Polish Catholic Concerns regarding the Rise of National Socialism in Germany

Introduction

Polish criticism of totalitarianism, including National Socialism, was well developed during the short period of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939). Not only was the development of this critical discourse cut short by the German and Soviet invasions of 1939, but many of its voices would be silenced in the decades to follow. These critical scholarly voices are all but unknown in the world, and even within Poland they could not be openly discussed prior to the fall of communism in 1989. ¹ This historical discourse was in effect removed from the historical record, as these voices arose from political, cultural, and religious positions that were unacceptable to the post-war communist government. These same features are precisely what make these voices of such interest today. In attempting to explain the rise of National Socialism, most of Western scholarship after the Second World War looks back in time through the lens of what came later, primarily the Holocaust and the wider horrors of World War II. ² Polish critical discourse on the rise of National Socialism developed side-by-side with the rise of Nazism itself, and can therefore provide invaluable insights into the phenomenon in real time. These scholars were deeply concerned with the religious elements of this new German movement, and they perceived the dangers of this movement before it took on the level of violence the world would later come to primarily associate with it. The religious and cultural nature of their criticisms of National Socialism made them unacceptable in post-war Poland, and makes them in part foreign to many of us today, particularly to non-Catholics and non-Poles. While we need not share their religious convictions or their cultural background, their assessments of the rise of National Socialism ought to be taken seriously by anyone interested in the rise of this totalitarian movement. The current article is an attempt to raise awareness in the English-speaking world of these untranslated critical voices regarding the religious, or ‘pseudo-religious’, aspects of the rise of National Socialism, voices long silenced both in Poland and abroad.

Criticism of National Socialism was well developed in interwar Poland, and would reach a comparable level in the West only after World War II. The reasons for this unusually high level of critical discourse in Poland were political, cultural, and religious. In the 1920s and 1930s, Poles were concerned for the continuation of their national sovereignty. Having regained independence in 1918 after 123 years of foreign occupation, and in light of the plebiscites in Silesia and continued broader tensions between German and Polish national aspirations, these scholars were acutely aware of the very real threats posed by a highly militarized and nationalistic Germany. Therefore, these Polish intellectuals took the rise of Nazism more seriously than most of the outside world. Of interest to us in the current article, Polish Catholics were also concerned with the rise of National Socialism because of what they understood to be its religious or ‘pseudo-religious’ nature. Not only was Nazism ardently and openly anti-Catholic, but, as will be seen in the pages that follow, it was understood as an attempt to replace a Christian spirituality focused on a transcendental God, with a tribal spirituality centred on a biological nation. The religious aspect of German National Socialism was understood by this Polish school of thought to lie at the core of the movement. While scholars have explored the religious aspects of National Socialism and the relationship between Nazism and Christianity, this scholarship generally overlooks the works that appeared in Poland before the outbreak of World War II. This is a critical oversight in need of redress.

Catholic intellectuals in inter-war Poland were concerned by the dynamics they saw developing in Germany between the Catholic Church and National Socialism. They were concerned not only by the aggressive, colonial advance of the Nazi movement into areas of social and spiritual life hitherto the territory of the Church, but also by what they understood to be the passivity of the Church in Germany and the manner in which the Church was accommodating, step-by-step, the demands of the Nazi movement. ³ They observed a similar pattern of development taking place in Austria, a process that only intensified after the Anschluss in 1938. Not only was there no comparable trend in Poland, but also the Catholic Church was considerably stronger in Polish society. Polish intellectuals were therefore in a unique position to evaluate the early development of National Socialism in Germany, especially its religious aspects. They were both removed from the Germany context, being in a different national milieu, but also intimately familiar with Germany, following 123 years of German occupation. Thus, this school of thought was able to assess the development of the religious elements of National Socialism to a degree largely unknown outside of Poland.

It should, however, be pointed out that the Church’s leadership in Rome was also deeply worried by the rise of National Socialism in Germany. A clear expression of these concerns is seen in the Papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (‘With burning concern’), written in German and read at Catholic churches throughout Germany on Palm Sunday, 1937. The concerns of Polish Catholic intellectuals regarding National Socialism explored below should thus be seen as being globally in line with the overall position of the Church leadership in Rome. Similarly, the anti-racial and anti-eugenics positions of Rome, as found in the encyclical Casti connubii of 1930, and in the Papal decrees educatione sexuali and eugenica of 21 March 1931, found voice in the works of these Polish thinkers. ⁴ While not rejecting biological science, Pius XI rejected attempts to biologically perfect humanity or any groups in particular (racial, national, or otherwise). Although the nature of the concerns of Polish Catholics was generally in line with the positions of the Vatican, the degree of that concern was often very different, as was the particular constellation of issues around which it formed. For example, while the Vatican concordat with Germany, similar to the Lateran Treaty with the Italian government, was understood by Polish intellectuals as a political negotiation between sovereign political states, it was also seen as problematic to the extent to which it legitimized Hitler’s government, facilitated greater collaboration therewith by German Catholics, and undercut the position of Catholic opposition movements and the Bavarian People’s Party (Bayerische Volkspartei). ⁵ While the Vatican, with its greater physical and diplomatic distance to Berlin, could negotiate such positions so as to avoid even greater conflicts, Polish Catholics did not have such a ‘cushion’. More so than the Vatican, Poles were concerned – following over a century of German and Russian occupation – by the practical threat to national independence posed by Germany (and the Soviet Union), especially in its Nazi form, and Polish Catholic intellectuals in particular were too close to the realities ‘on the ground’ of German Catholics to find comfort in compromise. ⁶ Similarly, Polish Catholics were often critical of what they perceived to be inadequate resistance to Nazism by the Catholic leadership in Germany. ⁷

