Joachim C. Fest. Hitler. (Translated by Richard and Clara Wilson, London: Penguin Books, 1974).
[I originally wrote this book review in 2002. At the time, I was a church history researcher in Thailand, and most of my work was on Thai church history directly. Fest's Hitler, however, caught my eye for the theological issues it raises. It makes a good start for Rom Phra Khun Reviews. Herb]
Some months ago, I went back to my slightly battered copy of Fest's Hitler, a book I'd started many years' ago and never finished. I intended to read it casually, but it soon dawned on me that Fest's interpretation of Hitler's life and accomplishments is an important twentieth-century theological treatise. It helps to define the theological context in which all of us still live today; it describes, that is, the "mother of all theological contexts," be they Karen, Thai, Australian, European, or whatever. However profoundly sad and regrettable the fact, Adolph Hitler was a dominant figure of the twentieth century, to the point that if we have to choose the one political figure from that century who most influenced the shape of the twenty-first century it would probably be him. While World War I was the formative event of the twentieth century, Fest makes it clear that Hitler embodied and carried forward the consequences of that war, thereby shaping the world that emerged after 1918 and after 1945.
Fest wrote this biography, which emphasizes Hitler's intellectual and ideological development, as a revision of and correction to previous studies, notably biographies written by British and American authors. Those studies largely perpetuate the Hitler "myth," which portrays him in demonic terms and obscures both his humanity and accomplishments. Those histories also interpret Hitler, conveniently, as a uniquely German phenomenon, the result of peculiarly German historical forces. Fest's biography is the first major, influential German historical interpretation of Hitler, and the differences in interpretation are important—evidently, controversial. Fest spends most of the book explaining Hitler's accomplishments rather than his failures. He points out that the actual events of Hitler's life prove that he was a gifted politician who knew how to play his opponents off against each other, how to take immense risks successfully, how to lie with deceptive candor, and how to grasp opportunities ruthlessly. After he became chancellor, he quickly gathered all of the reins of power into his own hands, in spite of widespread opposition. Eventually, he practiced these same skills on all of Europe, dividing Germany's potential enemies and overturning the European diplomatic system in a remarkably short time. Fest's Hitler is sometimes brave, frequently daring, and usually politically insightful.
In the course of this revisionist study, Fest defends various decisions made by Hitler, which decisions have been widely seen as irrational and, again, demonic. He, for example, explains Hitler's rationale for the German invasion of Russia in 1941, one of those events generally interpreted as a case in point of Hitler's hubris and reckless disregard for common sense. The author shows that Hitler had his reasons for invading Russia, ones based on the logic of the situation that confronted him in 1941 and on his own experience as a politician and a "generalissimo." Fest has written thus an "apologetic," which seeks to correct the non-German tendency to shift all the blame for Hitler and, ultimately, the vast disaster of his rule, onto Germany alone. Fest points out the underlying ambivalence of the German populace towards Hitler's militarism as well as the real-life historical circumstances in Europe that permitted Hitler's rise to power. The author argues that Hitler was a manifestation of the post-World War I European situation and not, therefore, "merely" a German phenomenon. He makes a good case, at least so far as a non-specialist is concerned. It is weakened only by Fest's failure to give sufficient attention to Hitler's racist policies, which had massively tragic consequences for our world—consequences we are still suffering through today.
