It has been disconcerting to listen to Chris Arnzen interview German Theonomist pastor Tobias Riemenschneider on various subjects, but in particular in connection to German history and politics.
I did not bother to listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron show they did on Open Theism and I already had a notion as to what Riemenschneider was going to say in connection with 'manliness' as in a previous interview the influence of Doug Wilson and others akin to him is obvious and openly affirmed. But in the programme promoting his book on 'Resisting Tyranny' and the Frankfurt Declaration it was clear that Riemenschneider was both promoting the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and revisionist views of Nazism.
Both he and Arnzen fell into a discourse regarding the Nazis being a 'leftist' movement, a point supposedly self-evident due to the 'National Socialist' label.
It should be said that anyone possessing even a cursory knowledge of socialism detects a problem here in that socialism is an internationalist movement - not a nationalist one. One the communist side of things this is also where Stalin and Mao represent a sharp break with the internationalist ideas of communism - not to mention the dictatorial personality cults or the dynastic dictatorship seen in North Korea. These are totalitarian movements that use communism as a vehicle and framework - but could just as easily use something else.
It seems clear enough that for both Arnzen and Riemenschneider there is confusion regarding socialism and totalitarianism. They immediately assume that all forms of totalitarianism are left-wing and conversely that all totalitarianism is socialism. This is simply not the case. Totalitarianism transcends the left-right divide and as many have noted, living under such regimes results in similar experiences - only the slogans are different. It is a grievous and serious mistake to equate Left-wing ideology with authoritarianism and Right-wing politics with 'freedom'. This is not just oversimplification but outright falsehood. Totalitarianism characterized the Nazis as well as the Stalinist and Kim regimes. Other socialist and communist states have been something far less than totalitarian.
Additionally it should be noted that the Roman Catholic-dominated Middle Ages often exhibited a totalitarian flavour. A mere wrong word whispered in a tavern could result in a trial. Questioning the Church could result in Inquisitional torture and execution. The so-called Christian Middle Ages were not a time of freedom in any way. Dissent and thought crime were harshly punished.
Both Riemenschneider and Arnzen seem eager to identify Nazism as Left-wing due to their commitments to Right-wing politics. As most Americans, Arnzen is ignorant of the history and the issues surrounding European history and its politics. He clearly does not understand the origins of Nazism nor the American Right for that matter - and certainly not its open collaboration with ex-Nazis during the Cold War.
Riemenschneider is more problematic in that I believe he knows better and is playing a deceptive game. Like many AfD politicians (such as Björn Höcke) he is manipulating the historical record and engaged in slippery rhetoric.
As someone who went through the German educational system I know that Riemenschneider was educated about the Nazis - something AfD members want to bring an end to. And so for him to say that they were Left or Right Socialists (a word game) - we must ask, then how did the Left-Socialists (as he puts it) end up in power after the war? Did they win? Where was the scandal? There wasn't one.
Now figures like Conrad Adenauer were criticized for turning a blind eye to a an ex-Nazi presence within the state, and there was a scandal over questions of de-nazification and the way some Third Reich figures moved into business and industry and had an influence over the state - but we all know the top-tier figures were fugitives. The exception to this are those that worked with Reinhard Gehlen, a former major general under Hitler and the Americans - in both Europe and South America.
Riemenschneider downplays the controversies surrounding the AfD and is clearly hesitant to even name the party. My guess is that he knows people will look it up and find out that he's lying. They along with groups like Pegida (and there is some overlap) have alarmed many Europeans who believe that through these movements (along with Fidesz in Hungary, FN/RN in France, and the FdI and Lega in Italy, and others) fascism has re-emerged in 21st century Europe - in living memory of some who experienced it the first time. Again the AfD overlap with Pegida is well documented and the later group is riddled with Neo-Nazis and others advocating violence against Muslims, immigrants, and refugees. Pegida is bigger than the AfD but the AfD supports Pegida and it's clear they are often working in concert.
