Steven Carr

http://answers.org/apologetics/hitquote.html quotes Hitler as follows supposedy from 13th December, 1941 :-
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery....

Here is the German :-
Das Christentum lehrt das Verwandlung, das ist das Tollste, was je ein Menschengehirn in seinem Wahn hervorgebracht hat, eine Verhoenung von allem Gottlichen.

A translation could be 'Christianity teaches Transubstantiation, the maddest thing a sick brain could bring forward ,a mockery of the Godhead'

Notice that Hitler is not attacking Christianity at all. He is just attacking one Christian doctrine - a doctrine that many Christians themselves disagree with.

Christians often 'quote' an entry for 27th February, 1942, midday:


'It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ."

Here is the German for the relevant sentences
'Die Zeit, in der wir leben, ist die Erscheinung des Zusammenbruchs dieser Sache. Es kann 100 oder 200 Jahre dauern.'

Translation 'The time in which we live is the appearance of the breakdown of this concept. It can take 100 or 200 years.'

No mention of any Christian disease in the German. Iy just is not there! The concept which is breaking down is Hitler's own violent persual of his ideas, which he regarded as a temporary phase , until he had beaten everybody.

I wonder why Christians never give the actual German they are supposedly translating.

Almost as though they are deliberately altering the words to make them anti-Christian.


'It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie.'

This is the Christian version of what Hitler is supposed to have said.
I now have found the German.

'Ich weiss, dass der Mensch in seiner Fehlerhaftigkeit tausend Dinge falsch machen wird. Aber entgegen dem eigenen Wissen etwas falsch tun, das kommt nicht in Frage! Man darf sich persoenlich einer solchen Luege niemals fuegen.'

Translation 'I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit a thousand errors. But to do something wrong against one's own knowledge - that is out of the question! One should never personally accept such a lie.'

Notice that there is nothing whatever in the German about a Christian lie. The word 'Christian' just does not appear.

Speedy-Lube

Well, I suppose a real Christian would say Hitler was anti-Christian. I mean the guy was pretty bad. Yet he did believe himself to be a true Christian as far as I know.

Toto

The first quote is from Hitler's Table Talk. I thought that source was considered pretty unreliable to start out with - it is Hitler's secretary's recollections of what Hitler said, passed down through various channels.

Richard Carrier includes it in his On the Trail of Bogus Quotes. He also discusses a lot of translation problems and documentary problems that strangely resemble Biblical textual problems. Carrier blames the problems on one Fran�ois Genoud, whose translation H.R. Trevor-Roper relied on:

Toto

Here's an additional source on the unreliability of Table Talk:

Hitler's Table Talk

Amos

He was a born again Christian and therefore against Catholicism. One of the big issues always was the transubstantiation. When Jesus first said this many were upset and left (Jn.6:60-61)

Plognark

Pardon my ignorance, but how the heck does this follow:

He was a born again Christian and therefore against Catholicism

???

Amos

Because religion leads one in the wrong direction, as it must, to make metanoia possible. When Hitler/Luther's "eyes were opened" they felt misled and deceived by the Church for not telling them the truth - which they could not see because their eyes were still closed until they opened.

This is very normal and is exactly why Jesus went to raise heck in the temple just after his awakening at the 'royal' banquet in Cana. The problem for Hitler was that his eyes were only half opened, and therefore still half closed, until he worked out his own salvation in fear and trembling (which he failed to do).

Plognark

OK, i'll buy that, I suppose.
I still think Hitler was a prime example of the evil potential that religion can wreak when weilded by the mentally disturbed; little more. Luther wasn't the most stable human either. Interesting.

liquid

I've heard those quotes before, and I never realised the twisting that happened in the translation. Thankyou, very enlightening!

Amos

That is why "it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." To be mentally disturbed is often the result of rebirth/enlightenment because illumination takes place in our mind.

A divine comedy and a Senecan tragedy (and you may know how gory they are) have a similar crisis moment at the beginning. The utility of this is explained in Rev. 13 with the first beast that came out of the sea and the second beast that came out of the [old] earth, to say that the first beast was reborn of God while the second beast was reborn from canal desire (Jn.1:13).