Religion and Politics Mixed Serves Fascism

The lessons of history are so compelling, it's hard to imagine why we dare not listen to them. Here an eminent Nazi expert warns us of a lurking threat: A growing link between religion and politics in the US.
The most shocking part of this is that I never heard of this before. This speech took place in November. Yet, a search at Google turns up no text of the speech. The speech honoring Stern can be found, but not his acceptance speech. Has the fear of retaliation by the Christian Right prevented the press from telling this critical story?
Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/nyregion/06profile.html">The New York Times > Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse

FRITZ STERN, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading scholar of European history, startled several of his listeners when he warned in a speech about the danger posed in this country by the rise of the Christian right. In his address in November, just after he received a prize presented by the German foreign minister, he told his audience that Hitler saw himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity. Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he said of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas."

[...]

HE warns of the danger in an open society of "mass
manipulation of public opinion, often mixed with mendacity
and forms of intimidation." He is a passionate defender of
liberalism as "manifested in the spirit of the
Enlightenment and the early years of the American
republic. The radical right and the radical left see liberalism's
appeal to reason and tolerance as the denial of their
uniform ideology," he said. "Every democracy needs a
liberal fundament, a Bill of Rights enshrined in law and
spirit, for this alone gives democracy the chance for
self-correction and reform. Without it, the survival of
democracy is at risk. Every genuine conservative knows
this."

Complete Article
Public Lives: Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse
January 6, 2005
By CHRIS HEDGES
PRINCETON, N.J.
FRITZ STERN, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading
scholar of European history, startled several of his
listeners when he warned in a speech about the danger posed
in this country by the rise of the Christian right. In his
address in November, just after he received a prize
presented by the German foreign minister, he told his
audience that Hitler saw himself as "the instrument of
providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic
Christianity."
"Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion
and politics," he said of prewar Germany, "but many more
were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious
transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his
success, notably in Protestant areas."
Dr. Stern's speech, given during a ceremony at which he got
the prize from the Leo Baeck Institute, a center focused on
German Jewish history, was certainly provocative. The
fascism of Nazi Germany belongs to a world so horrendous it
often seems to defy the possibility of repetition or
analogy. But Dr. Stern, 78, the author of books like "The
Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the
Germanic Ideology" and university professor emeritus at
Columbia University, has devoted a lifetime to analyzing
how the Nazi barbarity became possible. He stops short of
calling the Christian right fascist but his decision to
draw parallels, especially in the uses of propaganda, was
controversial.
"When I saw the speech my eyes lit up," said John R.
MacArthur, whose book "Second Front" examines wartime
propaganda. "The comparison between the propagandistic
manipulation and uses of Christianity, then and now, is
hidden in plain sight. No one will talk about it. No one
wants to look at it."
Dr. Stern was a schoolboy in 1933 when Hitler was appointed
the German chancellor. He ran home from school that January
afternoon clutching a special edition of the newspaper to
deliver to his father, a prominent physician.
"I was young," he said, "but I knew it was very bad news."
The street fighting in his native Breslau (now Wroclaw in
Poland) between Communists and Nazis, the collapse of
German democracy and the ruthless suppression of all
opposition marked his childhood, and were images and
experiences that would propel him forward as a scholar.
"I saw one of the last public demonstrations against
Hitler," he said. "Men, women and children walked through
the street and chanted 'Hunger! Hunger! Hunger!' "
His paternal grandparents had converted to Christianity.
His parents were baptized at birth, as were Mr. Stern and
his older sister. But this did not save the Sterns from
persecution. Nazi racial laws still classified them as
Jews.
"It was only Nazi anti-Semitism that made me conscious of
my Jewish heritage," he said. "I had been brought up in a
secular Christian fashion, celebrating Christmas and
Easter. My father had to explain it to me."
His schoolmates were swiftly recruited into Hitler youth
groups and he and other Jews were taunted and excluded from
some activities.
"Many of my classmates found the organized party
experience, which included a heavy dose of flag waving and
talk of national strength, very exhilarating," said Dr.
Stern, who lost an aunt and an uncle in the Holocaust. "It
was something I never forgot."
His family fled to New York in 1938 when he was 12. He
eventually went to Columbia University intending to study
medicine. But his passion for the past, along with
questions about what happened to his homeland, caused him
to switch his focus to history. He wanted to grasp how
democracies disintegrate. He wanted to uncover the warning
signs other democracies should heed. He wanted to write
about the seductiveness of authoritarian movements, which
he once described in an essay, "National Socialism as
Temptation."
"There was a longing in Europe for fascism before the name
was ever invented," he said. "There was a longing for a new
authoritarianism with some kind of religious orientation
and above all a greater communal belongingness. There are
some similarities in the mood then and the mood now,
although also significant differences."
HE warns of the danger in an open society of "mass
manipulation of public opinion, often mixed with mendacity
and forms of intimidation." He is a passionate defender of
liberalism as "manifested in the spirit of the
Enlightenment and the early years of the American
republic."
"The radical right and the radical left see liberalism's
appeal to reason and tolerance as the denial of their
uniform ideology," he said. "Every democracy needs a
liberal fundament, a Bill of Rights enshrined in law and
spirit, for this alone gives democracy the chance for
self-correction and reform. Without it, the survival of
democracy is at risk. Every genuine conservative knows
this."
Dr. Stern, who has two children from a previous marriage,
is married to Elizabeth Sifton, a book publisher. They live
in New York. He is writing a book called "Five Germanys I
Have Known," a combination of memoirs and reflections that
looks at Weimar, Nazi Germany, the Federal Republic of
Germany, East Germany and unified Germany. He is widely
read in Germany and has won its highest literary prize.
"The Jews in Central Europe welcomed the Russian
Revolution," he said, "but it ended badly for them. The
tacit alliance between the neo-cons and the Christian right
is less easily understood. I can imagine a similarly
disillusioning outcome."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/nyregion/06profile.html?ex=1106058901&ei=1&en=44dfa2b81e3f9ad3
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