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| ] c. 1933; photo by ] ]] | |||
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| '''Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs''' have been a matter of debate. In light of evidence such as his rejection of the tenets of ] as an adolescent,<ref name="Bundle5"> | |||
| *]; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p. 219: "Hitler had been brought up a Catholic and was impressed by the organisation and power of the Church... to its teachings he showed only the sharpest hostility... he detested 's ethics in particular". | |||
| *]; Hitler: a Biography; Norton; 2008 ed; pp. 295–297: "In early 1937 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'" | |||
| *]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547: Evans wrote that Hitler believed Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'". 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". | |||
| *]: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p 281: " few private remarks on Christianity betray a profound contempt and indifference". | |||
| *]; ''Hitler a Short Biography''; Harper Press; 2012, p. 71.: "Much is sometimes made of the Catholic upbringing of Hitler... it was something to which Hitler himself often made allusion, and he was nearly always violently hostile. 'The biretta! The mere sight of these abortions in cassocks makes me wild!'" | |||
| *]; ''The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler''; Ebury Press; 2012; p. 135.; "There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church" | |||
| *] (2010). ''Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 181 : Hastings considers it plausible that Hitler was a 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." | |||
| *] (Fred Taylor Translation); The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4 : 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". | |||
| *]; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; Macmillan; New York; 1970; p.123: "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..." | |||
| *]: Hitler is reported 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> and his strenuous efforts to reduce the influence and independence of Christianity in Germany after he came to power, Hitler's major academic biographers conclude that he was an opponent of Christianity. Historian Laurence Rees found no evidence that "Hitler, in his personal life, ever expressed belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".<ref name="Bundle6">* ]; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p. 219: "Hitler had been brought up a Catholic and was impressed by the organisation and power of the Church... to its teachings he showed only the sharpest hostility... he detested 's ethics in particular" | |||
| * ]; Hitler: a Biography; Norton; 2008 ed; pp. 295–297: "In early 1937 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'" | |||
| * ]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547: Evans wrote that Hitler believed Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'". 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". | |||
| * ]: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p 281: " few private remarks on Christianity betray a profound contempt and indifference". | |||
| * ]; ''Hitler a Short Biography''; Harper Press; 2012, p. 71.: "Much is sometimes made of the Catholic upbringing of Hitler... it was something to which Hitler himself often made allusion, and he was nearly always violently hostile. 'The biretta! The mere sight of these abortions in cassocks makes me wild!'" | |||
| * ]; ''The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler''; Ebury Press; 2012; p. 135.; "There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church" | |||
| * ] (2010). ''Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 181 : Hastings considers it plausible that Hitler was a 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." | |||
| * ] (Fred Taylor Translation); The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4 : 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". | |||
| * ]; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; Macmillan; New York; 1970; p.123: "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..." | |||
| * ]: "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> Hitler's remarks to confidants, as described in the ], the ] of ], and transcripts of Hitler's private conversations recorded by ] in '']'', are further evidence of his anti-Christian beliefs; these sources record a number of private remarks in which Hitler ridicules Christian doctrine as absurd and socially destructive.<ref name="Bundle15">* ] (Fred Taylor Translation) The ] 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4; p.76: 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'." | |||
| * Joseph Goebbels (Fred Taylor Translation); The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; p.77: Goebbels wrote on 29 December 1939 "The ] 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." | |||
| * Joseph Goebbels (Fred Taylor Translation); The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; pp. 304 305 In an 8 April 1941 entry, Goebbels wrote " hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity." | |||
| * ] (Fred Taylor Translation); The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982: 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". | |||
| * Joseph Goebbels (Fred Taylor Translation) The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; p.340: Goebbels wrote in April 1941 that though Hitler was "a fierce opponent" of the Vatican and Christianity, "he forbids me to leave the church. For tactical reasons." | |||
| * Cameron, Norman; Stevens, R. H. Stevens; Weinberg, Gerhard L.; Trevor-Roper, H. R. (2007). ''] 1941-1944: Secret Conversations''. New York: Enigma Books p.48: On 14 October 1941, in an entry concerning the fate of Christianity, Hitler says: "Science cannot lie, for its 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." | |||
| * Cameron, Norman; Stevens, R. H. Stevens; Weinberg, Gerhard L.; Trevor-Roper, H. R. (2007). ''] 1941-1944: Secret Conversations''. New York: Enigma Books pp. 59–61: Hitler says: "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." | |||
| * Albert Speer; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; Macmillan; New York; 1970; p.123: Speer considered Bormann to be the driving force behind the regime's campaign against the churches and wrote that Hitler approved of Bormann's aims, but was more pragmatic and wanted to "postpone this problem to a more favourable time". He writes: "'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...' | |||
| </ref> | |||
| Hitler, attempting to appeal to the German masses during his political campaign and leadership, sometimes made declarations in support of religion and against atheism. He stated in a speech that atheism (a concept he linked with Communism and "Jewish materialism") had been "stamped out",<ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1939. p. 378"/> and banned the ].<ref>New York Times </ref> Hitler was born to a practising Catholic ], and was ] and ] in the ]. In his book '']'' and in public speeches he affirmed a belief in Christianity.<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> Hitler and the Nazi party promoted "]",<ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1969 p. 402">from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 402.</ref> a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as ] elements such as the Old Testament;<ref name="William L. Shirer p. 234">Shirer, 1990, p. 234.</ref><ref name="Christian Church 1960 pp. 235"/> Hitler claimed that he continued to believe in an active Deity, and in one public speech, he stated that he held Jesus in high esteem as an "Aryan fighter" who struggled against Jewry.<ref>Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). The Holy Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 13–50, p. 252</ref> | |||
| While a small number of writers accept these publicly stated views as genuine expressions of his spirituality,<ref>John S. Conway. Review of Steigmann-Gall, Richard, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. H-German, H-Net Reviews. June, 2003: ] considered that ]'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> the vast majority believe that Hitler was skeptical of religion generally, but recognized that he could only be elected if he feigned a commitment to and belief in Christianity.<ref name="Bundle9">*]; ''Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis''; WW Norton & Company; 2000; pp.39-40 & ''Hitler: a Biography''; Norton; 2008 ed; pp. 295–297: "In early 1937, he was declaring that 'Christianity was ripe for destruction' (''Untergang''), and that the churches must therefore yield to the 'primacy of the state', railing against 'the most horrible institution imaginable." | |||
