Religious views of Adolf Hitler: Difference between revisions

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			FIGHT THE CHRISTIAN REVISIONIST LIES!!!!!
	{{lead too long\|date=January 2014}}

			Hitler Was a Christian
	]
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			The Holocaust was caused by Christian fundamentalism:
	The '''religious views of Adolf Hitler''' are a matter of interest and debate. Hitler was raised by an increasingly anti-clerical ] and devout ] ].<ref name=Alois_religion>Smith, Bradley (1967). ''Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth''. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, "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."</ref> ] as an infant and ] at the age of fifteen, he ceased attending ] and participating in the ] in later life.<ref name="Michael Rissmann 2001, pp. 94–96"/><ref name=Klara_religion>Smith, Bradley (1967). ''Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth''. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, "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."</ref> In adulthood Hitler became disdainful of Christianity, but in the pursuit and maintenance of power was prepared to delay clashes with the churches out of political considerations.<ref name="Bundle2">
	*Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; Norton; 2008 ed; pp. 295–297
	*Alan Bullock; Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives; Fontana Press; 1993; pp. 412–413
	*Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; p. 138
	*Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135
	*Alan Bullock; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p218</ref> Hitler's architect ] believed he had "no real attachment" to Catholicism, but that he had never formally left the Church. Unlike his comrade ], Hitler was not ]<ref>]; ]; 1964; p. 303</ref> prior to his ]. The biographer ] noted Hitler's anticlericalism but considered him still in "good standing" with the Church by 1941, while historians such as ], ] and ] agree that Hitler was anti-Christian - a view evidenced by sources such as the '']'', the ] of Speer, and the transcripts edited by ] contained within '']''.<ref>Albert Speer. (1997). '']''. New York: Simon and Schuster, </ref> Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler "hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity."<ref name="Fred Taylor Translation pp. 304–305">Fred Taylor Translation; The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4; pp. 304 305</ref> Many historians have come to the conclusion that Hitler's long-term aim was the eradication of Christianity in Germany,<ref name="Bundle">
	*Sharkey, , New York Times, 13 January 2002
	* ]; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p 219: "Once the war was over, promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian churches, but until then he would be circumspect."
	* ]; , published by ]: "By the latter part of the decade of the Thirties, church officials were well aware that the ultimate aim of Hitler and other Nazis was the total elimination of Catholicism and of the Christian religion. Since the overwhelming majority of Germans were either Catholic or Protestant. this goal had to be a long-term rather than a short-term Nazi objective."
	* ], , p. p 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990: " ... under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy ] in ], if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."
	*], , p. 123, Scarecrow Press, 2010: "The objective was to either destroy Christianity and restore the German gods of antiquity, or to turn Jesus into an Aryan."
	*] (1994). ''An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler''. Heinemann Mandarin. 1995 paperback ISBN 978-0-434-29276-9, pp. 14–15: " de-Christianise Germany after the final victory".
	* ], , p. 240, University of Wisconsin Press, 2003: "Had the Nazis won the war their ecclesiastical policies would have gone beyond those of the German Christians, to the utter destruction of both the Protestant and the Catholic Church.
	*Dill, Marshall, , p. 365, University of Michigan Press, 1970: "It seems no exaggeration to insist that the greatest challenge the Nazis had to face was their effort to eradicate Christianity in Germany, or at least to subjugate it to their general world outlook."
	*Wheaton, Eliot Barculo , p. 290, 363, Doubleday 1968: The Nazis sought "to eradicate Christianity in Germany root and branch."
	*Bendersky, Joseph W., , p. 147, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007: "Consequently, it was Hitler's long range goal to eliminate the churches once he had consolidated control over his European empire."</ref> while others maintain that there is insufficient evidence for such a plan.<ref name="Bundle3">
	*Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003) ''The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 260.
	*Snyder, Louis L. (1981) ''Hitler's Third Reich: A Documentary History''. New York: Nelson-Hall, p. 249.
	*Dutton, Donald G. (2007). ''The Psychology of Genocide, Massacres, and Extreme Violence''. Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 41.
	*Heschel, Susannah (2008). ''The Aryan Jesus''. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 23.</ref>

	Hitler's public relationship to religion has been characterized as one of opportunistic pragmatism.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> His regime did not publicly advocate for ], but it did seek to reduce the influence of Christianity on society. Hitler himself was reluctant to make public attacks on the Church for political reasons, despite the urgings of Nazis like Bormann. Although he was skeptical of religion,<ref name="The Third Reich p.99">]; ''The Third Reich, A Chronicle''; Quercus; 2010; p.99</ref><ref name="Stalin pp.413">]; '']''; Fontana Press; 1993; pp.413</ref> he did not present himself to the public as an atheist, and spoke of belief in an "almighty creator".<ref name="speeches">Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19–20, Oxford University Press, 1942</ref><ref name="MeinKampf">Hitler, Adolf (1999). ''Mein Kampf''. Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, pp. 65, 119, 152, 161, 214, 375, 383, 403, 436, 562, 565, 622, 632–633.</ref> In private, he could be ambiguous.<ref>]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547: According to Evans "Science, declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition 'In the long run', he concluded, 'National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together'."</ref><ref>Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944, Cameron & Stevens, Enigma Books pp. 59–61: Hitler is quoted as saying: "The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that's left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity."</ref> ] wrote that Hitler repeatedly stated that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on science, which in the long run could not "co-exist with religion".<ref name="Richard J 2009, p. 547">]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547</ref> In his semi-autobiographical '']'' (1925/6) however, he makes a number of religious allusions, claiming to be "acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator" and to have been chosen by ].<ref name="MeinKampf">Hitler, Adolf (1999). ''Mein Kampf''. Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, pp. 65, 119, 152, 161, 214, 375, 383, 403, 436, 562, 565, 622, 632–633.</ref><ref>{{cite book \|title='']'' \|author1=Ralph Manheim, ed. \|author2=Adolf Hitler \|location=New York \|publisher=Houghton Mifflin \|year=1998 \|isbn= 0395951054 \|page=65 \|quote=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.}}</ref> In a 1928 speech, he said: "We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity ... in fact our movement is Christian."<ref>Speech in Passau 27 October 1928 Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf; from Richard Steigmann-Gall (2003). Holy Reich: Nazi conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 60–61</ref> Given his hostility to Christianity, ] wrote that "The most persuasive explanation of these statements is that Hitler, as a politician, simply recognised the practical reality of the world he inhabited... Had Hitler distanced himself or his movement too much from Christianity, it is all but impossible to see how he could ever have been successful in a free election".<ref name="Laurence Rees p135">Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135.</ref>] wrote that even though Hitler frequently employed the language of "]" in defence of his own myth, he ultimately shared with the Soviet dictator ] a materialistic outlook "based on the nineteenth century rationalists' certainty that the progress of science would destroy all myths and had already proved Christian doctrine to be an absurdity".<ref name="Stalin pp.412">]; '']''; Fontana Press; 1993; pp.412</ref> According to ], when the Nazis became the main opponent of Communism in Germany, Hitler saw Christianity as a temporary ally.<ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6">]; '']''; Viking; 2011; pp. 495–6</ref> He made various public comments against ] atheist movements, and in favor of so-called "]" (a movement which sought to nazify Christianity by purging it of its ] elements, the Old Testament and key doctrines like the ]). In a 1922 speech he said,<ref>"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 for the world 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." -Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19–20, Oxford University Press, 1942)</ref> In ''Mein Kampf'', he declared himself neutral in ] matters and supportive of separation between church and state, and criticized ].<ref name="William L. Shirer p234">William L. Shirer; ]; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p234</ref> In it, he presented a nihilistic, ] vision, in which the universe is ordered around principles of struggle between weak and strong, rather than on conventional Christian notions.<ref>Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135</ref> While campaigning for office in the early 1930s, Hitler offered moderate public statements on Christianity, promising not to interfere with the churches if given power, and calling Christianity the foundation of German morality. Kershaw considers that use of such rhetoric served to placate potential criticism from the Church. According to ], Hitler had fully discarded belief in the Judeo-Christian conception of God by 1937, but continued to use the word "God" in speeches.

	In office, the Hitler regime connived at a '']'' (lit. church struggle). While wary of open conflict with the churches, Hitler generally permitted or encouraged anti-church radicals such as ], Goebbels and Bormann to perpetrate their persecutions of the churches.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler: a Biography; Norton; 2008 Edn; pp. 295–297</ref> According to Evans, by 1939, 95% of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic, with 3.5% 'Deist' ('']'') and 1.5% atheist - most in these latter categories being "convinced Nazis who had left their Church at the behest of the Party, which had been trying since the mid-1930s to reduce the influence of Christianity in society".<ref name="Richard J 2009, p. 546">]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 546</ref> ''Gottgläubig''" (lit. "believers in God", had a non-denominational, nazified outlook on divine beliefs, often described as predominantly based on creationist and deistic views<ref name="books.google.de"></ref> Despite all the promotion for ] and the ] movement, the majority of the three million Nazi Party members continued to pay their church taxes and register as either ] or ] Christians.<ref name="Churches p. 232">The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945, by John S. Conway p. 232; Regent College Publishing</ref> Hitler angered the churches by appointing the neo-pagan ] as official Nazi ideologist. He launched an effort toward ] of German Protestants under a unified ] under the '']'' movement, but the attempt failed - resisted by the ]. The ''Deutsche Christens'' differed from traditional Christians by rejecting the Hebrew origins of Christianity, preaching of an Aryan Jesus and saying that ], as a Jew, had falsified Jesus' message - a theme Hitler repeated in private conversations, including, according to ], in October 1941, when he made the decision to murder the Jews.<ref name="Susannah Heschel 2008. pp 1–10">Susannah Heschel, ''The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany'', Princeton University Press, 2008. pp 1–10</ref> From around 1934, Hitler had lost interest in supporting the '']''.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 ed; Norton; London; pp. 295–297</ref> He moved early to eliminate political Catholicism, while agreeing to a ] with Rome which promised autonomy for the ]. His regime routinely violated the treaty, closed all Catholic organisations that weren't strictly religious, and perpetrated a ]. Smaller religious minorities faced far harsher repression, with the Jews of Germany ] on the grounds of ] and ] ] for refusing both military service and any allegiance to Hitlerism.

			History is currently being distorted by the millions of Christians who lie to have us believe that the Holocaust was not a Christian deed. Through subterfuge and concealment, many of today's Church leaders and faithful Christians have camouflaged the Christianity of Adolf Hitler and have attempted to mark him an atheist, a pagan cult worshipper, or a false Christian in order to place his misdeeds on those with out Jesus. However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and chat rooms.
	Kershaw wrote that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler, who was "a very private, even secretive individual".<ref name="Ian Kershaw p. 373">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler: a Biography''; Norton; 2008 ed; p. 373</ref> ''Hitler's Table Talk'' has him often voicing stridently negative views of Christianity. Bullock wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and materialist who saw Christianity as a religion "fit for slaves" and against the natural law of selection and survival of the fittest.<ref name="Hitler p219">]; ''Hitler, a Study in Tyranny''; Harper Perennial Edition, 1991; p219"</ref> Toland, while noting Hitler's antagonism to the ] and Church hierarchy, drew links between Hitler's Catholic background and his anti-Semitism.<ref name="Toland"/> Following meetings with Hitler, General ] and Cardinal ] wrote that Hitler was a believer. Kershaw cites Faulhaber's case as an example of Hitler's ability to deceive "even hardened critics". Steigmann-Gall saw a "Christian element" in Hitler's early writings and evidence that he continued to hold Jesus in high esteem as an "Aryan fighter" who struggled against Jewry.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall, Richard 2003 p.27">Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.27.</ref><ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 118–20, 155–6">{{cite book\|last=Steigmann-Gall\|first=Richard\|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity\|year=2003\|publisher=Cambridge University Press\|location=Cambridge\|isbn=0-521-82371-4\|pages=118–20, 155–6}}</ref> Use of the term "]" in the ] of the 1920s is commonly regarded as a tactical measure, but Steigmann-Gall believes it may have had an "inner logic" and been "more than a political ploy", though he notes that over time the Nazi movement became "increasingly hostile to the churches".<ref name="pp. 13–50">Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, , p. 252.</ref> ] considered that Steigmann-Gall's analysis differed from earlier interpretations only by "degree and timing", but that if Hitler's early speeches evidenced a sincere appreciation of Christianity, "this Nazi Christianity was eviscerated of all the most essential orthodox dogmas" leaving only "the vaguest impression combined with anti-Jewish prejudice..." which few would recognize as "true Christianity".<ref name="John S. Conway 1945">John S. Conway. Review of Steigmann-Gall, Richard, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. H-German, H-Net Reviews. June, 2003.</ref> Laurence Rees concludes that "Hitler's relationship in public to Christianity - indeed his relationship to religion in general - was opportunistic. There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".<ref name="Laurence Rees p135">Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135.</ref>

			Considering that Christianity has thus far been incapable of producing an unbiased, educated follower which speaks the truth, (I haven't encountered any), I have been forced to dispel the myth by writing this essay. It is not until I bring up his speeches, my personal info on the Nazi regime and their tactics that a Christian will begin to question what their clergy told them. (I am the offspring of a German soldier. My Opa served under Hitler in WW2 and my father was raised during the time of the Nazi regime. This is important information to take into consideration for I am privy to some info that most Americans do not know. It is common for American media and education institutions to lie to their citizens concerning Nazi Germany.) So, in presenting this information I must break it into four parts: 1) Facts about Hitler and his involvement with the Church. 2) How the Church was the catalyst for anti- Semitism. 3) Facts concerning how the Nazi regime drilled these beliefs into Germanic society. 4) Quotes Hitler made which prove he had a disdain for atheism/occultism, upheld his Christian faith, and hated Jews due to his Christianity.
	==Youth==
	Reliable historical details on the childhood of Adolf Hitler are scarce.

