The Original "Enviro Nazis" Were Nazis

In light of the recent environmental controversy over splattergate, where the green propaganda ad in the United Kingdom explosively became gory red in the classroom, it is time to be reminded that it was pacifist-leftist Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) who pointed out that the Nazis started out green but became bloody red. This political reality came much to the dismay of many German conservationists as they slowly found out the real intent of Adolf Hitler. Naïve German greens had no idea that many of the Fuhrer’s savage premeditations about continental hegemony were often conjured up at his mountain retreat in the wild Bavarian Alps. They just assumed that he was enjoying the alpine serenity of the region away from the hubbub of Berlin. Neither did they apprehend that the sweeping Nazi environmental laws of 1933-35 were an implicit Anti-Semitic precursor for the racially charged Nuremberg laws. Together, they would both specifically target Jewish internationalism, whether coming from the capitalistic west or the communistic east, as being unnatural and alien, i.e., not indigenous to Germany.

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"Neither did they apprehend that the sweeping Nazi environmental laws of 1933-35 were an implicit Anti-Semitic precursor for the racially charged Nuremberg laws"

One of the most embarrassing environmental facts of the 1930’s was that between 60-70% of the German greens were Nazi Party members, compared to only 10% of the population at large. In fact, German greens even outperformed medical doctors and teachers, with Nazi foresters and veterinarians leading the charge. Somehow, the so-called independent German wandervogels (German word for ‘wandering free spirits’) found themselves at the footstool of Der Fuhrer. Their wandervogel attitudes about civilization and the wild forestlands found a political niche in the isolationist biology of the Nazi Party. Furthermore, their strong beliefs in holism found a political voice in the totalitarian Social Darwinism of the Nazis, which was largely rooted in Ernst’s Haeckel’s ecology of the 1800’s. In those days, racism was good ‘scientific’ biology, disguised by eugenics as it was. It was the rage of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that required the cataclysm of World War II to bring about an international repentance on the subject. In Germany, ethnicity and nature, racism and environmentalism, often went hand in hand. By the time of the Nazi period, this collaboration became hardened into a political-biological ecology known as “blood and soil.”

Though the German greens predated the Nazis by well over 100 years, with the advent of the Nazi Party, their previous Romanticism was transformed into something far more sinister because of its ties to a strong totalitarian state, where, for the first time, they became political players at the federal level. While environmental historians are quick to point out that the Four Year Plan’s great battle for production later compromised the new conservation laws, the fact of the matter is that the idea of a political totalitarian environmentalism was born in the Third Reich. Indeed, the 1935 Reich Nature Protection Act trumpeted the slogan, “it shall be the whole landscape.” Green historians may debate on how effective this totalitarian conservation law was, but nonetheless, here is seen the birth of environmental impact statements and the like. In Nazi Germany, private property could even be seized without compensation for the sake of environmental concerns. As such, what was unique about Nazi environmentalism was not in its setting aside of nature reserves ala Teddy Roosevelt, but in its willingness to regulate already developed properties for the sake of the environment. This was a line that Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot did not cross. The green Nazis, however, crossed the Rubicon.

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"Like Tucholsky before him, he thus astutely recognized the dark shade of green that characterized Hitler and the Nazis of the 1930’s"

Another man who worked with Kurt Tucholsky in the late 1920’s was pacifist-Marxist John Heartfield. He was a very gifted political artist who often used exaggerated metaphors to hyperbolize the contradictions of National Socialism. Not surprisingly, upon Nazi accession to power, he was forced to suffer through a harrowing escape from Germany in 1933. In the later 30’s he made up a montage of Hitler watering an oak tree which bore the acorn fruit of army helmets and shells painted with swastikas. Like Tucholsky before him, he thus astutely recognized the dark shade of green that characterized Hitler and the Nazis of the 1930’s.

The oak tree was considered to be the sacred tree of Germany. Hitler loved oak trees and had them planted all over the Reich as “concordant with the spirit of the Fuhrer.” Oak leaves and acorns were even the symbols of the SS, Hitler’s green praetorian guard. With great interest is that Hitler also gave oak saplings to all of the gold medal winners of the 1936 Olympics as nationalistic living symbols of the competitive Olympic spirit. Jesse Owens received four of them. American gold medal winner Glenn Morris also took one home. Some of these Olympic oaks are still alive.

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"Oak leaves and acorns were even the symbols of the SS, Hitler’s green praetorian guard"

.With even greater interest is that in July of 2009, a tremendous controversy erupted in Jaslo, Poland over one of Hitler’s oaks planted by the Wehrmacht in 1942 to celebrate his birthday, “the ritual was always the same: a brass band and a speech by the German-imposed mayor that would always invoke the metaphor of deep roots, of tiny acorns turning into great oaks, of 1,000-year Reichs. Attendance was compulsory.” This oak tree is evidence of Nazi Germany’s green plans for the East. Landscape planners were even chomping at the bit to get started in Ukraine and Belarus behind the Wehrmacht’s advance into Russia. The oak tree was scheduled to be taken down due to a construction project, but an eyewitness of the event intervened and informed the people of the city that the oak tree should be saved since it was a silent witness to some of the greatest crimes committed in the 20th century. With all of the articles that were written up about the controversy, most intriguing of all is how uninterested so many were in delving into the Nazi environmental record behind the planting of that oak tree. It seems that post-modern western man has become too infatuated with environmental fascism to take notice.

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While many continue to use the eco-fascism label as a figure of speech to help illustrate the growing totalitarian menace of the modern green movement, it is no metaphor. Eco-fascism is rooted in history like a German oak tree, and this is nowhere more shockingly evident than at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Buchenwald means “Beech Forest.” The SS enjoyed a zoo just outside the camp. In the midst of the camp are the remains of Goethe’s oak. The famous scholar Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) blazed the trail for the German Romantic Movement. Today, Romanticism is known as Environmentalism. Goethe spent much time around the environs of that particular oak tree, the destination of his favorite forest retreat. When the Nazis cleared the ground for the construction of the camp, they carefully preserved the oak tree. Late in the war, the tree died during an Allied bombing raid. However, the stump still remains thanks to the special care that the Nazis gave to it at its funeral.

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"God will turn Israel’s ashes into oaks of righteousness (Isaiah 61:1-8). This will occur after the Great Tribulation during the Jewish-Christian Millennium promised throughout both the Old and New Testaments"

However, this green sacrificial offering of the Jews committed under Nazi oak trees will be powerfully answered by God’s gracious salvation in the future for His people Israel (Zech 12 -14). In great contrast to the nature worship slaughterhouse that was the Third Reich, (Isaiah 61:3) specifically promises that in the apocalyptic future, God will turn Israel’s ashes into oaks of righteousness (Isaiah 61:1-8). This will occur after the Great Tribulation during the Jewish-Christian Millennium promised throughout both the Old and New Testaments (Jeremiah 31:27-40; Ezekiel 37; Revelation 19-20). Here the Lord will turn the great tragedy that was the Holocaust into the greatest blessing ever known in the history of mankind.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

RMM I.F.

Seven Years To The Exact Day - The 70 Weeks of Daniel

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This article originally appeared in the American Thinker on July 12^th, 2010 undertitle “The Original Enviro Nazis.” It has been slightly changed. Mark Musser is the author of “Nazi Oaks: The Green Sacrificial Offering of the Judeo-Christian Worldview in the Holocaust” and a commentary on the warning passages in the book of Hebrews called “Wrath or Rest: Saints in the Hands of an Angry God.”