Source: DALL-E
Art is always a wonder, permitting us to gaze at the stars even from the gutter. But the true marvel is how it reaches into us. Words, all fancy and abstract, turn meaning away, and it’s up to us to figure it out. This requires our engagement—like the spectator of magic or song. Its essence comes alive only when we feel it ourselves. Without our touch, it remains powerless and barren.
In previous writing, I have come to speak about the nascent ideology that engulfed Germany under the Third Reich. While a brutal regime, it spawned its own art. Early National Socialists were not mere puritanical philistines; they embraced modernity in some ways. Consider Hermann Göring, Luftwaffe chief and an inept poet. Some of his fictional works engaged with the ideas of expressionism. (Think of Edvard Munch’s 'The Scream,' in which we do not see the subject of horror, but certainly feel it).
Derek Hastings, a scholar poking about in the realm of early Nazi fanaticism, happened upon a poem.1 It was by Otto Bangert, a largely irrelevant journalist supportive of the movement, and was written in July 1926. Almost three years after the Putsch. I will only present what is needed:
He rose up from the primeval depths
To tower like a mountain.
And as we languished in misery,
Crying fearfully for a Savior,
He began his great holy work.
He stood with outstretched hands,
Facing the downfall of an entire world.
We needn’t look too far to spot the hints in ‘holy’ and ‘Savior’. The ‘outstretched hands’ rather unceremoniously plonk the shadow of Hitler onto the crucifix, which, you’ll recall, was originally courtesy of the Romans. It might tug at the Christian ethos, but it appears to use those connotations by default (it is an English translation). It is all a vague religiosity limited by the language of its day.
The dark world it presents is clear enough. In the 1920s, with hyperinflation and the shame of defeat and decline. It is not misguided to seek hope in seemingly hopeless places. Only through the abyss of darkness could they believe they would reach dawn.
Desperation reverberated everywhere,
But as if with hot brands of fire
His spirit illuminated the desolate night.
He points to the distant morning glow,
And all our hearts are inflamed.
Despite all the froth and bubble, there’s no actual godly figure in these words. It is an empty shrine, where only a man squats inside — that Fuehrer fellow. It’s at this juncture, we observe the severance of any true Christian root.
Lift up our fists and our spirits–
And build for your Volk, O Master,
A new, elevated Fatherland!
In the exclamation, we can almost imagine Hitler’s characteristic apoplectic fit. Taking ‘we lift up our hearts,’ the familiar line from the Christian Mass, ‘fists’ is inserted to arm the soul. The reference is an unaware parody, if you ask me. Though the language freely borrows from Christian diction, it appears ham-fisted.
But really, it speaks of a ‘primeval depth’ – echoing the Germanic ‘Volk’. It’s more than the gender-neutral reference to ‘people’ we hear in American politics (‘Folk’ is an etymological link, I think). Here it is the veneration of a people bound by blood and race – a far darker call. Defining themselves in this way to raise themselves above others, they would simply impose their authority or their wrath.
The state was the collective racket of this howling Volk. They believed this would lead them to the rosy dawn. More dangerously, it became the dawn itself. In those grim days of modernity, when industry was pelting everything dear with bullets and bombs, it was easy to see why one might grasp the yearning for a bit of hope. And as Stuzo remarked in 1932, the state was merely an “old God which has been modernised.”
From the retreat of our summer sun, it is easy for us to demarcate light from dark. But remember that the words presented to you remain a poem. A bit of art, meant for praise. Since we can’t really come face to face with a poetic work, a bit of effort from both of us was required to truly read its expression. A sort of complicity, you see, that lets it reach into us.
Hastings, Derek. Catholicism and the roots of Nazism: Religious identity and national socialism. Oxford University Press, 2011.