Heinrich Himmler Nazi Soldiers and Bhagwad Gita.

A book has claimed that Heinrich Himmler leader of the SS, always carried a German version of Hindu religious book called Bhagwad Gita on his person and exhorted his soldiers to read it whenever they are in a dilemma. Germany was one of the first and deepest exponents researchers or students of Indian Spiritual texts. like Vedas, Upanishads, Gita etc. The Swastika the word itself is Sanskrit. LUFTHANSA has a Swan on its logo. The word LUFTHANSA if split, becomes LUFT meaning Air in German and HANSA is the Hindu word for Swan.

Lies being taught;

It was to justify killings of 6 million Jews;

Now the truth;

It is already evidenced that; 

There was no killings of Jews.

WW2 was between Christians versus Christians.

We really do not know whether Heinrich Himmler, SS or Nazi Soldiers read and Bhagwad Gita but the story of Bhagwat Gita is of the lead-up to a big battle between two factions of the royal house of India, to decide the succession to the throne. It is in the form of a poem in 19 chapters, and is part of the huge epic Mahabharata. Chapter 1 introduces the main characters, Arjuna, a famous warrior and cousin of one of the leaders, and his charioteer, the god Krishna in human form. Arjuna is upset at the thought of going to battle against members of his own family and asks advice of Krishna, who replies over the next 18 chapters, with occasional questions from Arjuna. The issue is: Arjuna does not want to fight, and Krishna assures him it is the proper thing to do. The story is presented as a report by Sanjaya to Dhritaranshtra, an old man, father of the princes on the other side of the battle. 

The despondency of Arjuna

Arjuna is a famous warrior and is among the host of two armies gathered on the plain of Kurukshetra, north of Delhi, to decide the succession to the throne of his kingdom in northern India. His charioteer is a human incarnation of the god Krishna, one of the trinity of chief deities of the Hindus (Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu). In chapter 10, Krishna tells Arjuna of his many manifestations. This coming battle is different from any Arjuna has known before. On both sides are his close relatives, friends and teachers, who have taken sides in this struggle for control of the Kingdom. The words in Red are original from Bhgawd Gita and those below in black are explanations. 

There saw Arjuna standing fathers and grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons and grandsons as also companions. And also father-in-law and friends in both the armies.

He asks Krishna to drive out into the No-man's-land between the two armies so he can consider what is going on. He decides he cannot go ahead with lustily joining in the battle with sword and bow and trying as hard as he cannot bring himself to kill cousins, uncles and teachers whom he has reverenced and associated with all his life. He tells Krishna about his doubts and faint-hearted reaction, which has several strands to it: 

What can we hope from this killing of kinsmen? What do I want with victory, empire, or their enjoyment?… How can I care for power or pleasure, my own life , even, when all these others, teachers, fathers, grand-fathers, uncles, sons and brothers, husbands of sisters, grandsons and cousins, for whose sake only I could enjoy them, stand here ready to risk blood and wealth in war against us? Though they should slay me, how could I harm them? I cannot wish it; never, never.

So it is partly an emotional reaction, of horror at killing the people dear to him.

Tell me how can we hope to be happy slaying the sons of Dhritarashtra? Evil they may be, worst of the wicked, yet if we kill them our sin is greater. How could we dare spill the blood that unites us? Where is the joy in the killing of kinsmen?

We, clear-sighted, scanning the ruin of families scattered, should we not shun this crime, O Krishna?

All wars leave families scattered. He is thinking not of the excitement of battle, but of the consequences. Warriors do not exist in a vacuum, they have families.

We know what fate falls on families broken: the rites are forgotten….

Rites and rituals form the core of organised religious and social life. If they are forgotten, social disintegration follows, as well as damage to the relation between the gods and men.

When the whole country is flooded, the reservoir becomes superfluous. So, to the illumined seer, the Vedas are all superfluous. 

