Arthur Drews - Radikalkritik

- 18 -▪ Followed in 1881 by the German Association of Freethinkers (DeutscherFreidenkerbund)▪ and in 1906 the German Association of Monists (Deutscher Monistenbund)Drews threw in his lot with both the Free Religion Association and the MonistAssociation, which were part of the "Free Religion Movement" (FreireligiöseBewegung).In addition, Drews was a member of the new No-Confession Committee,formed in 1909, which became very successful in attracting members who were dropoutsfrom their churches, a movement that had become significant since it started in1905, and also successful in attracting scientific, academic and cultural celebrities.In1924 Drews, who was the leader of the Free Religion Society of Karlsruhe, joined afew other Societies of the Southwest to form a new Association of Free Religion forthe Southwest (Verband Freireligiöser Gemeinden Süd- und Westdeutschlands), withan orientation more religious and less political than the other movements.7.2 The Völkish MovementBy opposition to the religious movements, a non-religious cultural current had gainedsome impetus: The so-called Völkish movement (Völkische Bewegung), which datedback to the Romantic movement of the 1850s, when the German revolutionary driveshad been crushed by the arrival of Bismarck.This movement had a popular base, andcombined various elements of extreme nationalism, anti-Christianity, a reverence forthe mythical Teutonic past, racism, anti-semitism, which encouraged a revival ofGermanic paganism.7.3 The New Popular Myth of the Superior German Race Spread by the NSPDPropagandaDrews had been a philosopher and a historian of philosophy, with a proselytizing drivefor promoting his brand of Idealistic Monism. His interest in religion and mythologymade him sensitive to the religious "essence" of social cultural beliefs. RomanticNordic mysticism had become a prevalent fascination among the 19th-centuryGerman elite, such as Richard Wagner and contemporary artists, historians andwriters. It had unavoidably aroused Drews's attention to the old Teutonic beliefs muchin vogue in Northern EuropeDrews had seen in early Christianity a religion of promise of rebirth andtransfiguration for a defeated and oppressed country (announcing the coming of theKingdom of God), and the creation of a national myth giving hope to ancientoccupied Palestinian Jews (expectation of a Messiah leader and liberator). Jews wereexpecting (hoping) that Palestine was going to go through its own course of dying andrising again.During its rise in Germany, the National Socialist party (NSPD) appropriated in itsideology the old Teutonic mysticism of the highly educated artistic and literary elite, andits propaganda vulgarized it into a crude popular mass mythology of Germanic Aryansuperiority, with quasi-religious overtones, encouraging the fringe development of whatcame to be called Germanic Neopaganism.Aging and close to death, Drews, was struck by the theoretical parallel of earlyChristianity with modern National Socialist mysticism — a promise of nationalrebirth and transfiguration from an oppressed state and of renewed hope for adefeated country under the leadership of a new charismatic liberator — whichresonated with his own concept of a future religion based on German MonisticIdealism.With the National Socialist Party's propaganda overwhelming the country like atsunami, Drews's language in his last theological writings became more and moreheavy with the concepts of glorified "Germanness" by opposition to the people ofthe Ancient Near East (ANE) — whose cultures had given rise to Greco-Romanclassicism (including Drews's beloved Plotinus), but also Christianity — now alldevalued and labeled as "foreign races". Drews thus seemed convinced that the