Analyzing the previously unexplored religious views of the Nazi elite

Richard Steigmann-Gall argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. He demonstrates that many participants in the Nazi movement believed that the contours of their ideology were based on a Christian understanding of Germany's ills and their cure.

A program usually regarded as secular in inspiration - the creation of a racialist ''people''s community'' embracing antisemitism, antiliberalism and anti-Marxism - was, for these Nazis, conceived in explicitly Christian terms. His examination centers on the concept of ''positive Christianity,'' a religion espoused by many members of the party leadership.

He also explores the struggle the ''positive Christians'' waged with the party's paganists - those who rejected Christianity in toto as foreign and corrupting - and demonstrates that this was not just a conflict over religion, but over the very meaning of Nazi ideology itself.