	Hitler was born in 1889, in ], ]<ref></ref> and was baptised Catholic in the same year. Hitler's father ], though nominally a ], was somewhat ] and anticlerical,<ref>Smith, Bradley (1967). ''Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth''. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, "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 fulfil 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."</ref> while his mother ] was a devout practicing Catholic.<ref>Smith, Bradley (1967). ''Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth''. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, "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."</ref>

	Hitler attended several primary schools. For six months, the family lived opposite a Benedictine Monastery at Lambach, and on some afternoons, Hitler attended the choir school there.<ref>John Toland; ''Hitler''; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn; p 9</ref> Around this time, Hitler is said to have dreamed of taking ].<ref name="Shirer1990">{{cite book\|author=William L. Shirer\|title=Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=sY8svb-MNUwC&pg=PA11\|accessdate=2013-04-22\|year=1990\|publisher=Simon & Schuster\|isbn=978-0-671-72868-7\|pages=11–}}</ref><ref name="Hitler1940">{{cite book\|author=Adolf Hitler\|title=Mein Kampf\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=mQ2An8hFkNQC&pg=PT10\|accessdate=2013-04-22\|year=1940\|publisher=ZHINGOORA BOOKS\|isbn=978-1-105-25334-8\|pages=10–}}</ref><ref>''Toland'' chapter 1; ''Kershaw'' chapter 1. By his account in ''Mein Kampf'' (which is often an unreliable source), he loved the "solemn splendor of the brilliant Church festivals." He held the abbot in very high regard, and later told ] that one time as a small boy he had once ardently wished to become a priest. His flirtation with the idea apparently ended as suddenly as it began, however. (Ibid.)</ref> Hitler was ] on 22 May 1904. Rissmann relates a story where a boyhood friend{{Who\|date=December 2011}} claimed that after Hitler had left home, he never again attended ] or received the ]s.<ref name="Michael Rissmann 2001, pp. 94–96"/> <!-- Can we find an English source for this? -->

			Hitler's involvement with the Church:
	In 1909, Hitler moved to Vienna. According to ], his intellectual interests vacillated and his reading included "Ancient Rome, the Eastern religions, Yoga, Occultism, Hypnotism, Astrology, Protestantism, each in turn excited his interest for a moment... He struck people as unbalanced. He gave rein to his hatreds - against the Jews, the priests, the Social Democrats, the Habsburgs - without restraint".<ref>Alan Bullock; ]; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p11</ref>

			a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.
	; Analysis

			b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery's coat of arms bearing a swastika.)
	According to historian Michael Rissmann, young Hitler was influenced by ] and began to reject the ], receiving ] only unwillingly.<ref name="Michael Rissmann 2001, pp. 94–96">Rissmann, Michael (2001). ''Hitlers Gott: Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators''. Zürich, München: Pendo, pp. 94–96; ISBN 978-3-85842-421-1.</ref> Toland wrote of the 1904 ceremony at Linz Cathedral that Hitler's confirmation sponsor said he nearly had to "drag the words out of him... almost as though the whole confirmation was repugnant to him".<ref>John Toland; ''Hitler''; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn; pp. 18</ref>

			c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.
	==Adulthood and political career==

			d) As a young man he was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ." His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: "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)
	Hitler's public and private statements on religion were often in conflict. The biographer Kershaw wrote that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler - "he was by temperament a very private, even secretive individual", unwilling to confide in others.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p. 373">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; Norton; 2008 ed; p. 373</ref> In private Hitler scorned Christianity to his friends, but when out campaigning for power in Germany, he publicly made statements in favour of the religion.<ref name="Paul Berben p. 138">Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; p. 138</ref> "The most persuasive explanation of these statements", wrote Laurence Rees, "is that Hitler, as a politician, simply recognised the practical reality of the world he inhabited... Had Hitler distanced himself or his movement too much from Christianity it is all but impossible to see how he could ever have been successful in a free election. Thus his relationship in public to Christianity - indeed his relationship to religion in general - was opportunistic. There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".<ref name="Laurence Rees p135">Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135.</ref>

			e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and "avenging for God" in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.
	Though Hitler retained some regard for the organizational power of Catholicism, he had utter contempt for its central teachings, which he said, if taken to their conclusion, "would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure".<ref name="Hitler p218">]; '']''; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p218"</ref> In '']'', ], wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence: a "man who believed neither in God nor in conscience ('a Jewish invention, a blemish like circumcision')".<ref>]; '']''; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p216</ref> In '']'', Bullock added that Hitler, like ] before him, frequently employed the language of "]" in defence of his own myth, but ultimately shared with the Soviet dictator ] "the same materialist outlook, based on the nineteenth century rationalists' certainty that the progress of science would destroy all myths and had already proved Christian doctrine to be an absurdity".<ref name="Stalin pp.412"/>

			f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt: "The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie." Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party
	For political reasons, Hitler restrained his anti-clericalism and refused "to let himself be drawn into attacking the Church publicly, as ] and other Nazis would have liked him to do. But he promised himself that, when the time came, he would settle his account with the priests of both creeds. When he did, he would not be restrained by any judicial scruples".<ref>]; '']''; Fontana Press; 1993; pp. 412–413</ref> German conservative elements, such as the officer corps, opposed Nazi efforts against the churches.<ref name="Hitler p218"/><ref>]; '']''; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p236</ref> In the long run, Hitler intended to destroy the influence of the Christian churches:<ref name="Hitler p219"/>

			Hitler and the Popeg) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This photo depicts Hitler with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin. It was taken On April 20, 1939, when Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations were initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and became a tradition.
	{{quotation\|Hitler had been brought up a Catholic and was impressed by the organization and power of the Church. For Protestant clergy he felt only contempt: 'They are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs... They have neither a religion you can take seriously nor a great position to defend like Rome'. It was the 'great position' of the Church that he respected; towards its teaching he showed only the sharpest hostility. In Hitler's eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.\|Excerpt from '']'' by ]}}

			Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars." (If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)
	According to ], although Hitler did not "abide by its commandments", he retained elements of the Catholic thinking of his upbringing even into the initial years of his rule: "As late as 1933, he still described himself publicly as a Catholic. Only the spreading poison of his lust for power and self idolatry finally crowded out the memories of childhood beliefs and in 1937 he jettisoned the last of his personal religious convictions, declaring to comrades, 'Now I feel as fresh as a colt in the pasture'", wrote Domarus.<ref name="p. 21">Max Domarus (2007). ''The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary''. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci, </ref> Ultimately, Domarus believed, Hitler replaced belief in the Judeo-Christian God with belief in a peculiarly German "god".<ref name="p. 21"/> He promoted the idea of God as the creator of Germany, but Hitler "was not a Christian in any accepted meaning of that word."<ref name="HitlerDomarus2007">{{cite book\|author1=Adolf Hitler\|author2=Max Domarus\|title=The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=0Y0UULmcFt0C&pg=PA427\|accessdate=2012-08-06\|date=1 April 2007\|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci\|isbn=978-0-86516-627-1\|pages=137–}}</ref> Domarus also points out that Hitler did not believe in organized religion and did not see himself as a religious reformer.<ref name="HitlerDomarus2007">{{cite book\|author1=Adolf Hitler\|author2=Max Domarus\|title=The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=0Y0UULmcFt0C&pg=PA427\|accessdate=2012-08-06\|date=1 April 2007\|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci\|isbn=978-0-86516-627-1\|pages=427–}}</ref>

			h) Due to Hitler's involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings: "The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today." --Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda "Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church." -Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism
	According to historian ], "Hitler did not believe in the afterlife, but he did believe he would have a life after death because of what he had achieved."<ref>Kelly, Jon (2001) "Osama Bin Laden: The power of shrines" ''BBC News Magazine'' (4 May).</ref> Historian ] maintains that Hitler was not a "practising Christian," nor was he a "thorough atheist."<ref>Overy, R. J. (2004). ''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia''. New York: Norton, .</ref> According to ] Hitler thought Christianity was finished but wanted no direct confrontation for strategic reasons.<ref name="Wistrich2007">{{cite book\|author=Robert S. Wistrich\|title=Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=347-digzQXMC&pg=PA375\|accessdate=2012-08-25\|date=1 May 2007\|publisher=U of Nebraska Press\|isbn=978-0-8032-1134-6\|pages=375–}}</ref> Samuel Koehne, a Research Fellow at the ], working on the official Nazi views on religion, answers the question ''Was Hitler a Christian?'' thus: "Emphatically not, if we consider Christianity in its traditional or orthodox form: Jesus as the son of God, dying for the redemption of the sins of all humankind. It is nonsense to state that Hitler (or any of the Nazis) adhered to Christianity of this form."<ref name="Koehne">Koehne, Samuel, , ABC Religion and Ethics, 18 Apr. 2012</ref> Koehne says Hitler was probably not an atheist and refers to the fact that recent works have asserted that he was a ].<ref name="Koehne"/> Richard Evans concluded his statements on Hitler's religious views by suggesting that the gap between Hitler's public and private pronouncements was due to a desire not to cause a quarrel with the churches that might undermine national unity.<ref name="Evans 2008 547–8" />

	In ''The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany'', it is noted that Hitler supported the ] church which rejected the Hebrew origins of the Gospel, and stated that Jesus was an Aryan and that Paul as a Jew had falsified Jesus's message, a theme Hitler repeatedly mentioned in private conversations. In October 1941, when Hitler made the decision to murder the Jews, he repeated that very proclamation.<ref name="Susannah Heschel 2008. pp 1–10">Susannah Heschel, ''The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany'', Princeton University Press, 2008. pp 1–10</ref>

	] saw evidence of a "Christian element" in Hitler's early writings.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall, Richard 2003 p.27"/> Steigmann-Gall wrote that while use of the term "positive Christianity" in the ] of 1920 is commonly regarded as a tactical measure", he himself believes that it was "more than a political ploy for winning votes" and instead adhered to an "inner logic".<ref>Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 14–15</ref> Though anti-Christians later fought to "expunge Christian influence from Nazism" and the movement became "increasingly hostile to the churches", Steigmann-Gall wrote that even in the end, it was not "uniformly anti-Christian".<ref name="pp. 13–50"/> Even after a rupture with institutional Christianity (which he dated to around 1937), Steigmann-Gall saw evidence that Hitler continued to hold Jesus in high esteem, considering him to have been an Aryan fighter who struggled against Jewry.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 118–20, 155–6"/> In Hitler's view, Jesus' true Christian teachings had been corrupted by the ] ], who had transformed them into a kind of Jewish ], which Hitler believed preached "the equality of all men amongst themselves, and their obedience to an only god. This is what caused the death of the Roman Empire."<ref name="November29–30">Trevor-Roper, H.R. (2000). ''Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944''. New York: Enigma Books, pp. 721–722; Night of 29–30 November 1944.</ref> Steigmann-Gall concluded that Hitler was religious at least in the 1920s and early 1930s, citing him as expressing a belief in ], ], and ] as an ] opponent of the ].<ref>{{cite book\|last=Steigmann-Gall\|first=Richard\|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity\|year=2003\|publisher=Cambridge University Press\|location=Cambridge\|isbn=0-521-82371-4\|pages=26–7}}</ref> However, he admits that by holding this position he "argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it."<ref>{{cite book\|last=Steigmann-Gall\|first=Richard\|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity\|year=2003\|publisher=Cambridge University Press\|location=Cambridge\|isbn=0-521-82371-4\|pages=abstract}}</ref>

			How Christianity was the catalyst of the Holocaust:
	Historian ] wrote that Steigmann-Gall made an "almost convincing case" and was "right to point out that there never was a consensus among the leading Nazis about the relationship between the Party and Christianity," but that "The differences between this interpretation and those put forward earlier are really only ones of degree and timing. Steigmann-Gall agrees that from 1937 onwards, Nazi policy toward the churches became much more hostile... argues persuasively that the Nazi Party's 1924 program and Hitler's policy-making speeches of the early years were not just politically motivated or deceptive in intent... Steigmann-Gall considers these speeches to be a sincere appreciation of Christianity... Yet he is not ready to admit that this Nazi Christianity was eviscerated of all the most essential orthodox dogmas. What remained was the vaguest impression combined with anti-Jewish prejudice. Only a few radicals on the extreme wing of liberal Protestantism would recognize such a mish-mash as true Christianity.''<ref name="John S. Conway 1945"/>

			Hitler's anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Austria and Germany were majorly Christian during his time and they held the belief that Jews were an inferior status to Aryan Christians. The Christians blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus. Jewish hatred did not actually spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War 2. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther constantly quoting his works and beliefs.
	The ] saw the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in early 1938. The Austrian chancellor, ], had traveled to Germany to meet Hitler, who, according to Schuschnigg's later testimony, went into a threatening rage against the role of Austria in German history, saying, "Every national idea was sabotaged by Austria throughout history; and indeed all this sabotage was the chief activity of the Habsburgs and the Catholic Church." This ended in Hitler's ultimatum to end Austrian independence and hand the nation to the Nazis.<ref>William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp. 325–329</ref>

			Now, you must remember before Hitler rose to Chancellor of Germany the country was in a deep economic depression due to the Versailles treaty. The Versailles treaty demanded that Germans made financial reparations for the previous war and Germany simply was not self sufficient enough in order to pay the debt. Hitler was the leader that raised Germany out of the depression and brought them back to a world recognized power. Due to his annulment of the financial woes of the Germanic people he became their redeemer and they anointed him as the leader of the German Reich Christian Church in 1933. This placed him in power of the German Christian Socialist movement which legislates their political and religious agendas. It united all denominations, mainly the Protestant/Catholic and Lutheran people to instill faith in a national Christianity.
	The biographer ], noted that, in the aftermath of an attempted assassination in 1939, Hitler told dinner guests that ] would rather have seen the "plot succeed" and "was no friend of mine".<ref>John Toland; ''Hitler''; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn, p.589</ref> Later in his biographical study, Toland wrote that in 1941 Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within himself its teaching that the ]. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of ] since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God — so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty."<ref>John Toland. (1976). ''Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography''. New York: Anchor Books, p. 703.</ref> (for the official Catholic position against Nazi racism in the 1930s see ]). Derek Hastings sees Hitler's commitment to Christianity as more tenuous. He considers it "eminently plausible" that Hitler was a believing Catholic as late as his trial in 1924, but writes that "there is little doubt that Hitler was a staunch opponent of Christianity throughout the duration of the Third Reich."<ref>Hastings, Derek (2010). ''''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 181.</ref>

