Spiritual scandalization
"How will we ever atone for this?"
One of the things I’ve mentioned in the ongoing Nazism vs Christianity debate is the practical reality that Hitler’s policies spiritually scandalized his nation and this should be taken into consideration when assessing the principles at hand.
One example of this is this Correspondence between Wehrmacht soldiers Hans Albring and Eugen Altrogge during the war, March of 1942, discussing treatment of the Jews:
Last night, we sat and talked—about things that make one ashamed to be German. What you hear here about how the “chosen people” are being treated. This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism anymore; it’s inhumanity of a kind one should no longer believe possible in the 20th century, this “enlightened, modern era.” How will we ever atone for this? Hearing such accounts (and here you get them firsthand) makes one despair at the meaning of our fight. But what else is left for us? Shut up and continue to serve—
SOURCE
Yet another example of this is this letter from 1942 which notes the psychological toll on SS commander Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski for executing Jews in the east.
“he particularly suffers from thoughts related to the executions of Jews [Judenerschiessungen] that he himself oversaw and other harrowing experiences in the East.”
SOURCE - (BArch) NS 19/2874
Some hyper-niche and rightfully marginalized self-identifying “pastors” like Michael Spangler will tell you that the Nazi ideology did the opposite of spiritually scandalizing the German people. These rightfully marginalized self-identifying “pastors” also coincidently refuse to engage in any public debate on this topic.