In this article, we will introduce the reader to interwar (1918–1939) Polish discourse around the religious and pseudo-religious aspects of the then-developing National Socialist movement. ⁸ We will focus on the academic writings of Catholic philosophers, theologians, sociologists, and pedagogues, but we will not examine the wider discourse that took place in the popular or political press. ⁹ In this way, we will introduce the reader to an invaluable body of scholarly Polish social commentary that remains untranslated and therefore largely unknown outside of Poland. For this reason, in the footnotes we will provide brief biographical notes on many of the scholars discussed. While we cannot do full justice to a school of thought of this size, the current overview, including the literature cited in the footnotes, will provide the reader with a solid foundation on which we hope future research will build. These interwar voices can help us to better understand the religious and pseudo-religious aspects of the rise of German National Socialism, and they provide a window onto that phenomenon through an intellectual lens that had not yet been shaped by the horrors of the war that was to come, including the Holocaust. We will first present an overview of how these interwar Polish scholars perceived the relationship between religion and National Socialism in Germany. We will then discuss what they understood to be three elements that lie at the core of National Socialism: the mythical status of the community (Gemeinschaft), the construction of a pseudo-religion (the strategic use of religious-like practices), and the religious-like belief in the notion of racial purity. What is important for our purposes here is that these criticisms were made on religious, philosophical, and cultural grounds. Such positions were taken by numerous scholars, including Konstanty Michalski, ¹⁰ Franciszek Sawicki, ¹¹ Andrzej Niesiołowski, ¹² Jan Urban, ¹³ Józef Pastuszko, ¹⁴ Ignacy Czuma, ¹⁵ and Stefan Wyszyński. ¹⁶ These authors argued time and again that the racism of National Socialism, its understanding of the German collective, and its appropriation of pseudo-religious elements, are expressions of German atheism, and that, as such, they are part of the Nazis’ fight with the notion of a transcendental God and with the belief that each and every person has within them the spark of divinity.

The Status of Religion in German National Socialism

As National Socialism continued to grow and to strengthen its position within German society, a philosopher at the Catholic University of Lublin, Józef Pastuszka, described the situation of religion in Germany as follows: ‘Hitler believes that National Socialism is neither religious nor anti-religious, and yet he often speaks of an “all-powerful being”, “providence”, and of his own higher calling’. ¹⁷ Pastuszka asserted that the religion of National Socialism was making use of various religious-like symbols, while abandoning the core elements of Christianity. In countless texts, Pastuszka and others argued that racist ideology (then understood in many quarters to be a ‘science’) is thoroughly incompatible with Christianity. Arguments in support of racism attempt to elevate race to spiritual heights that should be reserved for religion alone. Supporters of racism attempt to make it an integral, ‘religious’ part of our life philosophy, something that Pastuszka believed to be very dangerous. Pastuszka, along with others, argued that the subordination of the Catholic and Protestant churches to this new philosophy was a process that developed in stages over time. In 1939, this process is described in Polish texts as having in effect led to the creation of a ‘German faith’ (deutsche Glaube), that was professed by many German intellectuals, such as Jakob W. Hauer, Ernst Bergman, and Alfred Rosenberg. Within the writings of these German intellectuals, the social world is understood to be the history of God’s development, thereby rendering Him a social construction. In this new religion, man is a being on par with God, and the values underlying our lives are race, honour, and duty. Love and sacrifice ought only to be directed towards people of the same race, and even then only to the healthy and strong. It is a religion that arises out of biological pantheism. ¹⁸ What is more, the founders of Nazi ideology rejected Christianity as a Semitic religion, and in this period it was actively stigmatized as such.

Writing on the pages of Przegląd Powszechny in 1919, Jan Urban described the development of the new constitution of the former German empire. At that time, paragraphs 30, 30a, and 31 of the newly proposed constitution of Germany, regarding religion, the Church, and schools, had already been accepted: ‘According to these paragraphs every citizen is assured freedom of religion, conscience, and thought’. ¹⁹ However, Urban argued that the constitution did not bode well for religion, as it isolated religious institutions to a considerably greater degree than seen under the normal division between church and state. In his opinion, the only reason the German government had not yet fully removed religion from schools and theology from universities was the growth of Bolshevism in various parts of Germany. In the face of these developments, Urban was hopeful that German Catholics ‘would not allow themselves to be placed under laws that violate their faith’. ²⁰

A year before Hitler came to power, unsettling news appeared on the pages of Prąd, a monthly published by the Union of Polish Catholic Intelligentsia. The writers were concerned about the current state of religious instability in the world, and they attributed this state of affairs to two main sources: Germany and Soviet Russia. ²¹ While the anti-religious position of the Soviet government was explicit, Stefan Wyszyński believed this chaotic state to also be deliberately created in Germany by National Socialism. He pointed to the book by ‘Dr. Hutten, Christ or the German Faith [Christus oder Deutsch-Glaube], in which the author lists more than 50 religious groups that are constantly changing their names, principles, entire ideologies, and philosophical foundations’. ²² These groups were primarily characterized by an overabundance of ever-changing choices and goals, and as such they undercut the possibility of loyalty to singular Christian churches. Wyszyński thought this chaotic state to be particularly dangerous for the youth, and all the more so because Nazi organizations were distributing a tremendous number of brochures, newspapers, fliers, and books – all in the name of ‘drowning Catholics in a flood of paper’. ²³ He was convinced that more explicit persecution would soon follow. He saw more direct foreshadowing of this in the decree requiring all German youth organizations to use a single, standardized uniform. This ordinance, issued by the Minister of Internal Affairs, forbid Catholic organizations from issuing their own uniforms, badges, and flags, and banned public manifestations. Only Nazi organizations were allowed to have their own badges. ‘Hitlerism is jealous of others’ influence on the souls of the German youth’, wrote Wyszyński. ²⁴ He wrote about the harassment experienced by pilgrims returning from the Vatican: young pilgrims had the badges of their Catholic organizations confiscated, along with souvenirs they brought back with them. ²⁵ Wyszyński also reported limitations imposed on, and harassment experienced by, workers’ and veterans’ organizations. The founding of the German Workers’ Front, and the obligation to take part therein, was accompanied by a ban on simultaneous membership in Catholic workers’ unions. ²⁶ Wyszyński believed that National Socialism, which was then growing in strength, was attempting to fight not only with the organization of Catholic social life and with the Catholic hierarchy, but also with Catholic teaching, thereby violating the concordant with the Vatican. ²⁷