	Following the 1944 assassination attempt in the "]", Hitler reportedly credited his survival to divine intervention. German deputy press chief Helmut Suendermann declared, "The German people must consider the failure of the attempt on Hitler's life as a sign that Hitler will complete his tasks under the protection of a divine power".<ref>BBC News (1944-07-20) Hitler survives assassination attempt. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3505000/3505014.stm</ref>

	In his writings on Hitler's recurrent religious images and symbols, Kenneth Burke concluded that "Hitler's modes of thought are nothing more than perverted or caricatured forms of religious thought"<ref name="McKnightHughes2001">{{cite book\|author1=Stephen McKnight\|author2=Glenn Hughes\|author3=Geoffrey Price\|title=Politics, Order and History: Essays on the Work of Eric Voegelin\|url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=NeorjnI4VBcC&lpg=PA86&ots=dQnLrLjG2t&dq=friedrich%20heer%20hitler%20political%20religiosity&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q=kenneth%20burke&f=false\|date=1 January 2001\|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic\|isbn=978-1-84127-159-0\|page=86}}</ref>

			How the Nazi Regime converted the people:
	===''Mein Kampf''===
	Hitler combined elements of autobiography with an exposition of his racist political ideology in '']'' ("My Struggle"), published between 1925 and 1927.<ref>; web 24 May 2013</ref> According to the biographer ], the reflections Hitler himself provided in ''Mein Kampf'' are "inaccurate in detail and coloured in interpretation", information that was given during the Nazi period is "dubious", as can be the postwar recollections of family and acquaintances.<ref>Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; 2008 ed; Norton; London; p.3</ref> The book contains various religious pronouncements.<ref name="MeinKampf"/> ] described the thrust of the work as "bleak nihilism" revealing a cold universe with no moral structure other than the fight between different people for supremacy: "What's missing from ''Mein Kampf''", wrote Rees—"and this is a fact that has not received the acknowledgement it should—is any emphasis on Christianity"—though Germany, Rees noted, had been Christian for a thousand years. So, concluded Rees, "the most coherent reading of ''Mein Kampf'' is that whilst Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, he did not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of an individual "soul"... we are animals and just like animals we face the choice of destroying or being destroyed."<ref name="Laurence Rees p135"/> ''Mein Kampf'' makes various statements on Christianity.<ref name="MeinKampf">Hitler, Adolf (1999). ''Mein Kampf''. Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, pp. 65, 119, 152, 161, 214, 375, 383, 403, 436, 562, 565, 622, 632–633.</ref>

			a) In the 1920s, Hitler's German Workers' Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a "Programme" with twenty-five points (the Nazi version of a constitution). In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a "positive" Christianity: "We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession..."
	Paul Berben wrote that insofar as the Christian denominations were concerned, Hitler declared himself to be neutral in Mein Kampf - but argued for clear separation between church and state, and for the church not to concern itself with the earthly life of the people, which must be the domain of the state.<ref name="Paul Berben p. 138"/> According to ], Hitler "inveighed against political Catholicism in ''Mein Kampf'' and attacked the two main Christian churches for their failure to recognise the racial problem...", while also warning that no political party could succeed in "producing a religious reformation".<ref name="William L. Shirer p234">William L. Shirer; ]; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p234</ref>

			b) The Nazi regime started a youth movement which preached its agenda to impressionable children. Hitler backed up the notion that all people need faith and religious education: "By helping to raise man above the level of bestial vegetation, faith contributes in reality to the securing and safeguarding of his existence. Take away from present-day mankind its education-based, religious- dogmatic principles-- or, practically speaking, ethical-moral principles-- by abolishing this religious education, but without replacing it by an equivalent, and the result will be a grave shock to the foundations of their existence." -- Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
	Hitler wrote of the importance of a definite and uniformly accepted ''Weltanschauung'' (world view), and noted that the diminished position of religion in Europe had led to a decline in necessary certainties - "yet this human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of religious belief." The various substitutes hitherto offered could not "usefully replace the existing denominations."<ref name="Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf"></ref>

			c) The Nazi regime began to control schools insisting that Christianity was taught.
	{{quotation\|The political leader should not estimate the worth of a religion by taking some of its shortcomings into account, but he should ask himself whether there be any practical substitute in a view which is demonstrably better. Until such a substitute be available, only fools and criminals would think of abolishing existing religion.\|Adolf Hitler, '']''}}

			d) The Nazi regime included anti-Semitic Christian writings in textbooks and they were not removed from Christian doctrines until 1961.
	Examining how to establish a new order, Hitler argued that the greatness of powerful organizations was reliant on intolerance of all others, so that the greatness of Christianity arose from the "unrelenting and fanatical proclamation and defence of its own teaching." Hitler rejected a view that Christianity brought civilization to the Germanic peoples, however: "It is therefore outrageously unjust to speak of the pre-Christian Germans as barbarians who had no civilization. They never have been such." Foreshadowing his conflict with the Catholic Church over ], Hitler wrote that the churches should give up missionary work in Africa, and concentrate on convincing Europeans that is more pleasing to God if they adopt orphans rather than "give life to a sickly child that will be a cause of suffering and unhappiness to all."<ref name="Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf"/> The Christian churches should forget about their own differences and focus on the issue of "racial contamination," he declared.<ref name="Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf"/>

			e) The Nazi regime having full blown power over the people began to forcibly convert all its military.
	{{quotation\|The two Christian denominations look on with indifference at the profanation and destruction of a noble and unique creature who was given to the world as a gift of God's grace. For the future of the world, however, it does not matter which of the two triumphs over the other, the Catholic or the Protestant. But it does matter whether Aryan humanity survives or perishes.\|Adolf Hitler, ''Mein Kampf''}}

			Nazi Belt Bucklef) The Nazi regime forced the German soldiers to wear religious symbols such as the swastika and they placed religious sayings on military gear. An example here is this German army belt buckle (I believe my Opa had one) which reads "Gott Mit Uns". For those of you who do not speak German it is translated as "God With Us".
	When he arrived in ] as a young man, Hitler recalled, he was not yet anti-Semitic: "In the Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he had a different faith."<ref>Hitler, Adolf (1999) ''Mein Kampf''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Mariner Books, p. 52.</ref> He thought that anti-Semitism based on religious, rather than racial grounds, was a mistake: "The anti-Semitism of the Christian-Socialists was based on religious instead of racial principles. The reason for this mistake gave rise to the second error also... this shilly-shally way of dealing with the problem the anti-Semitism of the Christian-Socialists turned out to be quite
	ineffective.<ref></ref>

			g) The German troops were often forced to get sprinkled with holy water and listen to a sermon by a Catholic priest before going out on a maneuver.
	In ''Mein Kampf'', ] saw "no indication of being an atheist or agnostic or of believing in only a remote, rationalist divinity, writing that Hitler referred continually to a providential, active deity."<ref name="Gall">Richard Steigmann-Gall. (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, </ref><blockquote>"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."<ref>Hitler, Adolf (1999) ''Mein Kampf''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Mariner Books, p. 65.</ref></blockquote>

			h) The Nazis created a secret service called the "SS Reich" that would act as spies on the dealings of other citizens. If anyone was suspected of heresy (Going not only against the Socialist party but CHURCH DOCTRINE) they would be prosecuted.
	<blockquote>"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 to 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." <ref>Ralph Manheim, ed. (1998). Mein Kampf. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-95105-4, p.307</ref></blockquote>

	In an attempt to justify Nazi aggression, Hitler drew a parallel between ] and Christianity's rise to power as the ]'s official ]:

	<blockquote>"The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world, but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror only by terror. Only then can a new state of affairs be constructively created. Political parties are inclined to compromises; philosophies never. Political parties even reckon with opponents; philosophies proclaim their infallibility."<ref>Hitler, Adolf (1969). ''Mein Kampf''. McLeod, MN: Hutchinson, p. 562.</ref></blockquote>

			Quotes from Hitler:
	Elsewhere in ''Mein Kampf,'' Hitler speaks of the "creator of the universe" and "eternal Providence." 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:

			Hitler's speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of their faith So they try to pin him on other theistic views. The following words from Hitler show his disdain for atheism, and pagan cults, and reveal the strength of his Christian feelings:
	<blockquote>"The völkisch-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."<ref>Hitler, Adolf (1999). . Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Mariner Books, p. 562.</ref></blockquote>

			"National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a 'volkic' political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship... We will not allow mystically- minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord. . . Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men." -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938.
	In Mein Kampf, Hitler saw Jesus as against the Jews rather than one of them: "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." <ref>Ralph Manheim, ed. (1998). Mein Kampf. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-95105-4, p.174</ref>

			"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933
	===Hitler to confidants===

			Here Hitler uses the Bible and his Christianity in order to attack the Jews and uphold his anti-Semitism:
	Hitler's intimates, such as ], ] and ], recorded that Hitler was deeply hostile to Christianity. Ian Kershaw wrote that, while Hitler would occasionally tell his inner circle that he wanted to delay the "]" out of political considerations, his inflammatory remarks gave his underlings license to intensify it.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler: a Biography''; Norton; 2008 ed; pp. 295–297</ref> In 1945, his sister ] was recorded as having stated "...I don't believe he ever left the church. I don't know for sure."<ref>{{Wayback \|date=20070101075206 \|url=http://www.usd230.k12.ks.us/PICTT/eisenhower/PaulaWolff/3.html \|title=Interrogation of Paul Wolff (Paula Hitler)}}</ref>

			"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 for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, 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 my self 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." --Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
	; Speer on Hitler and religion

			"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 (It is quite obvious here that Hitler is referring to destructing the Judaism alters on which Christianity was founded.)
	In his memoirs, Hitler's chief architect, ], wrote "Amid his political associates in Berlin, Hitler made harsh pronouncements against the church...", yet "he conceived of the church as an instrument that could be useful to him":<ref name="pp 95–96">'']''. New York: Simon and Schuster, </ref>

			"The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (The idea of the devil and the Jew came out of medieval anti-Jewish beliefs based on interpretations from the Bible. Martin Luther, and teachers after him, continued this "tradition" up until the 20th century.)
	{{quotation\|Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Goebbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his ].\|Extract from '']'', the memoir of ]}}

			"With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (It is common in war for one race to rape another so that they can "defile" the race and assimilate their own. Hitler speaks about this very tactic here.)
	The ] also remark on this policy. Goebbels wrote on 29 April 1941 that though Hitler was "a fierce opponent" of the Vatican and Christianity, "he forbids me to leave the church. For tactical reasons."<ref name="Fred Taylor Translation p.340">Fred Taylor Translation; The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4; p.340</ref>

			"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)
	According to Speer, Hitler's private secretary, ], relished recording any harsh pronouncements against the church: "there was hardly anything he wrote down more eagerly than deprecating comments on the church".<ref>Speer, Albert (1971). ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4.</ref> Speer wrote that Bormann was the driving force behind the regime's campaign against the churches. Hitler approved of Bormann's aims, but was more pragmatic and wanted to "postpone this problem to a more favourable time":<ref>Albert Speer; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; Macmillan; New York; 1970; p.123</ref>

			". . .the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (See Genesis Chapter 3 where humankind is cast from Eden for their sins. Hitler compares this to the need to exterminate the Jews for their sin against Christ.)
	{{quotation\|"Once I have settled my other problem," occasionally declared, "I'll have my reckoning with the church. I'll have it reeling on the ropes." But Bormann did not want this reckoning postponed he would take out a document from his pocket and begin reading passages from a defiant sermon or pastoral letter. Frequently Hitler would become so worked up... and vowed to punish the offending clergyman eventually... That he could not immediately retaliate raised him to a white heat...\|Extract from ''Inside the Third Reich'', the memoir of Albert Speer}}

			"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." --Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
	Hitler, wrote Speer, viewed Christianity as the wrong religion for the "Germanic temperament":<ref name="pp 95–96"/> Speer wrote that Hitler would say: "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have ] of the ], who regard sacrifice for the fatherland as the highest good? The ] too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"<ref>Speer, Albert (1971). ''Inside the Third Reich''. Trans. Richard Winston, Clara Winston, Eugene Davidson. New York: Macmillan, p. 143; Reprinted in 1997. ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4.</ref> Speer also wrote of observing in Hitler "quite a few examples", and that he held a negative view toward Himmler and Rosenberg's mystical notions.<ref name="p. 94">]: Memoirs of ]; New York: Simon and Schuster, </ref><ref>Albert Speer; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; McMillan Publishing Company; New York; 1970; p.49</ref>

			"The anti-Semitism of the new movement was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge." --Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (This quote is very interesting for it disperses the idea that Hitler raged war due to being an Aryan supremacist. He states quite clearly that he has a problem with Jews for their belief not race. That is why many German Jews died in WW2 regardless of their Aryan nationality.)
	; Bormann and Hitler's Table Talk

			"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 (Here Hitler is admitting that his war against the Jews were so successful because of his strong Christian Spirituality.)
	Extensive transcripts on Hitler's thoughts on religion are contained within '']''. Between 1941 and 1944, Hitler's words were recorded in these transcripts.<ref>; ''Hitler, Adolf: Additional Reading - Writings and speeches; web May 2013.</ref> The transcripts concern not only Hitler's views on war and foreign affairs, but also his characteristic attitudes on religion, culture, philosophy, personal aspirations, and his feelings towards his enemies and friends.<ref>Trevor-Roper, H.R. (1953). Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944. Trans. Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 2nd ed. 1972; 3rd ed. 2000.</ref> Within the transcripts, Hitler speaks of Christianity as "absurdity" and "humbug" founded on "lies" with which he could "never come personally to terms."<ref>] 1941–1944, Cameron & Stevens, Enigma Books pp. 59, 342, 343</ref>

			Quotes from Other Nazis about Hitler and Religion:
	Michael Burleigh contrasted Hitler's public pronouncements on Christianity with those in ''Table Talk'', suggesting that Hitler's real religious views were "a mixture of materialist biology, a faux-Nietzschean contempt for core, as distinct from secondary, Christian values, and a visceral anti-clericalism."<ref>{{cite book\|last=Burleigh\|first=Michael\|title=The Third Reich - A New History\|year=2001\|publisher=Pan Books\|location=London\|isbn=978-0-330-48757-3\|pages=716–717}}</ref> Richard Evans also reiterated the view that Nazism was secular, scientific and anti-religious in outlook in the last volume of his trilogy on Nazi Germany: "Hitler's hostility to Christianity reached new heights, or depths, during the war;" his source for this was the 1953 English translation of ''Table Talk''.<ref name="Evans 2008 547–8">{{cite book\|last=Evans\|first=Richard J.\|title=The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis led Germany from conquest to disaster\|year=2008\|publisher=Penguin\|location=London\|isbn=978-0-14-101548-4\|pages=547–8}}</ref>