| *]; ''Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis''; WW Norton & Company; 2000; pp.40: ""The assault on the practices and institutions of the Christian churches was deeply imbedded in the psyche of National Socialism. however much Hitler on some occasions claimed to want a respite in the conflict , his own inflammatory comments gave his underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat on the 'Church Struggle', confident that they were working towards the Fuhrer" | |||
| *]; Hitler: a Biography; Norton; 2008 ed; p. 373. | |||
| *]; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135: "Hitler, as a politician, simply recognised the practical reality of the world he inhabited... 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." | |||
| *]; '']''; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p. 219: "In Hitler's eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. From political considerations he restrained his anti-clericalism seeing clearly the dangers of strengthening the church through persecution. Once the war was over, he promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches..." | |||
| *Alan Bullock, '']'', Fontana Press 1993, p. 412.: Bullock notes Hitler's use of rhetoric of "Providence" but concludes that Hitler, Stalin and Napoleon all shared 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" | |||
| *]; ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p.281 : "Hitler was politically prudent enough not to trumpet his scientific views publicly, not least because he wanted to maintain the distinction between his own movement and the godlessness of Soviet Communism. What Hitler could not accept was that Christianity could offer anything other than false 'ideas' to sustain its claim to moral certitude." | |||
| *Richard Overy: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p 281: "His few private remarks on Christianity betray a profound contempt and indifference. Forty years afterwards he could still recall facing up to clergyman-teacher at his school when told how unhappy he would be in the afterlife: 'I've heard of a scientists who doubts whether there is a next world'. Hitler believed that all religions were now 'decadent'; in Europe it was the 'collapse of Christianity that we are now experiencing'. The reason for the crisis was science." | |||
| *Richard Overy; ''The Third Reich, A Chronicle''; Quercus; 2010; p.99</ref> Hitler himself was reluctant to make public attacks on the Church for political reasons.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler: a Biography''; Norton; 2008 ed; pp. 295–297.</ref> Goebbels wrote in 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> | |||
| However, once in office, Hitler and his regime sought to reduce the influence of Christianity on society.<ref name="Bundle4">* Richard J. Evans; The Third Reich at War; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 546 | |||
| * Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; pp. 381-382 | |||
| * Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889-1936: hubris, pp. 575-576, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000 | |||
| * William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp. 201, 234-40, 295 | |||
| * Joachim Fest; Plotting Hitler's Death: The German Resistance to Hitler 1933-1945; Weidenfield & Nicolson; London; p.373, 377 | |||
| * Peter Longerich; Heinrich Himmler; Translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe; Oxford University Press; 2012; p. 265 & 270 | |||
| * Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; pp.57-58 | |||
| * Mary Fulbrook; The Fontana History of Germany 1918-1990 The Divided Nation; Fontana Press; 1991, p.81 | |||
| * Theodore S. Hamerow; On the Road to the Wolf's Lair - German Resistance to Hitler; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1997; ISBN 0-674-63680-5; p. 136 | |||
| * John S. Conway; The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-1945; Regent College Publishing; p. 255 | |||
| * , BBC, 11 January 2002 | |||
| * Peter Hoffmann; The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945; 3rd Edn (First English Edn); McDonald & Jane's; London; 1977; p.14 | |||
| * Paul Berben; Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945; Norfolk Press; London; 1975; ISBN 0-85211-009-X; p. 145 | |||
| * Fred Taylor; The Goebbells Diaries 1939–1941; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982 p.278 & 294 | |||
| * Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3; pp. 245–246</ref> From the mid-1930s, his government was increasingly dominated by militant anti-Christians like ], ], ], ] and ] whom Hitler appointed to key posts.<ref name="Bundle11">* ]; ''Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis''; WW Norton & Company; 2000; p.39: "the continuing conflict with both the Catholic and Protestant churches... with Goebbells, Rosenberg and many Party rank and file" & p.40 "However much Hitler on some occasions claimed to want a respite in the conflict , his own inflammatory comments gave his underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat on the 'Church Struggle'." | |||
| * ]; ''Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany'', p. 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990: "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". | |||
| * ]: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p. 287 : "From the mid 1930s the regime and party were dominated much more by the prominent anti-Christians in their ranks - Himmler, Bormann, Heydrich - but were restrained by Hitler, despite his anti religious sentiments, from any radical programme of de-Chritianization. Hitler 'expected the end of the disease of Christianity to come about by itself once its falsehoods were self evident" | |||
| * Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889–1936: hubris, pp. 575–576, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000:</ref> These anti-church radicals were generally permitted or encouraged to perpetrate the Nazi persecutions of the churches.<ref name="books.google.com">], , p. 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990.</ref> The regime launched an effort toward coordination of German Protestants under a unified ] (but this was resisted by the ]), and moved early to eliminate ].<ref name="Ian Kershaw p.290">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; p. 290.</ref> Hitler agreed to the ] with Rome, but then routinely ignored it, and permitted ].<ref name="Ian Kershaw p.661">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p. 661."</ref> Smaller religious minorities faced harsher repression, with the Jews of Germany expelled for extermination on the grounds of ]. ] were ruthlessly persecuted for refusing both military service and allegiance to Hitler's movement. Hitler said he anticipated a coming collapse of Christianity in the wake of scientific advances, and that Nazism and religion could not co-exist long term.<ref name="Bundle1">*]; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.pp.287: “During the War reflected that in the long run, ‘National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together. Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state, while the slow programme of scientific revelation destroyed the foundation of religious myth.” | |||
| *]: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p 281: "Hitler believed that all religions were now 'decadent'; in Europe it was the 'collapse of Christianity that we are now experiencing'. The reason for the crisis was science." | |||
| *]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547: wrote that Hitler believed that in the long run National Socialism and religion would not be able to co-exist, and stressed repeatedly that Nazism was a secular ideology, founded on modern science: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition". Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'". | |||
| *], ''Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives'', Fontana Press 1993, p. 412.: Bullock notes Hitler's use of rhetoric of "Providence" but concludes that Hitler, Stalin and Napoleon all shared 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" | |||
| *]: Hitler is reported 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> Although he was prepared to delay conflicts for political reasons, historians conclude that he ultimately intended the destruction of ], or at least its distortion or subjugation to a Nazi outlook.<ref name="BundleEradicate">*Sharkey, Joe (13 January 2002). "". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-07. | |||
| *Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p.661 | |||
| *]; '']''; 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.” | |||
| *] (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". | |||
| *]; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.pp.287: “During the War reflected that in the long run, ‘National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together. Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state, while the slow programme of scientific revelation destroyed the foundation of religious myth.” | |||
