mongrel

I could be wrong on this because I've never read it, but I thought Hitler claimed in "Mein Kampf" to be xian.

xsquid

He said all the right words, like "In persecuting the Jews I am doing the work of the Lord"; he mentioned "Providence" (with a capital P) again and again in his speeches; he was raised Catholic, and never broke with the church; so yes, he was nominally a Christian.

Don't read Mein Kampf unless politics is your speed. It was like walking through molasses while wearing lead boots. A turgid read, and I don't suppose many of the millions of Germans who had a copy ever read it either.

Oh yeah, paintballislife: the Power Rangers and Teletubbies don't say that the wrath of god will strike you because you don't believe in them. If you've hung around this board long enough you'd know there's people out there who really believe this!

Edited to qualify all those "millions"...

Evangelion

No, he didn't. He simply made the right noises in order to pull the punters.

Monkeybot

Hitler's true beliefs are a murky, confusing subject.

Whatever they were, he certainly invoked religious ideas in order to popularize himself and his "crusade."

Evangelion

Agreed.

Agreed.

He also made himself extremely upopular with the Catholics for a while, until he realised that they would actually constitute a pretty solid voting block. (Ironically, the conference of German bishops excommunicated all Nazis in 1930 and forbade Catholics to vote for the Nazis in the 1932 elections.)

IIRC, Hitler managed to get the Catholics onside by claiming that he would prohibit sterilisation programme and ensure Catholic autonomy. These promises were enshrined in the Concordat that he signed with the Pope.

While I'm pretty sure that he kept his promise about Catholic autonomy, he soon disregarded the promise about prohibiting sterilisation.

mongrel

There's no risk of that.

Evangelion

My dad used to have a copy, and I think he'd read it (his mother was a Polish Nazi, after all) but I never bothered.

I figured it would probably be like a cross between Thus Spake Zarathustra and Crime and Punishment.

mongrel

Well, I'll just stick to "The little engine that could"...

Evangelion

I can also recommend My Little Golden Book about God.

mongrel

I think I've already read most of the other fairy tales in the "Little Golden Book" series...