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Template:TotallyDisputed-section Adolf Hitler was brought up as a Roman Catholic by his Roman Catholic parents. According to historian Bradley F. Smith, Hitler's father, though nominally a Catholic, was a freethinker, while his mother was a devoted Catholic. Michael Rissmann states that young Hitler began to object to the Church and Catholicism as an adolescent, protesting against being confirmed. A boyhood friend reports that after Hitler had left home, he never saw him attending mass or receiving the sacraments.

According to the eminient church historian Owen Chadwick, Hitler found in Houston Stewart Chamberlain ideas which well expressed a justification for the nationalist and antisemitic doctrines about which he was already fanatical. These ideas were that Jesus was not a Jew but an Aryan, and the churches had corrupted his influence and Judaized his message.

Hitler's religious beliefs changed over the years, and as they are gathered from his public and private statements, present a discrepant picture and are disputed. In public statements, Hitler frequently spoke positively about the Christian heritage of German culture and his belief in Christ. For example, on March 23, 1933, he addressed the Reichstag:

"The National Government regards the two Christian confessions (i.e. Catholicism and Protestantism) as factors essential to the soul of the German people. ... We hold the spiritual forces of Christianity to be indispensable elements in the moral uplift of the German people."

About his own religious stance, he said:"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.". However there is no evidence that he engaged in any of the practices of the Catholic church (such as attendance at mass or confession) after his youth. Hitler’s private statements were more mixed. There are negative statements about Christianity reported by Hitler’s intimates, Goebbels, Speer, and Bormann.. Joseph Goebbels, for example, notes in a diary entry in 1939: “The Führer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay.” Albert Speer reports a similar statement: “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness? Though Hitler spoke against traditional Christianity in general, he in fact may have been referring to Catholicism, according to Steigmann-Gall. In any event, "No matter how much he vituperated against Christianity or the churches, Hitler gave no indication that he was now agnostic or atheistic: He displayed a continued attachment to a belief in God."

In contrast to other Nazi leaders, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism or neo-paganism and even ridiculed such beliefs in private. Drawing on Higher Criticism and some branches of theologically liberal Protestantism, Hitler advocated what he termed Positive Christianity, a reinvention of Christianity purged of everything that he found objectionable. Hitler viewed traditional Christianity as a corruption of the original ideas of Jesus, who Hitler thought of as not as Jewish messiah but an Aryan opponent of the Jews. In 1927 he said: "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."Hitler did not believe in a "remote, rationalist divinity" but "in one providential, active, deity.". In Hitler's belief God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival along social darwinist lines (such a view would be distinctly at variance with orthodox Christianity). He often referred to "Providence" guarding and guiding the "Aryan race", supposedly the bearer of civilisation, in its fight against the Jews, supposedly the enemies of all civilisation.

As some branches of liberal Protestantism also had similar views, Hitler later demonstrated a preference for Protestantism over Catholicism, despite his earlier protestations of being . His views were supported by the German Christians movement, but rejected by the Confessing Church. According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler regretted that "the churches had failed to back him and his movement as he had hoped.", stating according to Albert Speer: "Through me the Protestant Church could become the established church, as in England”.

Hitler from childhood admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organisation of the clergy. Later, he drew on these elements, organizing his party along hierarchical lines and including liturgical forms into events or using phraseology taken from hymns.. Because of these liturgical elements, Hitler's Messiah-like status and the ideology's all-encompassing nature, the Nazi movement is sometimes termed a "political religion". Hitler himself, however, deplored the idea that Nazism was in any way a religion.

Speer claims Hitler remained a member of the Catholic church until his suicide, although he also notes that Hitler said "he had no real attachment to it.". No evidence has been found of Hitlers participation in church activities after his youth; general opinion seems to be that he no longer attended mass or confession.

Notable Hitler biographer John Toland wrote of Hitler's religion and its effect: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god..." Professor Guenter Lewy, author of "The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany" quotes Hitler as saying that he "... regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of our national life.", though such statements may have been more for public consumption than an indication of his actual beliefs.

According to historian Richard Steigmann-Gall, much is known about Hitler's views on religion through Hitler's book, Mein Kampf. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote neither as an atheist, nor an agnostic, nor as a believer in a remote, rationalist divinity; instead he expressed his belief in one providential, active, deity:

"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and the reproduction of our race...so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission alloted it by the creator of the universe...Peoples that bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, sin against the will of eternal Providence."

Elsewhere in Mein Kampf Hitler makes it clear that "creator of the universe" and "eternal Providence" are synonyms he uses for God. He also states his belief that the Aryan race was created by God, and that it would be a sin to dilute it through racial intermixing. It is unclear whether Hitler believed that only the Aryan race was created by God, or other races were also divinely created; the former would put his beliefs firmly add odds with the vast majority of Christians. Hitler writes:

"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."

