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How Was It Accomplished So Easily? (Part One)
Commentary by John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)Before Adolf Hitler and the Nazis assumed power, Germany was recognized as a strong Christian nation. The term Nazi stands for national socialism, a system that differs from Russian communism only in its initial focus on governing Germany alone. This form of socialism rapidly expanded its reach by drawing other nations into its ideology, resulting in the deaths of six million Jews in the ovens of the concentration camps. The same government then killed an additional forty million of its own citizens directly or indirectly, while Germany itself lost another six million through warfare. Beyond these figures, the national socialists caused the deaths of twenty million Russians, most in the Ukraine, along with substantial losses among the populations of France, Britain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Spain, North Africa, Italy, America, Greece, Bulgaria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The transcript presents these outcomes as the inevitable product of socialism, which harbors something catastrophically wrong and evil. This illustration of Nazism's consequences reinforces the material's larger warning that socialism, whether in its communist or national form, subverts nations from within by exploiting human selfishness and relativism, ultimately leading to the erosion of liberty and the imposition of totalitarian control.
How Was It Accomplished So Easily? (Part Two)
Commentary by John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)Nazism arose in Germany through the prideful insanity of Adolf Hitler and the national Socialists, who initiated World War Two and caused the deaths of vast numbers of people. Though its original goal was limited to Germany, Nazism was in essence communism under a different name, sharing the same aim of imposing socialist control. This movement served as a historical backdrop for examining the spiritual enemies that manipulate nations such as Russia and China to subvert the Western world spiritually, morally, politically, and economically. Those enemies have pursued international communism by persuading citizens to pressure their own governments toward socialism, a process that began gaining rapid momentum in the United States during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and continued through subsequent decades as appointed officials advanced these ideas. The methods that enabled Nazism to succeed are now evident in parallel developments within America. Hitler and his followers constantly lied, producing widespread confusion and distrust among the people so that nothing remained clear. The German population proved far too accepting and uncritical, challenging almost nothing the regime did. At the same time, the Nazis grew increasingly harsh and vicious toward their fellow citizens, enforcing obedience through fear of prison or death. These tactics parallel the use of doublespeak and gradual infiltration in universities, churches, government offices, and other institutions, where similar distortions of language and ideals have advanced the slide toward international socialism. The analysis underscores that the ultimate liberty comes only from God and must be preserved by the called, as the removal of divine protection from the Western world allows these patterns to unfold.
Blood and Soil: The Persistence of Anti-Semitism
'Prophecy Watch' by Charles WhitakerTheodor Veiter argued in 1938 that the destructive questioning of the highest human values by Jewry demonstrated that Jews were already excluded from the ethnic-national life of other nations by virtue of their mode of thought, which flowed from their race, and that they should therefore be excluded from those nations. The German government of the 1930s rejected inclusivity as a basis for its racial policies and adopted instead a policy of exclusivity. Veiter and the other architects of Nazi racism subscribed to this doctrine of exclusivity, whose jingoistic watchword was blood and soil. Blood and soil taught that certain people belonged to the soil of Germany by virtue of their racial ancestry while all others were foreigners and interlopers. Foreigners were permitted to remain only if they offered specific services; if perceived as hostile they were expelled or exterminated. Exclusivity formed the bedrock of this thinking, holding that some racial stocks could legitimately be excluded from a host polity and that all means taken by the rightful owners of the land to keep the soil and the blood pure were lawful. This conclusion issued from the Nazi-devised law of ethnic groups propounded by Veiter and other legal theorists in the 1930s. The doctrine explained the fate of Gypsies and Jews, whom the Nazis identified as decadent and therefore a danger to the German nation; they were first repressed and later subjected to the final solution of mass murder. The same racial doctrine of exclusivity, now revived with modifications, continues to nourish anti-Semitism in contemporary Europe by classifying Jews as allochthonous foreigners rather than autochthonous national minorities.
A Government to Fear (Part Five)
Commentary by John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)The present administration's actions in centralizing power over the states and using federal agencies to override local citizens resemble Nazi Germany during the 1930s, as leaders bully their way into greater authority under the justification of equality. This pattern connects to a broader worldwide conspiracy involving many nations and their leadership, operating prior to Christ's return to challenge the sovereign God and overthrow any sincere believers who bear His name. The conspiracy works through unwitting men lured by personal gains in power, with its strongest pressures directed at the Christian Church in the United States and United Kingdom. A historical sequence of attitudes expressed by political, academic, and media leadership serves to isolate unwanted groups, beginning with characterization that portrays Christians as comical, grotesque, primitive, angry, narrow, unsophisticated, and uneducated. This leads to marginalization that limits participation in jobs and community projects, followed by vilification through defamation, lies, lawsuits, and public accusations of hateful acts. Villainification then renders such treatment acceptable by officially labeling Christians as evil, after which criminalization begins, exactly as Hitler applied it to the Jews by arresting them solely for their identity. The process opened with the night of broken glass, when Jewish shops were attacked under the excuse that the targets were criminals, and it advanced to elimination in the Holocaust for the supposed greater good of the nation. The same stages now move Christians from vilification toward criminalization in America through court rulings that consistently go against them, marking the direction toward eventual elimination.