One of the central themes of the book, however, deserves serious theological reflection and response. Fest makes it clear that Hitler personally and his followers generally relied heavily on inherited Christian categories, beliefs, and archetypes. The Nazi use of religious thought was partly pure propaganda, but on a deeper level many Nazis also accepted Christian categories as their own. As described by Fest, Hitler and his followers made use of those categories in the following ways:
First, Hitler was born a Catholic and saw in the Catholic Church important lessons on how to organize and control "the masses." He, at times, claimed political infallibility, which he compared to the Pope's ecclesiastical infallibility. He also occasionally referred to the Nazi Party or to the SS as being secular monastic orders. Hitler devised a whole annual cycle of psuedo-religious ceremonies, which consciously mimicked the Christian liturgical year. Second, Hitler saw himself as Germany's and, ultimately, Europe's savior He sometimes compared himself to Christ as did his followers.Third, Hitler consistently saw himself as a child of Providence, one who was guided by and protected by God. He believed, consequently, that he had a call from Providence to carry out a mission to save the German people. This call and mission justified any action, any policy, and any lie. Fourth, Fest repeatedly points to the eschatological nature of National Socialism under Hitler. It strove for "final solutions" and believed itself to be engaged in an epic, final battle with Communism for world domination. Fifth, the fabled emotional hold Hitler exercised over his mass meetings reminds one of nineteenth-century American frontier revivalism or even of the Sung revivals in Thailand in the 1930s. There is that same sense of rapture, the same powerful religious oratory that called forth deep wellsprings of feeling among the "congregation." Sixth, underlying all of these beliefs was the dualistic substrata common to all of Western thinking, especially Western Christian religious thought. Like the great majority of Westerners, Hitler believed he was engaged in a vast battle against evil, evil for him including Bolshevism, Judaism, racial impurity, and anything that impinged on his vision of a strong Germany.
Fest demonstrates that Hitler and his followers thus used essentially Christian theological categories to organize their thinking. Yet, it is clear that those categories are Christian only in form, not in content. Hitler's version of messiah-ship, for example, was based on the model of the white knight rather than the crucified Christ. His view of salvation was a world dominated by Europe, a Europe dominated by Germany, and a Germany dominated by a pure Aryan race—a world in which inferior races existed only to serve the "true" race. His salvation was the end of Communism and the acquisition of sufficient "living space" for Aryan Germany. Hitler himself eschewed Christian values of humility and transformed the Christian life of suffering and service into a quest for power, the quest that ultimately destroyed him. Where Christians struggle to serve, Hitler struggled to dominate.
Hitler, as portrayed in this biography, presents those of us who care about the Christian faith and seek to live faithful Christian lives with a frightening reality check on the power of religion to go wrong and do wrong. Based on Fest's interpretation, it is arguable that Hitler was as much a religious figure as anything else. People had faith in him to the point that many truly did believe he was politically infallible and that he was God's chosen savior for the German people. He appealed to that faith and manipulated it. He gave people hope in the otherwise hopeless world of the Great Depression. Yes, of course, his religion was actually an anti-religion, but this fact did not reduce his ability to manipulate religious values and categories for his own ends. It does not change the fact that the religious mentality can always become and frequently does become a manipulative, predatory one. All manner of wrongs, small and large, are perpetrated in the names of Christ, the Buddha, and Muhammad.
Stated differently, Fest's biography of Hitler reminds us of the intimate relationship between ideology and religion. Ideology is the set of ideas (beliefs) humans use to construct a social-political-economic reality they take to be desirable and often includes unacknowledged, self-serving assumptions about the world. Religious faith is the set of beliefs (ideas) humans use to construct ultimate meaning. The distinction between faith and ideology is not, however, as clear-cut as these definitions imply. Fest makes it clear that faith is frequently (generally?) a form of ideology and ideology is also a form of religious faith. Hitler's power-hungry, white knight version of Christianity serves as an important reminder that none of our wide variety of Christianities is Christ. They are, rather, human responses to the Incarnation, which at their very best are occasionally vaguely Christ-like.
Finally, this biography of Hitler serves as a clear warning that contextualized Christian theologies are not necessarily Christ-like theologies. Hitler, we can argue, reshaped the European Christian tradition into a profoundly relevant theology, which proved meaningful to tens of millions of Depression Era Europeans (not just Germans, as Fest points out) in the context of post-World War I Europe. National Socialist revivalism transformed their shabby and crisis-ridden lives into ones filled with new hope and purpose, and Fest makes it abundantly clear that Adolph Hitler was a masterful politician who knew how to respond to the wants and needs of the people. The Nazi "miracle" can be partly explained by his ability to create a contextual politics that had a strong religious-like component in it. The drive to construct contextual theologies in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the West is a worthy one only to the extent that the results tend to be Christ-like, self-critical, and self-consciously tentative.
Fest's Hitler should be required reading in every Christian theological seminary in the world. It is not merely a history of key events in the twentieth century. It is also a description of our present theological context and, potentially, a warning against what seems to be the fundamentalist religious direction of the twenty-first century.