| *]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547: wrote that Hitler believed that in the long run National Socialism and religion would not be able to co-exist, and stressed repeatedly that Nazism was a secular ideology, founded on modern science: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition". Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'". | |||
| * ] ''Fascism's relation to religion'' in Blamires, Cyprian, , p. 10, ABC-CLIO, 2006: "There is no doubt that in the long run Nazi leaders such as Hitler and Himmler intended to eradicate Christianity just as ruthlessly as any other rival ideology, even if in the short term they had to be content to make compromises with it." | |||
| * ], , p. 240, Univ 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." | |||
| * ], , 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." | |||
| *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.” | |||
| *, Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Winter 2001, publishing evidence compiled by the O.S.S. for the Nuremberg war-crimes trials of 1945 and 1946 | |||
| *Sharkey, , New York Times, 13 January 2002 | |||
| *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> | |||
| ==Historians on Hitler's religious beliefs== | |||
| ] was an early influential Hitler expert who wrote important biographies of the dictator in the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998 p. xi-xii</ref> He wrote that Hitler had been raised Catholic, and though impressed by its organisational powers, he became hostile to Catholicism in adulthood.<ref name="Hitler p219">]; ''Hitler, a Study in Tyranny''; Harper Perennial Edition, 1991; p. 219."</ref> Bullock considered Hitler to be a rationalist and materialist, with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence.<ref name="Hitler p219">]; ''Hitler, a Study in Tyranny''; Harper Perennial Edition, 1991; p. 219."</ref> Bullock wrote that Hitler believed neither in "God nor conscience" but found both "justification and absolution" in a view of himself that echoed ]'s that heroes were 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. Following his early military successes, Hitler "abandoned himself entirely to ]" 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><ref name="auto">]; '']'', Harper Perennial Edition 1991, p. 216.</ref> Once the war was over, wrote Bullock, Hitler wanted to root out and destroy the influence of the churches, though until till then he would be circumspect for political reasons:<ref name="Hitler p219">]; ''Hitler, a Study in Tyranny''; Harper Perennial Edition, 1991; p. 219."</ref> | |||
| {{quotation|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.|Extract from '']'', by ]}} | |||
| At the turn of the century, leading Hitler expert<ref>; BBC News; 14 June 2002.</ref> ] noted new sources had come to light in Hitler studies and old sources brought into question. The rediscovery of the ] in particular shed new light on Hitler's inner thoughts.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998 p. xiii-xiv</ref> Kershaw too found that Hitler's religious policy was restrained by political considerations, but underscored by hostility to Christianity. "However much Hitler on some occasions claimed to want a respite in the conflict , his own inflammatory comments gave his underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat on the 'Church Struggle', confident that they were working towards the Fuhrer" noted Kershaw:<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp.39-40">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis''; WW Norton & Company; 2000; pp.39-40</ref><ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 381–382">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; pp. 381–382</ref> | |||
| {{quotation|Hitler's impatience with the churches prompted frequent outbursts of hostility. In early 1937, he was declaring that 'Christianity was ripe for destruction' (''Untergang''), and that the churches must therefore yield to the 'primacy of the state', railing against 'the most horrible institution imaginable."|Extract from ''Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis'' by ].<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp.39-40">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis''; WW Norton & Company; 2000; pp.39-40</ref>}} | |||
| British historian ], who writes primarily on Nazi Germany and World War II, believes that Hitler believed in the long run that National Socialism and religion would not be able to co-exist, and that he stressed repeatedly that Nazism was a secular ideology, founded on modern science: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition' Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and 'Priests', he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'."<ref>Richard J. Evans; The Third Reich at War; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547</ref> | |||
| British historian ], biographer of Hitler, sees Hitler as having been neither a practising Christian, nor a thorough atheist, but also notes the sentiment that Nazism and religion could not co-exist long term: "Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state, while the slow programme of scientific revelation destroyed the foundation of religious myth."<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.pp. 281 & 287</ref> Overy writes of Hitler as skeptical of all religious belief, but politically prudent enough not to "trumpet his scientific views publicly", partly in order to maintain the distinction between his own movement and the godlessness of Soviet Communism .<ref name="The Third Reich p.99">]; ''The Third Reich, A Chronicle''; Quercus; 2010; p.99</ref> In 2004, he wrote:<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.pp. 280-281</ref> | |||
| {{quotation|"He was not a practising Christian but had somehow succeeded in masking his own religious scepticism from millions of German voters. Though Hitler has often been portrayed as a neo-pagan, or the centrepiece of a political religion in which he played the Godhead, his views had much more in common with the revolutionary iconoclasm of the Bolshevik enemy. His few private remakrs on Christianity betray a profound contempt and indifference... Hitler believed that all religions were now 'decadent'; in Europe it was the 'collapse of Christianity that we are now experiencing'. The reason for the crisis was science. Hitler, like Stalin took a very modern view of the incompatibility of religious and scientific explanation."|Excerpt from The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia by Richard Overy}} | |||
| ] wrote in 2003 that even after Hitler's rupture with institutional Christianity (which he dated to around 1937), he sees evidence that he continued to hold Jesus in high esteem,<ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 118–20, 155–6">{{cite book|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity|last=Steigmann-Gall|first=Richard|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|isbn=0-521-82371-4|location=Cambridge|pages=118–20, 155–6}}</ref> and never directed his attacks on ] himself.<ref>{{Harvnb|Steigmann-Gall|2003|p=255}}</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".<ref name="pp. 13–50">Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, , p. 252.</ref> He considers that Hitler was religious at least in the 1920s and early 1930s, and that he saw ] as an ] opponent of the ].</ref><ref name="steigmann26">{{Harvnb|Steigmann-Gall|2003|p=26}}</ref> | |||
| BBC historian ] characterises Hitler's relationship to religion as one of opportunism and pragmatism: "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><ref name="ReferenceB"/> Considering the religious allusions found in ''Mein Kampf'', Rees writes that "the most coherent reading of ''Mein Kampf''" is that Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, but did "not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of an individual 'soul'."<ref>Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135</ref> | |||
| ] has written that Hitler replaced belief in the Judeo-Christian God with belief in a peculiarly German "god".<ref name="p. 21"/> He promoted the idea of this god as the creator of Germany, but Hitler "was not a Christian in any accepted meaning of that word."<ref name="HitlerDomarus2007_427">Domarus, 2007, p. 427</ref> Domarus writes that Hitler neither believed in organized religion nor saw himself as a religious reformer.<ref name="HitlerDomarus2007_427"/> Hitler had fully discarded belief in the Judeo-Christian conception of God by 1937, writes Domarus, 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 name="p. 21"/> | |||
| Although Hitler did not "abide by its commandments", Domarus believed that 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'"|Excerpt from ''The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary'' by ]<ref name="p. 21">Max Domarus (2007). ''The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary''. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci, </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> Derek Hastings 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> | |||
