PAGANISM IN GERMANY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Snt,—In his interesting article on " The Nazis and the Churches," on March 16th, Mr. Greenwood remarked that few Nazis " took the attempts to build up a new Nordic religion seriously, and there were not many uniforms at a German Faith Movement demonstration addressed by Professor Hauer." He also seems to imply thdt this movement exists to put forward " absolute dogmas " " on the matter -of the Aryan race."
While agreeing that this new " Deutsche Glaubensbewe- gung " has only a limited appeal, I should, as one who his studied Comparative Religion under Professor Hauer at Tiibingen, like to protest against any implication that he stands for any narrow anti-Semitie'racialism. It is precisely these tendencies which he has attempted to resist : only recently he issued a spirited defence of liberalism, and he has always stood for freedom in questions of religious belief. The emphasis in " German Faith Movement " is. on Faith (as opposed to dogma,') not on " German," though it is true that his tolerant attitude towards religious belief includes a certain amount of the " nature-worship " associated with the old Germanic religion.
This aspect of religion is one which the Lutheran Church (in which Professor Hauer was formerly a missionary in India) tends to neglect ; and by its insistence on a rather exclusive dogmatism it has perhaps driven him to react more strongly against organized. Christianity than might have been the case in this country. Unlike the German Christians, he_ does not attack the Old Testament, nor does he seek to eradicate " Jewish " elements from the New. In many ways it would not be fanciful to regard his position as a via media between Lutheran conservatism and the perverted modernism of the German Christians. At any rate, whatever be .the beliefs of some of the German Faith Movement, Professor Hauer must be included among the many Germans who are not orthodox" about the Aryan race.—I am, Sir, &c., Exeter College, Oxford. IL P. KINGDON.
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