ABSTRACT
Germanic mythology, though in detail equally alien and ‘complicated’, could better serve as a popular religion because it came closer to the general national sense of mission and gave it a mystical benediction. A massive tide of pan-Germanic literature flooded the petit-bourgeois consciousness toward the end of the nineteenth century. Even though attempts to fuse Germanic and Christian elements in the sense of a national religion were made at that time, they remained without considerable influence on the population at large. This influence came about with the wars of liberation and then especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, when literature, art and music successfully popularized the Germanic. German professors, too, contributed to the Germanic dress with which German imperialism now festively garbed itself. William Schwaner called his text, which combined similar images with strongly anti-Christian affectations, ‘The German Bible’.
