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Richard Steigmann-Gall (Born October 3, 1965) is Associate Professor of History at Kent State University, and former Director of the Jewish Studies Program from 2004 to 2010. He received his BA in history in 1989 and MA in European History in 1992 from the University of Michigan, and his PhD in European History in 1999 from the University of Toronto.[1]

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The Holy Reich

In 2003, Steigmann-Gall published The Holy Reich through Cambridge University Press, which explored Nazi conceptions of Christianity. The Holy Reich argues that the Nazi Party was not anti-Christian as popularly understood, nor was it in any sense a paganist movement.[2]

Exploring the concept of positive Christianity, Steigmann-Gall writes that many in the Nazi Party leadership believed themselves and their movement to be inherently Christian.[3] He argues that point 24 of the Nazi Party Program of 1920—which states that "the party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession"—was "more than a political ploy";[4] it was “central to the inner logic of their worldview."[5] Steigmann-Gall also underscores that some anti-Christian party members fought to "expunge Christian influence from Nazism" and the movement became "increasingly hostile to the churches."[6]

The Holy Reich has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.[7] It has been reviewed widely,[8] culminating in a symposium on the book published by the Journal of Contemporary History in 2007.[7] In a 2003 review of the book, historian John S. Conway wrote that Steigmann-Gall made an "almost convincing case" and was "right to point out that there never was a consensus among the leading Nazis about the relationship between the Party and Christianity" but "Nazi Christianity was eviscerated of all the most essential orthodox dogmas. What remained was the vaguest impression combined with anti-Jewish prejudice."[9]

Other works

On September 30, 2009 Steigmann-Gall was featured on the History Channel in a sensationalist documentary discussing Hitler's religious views.[10][11]

More recently, Steigmann-Gall has turned his attention to the question of fascism in the United States. He published a scholarly article named "Star-Spangled Fascism"[12] in the journal Social History that explores the traditions of American historical writing, and the ways in which the American far right in the period between World Wars I and II can be called fascist in spite of these traditions. For the last several years, he has turned to public commentary on the question of fascism in contemporary American politics. His articles on this can be found in Tikkun,[13] the Huffington Post,[14] Politico,[15] and Jacobin.[16]

See also

• Adolf Hitler's religious views
• German Christians (movement)
• Positive Christianity
• Religion in Nazi Germany
• Religious aspects of Nazism

References

External links

• Faculty Page at Kent University'
• Dissertation: "The Holy Reich: Religious Dimensions of Nazi Ideology, 1919-1945" (1999)
• Introduction to The Holy Reich - courtesy Cambridge University Press
• Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A response to critics - by Richard Steigmann-Gall
• Richard Steigmann-Gall Interview - by Stephen Crittenden, The Religion Report

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