Religion: Nazi Easter

While thousands of young Americans prepared to receive their first Easter Communion, 1,100,000 German youths, just turned 14, had a first Nazi “communion” two weeks before Easter—complete with organ music, readings from Mein Kampf, sermons based on the Führer’s writing. Reich Youth Leader Arthur Axmann spoke over the radio for the Berlin ceremony, cited Hitler as a name to worship and an example for all young people to follow.

The Nazi “communion” is henceforth to take place every year around Easter, to incorporate each year’s new crop of youth into the party. Church Communions, as such, will not be prohibited, but the Nazis expect that the “civil communion” will draw most of Germany’s youth, and that religious services for Germans are “doomed to be crowded out by the new life of new times.”