jonnytheta

It is written in John Gunther's book "Hitler" in chapter one

"He [Hitler] was born and brought up a Roman Catholic. But he lost faith early and he attends no religious services of any kind. His Catholicism means nothing to him; he is impervious even to the solace of confession. On being formed his government almost immediately began a fierce religious war against Catholics, Protestants, and Jews alike.

Why? Perhaps the reason was not religion fundamentally, but politics. To Hitler the overwhelming first business of the Nazi revolution was the "unification," the Gleichschaltung (coördination) of Germany. He had one driving passion, the removal from the Reich of any competition, of whatever kind. The Vatican, like Judaism, was a profoundly international (thus non-German) organism. Therefore -- out with it."

this seems inconsistent with what is written in John Patrick Micheal Murphy's description of the religion of Adolf Hitler, does anyone have anything that can solve this contradiction???

-DM-

Thank you for your feedback regarding The Religion of Hitler by John Patrick Michael Murphy. E-mail notification has been sent to the author. Although there are no guarantees, you might want to check back from time to time for a further response following this post.

In the meantime, here is some information which might be of interest and/or of use to you. One thing to keep in mind: no one wants to claim Hitler as one of their own. While it may be possible to argue that Hitler had rejected Catholicism, it would be difficult--based on the evidence--to convincingly argue that he was not a theist (and probably a Christian).

--

Q. Can you name the sources of the following quotations?

"Almighty God, dear heavenly Father, in thy name let us now, in
pious spirit, begin our instruction. Enlighten us, teach us all
truth, strengthen us in all that is good, lead us not into
temptation, deliver us from all evil in order that, as good human
beings, we may faithfully perform our duties and thereby, in time
and eternity, be made truly happy. Amen."

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has
no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without
a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all
character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We
need believing people."

A. The first is the daily prayer that was required to be recited
in secondary schools throughout Germany in the 1930's. In
addition to this prayer, students were required to take two hours
of religious instruction each week.

The second was a statement made by Adolph Hitler, April 26, 1933,
to two Roman Catholic officials, Bishop Wilhelm Berning and Vicar
General Johannes Steinmann, adviser to the German embassy in
Rome, during the negotiations leading to the Reich
-Holy See Concordant of 1933.

--

Adolf Hitler was raised a Catholic, was never excommunicated by the Catholic Church and signed concordats with the Vatican, as Pulitzer-prize winning biographer John Toland and others have documented. Hitler's religious conviction underpinned his obsession to exterminate those whom he believed "disobeyed the First Commandment."
[See: Adolf Hitler by John Toland.]

Devout Catholic John Cornwell has chronicled the failure of Pope Pius XII to speak out against Hitler's "Final Solution" in Hitler's Pope.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

Hitler also targeted the "godless," as an Associated Press story of Feb. 23, 1933, noted: "A campaign against the 'godless movement' and an appeal for Catholic support were launched by Chancellor Adolf Hitler's forces."

Hitler opposed "secular schools," he criminalized abortion, and his soldiers wore belt buckles saying "Gott mit uns" ("God with us"). Far from "faithless," Hitler committed his atrocities in the name of his faith." [From a letter to George W. Bush by the FFRF, 4/25/01]

The "I am now as before a Catholic..." quotation from Hitler was
recorded in the diary of Gerhard Engel, an SS Adjutant, in
October 1941. Hitler was speaking in private, not before a mass
audience, and so it is difficult to dismiss the comment as
propaganda lies.

--

You might also want to check out these:

HITLER AIMS BLOW AT 'GODLESS' MOVE

Was Hitler an Atheist or a Theist? More Importantly, Who Cares?

More on Hitler's religious beliefs

--

. . . and there's more--but this ought to keep you busy for awhile.

Regards,
-Don-

Bill

It is often said about biographies of Jesus that each of them tells far more about their author than about their subject. I'm beginning to believe that the same can be said about biographies of Hitler.