			"Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Gobbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)"
	The widespread consensus among historians is that the views expressed in ]'s translation of ''Table Talk'', are credible and reliable, although as with all historical sources, a high level of critical awareness about its origins and purpose are advisable in using it.<ref>{{cite book\|last=Kershaw\|first=Ian\|title=Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris\|year=2001\|publisher=Penguin\|location=London\|isbn=978-0-14-013363-9\|pages=xiv}}</ref> The remarks from ''Table Talk'' accepted as genuine include such quotes as "Christianity is the prototype of Bolshevism: the mobillization by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society."<ref>{{cite book\|last=Evans\|first=Richard J.\|title=The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis led Germany from conquest to disaster\|year=2008\|publisher=Penguin\|location=London\|isbn=978-0-14-101548-4\|pages=547 (546–9)}}</ref> Alan Bullock's seminal biography '']'' quotes Hitler as saying, "Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure"; found also in ''Table Talk'',<ref></ref> and repeats other views appearing in Table Talk such as: the teachings of Christianity are a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and survival of the fittest.<ref name="Hitler p.216 & 219">See Alan Bullock; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p219 & ]'']; Enigma Books; p. 51</ref>

	In the transcripts, Hitler spoke of the myths of religion crumbling before scientific advances:<ref>Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944, Cameron & Stevens, Enigma Books pp. 59–61</ref>

	{{quotation\|The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that's left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.\|Adolf Hitler, from ] (1941–1944)}}

	In ''Table Talk'', Hitler praised ]'s '']'', an anti-Christian tract from ] 362, in the entry dated 21 October 1941, stating:<ref>Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ed. (2000). ''Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944''. Trans. Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens. New York: Engima Books, p. 76.</ref>

	{{quotation\|When one thinks of the opinions held concerning Christianity by our best minds a hundred, two hundred years ago, one is ashamed to realise how little we have since evolved. I didn't know that Julian the Apostate had passed judgment with such clear-sightedness on Christianity and Christians. ... Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called the Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry.... and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore—of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galilean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him. Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely.\|Adolf Hitler, per transcript appearing in '']''}}

	; Goebbels on Hitler and religion

	According to the ], Hitler hated Christianity. In an 8 April 1941 entry, Goebbels wrote "He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity." Hitler, wrote Goebbels, saw the pre-Christian Augustinian Age as the high point of history, and could not relate to the Gothic mind nor to "brooding mysticism".<ref name="Fred Taylor Translation pp. 304–305"/> In another entry, Goebbels wrote that Hitler was "deeply religious but entirely anti-Christian."<ref>Bonney, Richard (2009). ''Confronting the Nazi war on Christianity: the Kulturkampf newsletters, 1936–1939'' Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Pub., </ref><ref>Lang, Peter (2009). ''Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography''. New York: Anchor Books, p. 703.</ref> Goebbels wrote on 29 December 1939:<ref>Fred Taylor Translation; The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4; p.77</ref>

	{{quotation\|The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race. This can be seen in the similarity of their religious rites. Both (Judaism and Christianity) have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end they will be destroyed. The Fuhrer is a convinced vegetarian on principle.\|], 29 December 1939}}

	In his diary Goebbels reported that Hitler believed Jesus "also wanted to act against the Jewish world domination. Jewry had him crucified. But ] falsified his doctrine and undermined ancient Rome."<ref>Friedländer, Saul (2009). ''Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933–1945''. New York: HarperCollins, </ref> Goebbels notes in a diary entry in 1939 a conversation in which Hitler had "expressed his revulsion against Christianity. He wished that the time were ripe for him to be able to openly express that. Christianity had corrupted and infected the entire world of antiquity."<ref>Elke Frölich. 1997–2008. ''Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels''. Munich: K. G. Sauer. Teil I, v. 6, p. 272.</ref>

	In 1937, Goebbels noted Hitler's approval of anti-Christian propaganda and the show trials of clergy. Hitler's impatience with the churches, wrote Kershaw, "prompted frequent outbursts of hostility. In early 1937 he was declaring that 'Christianity was ripe for destruction', and that the Churches must yield to the "primacy of the state", railing against any compromise with "the most horrible institution imaginable".<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; W. W. Notron & Co; 2008 Edn; pp. 295–297</ref> In his entry for 29 April 1941, Goebbels noted long discussions about the Vatican and Christianity, and wrote: "The Fuhrer is a fierce opponent of all that humbug".<ref name="Fred Taylor Translation p.340"/>

	===Religion in Hitler's rhetoric===

	Hitler typically tailored his message to his audience's perceived sensibilities.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p. 373"/><ref name="Court2008">{{cite book\|author=Anthony Court\|title=Hannah Arendt's Response to the Crisis of Her Times\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=s8VaZd5KjwsC&pg=PA97\|accessdate=2013-04-22\|year=2008\|publisher=Rozenberg Publishers\|isbn=978-90-361-0100-4\|pages=97–}}</ref> In the early 1930s, Hitler's public comments on Christianity were moderate.<ref>William L. Shirer; ]; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960</ref> In public speeches, he often made statements that affirmed a belief in Christianity.<ref name="Speeches">Baynes, Norman H., ed. (1969). ''The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939''. New York: Howard Fertig. pp. 19–20, 37, 240, 370, 371, 375, 378, 382, 383, 385–388, 390–392, 398–399, 402, 405–407, 410, 1018, 1544, 1594.</ref> According to ], Hitler had fully discarded belief in the Judeo-Christian conception of God by 1937, but continued to use the word "God" in speeches - but it was not the God "who has been worshiped for millennia", but a new and peculiarly German "god" who "let iron grow". Thus Hitler told the British journalist Ward Price in 1937: "I believe in God, and I am convinced that He will not desert 67 million Germans who have worked so hard to regain their rightful position in the world."<ref>Max Domarus (2007). ''The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary''. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, </ref>

	According to Bullock, Hitler had a materialist outlook, that believed science had already discredited Christianity and would ultimately destroy all myths - but he continued to speak of "Providence" to support his own myth:

	{{quotation\|Hitler's own myth had to be protected, and this led him, like Napoleon, to speak frequently of Providence, as a necessary if unconscious projection of his sense of destiny which provided him with both justification and absolution. 'The Russians', he remarked on one occasion 'were entitled to attack their priests, but they had no right to assail the idea of a supreme force. It's a fact that we're feeble creatures and that a creative force exists'".\|Excerpt from '']'' by Alan Bullock}}

	Historian ] wrote, "Hitler knew, through the constant ] of the ''God the Lord'' ({{lang-de\|Herrgott}}) or of ''providence'' (German: ''Vorsehung''), to make the impression of a godly way of thought."<ref>"Hitler wusste selber durch die ständige Anrufung des Herrgotts oder der Vorsehung den Eindruck gottesfürchtiger Denkart zu machen." J.C. Fest. ''Hitler''. (German edition), p. 581.</ref> He had an "ability to simulate, even to potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity " wrote Kershaw, which served to deflect direct criticism of him from Church leaders, who instead focused their condemnations on the known "anti-Christian party radicals".<ref>{{Harvnb\|Kershaw\|1987\|p=109}}<blockquote><cite>"Hitler's evident ability to simulate, even to potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity was crucial to the mediation of such an image to the church-going public by influential members of both major denominations. It was the reason why church-going Christians, so often encouraged by their 'opinion-leaders' in the Church hierarchies, were frequently able to exclude Hitler from their condemnation of the anti-Christian Party radicals, continuing to see in him the last hope of protecting Christianity from Bolshevism."</cite></blockquote></ref>

	In public statements, especially at the beginning of his rule, Hitler frequently spoke positively about a Nazi vision of ] German culture,<ref name="Speeches"/> and his belief in an ] ].<ref>Heschel, Susannah (2008). ''The Aryan Jesus: Christian theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, </ref> In 1922, a decade before his ], Hitler stated before a crowd in ]:

	{{quotation\|My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only 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."<ref>Speech delivered at Munich 12 April 1922; from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1942). ''The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939''. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 19.</ref>}}

	Key voting blocs which Hitler needed to persuade to drop their opposition to a Nazi Government were the ] and German conservatives. He pursued their votes with a mix of intimidation, negotiation and conciliation.<ref>Alan Bullock; Hitler: A Study in Tyranny; Harper Perennial 1991; ch ''The Months of Opportunity''</ref> In a proclamation to the ] February 1, 1933, Hitler stated, "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."<ref>Adolf Hitler. (1941). ''My New Order''. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 144.</ref>

	On 23 March 1933, just prior to the crucial Reichstag vote for the ] which effectively dissolved Parliamentary government in Germany, Hitler described the Christian faiths as "essential elements for safeguarding the soul of the German people" and "We hold the spiritual forces of Christianity to be indispensable elements in the moral uplift of most of the German people."<ref name="William L. Shirer p234"/><ref>Dennis Barton. (2006). ''''. www.churchinhistory.org.</ref> "With an eye to the votes of the Catholic Center Party", wrote Shirer, he added that he hoped to improve relations with the Holy See.<ref name="William L. Shirer p234"/> He promised that the passing of the Enabling Act would not threaten the Reichstag, the President, the States or the Churches. Hitler secured passage of the Act, but did not honour these promises.<ref>Alan Bullock; Hitler: A Study in Tyranny; Harper Perennial 1991; ch ''Revolution After Power''</ref>

	According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler's references to Jesus, God as the "Lord of Creation" and the necessity of obeying "His will" reveals that Christianity was fused into his thinking. "What Christianity achieves is not dogma, it does not seek the outward ecclesiastical form, but rather ethical principles.... There is no religion and no philosophy that equals it in its moral content; no philosophical ethics is better able to defuse the tension between this life and the hereafter, from which Christianity and its ethic were born," Hitler stated.<ref>Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, </ref>

	The ] machinery of the Nazi party actively promoted Hitler as a saviour of Christianity,<ref name="The 'Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich">{{cite book\|title=The 'Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=W4sUi6omc3cC&pg=PA50\|accessdate=2013-04-22\|year=1987\|publisher=Oxford University Press\|isbn=978-0-19-280206-4\|pages=50–}}</ref> and Nazi propaganda supported the '']'' in their formation of a single national church that could be controlled and manipulated.<ref name="Kershaw2000">{{cite book\|author=Ian Kershaw\|title=Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=nV-N10gyoFwC&pg=PA489\|accessdate=2013-04-22\|year=2000\|publisher=W W Norton & Company Incorporated\|isbn=978-0-393-32035-0\|pages=489–}}</ref>

	During negotiations relating to the ] with the Catholic Church and the Nazis state in 1933, Hitler said to Bishop Wilhelm Berning: "I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognised the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognised. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognise the representatives of this race as pestilant for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions".<ref>Nazi Germany & the Jews: The Years of Persecution 1933–39, ], p.47, Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1997, ISBN 978-0-297-81882-3</ref>

	John Cornwell quotes Hitler as saying in 1933: "The fact that the Vatican is concluding a ] with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie."
	Letter to the Nazi Party, 22 July 1933; John Cornwell (2008). ''Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII''. New York: Penguin,

	{{quotation\|If positive Christianity means love of one's neighbour, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of National Socialist Germany has accomplished a prodigious work\|Speech to the Old Guard at Munich 24 February 1939<ref>from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 402.</ref>}}

	Author ] has quoted Hitler as stating, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."<ref>Heiden, Konrad (1935). ''A History of National Socialism''. A.A. Knopf, </ref>

	According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler never directed his attacks on ] himself,<ref>{{Harvnb\|Steigmann-Gall\|2003\|p=255}}</ref> whom Hitler regarded as an ] opponent of the ].<ref>{{Harvnb\|Steigmann-Gall\|2003\|pp=257–260}}</ref> Hitler viewed traditional Christianity as a corruption of the original ideas of Jesus by the ].<ref>Trevor-Roper, Hugh (2007) ''Hitler's table talk, 1941–1944''. New York: Enigma Books, p. 76.</ref> In ''Mein Kampf'' Hitler had written that Jesus "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."<ref>Hitler, Adolf (1998). ''Mein Kampf''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 307.</ref> In a speech 26 June 1934, Hitler stated:

	<blockquote><cite>The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavour to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (''Lehren''), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.<ref>Baynes, Norman H. ed. (1969). ''The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939''. Vol. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 385.</ref></cite></blockquote>

	Former ] of ], Count ] stated in a speech before the ], that his beliefs "as a man and a Christian" prevented him from being an anti-Semite or from pursuing anti-Semitic public policies. Hitler while speaking the ] turned Lerchenfeld's perspective of Jesus on its head:

	<blockquote><cite>I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling 'as a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I say: 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 only 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. .. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.<ref>Speech 12 April 1922; {{Harvnb\|Baynes\|1942\|pp=19–20}}</ref></cite></blockquote>

	===Hitler and atheism===

	Adolf Hitler was skeptical of all religious belief.<ref name="The Third Reich p.99"/> ] saw Hitler as a "materialist", not only in his "dismissal of religion" but also in his "insensitivity to humanity".<ref name="Stalin pp.413"/> Hitler's materialist outlook, wrote Bullock, was "based on the nineteenth century rationalists' certainty that the progress of science would destroy all myths and had already proved Christian doctrine to be an absurdity".<ref name="Stalin pp.412"/> ] wrote that "Hitler emphasised again and again his belief that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on modern science. Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition 'In the long run', concluded, 'National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together'".<ref name="Richard J 2009, p. 547"/>

	Samuel Koehne of ] wrote in 2010: "Was Hitler an atheist? Probably not. But it remains very difficult to ascertain his personal religious beliefs, and the debate rages on." While Hitler was emphatically not "Christian" by the traditional or orthodox notion of the term, wrote Koehne, he did speak of a deity whose work was nature and natural laws, "conflating God and nature to the extent that they became one and the same thing..." and that "For this reason, some recent works have argued Hitler was a Deist".<ref>; Samuel Koehne; ABC Religion and Ethics; 18 Apr 2012</ref>

