The Latest Nazi Opera Conspiracy Book is Out

Here it is, folks. As predicted, no sooner as Joachim Köhler published his retraction of charges against Richard Wagner for causing WWII and the Holocaust, the next iteration of Nazi opera conspiracy theories is out. And it is being enthusiastically endorsed by none other than Norman Lebrecht:

Now, I haven’t yet read this new title by singer, Bernd Weikl, in his book Why Richard Wagner Must Be Banned in Germany (Warum Richard Wagner in Deutschland verboten werden muss) calling for Richard Wagner to be banned in Germany, but I can certainly guarantee that the likelihood that Weikl has gone through thousands of ex-Soviet archival documents opened up to Western historians to uncover new evidence that the National Socialist Party was an opera company in disguise are slim. It is about as likely as Lebrecht having read mainstream academic accounts of the origins of Final Solution whether that be Hilberg, Browning, or Longerich. The chances that Weikl has addressed even a single one of my list of obstacles that opera conspiracy theorists need to overcome before they can be taken seriously will almost certainly have been ignored. Instead, I can guarantee that this singer, without any background in the academic study of the Dritte Reich era, will just repeat the same tired nonsense until it becomes “The Truth”. Perhaps that is unfair, since admittedly I have yet to read Weikl’s book. However, I have it on order and I will report back as soon as I get my hands on it.

In the meantime, I have discovered this gem—effectively Luther’s Hitler: the Prophet and his Disciple:

Alas, it is only 28 pages long, rather than the over 300 page long polemic written by Joachim Köhler. Mueller merely repeats tired old ideas long ago discredited, that have previously been published by the likes of William Shirer. It seems odd that since the time of Shirer so few polemics of this sort have been written about Luther accusing him of being history’s original Nazi. The likelihood of us seeing Weikl lead calls for the banning of Luther’s writings or for the banning of the Lutheran Church in Germany are extremely slender. In fact, Shirer’s views on Luther were considered so shocking that particularly fiercely polemical passages had to be censored:

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 236. The German translation Aufstieg und Fall des dritten Reichs (Frankfurt am Main: Buchgilde Gutenberg, 1962), p. 232, deleted this passage: 

It is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of two things: their history and the influence of Martin Luther. The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority. He wanted Germany rid of the Jews and when they were sent away he advised that they be deprived of ‘all their cash and jewels and silver and gold’ and, furthermore, ‘that their synagogues or schools be set on fire, that their houses be broken up and destroyed ... and they be put under a roof or stable, like gypsies ... in misery and captivity as they incessantly lament and complain to God about us’.... Luther employed a coarseness and brutality of language unequaled in German history until the Nazi time. 

Exposed by Heiko A. Oberman, “Luthers Beziehungen zu den Juden: Ahnen und Geahndete”, in Helmar Junghans, ed., Leben und Werk.

Deleted selection quoted out of Eric W. Gritsch’s book: Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism: Against his Better Judgement 

So once again, everyone’s favourite scapegoat turns out to be Richard Wagner, prime choice of the Christian right for helping to draw attention away from Luther.

Nor should we forget that there is an extensive literature that is effectively about The Pope’s Hitler: the Prophet and his Disciple attacking the Roman Catholic Church’s alleged complicity with the regime.

Perhaps, Weikl might like to start a movement seeking to ban the Catholic Church in Germany as well.

At the same time I have also discovered another book that is essentially Darwin’s Hitler: the Prophet and his Disciple:

In this book we are told that we should all be good church going creationists because the acceptance of evolutionary theory leads straight to the crematoria of Auschwitz. Just as Weikl wants Wagner to be banned, so too does Bergman want the banning of evolutionary theory in schools.

The other book waiting to be written is Marx’s Hitler: the Prophet and his Disciple. This book should say that National “Socialism” is the very apotheosis of Marxism. To be a socialist or to have a left wing political outlook is to be a Nazi. Right wing thinkers such as Peter Viereck, Yvonne Sherratt, and Michael Haas have already pretty much insinuated just that.

None of this is new. In fact, older writers have tried to connect them all up in one neat package. In a work dating from the 1940’s, Bazun tried to link Darwin, Marx and Wagner together:

The argument is that Wagner was influenced by socialists such as Feuerbach, and this is why Hitler liked Wagner, thus proving that National Socialism is the apotheosis of German socialist thought. All you have to do is add in Godless evolutionary theory to engender social Darwinism and, presto, there you have it—Nazism, WWII and the Holocaust. Never mind that socialists were persecuted, tortured and murdered by the hundreds of thousand by the National Socialists. Concentration camps were originally set up to persecute their political enemies on the left. Even the persecution of the Jews was based on the idea that socialism was a “Judeo-Bolshevik” conspiracy: the persecution of Jews and of the political left was one and the same thing. Never mind too that Goebbels wrote:

Christ is the genius of love, such as the diametrical antithesis to Judaism, which represents the incarnation of hatred. The Jew forms a non-race among the races of the earth. It has the same task, which has in the human organism the poisonous bacillus: to mobilise the healthy forces of resistance, or to have those creatures deemed for death die more quickly and more noiselessly.

