Could Nazism have been clerical fascism?

Could the National Socialist movement have become more "orthodox" Catholic, a clerical form of fascism like the Austrians', Italians' and Spaniards', rather than the racially-charged, psuedoscientific, psuedopagan melange that existed OTL? They probably could have found ways to idolize the ancient German Reich while remaining mainstream Catholic instead of the weirdness that existed in OTL.
 

maverick

Banned
Unlikely

One half were the near socialists and the gay SA, killed during the purge of 1934;

The other remaining half were either neo-pagans, atheistic or believed Hitler to be the messiah; this includes the top leadership, Hess, Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Himmler and Heydrich;

Even the deal with the Catholic Center Party and the Church was only a sham to get them out of the way peacefully before getting them out of the way permanently.

This, like all the "nazism without antisemitism" threads fail to see the nature of the national socialism movement, and needs a POD in the very early 1920s, with Hitler taking advantage of the religious rural population in Bavaria, which was quite hostile to him IIRC...

Its in any case too radical a change from IOTL, although not altogether impossible...
 
Could the National Socialist movement have become more "orthodox" Catholic, a clerical form of fascism like the Austrians', Italians' and Spaniards', rather than the racially-charged, psuedoscientific, psuedopagan melange that existed OTL? They probably could have found ways to idolize the ancient German Reich while remaining mainstream Catholic instead of the weirdness that existed in OTL.

NO.

Nazism didn't appear out of thin air, and it wasn't really invented by Hitler either. It grew out of the ideas of the Thule Society, which was itself a "racially-charged, psuedoscientific, psuedopagan melange". Nazism was just a political manifestation of this ideology.

Besides, unlike Austria, Italy, and Spain (all Catholic), Germany was mostly Protestant (it was Martin Luther's home country, after all).

Thule Society + Protestantism = no way in hell that Nazism could go mainstream Catholic.
 
To be Fascist and 'more "orthodox" Catholic' are direct opposites. One of the goals of fascism is to replace tradition religion with the 'worship of the State'. The Nazis would have gotten further in the slow eradication of the Catholic and Lutheran churches had they been successful.
 
No, it couldn't. The vast majority of Germany was Lutheran, so if the Nazi try to be catholic they will never spread to the north and will remain unimportant. Additionally most of the old elites (like Hindenburg) had quite strong anti-catholic feelings, so they would be alienated by this kind of nazi and would oppose them.
 
It might have been. Since many christians (Catholic as well as Lutheran) blamed the jews for killing Jesus. The Nazis wouldn't endorse christianity that much, but also wouldn't suppress it, in order to get support from christians.
 
Catholic? Not a chance. Unless you want to keep it some sort of minor party. Maybe a Bavarian nationalist party or one wanting Austria to unite.

Maybe though make it more generically christian with the mentioned 'Jews killed Jesus!' angle.
 
Pretty much no. A sectarian (Catholic or Protestant) party will be a minorioty party in Weinmar Germany, and the Catholics are already spoken for. They are one of the more stable and clannish electoral groups practically owned by the moderate-right, paternalistic, pro-government but also pro-freedom-of-religion Zentrum Party. The best the Nazis can hope for from this corner is to poach votes (which they did in large numbers).

Political Catholicism in Germany lives with memories of the Kulturkampf, which leave it suspicious of government while still strongly conservative in its anti-Socialist anti-secularist stance. It's a pretty schizophrenic attitude, but it leads to a radically different place than National Socialism. If you want an idea of what Catholic Fascism looks like, look at Francoist Spain or Ustase Croatia. You can't get that in Germany with its heritage of Catholic parties *liking* freedom of religion and democratic representation. An independent Bavaria might get you there.
 
It's just that National Socialism is so weird compared to the rest of fascism. I'd say it would be more similar to Japanese militarism than it is to Mussolini's Italy.
 
I wouldn't consider National Socialism to be a variant of Fascism. Fascism was originally much more conservative and much less racially-oriented, and the Italian variation only took on those characteristics as part of the main stream of Fascist though after the alignment with Nazi Germany.
 
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