	During his career, and for a variety of reasons, Hitler made various comments against "atheistic" movements. He associated atheism with ], ], and Jewish materialism.<ref name="The Speeches of Adolf Hitler">Norman H. Baynes, ed., '''', April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, pp. 240, 378, 386.</ref> In 1933, the regime banned most atheistic and ] groups in Germany - other than those that supported the Nazis.<ref name="may">{{cite book \|last= Bock\| first= Heike \| chapter= Secularization of the modern conduct of life? Reflections on the religiousness of early modern Europe\| editor=Hanne May \|title=Religiosität in der säkularisierten Welt \|publisher=VS Verlag fnr Sozialw \|year=2006 \|page= 157\|isbn=3-8100-4039-8 \|oclc= \|url= http://books.google.com/?id=nfQ0pqA53Z8C&pg=PA157}}</ref><ref name=kaiser>{{cite book\|last=Kaiser\|first=Jochen-Christoph\|title=Atheismus und religiöse Indifferenz\|editor=Christel Gärtner\|publisher=VS Verlag\|year=2003\|volume=Organisierter Atheismus\|pages= 122, 124–6\|isbn=978-3-8100-3639-1\|url=http://books.google.com/?id=YXOr4xQFSJsC&pg=PA124}}</ref>

	In '']'', the historian ] wrote that Hitler and his Fascist ally Mussolini were atheists, but that Hitler courted and benefited from fear among German Christians of militant Communist atheism.<ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6">]; '']''; Viking; 2011; pp. 495–6</ref> "The aggressive spread of atheism in the Soviet Union alarmed many German Christians", wrote Blainey, and with the National Socialists becoming the main opponent of Communism in Germany: " himself saw Christianity as a temporary ally, for in his opinion 'one is either a Christian or a German'. To be both was impossible. Nazism itself was a religion, a pagan religion, and Hitler was its high priest... Its high altar Germany itself and the German people, their soil and forests and language and traditions".<ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6">]; '']''; Viking; 2011; pp. 495–6</ref>

	Through 1933 and into 1934, Hitler required a level of support from groups like the German conservatives and the ] in the Reichstag, and of the conservative ], in order to achieve his takeover of power with the "appearance of legality".<ref>Alan Bullock; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991</ref> During this period, he gave a number of undertakings not to threaten the German churches. On 21 March 1933, the Reichstag assembled in the Potsdam Garrison Church, to show the "unity" of National Socialism with the old conservative Germany of President von Hindenburg. Two days later, the Nazis secured passage of the ], granting Hitler dictatorial powers. Less than three months later all non-Nazi parties and organizations, including the Catholic Centre Party had ceased to exist.<ref></ref>

	In early 1933, Hitler publicly defended National Socialism against charges that it was anti-Christian. He stated in a speech to the people of Stuttgart on February 15, 1933: "Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany's fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years."<ref name="books.google.com">Norman H. Baynes, ed., '''', April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 240.</ref> Responding to accusations by ], the Catholic Centre Party ] of Württemberg, that the National Socialist movement threatened the Christian faith, he said:

	{{quotation\|And now Staatspräsident ] says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these fourteen years when a ], theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government.\|],''Speech delivered at Stuttgart 15 February 1933" <ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1969 p. 240">from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 240</ref>}}

	Hitler's speech referred to the political alliances of the Catholic aligned Centre Party with parties of the Left, which he associated with Bolshevism, and thus, atheism. Eugen Bolz was forced from office soon after the Nazis took power, and imprisoned for a time. Later he was executed by the Nazi regime.

	During negotiations leading to the ] with the Vatican, Hitler said that "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."<ref name="The German Churches Under Hitler">Ernst Helmreich, ''''. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1979, p. 241.</ref> However, as Hitler consolidated his power, schools became a major battleground in the Nazi ]. In 1937, the Nazis banned any member of the Hitler Youth from simultaneously belonging to a religious youth movement. Religious education was not permitted in the Hitler Youth and by 1939, clergymen teachers had been removed from virtually all state schools.<ref>]; ''The Third Reich, A Chronicle''; Quercus; 2010; p.157</ref> Hitler sometimes allowed pressure to be placed on German parents to remove children from religious classes to be given ideological instruction in its place, while in elite Nazi schools, Christian prayers were replaced with Teutonic rituals and sun-worship.<ref name="britannica.com"> web 20 Apr 2013</ref> By 1939 all Catholic denominational schools had been disbanded or converted to public facilities.<ref>Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3; pp. 245–246</ref>

	In a radio address October 14, 1933 Hitler stated, "For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."<ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1939. pp. 369–370">Norman H. Baynes, ed., '''', April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, pp. 369–370.</ref>

	In a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933, Hitler stated: "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the ], and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."<ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1939. p. 378">Norman H. Baynes, ed., '''', April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 378.</ref> In a speech delivered at Koblenz, August 26, 1934 Hitler said: "There may have been a time when even parties founded on the ecclesiastical basis were a necessity. At that time Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity. The Church's interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles."<ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1939. p. 386">Norman H. Baynes, ed., '''', April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942, p. 386.</ref>

	According to Kershaw, Hitler could "pull the wool over the eyes of even hardened critics", thus, following a meeting with Hitler, Cardinal ], a man who had "courageously criticized the Nazi attacks on the Catholic Church - went away convinced that Hitler was deeply religious".<ref name="Ian Kershaw p. 373"/> In November 1936 the Roman Catholic prelate met Hitler at Berghof for a three-hour meeting. He left the meeting convinced of Hitler's religiosity and wrote "The Reich Chancellor undoubtedly lives in belief in God. He recognises Christianity as the builder of Western culture".<ref>Hitler, Ian Kershaw, p. 373, 2008, Penguin, ISBN 978-0-14-103588-8</ref> Kershaw wrote this demonstrated Hitler's "evident ability to simulate, even to potentially critical church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity".<ref name="Kershaw109">Kershaw, Ian (2001). ''The "Hitler Myth": Image and reality in the Third Reich''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, </ref> Nazi General ] also wrote that Hitler was a believer, having written in his diary that in 1941 that Hitler had stated: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."<ref name="Toland">], ''Adolf Hitler''. New York: Anchor Publishing, 1992, p. 507.</ref><ref name="MRobert">Michael, Robert (2008). ''A history of Catholic antisemitism''. New York: Macmillan, </ref>

	In '']'', Bullock wrote that Hitler, like ] before him, frequently employed the language of "Providence" in order to defend his own myth and sense of destiny.<ref name="Stalin pp.412"/> In ''Hitler: A Study in Tyranny'', Bullock wrote that Hitler's belief in himself had an echo of ]'s thoughts on heroes standing above conventional morality and the role of "world-historical individuals" as the agents by which the "Will of the World Spirit", the plan of Providence is carried out. Hitler, wrote Bullock, came to see himself as "a man with a mission, marked out by Providence, and therefore exempt from the ordinary canons of human conduct". Bullock concluded: "It is in this sense of mission that Hitler, a man who believed neither in God nor in conscience ('a Jewish invention, a blemish like circumcision') found both justification and absolution". Following his early military successes, Hitler "abandoned himself entirely to megalomania" and the "sin of '']''", an exaggerated self-pride, believing himself to be more than a man.<ref name="Hitler p216">]; '']''; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; pp 215 6"</ref>

	Transcripts contained in ] have Hitler expressing faith that science would wear away religion. On 14 October 1941, in an entry concerning the fate of Christianity, Hitler is reported to have said: "Science cannot lie, for it's always striving, according to the momentary state of knowledge, to deduce what is true. When it makes a mistake, it does so in good faith. It's Christianity that's the liar. It's in perpetual conflict with itself." The transcript continues: "The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death... The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble."<ref>http://www.archive.org/stream/HitlersTableTalk/HitlersTableTalk_djvu.txt</ref>

	Nevertheless, wrote Evans, by 1939, 95% of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic, while 3.5% 'Deist' (''gottglaubig'') and 1.5% atheist. Most in these latter categories were "convinced Nazis who had left their Church at the behest of the Party, which had been trying since the mid 1930s to reduce the influence of Christianity in society".<ref>]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 546</ref> Another alternative was the ''Gottgläubig''" (lit. "believers in god") position. This was non-denominational and nazified, often described as predominately based on creationist and deistic views<ref name="books.google.de"/>)], who himself was fascinated with ]{{citation needed\|date=May 2014}}, was a strong promoter of the '']'' movement and didn't allow atheists into the ], arguing that their "refusal to acknowledge higher powers" would be a "potential source of indiscipline".<ref></ref> This was coupled with a strong antipathy to Christianity among SS officers 'that far exceeded traditional anti-clericalism,' with priests portrayed as 'befrocked homosexuals', and deliberate elision between Christianity, Judaism and Communism.<ref name="ZpnL5QUC p. 196"></ref> Instead, they were encouraged to see Hitler as a Messianic figure and to adopt the religious aura that surrounded him for themselves as well.<ref name="ZpnL5QUC p. 196"/>

	However, John Conway notes that the majority of the three million Nazi Party members continued to pay their church taxes and register as either ] or ] Christians, "despite all Rosenberg's efforts."<ref name="Churches p. 232"/>

	==Religion under Hitler==
	{{See also\|Kirchenkampf\|The Holocaust\|Catholic Church and Nazi Germany\|Confessing Church\|}}

	] (pictured) to be Reich Bishop of the ], which sought to subordinate German Protestantism to the Nazi Government.<ref name="ReferenceC">; web 25 Apr 2013</ref>]]

	===Role of religion in the Nazi state===
	{{Main\|Religion in Nazi Germany}}

	Hitler emphasised that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on modern science.<ref name="Richard J 2009, p. 547"/> In a diary entry of 28 December 1939, ] wrote that "the Fuhrer passionately rejects any thought of founding a religion. He has no intention of becoming a priest. His sole exclusive role is that of a politician."<ref name="Fred Taylor Translation p.76">Fred Taylor Translation; ''The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4; p.76</ref> In Hitler's political relations dealing with religion he readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes."<ref>Conway, John S. (1968). ''The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933–45''. p. 3, ISBN 978-0-297-76315-4</ref>

	According to Marshall Dill, one of the greatest challenges the Nazi state faced in its effort to "eradicate Christianity in Germany or at least subjugate it to their general world outlook" was that the Nazis could not justifiably connect German faith communities to the corruption of the old regime, ] having no close connection to the churches.<ref name="Dill">Dill, Marshall (1970). ''Germany: A Modern History''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, </ref> Because of the long history of Christianity in Germany, Hitler could not attack Christianity as openly as he did Judaism, Communism or other political opponents.<ref name="Dill" /> The list of Nazi affronts to and attacks on the Catholic Church is long.<ref name="Dill369">Dill, Marshall (1970). ''Germany: A Modern History''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, </ref> The attacks tended not to be overt, but were still dangerous; believers were made to feel that they were not good Germans and their leaders were painted as treasonous and contemptible.<ref name="Dill369" /> The state removed crucifixes from the walls of Catholic classrooms and replaced it with a photo of the Führer.<ref name="Dill363">Dill, Marshall (1970). ''Germany: A Modern History''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, </ref>

	Hitler issued a statement{{when\|date=October 2013}} saying that he wished to avoid factional disputes in Germany's churches.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Zipfel\|1965\|p=226}}</ref> He feared the political power that the churches had, and did not want to openly antagonize that political base until he had securely gained control of the country. Once in power Hitler showed his contempt for "non-Aryan" religion and sought to eliminate it from areas under his rule.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Miner\|2003\|p=54}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb\|Thomsett\|1997\|pp=54–55}}</ref> Within Hitler's ], some ] were quite vocal, especially ].<ref>Overy, R. J. 2004. The dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. </ref> According to Goebbels Hitler hated Christianity.<ref>"He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity" - from ''The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41, see entry for 8 April 1941</ref> In 1939, Goebbels wrote that the Fuhrer knew that he would "have to get around to a conflict between church and state" but that in the meantime "The best way to deal with the churches is to claim to be a 'positive Christian'"."<ref name="Fred Taylor Translation p.76"/>

	Hitler often used religious speech and symbolism to promote Nazism to those that he feared would be disposed to act against him.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Davies\|1996\|p=975}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb\|Sage\|2006\|pp=154–60}}</ref> He also called upon religion as a pretext in diplomacies. The ] feared that if they commenced a programme of persecution against religion in the western regions, Hitler would use that as a pretext for war.<ref>{{Harvnb\|De George\|Scanlan\|1975\|pp=116–117}}</ref>

	In his childhood, Hitler had 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 ] forms into events or using phraseology taken from hymns.<ref>Rissmann, Michael (2001). ''Hitlers Gott''. Zurich, p. 96.</ref> Because of these liturgical elements, Daim's claim of Hitler's Messiah-like status and the ideology's totalitarian nature, the Nazi movement, like other ] movements and ], is sometimes termed a "]" that is anti-ecclesiastical and anti-religious.<ref>Voegelin, Eric (1986). ''Political Religions''. New York: Edward Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-88946-767-5. Discussion at Rissmann, pp. 191–197.</ref><ref name="MaierSchäfer2007">{{cite book\|author1=Hans Maier\|author2=Michael Schäfer\|title=Totalitarianism and Political Religions, Volume II: Concepts for the Comparison Of Dictatorships\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gXP81OTCulsC&pg=PA3\|accessdate=2013-05-29\|date=24 December 2007\|publisher=Taylor & Francis\|isbn=978-0-203-93542-2\|pages=3–}}</ref> However, ] cautions that the circumstances of past fascism does not mean that future fascisms can not "build upon a religion in place of a nation, or as the expression of national identity. Even in Europe, religion-based fascisms were not unknown: the ], Belgian ], the Finnish ], and the Romanian ] are all good examples".<ref>Robert O. Paxton. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York, New York, US; Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Random House, Inc., 2005</ref>

	In 1920, the aspiring revolutionary, Adolf Hitler, included use of the term "]" in the 1920 ]. Non-denominational, the term could be variously interpreted, but allayed fears among Germany's Christian majority as to the oft expressed anti-Christian convictions of large sections of the Nazi movement.<ref name="ReferenceB">Laurence Rees; ''The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler''; Ebury Press; 2012; p135.</ref> The Platform promised to support freedom of religions with the caveat: "insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the moral sentiments of the Germanic race". It further proposed a definition of a "]" which could combat the "Jewish-materialistic spirit".<ref>; ''The German Churches and the Nazi State''; web 25 Apr 2013</ref> In 1937, ], Hitler's Minister for Church Affairs, explained "Positive Christianity" as not "dependent upon the ]", nor in "faith in Christ as the son of God", upon which Christianity relied, but rather, as being represented by the ]: "The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation", he said.<ref name="William L. Shirer pp 238">William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp 238–9</ref>

	Given Hitler's personal hostility to Christianity, historians, including ] and ], characterise his acceptance of the term "Positive Christianity" and involvement in religious policy as driven by opportunism, and a pragmatic recognition of the political importance of the Christian Churches in Germany.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Nevertheless, efforts by the regime to impose a "positive Christianity" on a state controlled Protestant Reich Church essentially failed, and resulted in the formation of the dissident ] which saw great danger to Germany from the "new religion".<ref>Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; pp. 139–141</ref> The Catholic Church too denounced the creed's pagan myth of "blood and soil"" in the 1937 papal encyclical '']'' and elsewhere.