| The biographer ], recounts 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", but also writes that in 1941 Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy"<ref>John Toland. (1976). ''Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography''. New York: Anchor Books, pp. 589, 703.</ref> According to ], Hitler was not ] from the Catholic Church prior to his ].<ref>]; ]; 1964; p. 303</ref> Excommunication would have barred Hitler from the ] if he had sought them. Although he had received the Catholic sacraments of Baptism, and Confirmation as an infant, he did not seek to take part in the sacraments of ] or the ] during his final days, at which point he also ignored the ]. | |||
| ] of ] wrote in 2012: "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, 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 name="Koehne"/> In his writings on Hitler's recurrent religious images and symbols, ] 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=https://books.google.com/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> | |||
| ==Hitler's remarks to confidants== | |||
| ===Speer on Hitler's religious beliefs=== | |||
| In his memoirs, Hitler's confidant, personal architect, and Minister of Armaments ], 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> | |||
| {{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 ]}} | |||
| 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> | |||
| According to Speer, Hitler's private secretary, ], relished recording any harsh pronouncements by Hitler against the church.<ref name="p. 95">Speer, Albert (1971). ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4.</ref> Speer considered Bormann to be the driving force behind the regime's campaign against the churches. Speer thought that Hitler approved of Bormann's aims, but was more pragmatic and wanted to "postpone this problem to a more favourable time":<ref name="Albert Speer p.123">Albert Speer; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; Macmillan; New York; 1970; p.123</ref> | |||
| {{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}} | |||
| 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 name="auto1">Albert Speer; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; McMillan Publishing Company; New York; 1970; p.49</ref> | |||
| ===Bormann on Hitler's religious beliefs=== | |||
| ], who was serving as Hitler's private secretary, persuaded Hitler to allow a team of specially picked officers to record in ] his private conversations for posterity.<ref name="Trevor-Roper2000vii">Trevor-Roper, H.R. (2000). ''Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944''. New York: Enigma Books, </ref> Between 1941 and 1944, Hitler's words were recorded in transcripts now known as '']''.<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.{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007}} Speer noted in his memoirs that Bormann relished recording any harsh pronouncements made by Hitler against the church: "there was hardly anything he wrote down more eagerly than deprecating comments on the church".<ref name="p. 95"/> Within the transcripts, Hitler speaks of Christianity as "absurdity" and "humbug" founded on "lies" with which he could "never come personally to terms."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|pp=59, 342, 343}} | |||
| 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.<ref name="Kershaw">{{cite book|title=Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris|last=Kershaw|first=Ian|publisher=Penguin|year=2001|isbn=978-0-14-013363-9|location=London|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'',{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=55}} 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 & {{harvnb|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=51}}</ref> | |||
| ] 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-] 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> ''Table Talk'' has the dictator often voicing stridently negative views of Christianity, such as: "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. ] is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=8}} | |||
| Transcripts contained in ''Table Talk'' have Hitler expressing faith that science would wear away religion. On 14 October 1941, in an entry concerning the fate of Christianity, Hitler says: "Science cannot lie, for its 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."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=48}} Religion will crumble before scientific advances, says Hitler: "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."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|pp=59–61}} | |||
| Hitler wanted his movement aloof from religion, fearing a pact with the churches would collapse: "I'm convinced that any pact with the Church can offer only a provisional benefit, for sooner or later the scientific spirit will disclose the harmful character of such a compromise. Thus the State will have based its existence on a foundation that one day will collapse. An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature and bows before the unknowable. An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal) as soon as he perceives that the State, in sheer opportunism, is making use of false ideas in the matter of religion, whilst in other fields it bases everything on pure science. That's why I've always kept the Party aloof from religious questions.".<ref>Trevor-Roper, Hugh, ed (2000). Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944. Trans. N. Cameron and R.H. Stevens (3rd ed.). New York: Engima Books. Midday 14th October 1941 : "I'm convinced that any pact with the Church can offer only a provisional benefit, for sooner or later the scientific spirit will disclose the harmful character of such a compromise. Thus the State will have based its existence on a foundation that one day will collapse. An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature and bows before the unknowable. An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal) as soon as he perceives that the State, in sheer opportunism, is making use of false ideas in the matter of religion, whilst in other fields it bases everything on pure science. That's why I've always kept the Party aloof from religious questions. ."</ref> | |||
| According to ''Table Talk'', Hitler believed that 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."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=76}}{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|pp=721–722}} | |||
| In ''Table Talk'', Hitler praised ]'s '']'', an anti-Christian tract from ] 362, in the entry dated 21 October 1941, stating: "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."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=76}} | |||
| Richard Carrier made some isolated comparisons of passages from the German, French and English editions of Table Talk, and found in each case that the English edition by Trevor-Roper was a translation of the French edition by Francois Genoud, rather than from the German editions; and also that the French translation contained significant distortions, which generally heightened the impression of Hitler's hatred for Christianity. Carrier concluded that "the Trevor-Roper edition is to be discarded as worthless." However, Carrier found that three German versions "have a common ancestor, which must be the actual bunker notes themselves", and recommended that scholars needed to work directly with the German editions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carrier|first=Richard|date=2003|title=Hitler's Table Talk: Troubling Finds|jstor=1432747|journal=German Studies Review|volume=26|issue=3|pages=561–576|doi=10.2307/1432747|pmid=}}</ref> | |||
| In his introduction to a 2013 edition of Trevor-Roper's Table Talk, Gerhard Reinberg agreed that the Trevor-Roper edition "derives from Genoud's French edition and not from either of the German texts."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JIbqZ_F5UhkC|title=Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944: Secret Conversations|last=Trevor-Roper|first=Hugh Redwald|last2=Weinberg|first2=Gerhard L.|date=2013-10-18|publisher=Enigma Books|isbn=9781929631667|page=xi|language=en}}</ref> After examining Trevor-Roper's personal correspondence and papers, Mikael Nilsson concluded that Trevor-Roper was fully aware of the fact that his edition was based on the French text, but failed to reveal the problems in public.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nilsson|first=Mikael|date=2016-03-10|title=Hugh Trevor-Roper and the English editions of Hitler's Table Talk and Testament|url=http://jch.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/10/0022009415619689.full.pdf?ijkey=p1nz2fpEWxuScED&keytype=finite|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|language=en|pages=0022009415619689|doi=10.1177/0022009415619689|issn=0022-0094}}</ref> | |||
| ===Goebbels on Hitler's religious beliefs=== | |||