An important moment in the fight against the Catholic Church in Germany took place in 1935. Severe limitations were placed on the Catholic press and Catholic associations were removed from public life, thereby weakening the influence of the Church on the congregation of believers. As they had done with their political opponents, the Nazi leadership compromised the standing of the Catholic leadership by fabricating and then widely publicizing stories that undercut their moral, social, and political authority. ²⁸ Catholic intellectuals in Poland perceived the situation of the Catholic Church in Germany, and the responses of the Church to the challenges it was facing, to be tragic: ‘From the outside, Catholicism resembles a political organization. Political enemies of the centre and the Bavarian party are becoming enemies of Catholicism … German Catholics have succumbed to the influence of state formalism and of the national chauvinism of the Prussian government’. ²⁹

The wider context of this state of affairs was described on the pages of Prąd, published by the Catholic University in Lublin. In this publication, we find descriptions of a National Socialist rally attended by over 3000 people. Here we read about how deafening music is beaten out on drums for hours on end, ‘the marching begins at 6 PM’ – ‘Goebels then inspires the crowd with sarcasm and calls to revolution’ – ‘as 10 PM approaches, the flags are hoisted, all eyes fix on the entrance gate, in march a stream of torches, a rifle salute, cries of “Heil! Heil!” He is coming!’ ³⁰ This is how the terrified Polish author described one of the rallies. The full description of the rally sends a shiver down one’s spine, and it ends in the following observations:

National Socialism is neither a doctrine nor a programme, but a movement, a messianic faith in a future in which there will be no unemployment, no poverty, no Frenchman bullying the poor German, no hated Pole […] If there is no criticism of this movement in parliament [the German parliament], if parliament is without meaning, the anti-Catholic spirit of the bureaucrats will continue to grow in strength. ³¹

Catholic intellectuals writing at this time described different trends within National Socialist thinking on religion. For example, Franciszek Sawicki described a distinction between what he called moderate and radical positions within National Socialism. Those working within the moderate school of thought wanted to ‘stamp Christianity with the seal of the nation. With this goal in mind, they founded the Union of German Christians (Deutsche Christen), which currently dominates in the Protestant churches’. ³² The leading representative of the radical school of thought was Alfred Rosenberg, the author of Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the 20th Century, 1930). Sawicki describes Rosenberg’s rejection of the Old Testament as a non-Aryan text, as well as his more gradual elimination of the New Testament. The radical nature of this school of thought is seen in Ernst Bergmann’s new version of the prayer ‘Our Father’ as written in Die Deutsche Nationalkirche (The German National Church, 1933): ‘I believe in the God of the German religion, who works in nature, in the noble spirit of the human soul, and in the strength of my nation’. ³³ Sawicki wrote about his astonishment at how quickly and passionately this broader shift was being adopted in practice, such as during eulogies. He reports how Rosenberg, satisfied with the current state of affairs, claimed: ‘How dramatically our understanding of heaven has changed! We have returned to the heroic vision of our Teutonic forefathers’. ³⁴

Konstanty Michalski also pointed to Germany and Bolshevik Russia as the two primary sources of threat to Christianity at the time, and he believed the anti-Christian movements that had taken place in these two countries in the wake of World War I to be in fact religious revolutions. He classified these movements into ‘superficial’ and ‘deep’ movements. Prior to 1934, Italy and Spain were considered by him to belong to the former category, while Russia and Germany belonged to the latter. Characteristic of Polish criticism of totalitarianism at that time is the perception of connections and analogues between such diverse movements in different countries. In the case of religion, Michalski asserted that ‘despite mutual antagonism there are considerable similarities between the Bolshevik Revolution and National Socialism in Germany, as both reach for the roots of religion in collective life, the only difference being that while one attempts to remove them, the other intends to replace them’. ³⁵ Drawing such parallels between National Socialism and Bolshevik communism would get many of these intellectuals into serious trouble after the war, as Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

In order to better understand the atmosphere that dominated this religious revolution in Germany, Konstanty Michalski argued that one needs to look yet further back in time. Similar to the claims of Karl Barth, he argued that the source of the current trend could be located in destructive philosophical positions. For example, he argued that we see radical subjectivism leading to extreme anthropomorphism, with humanity being understood as the reason for God’s existence. In other words, humanity was understood to have ‘extracted’ God from within and in that way to have made God a component of culture. Religion was understood to be a historical fact, and in this way National Socialist thinkers were understood to be undercutting the very notion of universal and eternal Christian values. ³⁶ In the opinion of the likes of Franciszek Sawicki, Konstanty Michalski, Leopold Caro, and Jan Czuj, the problem in Germany was that spiritual culture cannot, and should not, be taken as a reflection of nationality or race. The norms and ideals around which we can build our lives do not gain their authority because they match a people’s ‘racial spirit’, but rather from the fact that they are good in themselves.