	Prior to the Reichstag vote for the ] under which Hitler gained the "temporary" dictatorial powers with which he went on to permanently dismantle the ], Hitler promised the German Parliament that he would not interfere with the rights of the churches. However, with power secured in Germany, Hitler quickly broke this promise.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; pp. 281–283</ref><ref>Alan Bullock; Hitler, a Study in Tyranny; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; pp 146–149</ref> He divided the Protestant Church and instigated a brutal ].<ref name="ReferenceA">]; ]; pp. 495–6</ref> He dishonoured a ] signed with the Vatican and permitted a persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; pp. 295</ref> ] wrote that, under the leadership of ], ] and ], backed by Hitler, the Nazis intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if they could."<ref>William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p240"</ref>

	In office, the Nazi leadership co-opted the term '']'' to mean conformity and subservience to the National Socialist German Workers' Party line: "there was to be no law but Hitler, and ultimately no god but Hitler".<ref>Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; pp. 14–15</ref> ] conflicted with traditional Christianity in various respects. Nazis criticized Christian ideals of "meekness and guilt" on the basis that they "repressed the violent instincts necessary to prevent inferior races from dominating Aryans".<ref>Encyclopedia Britannica Online - Fascism - Identification with Christianity; web 24 April 2013</ref> The Nazi-backed "positivist" or "German Christian" church sought to make the evangelical churches of Germany an instrument of Nazi policy.<ref name="Christian Church 1960 pp. 235">"Confessing Church" in ''Dictionary of the Christian Church'', F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingston, eds.; William L. Shirer, ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 235 f.</ref>

	===Persecution of the Churches===
	{{See also\|Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany}}

	In effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi security services monitored clergy very closely.<ref>Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; pp. 141–2</ref> Priests were frequently denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps.<ref>Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; pp. 142</ref> At ], the regime established a dedicated ] for church dissidents.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica: ''Dachau'', by Michael Berenbaum.</ref><ref>Paul Berben; ''Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945''; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; pp. 276–277</ref>

	] as Minister for Church Affairs in 1935. Kerrl called Hitler the "herald of a new revelation" and said that the Nazi conception of "Positive Christianity" did not depend on the ] or on belief in "Christ as the son of God".<ref name="William L. Shirer pp 238"/>]]

	Hitler possessed radical instincts in relation to the Nazi conflict with the Catholic and Protestant Churches in Germany, and though he occasionally spoke of wanting to delay the Church struggle and was prepared to restrain his anti-clericalism out of political considerations, his "own inflammatory comments gave his immediate underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat in the 'Church Struggle, confident that they were 'working towards the Führer'".<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; pp. 381–382</ref> As with the "Jewish question", the radicals pushed the Church struggle forward, especially in Catholic areas, so that by the winter of 1935–1936 there was growing dissatisfaction with the Nazis in those areas.<ref>Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889–1936: hubris, pp. 575–576, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000</ref> Kershaw wrote that in early 1937, Hitler again told his inner circle that though he "did not want a 'Church struggle" at this juncture", he expected "the great world struggle in a few years' time". Nevertheless, wrote Kershaw, Hitler's impatience with the churches "prompted frequent outbursts of hostility. In early 1937 he was declaring that 'Christianity was ripe for destruction', and that the Churches must yield to the "primacy of the state", railing against any compromise with "the most horrible institution imaginable".<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; W. W. Notron & Co; 2008 Edn; pp. 295–297</ref>

	;Catholicism

	] for clerical enemies of the Hitler regime.]]

	Hitler moved quickly to eliminate ] in Germany. Amid intimidation, the ] and ] had ceased to exist by early July. Vice Chancellor Papen meanwhile negotiated a Reich Concordat with the Vatican, which prohibited clergy from participating in politics.<ref>Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; p.290</ref> "The agreement", wrote Shirer, "was hardly put to paper before it was being broken by the Nazi Government". Almost immediately Hitler promulgated the ], and began work to dissolve the Catholic Youth League. Clergy, nuns and lay leaders began to be targeted, leading to thousands of arrests over the ensuing years, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".<ref name="William L. Shirer p234-5">William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp 234-5</ref> In Hitler's bloody ] purge of 1934, leading Catholic dissidents ] and ] of ] were murdered, as was ], the national director of the Catholic Youth Sports Association, and anti-Nazi Catholic journalist ].<ref>John S. Conway; The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945; Regent College Publishing; 2001; ISBN 1-57383-080-1 (USA); pp. 90–92</ref> Catholic publications were shut down. The Gestapo began to violate the sanctity of the confessional.<ref name="William L. Shirer p234-5"/> By early 1937, the church hierarchy in Germany, which had initially attempted to co-operate with Hitler, had become highly disillusioned and ] issued the '']'' encyclical - accusing the Hitler regime of violations of the Concordat and of sowing the tares of "open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church".<ref name="William L. Shirer p234-5"/> Goebbels noted heightened verbal attacks on the clergy from Hitler in his diary and wrote that Hitler had approved the start of trumped up "immorality trials" against clergy and anti-Church propaganda campaign. Goebbels' orchestrated attack included a staged "morality trial" of 37 Franciscans.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 381–382">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; pp. 381–382</ref>

	Hitler's invasion of predominantly Catholic Poland in 1939 ignited the ]. Kerhsaw wrote that, in Hitler's scheme for the Germanization of the East, "There would, he made clear, be no place in this utopia for the Christian Churches".<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p.661"</ref> Hitler instigated a policy of murdering or suppressing the ethnic Polish elites: including religious leaders. He proclaimed: "Poles may have only one master – a German. Two masters cannot exist side by side, and this is why all members of the Polish intelligentsia must be killed."<ref name="ushmm.org"></ref> Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps.<ref name="Craughwell">Craughwell, Thomas J., Catholic Culture, Accessed 2008-07-18</ref><ref name="Craughwell"/>

	;Protestantism

	], "Hitler's Personal Prisoner", was a leading Protestant voice against Nazism. He was incarcerated at Dachau from 1941 until liberation in 1945.]]

	According to ], Hitler considered the Protestant clergy to be "insignificant" and "submissive" and lacking in a religion to be taken seriously.<ref>Alan Bullock; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p219"</ref> The Nazi-backed "positivist" or "German Christian" church sought to make the evangelical churches of Germany an instrument of Nazi policy.<ref name="Christian Church 1960 pp. 235"/> Although ideas about racial superiority and the destiny of their race which animated the German Christian movement had been present in German religious circles as early as 1930,<ref>Miguel Power, ''La persecución Nazi contra el cristianismo'' (Buenos Aires: Editorial Difusión, 1941), pp. 99–102. This book is a Spanish translation corresoponding to Michael Power, ''Religion in the Reich: the Nazi Persecution of Christianity, an Eye Witness Report'' (n.p.: Longman´s Green and Co. Ltd., 1939).</ref> the movement was not formally established until 1932 when it officially became known as the "]" with backing from Hitler himself.<ref>Miguel Power, ''La persecución Nazi contra el cristianismo'' (Buenos Aires: Editorial Difusión, 1941), p. 103.</ref> It was nationalistic and anti-Semitic and some of its radicals called for repudiation of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures) and the ] of the New Testament - because of their Jewish authorship.<ref name="ReferenceC"/>

	Kershaw wrote that the subjugation of the Protestant churches proved more difficult than Hitler had envisaged however. With 28 separate regional churches, his bid to create a unified Reich Church through '']'' ultimately failed, and Hitler became disinterested in seeking supporting the so-called "German Christians" Nazi aligned movement. The Church Federation proposed the well qualified Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh to be the new Reich Bishop, but Hitler endorsed his friend ] and the Nazis terrorized supporters of Bodelschwingh.<ref>William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp. 234–238</ref> Muller's heretical views against St Paul and the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible quickly alienated sections of the Protestant church. Not all the Protestant churches submitted to the state, which Hitler said in ''Mein Kampf'' was important in forming a political movement. Pastor ] responded with the Pastors' Emergency League, which resisted Muller's efforts in making the Protestant churches an instrument of Nazi policy.<ref name="ReferenceC"/><ref>{{cite news\|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762289,00.html\|title=Churchmen to Hitler\|date=1936-08-10\|accessdate=2008-04-28\|work=]}}</ref> The movement grew into the ], from which some clergymen opposed the Nazi regime.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297"/> By 1940 it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the ] idea of a positive Christianity.<ref>Poewe, Karla (2006). Routledge, p. 30.</ref>

	By 1934, the ] had declared itself the legitimate Protestant Church of Germany, but Muller had failed to form a united Protestant movement behind the National Socialist Party. To instigate a new effort at coordinating the Protestant churches, Hitler appointed another friend, ] to the position of Minister for Church Affairs. A relative moderate, Kerrl initially had some success in this regard, but amid continuing protests by the Confessing Church against Nazi policies, he accused dissident churchmen of failing to appreciate the Nazi doctrine of "Race, blood and soil". He rejected the ] and called Hitler the herald of a new revelation.<ref>William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp. 238–239</ref>

	The pretension of the Hitler regime that all Protestant churches in Germany should be subsumed under the leadership of the German Christians served as an impulse to action for other Christian leaders who saw the racist, ultra-nationalistic, and totalitarian emphases of the German Christian church as incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.<ref>Kenneth Scott Latourette, ''Christianity in a Revolutionary Age'' vol. IV ''The Twentieth Century in Europe'' (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1961), pp. 259 f.</ref> When those not in agreement organised their opposition and, calling themselves the Confessing Church, publicly proclaimed articles of faith that denied the position of the German Christians, they eventually came under severe persecution by the State. About the end of March 1935 six hundred of the principal leaders of the Confessing Church were arrested and many others received visits from the Gestapo to emphasize the government's point of view concerning these matters.<ref>Miguel Power, ''La persecución Nazi contra el cristianismo'' (Buenos Aires: Editorial Difusión, 1941), p. 127.</ref> Later, there were new arrests, and it began to be known that those who had been taken away were ending up in concentration camps.<ref>Miguel Power, ''La persecución Nazi contra el cristianismo'' (Buenos Aires: Editorial Difusión, 1941), p. 128.</ref> Given the totalitarian atmosphere of Nazi Germany at that time, it would be ingenuous to believe that these measures against the Confessing Church and in support of the policies of the German Christians might have been taken without Adolf Hitler's consent.<ref name="Kershaw2000">{{citation\|author=Ian Kershaw\|title=Hitler: 1936–1945\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=7jE_8Uq7Go4C&pg=PA449\|accessdate=2013-01-13\|year=2000\|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company\|isbn=978-0-393-04994-7\|pages=449–}}</ref> The Confessing Church seminary was banned. Its leaders, like ] were arrested. Implicated in the 1944 ] to assassinate Hitler, he was later executed.<ref>; web 25 April 2013</ref>

	].]]