The Vedas are ancient scriptures which prescribe many of the rites and rituals practised in Arjuna's India. Krishna tells Arjuna that;

Sacrifice speaks though the act of the ritual. This is the ritual taught by the sacred scriptures that spring from the lips of the Changeless: know therefore that Brahman the all-pervading is dwelling forever within this ritual.

Rituals are of two types. One which are mindless and one which take us nearer to God. There should be disdain for mindless ritual as exercises for the unenlightened, but reverence for ritual as carrying the spirit of Brahman. Sacrifice for that which is righteous is taught by sacred scriptures.

Women and their men

vice rots the remnant, defiling the women,

The women, no longer protected and chaperoned by their men, who are dead on the battlefield, will go astray into vice. The remaining men will have unaccompanied women available to them and they will be defiled. So harmony in society will be lost. 

Caste purity and pollution

and from their corruption comes mixing of castes.

Mixing of castes is seen as a great evil. Purity of castes is something worth preserving, and very important to a high-caste warrior such as Arjuna. A product of a static and rigid order, he wants to protect the order from corruption. 

The curse of confusion degrades the victims and damns the destroyers.

Not only the victims are degraded by all this, but the destroyers, too, all are corrupted. Everybody needs the social order preserved in order to live a clean life. 

Duty to the spirits of the dead

the rice and the water no longer are offered,; the ancestors also must fall dishonoured from home in heaven.

The man of the family is responsible not only for the chastity of the women and the maintenance of caste purity, but also for enabling dead ancestors to keep their places in heaven. This is achieved by the regular observance of rituals to honour the dead. The rituals involve placing cakes of rice and containers of water by the shrines of ancestors. The ancestors can keep their peaceful places in heaven only if these rituals continue to be performed. If the rituals the ancestors will fall from their places and know peace no more. Heaven is up, hell is down.

Such is the crime of the killer of kinsmen: the ancient, the sacred, is broken, forgotten. Such is the doom of the lost, without caste-rites: darkness and doubting and hell forever.

All Arjuna can see is social destruction, corruption of the individuals he cares for, so the excitement of the battle will only lead to bad after-effects. It is not about killing bad men, it is about one's own family.

What is this crime I am planning, O Krishna? Murder most hateful, murder of brothers! Am I indeed so greedy for greatness?

The greatness may be the victory in battle that adds to his warrior's reputation, or the greatness that goes with being on the winning side that secures the throne. But he has doubts about the moral qualities of someone who would do that kind of deed to win such greatness.

Rather than this let the evil children of Dhritarashtra come with their weapons against me to battle: I shall not struggle, I shall not strike them. Now let them kill me, that will be better.

It is better to be sinned against than sinning, better to endure an unjust end than to bring others to an unjust end. Sanjaya, who is narrating the entire Gita, speaks of Arjuna as the one not squeam-ishness about death and injury in battle, but a real horror of war, with near relations killing each other.

Bhisma and Drona are noble and ancient, worthy of the deepest reverence. How can I greet them with arrows, in battle? If I kill them, how can I ever enjoy my wealth, or any other pleasure? It will be cursed with blood-guilt.

This idea of blood-guilt is common to many religions, and appears also in the early Hebrew religion, with its cities of refuge for those accidentally killing neighbours and being liable to avenging killings to expiate the blood-guilt. Murder is seen as the ultimate crime, the stain of which follows a man and marks him as a pariah for life.

To sum up Arjuna's problem, which presents his value system:

The ethic of living in a community with family, teachers and companions involves doing them no violence

War is a defendable activity, but only against strangers, not united by blood ties

The rituals that keep a society functioning are only performed in a society at peace, not one devastated by loss of life inevitable in a war, protecting one's own community from violent disruption enables these rituals to continue.

Women are core to any society and they need to be protected from their own emotional volatility. If men are killed in war, women will be unrestrained and engage in undisciplined and destructive behaviour, damaging society.