In the writings of Wyszyński, Michalski, and Krotoski we see the tragic situation of Catholics and the Catholic Church in the Third Reich. These authors also describe the submissiveness of the Church’s representatives in Germany and Austria. Although ‘critical voices of the German and Austrian episcopates pointed to some general pros and cons of the National Socialist system, discussions on a more detailed level continue’. ³⁷ We read in Michalski’s text the hope that all is not yet lost for German Catholics. However, as early as 1934 (only a year after the signing of the concordant with the Vatican) it was clear that the German-Catholic ‘pessimists’ had already given up the public struggle. This led to a disproportionately positive note in public discussions of the issue in Germany; as optimistic or desperate voices painted a hopeful picture – a picture that obscured their view of the actual consequences of the developments they were witnessing. For example, German Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen declared that the National Socialists were true to the programme laid out by Papal encyclicals, and he argued that the accusations – such as those put forward by the Austrian episcopate – regarding racial hatred, antisemitism, and the drive for a national church, were unfounded. Von Papen explicitly distanced himself from anti-religious positions, but he generally did so only on the level of inconsequential public declarations. Such misguided optimism was also encouraged by the writings of the Luxembourger Joseph Lortz, who naively believed that Nazi politics would affect only superficial Catholics, and that their departure from Catholicism would in fact cleanse the Church. Michalski was critical of Lortz’s position, arguing that he raised no objections to the National Socialists as they raised not God on the alter, but nationalistic socialist ideas. ³⁸

There were of course German voices raised in defence of Catholicism. According to Michalski, one such voice was that of Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, who – from his seat in the cathedral of Munich – argued in support of both the Old and New Testaments. However, such voices did not amount to much, argues Michalski, because the National Socialist movement had built ‘side tracks’ for the Catholic religion, along which German Catholics were being diverted. In Germany, Papal encyclicals and Thomistic philosophy were ignored, precisely because the goal of the National Socialists was a dramatic historical social shift, for which traditional philosophies needed to be discarded. ³⁹ The future Primate of Poland, Stefan Wyszyński claimed that the Nazi movement saw its primary enemy not in Protestantism, but in Catholicism. ⁴⁰ He pointed out that on a weekly basis the Berlin-based publication Katholisches Kirchenblatt targeted young people with dozens of blasphemous texts. In 1935, Wyszyński wrote that German priests and bishops were being harassed with questions regarding their national loyalty: ‘To whom are they responsible? The Church of Christ or their earthly fatherland?’ – to which Wyszyński offers his own reply: ‘The time has come for the bishop, who is not a hired hand, to declare his loyalty to the oath he took and to remain true, without hesitation, to God’. ⁴¹ Wyszyński urged the German bishops not to listen to Alfred Rosenberg, whom he believed to be an enemy of Christianity. He argued that Rosenberg’s The Myth of the 20th Century, which was then required reading in German schools, should be categorically rejected.

Within these interwar texts we see the situation of German spirituality in the 1930s, described as being based around the manipulation of religion and various particular elements of religion. Ignacy Czuma used Herman Rauschning’s ⁴² book Die Revolution des Nihilismus (The Revolution of Nihilism, 1938) to illustrate this general point. Czuma reported Rausching’s understanding of Hitler’s goals: ‘They are about quick, noticeable effects. Within the span of a few years, organize the nation, destroy the Church and other opponents, arm the nation, conquer Europe, devour her, and rule the world. Everything immediately’. ⁴³ In order to achieve these aims, religious sentiment within the armed forces needed to be manipulated, including the destruction of Christian ethics. In the opinion of Rauschning, the Christian spirit was in steep decline among the German officer corps. Czuma believed this decline to have started with Ludendorff, whose appeal to paganism and explicit call for the rejection of Christianity introduced considerable insecurity among the officers. ⁴⁴ In addition to breaking down Christianity, National Socialism was also building up its own foundational myths. We will now briefly examine three of them: the belief in the power of the community (Gemeinschaft); pseudo-religious rituals; and the notion of national ‘blood’ and racial purity.

The Religious-like Status of the German Community (Gemeinschaft)

Within National Socialism, national unity took on the status of a religion, becoming one of the ideology’s foundational myths. ⁴⁵ These interwar Polish authors believed that in order to understand this then-contemporary phenomenon in Germany, it was important to examine the unique aspects of German society as it developed against the backdrop of longer-evolving historical processes. For example, Andrzej Niesiołowski started his assessment of Nazism with the working assumption that this phenomenon had much deeper roots than one would assume on the basis of its symptoms alone, and he therefore attempted to describe the nature and genesis of these underlying processes. Thus, before undertaking his analysis of National Socialism (1938), Niesiołowski conducted a thorough study of the genesis of social ideologies broadly speaking, including totalitarianism. ⁴⁶ He was convinced that initial attempts to analyse ideologies such as National Socialism, having been largely influenced by Marxism, committed a grave error in assuming that the role of the researcher is to ‘unmask’ such movements in order to see the true nature that lies beneath. For example, Niesiołowski believed the work of Karl Mannheim to reflect this shortcoming, as he was attempting to create a ‘science of ideologies, whose task it would be to unmask “the lies they contain” (Handwörterbuch der Soziologie)’. ⁴⁷ Niesiołowski was of the opinion that collective ‘masks’ and ‘hidden agendas’ were ancillary to the given ideology, and that they generally only appeared at particular times and in particular social conditions (‘Social ideology is a relatively uniform set of dynamic beliefs and values, normative and programmatic in nature, accepted by a given group of people that originate from reflections or emotional reactions concerning a given scope of issues’). ⁴⁸ Rather than simply disregarding elements of the phenomenon (the ‘masks’) while assuming others (the ‘face’ beneath), Niesiołowski proposed that we should analyse the internal structures of ideologies, and that we should do so with the aid of a broad range of comparative material. Within such an analysis, the goal is to describe criteria and concepts that allow us to more clearly understand social phenomena that are both ever-changing and difficult to grasp. He analysed the nature of ideology as far back as ancient Greece and Rome, with the working hypothesis that each cultural period produces its own form of ideology.

