Volk (völkervernichtende Agonie), which National Socialism must stop. Likewise, CitationRogge-Börner argues against Bergmann's depiction of men as a-moral, sex driven nomads. Nevertheless, she sees the cause of Germany's and the West's despair as born of the “gruesome, bloodthirsty, money grabbing spirit of the Old Testament”, a spirit that wants to “devour all peoples”. She calls this spirit ‘Liberalism’ which is the “legitimate androcentric birth of the OT” (46). Her antidote to “Jewish imperialism” is heroic, Nordic, nationalistic, and völkisch pride (74).
12. Hauer differed from such desperate, fanatical PhD graduates like Goebbels only in that he had a secure position at a university. The others did not, so for them it was either the party or the dole.
13. Grimm was a German nationalist and a one-time businessman in South Africa and Namibia, whose South African novellas (1913) and political novel A People Without Space (Volk ohne Raum) became bestsellers during the Nazi era, although they were written before and during the Weimar period. The latter title became a Nazi slogan and paperback editions were sent to frontline soldiers. Throughout the Nazi era, Grimm organized Conferences for Poets and Writers (Dichtertagungen), which took on special meaning after the war, because they gave the Old Right a voice and a means of transforming itself into the New Right (see CitationPoewe).
14. Grimm, Briefe von Grimm an Dierks 1951–1959. Deutsches Literaturarchiv (DLA), Marbach bei Stuttgart.
15. Baumann was the author of children's and youth literature, a dramatist, and a songwriter whose songs became popular with the Hitler Youth to which he belonged. After the war, he became embroiled in a controversy when one of his dramas, submitted under a pseudonym, won a prize that he had to forfeit upon revelation of his Nazi past. In referring to him Dierks intends to underline the point that past Nazi affiliation must be kept separate from authors’ works. Some think Baumann distanced himself from National Socialism upon return from Russian imprisonment, while others see Nazism encoded in some of his children's books.
16. Two PhD theses on Hauer exist, one in Hebrew by Shaul Baumann, the other in Japanese by Hiroshi Kubota (personal communication, Shaul Baumann 16.11.1999). These scholars look at Hauer in relationship to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Glaubensbewegung (ADGB) that he co-founded with Graf Ernst zu Reventlow in the 1930s.
17. Hauer to Mande 25.2.1931 N1131 13 Doc 205, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, BAK.
18. Some intellectual Nazis associated liberal and liberal theology (also called the ‘free direction of theology’, ‘radicalism’ or ‘comparative history of religion’) with radical break-through (Citationvon Leers). This ‘liberal’ experience was German, but mislabeled by its enemies. Other Nazis, however, associated liberalism with mercenary individualism, the ideas of the French Revolution, and above all with Jews who “dominated German economic and intellectual life between 1918 and 1933” to the detriment of völkisch ways (Frenssen 233). As such liberalism became part of four major ideas from which ‘Germany’ supposedly suffered: Christianity, French liberalism, Jewish liberalism (Weimar), and Communism. The völkisch writer Frenssen, and he is not an exception, called these Semitic, Roman, French, American, and Russian ideas ‘foreign’ and therefore a danger to the German Volksseele (232–4).
19. It is not too far-fetched to hypothesize that the radical liberal forces of a moribund democracy, which is what Weimar was, were as ready and willing to bring about an authoritarian dictatorship, one that would restore pride and undo humiliation, as the radical right was (see Gregor 5). One is reminded of Russia's Vladimir Zhirinowsky, among others (ibid 114).
20. Hauer's correspondence shows some contact with Gregor Straβer (1892–1934) who was, when Goebbels worked for him, for a “deutschen Sozialismus” (Reuth 86, 90). By contrast, Straβer's brother Otto (1897–1974) was once an SPD member. As early as 1925, however, he became a member of the NSDAP and led the Kampf-Verlag, a small publishing firm founded by Gregor Straβer. After a furore with Hitler, Otto Straβer left the NSDAP. Gregor then distanced himself from Otto, swore loyalty to Hitler, and became the NSDAP's national organizing leader (Reichsorganisationsleiter). He fell out with Hitler in 1932 when Schleicher's invited him to become Vice-Chancellor in the cabinet and was murdered during the Röhm Putsch in 1934.
21. In a letter to Paul Zapp of 26 June 1933 (N1131 16, Doc. 223, BAK), when Hauer thought of writing a pamphlet (that captured Hitler's sentiment) entitled, “A Christian or A German State”, he instructed Zapp to contact various people in Berlin. They included Gregor Straβer and, importantly, the co-founder of the ADG, Ernst Graf zu Reventlow (1869–1943). A fanatical National Socialist, Reventlow was the founding editor of the Reichswart, a severe critic of the Weimar Republic, and a defender of Equal Rights for German non-Christians (Scholder 451). Like Goebbels, as mentioned, Reventlow too was sympathetic toward Straβer's view of German socialism, but then shifted to Hitler's position and became a member of the Reichstag for the National Socialist party.
