Non-denominational, the term could be variously interpreted. Positive Christianity allayed fears among Germany’s Christian majority as expressed through their hostility towards the established churches of large sections of the Nazi movement.[2] In 1937, Hans Kerrl, the Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, explained that “Positive Christianity” was not “dependent upon the Apostle’s Creed“, nor was it dependent on “faith in Christ as the son of God“, upon which Christianity relied, rather, it was represented by the Nazi Party: “The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation”, he said.[3] To accord with Nazi antisemitism, Positive Christianity advocates also sought to deny the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible. In such elements Positive Christianity separated itself from Nicene Christianity and is considered apostate by all of the historical Trinitarian Christian churches, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant.
Hitler was supportive of Christianity in public, but he was hostile to it in private. Hitler identified himself as a Christian in an April 12, 1922 speech.[4] Hitler also identified himself as a Christian in Mein Kampf. However, historians, including Ian Kershaw and Laurence Rees, characterize his acceptance of the term “Positive Christianity” and his involvement in religious policy as being driven by opportunism, and by a pragmatic recognition of the political importance of the Christian Churches in Germany.[2]Nevertheless, efforts by the regime to impose a Nazified “positive Christianity” on a state controlled Protestant Reich Church essentially failed, and it resulted in the formation of the dissident Confessing Church which saw great danger to Germany from the “new religion”.[5] The Catholic Church also denounced the creed’s pagan myth of “blood and soil” in the 1937 papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.
I have been reading the history of the Spanish Civil War and that of Franco, and Franco strongly disliked Hitler’s de facto rejection of Christianity.
There is a, to me, interesting point here, which is that Franco alone, as far as I know, called himself “right wing”. I read Spanish historians do not call him “fascist”. They call him authoritarian. He was a monarchist, and cultural traditionalist. Hitler and Mussolini supported him, as I understand it, in effect because they liked his style, and because he specifically opposed Communism, with Fascism and National Socialism having both been formed in large measure to oppose Communism, while keeping many of its elements.
Thus, there is a cultural and political divide here which is not insignificant. Franco was not Hitler. He WAS “right wing”, on his own account, but this meant that he believed in an authoritarian government based on God and Country, which he specifically did NOT equate with Fascism, which he considered not quite godless, but close enough to spark dislike on his part.
For Western intellectuals, the Spanish Civil War was a major event. I am surprised at myself that I have never taken the time until now to learn more about it. I knew the very rough outline, but have not read any books on it.
I do think, though, that Franco “rescued” Spain from what likely would have become a Soviet aligned abusive dictatorship. He killed a lot of people in the process, which is awful, but no Communist can say they oppose that in principle.
So often in life, when we become extreme in one thing, we conjure into being the very opposite. In important respects, then, we fight in the other what we cannot own in ourselves. The Communists, in my view, created Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini. And collectively they killed VASTLY more people than Hitler ever dreamed of. It may well be that in the Spanish Civil War Franco was the more prolific murderer, but no one can say what would have happened if the misnamed “Republicans” had won. The history of other Communist victories does not give one much reason to believe it would have ushered in an era of peace and goodwill, to put it mildly.