Ernst Bergmann (philosopher)

Ernst Bergmann (7 August 1881, Colditz, Kingdom of Saxony – 16 April 1945, Naumburg) was a German philosopher and proponent of Nazism.

Dr. Ernst Bergmann

Biography

Bergmann studied philosophy and German philology at the University of Leipzig and got his PhD in 1905. Subsequently, he continued his studies in Berlin. Later he returned to Leipzig, where he received the status of Privatdozent at the university in 1911. In 1916 he was awarded the position of Ausserordentlicher Professor (professor without chair). He developed a religious philosophy with mystical aspects. Later he embraced the ideas of the National Socialist German Workers Party and became one of its prominent academic propagators. He officially joined the Nazi Party in 1930.[1]

Works and Ideology

His works Die deutsche Nationalkirche (the German National Church) and Die natürliche Geistlehre (The Natural Doctrine of the Spirit) were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic list of banned books, in 1934 and 1937.[2]

In his theology work Die 25 Thesen der Deutschreligion (Twenty-five Points of the German Religion), he held that the Old Testament and portions of the New Testament of the Bible were unsuitable for use in Germany. He claimed that Jesus was of Aryan descent and that he was not a Jew. Bergmann described Adolf Hitler as the new messiah.[2]

Other key elements of the doctrine formed by Bergmann within his works, included the following:

  • Jewish Old Testament elements of Christianity were to be abandoned, due to the fact that they endorsed the life and times of the Jewish people's, and proclaimed their superiority over other human beings [Deuteronomy 7:1-9]
  • The Swastika, was cited to be the new symbol of the German Christian Movement; to replace the Cross
  • the Nazi concepts of Land, Blood and German Culture, were the 'sacred assets' of German belief[3]

Death

In 1945, he committed suicide after the Allied forces captured Leipzig.

See also

Notes
  1. Yvonne Sherratt, Hitler's Philosophers, Yale University Press, 2013, p. 282
  2. McNab 2009, p. 182.
  3. Snyder, Louis, L (1976). Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth. p. 291. ISBN 0-7091-5717-7.

References
  • Erkenntnisgeist und Muttergeist. Eine Soziosophie der Geschlechter, 1932.
  • Die Deutsche Nationalkirche, 1933.
  • Deutschland, das Bildungsland der neuen Menschheit. Eine nationalsozialistische Kulturphilosophie, 1933.
  • Die 25 Thesen der Deutschreligion. Ein Katechismus, 1934.
  • Die natürliche Geistlehre. System einer deutsch nordischen Weltsinndeutung, 1937.
  • McNab, Chris (2009). The Third Reich. Amber Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-906626-51-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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