AfD is presented by Riemenschneider as if it is traditional and conservative, standing for family values and at least represents a move back in the direction of a Christian culture. He willingly ignores the ugly side of its anti-immigrant rhetoric which in many cases parallels that of the race-policies and narratives of German fascism. Many within the party utilize the Great Replacement narrative in which the villainous elites are Jews and communists - which historically was also a reference to Jews.
In other cases, the self-serving capitalists (especially of the globalist variety) are part of this (somewhat incoherent) conspiracy - a narrative which not only parallels the arguments made by Hitler, but such economic nationalism is also widespread within Trumpism.
Further AfD figures have been implicated in the 2022 coup plot and there is also some overlap with figures connected to the aristocracy who are presumably motivated by other anti-democratic concerns. Several AfD members have expressed Nazi-era slogans, narratives, Völkisch ideology and rhetoric, and there are ties to Neo-Nazi groups. I've written elsewhere about the ties between the German aristocracy, the AfD, and America's Christian Right.
The AfD continues to collaborate with and sometimes are in coalition with other pro-fascist parties in Europe. Sometimes Anti-Semitism comes to the fore, in other cases Anti-Islam triumphs and thus these groups will express support for Israel and particularly the racialist policies of parties like Likud - even while harbouring large numbers of Anti-Semites in their midst.
Are they Nazis? Not exactly, but they are fascistic and reminiscent of another chapter in German history. After World War I the DAP (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) or German Worker's Party was formed and in February 1920 it was renamed the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) - Socialist Workers meant to encompass the Left, and it tipped its hat to the Right-wing by using the terms National and German. For those unaware the NSDAP was the official name of the Nazi Party. They were trying to appeal to both sides but the heart of the movement was nationalism - an ideology of the Right. The AfD in some ways is playing the same game - trying to appeal across the board by softening their core value - nationalism.
Again, socialism is internationalist, grounded in the identity of the workers of the world and as such is the antithesis of nationalism or what the Nazis and some AfD refer to as volkisch identity. The socialist moniker was a marketing ploy and nothing more - a means to channel the various groups into a common nationalist cause.
Opposed to socialism and communism, this ideology is also opposed to a certain type of capitalism - the kind that is absolute, both a means and an end. It is vehemently opposed to transnational interests accumulating or exploiting national resources and wealth and in the past this kind of activity was associated with banking and the Jews - the 'tribe' that has no loyalty but to itself. The NSDAP was hostile to socialism which own the means of production (a doctrine never embraced by the Nazis) and certainly communism in which the state owns everything (eliminating private property) - and is brought to power through revolution. This is why the Brown-shirts were out on the streets beating up socialists and communists and by extension Jews. Conservatives at the time didn't like such thuggery but they were willing to tolerate it because Hitler was at least steering the country in the right direction and helping the economy.
I hope some will note the parallels with contemporary US politics - I can guarantee Arzen does not. And further it needs to be said there are no socialists or communists in the US government. These movements barely even exist within the United States and haven't for about a hundred years.
Riemenschneider is clearly ignorant or a liar - or both. He's playing Arnzen who is completely out of his league.
Arnzen doesn't understand German politics, European post-war politics, history in general - and for that matter based on numerous comments in the past, he doesn't understand American political history either. My eyebrows were raised when he mentioned Franco in connection with fascism. The Spanish dictator was certainly a fascist and yet not a Nazi nor plagued by racial ideology. That said, his regime was evil and yet Arnzen is apparently unaware that it's not en vogue within Right-wing circles to admit that the rabidly pro-Catholic regime of El Caudillo was fascistic.
Arnzen so struggles with the essential nature of fascism (and no wonder) that he's reduced to fixating on issues of sex, the personal character of Hitler, and the narrative that argues the Nazis were pro-homosexual. Once again, there is a clear testimony of homosexuality within the SA - most notably Ernst Röhm. After the SA was destroyed during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, this tolerance came to an end and it's well known the regime went after homosexuals and sent them to the camps.
This is further demonstrated by a more recent episode of Iron Sharpens Iron in which Anti-Semitism is addressed - another Riemenschneider episode. Toward the end of the show there is a repeat of some of the Nazism is Left-wing rhetoric but this falls flat.
