Doris Bergen Quotes

they called themselves the Deutsche Christens, “German Christians.” The contortions required to pull together their idea of Germanness with their idea of Christianity can be painful to contemplate. 172 In her book, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich, Doris Bergen wrote that “the ‘German Christians’ preached Christianity as the polar opposite of Judaism, Jesus as the arch anti-semite, and the cross as the symbol of war against Jews.” Fusing the German Volk (people) with the German Kirche (church) meant stretching and twisting the definitions of both. Step one was to define Germanness as inherently in opposition to Jewishness. To make Christianity one with Germanness meant purging it of everything Jewish. It was an absurd project. For starters, they decided the Old Testament must go. It was obviously too Jewish. At one German Christians’ gathering in Bavaria, the speaker ridiculed the Old Testament as a saga of racial defilement. His remark that “Moses in his old age had married a Negro woman” drew boisterous laughter and enthusiastic applause.

Before the family could escape the war, Manson said, he had to release a record in response to the Beatles’ White Album, telling the pop stars how to find them. To do that, Manson had to enlist the support of Terry Melcher, a prominent Hollywood record executive and the son of Doris Day. At that time, Melcher was in a relationship with Candice Bergen, an actress who lived with Melcher at the now notorious address of 10050 Cielo Drive.