| The '']'', written by Hitler's Propaganda Minister ], provide important insights into Hitler's thinking and actions.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998 p. xii</ref> In a diary entry of 28 December 1939, Goebbels 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 an 8 April 1941 entry, Goebbels wrote "He 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: Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler "hates Christianity" because it had made humans abject and weak, and also because the faith exalted the dignity of human life, while disregarding the rights and well-being of animals.</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''; Norton; 2008 ed; 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"/> | |||
| 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"/> | |||
| 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 name="Goebbels diaries pp. 77">Fred Taylor Translation; The Goebbels Diaries 1939–41; Hamish Hamilton Ltd; London; 1982; ISBN 0-241-10893-4; p.77</ref> | |||
| {{quotation|The ] 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 Führer is a convinced vegetarian on principle.|], 29 December 1939}} | |||
| 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> Hitler, wrote Goebbels, saw the pre-Christian ] 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"/> | |||
| The diaries also report 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> | |||
| ===Other sources on Hitler's religious 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> | |||
| Following the 1944 assassination attempt in the "]", Hitler credited his survival to fate in a radio broadcast the following day. German deputy press chief ] 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 1945, his sister ] was recorded as having stated "...I don't believe he ever left the church. I don't know for sure."<ref name="Interrogation of Paula Hitler">{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070101075206/http://www.usd230.k12.ks.us/PICTT/eisenhower/PaulaWolff/3.html |date=January 1, 2007 |title=Interrogation of Paul Wolff (Paula Hitler) }}</ref> | |||
| 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", noted Kershaw.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p. 373"/> In November 1936 the Roman Catholic prelate met Hitler at ] for a three-hour meeting. He left the meeting 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> | |||
| General ] also wrote that Hitler was a believer, having written in his diary that in 1941 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> Kershaw cites Faulhaber's case as an example of Hitler's ability to "pull the wool over the eyes of even hardened critics", demonstrating 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> | |||
| ==Public and private evolution of Hitler's beliefs== | |||
| ===Hitler's youth is for the KKK=== | |||
| ] | |||
| Adolf Hitler was raised in a Roman Catholic family in Hapsburg Austria. However, reliable historical details on his childhood are scarce. According to Hitler historian ], the reflections Hitler provided on his own life in '']'' are "inaccurate in detail and coloured in interpretation", while information that was given during the Nazi period is "dubious", as can be the postwar recollections of family and acquaintances.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p.3">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; 2008 ed; Norton; London; p.3</ref> | |||
| Hitler was baptised as a Catholic in the same year he was born during 1889.<ref></ref> 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 practising 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> ] wrote: "Much is sometimes made of the Catholic upbringing of Hitler... it was something to which Hitler himself often made allusion, and he was nearly always violently hostile. 'The biretta! The mere sight of these abortions in cassocks makes me wild!'" <ref>]; ''Hitler a Short Biography''; Harper Press; 2012, p. 71.</ref> Hitler boasted of expressing scepticism to clergyman-teachers when taught religious instruction school.<ref name="Hitler a Short Biography 2012, p. 71">]; ''Hitler a Short Biography''; Harper Press; 2012, p. 71.: "Hitler himself often made allusion and he was nearly always violently hostile... Hitler saw himself as avoiding the power of the priests. 'In Austria, religious instruction was given by the priests. I was the eternal asker of questions. Since I was completely the master of the material I was unassailable."</ref><ref>]: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p 281: "His few private remarks on Christianity betray a profound contempt and indifference. Forty years afterwards he could still recall facing up to clergyman-teacher at his school when told how unhappy he would be in the afterlife: 'I've heard of a scientists who doubts whether there is a next world'. Hitler believed that all religions were now 'decadent'; in Europe it was the 'collapse of Christianity that we are now experiencing'. The reason for the crisis was science."</ref> He 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 name=Toland9>John Toland; ''Hitler''; Wordsworth Editions; 1997 Edn; p 9</ref> Hitler later wrote in ''Mein Kampf'' that at this time he dreamed of one day taking ].<ref name="Shirer1990">{{cite book|author=William L. Shirer|title=Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany|url=https://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=https://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. According to Rissmann, as a youth 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> Biograpger ] 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> Rissmann relates a story where a boyhood friend 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? --> | |||
| In 1909, Hitler moved to Vienna and according to ] his intellectual interests there vacillated and his reading included "], the ], ], ]ism, ], ], ], 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 name="Alan Bullock p11">Alan Bullock; ]; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p11</ref> | |||
| ===Adulthood and political career=== | |||
| ====Hitler's public rhetoric and writings about religion==== | |||
| Although personally skeptical, Hitler's public relationship to religion was one of opportunistic pragmatism.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> In religious affairs 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> He typically tailored his message to his audience's perceived sensibilities and Kershaw considers that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler, who was "a very private, even secretive individual", able to deceive "even hardened critics" as to his true beliefs.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p. 373">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler: a Biography''; Norton; 2008 ed; p. 373.</ref><ref name="Court2008">{{cite book|author=Anthony Court|title=Hannah Arendt's Response to the Crisis of Her Times|url=https://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 private, he scorned Christianity, but when out campaigning for power in Germany, he 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> | |||
| Hitler's public utterances were peppered with references to 'God' and 'Spirit'.<ref>Richard Overy: The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p.281</ref><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> In '']'', Bullock wrote that Hitler, like ] before him, frequently employed the language of "]" in defence of his own personal 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">], '']'', Fontana Press 1993, p. 412.</ref><ref name="Stalin pp.413">]; '']''; Fontana Press; 1993; p.413</ref> | |||
| {{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}} | |||
| Hitler 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> | |||
| =====Religion in ''Mein Kampf''===== | |||
| In '']'' (1924-25), which was written while he was in prison after his failed 1923 putsch, Hitler combined elements of autobiography with an exposition of his racist political ideology .<ref>; web 24 May 2013</ref> The personal reflections contained within ''Mein Kampf'' are nevertheless inaccurate and unreliable.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p.3"/> In the work, Hitler uses the words "God", "the Creator", "Providence" and "the Lord".<ref name="Mein Kampf pp. 307"/><ref name="Mein Kampf pp. 65"/><ref name="Mein Kampf pp. 562"/><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> | |||
| ] described the thrust of the work as "bleak ]" 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>Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135</ref> | |||
| 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 of 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 p. 234"/> | |||
| ] saw evidence of a "Christian element" in Hitler's early writings.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall, Richard 2003 p.27">Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.27.</ref> In ''Mein Kampf'', Steigmann-Gall 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 name="Mein Kampf pp. 65">Hitler, Adolf (1999) ''Mein Kampf''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Mariner Books, p. 65.</ref></blockquote> | |||