Refering to God as the "Lord of Creation" and the necessity of obeying "His" will, show Hitler's Christian thinking, according to Steigmann-Gall, although to many readers such phrases only indicate a belief in God and not necessarily Christianity. Elsewhere in Mein Kampf, he says, Hitler makes references to Jesus, though as is seen below he denies basic facts about Jesus that Christianity holds to be true. Other sources also show Hitler's Christian thinking, according to Steigmann-Gall. He notes an unpublished manuscript where Hitler sketched out his world-view, and he gives as an example a speech on April 1922 where Hitler said that Jesus was "the true God". Finally, Steigmann-Gall gives another example where in a private Nazi meeting Hitler again stated the centrality of Jesus' teachings to the Nazi movement.

Hitler's religious beliefs demonstrated the anti-Semitic view that Jesus was an Aryan rather than a Jew, and saw himself as acting according to what he described as "true Christianity." Hitler write:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

Such views are, of course, contrary to orthodox Christianity, and in direct contradiction with the genealogy of Jesus as found in the Bible. Orthodox Christianity acknowledges that Jesus Christ was in fact a Jew and sees no problem with this fact. Hitler view of the Jews necessarily coloured his interpretation of Jesus:

"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."

Such an interpretation seems to be wildly distinct from the accounts of the Christian gospels, in which not only Jesus' enemies but also his friends, supporters and and the entire early church were Jewish, and considered themselves to be inheritors of the true spirit of Judaism.

The German author Sebastian Haffner wrote in his 1978 essay-like book about Hitler's life that in spite of Hitler's regular rhetorical invocation of "Providence" and the "Almighty", that not only he was not religious, but in addition he had no instinct for what religion can mean to others.

References

1. - Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth Stanford/California, 1967. On page 27 Smith writes about Alois: "Closely related to his support of education was his tolerant skepticism concerning religion. He looked upon religion as a series of conventions and as a crutch for human weakness, but, like most of his neighbors, he insisted that the women of his household fulfill all religious obligations. He restricted his own participation to donning his uniform to take his proper place in festivals and processions. As he grew older Alois shifted from relative passivity in his attitude toward the power and influence of the institutional Church to a firm opposition to "clericalism," especially when the position of the Church came into conflict with his views on education.", while on page 42 he discusses Klara: "Alois insisted she attend regularly as an expression of his belief that the woman's place was in the kitchen and in church....Happily, Klara really enjoyed attending services and was completely devoted to the faith and teachings of Catholicism, so her husband's requirements worked to her advantage. "
2. Michael Rissmann, Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators, Zürich München: Pendo, 2001, pp. 94-96 ISBN 3858424218;
3. Edited by McManners, John (1992). Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. p.360. ISBN 0192854399. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
4. quoted by Dennis Barton..
5. cited by John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, New York: Anchor Publishing, 1992, p. 507 ISBN 0385420536.
6. The collection called Table Talk is questioned by some; while most historians consider it a useful, they do not regard it as a wholly reliable source. Ian Kershaw alludes to the questionable nature of Table Talk as a historical source; see his Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris London, 1998, xiv. Richard Carrier goes further contending that certain portions of Table Talk, especially those regarding Hitler's alleged hatred of Christianity, are outright inventions: see his "Hitler's Table Talk, Troubling Finds" German Studies Review26:3 (forthcoming 2003). However, although Kershaw recommends treating the work with caution, he does not suggest dispensing with it altogether. (The Holy Reich, p. 253)
7. Steigmann-Gall, pp. 252-253; Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Orion Pub., 1997 ISBN 1857992180, p. 96.
8. Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich p.255
9. Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 257, 260
10. Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich p. 260
11. Cited in Norman H. Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1, New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, pp. 19-20 ISBN 0598758933.
12. In a speech delivered on 12 April 1922, Munich
13. Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 26
14. Steigmann-Gall, p.84
15. Steigmann-Gall, p.260
16. Michael Rissmann, p. 96.
17. Especially Eric Voegelin: in Political Religions, (Edward Mellen Press, 1986) ISBN 0889467676, advocated such a classification. Discussion at Rissmann, p. 191-197.
18. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 96
19. ^ Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p.26
20. Haffner, Sebastian Anmerkungen zu Hitler/The Meaning of Hitler (1978) Chapter "Irrtümer", page 109 (23rd edition, 2001):
    "Denn er war, trotz seiner gewohnheitsmäßigen rhetorischen Anrufung der "Vorsehung" und des "Allmächtigen", nicht nur selbst irreligiös, sondern hatte auch kein Organ dafür, was Religion für andere bedeuten kann. Bei seinem Umgang mit den christlichen Kirchen hat sich das deutlich gezeigt."

• Adolf Hitler