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.
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