| <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> | |||
| Steigmann-Gall argued that 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 it's 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> | |||
| In ''Mein Kampf'' Hitler wrote 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 name="Mein Kampf pp. 307">Hitler, Adolf (1998). ''Mein Kampf''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 307.</ref> | |||
| 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">{{cite web|title=Mein Kampf|url=http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt|website=gutenberg.net.au|publisher=Project Gutenberg Australia|accessdate=8 July 2015}}</ref> | |||
| {{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, '']''}} | |||
| 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"/> | |||
| {{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''}} | |||
| When he arrived in ] as a young man, Hitler claimed, 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." Instead, Hitler argued that Jews should be deplored on the basis of their "race."<ref></ref> | |||
| 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> | |||
| Elsewhere in ''Mein Kampf,'' Hitler speaks of the "creator of the universe" and "eternal Providence."<ref name="MeinKampf"/><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> 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: | |||
| <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 name="Mein Kampf pp. 562">Hitler, Adolf (1999). . Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Mariner Books, p. 562.</ref></blockquote> | |||
| 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> | |||
| ] 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>{{cite web|url=http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-roehm.htm|title=The History Place - Triumph of Hitler: Night of the Long Knives|author=|date=|work=historyplace.com|accessdate=8 July 2015}}</ref> | |||
| =====Hitler on Christianity and "Positive Christianity"===== | |||
| Article 24 of Hitler's ] of 1920 had endorsed what it termed "]", but placed religion below party ideology by adding the caveat that it must not offend "the moral sense of the German race".<ref name="Richard Overy 2004. p.285">Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p.285</ref> 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> 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 1922, a decade before Hitler took power, 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 turned Lerchenfeld's perspective of Jesus on its head, telling a crowd in Munich: | |||
| {{quotation|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 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 name="Speech Munich 1922">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>}} | |||
| 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> | |||
| In light of later developments, Rees notes, "The most persuasive explanation of 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. 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"/><ref name="ReferenceB"/> Richard Evans considers 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 1932, Hitler came up with the name German Christians (''Deutsche Christen'') for a pro-Nazi group within Evangelical Protestantism. "Hitler saw the relationship in political terms. He was not a praticising Christian, but had somehow succeeded in masking his own religious skepticism from millions of German voters", wrote ], who considered that Hitler found the arrangement useful for a time, but ultimately expected Christianity to wilt and die before "the advances of science".<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p281</ref> In this early period, the "German Christian" movement sought to make the evangelical Protestant churches in 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><ref name="Christian Church 1960 pp. 235"/> Adherents promoted notions of racial superiority and race destiny.<ref>Miguel Power, ''La persecución Nazi contra el cristianismo'' (Buenos Aires: Editorial Difusión, 1941), pp. 99–102. This book is a Spanish translation corresponding 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> Hitler backed the formal establishment of the "]" in 1932.<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">; web 25 Apr 2013</ref> | |||
| Hitler's movement was not united on questions of religion. The consensus among historians is that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it.<ref name="SG">{{cite book|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity|last=Steigmann-Gall|first=Richard|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|isbn=0-521-82371-4|location=Cambridge|pages=abstract}}</ref> Use of the term "]" in the ] of the 1920s is commonly regarded as a tactical measure, but author Steigmann-Gall believes it may have had an "inner logic" and been "more than a political ploy".<ref name="pp. 13–50">Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). ''The Holy Reich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, , p. 252.</ref> He believes Hitler saw ] as an ] opponent of the Jews.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 26–7">{{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><ref name="steigmann26">{{Harvnb|Steigmann-Gall|2003|p=26}}</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"/><ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 257–260">{{Harvnb|Steigmann-Gall|2003|pp=257–260}}</ref> | |||
| Historian ] writes 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">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> | |||
| 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> | |||
| =====Nazi seizure of power===== | |||
| Prior to the Reichstag vote for the ] of 1933, 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> | |||
| Through 1933 and into 1934, the Nazi leader 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> In a proclamation on 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 21 March 1933, the Reichstag assembled in the ], 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> | |||
| Hitler sought to gain the votes of the ] and German conservatives for the Enabling Act 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> On 23 March 1933, just prior to the vote for the ], he 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 p. 234">Shirer, 1990, p. 234.</ref><ref>Dennis Barton. (2006). ''''. www.churchinhistory.org.</ref> "With an eye to the votes of the Catholic Centre Party", wrote Shirer, he added that he hoped to improve relations with the Holy See.<ref name="William L. Shirer p. 234"/> | |||
| The Centre Party asked for guarantees of the rights of the churches. Hitler promised that the institutions of the ] and churches would be protected, and said his government saw the churches as "the most important factors for upholding our nationhood". Amid threats and talk of civil war, the Centre Party voted for the Act.<ref name="Ian Kershaw 1998, p.467">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris''; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998, p.467</ref><ref name="Bullock, 1991, pp. 147-48">Bullock, 1991, pp. 147-48</ref> Hitler's false promises of protection for the churches and institutions of the republic were never kept.<ref name="Ian Kershaw 1998, p.467">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris''; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998, p.467</ref><ref name="Bullock, 1991, pp. 147-48">Bullock, 1991, pp. 147-48</ref> | |||
| In Jan. 1934, Hitler angered the churches by appointing the neo-pagan ] as official Nazi ideologist. The Fuhrer launched an effort toward ] of German Protestants under a unified ] under the '']'' movement, but the attempt failed—resisted by the ]. In ''The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany'', ] noted that the ''Deutsche Christens'' differed from traditional Christians by rejecting the Hebrew origins of Christianity. In public statements made during his rule, Hitler continued to speak positively about a Nazi vision of ] German culture,<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> and his belief in an ] ]. Hitler added that ], as a Jew, had falsified Jesus' message—a theme Hitler repeated in private conversations, including, 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> | |||
| Ian Kershaw said that Hitler had lost interest in supporting the '']'' from around 1934.<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 295–297"/> However, 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> | |||
| 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> | |||
| 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=https://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=https://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> | |||
| {{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 name="Norman H. Baynes 1969 p. 402">from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 402.</ref>}} | |||
| ====Hitler on mysticism and occultism==== | |||