Frankly, from a standpoint of factual statements, I find absolutely nothing to take issue with in Murphy's article on Hitler's religion. And I doubt that the statements you find contradictory from Gunther's book are factually wrong, either. What we have is two different "biographers" of Hitler picking and choosing from among the available facts to make a case either for or against Hitler being a Roman Catholic.

I believe that both of these gentlemen miss the point. Many books have been written about the influence of occult sects on Naziism in general and Hitler (and the other primary Nazi leaders) in particular. By the time of Hitler's arrest (after which he went to prison and wrote Mein Kampf), he was most likely not a practicing Catholic. To that extent, Gunther is almost certainly correct. Thus, Hitler was, at the time of his death, a very lapsed Catholic, indeed!

However, the Vatican has long laid claim to own the eternal souls of all who are baptised according to its sacramental procedures. And in this case, we must count Hitler among those souls that the Vatican claims to own. Murphy's characterization of Hitler's relationship with the Vatican is, again, almost certainly correct. As Murphy wrote about Hitler: The religious surtax in Germany that was created under Hitler continues to be imposed to this day! In modern Germany, your religious preference becomes part of your tax data and an agreed amount is siphoned off and sent to the church who has claimed you on their records. (As an interesting side note, Humanism has now become the third largest religion in modern Germany, entitling the International humanist movement to participate in this largess. You see, modern law requires that only the three largest religious groups can participate. That was an expansion of the two recognized by Hitler's agreements.)

So, I would say, in analyzing this entire situation, that Murphy's interest in demonstrating that Hitler was most certainly not an atheist led him to present only the most incontestable of facts that might tend to demonstrate that Hitler had Catholic sympathies. On the other hand, Gunther seems to be most desperate to demonstrate that Hitler was not a Catholic, and so he focuses on certain other facts that would be convincing to committed Roman Catholics in demonstrating that Hitler was not, in fact, truly a Roman Catholic. The truth, apparently, lies someplace inbetween those two points of view, in that (as I noted earlier) the primary influence on Nazi philosophy seems to have come from an occult movement, as is documented by (among many other souces) Unholy Alliance: History of the Nazi Involvement With the Occult and The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935.

It should be noted that Murphy's piece was written as a defense against those Christians who attempt to paint all atheists with a broad brush of guilt by association by claiming that Hitler was an atheist, and Hitler was obviously bad, therefore, atheists are bad. That there has been much to criticize within the ranks of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church is as obvious as the recent series of headlines about Cardinal Law and the difficulties with child molesting priests in general. Murphy does not attempt to argue that all Roman Catholics are bad as a consequence of association with bad people like Hitler (or those priests who are child molestors). Neither does Gunther attempt to join in the argument about whether atheism is bad per se. Gunther only argues that Hitler was most certainly not a practicing Catholic during his adulthood. With that argument, I would agree.

I think Gunther would go too far, though, if he attempts to argue that Hitler's hatred for the Jews was not religiously motivated by his Catholic boyhood. When Gunther says that Hitler's motivation was primarily political, to unify the nation, to that extent he would be correct. Nazi philosophy was first and foremost a movement of nationalism. But Hitler's hatred of Jews was clearly special, and went way beyond his hatred of those few Christians who dared to oppose him. The latter were punished selectively, but the former were exterminated indiscriminately.

At the end of the day, I think that you must lay the root cause of the Holocaust at the door of Roman Catholicism. And, in point of fact, I believe that Pope John XXIII all-but-admitted as much when he freed the Jews from a two-millenial long burden of guilt for the death of Christ as part of his Vatican I rewrite of Catholic dogma. That (obviously) can't make it up to 6 million dead Jews, but perhaps it is a step towards avoiding a repeat performance.

== Bill

Patherton

Why is it so important to associate the most acknowledged "evil person of history" with everybody's favourite bad religion? Consider the following:

Maybe Hitler dismissed Christianity as per John Gunther's book, but more dramatic is evidence of his belief in Darwinism, evolution etc, the very theories which have always represented the cornerstone of free thinking. Then, the evidence that he based his race policies on the very same.

