# Were The Nazis a Puritanical Lot? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201 "2010-05-12T18:51:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/41 "2010-05-16T22:01:49Z")
> [@Angry Lurker](#): > > I don’t disagree, but there was limited consistency to the way in which the Third Reich treated, er, deviants (in the defined sense) - 'twas very much who you knew. > > Didn’t just apply to art of course. I believe Goering said something along the lines of “I decide who is a jew” [The Master Speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/797/was-hitler-part-jewish) > [@](#): > > [W]hile Hitler probably didn’t have any Jewish blood, it can’t be completely ruled out. Hitler’s father was illegitimate and to this day there is some question about who his grandfather was. Throughout his career he was dogged by rumors about his pedigree, some of them circulated by his fellow Nazis. In 1933 the London Daily Mirror published a picture of a gravestone in a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest inscribed with some Hebrew characters and the name Adolf Hitler. It’s now known the Bucharest Hitler could not have been grandfather to our Adolf, but Hitler was sufficiently worried about the whole business that, according to the historian John Toland, he had the Nazi law defining Jewishness written to exclude Jesus Christ and himself. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/42 "2013-03-18T15:35:56Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Because Modernist architecture is Jewish cosmopolitan Bolshevik decadence and a threat to authentic German art. Goebbels also raved against something the Nazis called “Jewish science”. What was that? Many of Germany’s top physicists and chemists were Jews-how did that make their work “Jewish”? As far as I know, physical laws don’t have anything to do with religion. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/43 "2013-03-18T21:33:42Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Interestingly, a lot of those architects ended up here, which is why Tel Aviv features one of the finest collections of Bauhaus buildings in the world. Which shows that the suffering of the Jews continues even to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/44 "2013-03-18T22:17:26Z")
Tel Aviv Bauhaus buildings are a distinct subset of the genre that’s actually quite nice to look at, or, for that matter, to live in - I live in one of them myself. Examples: [![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wwrwjt14d44/SF63F3MC_II/AAAAAAAAAWg/adIJw7Xv5Sg/s1600-h/IMG_2252.jpg) ](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wwrwjt14d44/SF63F3MC_II/AAAAAAAAAWg/adIJw7Xv5Sg/s1600-h/IMG_2252.jpg) [![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wwrwjt14d44/SF63GnV8GjI/AAAAAAAAAWo/uUcTIhIKt28/s1600-h/IMG_2253.jpg) ](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wwrwjt14d44/SF63GnV8GjI/AAAAAAAAAWo/uUcTIhIKt28/s1600-h/IMG_2253.jpg) > **[We1Win Casino Review (2023 Update) | Online Casino Malaysia](https://telaviv4fun.com)** > > We1Win casino is a trusted & secure betting site with the latest encryption technology, good reputation & high payout. Read the full We1Win review here. [http://0.tqn.com/d/goisrael/1/0/1/-/-/-/Bauhaus.JPG](http://0.tqn.com/d/goisrael/1/0/1/-/-/-/Bauhaus.JPG) [![](https://www.insightguides.com/docs/images/thickbox/c7981a0d-b920-4e7b-9f7b-9105b2f52fce.Israel-telaviv-bauhausarchitecture.jpg) ](https://www.insightguides.com/docs/images/thickbox/c7981a0d-b920-4e7b-9f7b-9105b2f52fce.Israel-telaviv-bauhausarchitecture.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/45 "2013-03-19T01:25:56Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Goebbels also raved against something the Nazis called “Jewish science”. What was that? Many of Germany’s top physicists and chemists were Jews-how did that make their work “Jewish”? As far as I know, physical laws don’t have anything to do with religion. “Jewish Physics” was quantum physics and relativity, contrasted with “German Physics”, which…wasn’t. Basically the German Physics movement was two German physicists, Phillip Lenard and Johannes Stark, who had problems with relativity, and hooked their wagon to Nazism to pursue a vendetta against Einstein. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/46 "2013-03-19T03:08:50Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > I dunno. It seems to me that repressive regimes usually try to maintain a facade of asceticism. For one thing, it makes it look like they’re sacrificing all for the sake of the Glorious Cause, which is good propaganda; for another, it makes it easier to demand sacrifices from the commoners. After all, you can’t very well ask the peasants to live on beans and rice while you’re living on steak and lobster. And if you can persuade the worker bees out in the factories and on the farms not to use alcohol or screw around or have any fun at all, you might get more work out of 'em. > > Even the ugliest regimes must have some moral rationalization for their claim to power. Asceticism (or at least the appearance of it) makes it easier