In Niesiołowski’s analyses, the previous cultural strength of Germany had created a system in which Germans looked to the outside for the source of their national failings (e.g., the loss of World War I). He contrasted this to the French and Poles who were inclined to look inward. The Versailles Treaty was seen as an abomination imposed on Germany from the outside, and there was no consideration of the fact that they were in large part returning what they had initially plundered from others (again, a position more readily held by a Pole than an American, and Englishman, or even a Frenchman). In this line of thinking, Niesiołowski believed that cultural conflict between Germans and Jews, and the fallout from the Belfour Declaration, were not strong enough to explain German antisemitism, which he believed to be disproportionately strong – precisely because it provided an ‘external’ scapegoat for German national failures. Niesiołowski believed that the only way to understand these various developments was precisely the study of shared ideology (not just a single political party). He concludes that the rise of Nazism was neither the result of Germany’s defeat in World War I, nor the product of Hitler’s agitations (although its development was strengthened by those factors). Rather, the key to its success was a particular understanding of the collective (Gemeinschaft).

In analyzing this concept, Niesiołowski describes the collective as a group built on the foundation of similar experiences and aspirations; one in which the pronoun ‘we’ is used. The notion of the collective was first introduced into the field of sociology by Ferdinand Tönnies, in his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. While the writings of Tönnies were seminal to the birth of the intellectual study of ‘the philosophy of the collective’, Niesiołowski did not believe them to be of such primary importance for the development for the German version of this intellectual movement. Of greater importance, in the opinion of Niesiołowski, was the collection of lectures of the Philosophical Society’s 1928 gathering in Leipzig, edited by Feliks Kruger (Philosophie der Gemeinschaft, 1929). Niesiołowski reported that ‘the seemingly disparate topics of discussion revolved around reflections on the deeper aspirations of the German nation. ‘The community is the god of the century’ wrote Helmuth Plessner. ⁴⁹ ‘At the Leipzig conference, scholars searched for the notion of community in various aspects of life [including the relations of doctors to their ill patients] … in the writings of Leibniz and of course in Hegel’. ⁵⁰

Niesiołowski identified several cultural elements in the history of Germany that strengthened the notion of Gemeinschaft, such as the separatism of various German lands, the Reformation, the Proto-Germanic understanding of leadership, the economic crisis of the 1920s, the German-Jewish conflict of 1917 around the Balfour Declaration, and various strands of German philosophy. What is important to note for the purposes of our current considerations is that within interbellum Polish criticisms of these elements, we see a uniquely acute sensitivity to the specifics of German history. As a neighbouring and long-subjugated nation, Poles were particularly aware of the specifically German nature of these various features. While human history as a whole has been marked by warring tribes, the separatism of the numerous smaller German states lasted quite long, arguably until the unification under Hitler (exceeding even the sweeping unification brought about under Bismarck). Within Niesiołowski’s assessment, this strong connection to smaller collectives has historically stood in contrast to the individualism of other neighbouring nations, such as the Poles and the French. Hence, in his assessment, the desire for tribal unity was particularly strong in the German context. As the various nations merged into a unified Germany, some sense of tribalism would remain, now exhibited simply on a larger, ‘international’ scale. For example, German antisemitism would grow in strength when the Jews were seen ‘in 1917, to enter into the camp of the Coalition in order to gain Palestine [supporting the Balfour Declaration]. The Germans, who had officially fought arm and arm alongside them since 1870 would not forget this’. ⁵¹ This issue for Niesiołowski was not the particulars of this or that political issue, but the underlying tribalism that was expanding on the foundation of strong historical roots.

Another factor in the formation of the uniquely German understanding of Gemeinschaft identified by Niesiołowski, and others like Wyszyński, was the Reformation. The religious separations caused by the Reformation were understood by these authors to be particularly dangerous as they often crisscrossed ‘tribal’ borders, and as these differences grew, differing political and cultural mentalities would take shape. Such a plethora of political views, while neutral in and of itself and commonplace in other lands, was particularly strong in the broader German context, something that contributed to a social yearning for unity. This is why, argues Niesiołowski, Prussian militarism would prove more appealing than Weimar democracy. The forced profession of guilt following World War I would strengthen the desire for Proto-Germanic leadership, and undercut support for the fluctuations of democratic leadership that is based on the political system and not a given personality. The economic crisis further exacerbated the situation, as the aspirations of the unemployed masses would be answered by the salvation promised by the community (Gemeinschaft) as led by a tribal leader (Führer). Other motives that spoke to the desire for Gemeinschaft were the natural yearning following World War I for family warmth and social life, the feeling for one’s homeland (Heimat), and the romantic search for the roots of ‘German-ness’. While some of these features naturally appeared in other countries at that time, the poles around which they oscillated were, according to Niesiołowski, different in different nations, hence the importance of examining the German versions within the German context. ⁵²

The scientific reforms enacted by the Nazis were also influential in turning the notion of Gemeinschaft into a ‘religious Gemeinschaft’. According to Niesiołowski, the tremendous degree of specialization and terminological complexity of German sciences at the time in effect decreased faith in our ability to identify any sort of objective truth.

Agnosticism, positivism, materialism, the cult of fictions, […] pragmatism, this all laid the foundation for Nazi scientific reform [ …] the Hitlerites decided to resign from seeking the truth (and from believing in the very possibility of such truth) [ …] replacing it with a unity of will. The truth is that which serves the ideology and the interests of the nation. ⁵³

The totality of National Socialism could not have taken place without the use of religion. However, as the dream of a strong and unified Nordic nation was to dominate over all other concerns, the spiritual content of religion would need to remain in the background. Niesiołowski believed that ‘Hitler would agree to allow the entire nation to become Protestant or […] Catholic. An expression of this sentiment can been seen in attempts to rehabilitate Christ by proving that he was […] Aryan’. ⁵⁵ The key here was that the nation would be unified. However, Catholicism would not agree on the ethic of collectivism, namely, the conviction that that which is good, is that which serves the group. Such an ethic – the product of Marxism – entailed the cessation of the search for truth in the name of group goals, which undercuts the very possibility of objective, universal moral prescriptions and proscriptions.

