Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Contributors
- Introduction and Overview
- Part I Core Ideas of Millennial Theory
- Part II Approaches to Millennial History
- The Beginnings of Islam as an Apocalyptic Movement
- Before and Beyond the Sioux Ghost Dance: Native American Prophetic Movements and the Study of Religion
- ‘The day is not far off…’: The Millennial Reich and the Induced Apocalypse
- Theorizing Radical Islam in Northern Nigeria
- Postmodernity and the Imagination of the Apocalypse: A Study of Genre
- Part III Millennial Hopes, Apocalyptic Disappointments
- Index
‘The day is not far off…’: The Millennial Reich and the Induced Apocalypse
from Part II - Approaches to Millennial History
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Contributors
- Introduction and Overview
- Part I Core Ideas of Millennial Theory
- Part II Approaches to Millennial History
- The Beginnings of Islam as an Apocalyptic Movement
- Before and Beyond the Sioux Ghost Dance: Native American Prophetic Movements and the Study of Religion
- ‘The day is not far off…’: The Millennial Reich and the Induced Apocalypse
- Theorizing Radical Islam in Northern Nigeria
- Postmodernity and the Imagination of the Apocalypse: A Study of Genre
- Part III Millennial Hopes, Apocalyptic Disappointments
- Index
Summary
‘The day is not far off’, Hitler told a journalist in 1931, ‘when we shall be living in great times once more.’ Hitler, furthermore, wanted the reporter to spread the good word, explaining that ‘what we now need is that intelligent writers should make clear to the citizens of Germany the historic turning point at which Germany stands today. We are on the threshold of a unique epoch in our history.’ This essay will discuss the Nazi belief, shared by many leaders and Old Guard followers alike, that Germany had reached a turning point of world historical significance, a time from which a millennial New Age would be born from the chaos of Weimar. To achieve the Millennial Reich, Hitler believed that the eschatological conflict between Aryan and Jew had to come to a ‘Final Solution’ (in all its apocalyptic connotations).
Weimar Apocalypse
The chaos of post-war Weimar Germany was experienced by many individuals who became Nazis as a time of apocalypse. Street fighting between the extreme left and the extreme right, political assassinations, seemingly endemic unemployment, a devastating hyperinflation followed by an equally crippling depression, combined with what for many Germans was a cultural decay of unparalleled proportions, all fused together and collapsed any sense of order. Many individuals who would convert to Nazism interpreted this period as not simply hard times, but in apocalyptic fashion, as a total ‘collapse’ of German civilization.
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- Information
- War in Heaven/Heaven on EarthTheories of the Apocalyptic, pp. 119 - 142Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2005