תנועת האמונה הגרמנית

The Deutsche Glaubensbewegung (German Movement of Faith) was founded in 1934 and functioned until the outbreak of World War II. It was a continuation of the Bund der Kongener, founded in 1920, of which Hauer was a member. Hauer was a professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Tubingen. He and his Deutsche Glaubensbewegung provided Hitler and Nazism with a religious component for their Weltanschauung. He claimed that the Jews gave Jesus to the world in order to burden non-Jews with eternal guilt, and that the Jews forced Aryan nations to believe in Christian myths so that they would become weak and then the Jews could dominate the world. He blamed the Churches for Germany's failures, and saw Hitler as the leader who would defeat the Jews and establish Aryan dominance in the world. For three years the movement attracted a large following, but by 1939 its power had diminished considerably. Arrested and tried in 1947, Hauer insisted that his theories did not lead to tragic consequences, and he was acquitted. However, Paul Zapp, the secretary of the movement, was tried and convicted in 1968; he had been in the Einsatzgruppen, and claimed that his actions were a direct result of Hauer's teachings.-- From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.