Not only are the principles of natural selection/ survival of the fittest evident in Hitler's actions to exterminate the Jews and create and master race etc.-but the Third Reich openly wrote and legislated with references to Evolution and the laws of natural selection. Well-known evolutionist and atheist Sir Arthur Keith, wrote:"The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution" (Keith, A., "Evolution and Ethics", Putnam, NY, USA). Only a few of Hitler's quotes are; "In the long run nature eliminates the noxious elements...to know the laws of nature … enables us to obey them" ("Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944", Farrar, Straus and Young, New York) or "higher race subjects to itself a lower race …a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right" (Hitler's address to Nuremberg Party Rally, 1933) or "If I can accept a divine Commandment, it’s this one: “Thou shalt preserve the species.” The life of the individual must not be set at too high a price. If the individual were important in the eyes of nature, nature would take care to preserve him..." (Mein Kampf) and it seems that these quotes are the tip of the iceberg.

Note that Hitler's seeming "confessions" of Christian faith as per this forum were made during his political rise. Everyone knows Hitler's forte was to manipulate for political gain. It is entirely feasable that this apparent Christian bias was a way to keep the powerful Churches and social groups on-side until he gained power. Consider this Hitler quote (source: Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944, Farrar, Straus and Young, New York) saying that "religion is …an organised lie [that] must be smashed. The State must remain the absolute master. When I was younger, I thought it was necessary to set about [destroying religion] … with dynamite. I’ve since realised there’s room for a little subtlety …."

Hitler henchman Martin Bormann stated "… scientific knowledge poses a threat to their existence. (Christianity) takes great pains to suppress or falsify scientific research. For this reason...we can do without Christianity." (Nuremberg Trials). Germany's professor of evolution, Ernst Haeckel, wrote "the church with its morality of love and charity is an effete fraud, a perversion of the natural order" and "Christianity...makes no distinction of race or of color... are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? then...Christianity is anti-evolutionary in its aim." (Haeckel, "Natural History of Creation" ).

Then there's the evidence that Christianity was next on his hit-list for extermination, according to documents seized at the Nuremberg trials, now online at Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion. It would appear to put paid to Hitler's earlier "confessions" of Christian faith as nothing more than political cunning.

Learned skeptics are opening a can of worms trying to discredit Christianity with flawed arguments associating it with Hitler, while facts exist proving Hitler as a passionate Darwinist trying to accelerate the natural selection process. Can you separate the theory of evolutionary "survival of the fittest" from the social implications; that acts of discrimination against "weaker species" are justified? It has been well documented that Hitler did not.

Indeed "nobody wants to claim Hitler as their own".

-DM-

[Moved here from Feedback to facilitate further discussion. -Don-]

Starboy

Here are some quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler. They are taken out of context so may not be representative of his thinking. I find them very interesting, almost southern baptist.

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work. [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]



There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the Fatherland. [Message, signed Hitler, painted on walls of concentration camps; Life, August 21, 1939]



Woman's world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. We do not find it right when she presses into the world of men. [Adolph Hitler, quoted in Lucy Komisar, The New Feminism]



Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people. [Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933]



I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it. [Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, _The Voice of Destruction_, pp. 239-40]



My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed. [Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922, published in My New Order, quoted in Freethought Today April 1990]



I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 46]



What we have to fight for...is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator. [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 125]



This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.152]



And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God. [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.174]



Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve. [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.309]



I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so [Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]



Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook. [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 171]



I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 1]



I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 2]



...the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



Political parties has nothing to do with religious problems, as long as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming of political parties. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes! [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



The anti-Semitism of the new movement [Christian Social movement] was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]



If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3, about the leader of the Christian Social movement]



Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]



I had so often sung 'Deutschland u:ber Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]



Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]



I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian- Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 6]



Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I]



The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend on human beings... If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men of this earth... In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 8]



To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 8]