to sell others on that rationalization. The Nazi moralization didn’t come from asceticism, it came from a quack mythos about a mythical German king and a pure Aryan super race, telling the German people that they were special and the master race regardless of their situation. Combine that with Hitler improving the Germans’ situation after the brutal Treaty of Versaille… ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/47 "2013-03-19T03:20:10Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > They were puritans in that they were obsessed with purity. Racial purity, emotional purity, ethical purity, intellectual purity… they had no room for ambiguities or diversities of any sort. How much more puritan can you get? Well a small-case puritan perhaps, but an upper-case Puritan refers to the English Protestant/Reformed movement who wanted to “purify” the Anglican Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/48 "2013-03-19T03:58:49Z")
Hitler consciously modelled his career upon Cromwell — to which someone once wrote, maybe it was the love of purges… From 1944 to liberation the present Head of the House of Stuart was, as an 11 yr-old, along with his Wittelsbach family, held in concentration camps such as Dachau, along with other royal personages ( including the heir to the Kaiser, Louis Ferdinand ), and various politicians; so there was a carry on with the earlier gang of thieves. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/49 "2013-03-19T04:07:45Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Hitler consciously modelled his career upon Cromwell — to which someone once wrote, maybe it was the love of purges… Maybe, Carlyle wrote a biography on Cromwell and Hitler admired Carlyle. OTOH, Cromwell invited the Jews back into England making him one of the least anti-Semitic world leaders at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/50 "2013-03-19T20:49:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not exactly, but there was the [Lebensborn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn) program. The most famous person believed to have been born as a result of this idea is Frida, the redhead from ABBA. She’s the product of an affair between a (married) Nazi soldier and a young Norwegian woman. Her father deserted her mother, who died young, and Frida was raised by her maternal grandmother. Her father found out who she was after she became famous, and tried to convince her that he loved her mother. She didn’t believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/51 "2013-03-21T15:22:08Z")
As has been pointed out, Josef Goebbels was a womanizer. Albert Speer in a 1971 “Playboy” interview described him as having a casting couch that Hollywood producers would envy and he was not shy about actresses “repaying” him for helping their careers. Speer basically liked Goebbels (Goebbels tended to look with contempt at many Nazis who he regarded as uncouth louts) although he described Goebbels as having a waspish tongue. Goebbels’s wife Magda in revenge had an affair with a Nazi official (and early patron of Speer) named Karl Hanke. Eventually Hitler ordered everybody to stop the affairs and make up. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/52 "2013-03-21T17:52:37Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > “Jewish Physics” was quantum physics and relativity, contrasted with “German Physics”, which…wasn’t. > > Basically the German Physics movement was two German physicists, Phillip Lenard and Johannes Stark, who had problems with relativity, and hooked their wagon to Nazism to pursue a vendetta against Einstein. So sad..two Once highly respected scientists allowed themselves to become fools, because they swallowed the Nazi ideology. Ironically these two guy’s early work provided the basis for much of quantum physics. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201/53 "2013-03-22T18:10:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Tel Aviv Bauhaus buildings are a distinct subset of the genre that’s actually quite nice to look at, or, for that matter, to live in - I live in one of them myself. > > Examples: > > [IMG\_2252.jpg (image)](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wwrwjt14d44/SF63F3MC_II/AAAAAAAAAWg/adIJw7Xv5Sg/s1600-h/IMG_2252.jpg) > [IMG\_2253.jpg (image)](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wwrwjt14d44/SF63GnV8GjI/AAAAAAAAAWo/uUcTIhIKt28/s1600-h/IMG_2253.jpg) > [http://www.telaviv4fun.com/images/bauhaus-benyehuda-frishman.jpg](http://www.telaviv4fun.com/images/bauhaus-benyehuda-frishman.jpg) > [http://0.tqn.com/d/goisrael/1/0/1/-/-/-/Bauhaus.JPG](http://0.tqn.com/d/goisrael/1/0/1/-/-/-/Bauhaus.JPG) > [http://www.insightguides.com/docs/images/thickbox/c7981a0d-b920-4e7b-9f7b-9105b2f52fce.Israel-telaviv-bauhausarchitecture.jpg](http://www.insightguides.com/docs/images/thickbox/c7981a0d-b920-4e7b-9f7b-9105b2f52fce.Israel-telaviv-bauhausarchitecture.jpg) Refugee Bauhaus architects. Ignorance fought. I always thought you guys just envied your landsmen in Miami [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-a-puritanical-lot/539201.md?page=2)