	] were numbering around 30,000 at the start of Hitler's rule in Germany. For refusing to declare loyalty to the Reich, and refusing conscription into the army, they were declared to be enemies of Germany and ]. About 6000 were sent to the concentration camps.<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; ]; Viking; 2011; pp.496</ref>

	Steigmann-Gall argues that Hitler demonstrated a preference for ] over Catholicism, as Protestantism was more liable to reinterpretation and a non-traditional readings, more receptive to ], and because some of its liberal branches had held similar views.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Steigmann-Gall\|2003\|p=84}}</ref><ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a778861374&fulltext=713240928\|title=The Nazis' 'Positive Christianity': a Variety of 'Clerical Fascism'?\|author=Steigmann-Gall, Richard\|work=]\|date=2007-06-01\|accessdate=2008-04-28}}</ref> According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler regretted that "the churches had failed to back him and his movement as he had hoped."<ref>{{Harvnb\|Steigmann-Gall\|2003\|p=260}}</ref> Hitler stated to Albert Speer, "Through me the Protestant Church could become the established church, as in ]."<ref>Speer, Albert (1970). ''Inside the Third Reich''. New York: </ref>

	===Plans to destroy Christianity===

	Bullock wrote that, "once the war was over, promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches".<ref>]; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p 219</ref> Phayer wrote that "By the latter part of the decade of the thirties church officials were well aware that the ultimate aim of Hitler and other Nazis was the total elimination of Catholicism and of the Christian religion. Since the overwhelming majority of Germans were either Catholic or Protestant this goal had to be a long-term rather than a short-term Nazi objective."<ref>]; , published by ]</ref> According to Shirer, "under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists".<ref>], , p. p 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990:</ref> Gill wrote that the Nazi plan was to "de-Christianise Germany after the final victory".<ref>] (1994). ''An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler''. Heinemann Mandarin. 1995 paperback ISBN 978-0-434-29276-9, pp. 14–15</ref> Dill states, "It seems no exaggeration to insist that the greatest challenge the Nazis had to face was their effort to eradicate Christianity in Germany or at least to subjugate it to their general world outlook." <ref>Dill, Marshall, , p. 365, University of Michigan Press, 1970</ref> According to Bendersky, it was Hitler's long range goal to eliminate the churches once he had consolidated control over his European empire"<ref>Bendersky, Joseph W., , p. 147, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007</ref>

	In 1999 Julie Seltzer Mandel, while researching documents for the "] Project", discovered 150 bound volumes collected by Gen. ] as part of his work on documenting ]. Donovan was a senior member of the U.S. prosecution team and had compiled large amounts of evidence that Nazis ].<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/articles/RJLR_3_1_2.pdf\|format=PDF\|work=]\|title=The Nazi's persecution of religion as a war crime: The OSS's response within the Nuremberg Trials Process\|author=Claire, Hulme\|author2=Salter, Michael}}</ref> In a 108-page outline titled "The Nazi Master Plan" ] investigators argued that the Nazi regime had a plan to reduce the influence of Christian churches through a campaign of systematic persecutions.<ref name="sharkey1">{{cite news\|last=Sharkey\|first=Joe\|title=Word for Word/The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity \|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/weekinreview/word-for-word-case-against-nazis-hitler-s-forces-planned-destroy-german.html?pagewanted=all \|accessdate=2011-06-07\|newspaper=The New York Times\|date=13 January 2002}}</ref><ref name="Bonney2001">Bonney, Richard ed. (2001). ''Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion'' (Winter): 1–4.</ref> "Important leaders of the National Socialist party would have liked to meet this situation by complete extirpation of Christianity and the substitution of a purely racial religion," said the report. The most persuasive evidence came from "the systematic nature of the persecution itself."<ref name="Annex 4p9">Office of Strategic Services (1945). . Annex 4. Ithaca NY: Cornell Law Library, </ref>

	In Hitler's scheme for the Germanization of Eastern Europe, there was to be no place for Christian churches. For the time being, he ordered slow progress on the 'Church Question'. 'But is clear', noted Goebells, himself among the most aggressive anti-church radicals, 'that after the war it has to be solved... There is, namely, an insoluble opposition between the Christian and a Germanic-heroic world-view".<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p.661</ref> ] wrote that "once the war was over, promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian churches, but until then he would be circumspect":<ref name="Hitler p219"/> Writing for ], the historian ] wrote that by the latter 1930s, church officials knew that the long term aim of Hitler was the "total elimination of Catholicism and of the Christian religion".<ref>, by Michael Phayer published by ]</ref>

	In his memoirs, Hitler's chief architect ] recalled that when drafting his plans for Hitler's "new Berlin", when he told Hitler's private secretary ] that he had consulted with Protestant and Catholic authorities over the locations for churches: "Bormann curtly informed me that churches were not to receive building sites.<ref>Albert Speer. (1997). '']''. New York: Simon and Schuster, </ref>

	==Eastern religions==
	{{see also\|Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world}}

	=== Hitler's views on Islam ===
	], the ]. December 1941]]
	Among eastern religions, Hitler described religious leaders such as "], ], and ]" as providers of "spiritual sustenance".<ref>{{Harvnb\|Angebert\|1974\|p=246}}</ref> In this context, Hitler's connection to ], who served the ] of ] until 1937 — which included asylum in 1941, the honorary rank of an ] Major-General, and a "respected racial ]" —
	has been interpreted by some as more of a sign of respect than political expedience.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Angebert\|1974\|pp=275–276}} note 14</ref> Starting in 1933, al-Husseini, who had launched a campaign to free various parts of the Arab region from British control and expel Jews from both Egypt and Palestine, became impressed by the Jewish boycott policies which the Nazis were enforcing in Germany, and hoped that he could use the anti-semitic views which many in the Arab region shared with Hitler's regime in order to forge a strategic military alliance that would help him get rid of the Jewish Zionist colonists in Palestine.<ref name=klausmuslim>{{cite book\|author=Klaus Gensicke\|title=Der Mufti von Jerusalem Amin el-Husseini, und die Nationalsozialisten\|publisher=Frankfurt/M. \|year=1988\|page=234\|accessdate=2013-07-17}}</ref> Despite al-Husseini's attempts to reach out to the Third Reich, Hitler refused to form such an alliance with al-Husseini, fearing that it would weaken relations with Britain,<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007666\|title=Hajj Amin al-Husayni: Arab Nationalist and Muslim Leader\|author=Holocaust Encyclopedia\|publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum\|accessdate=2013-07-17}}</ref> and early relations between the two would be solely based on antisemitic ideology.<ref name=klausmuslim />

	During the unsuccessful ], which was instigated by mass Jewish migration to Palestine, Husseini and his allies took the opportunity to strengthen relations with the Third Reich and enforced the spread of Nazi customs and propaganda throughout their strongholds in Palestine as a gesture of respect.<ref name=paulmuslim>{{cite book\|author=Ralf Paul Gerhard Balke\|title=Die Landesgruppe der NSDAP in Palästina, Düsseldorf\|year=1997\|page=260\|accessdate=2013-07-17}}</ref> In Egypt, the ] would follow al-Husseini's lead.<ref>{{cite book\|author=Gudrun Krämer\|title= Minderheit, Millet, Nation? Die Juden in Ägypten 1914–1952\|publisher=Wiesbaden\|year=1982\|page=282\|accessdate=2013-07-17}}</ref> Hitler's influence soon spread throughout the region, but it was not until 1937 that the Nazi government agreed to grant al-Husseini and the ]'s request for financial and military assistance.<ref name=klausmuslim />

	Nazi-era Minister of Armaments and War Production ] acknowledged that in private, Hitler regarded Arabs as an inferior race<ref name="Speer1997" /> and that the relationship he had with various Muslim figures was more political than personal.<ref name="Speer1997" /> During a meeting with a delegation of distinguished Arab figures, Hitler learned of how Islam motivated the ] during the ] and was now convinced that "the world would be Mohammedan today" if the Arab regime had successfully taken France during the ],<ref name="Speer1997" /> while also suggesting to Speer that "ultimately not Arabs, but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire."<ref name="Speer1997" />

	In speeches, Hitler made apparently warm references towards Muslim culture such as: "The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France".<ref>Hitler's apocalypse: Jews and the Nazi legacy, Robert S. Wistrich, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 17 Oct 1985, page 59</ref>

	According to Speer, Hitler stated in private, "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?"<ref name="Speer1997">{{cite book\|author=Albert Speer\|title=Inside the Third Reich: memoirs\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=XLSa_RIDHMUC&pg=PA96\|accessdate=2010-09-15\|date=1 April 1997\|publisher=Simon and Schuster\|isbn=978-0-684-82949-4\|pages=96–}}</ref> Speer also stated that when he was discussing with Hitler events which might have occurred had Islam absorbed Europe:

	{{quotation\|Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire."\|Albert Speer<ref name="Speer1997"/>''}}

	Similarly, Hitler was transcribed as saying:

	{{quotation\|'Had ] not been victorious at Poitiers then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies the heroism and which opens up the seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world.''<ref>''Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944'', p. 667 translated by N. Cameron.</ref>}}

	=== Influence of Ancient Indian religions ===

	Hitler's choice of the ] as the Nazis' main and official symbol was linked to the belief in the ] cultural descent of the German people. They considered the early Aryans of ] to be the prototypical white invaders and the sign as a symbol of the Aryan ].<ref>{{cite news\|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4183467.stm\|title=Origins of the swastika\|date=2005-01-18\|accessdate=2008-04-28\|work=]}}</ref> The theory was inspired by the German archaeologist ],<ref name="opqa"></ref> who argued that the ancient Aryans were a superior ] from northern Germany who expanded into the steppes of Eurasia, and from there into India, where they established the ].<ref name="opqa"/>

	==Mysticism and occultism==
	{{See also\|Nazism and occultism}}

	Bullock found "no evidence to support the once popular belief that Hitler resorted to astrology" and wrote that Hitler ridiculed those like Himmler in his own party who wanted to re-establish pagan mythology, and Hess who believed in Astrology.<ref name="Stalin pp.412"/><ref>Alan Bullock; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p219</ref> Albert Speer wrote that Hitler had a negative view toward Himmler and Rosenberg's mystical notions. Speer quotes Hitler as having said of Himmler's attempt to mythologize the SS:<ref name="p. 94"/>

	{{quotation\|What nonsense! Here we have at last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind it, and now wants to start that all over again. We might just as well have stayed with the church. At least it had tradition. To think that I may, some day, be turned into an SS saint! Can you imagine it? I would turn over in my grave...\|Adolf Hitler quoted in ]'s '']''}}

	In a 1939 speech in Nuremberg, Hitler stated: "We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else—in any case something which has nothing to do with us."<ref>Speech in Nuremberg on 6 September 1938. ''The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Volume 1'' Edited by Norman Hepburn Baynes. University of Michigan Press, p. 396.</ref>

	According to Ron Rosenbaum, some scholars believe the young Hitler was strongly influenced, particularly in his racial views, by an abundance of occult works on the mystical superiority of the Germans, like the occult and anti-Semitic magazine '']'', and give credence to the claim of its publisher ] that Hitler visited him in 1909 and praised his work.<ref>Rosenbaum, Ron p. xxxvii, p. 282 (citing Yehuda Bauer's belief that Hitler's racism is rooted in occult groups like Ostara), p 333, 1998 Random House</ref> John Toland wrote that evidence indicates Hitler was a regular reader of ''Ostara''.<ref>Toland, John p. 45, 1976 Anchor Books.</ref> Toland also included a poem that Hitler allegedly wrote while serving in the German Army on the ] in 1915.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Toland\|1992}}</ref> This poem includes references to ] and the pre-Christian Germanic deity ], but it is mentioned neither by Goodrick-Clarke nor by Fest.{{Citation needed\|date=November 2013}}

	Hitler's contact to Lanz von Liebenfels makes it necessary{{according to whom\|date=November 2013}} to examine how far his religious views were influenced by ], an esoteric movement in Germany and Austria that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. (Whether Ariosophy is to be classified as ] or ] is a different question.) The seminal work on Ariosophy, '']'' by ], devotes its last chapter the topic of ''Ariosophy and Adolf Hitler''. Not at least due to the difficulty of sources, historians disagree about the importance of Ariosophy for Hitler's religious views. As noted in the foreword of ''The Occult Roots of Nazism'' by ], Goodrick-Clarke is more cautious in assessing the influence of Lanz von Liebenfels on Hitler than ] in his biography of Hitler.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Goodrick-Clarke\|1985\|p=x}}</ref>

	While he was in power, Hitler was definitely less interested in the occult or the ] than other Nazi leaders. Unlike ] and ], nevertheless Hitler had interest in ].<ref> Source: ]</ref>
	Nevertheless, Hitler is the most important figure in the Modern Mythology of ]. There are teledocumentaries about this topic, with the titles '']'' and ''Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail''.<ref>] at the ]</ref>

	Comparing him to ], Fest writes: "Hitler had detached himself from such affections, in which he encountered the obscurantism of his early years, Lanz v. Liebenfels and the ], again, long ago and had, in '']'', formulated his scathing contempt for that ] ], which however his own cosmos of imagination preserved rudimentarily."<ref><!--"Hitler selber hatte sich von solchen Neigungen, in denen er dem Obskurantismus seiner frühen Jahre, Lanz v. Liebenfels und den Wahnbildern der Thulegesellschaft wiederbegegente, längst gelößt und in >>Mein Kampf<< seine beißende Verachtung für jenen völkischen Romantizismus formuliert, den seine eigene Vorstellungswelt gleichwohl rudimentär bewahrte."-->{{Harvnb\|Fest\|1973\|p=320}}</ref>
	Fest refers to the following passage from ''Mein Kampf'':
	<blockquote><cite>"The characteristic thing about these people is that they rave about the old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield, but in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a dressed bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every ] blackjack.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Hitler\|1926\|loc=ch. 12}}</ref></cite></blockquote>

	It is not clear if this statement is an attack at anyone specific. It could have been aimed at ] or at the ]. According to Goodrick-Clarke, "In any case, the outburst clearly implies Hitler's contempt for conspiratorial circles and occult-racist studies and his preference for direct activism."<ref>{{Harvnb\|Goodrick-Clarke\|1985\|p=202}}</ref> Hitler also said something similar in public speeches.<ref>"We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else—in any case something which has nothing to do with us." (Speech in Nuremberg on 6 September 1938)</ref>
	Although, the quote is really just criticizing German romanticists for lack of action, not necessarily their spiritual or cultural beliefs. Hitler, himself, was very much into the culture he refers to here, especially in the case of ] operas.{{Citation needed\|date=November 2013}}

	Older literature states that Hitler had no intention of instituting worship of the ] in contrast to the beliefs of some other Nazi officials.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Gunther\|1938\|p=10}}</ref> In '']'' one can find this quote:
	<blockquote><cite>"It seems to me that nothing would be more foolish than to re-establish the worship of ]. Our old mythology ceased to be viable when Christianity implanted itself. Nothing dies unless it is moribund.</cite></blockquote>

	] and David Redles in an article published by the ] assert alleged influences of various portions of the teachings of ], the founder of The Theosophical Society with doctrines as expounded by her book "The Secret Doctrine", and the adaptations of her ideas by her followers, through Ariosophy, the ] and the Thule Society, constituted a popularly unacknowledged but decisive influence over the developing mind of Hitler.<ref name="motlc.wiesenthal.com">Jackson Spielvogel and David Redles: , The Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1997</ref> The scholars state that Hitler himself may be responsible for turning historians from investigating his occult influences.<ref name="motlc.wiesenthal.com"/> While he publicly condemned and even persecuted occultists, Freemasons, and astrologers, his nightly private talks disclosed his belief in the ideas of these competing occult groups - demonstrated by his discussion of ], ], ], and his belief that esoteric myths and legends of cataclysm and battles between gods and titans were a vague collective memory of monumental early events.<ref name="motlc.wiesenthal.com"/>