Keeping castes pure and unmixed is very important, but the vigilance needed to prevent caste mixing fails when a community is devastated by war.

The spirits of dead ancestors can only keep their place in heaven if their descendants continue to perform the traditional rituals. If these cease, the ancestors will lose their places in heaven

So destroying the males of a community in war has multiple effects, all bad. Protecting one's own community from these evils is the duty of a warrior, who therefore should not make war on his own family and community.

Answering Arjuna's objections

There are two kinds of answer to these objections to taking part in this family war.

It does not matter, the objections are groundless

It is a positive good, you should go in there and do it

Krishna offers both kinds of answer, in urging Arjuna to overcome his faintheartedness and accept the battle.

Negative: irrelevance of death

He speaks throughout of the ‘Atman’, (the ‘inner spirit’), the soul that migrates from one body to another through eternity, and sets this against the body which grows, ages and dies and is left by the Atman to move into another body. The Atman is precious, the body worthless and not worthy of any serious concern.

The truly wise mourn neither for the living nor the dead. There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be….That which is non-existent can never come into being, and that which is can never cease to be. Those who have known the inmost Reality know also the nature of is and is not …Bodies are said to die, but That which possesses the body is eternal. It cannot be limited, or destroyed. Therefore you must fight.

The inner spirit is what matters. One must keep the inner spirit pure and do what is righteous. Hence you must fight for the right cause. Only bodies die not the spirit, which is eternal. Krishna urges Arjuna to revere the Atman and concentrate on its eternal virtues and what is rightous.

I am come as Time, the waster of the peoples, ready for that hour that ripens to their ruin. All these hosts must die; strike, stay your hand - no matter. Therefore strike. Win kingdom, wealth and glory. Arjuna, arise ….seem to slay. By me these men are slain already.

All men die, sooner or later

When you kill, you only kill men already doomed

Bodies are said to die, but That which possesses the body is eternal. Just as the dweller in this body passes through childhood, youth and old age; so at death he merely passes into another kind of body.

Inner spirit is eternal passing from one body to another like one discards outer clothing one after another.

Having regard to your own duty, you should not falter; there exists no greater good for a Kshattriya than a battle enjoined by duty. Happy are the Kshattriyas for whom such a war comes of its own accord as an open door to heaven.

Krishna reminds Arjuna's status as a ‘Kshattriya’, the ‘warrior’. For a warrior to fight in a war is just doing his duty, and that is the highest honour to which a warrior can aspire. Dying in battle, doing his duty, is a way into heaven. One achieves God and heaven by dying in a war which is for righteous and just cause.

In the beginning the Lord of beings created all men, to each his duty. ‘Do this' He said, ‘and you shall prosper. Duty well done fulfils desire…Doing of duty honours the gods… When a man has found delight and satisfaction and peace in the Atman, then he is no longer obliged to perform any kind of action. He has nothing to gain in this world by action

Your duty is given by the gods. All men can do is decide whether to do their duty or shirk it. All he can do is go into battle as his duty commands, or shirk it and be infamous as a coward.

But if you do not this lawful battle, then you will fail your duty and glory and will incur sin. Besides, men will ever recount your ill-fame and for one who has been honoured, ill-fame is worse than death.

The great warriors will think you have abstained from battle though fear and they by whom you were highly esteemed will make light of you.

Many unseemly words will be uttered by your enemies, slandering your strength. Could anything be sadder than that?

Either slain you shall go to heaven, or victorious you shall enjoy the earth; therefore arise…resolved on battle.

There were 38 Divisions of the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the SS. They served right alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army. Try as allies might, they remained loyal throughout the war. They were sworn to protect and serve Germany and they did till death.

They remained loyal because they were loyal to Germany.

They remained loyal because it was their duty and honor to stay.

They remained loyal because it was treason not to.

They remained loyal because they feared for their families and friends.

They remained loyal because their cause was righteous and just.

They remained loyal because they were defenders not aggressors.

Kaps