Niesiołowski argued that such pseudo-religions were not new in German history. The notion of a ‘German god’ appeared during the rule of the Hohenzollerns, and Niesiołowski reminded us that Herman Schwarz claimed, in his book Nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung, that God wanted to create himself out of the social will of the German nation. Such an understanding of God, remarked Niesiołowski, is more dangerous than atheism because it contains a pantheism of interpretations that overwhelms and confuses human conscience. This radical subjectivity thus created the conditions in which the desire for collective unity could be met by the seemingly ‘black-and-white’, ‘objective’ vision of the world provided by racism. Niesiołowski argues that one cannot explain the German acceptance of this radical, subjective pantheism on the basis of state terror. The speed and ease of the Austrian Anschluss was a clear example of the strength of national Gemeinschaft when elevated to the level of a ‘collective religion’. ⁵⁶

Pseudo-Religious Practices as an Element of the National Socialist Myth

This is only an excerpt from a much longer diagnosis of the condition of the German spirit, and of the status of religion and German politics in the 1930s. Alfred van Dyle pointed to how the pioneers of Nazism – such as Rosenberg, Bangert, Löpelmann, Hitler, and Röventlov – laid out a plan for a new German national church, a church that was to encompass the rebirth of the ancient cult of the pagan god Odin. ⁵⁸ Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism were to be diminished to mere candlelight flickers when juxtaposed with the overwhelmingly bright sunshine of the new Proto-Germanic religion, wrote Rosenberg in Christenkreuz oder Hakenkreuz? (Christ’s Cross or the Swastika?, 1931).

These new myths rejected much of what had shaped the culture, particularly cultural values, while nevertheless retaining the ‘shell’ of religiosity. Michalski believed that religion was being used not for its own sake, but because of its social role. He emphasized that if selected concepts were worshipped, thoughts, hearts, and desires would follow, and new myths would emerge. ⁵⁹ They had already begun to appear as ‘myths under construction’, namely the myths of German-ness and of racial purity. Michalski warned us about them both. This was also underscored in the writings of Karol L. Koniński, Leopold Caro, and Karol Krotoski. ⁶⁰ These thinkers were in agreement that this religious element was neither Catholic nor Protestant, nor was it related to any of their theological positions. Rather, within the new myth of German-ness and of the German race, the ‘religious’ element served a new calling. Michalski described this as follows:

In Germany, Christ has been accused of taking from the German tribes that which was the most unique and the most valuable in their blood. The people call for the treasure sunk in the waters of the river Rheine to be retrieved and for Christ’s gospel to be replaced by the Nibelung and Edda, forgetting that they both emerged from epic traditions that had been Latinized after the Burgundians and the Ostrogoths adopted Christianity. ⁶¹

Michalski did not believe this replacement of the ‘religious element’ to alone account for the existence of National Socialism. He believed that a particularly strong internal drive must also appear, a shared foundation on which the call for vengeance can be built and from which it can gather strength. This internal drive may be the domination of man’s base instincts. Michalski wrote that

in man is born a dwarf who yearns for vengeance on that which is great and beautiful […]. His eyes are ablaze when – in his destructive rage of profanation with no respect for the human soul – he reaches for what grew in humanity like the most beautiful flower, religion. ⁶⁵

The Myth of ‘Blood’ and Racial Purity

Polish Catholics writing in the 1920s and 1930s believed eugenics to be of central importance for the appearance and justification of the myth of national blood and racial purity. Broadly speaking, there was widespread criticism of the eugenics movement in Poland. ⁶⁶ It was openly opposed by the Catholic Church and Catholic intellectuals, and the Polish Parliament refused to pass a eugenics act. ⁶⁷ This uniquely strong and widespread opposition to the eugenics movement speaks to the broader opposition to racial theories in Poland at that time. ⁶⁸ This is all the more noteworthy given the relatively wide support the eugenics movement received in other European nations. ⁶⁹ The matter of eugenics in Polish perceptions of National Socialism is a large topic and one that should be addressed in future English-language texts. ⁷⁰ However, for our current purposes it is important to point out that racial theories of human categories run counter to the unity of humanity as theologically asserted in Catholicism. The belief in categorical racial differences, as asserted in National Socialism, undercuts a number of the core theological positions of the Catholic Church, such as belief in the meaningfulness of religious conversion. For example, the very meaningfulness of religious conversion requires that people can move between religious groups. The assertion of racial differences, for example between Christian groups and Jews, removes this possibility. For example, while Edith Stein – a Jewish convert to Catholicism who became a Discalced Carmelite nun – was considered a Jew by the Nazis (on the basis of essentialized racial categories), she was considered a Catholic, and not a Jew, by the Catholic Church. The rejection of essentialized differences between human categories can also be see in the Church’s position on euthanasia of the mentally and physically handicapped and abortion, two practices that were supported and implemented by National Socialism. Konstanty Michalski wrote that ‘the hour of national demise would have rung, if we see the inheritance of the blood as a curse from which we have no ingress into the paths of history’. ⁷¹

One of the main figures advocating for the new German ‘religion’ was Alfred Rosenberg. In his Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the 20th Century, 1930) he channelled his collection of pseudo-scientific proofs in support of his conviction that the Nordic blood will prove victorious and that it will come to replace the Christian sacraments. In taking on the role of ‘religion’, this blood myth involved the detestation and active rejection of the very notion of brotherly love between people and peoples. Karol L. Koniński wrote that the essence of the Sermon on the Mount was offensive to Nazis because of its assertion that all people are created equal. National Socialists condemned the weakness of the Catholic Church exemplified in the idea of mercy, therefore it is not surprising that Nazi youth movements professed to follow strong, old Teutonic gods. Koniński highlighted the sentiment, often among German thinkers of the time, that the German religion is born the moment Christianity dies. Thus, the idea of race (blood) was understood as being universally harmful to Christianity; as replacing Christian symbols and values with racist ones. For example, Polish writers pointed to Rosenberg’s suggestion of removing crosses from countryside roads as he believed them to be undeserving of German religiosity and the German cult of strength; his idea of replacing crosses with the swastika; and his suggestion of replacing public messages of Christian love with messages of honour and heroism. ⁷²