22. See Scholder's view which is very different (453, 488, 526): he acknowledges the DGB's growth, its attraction to important Nazi officials and especially Nazi youths, and its serious rivalry with the Deutsche Christen. “The training leader of the National Socialist German Student Union, Dr. von Leers, was a member of the Führerrat (Board of Leaders) of Hauer's DGB”, among others (Scholder 526).
23. Hauer to Zapp, 26.6.1933, N1131 16, Doc. 223, BAK; see also Kater (17) and Reuth.
24. CitationHaffner (Germany 195–214) argues that the relationship between liberalism and National Socialism is a “radical nihilism that equally denies all values be they capitalistic, a matter of civil rights, or proletarian…”.
25. Hauer to Best 9.3.1934 N1131 66 Doc 52, BAK.
26. The German Christians were the radical branch of Christianity. Many rejected the Old Testament, Paul's Gospel, and so on, because they were Jewish. Their aim was to unite Christianity with National Socialism by turning it into a ‘positive Christianity’ according to Article 24 of the NSDAP Party Program. While the German Christians became a popular phenomenon in the 1930s, the idea is older. In 1815, Ernst Mortiz Arndt (1769–1860) had talked about deutsches Christentum und eine deutsche Kirche (a German Church). The prophet of German Faith is Paul Anton de Lagarde (his real name is Paul Anton Bötticher) and later Arthur Bonus (1864–1941) (CitationMeyer 182–4). In his poetry, Lagarde presented his German Faith as a ‘Wodankult’ (cult of Woden, Chief Germenic God) (ibid 183).
27. Hauer “Aus der Front der Gegner und Kompromissler”, 1.10.1934, Berlin. N1131, 63, Doc 105, BAK (unpublished documents in the Homer papers of Bundesarchiv Koblenz).
28. Hauer “Aus der Front der Gegner und Kompromissler”, 1.10.1934, Berlin. Doc106, BAK. See also CitationGloege (“Deutschkirche”, “Weltsanschauung”) and CitationHutten, who discuss the liberal theological origins of the deutsch-germanisch religions and worldviews and Rosenberg's liberalism in völkisch garb (Künneth: 108). Walter Künneth, who edited the volume which includes CitationGloege' s and Hutten's chapters, was a controversial Protestant theologian (in our view a liberal one) who initially approved of National Socialism, then turned to criticizing it.
29. Archival research was carried out in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK), Bundesarchiv Berlin (BB), Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Leipzig, and Staatsbibliothek Berlin.
30. Hauer “Aus der Front der Gegner und Kompromissler”, 1.10.1934, Berlin. 27.3.1936, N1131 62 BAK, Doc 128.
31. Hauer “Aus der Front der Gegner und Kompromissler”, 1.10.1934, Berlin. 27.3.1936, N1131 62 BAK, Doc 128.
32. CitationAlbert Speer (Inside 39; Erinnerungen 25), too, mentions the co-operation of the civil servants who simply carried on under Hitler and in a sense helped him succeed.
33. Nanko's (Glaubensbewegung) sample consisted of 545 DGB-members (between 1933–35) for whom he could find relevant data.
34. The correspondence between Erwin Ackerknecht (1880–1960) and Hans Grimm during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s is fascinating: it shows Ackerknecht's enormous effort to promote völkisch writers by organizing readings and talks throughout Germany. Ackerknecht was the director of the public library in Stettin. Like most völkisch thinkers who outlived their usefulness, he eventually fell into disfavor with some Nazis. After WWII he became director of the Schiller National Museum in Marbach a.N. (A: Grimm, Ackerknecht an Grimm 1919, 1925, 1933–35, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach a.N.).
35. The anthropologist Leo Frobenius (1873–1938) writes (4) that as a natural scientist he used the term ‘drittes Reich’ in 1898 to add a third category (culture) to the notions of organic and inorganic nature. Nature was therefore organic, cultural, and inorganic. Culture is thus not created by human beings, but “lives on them” or “lives through them” (ibid). “The organic life of the third Reich (culture)”, which is “carried by” human beings, this nature-based cultural life, is accessible by our “living intuition” (6-7). Even here are foundational elements of National Socialism, with, however, this difference: Frobenius considered the Orient and the Occident (the space-paideuma and the cave-paideuma) as Ur-phenomena that “fertilized” one another, that were complementary rather than antagonistic (99), hence without hostility toward Jews.
