whichphilosophy

There certainly were Christians like Lutherians involved in establishing the Fatherland's official religion.

The article is interesting as it contains some details, and perhaps the discrimination continuing against Jehovah's Witnesses today in Germany may be traced to the extant extremist elements within the Lutherian and other mainstream religions.

This does no deflect from my view however that the majority of Christians are non fanatical and like any other belief have a mainly decent cross section of people.

French Prometheus

The title of the article is : "Nazis planned to exterminate Christianity" :rolling:
excerpt :
I know it's very difficult for you to comprehend that but I will give it a try : Christianity is not just the set of beliefs of a small group of fundamentalists. Liberal Christians and Catholics are Christians too. Hitler and several top nazi officials (especially Heinrich Himmler) believed in God. They also believed that the Bible was his word and that Jesus was their lord and savior. That makes them Christians even if they persecuted all those who opposed them including other Christians.

Hitler considered himself a Christian. What exactly didn't you understand in Hitler's own words written by his own hands or said by his own freaking mouth and RECORDED for all to see???

Don't derail this thread with creationist bullshit. There's a place for that : the E/C forum. This thread is about Hitler believing in the Christian God.

French Prometheus

There is so much first-hand (literally) evidence that he believed in the Christian God that trying to prove otherwise is preposterous. Making up or distorting quotes that he may have said in private is not enough to disprove what he said in recorded speeches in front of millions of people, what he wrote in Mein Kampf or in his personal letters that were seized by the allies. These are undeniable physical evidence.

"atheists like to use..."? What atheists?
Usually it's Christians that like to use Hitler as a scarecrow by telling the absurd lie that he didn't believe in God. Atheists usually just try and prove that this statement is false. The fact that Hitler was a Christian is irrelevant to the veracity of Christianity.

Now, don't get me wrong. Hitler's antisemitism is the result of 2000 years of Christian antisemitism (which started as "mere" anti-judaism with Paul and early Church leaders).

Jack the Bodiless

Why am I not surprised that there is "evidence that Hitler was a non-Christian" from those who also choose to believe the Earth is little more than a millionth of its true age, humans aren't primates, there was a worldwide flood that nobody noticed at the time, and similar nonsense?

If answersingenesis says it, then it's false.

whichphilosophy

The evidence you produced would be indefeasible to show Hitler was a professed Christian, but reading your posts in the past, it is clear that you would not generalise by saying he was representative of Christianity.

I've said on other posts it is not religion that corrupts so much as humankind does.

As with any other authoritarian regime they will always vie for support from the estabished institions to ensure how man can best serve the aims of the state and support its deeds. This is because with the support/cooperation and necessary support of key religous leaders secured, it essentially meant that vast amounts of the population could be made to slaver on comand.

If Germany was an atheist society, he would have sought support from the key leaders of those groups.

And once again nothing wrong with the religion, but much to do with a handful of people in power, their acts of power broking combined by mass stupidity.

It could easily happen again~in Europe.

whichphilosophy

The Nazis would have exterminated Christians they didn't like and tried to with the Jehovah's Witnesses as a good example.

However no group was indispensible as Hitler's brownshirts discovered when their leaders and many of its members wiped out in exchange for the Army backing him.


I tend to agree with your points here.

French Prometheus

Yes, Hitler was a professed Christian and you're right he is not representative of Christianity. No one is representative of Christianity since there are many Christian sects with contradictory articles of faith.

True but in the case of Hitler the evidence points toward an honest belief in the Christian God. I don't think he just pretended to be a Christian to gain support from the churches. He did use this support, though (especially that of the RCC).

No one knows what would have happened had Germany been an atheistic society. Could have been better, could have been worse. We cannot rewrite history. Nazism was not spawned by Christianity per se but its fierce antisemitism belongs to a very ancient and well-established Christian tradition in Europe.


Religion and other ideologies which claim to know the ultimate truth often contribute to mass stupidity.

I think it's far more likely to happen in America than in modern-day Europe. Bellicose god-inspired nationalistic you're-with-us-or-against-us leaders have wider audiences in the states than here. Do I need to cite obvious examples?

French Prometheus

Christians that the Nazis didn't like don't represent all of Christendom especially since many nazis were themselves Christians and III Reich Germany was officially a Christian country. In "Gott mit uns", Gott is the Bible God. And in "Kinder, Küche, Kirche", Kirche is not a pagan temple...

yumatom

Well said.

TySixtus

Anyone confused (or genuinely interested) about Hitler's actions towards Christianity should read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. That book is perhaps the best ever written on Hitler and the Reich itself. It's no picnic to read, true, but Shirer did a great job on it.

A disclaimer, however. The book is slightly biased in the whole "1950's" era way of thought. Frequently he refers to the fact that many of the Nazis were homosexual, and (typical for the time he wrote it) those facts only help to cement is belief in the character's shadiness. Not to say they weren't shady, but being gay doesn't make you evil. He also gets a bit defensive when it comes to Christianity, but pulls no punches when it comes to delivering the facts, whether or not they make his own religion (Protestant, I believe) look bad. So look out for the "Sodomites are evil" vein, and you should get a pretty good read.

Ty