Nazi Germany functioned as a secular religion replacing Christian rites.

Evidence

Hitler’s unconflicted personality was subsequently on full display in his grand speeches, in which he alternately soothed and exhorted the admiring and enthusiastic crowds with his absolute conviction and utter certainty about restoring German power and potency. And his rhetoric clearly revealed the central role of assuaging death fears and providing hope of death transcendence in the Nazi worldview. Hitler urged Germans to replace the worship of God for the worship of Germany, declaring in 1923, “We want no other God except Germany.” The Führer became Germany’s infallible, omnipotent messiah. The SS and other party organizations resembled religious orders; their ceremonial halls looked like secular monasteries. The Nazis established their own national holidays. On January 30, for example, they celebrated Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933. Nazi ceremonies supplanted Christian baptisms, weddings, and funerals. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 464

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels Durkheim’s account of religion as society worshipping itself, and ties to the book’s core claim that nationalism functions as immortality-providing structure. — connects to: Nazi radio spectacles deliberately mimicked religious worship — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 419; Marxism and Nazism functioned as secular forms of millennialism. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 127

Related

• Nazi radio spectacles deliberately mimicked religious worship (similarity 0.83)