Dietrich Eckart (March 1868 – 26 December 1923) was a German völkisch poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the German Workers’ Party (DAP), the precursor of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP).

Eckart studied law and then medicine as a young man. He later became a poet and playwright. He wrote volkish works; an ethno nationalist, anti Jew, populist, proto-fascist German movement. Eckart found some success as a writer.

In December 1918, Eckart founded, published and edited the antisemitic weekly Auf gut Deutsch (“In plain German“) – with financial support from the Thule Society– working with Alfred Rosenberg, whom he called his “co-warrior against Jerusalem” and Gottfried Feder. A fierce critic of the German Revolution and the Weimar Republic, he vehemently opposed the Treaty of Versailles, which he viewed as treason, and was a proponent of the so-called stab-in-the-back legend (Dolchstoßlegende), according to which the Social Democrats and Jews were to blame for Germany’s defeat in the war. Wikipedia

Eckart along with Karl Harrer, Anton Drexler and Gottfried Feder formed the German Workers’ Party (DAP) in 1919. Eckart bought the Münchener Beobachter for the DAP in December 1920. He borrowed 60,000 Marks came from German Army funds available to General Franz Ritter von Epp, secured with Eckart’s house and possessions as collateral. When Adolf Hitler joined the party Eckart became his mentor.

Eckart was instrumental in creating the persona of Adolf Hitler as one of the future dictator’s most important early mentors, and was one of the first propagators of the “Hitler Myth.” Their relationship was not simply a political one, as there was a strong emotional and intellectual bond between the two men, described by some as an almost symbiotic relationship…Hitler immediately impressed Eckart, who said of him “I felt myself attracted by his whole way of being, and very soon I realized that he was exactly the right man for our young movement.” Wikipedia

Eckart was arrested during the Beer Hall Putsch when the NSDAP conducted a failed attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic. He was released from prison about a month later and died of a heart attack soon after.

Herman Paul Pressler III (June 4, 1930 – June 7, 2024) was an American politician and judge who was a justice of the Texas 14th Circuit Court of Appeals in his native Houston, Texas.

Pressler studied government as an undergraduate student at Princeton University and received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. He became a state representative, as a Democrat, and later a judge for the 133rd Judicial District. In 1978 he took a seat on the Texas 14th Circuit Court of Appeals in Houston. In 1982 he became a Republican.

Pressler became president of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a conservative advocacy group, in 1988. He served in that role until 1990. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes CNP as a shadowy, secretive group that “is a key venue where mainstream conservatives and extremists mix.” Anne Nelson’s 2021 book, Shadow Network, alleges that Pressler convinced the senior Republican Party leadership to attempt the same practices to establish minority as in the SBC, one-party control of the United States federal government. Wikipedia

During this time, starting in the 1960’s, Pressler was also a minister at the Second Baptist Church Houston and founded a youth group for the Bethel Independent Presbyterian Church. He later became the deacon of the Houston First Baptist Church. In 1984, he was nominated on the SBC Executive Committee until 1991 and on the International Mission Board in 1992 until 2000. In 2004, he was elected vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

During his time as a leader of the SBC, Pressler was instrumental in pushing its 47,000 churches to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, strongly denounce LGBTQIA+ acceptance, ban women from preaching, align with the Republican party’s political stances and goals, and help members of the GOP get elected into public office Wikipedia

The Southern Baptist Church and Pressler were instrumental in creating support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement among evangelicals. The SBC is a loose confederation of churches that boasts 13.2M members.

In 2017, Pressler’s former assistant Gareld Duane Rollins Jr. filed a lawsuit claiming he was regularly raped by the conservative leader. Rollins met Pressler in high school and was part of a Bible study Pressler led. Rollins claims he was raped two to three times a month while at Pressler’s home. According to the Chronicle, Pressler agreed in 2004 to pay $450,000 to Rollins for physical assault. Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson is also named in the suit, for helping Pressler cover up the abuse. The SBC settled the Rollins case out of court for an undisclosed sum and the case was dismissed with prejudice on December 28, 2023 Wikipedia

In April 2018, the Houston Chronicle reported that Pressler was accused by Toby Twining and lawyer Brooks Schott of sexual abuse in separate court affidavits. Both men said Pressler molested or solicited them for sex. In the Chronicle report, Toby Twining was a teenager in 1977 when Pressler, a youth pastor at Bethel Church in Houston, grabbed his penis in a sauna at Houston’s River Oaks Country Club.

In May 2022, Guidepost Solutions released an independent report stating that Pressler was the defendant in a civil lawsuit alleging that he repeatedly abused the plaintiff beginning when the plaintiff was 14. Two other men submitted affidavits accusing Pressler of sexual abuse. By 2023 Pressler had been accused of sexually abuse by 7 men.

In reality, the SBC is a behemoth network of interlacing institutions: book publishers, colleges, seminaries, conferences, a missions agency, a disaster relief organization, and a political lobbying group. These entities, along with the powerful Executive Committee, “act for the Convention ad interim in all matters not otherwise provided for.” The result is a populist vibe that obscures the powerful role the leaders of these mid-level institutions play. Pressler’s conservative movement regained control by leveraging appointments of committee chairs and entity heads. By capturing the positions that actually make decisions, new leadership was able to—among other things—appoint theological conservatives to seminaries; revise the SBC’s statement of faith to include strict parameters on gender roles and biblical interpretations; and chart a broader conservative socio-political agenda.(Despite the success of Pressler’s “conservative resurgence,” the struggle to control the SBC continues to this day with increasingly conservative factions vying for precedence.) The Dispatch

Pressler died on June 7, 2024.

• Parallel Power Plays in Church and State The Dispatch