The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late marriage alone lies the compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself as the 'image' of God. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10]



Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth...Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10, echoing the Cultural Warfare rhetoric of the Religious Right]



But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10]



While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine-- an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular-- right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10]



The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10]



Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11]



The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11]



....the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11, precisely echoing Martin Luther's teachings]



Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]



The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]



The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]



All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12]



Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the 'remaking' of the Reich as they call it. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1]



Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, is the fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the recognition of basic religious views. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1]



Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1]



A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]



It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself and the rest of the world. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]



That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created? [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]



For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]



It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]



It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2]



Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5]



For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5]



The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 10]



In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], the most devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 10]



For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!' [Adolf Hitler's prayer, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2 Chapter 13]



The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life [Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933]



I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker. [Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany.]



Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* during the past ... (few) years. [The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872]



Atheist Hall Converted
Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers

Wireless to the New York Times.

BERLIN, May 13. - In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership.

The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had about 500,000 members ... [New York Times, May 14, 1993, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree]


These quotes could be an indication that Adolph Hitler although not observant was religious. Or they could be explained as just another form of "truth" mongering and pandering to those who equate faith with "truth" for the purposes of obtaining their support and obedience. It also shows that supposedly moral principles were invoked to justify the actions of Nazi Germany. After reading these quotes I would hope that anyone that heard exclamations of how important it is for our government to adhere to Christian principles would shake in their boots and do everything they could to stop such nonsense from occurring.

Starboy

Quotes stolen from

seebs

In _Christianity On Trial_, Vincent Carrol makes a case that Hitler attempted to seem Christian, because he felt it was politically advantageous, but in private referred to Christianity as "a thousand years of domestication" which must be eradicated for the German empire to succeed. He was certainly no friend to any of the churches.

I cannot say whether or not he was, in fact, a Christian. I can say that he showed all the signs of someone who will use religious language if he thinks it will convince people.

Taffsadar

Einstein also agreed with evolution along with nearly all recognised scientists. Ah now I see it they share the same logical belief as Hitler therefor they must be evil. Creationism is correct as the scientists are Nazis!

Of course Hitler agreed with evolution most people with common sense and without a fundie upbringing do. Btw if Hitler wasn't a christian, why did he bother furthering christianity in Germany and make up a way for Maria to not be a jew (roman soldier daughter...)?

leonarde

Partial post by Bill:I disagree wholeheartedly. Hitler's ideology was composed to 2
key (and never changing) elements:

1) Belief in himself as the "Leader" or Fuehrer (the amplifications of this varied in tone and nuance and sometimes invoked "Divine
Providence" but just as a way of manipulating pre-existing religious sentiment).

2) Anti-semitism (and contempt for OTHER "inferior" groups). This
anti-semitism was of a scope and magnitude far beyond that of
the, alas, anti-semitism which had existed in Europe for centuries.

A low-grade anti-semitism was (still is?) present in most European
countries. That's why, on the way to the Holy Land for the Crusades, the soldiers and knights all to often robbed and attacked Jews. Still even in WWI Jews were allowed to serve in the German military. Indeed, German Jews tended to be well-integrated into German society (which made it all the more difficult psychologically to flee Germany when the handwriting was on the wall).

Hitler admired the organization and size and longevity of the RC
Church but he wanted to imitate it via National Socialism. Some in his immediate circle were astrology buffs and others were merely indifferent to religion. Himmler, a devote Catholic in his youth, ended up pouring his zeal into National Socialism (ideology as a psychological religious substitute is a commonplace observation).

After a 1963 play, "The Deputy", indicated that Pope Pius XII was
complicit with the Nazis in the Holocaust, the Vatican had scholars do an archive search. The results, 11 volumes of documents published between 1964 and 1981 indicate that the
Vatican did much, in country after country, to protect, hide and
help Jews during WWII.

Cheers!

Gemma Therese

What Jews said about Pope Pius XII ("Hitler's Pope")

Historian refutes claims of "Hitler's Pope"

Gemma Therese