Christ is the first opponent of the Jews out of principle. “Thou shalt devour all peoples!” Upon this He has declared war. Hence why Judaism had to eliminate Him. Because He shook his future world-power to its very foundations.

The Jew is the incarnate lie. In Christ he has nailed the eternal truth on the cross for the first time before history. This has been repeated dozens of times over the subsequent twenty centuries and repeated again today.

The idea of ​​sacrifice won visible form for the first time in Christ. The sacrifice belongs to the essence of socialism. Surrender yourself to the other. For this, however, the Jew has no understanding. His socialism is the sacrifice of others for themselves.  

The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx.

Christ: the principle of love.

Marx: the principle of hate.

Christus ist das Genie der Liebe, als solches der diametralste Gegenpol zum Judentum, das die Inkarnation des Hasses darstellt. Der Jude bildet eine Unrasse unter den Rassen der Erde. Er hat dieselbe Aufgabe, die im menschlichen Organismus der Giftbazillus hat: den Widerstand der gesunden Kräfte mobil zu machen oder ein zum Tode bestimmtes Lebewesen schneller und geräuschloser sterben zu lassen.

Christus ist der erste Judengegner von Format. „Du sollst alle Völker fressen!“ Dem hat er den Krieg angesagt. Deshalb mußte das Judentum ihn beseitigen. Denn er rüttelte an den Fundamenten seiner zukünftigen Weltmacht.

Der Jude ist die menschgewordene Lüge. In Christus hat er zum erstenmal vor der Geschichte die ewige Wahrheit ans Kreuz geschlagen. Das hat sich an die dutzende Male in den darauf folgenden zwanzig Jahrhunderten wiederholt und wiederholt sich heute aufs neue.

Die Idee des Opfers gewann zum erstenmal in Christus sichtbare Gestalt. Das Opfer gehört zum Wesen des Sozialismus. Sich selbst hingeben für die anderen. Dafür hat der Jude allerdings kein Verständnis. Sein Sozialismus heißt: die anderen zum Opfer bringen für sich selbst.

Der Kampf, den wir heute ausfechten bis zum Sieg oder bis zum bitteren Ende, ist im tiefsten Sinne ein Kampf zwischen Christus und Marx.

Christus: das Prinzip der Liebe.

Marx: das Prinzip des Hasses. 

Joseph Goebbels: Michael—ein Deutsches Schicksal in Tagebuchblättern (Michael: a German fate in diary notes). Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf., Munich, 17th edition, 1942, p.82

Note the crucifix in place of the dot over the “i” in Michael

Hitler too wrote in Mein Kampf that:

If the Jew gains victory over the people of this world with the help of his Marxist Confession of Faith, then his crown will become the Dance of Death (Totentanz) over the human race . . . That is why I believe that I am acting as the agent of the Almighty Creator. In that I am warding off the Jews, I am fighting to do the Lord’s work. 

Siegt der Jude mit Hilfe seines marxistischen Glaubens-bekenntnisses über die Völker dieser Welt, dann wird seine Krone der Totentanz der Menschheit sein . . . So glaube ich heute im Sinne des allmächtigen Schöpfers zu handeln: Indem ich mich des Juden erwehre, kämpfe ich für das Werk des Herrn. 

Mein Kampf. From the chapter entitled: Marxismus als Zerstörer der Kultur  (Marxism as the Destroyer of Culture). My own translation.

Somehow, I doubt that Weikl will be leading a movement to ban Christianity in Germany on the basis that Christ, rather than Wagner, was the original Nazi:

A conveniently incriminating string of choice quilt quotations could be collated from the Bible to accompany this polemic, like this:

I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews ... who... killed the Lord Jesus ... His blood be on [them], and on [their] children ... For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision ... they please not God, and are contrary to all men ... the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. 

Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.... I came to cast fire upon the earth.. . . Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you. . . . Let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one ... the Reich of God [das Reich Gottes in Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible] is near.

This is why, I have added further to my critique of Köhler’s book Wagner’s Hitler: the Prophet and his Disciple—with extra quotes from Ron Rosenbaum, Raul Hilberg, and a discussion on Heydrich’s Wannsee Conference. The reason that post remains as important as ever is because it functions as a critique of Nazi opera conspiracy theories in general, and even if Köhler may have retracted his claims, it is only a matter of time before we get the next batch in a veritable avalanche of nutty opera conspiracy books written by non-historians thinking along these same lines. That is why the critique of Köhler’s book remains even more pertinent now than it ever was before. I well suspect that it will not be long before Yale Press will be publishing the English translation of Weikl’s book—and why not when Lebrecht so gleefully recommends him to them?