| {{Main article|Nazism and occultism}} | |||
| According to Bullock, as an adolescent in Vienna, Hitler read widely, including books on ]ism, ], ]. However, his interest in these subjects was fleeting, and there is no evidence that he ever subscribed to any of these schools of thought.<ref name="Alan Bullock p11" /> 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 1938 speech in Nuremberg Hitler rejected any form of mysticism, but expressed his belief in God, and that the Nazi's work was to fulfill a divine will: | |||
| {{Quotation|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 program 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.<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 ], 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> | |||
| The seminal work on ], '']'' 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> | |||
| 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> | |||
| 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" /> | |||
| 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|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gXP81OTCulsC&pg=PA3|title=Totalitarianism and Political Religions, Volume II: Concepts for the Comparison Of Dictatorships|date=24 December 2007|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-203-93542-2|pages=3–|author1=Hans Maier|author2=Michael Schäfer|accessdate=2013-05-29}}</ref> | |||
| Although Hitler expressed negative views towards the mystical notions of some of his senior Nazi underlings in private, he nevertheless appointed ] and ] to senior positions in the Nazi movement.<ref name="p. 94">]: Memoirs of ]; New York: Simon and Schuster, </ref><ref name="auto1">Albert Speer; ''Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs''; Translation by Richard & Clara Winston; McMillan Publishing Company; New York; 1970; p.49</ref> ] wrote that, "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 with the new paganism of the Nazi extremists".<ref name="books.google.com">], , p. 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990.</ref> Blainey wrote: "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"/> | |||
| In 1924, during his imprisonment, Hitler had chosen ] to lead the Nazi movement in his absence.<ref>Laurence Rees; ''The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler''; Ebury Press 2012; p. 66</ref> In his seminal 1930 work '']'', Rosenberg wrote: "We now realize that the central supreme values of the Roman and the Protestant Churches hinder the organic powers of the peoples determined by their Nordic race, they will have to be remodeled ". Hitler had called his book "derivative, pastiche, illogical rubbish!"<ref>The Face of the Third Reich, Joachim Fest, p. 255</ref> But in January 1934, Hitler appointed Rosenberg as the cultural and educational leader of the Reich - the official Nazi philosopher and ideologist. Rosenberg was notoriously anti-Christian.<ref>Richard Bonney; ''Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity: the Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936–1939''; International Academic Publishers; Bern; 2009 ISBN 978-3-03911-904-2; pp. 122</ref> Church officials were perturbed by Hitler's appointment of Rosenberg as Nazi philosopher as it apparently endorsed Rosenberg's anti-church and neo-pagan philosophy. The Vatican banned ''Myth of the Twentieth Century'' in February, 1934.<ref>Gill, 1994, see Chronology</ref> During the War, Rosenberg outlined the future he envisioned for religion in Germany. Among its articles: the National Reich Church of Germany was to claim exclusive control over all churches; publication of the Bible was to cease; crucifixes, Bibles and saints were to be removed from altars; and Mein Kampf was to be placed on altars as "to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book"; and the Christian Cross was to be removed from all churches and replaced with the swastika. But Rosenberg was in the end, a marginalised figure in the Hitler regime.<ref>The Face of the Third Reich, Joachim Fest, pp. 247–64</ref> | |||
| Hitler selected ] to head the Nazi '']'' (SS) security forces. Himmler saw the main task of the SS to be that of "acting as the vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring a 'Germanic' way of living" in order to prepare for the coming conflict between "humans and subhumans":<ref name="Peter Longerich p.265">Peter Longerich; ''Heinrich Himmler''; Translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe; Oxford University Press; 2012; p.265</ref> He set about making his SS the focus of a "cult of the Teutons".<ref>Peter Longerich; ''Heinrich Himmler''; Translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe; Oxford University Press; 2012; p.269</ref> In 1937 he wrote that it was "the mission of the SS to give the German people in the next half century the non-Christian ideological foundations on which to lead and shape their lives. This task does not consist solely in overcoming an ideological opponent but must be accompanied at every step by a positive impetus: in this case that means the reconstruction of the German heritage in the widest and most comprehensive sense."<ref>Peter Longerich; ''Heinrich Himmler''; Translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe; Oxford University Press; 2012; p.270</ref> | |||
| ====Hitler on atheism==== | |||
| {{Further information|Discrimination against atheists in Nazi Germany}} | |||
| During his career, and for a variety of reasons, Hitler made various comments ]. He associated ] 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> Overy writes of Hitler as skeptical of all religious belief, though not a thorough atheist:<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.pp. 281</ref> | |||
| {{Quotation|"Hitler was politically prudent enough not to trumpet his scientific views publicly, not least because he wanted to maintain the distinction between his own movement and the godlessness of Soviet Communism. Nor was he a thorough atheist. His public utterances are peppered with references to 'God' and 'Spirit'. For Hitler the eschatological truths that he found in his perception of the race represented the real 'eternal will that rules the universe'; in the infinite value of the race and the struggle to sustain it men find what they might call God, an inner sense of the unity and purposiveness of nature and history What Hitler could not accept was that Christianity could offer anything other than false 'ideas' to sustain its claim to moral certitude."|Excerpt from ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia'' by ] <ref>Richard Overy; ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p.281</ref>}} | |||
| The historian ] wrote that Hitler courted and benefited from fear among German Christians of militant Communist atheism.<ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6"/> "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.<ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6"/> In early 1933, Hitler publicly defended National Socialism against charges that it was anti-Christian. Responding to accusations by ], the Catholic Centre Party ] of ], 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). ''''. 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 ] 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 name="The Third Reich p.157">]; ''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 name="Evans, Richard J. 2005 pp. 245">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 ], 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 ] was opposed to the Church, while ] 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> | |||
| ====Hitler on 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 of the Swastika to be 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">{{cite web|url=http://archaeology.about.com/od/indusrivercivilizations/a/aryans.htm|title=Who Were the Aryans?|author=K. Kris Hirst|date=|work=About.com Education|accessdate=8 July 2015}}</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"/> | |||
| ====Hitler on Islam==== | |||
| {{see also|Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world}} | |||
| ], the then ]. 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 as the ] of ] until 1937 — which included his asylum in 1941, with the honorary rank of an ] Major-General, and had a "respected racial ]" — | |||
| has been interpreted by some as a sign of respect rather than as a relationship born out of political expediency.<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 eliminate the Jews from Palestine.<ref name=klausmuslim>{{cite book|author=Klaus Gensicke|title=Der Mufti von Jerusalem Amin el-Husseini, und die Nationalsozialisten|location=Frankfurt/M. |year=1988|page=234}}</ref> Despite al-Husseini's attempts to reach out to Germany, 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 anti-Semitic ideology.<ref name=klausmuslim /> | |||
