Includes bibliographical references (p. 268-284) and index.

1. Positive Christianity: The Doctrine of the Time of Struggle -- 2. Above the Confessions: Bridging the Religious Divide -- 3. Blood and Soil: The Paganist Ambivalence -- 4. National Renewal: Religion and the New Germany -- 5. Completing the Reformation: The Protestant Reich Church -- 6. Public Need before Private Greed: Building the People's Community -- 7. Gottglaubig: Assent of the anti-Christians? -- 8. The Holy Reich: Conclusion.

Positive Christianity: the doctrine of the time of struggle -- Above the confessions: bridging the religious divide -- Blood and soil: the paganist ambivalence -- National renewal: religion and the new Germany -- Completing the Reformation: the Protestant Reich Church -- Public need before private greed: building the people's community -- Gottgläubig: assent of the anti-Christians? -- The holy Reich: conclusion.

"Analyzing the previously unexplored religious views of the Nazi elite, Richard Steigmann-Gall argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. He demonstrates that many participants in the Nazi movement believed that the contours of their ideology were based on a Christian understanding of Germany's ills and their cure. A program usually regarded as secular in inspiration - the creation of a racialist "peoples' community" embracing antisemitism, antiliberalism, and anti-Marxism - was, for these Nazis, conceived in explicitly Christian terms. His examination centers on the concept of "positive Christianity," a religion espoused by many members of the party leadership. He also explores the struggle the "positive Christians" waged with the party's paganists - those who rejected Christianity in toto as foreign and corrupting - and demonstrates that this was a conflict not just over religion, but over the very meaning of Nazi ideology itself."--BOOK JACKET.