“All Nazi legislation is the expression of divine and eternal order,” Alfred Freyberg, Nazi party leader in Anhalt, declared last night in a statement instructing as to religious teaching in German schools, the Havas News Agency reported.
“It is necessary to insist incessantly on the inexorable struggle of Jesus against the spirit of the Jew,” he added.
Freyberg’s instructions, which defined his administrative position in regard to Christianity, asserted that “religious dogmas, which often reveal a Judeo-Oriental character, do not harmonize with national socialism. Youth, inflamed by national socialism, withdraws from religion.”
Freyberg added, however, that a Nazi “should not be without religion.”
Therefore, “religious study should show the young the harmony between Nazism and Christianity, ” he declared, by standing above the discords of the various German churches.
He ordered that the “Jewish” Old Testament should be presented to the young only in selections, while the New Testament instruction should emphasize the figure of Jesus as “a fearless hero fighting passionately against all bigotry.”
“Jesus from the point of view of race is not a Jew, and the history of the church should include the history of the German faith,” Freyberg said.
He urged that attention be drawn to the survival of ancient German rites, such as the celebration of the Summer and Winter solstice.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
