The anti-Christian elements in Nazi ideology obfuscate a view of the Holocaust as a modern holy war. That view is not linked with the concept of apocalyptic messianism or the notion that holy war attempts to enforce religious beliefs. This war's objective was the elimination of those who did not share the majority's symbolic universe, an objective wherein religion played a major role—as is the case in Bosnia today. European history is replete with attempts to reduce those who do not share the common religious or cultural identity in the heart of Christendom, attempts to defame, baptize, or expel the disconfirming other. Although systematic extermination constitutes a discontinuity with the past, and although the Nazi state was hostile to Christianity, the Holocaust was a holy war that benefited those for whom the guarding of the Christian symbolic universe as the cornerstone of civilization depended on the elimination of Jews and the defeat of bolshevism.
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References
1.
1. Richard L. Rubenstein and John K. Roth, Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1987), pp. 309-310.
2.
2. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: History, Theology and Contemporary Judaism, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 6.
3.
3. See ibid., pp. 293-306.
4.
Rubenstein , After Auschwitz, pp. 210-232.
5.
5. The letter is reprinted in the New York Times, 26 Feb. 1994.
6.
6. On the concept of a symbolic universe, see Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 95 ff.
7.
7. The Latin alphabet is used in Roman Catholic Croatia; the Cyrillic alphabet, invented by the brothers Cyril (826-69) and Methodius (815-85) for missionary purposes in the Slavic East, is used in Orthodox Serbia. The Muslims of Bosnia speak “purest Serb,” but their ancestors, many of whom were adherents of the dualistic Bogomil faith, converted to Islam after Bosnia became a Turkish province in the fifteenth century. Bosnia became a Turkish province in 1463, and Herzegovina followed in 1466.
8.
8. See David Rieff, “The Serbs Have Won,”New York Times, 25 Feb. 1994.
9.
9. Judy Dempsey, “Endgame at the Beginning,”Financial Times, 19-20 Mar. 1994.
10.
10. Crescent International, 16-31 July 1992.
11.
11. Albert Wohlstetter, “Genocide by Mediation,”New York Times, 3 Mar. 1994.
12.
12. New York Times, 6 Aug. 1992.
13.
13. Time Wiener, “Aide Accuses U.S. on Balkan Policy,”New York Times, 4 Feb. 1994.
14.
14. Johnson, “The Pin-Stripe Approach to Genocide” (manuscript, U.S. Department of State, 1 Jan. 1994), p. 1.
15.
15. Ibid., p. 9.
16.
16. Wohlstetter, “Genocide by Mediation.”
17.
17. David John Powell's article in Crescent International, 1-15 Aug. 1993.
18.
18. Crescent International, 16-31 Aug. 1993, p. 1.
19.
19. See Amy Newman, “The Death of Judaism in German Protestant Thought from Luther to Hegel,”Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 61(3):455-484 (Fall 1993).
20.
20. For a brief discussion of the Christian roots of secularization, see Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), pp. 105-126.
21.
21. See Heinrich Fichtenau, The Carolingian Empire: The Age of Charlemagne, trans. Peter Munz (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), pp. 74-75.
22.
22. H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Collins, 1970), 1:175-176.
23.
23. See Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 78-79.
24.
cited by John Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 16.
25.
25. This thesis is argued persuasively in Peter J. Haas, Morality After Auschwitz: The Radical Challenge of the Nazi Ethic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988).
26.
26. See Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 99 ff.
27.
27. Karen Armstrong, Holy War (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 42-43.
28.
28. John 8:42-44, 47 (emphasis added).
29.
29. An even earlier Christian explanation of Jewish unbelief than that of the Johannine School was offered by Paul of Tarsus. Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome, “A hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved.” Romans 11:25, 26. In effect, Paul argued that Jewish unbelief was part of God's plan, that Israel would remain in unbelief until the conversion of the Gentiles was completed. Like Paul, St. Augustine also saw Jewish unbelief as part of God's plan. He argued that God had dispersed the Jews among the nations to bear witness by their misfortune to the truth of the Scripture's prophecies concerning Christ. Augustine, The City of God, in Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, ed. Whitney J. Oates (New York: Random House, 1948), 2:455-456. Paul's dissonance-reduction strategy thus offered a far more benign interpretation of Jewish unbelief than that of the Fourth Gospel. No matter how punitive the restrictions on Jewish life became or how extreme the anti-Jewish polemic, the views of Paul and Augustine helped to prevent the official Chruch from promoting acts of out-right violence against the Jews.
30.
cited by Chazan, European Jewry, p. 175.
31.
31. Chazan, European Jewry, pp. 177-178.
32.
32. The text of the letter is found in Jonathan Riley-Smith and Louise Riley-Smith, The Crusades: Idea and Reality (London: E. Arnold, 1981), pp. 78-80.
33.
33. Zoé Oldenbourg, Massacre at Montségur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. Peter Green (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961), p. 5.
34.
34. Innocent III to Philip II Augustus of France, 10 Mar. 1208 in Chronicles of the Crusades, ed. Elizabeth Hallam (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989), p. 229.
35.
35. Oldenbourg, Le Bûcher de Montségur (Paris: Gallimard, 1959), pp. 115-116.
36.
36. The text of the abbot's letter is found in Hallam, ed., Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 222.
37.
37. For a description of the work of the Inquisition in Languedoc, see Oldenbourg, Massacre at Montségur, pp. 286-309.
38.
38. On this issue, see, for example, Saul Friedländer, Pius XII and the Third Reich (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), pp. 174-196.
39.
39. See Robert J. Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (London: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 15 ff.
40.
40. Rubenstein and Roth, Approaches to Auschwitz, pp. 343-344.
41.
41. The quotation is found in Celia S. Heller, On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between Two World Wars (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 113.
42.
42. See Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth About Hitler's “Final Solution” (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 17-40.
43.
43. Ray Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1951), p. ix.
44.
The quotation is to be found in U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States 1944 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1966), 1:987-990.
45.
45. Wyman, “Why Wasn't Auschwitz Bombed?” p. 8 of proofs. This writer has before him the advanced page proofs of the book, which lack final pagination.
46.
46. Ibid., p. 10.
47.
47. Ibid., p. 14.
48.
48. Ibid., p. 15.
49.
49. Among McCloy's many posts were United States high commissioner for Germany and chairman of the board of the Chase Manhattan Bank. On McCloy's role as a member of the establishment, see Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (London: Faber & Faber, 1986).
50.
50. Oldenbourg, Massacre at Montségur, p. 104.
51.
51. “Letter of Pope Innocent III to Philip II of France and the French Nobility,” in Chronicles of the Crusades, ed. Hallam, p. 229.
