Name Ernst Bergmann Died 1945, Naumburg, Germany | Role Philosopher Education Leipzig University | |
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Ernst Bergmann (7 August 1881, Colditz, Kingdom of Saxony – 16 April 1945, Naumburg) was a German philosopher and proponent of Nazism.
He studied philosophy and German philology at the University of Leipzig and got his PhD in 1905. Subsequently he continued his studies in Berlin. Later he returned to Leipzig, where he received the status of Privatdozent at the university in 1911. In 1916 he was awarded the position of Ausserordentlicher Professor (professor without chair). He developed a religious philosophy with mystical aspects. Later he embraced the ideas of the National Socialist German Workers Party and became one of its prominent academic propagators. He officially joined the Nazi Party in 1930.
His works Die deutsche Nationalkirche (the German National Church) and Die naturliche Geistlehre (The Natural Doctrine of the Spirit) were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic list of banned books, in 1934 and 1937.
In his theology work Die 25 Thesen der Deutschreligion (Twenty-five Points of the German Religion), he held that the Old Testament and portions of the New Testament of the Bible were unsuitable for use in Germany. He claimed that Jesus was of Aryan descent and that he was not a Jew. Bergmann described Adolf Hitler as the new messiah.
In 1945, he committed suicide after the Allied forces captured Leipzig.