36. See the von Leers files, N2168, 2, 3, 25 in Bundesarchiv Berlin (BB).
37. Reventlow, editor of the Reichswart and co-founder of the ADGB, mentioned that in 1935, c. 2 million people declared themselves to be followers. In that year, the movement referred to itself as a “movement of millions” (Millionenbewegung) (CitationBartsch 68). A large membership increase occurred after the Sports Palace meeting in Berlin on 26 April 1935. Because the crowd crushed the Sports Palace even after its 20,000 seats were filled, it had to be closed by the police. Apparently vigorous propaganda preceded the meeting, with as many as 90 talks per month given all over Germany (ibid).
38. Von Leers N2168, 9, “Gustav Frenssen wird 75 Jahre alt“, unpublished document, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BB), also von Leers about Hölderlin and others (ibid).
39. Letter dated 13.01.1937 from SS Obersturmführer to Brigadeführer, in von Leers files N2168, 2, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BB).
40. 20.11.1933, N1131 56 Doc.106 Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK).
41. N1131 55, Doc. 30, BAK.
42. 19.12.1933 N1131 55, Doc. 29, BAK.
43. 19.12.1933 N1131 55, Doc. 29, BAK.
44. One can only speculate whether the pietistic environment had any influence on Hauer other than for him to reject it. It may be, however, that his interest in religious experiences, mysticism, visions, religious eclecticism, Swedenborgian theosophy, an anti-church sentiment, and a preference for small intimate confidential groups may have received a first impulse here. For details about Hahn, see CitationBrecht (283–286). CitationNanko (“Hauer” 73) claims that Hauer was influenced by Hahn, but provides no evidence from primary sources.
45. Translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders as What is Christianity?. Hauer also read Scheiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl.
46. Von Leers, Citation1938, “Gustav Frenssen wird 75 Jahre alt”. In von Leers’ files N2168, 9, Bundesarchiv Berlin.
47. Macalpine to Hauer 21.10.1923, 23.3.1924, illegible signature to Hauer 10.8.1921, N1131, 8, BAK. Correspondence in this file deals primarily with the cruelty of Versailles, worthless money, the German youth movement as a turn away from militarism, and shared memories.
48. For an interpretation of Plato's Theory of Forms or Ideas and the Nazis, see CitationPopper (20–31).
49. A Nazi term used for anything that in terms of its form, appearance or content could be German, in accordance with the usage of those days, even if its origins were foreign.
50. CitationHauer (Religionen 165–7) is interested—more than Frobenius is—in the notion of Völkerwanderungen that he relates to prehistorical Indogermanen (Indo-Germanics). Hauer attempts to answer the question whether there is a historical-genetic connection between the oldest Stone Age cultures of Europe and the lowest cultures of other parts of the world (ibid 164). He works with the analogy of a living tree so that the “deep levels of religious life”, its roots, are uniform across all humanity. Only the highest ranks of development branch out, far above their roots, with specific characteristics represented by different races and cultures (ibid 162).
51. The Bhagavad-Gita is Hindu scripture—its literal translation ‘The Song of the Lord’. It is probably the most popular book of Hindu scripture in the West. For many modern Hindus, it represents the essence of their religion, with the message that there are many ways to salvation. The Buddhist scholar Edward Conze and others, but not CitationHauer, have argued that the devotional tone of the Gita reflects the influence of Christianity and that it was probably written to counter Christian teaching.
52. See letter 5.4.1930, N1131 31, Doc 41, BAK.
53. For a similar ‘camouflaged’ approach, see CitationHerwig's study of the geopolitician, Karl Haushofer, who similarly worked for the Nazis and, specifically, with Heβ behind the scenes.
54. In a letter to Buber, for example, Hauer wrote that “… for us, the Jewish question is a problem, for surely one cannot disagree with the fact that, for example, especially Jews have had a bad influence on our theater and literature. Or do you think I am wrong?” (Hauer to Buber 18.10.1932, N1131 13, Doc. 15, BAK). He makes stronger comments to Werner Best: “That cleansing the German Volk of Jewish elements, especially in the leading classes, was necessary forced itself upon me from year to year through my observations of academic life and different German universities, especially also through my observations within literature, art, and so on. I therefore made a firm effort at this university and already tried in 1929 to prevent that a professor who was a baptized Christian, but was of Jewish descent, come here.” (Hauer to Best 9.3.34 N1131 66, Doc. 55 BAK)
55. He also helped students interested in topics which were related to his. For example, writing to Emil Blum, a student, on 20 December 1930, he suggested that Blum read his work Die Religionen, but also Frazer, Wilhelm Wundt, Theodor Preuss, Pater Wilhelm Schmidt, Söderblom, and Levy-Bruhl. (Letter 20.12.1030, N1131, 124, Doc 350, BAK).
56. 31.3.1932, N1131 14 BAK).
57. The youth section of CitationHauer's Bund.
58. See letters in N1131, Band 10, BAK.
59. Letter 1.11.1928, N1131, Bd.38, BAK.