ABSTRACT
In 1939, the National Socialists abolished Guardini’s Berlin Chair in the Philosophy of Religion and Catholic Weltanschauung-with the telling justification that the state itself represents a Weltanschauung beside which others are inadmissible. In this same year, Guardini was forcibly pensioned and not made an Emeritus professor with full salary. In the same year, he also published a short essay entitled, ‘What Jesus Understands by Providence’. Not coincidentally, Guardini was preoccupied at this time with the concept of Providence. This same concept had cropped up over and again in Hitler’s speeches; indeed, it was to be found with more frequency in Hitler’s speeches than in many catechisms and theological works.1 It is astonishing how many details Hitler ascribes to Providence: it had destined him to go his specific way; through its will, the German people had not been spared their struggle; despite a cruel testing, Providence would stand by the German people in the future and, ultimately, award it the prize of victory. To the courage of heroes on the front would accrue, thus Hitler, ‘an immortal reward’.2 He prevailed upon Providence to ‘guard and bless the path of our soldiers, as it has up to now’.3 Hitler appears to have had a well-developed sense of mission. Comparison with the Johannine Christ, the sovereign shepherd who goes ahead of the herd and at the same time prepares the way (compare John 10:4), is unavoidable when confronted by certain words of Hitler. According to Wagener, a close friend of Hitler in the years 1929-33, he said, with brightly lit eyes and gazing into the distance:
I too am perhaps destined only to march with the torch of knowledge before you. You must finish the work behind me. I must follow my inspiration and my mission. But you can see the things behind me and recognize how they are. Only sometimes does the torch throw its flickering light on the path that lies before me. But those who go behind me march in the light. This is why we belong together, you and I! I, who lead through the darkness and you, who, seeing it, should finish.4