How Was it Accomplished So Easily? (Part Three)
Commentary by John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)Hilmar von Campe, who grew up under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, identifies three primary factors that enabled the Nazis to seize control of Germany with relative ease. Constant lying by the Nazi leadership gradually produced disorganized confusion among citizens, rendering them ineffective at mounting resistance. Many citizens also proved far too accepting and uncritical of the changes, partly because memories of World War I remained vivid. Over time the Nazis intensified their harsh treatment of the population, instilling fear that discouraged any reaction and establishing a system built on obey or else. Campe concludes that the same operating procedure has guided socialist-communist infiltration elsewhere by educating minds to sever connections with history and traditions, thereby altering cultural beliefs and opening the way for a socialist totalitarian system. This process relies on deception rather than brute force, employing words to reshape thinking and control language through teachers and media. The resulting disconnection from founding principles, heroes, and policies leaves citizens vulnerable to the transfer of allegiance from the Creator to the state, where individuals become slaves of men and lose all hope of freedom. The pattern serves as a warning that such methods target the loyalty of God's called-out children above all, requiring continued faithfulness amid intensifying spiritual pressure.
Socialism's Inherent Contradiction
'WorldWatch' by Richard T. RitenbaughNazism is presented as a form of socialism, its full name being the National Socialist German Workers' Party, despite progressives' denials of any such link. It is cited as one of several twentieth-century examples illustrating how the accumulation of state power and control under socialist systems inevitably leads to abuse, as warned by Lord Acton's dictum that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Under this dictatorship, Nazism initiated and waged a devastating world war while carrying out a holocaust responsible for the deaths of nearly 21 million people. This outcome is connected to the broader pattern seen in other socialist regimes, where promises of wealth redistribution and opportunity for the disadvantaged give way to tightened control, the disappearance of liberty, and widespread misery enforced by force. The discussion of Nazism thus underscores the inherent contradiction in socialism and reinforces the material's central message that human forms of government, including those built on socialist principles, ultimately fail and corrupt, leaving only the Kingdom of God as humanity's true hope for genuine peace, freedom, and prosperity under a rule based on love and service.
The Blood Libel and the Holocaust: The Cost of Wrong Doctrine
'Prophecy Watch' by Charles WhitakerNazism emerged during the papacy of Pius XI as a regime whose abuses the Catholic Church sought to mitigate through the 1933 Concordat, an agreement intended to safeguard ecclesiastical interests from Hitler's encroachments. The movement's anti-Semitic policies gained traction in the 1930s, exemplified by the April 1933 Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service that barred non-Aryans from public positions, alongside the closure of kosher businesses, exclusion of Jews from universities, and eventual deportations that culminated in the Auschwitz transports and the final solution conceived in the late 1930s. Hitler explicitly invoked the Church's fifteen-hundred-year tradition of treating Jews as pestilent, confining them to ghettos, and recognizing their supposed danger, presenting his measures as a continuation of that legacy rather than an innovation. This alignment allowed Nazi racism to flourish within a cultural environment already shaped by longstanding Catholic and Protestant teachings that interpreted Jewish suffering as divine punishment rooted in the blood libel of Matthew 27:25. Such doctrine portrayed the Jews' cry as a self-imposed curse that legitimized persecution across centuries, thereby eroding any impetus within the churches to protest or obstruct Nazi actions. Although Pius XI later declared anti-Semitism inadmissible, his words proved ineffective against the entrenched attitudes that rendered the hierarchy ambivalent or silent, prioritizing concerns over schools and youth indoctrination above intervention in deportations. The broader message underscores that this wrong doctrine supplied the essential hatred of Jews that transformed Nazi ideology from mere racism into an engine of mass death, demonstrating how theological error historically enabled the regime's policies while true understanding of God's selective timeline would have precluded such complicity.
Reinterpreting History
Commentary by Richard T. RitenbaughThe New York Times asserts that Charles Manson was a precursor to the alt-right movement. Yet there was nothing conservative about Manson.
An Unbalanced Mind
Commentary by John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)The spending of money in an extremely unbalanced and selfish way is part of human nature. In our culture, we are becoming absorbed in extremism.
Another Step Further
Commentary by John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)The leadership of the current government is enacting Executive orders to box in the citizenry, preparing to restrict the movements of all enemies of the State.
I Pledge Allegiance
Sermon by Richard T. RitenbaughThe words 'under God' were added to the Pledge in 1954. As our country drifts toward socialism, we need to determine where our true allegiance lies.
The Olivet Prophecy Paradox
Sermon by David C. GrabbeThe Olivet Prophecy describes both a unique time of destruction and upheaval but also commonplace activities like eating, drinking, and marrying. How can this be?
The Cost of Reconciliation
Sermon by Richard T. RitenbaughReconciliation is the product of a sacrifice to pacify the wrath of an offended person. We must imitate Christ in His approach toward hostility from others.
Philippians (Part Nine)
Sermon/Bible Study by John W. RitenbaughGodly righteousness demands humility, a readiness to admit shortcomings, a yieldedness to correction, and a willingness to be refashioned.