Religious Intolerance in Germany

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that despite strong laws against religious discrimination in its new constitution, there is still wide spread religious intolerance in Germany, which again was acerbated with the reunification because, although Western Germany's population had been carefully reeducated against Nazism, Eastern Germany's population has not had the same experience. The author points out that Germany's problems with religious persecution did not begin with Hitler and the Nazis, they go as far back as Charlemagne, King of the Franks, a Germanic tribe, creator of the first European central government in the Middle Ages, who was inhospitable not only with the Jews but also with the pagan Saxons, another Germanic tribe. The paper relates that the Christian anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, which was part of the tradition of Medieval Christian anti-Semitism, laid the social and cultural basis for modern anti-Semitism, although modern anti-Semitism was based on the pseudo-scientific notions of race.

Table of Contents
Religious Persecution in Medieval Germany
Persecution of the Pagan Saxons
Religious Persecution of the Jews in Medieval Germany
Anti-Semitism during the Reformation
Germany's Long History of Religious Divisiveness
Religious Intolerance in Germany Today
A Possible Cure?

From the Paper:

"The Capitulary went on to make any practice of this earlier religion not only a sin against the Church but also a crime against the State. The Capitulary stated that if any one shall have formed a conspiracy with the pagans against the Christians, or shall have wished to join with them in opposition to the Christians, let him be punished by death. It went to demand that whoever shall have consented to this same fraudulently against the king and the Christian people, let him be punished by death. Finally, the Capitulary decreed that if any one shall have shown himself unfaithful to the lord king; let him be punished with a capital sentence.
Charlemagne eradicated any open pagan practices in Medieval Europe; he also had many recalcitrant practitioners of the pagan religion killed for not converting to Christianity and paying their tithes."

More papers on Religious Intolerance in Germany:

• Research Proposal # 131940 : "A Project Proposal: Intolerance in Army Nursing Facilities"
• Essay # 84155 : "Nazism in Germany "
• Analytical Essay # 131746 : "Religious Discrimination in the Public Schools"

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