Conclusion

The desire to control human spirituality – as a phenomenon of great social power – was readily observed by Polish intellectuals in the writings of even the earliest Nazi ideologues. However, in 1936, Michalski and Niesiołowski observed, with deep concern, a shift in the importance and function of German intellectuals in the Nazi movement. While until then intellectuals had played the important role of explaining the nature of the new National Socialist myth, practitioners were becoming more important in as far as they were able to actually evoke this new ‘Teutonic spirit’ in the masses. These practitioners were building a new social structure, and they would eventually lead the people in worship as part of the new national church. Michalski also reflected upon the deep changes in European culture in his work Trzy mity [Three Myths]: ‘gnoseological arguments among scholars and philosophers have quietened and a battle for values has begun, a battle in which everyone partakes, although not everyone does so in the same way’. ⁷³

According to Polish intellectuals, after coming to power Hitler not only affected political change in Germany, but he transformed the universal character of the Christian church into a nation-specific religion that would serve the cause of National Socialism (a German god, a German faith). This change was more profound than those that had been brought about by ‘the reformations of Luther and Calvin. National Socialist theories were combined into a uniform worldview into which all other concepts, including religion, must necessarily fit’. ⁷⁴ The spirit of the new church, as exemplified in the works of Dietrich Klagges, was creating an entirely new ‘gospel’ within which Jesus has been turned into a mythical Aryan hero. ⁷⁵ Poles writing between the wars were similarly horrified by Krieck’s tripartite classification of religion – prophetic, ingenious, and heroic – and his expectation that with the rise of National Socialism the third type would come to rule by overthrowing its liberal predecessor, while the first type of religion would die out because of its links with Judaism. Signs of this progression were easy to see following the Anschluss. Swastikas were hung on churches not only in Germany, but also in Austria. ⁷⁶ Citizens were expected to embrace the unification just as the Christian churches were expected to support the transition to the new German national church.

As both a philosopher and theologian, Michalski noted how the tensions between the worldviews of Christianity and National Socialism were being expressed more and more often in ‘religious’ differences. In his opinion, the wider world did not appreciate these differences because it did not understand the social and theological processes leading to the emergence of this new movement. What is more, Michalski believed that this lack of appreciation blinded the outside world to the threat posed by National Socialism, and made the world reluctant to criticize the movement. By contrast, Polish criticism of National Socialism arose from the unique perspective of a neighbouring nation that had long fought for national, linguistic, cultural, and religious self-determination. Poles were particularly sensitive to both the intellectual arguments and physical violence used in support of aggressive national ‘will’. The racially-based arguments of the Nazi movement were deeply unsettling to Poles, and all the more so as they took on religious overtones. While the blending of religious and political sentiment was strong in Poland (e.g., the notion of ‘Polish Messianism’), even nationalistic camps rejected racial, biological differences as the foundation of national aspirations, let alone religious ones. ⁷⁷ Even within the notion of Poland as the ‘Christ of Nations’, national suffering was understood to contain a universally valid message of sacrifice for the common good of humankind; one that retained the Christian notion of brotherly love, while bearing no resemblance to the tribalism of National Socialism. ⁷⁸ In Germany, it was believed that the past is found in the blood, and that it is from the past, from the blood, that the human character is born. This ‘biological’ lineage was understood to connect all Germans with each other across the generations. Reverence for these biological roots reached religious heights in the religious revolution of the National Socialists. ⁷⁹

News of political repression, imprisonment, and executions in Germany – both before and after what came to be called the ‘Night of Long Knives’ in 1934 – easily made its way to Poland. News also arrived of the persecution of clergymen and members of the German episcopate. By the year 1937, at least 127 German clergymen were in concentration camps. ⁸⁰ This was a frightening development, and one that would foreshadow the treatment of the Polish clergy following the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Roughly 3000 members of the Polish clergy would be killed during the German occupation. Within the discourse of Catholic intellectuals in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s we see both an early diagnosis of the foundational problems of National Socialism and a clear warning about the direction in which this movement was heading. Rejecting the racial elements of Nazism, these intellectuals were concerned by what they perceived to be the passivity of the Catholic Church and the Catholic hierarchy in Germany, and their failure to take a similarly unilateral position against Nazism. These interwar intellectuals did not share the opinion of such post-war scholars as Ernst Böckenförde who asserted that the passivity of German Catholics arose from their mistrust and misunderstanding of liberal democracy. ⁸¹ Rather, they argued that cultural and historical factors related to German understandings of religiosity were the deciding factors.

One of the main voices within Polish intellectual discourse on National Socialism was Konstanty Michalski, a priest, and the dean and rector of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In many ways he is representative of the thinking of Polish Catholic intellectuals of his day. Michalski took part in numerous international philosophical and theological conferences, time and again warning the world of the rising danger that was National Socialism. As a Pole from Silesia, he was acutely aware of the very real threat of a new German occupation, and the vision of what that would bring with it was terrifying to him. Poles had experienced 123 year of foreign occupation, the horrors of World War I (much of which was fought on Polish soil), the Silesian uprisings, and continued Polish-German tensions in various forms. Thus, the warnings sounded by this generation of Polish intellectuals were not only an ‘academic’ undertaking, but spoke directly to a very real and very concrete threat to liberty and life. While the rest of the world could engage in ‘armchair’ reflections on the rise of Nazi ideology, Poland did not have this luxury. However, the world would not have this luxury for long.

