Admittedly, some people who did not accept Darwinism espoused non-evolutionary theories that accommodated, or even espoused, racism, such as the idea that those of African descent were not the offspring of Adam but of the “beasts of the earth” that the Bible mentioned in Genesis 1:25,30. Nonetheless, these theories were developed mostly in response to justify existing social systems and unexamined biases.
German racism would have had a difficult time existing if the historical creation position void of “Ham” and other curse theories was widely accepted. One of these pseudo-biblical curse theories was the claim that Genesis teaches “two types of men” were originally created: the superior race line, Adam and Eve; and the “beasts of the earth,” the inferior black race line.34 Few people, though, accepted this line of argument and almost no one in Germany did.
Most biblical Christians have historically believed that, although blacks were culturally and physically different from whites, they were, nonetheless, fully human with a soul that needed to be saved. Consequently, extensive missionary activity was exerted to seek the conversion of those of African descent. Black tribal African religion almost disappeared as a result of Christian conversions as early as the middle 1800s, and only small remnants of it remained after the 1840s.
For these reasons, early in Nazi rule the Christian church, especially the Catholic Church, was one of the main targets of the Nazi policy of persecution. Specifically, the
SS was given a free hand in a reign of terror against both clergy and laity, as a demonstration that any institution or individual who might become a focal point of national resistance would be destroyed. The clergy, as always, were the chief suspects. Lists were drawn up of Catholics who were “especially hostile to Germany” and who, as such, deserved summary treatment. In November 1939 it was reported from the Polish town of Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) that the eradication of Polish priests was planned, preceded only by the prior extermination of the Jews.35
World History