I was surprised to discover the show was not primarily about campus protesters opposing the Gaza War - many of whom are Jews. They are called Anti-Semitic because they oppose Israel or oppose the state on ideological grounds. But when this measure is applied to Martin Luther, the Christian-Right denies his Anti-Semitism arguing that Luther did not hate the race (a very narrow definition of Anti-Semitism) but was only opposed to them on religious grounds - in other words on ideological grounds.
So when Luther opposes the Jews on ideological grounds and calls for the burning of synagogues and violence against them - that's not Anti-Semitism.
But when protesters oppose not Jews (as many of the protesters are Jews) but the policies of the state of Israel - they are Anti-Semites. Go figure.
But the show revealed that there's a growing Anti-Semitism within Reformed Baptist circles. Apparently some have bought into a set of specious narratives regarding Churchill, Fascism, and the course of the war and its aftermath.
Now, I am no fan of Winston Churchill and I certainly am on record questioning many of the narratives regarding the war, its causes and course. But these narratives err in that they erase the crimes and evil of the Nazi regime and many believe the United States and Britain should have allied with Germany to fight Stalin - narratives one might find within the fringe Far Right of American politics. They argue the post-war settlement was liberal and almost crypto-communist. As such, the Cold War takes on a very different narrative as well. Some of these people embrace Holocaust denial and apparently some are reviving old Anti-Semitic narratives about banking, Hollywood, academia, and the like. I'm guessing some believe the Communists actually won the Cold War and have all but taken over the world.
Arnzen is disgusted and Riemenschneider sees the problem but is a little more circumspect. After all (and he almost admits this) he is more than a little sympathetic with their views - but they simply go too far.
The part that just makes me shake my head is when they're both bewildered, wondering aloud where this all came from? How could this have happened - that Reformed Baptists would fall into Anti-Semitic fascistic thinking?
It's would be comic if it weren't so tragic. Where? Why?
Are they so blind? Look in the mirror.
Trumpism has kicked the door wide open too all this - and he did not find his foothold by means of some kind of fluke. The American Right has been on this road for a long time. Again, ex-Nazis worked with the GOP during the Cold War - it was the place they found to be most congenial to their views. Since the 1990's (at least) the GOP has been abandoning the Liberalism of the Founders and flirting with authoritarianism - and now openly so. Anti-Immigrant and at times overtly racist ideology has opened the door to fantasies like the Great Replacement and a long history of revisionism regarding the American political history has been at work. This is true regarding World War II, fascism, the Great Depression, and Civil Rights. The politicians of Jim Crow and the KKK moved over into the GOP throughout the 1970's and 80's - and they explain this away by attacking today's Democratic Party as the party of racists and segregationists - even attempted to hijack and re-cast the Civil Rights movement. They have lived on lies for more than a generation and it's bearing fruit. They're under judgment, being handed over it would seem.
What stunning ignorance - where is this coming from, Arnzen asks? Wow.
And then he tries to fall back into the whole - Nazism is Left wing, so what are these Reformed guys doing embracing this stuff? He can't make sense of it because these men are not Left wing in any way shape or form. They're fascists and they got there through taking the extreme road within Right-wing politics.
Arnzen is being played and used by Riemenschneider who I'm sure is enjoying the attention and probably financially benefiting from it. I cannot believe he would be this ignorant and not be able to connect the dots. Maybe he is blind, I don't know.
But Riemenschneider seems to be an aficionado of Doug Wilson and folks like Rushdoony. Wilson's Canon Press published the Christian Nationalist author (Stephen Wolfe) who has fallen into this cesspool - even though (apparently they have since had a falling out).
But the fact that Wilson would publish this guy and resonate with him tells a lot. Remember Wilson is an apologist for Southern Slavery and apparently Arnzen and Riemenschneider are unaware that Rushdoony the Theonomic patriarch was a well-known Holocaust-denier.
And they ask where has this come from?
This is only the beginning.
See also:
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-frankfurt-declaration-its.html
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.