Mormons & Nazis: ideological overlaps

"In July 1937, the Mormon Prophet Heber J. Grant, spoke to 800 members at a rented meeting hall in Frankfurt. Like all buildings in Nazi Germany, it came with a large swastika flag. On Aug. 7, the Deseret News, the Church-owned Salt Lake City daily, ran this picture." - David Conley Nelson, "Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany"

LDS First Counselor J. Reuben Clark is one signers of the Mormon Church's first Official Statement on "the Negro" which defended their Black Salvation Ban early in the Civil Rights Era. He was also an open anti-semite who served as a missionary in Germany & handed out anti-semitic world domination conspiracy theory literature AFTER the World War II.

According to D. Michael Quinn's autobiography on Clark, he kept several copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his personal library and shared it and other anti-Semitic publications with colleagues and acquaintances. He expressed anti-Semitic attitudes in "code words publicly and in specifics privately" and used his church position to obstruct what he perceived as "Jewish influence." After Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria, Clark denied Austrian Mormon converts from Judaism church assistance in emigrating to safety.

”The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several earlier sources, some not antisemitic in nature. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.”

Clark's anti-Semitism seems to be rooted in his his anti-Communism, as Quinn notes "although not all American anti-Communists were anti-Semitic, the more intense tended to be. Reuben's own fusion of anti-Communism and anti-Semitism was representative of this tendency."” 

Ezra Taft Benson…said that one of his "most revered associates with the Brethren was with President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. He was a mentor to me." Benson like Clark was deeply anti-communist, but Benson's racialized anti-communism was anti-Black/African. 

J. Reuben Clark wasn't alone in his support for the Nazi Party. In December 1933 the Deseret News ran an article in the Church News section titled, "Mormonism in the New Germany." The article, by Dale Clark, praised Hitler's movement for the ways it aligned with Mormon doctrine, specifically the Word of Wisdom. 

Clark wrote, "It is a very well known fact that Hitler observes a form of living which "Mormons" term the "Word of Wisdom." (Hitler) will not take alcohol, does not smoke and is very strict about his diet, insisting on plain and wholesome foods, largely vegetarian." He even notes that Dr. Joseph Goebbels abstains from alcohol. 

"These two colorful leaders (Hitler and Goebbels) of the new Germany, in their gigantic struggle for political supremacy have needed capable bodies and clear brains and have trained like athletes," wrote Clark (see also: "Muscular Mormonism”)

Clark continues expressing gratitude for the Nazi party because the parties violent anti-Semitism allowed Mormons access to genealogical archives they'd previously been denied. "It was always difficult for genealogical workers to get into the archives of the recognized church to trace back family records....Now due to the importance given to the racial question, and the almost necessity of proving that one's grandmother was not a Jewess, the old record books have been dusted off and stand ready and waiting for you...(Anyone) interested in tracing back family history in Germany should take advantage of the present unusual opportunity. "

The Millennial Star another Mormon publication also used to compare and contrast Mormonism with Nazi Germany.

--And a reminder that the U.S. was also very supportive of Hitler & his Nazi Party--

“At that time, (the U.S.) advocated the very same policies that were being implemented by the Nazi party, the first country to implement a large scale eugenic programme. As a leading eugenist said to his colleagues upon returning to California after a visit to Germany: 'You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought.'

"The Aryan ideal of a white, blonde haired, and blue eyed male was one that was cultivated by Californian eugenicists decades before Hitler."

Hitler studied the settler-enacted genocide of Peoples Indigenous to this land, the reservation system and Jim Crow, the workings of a modern slaughterhouse, and the work of contemporary eugenicists in the U.S.