	==Religion, social Darwinism and Hitler's racism==
	Scholarly interest continues on the extent to which inherited, long-standing, cultural-religious notions of anti-Judaism in Christian Europe contributed to Hitler's personal racial anti-Semitism, and what influence a pseudo-scientific "primitive version of social-Darwinism", mixed with 19th century imperialist notions, brought to bear on his psychology. Laurence Rees noted that "emphasis on Christianity" was absent from the vision expressed by Hitler in ] and his "bleak and violent vision" and visceral hatred of the Jews had been influenced by quite different sources: the notion of life as struggle he drew from ], the notion of the superiority of the "Aryan race" he drew from ]'s ''The Inequality of the Human Races''; from events following Russia's surrender in World War One when Germany seized agricultural lands in the East he formed the idea of colonising the Soviet Union; and from ] he took the idea of a link between Judaism and Bolshevism.<ref>Laurence Rees; ''The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler''; Ebury Press 2012; pp. 61–62</ref> Hitler espoused a ruthless policy of "negative eugenic selection", believing that world history consisted of a struggle for survival between races, in which the Jews plotted to undermine the Germans, and inferior groups like Slavs and defective individuals in the German gene pool, threatened the Aryan "master race". ] wrote that his views on these subjects have often been called "]", but that there is little agreement among historians as to what the term may mean, or how it transformed from its 19th century scientific origins, to become a central component of a genocidal political ideology in the 20th century.<ref name="Richard J pp. 55–57">]; ''In Search of German Social Darwinism: The History and Historiography of a Concept''; a chapter from ''Medicine & Modernity: Public Health & Medical Care in 19th and 20th Century Germany''; Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge; 1997; pp. 55–57</ref>

	] writes that, according to Hitler's personal photographer ], the strongly anti-Semitic ]<ref>Derek Hastings, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism, p. 67</ref> Catholic priest ] was a member of Hitler's inner circle in the early 1920s and frequently advised him on religious issues.<ref>Hastings, Derek (2010). ''Catholicism and the roots of Nazism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, </ref> He helped Hitler in the writing of ''Mein Kampf''.<ref>Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, p.111</ref> He was killed by the SS in ].<ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-roehm.htm</ref> Hitler viewed the Jews as enemies of all civilization and as materialistic, unspiritual beings, writing in '']'': "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." Hitler described his supposedly divine mandate for his anti-Semitism: "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."<ref>Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 65.</ref> In his rhetoric, Hitler also fed on the old accusation of Jewish ]. Because of this it has been speculated that Christian anti-Semitism influenced Hitler's ideas, especially such works as ]'s essay '']'' and the writings of ]. Others disagree with this view.<ref>{{Harvnb\|Shirer\|1960\|pp=91–236}} <!-- Was cited earlier as the 1990 edition, if the information exists in the 1960 edition correct the pages, if not put the 1990 edition in references and correct the other reference --> argues that Luther's essay was influential. This view was expounded by ]. ({{Harvnb\|Dawidowicz\|1986\|p=23}}) Uwe Siemon-Netto disputes this conclusion ({{Harvnb\|Siemon-Netto\|1995\|pp=17–20}}).</ref> In support of this view, Hitler biographer ] offers the opinion that Hitler "carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of ] since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God...".<ref>John Toland. (1976). Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. New York: Anchor Books, p. 703.</ref> Nevertheless, in ''Mein Kampf'' Hitler writes of an upbringing in which no particular anti-Semitic prejudice prevailed.{{Citation needed\|date=October 2013}}

	According to historian ], anti-Semitism has a long history within Christianity, and that the line of "anti-Semitic descent" from Luther to Hitler is "easy to draw." In her ''], 1933–1945'', she writes that Luther and Hitler were obsessed by the "] universe" inhabited by Jews. Dawidowicz states that the similarities between Luther's anti-Jewish writings and modern anti-Semitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of ''Judenhass'' which can be traced to ] advice to ], although modern German anti-Semitism also has its roots in German ].<ref>''The War Against the Jews, 1933–1945''. First published 1975; this Bantam edition 1986, p.23. ISBN 978-0-553-34532-2</ref> Catholic historian ] argues that Hitler's anti-Semitism was explicitly rooted in Christianity.<ref>José M. Sánchez, ''Pius XII and the Holocaust; Understanding the Controversy'' (Washington, D.C: Catholic University of American Press, 2002), p. 70.</ref>

	] Evans noted that Hitler saw Christianity as "indelibly Jewish in origin and character" and a "prototype of Bolshevism", which "violated the law of natural selection".<ref name="Richard J 2009, p. 547"/> In the decades between ] and the mid-twentieth century, various historians have noted that the concept of "Social Darwinism" had been vaunted by both "proponents of altruistic ethics", and by "spokesmen of a brutally elitist morality", but in many of its exponents, it took a rightward shift at the close of the 19th Century, when racist and imperialist notions joined the mix.<ref name="Richard J pp. 55–57"/> According to Evans, Hitler "used his own version of the language of social Darwinism as a central element in the discursive practice of extermination...", and the language of Social Darwinism, in its Nazi variant, helped to remove all restraint from the directors of the "terroristic and exterminatory" policies of the regime, by "persuading them that what they were doing was justified by history, science and nature".<ref>]; ''In Search of German Social Darwinism: The History and Historiography of a Concept'', 1997 - (quoted by ] in '']''; Palgrave MacMillan; USA 2004; ISBN 1-4039-7201-X; p.233)</ref>

	According to Fest, the Nazi dictator simplified Arthur de Gobineau's elaborate ideas of ] among the different races, from which the Aryan race, guided by providence, was supposed to be the torchbearers of civilization.<ref>Fest, Joachim (1974). ''Hitler''. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. </ref> In Hitler's conception, Jews were enemies of all civilization, especially the ]. ] wrote that, although Hitler has been called a "], he was not such in the usual sense of the word, for, whereas Social Darwinism stressed struggle, change, the survival of the strongest, and a ceaseless battle of competition, Hitler, through the use of modern industrial technology and impersonal bureaucratic methods ended all competition by the ruthless suppression of all opponents."<ref>Zalampas, Sherree Owens. (1990). ''Adolf Hitler: A psychological interpretation of his views on architecture, art, and music''. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, .</ref> ] considered his understanding of ] incomplete, and based loosely on the theory of "]" in a social context, as popularly misunderstood at the time.<ref>] (1970). '']''. New York: Basic Books. </ref><ref>Sklair, Leslie (2003). ''The Sociology of Progress''. New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-17545-6</ref> Similarly the historian ] has argued that it would be wrong to believe that Hitler's views were formed through the discipline of close study and that rather Hitler had drawn on, 'a chance reading of books, occasional pamphlets, and generalisations based on subjective impressions to form the distorted political picture which became the '']'' ' that dominated his future life and work. An example from Hitler's formative Vienna years was the influence of ], whose programme spread 'the crass exaggerations of the social Darwinist theory of survival, the superman and super-race theory, the dogma of race conflict, and the breeding and extermination theories of the future SS state', and whose ''Ostara'' publication was widely available in the tobacco kiosks of Vienna. In ''Mein Kampf'', p. 59, Hitler recounts the genesis of his anti-Semitism and says his 'books' are polemical pamphlets bought 'for a few pennies'.<ref>Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, pp. 86–87</ref>

	Hitler biographer ] wrote that Hitler did not believe in God, and that one of his central objections to Christianity, was that its teaching was "a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest".<ref name="Hitler p.216 & 219"/> Steigmann Gall concludes that, to the extent he believed in a divinity, Hitler did not believe in a "remote, rationalist divinity" but in an "active deity,"<ref name="steigmann26">{{Harvnb\|Steigmann-Gall\|2003\|p=26}}</ref> which he frequently referred to as "Creator" or "Providence". In Hitler's belief God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival as depicted by ]. The "Aryan race," supposedly the bearer of civilization, is allocated a special place:

	<blockquote><cite>"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and the reproduction of our race ... so that our people may mature for the fulfilment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. ... Peoples that bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, ] against the will of eternal ]."<ref name="steigmann26"/></cite></blockquote>

	==See also==
	{{div col\|colwidth=20em}}
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* ]
	* '']''
	{{div col end}}

	==References==
	{{Reflist\|30em}}

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	}}.
	</div>

	==External links==
	* '''' - by Adolf Hitler
	* '''' - by Adolf Hitler (published by Hurst and Blackett, 1939)
	* - by ]
	* - by ]
	* .
	* ; by ].
	* ; by ]; Quadrant Online

	{{Adolf Hitler}}

	{{DEFAULTSORT:Adolf Hitler's Religious Beliefs}}
	]
	]
	]
	]

Revision as of 19:59, 13 April 2015

FIGHT THE CHRISTIAN REVISIONIST LIES!!!!!

Hitler Was a Christian

The Holocaust was caused by Christian fundamentalism:

History is currently being distorted by the millions of Christians who lie to have us believe that the Holocaust was not a Christian deed. Through subterfuge and concealment, many of today's Church leaders and faithful Christians have camouflaged the Christianity of Adolf Hitler and have attempted to mark him an atheist, a pagan cult worshipper, or a false Christian in order to place his misdeeds on those with out Jesus. However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and chat rooms.

Considering that Christianity has thus far been incapable of producing an unbiased, educated follower which speaks the truth, (I haven't encountered any), I have been forced to dispel the myth by writing this essay. It is not until I bring up his speeches, my personal info on the Nazi regime and their tactics that a Christian will begin to question what their clergy told them. (I am the offspring of a German soldier. My Opa served under Hitler in WW2 and my father was raised during the time of the Nazi regime. This is important information to take into consideration for I am privy to some info that most Americans do not know. It is common for American media and education institutions to lie to their citizens concerning Nazi Germany.) So, in presenting this information I must break it into four parts: 1) Facts about Hitler and his involvement with the Church. 2) How the Church was the catalyst for anti- Semitism. 3) Facts concerning how the Nazi regime drilled these beliefs into Germanic society. 4) Quotes Hitler made which prove he had a disdain for atheism/occultism, upheld his Christian faith, and hated Jews due to his Christianity.

Hitler's involvement with the Church:

a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.

b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery's coat of arms bearing a swastika.)

c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.

d) As a young man he was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ." His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: "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)

e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and "avenging for God" in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.

f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt: "The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie." Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party

Hitler and the Popeg) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This photo depicts Hitler with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin. It was taken On April 20, 1939, when Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations were initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and became a tradition.

Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars." (If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

h) Due to Hitler's involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings: "The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today." --Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda "Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church." -Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism

How Christianity was the catalyst of the Holocaust:

Hitler's anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Austria and Germany were majorly Christian during his time and they held the belief that Jews were an inferior status to Aryan Christians. The Christians blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus. Jewish hatred did not actually spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War 2. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther constantly quoting his works and beliefs.

Now, you must remember before Hitler rose to Chancellor of Germany the country was in a deep economic depression due to the Versailles treaty. The Versailles treaty demanded that Germans made financial reparations for the previous war and Germany simply was not self sufficient enough in order to pay the debt. Hitler was the leader that raised Germany out of the depression and brought them back to a world recognized power. Due to his annulment of the financial woes of the Germanic people he became their redeemer and they anointed him as the leader of the German Reich Christian Church in 1933. This placed him in power of the German Christian Socialist movement which legislates their political and religious agendas. It united all denominations, mainly the Protestant/Catholic and Lutheran people to instill faith in a national Christianity.

How the Nazi Regime converted the people:

a) In the 1920s, Hitler's German Workers' Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a "Programme" with twenty-five points (the Nazi version of a constitution). In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a "positive" Christianity: "We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession..."

b) The Nazi regime started a youth movement which preached its agenda to impressionable children. Hitler backed up the notion that all people need faith and religious education: "By helping to raise man above the level of bestial vegetation, faith contributes in reality to the securing and safeguarding of his existence. Take away from present-day mankind its education-based, religious- dogmatic principles-- or, practically speaking, ethical-moral principles-- by abolishing this religious education, but without replacing it by an equivalent, and the result will be a grave shock to the foundations of their existence." -- Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

c) The Nazi regime began to control schools insisting that Christianity was taught.

d) The Nazi regime included anti-Semitic Christian writings in textbooks and they were not removed from Christian doctrines until 1961.

e) The Nazi regime having full blown power over the people began to forcibly convert all its military.

Nazi Belt Bucklef) The Nazi regime forced the German soldiers to wear religious symbols such as the swastika and they placed religious sayings on military gear. An example here is this German army belt buckle (I believe my Opa had one) which reads "Gott Mit Uns". For those of you who do not speak German it is translated as "God With Us".

g) The German troops were often forced to get sprinkled with holy water and listen to a sermon by a Catholic priest before going out on a maneuver.

h) The Nazis created a secret service called the "SS Reich" that would act as spies on the dealings of other citizens. If anyone was suspected of heresy (Going not only against the Socialist party but CHURCH DOCTRINE) they would be prosecuted.

Quotes from Hitler:

Hitler's speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of their faith So they try to pin him on other theistic views. The following words from Hitler show his disdain for atheism, and pagan cults, and reveal the strength of his Christian feelings:

"National Socialism is not a cult-movement-- a movement for worship; it is exclusively a 'volkic' political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship... We will not allow mystically- minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else-- in any case something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our programme there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will-- not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord. . . Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men." -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938.

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

Here Hitler uses the Bible and his Christianity in order to attack the Jews and uphold his anti-Semitism:

"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 for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, 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 my self 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." --Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

"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 (It is quite obvious here that Hitler is referring to destructing the Judaism alters on which Christianity was founded.)

"The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (The idea of the devil and the Jew came out of medieval anti-Jewish beliefs based on interpretations from the Bible. Martin Luther, and teachers after him, continued this "tradition" up until the 20th century.)

"With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people." -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (It is common in war for one race to rape another so that they can "defile" the race and assimilate their own. Hitler speaks about this very tactic here.)

"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)

". . .the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (See Genesis Chapter 3 where humankind is cast from Eden for their sins. Hitler compares this to the need to exterminate the Jews for their sin against Christ.)

"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." --Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

"The anti-Semitism of the new movement was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge." --Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (This quote is very interesting for it disperses the idea that Hitler raged war due to being an Aryan supremacist. He states quite clearly that he has a problem with Jews for their belief not race. That is why many German Jews died in WW2 regardless of their Aryan nationality.)

"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 (Here Hitler is admitting that his war against the Jews were so successful because of his strong Christian Spirituality.)

Quotes from Other Nazis about Hitler and Religion:

"Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Gobbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)"