Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's New Religion and National Socialism

Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1881–1962) was a missionary to India and later both a professor of religious studies at Tübingen and a founder of a new religion, called the German Faith Movement (Deutsche Glaubensbewegung, DGB). According to Hauer, his movement was the essence of National Socialism. Because some contemporary scholars try to distance Hauer's scholarship and the DGB from National Socialism, this paper reviews existing literature about the Hauer phenomenon. It does so in light of the authors' research in the Federal Archives of Koblenz and Berlin and the German Literature Archive in Marbach. Hauer's personal development and determination to further Nazism are traced. Together, the literature review and Hauer's view of religion show that his religious thought and his Nazi politics are inseparable.