While not explored in the current piece, it is important to point out that Polish Catholic intellectuals were also concerned in this period by Italian Fascism, particularly as it was understood to pave the way for Bolshevism (Mussolini had been a self-described Marxist). ⁸² Open criticism of Italian Fascism was expressed by numerous Polish Catholic intellectuals, such as Jan Piwowarczyk, Stefan Wyszyński, Józef Pastuszka, Henry Weryński, Adam Romer, and Adolf Kliszewicz. ⁸³ While acknowledging the political expediency of the Lateran Treaty in that it assured the independence of the Vatican, Piwowarczyk argued – on the basis of the Papal encyclical Ubi arcao Dei from 1922 – against both the Marxist notion of ‘class warfare’ and the fascist notion of ‘national warfare’ (e.g., as seen in the writings of Enrico Corradini). ⁸⁴ More particularly, Piwowarczyk argued that fascism was contrary to Catholicism in several key regards, such as fascism’s understanding of the nation as taken from Hegel’s rejection of the primary authority of God’s law, fascism’s assertion of the omnipresence of the state and its rejection of the supranational character of the Church, and fascism’s attempt to replace Christian faith by a national faith (e.g., as seen in the creation of the Il Catechismo del Balilla based on the Catholic Catechism; ‘[…] I believe in Mussolini, in our father of holy fascism […]’). However, fascism was generally understood to be a less-well-developed ideology and Weltanschauung (a ‘superficial movement’ in the language of Michalski); one that served primarily to pave the way for what was seen as a greater threat, namely Bolshevism (a ‘deep movement’). ⁸⁵ For example, while communism explicitly tried to destroy religion (as seen in Bolshevism), Niesiołowski argued that Mussolini did not directly attack the Church as ‘he saw in this the advancement of his national interests, and he understood […] that religion can provide the foundation for morality and sacrifice’. ⁸⁶ What is more, to the extent that Italian Fascism at least paid lip service to Catholicism and left the Church and Catholics in peace, these concerns were less serious than in the case of German National Socialism, with its open antagonism to Catholicism. Nevertheless, fascism was understood to have a corrosive effect on Christianity, a position that can be seen in Jan Kuchta’s analysis of the Italian journals Nuovi Doveri and L’Educazione Nazionale. ⁸⁷

While the Polish Catholic intelligentsia opposed fascism as an anti-Christian force that was paving the way for Bolshevism, there was support for the ‘lesser evil’ of (mild) authoritarian rule in Poland – that is, to the extent to which it unified and strengthened national resistance to Bolshevism and ensured national independence. ⁸⁸ In the aftermath of the First World War, Poles fought to re-establish an independent Poland on the map of Europe, and in the decades that followed they would fight to keep it so, most notably in the Silesian Uprisings (1919–1921), the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, and following the joint German and Soviet invasion in 1939. Poles were aware of the fragility of their national independence, and while we have been arguing that this contributed to a uniquely robust opposition to Nazism in Poland relative to other European nations, it also led to support for ‘strong men’ approaches to national politics, particularly to the extent that they defended the nation against the threats posed by Nazism and Bolshevism. One of the primary architects of Polish independence, Józef Piłsudski (a socialist), is often understood as representing an authoritarian strand of leadership, along with the Sanation (Sanacja) political movement he led. While the ‘May Coup’ (zamach majowy) of 1926 was anything but democratic, it is widely understood as an attempt (enlightened or not) to sustain Polish independence in the face of mounting threats from Germany and the Soviet Union. ⁸⁹ While opposition to Nazism in the West often took neo-Marxist forms (e.g. the ‘Frankfurt School’), Polish opposition to Nazism arose largely from Catholic, nationalist circles that were also deeply concerned about what the Bolshevik revolution had sown in both the East and the West. ⁹⁰ Thus, Pilsudski’s support for national sovereignty in the face of these threats led many to see his authoritarianism as a price worth paying for sustained independence. What is more, Piłsudski was supportive of the links between Catholicism and the Polish state (as well as the role of various minority groups therein), something that is famously illustrated in the role played in the Polish-Soviet War by such Polish priests as Ignacy Skorupka. ⁹¹ Thus, while the well-developed criticisms of National Socialism, Bolshevism, and Fascism in Poland often identified unifying features across these three forms of totalitarianism, ⁹² in the 1920s and 1930s Polish Catholic intellectuals were primarily concerned with Nazism and Bolshevism, to a lesser extent with Fascism, and to an even lesser extent with various forms of authoritarian rule. It should also be added that the intellectuals discussed in this piece did not advocate for the Church to be totally free from politics. ⁹³

In attempting to understand the rise of National Socialism after the war, Western scholars would look back on this period through the lens of what came later – the Holocaust and the wider horrors of the war. This has in many ways subtly wedded post-war scholarship to a posteriori teleological arguments, according to which all explanations of this period must necessarily point to these particular outcomes. What is more, how these ‘outcomes’ are understood is of course shaped by the context within which scholars are working. ⁹⁴ Post-war scholarship has also been subtly wedded to a vision of the world that is in many ways in line with the positions of National Socialism itself (i.e., as often happens when attempting to understand group-based violence, we end up using the social classification scheme of the perpetrator group ⁹⁵ ). For example, despite objections to its racist ideology, we have in many ways come to see the world through that very lens (e.g., when defining who is and who is not Jewish and Polish, see discussion of shifting definitions of collective identity in Poland; ⁹⁶ when defining the nature of collective life, see discussions of Rafał Lemkin’s understanding of collective identity ⁹⁷ ). For these and other reasons, Polish critical discourse from the 1920s and 1930s is of such unique value. The German occupation would rob many of these intellectuals of their lives, and the post-war Soviet Occupation of Poland removed the survivors from public life and would hide their writings from the public record. We have attempted to provide the reader with a window into the nature of Polish Catholic intellectual thinking in this period, and we hope that future research on the rise of National Socialism in particular, and totalitarianism more broadly, will pay greater attention to this historical school of thought.