The Man in the High Castle series by Amazon shows
the Nazis, in their control of eastern North America and in their influence in
the mountains neutral zone, to be decidedly hostile to the Christian religion. The Bible is banned. So far as I recall, there was no evidence of (above
ground) churches, and in a late episode, we see a snatch of ritual of the Reich
sponsored religion, apparently a marriage of fascism with ancient German
mythology. Think swastikas, dirndls and lots of blond pigtails.
The implicit claim of the series, that Nazism was
“godless” is historically inaccurate and politically dangerous. This sort of
revisionism is particularly attractive to the right wing, especially the far
right wing. The not so hidden message is: “There is no reason to be afraid of
political movements just because they are nationalist, racist, and bind the
state to capital, subjugating the employed classes. That isn’t what made Nazism
bad; all the really bad stuff came from the fact that they were atheists.” For
example, Dinesh DeSousa includes Hitler among the “atheist tyrants,” Hitler
becomes a card carrying atheist, as if he were Madalyn Murray O'Hair or Ayn
Rand.
