Religion Politics And Ideology In The Third Reich

The author of the essay, Uriel Tal, discusses how the Nazi regime sacralized politics and ideology, turning concepts such as race, blood, soil, state, nation, and Fuhrer into religious terms. The author argues that this process of inversion of meaning allowed the Nazi regime to achieve absolute significance. The author also argues that the Jew was the symbol and embodiment of all that the Nazi regime sought to negate, and that this was a key factor in the regime's success.

In a perceptive analysis of diverse source material, the essays of the late Uriel Tal in this volume uncover the dynamics of the secularization of religion, and the sacralization of politics in the Nazi era. Through a process of inversion of meaning, concepts such as race, blood, soil, state, nation and Fuhrer were brought into the realm of faith, mission, salvation, sacredness and myth, thereby acquiring absolute significance. Within this Nazi worldview, the Jew epitomised the arch enemy, both as a symbol and as the concrete embodiment of all that Nazism sought to negate: Western civilisation, monotheism, critical rationalism and humanism.