Die Fahne hoch!

Someone recently asked me if Horst Wessel’s rousing Die Fahne hoch! could be considered a spiritual song. It was the Nazi anthem from 1930 until 1945. Promising an imminent end to “servitude” and “a day freedom and bread,” it became the stirring battle hymn of a desperate people. Singing it, they emerged from the smoldering ash heap of defeat to ignite a conflagration across Europe and North Africa.

The Third Reich itself was a spiritual phenomenon, albeit grotesque in its negativity. It arose to fill a void in the heart of a spiritually exhausted Europe. It became a surrogate spirituality that imposed order, created meaning, provided identity and inspired commitment to its own demonic vision. It was idolatry grown to horrific proportions.

Like all idolatries, the Reich united one people at the expense of others. It demanded the subordination, not the expression, of the unique gifts of every person it touched. It created a false and destructive community based on a false and destructive premise. Although its power derived from authentic spiritual sources, it twisted and deformed them into deeply anti-spiritual purposes.

It is the essence of idolatry to oppose God in the name of God, to destroy life in the name of life, to deny freedom in the name of freedom, and to subvert all that serves humanity against that same humanity. Though Die Fahne hoch! (“Lift High the Flag!”) is energetic, animating and passionate, yet it called forth the worse and empowered the demons in those who sang it. The enormous popularity of Die Fahne hoch! is sobering evidence that, indeed, millions of people can be monumentally and tragically wrong. 

Reprinted from my book, FAITH IN A MINOR KEY.