| During the unsuccessful ], Husseini and his allies took the opportunity to strengthen relations with Germany 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 |location=Düsseldorf|year=1997|page=260}}</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|location=Wiesbaden|year=1982|page=282}}</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 a more 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" /> Hitler said that the Germans would have become heirs to "a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and in subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the German temperament."<ref>"Speer, 1970", pp. 142--143</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=https://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> | |||
| Similarly, Hitler was transcribed as saying: "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."{{sfn|Cameron|Stevens|Weinberg|Trevor-Roper|2007|p=667}} | |||
| Speer has stated that when he was discussing with Hitler events which might have occurred had Islam absorbed Europe: "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."<ref name="Speer1997"/> Hitler was also quoted in the early war years stating, "We shall continue to make disturbances in the ] and in ]. Let us think as men and let us see in these peoples at best lacquered half-apes who are anxious to experience the lash."<ref>{{cite journal | author = Stefan Wild | title = National Socialism in the Arab near East between 1933 and 1939 | journal = Die Welt des Islams, New Series | volume = 25 | year = 1985 | pages = 126–173 | quote = Wir werden weiterhin die Unruhe in Fernost und in Arabien schüren. Denken wir als Herren und sehen in diesen Völkern bestenfalls lackierte Halbaffen, die die Knute spüren wollen. | doi=10.2307/1571079}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author = Wolfgang Schwanitz | title = Islam and Muslims in Germany | chapter = The Bellicose Birth of Euro-Islam in Berlin | page = 203 | year = 2008 | publisher = Koninklijke Brill NV | place = Leiden | editor = Ala Al-Hamarneh and Jörn Thielmann | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=y4u3ynj-FawC&pg=PA203&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false }}</ref> | |||
| ====Hitler on Judaism==== | |||
| National Socialist ideology developed a racial hierarchy which placed minority groups - most especially the Jews - as subhuman. The categorisation was based on the Nazi conception of race, and not on religion, thus Slavs and Poles (who were overwhelmingly Christian) were also grouped as inferior to the so-called "Aryan" peoples. 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".<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> However, Hitler also had ideological objections to Judaism as a faith, and some of Hitler's antipathy towards Christianity flowed from its Jewish origins, as he 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">]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547</ref> | |||
| Writing for the public in '']'', Hitler described the Jews as enemies of all civilization and as materialistic, unspiritual beings: "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."<ref>Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 65.</ref> In the work, he also described a 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> | |||
| During negotiations for the ] between the Catholic Church and Germany 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 ]s, 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> | |||
| ===== Secular v religious influences ===== | |||
| 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. While Hitler's views on these subjects have often been called "]", Hitler's grasp of the subject has been argued to have been incomplete,<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><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><ref>Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, pp. 86–87</ref> 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> | |||
| According to historian ], anti-Semitism has a long history within Christianity, and 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-Semitic 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> Writers including ] and ], have drawn links between Hitler's Catholic background and his anti-Semitism.<ref name="John Toland 1976 p. 703">John Toland. (1976). Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. New York: Anchor Books, p. 703.</ref> | |||
| ] in contrast, notes that there is little emphasis on Christianity in '']'', which presents a view of the universe conspicuously at odds with traditional Christians notions long established in Germany. Hitler's vision is ordered instead around principles of struggle between weak and strong.<ref>Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler; Ebury Press; 2012; p135</ref> Rees argues that Hitler's "bleak and violent vision" and visceral hatred of the Jews had been influenced by sources outside the Christian tradition. The notion of life as struggle Hitler 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, writes Rees.<ref>Laurence Rees; ''The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler''; Ebury Press 2012; pp. 61–62</ref> | |||
| ] notes that 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 ''Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich''; Regnery; USA 2016; ISBN 978-1621575009; p.352)</ref> Fest considers that Hitler simplified 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> According to Steigman-Gall, in Hitler's belief, God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival as depicted by de Gobineau. The "Aryan race," supposedly the bearer of civilization, is allocated a special place: "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 ]."</cite><ref name="steigmann26"/> | |||
| In his rhetoric{{when|date=April 2017}} Hitler fed on the old accusation of Jewish ]. It has been speculated that Christian anti-Judaism influenced Hitler's ideas, especially such works as ]'s essay '']'' and the writings of ].{{CN|date=April 2017}} 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> 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 name="John Toland 1976 p. 703"/> Toland wrote that in 1941 Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy" and" 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> | |||
| ==Hitler's policies towards religion== | |||
| {{Main article|Religion in Nazi Germany|}} | |||
| ===Role of religion in the Nazi state=== | |||
| ] could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. It desired the subordination of church to state.<ref>Theodore S. Hamerow; On the Road to the Wolf's Lair - German Resistance to Hitler; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1997; ISBN 0-674-63680-5; p. 196</ref> Nevertheless, Nazi Germany was not formally atheist, and, other than for Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses, religious observance was permitted.<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p278</ref> ] wrote that Hitler's Germany was not a "straightforwardly atheist state," but one which "sacrilized" notions of blood and nation.<ref>]; ''Atheism a Very Short Introduction''; Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 85-87</ref> | |||
| Hitler feared the results of overt attacks on the deep-rooted German churches, as around two thirds of Germans were Protestant - mostly Lutheran - and most of the rest were Catholic.<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p278-285</ref> German conservative elements, such as the officer corps of the army, opposed Nazi efforts against the churches, and Hitler needed to show caution.<ref name="Hitler p218">]; '']''; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p218"</ref><ref>]; '']''; Harper Perennial Edition 1991; p236</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Miner|2003|p=54}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Thomsett|1997|pp=54–55}}</ref><ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6">]; '']''; Viking; 2011; pp. 495–6</ref> The Hitler regime responded to the ideological challenge of Christian morality using political repression and persecution and by challenging Christian teachings through education and propaganda.<ref name="Richard Overy 2004. p.285"/> | |||
| ====''Kirchenkampf'' Church Struggle==== | |||
| {{See also|Kirchenkampf|Catholic Church and Nazi Germany|Confessing Church|Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany}} | |||
| ]. Hitler moved early to contain the churches, from whom he perceived a threat.]] | |||
| Hitler possessed radical instincts in relation to the Nazi conflict with the Churches, and though he occasionally spoke of wanting to delay a struggle and was prepared to restrain his anti-clericalism out of political considerations, Kershaw considers that his "own inflammatory comments gave his immediate underlings all the license they needed to turn up the heat in the 'Church Struggle'".<ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 381–382">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London; pp. 381–382</ref> | |||
| Hitler "wanted to neutralise any political threat from organised religion", wrote Overy. "The first step was to reach agreement with the Roman Catholic Church, whose theology was not susceptible to the new nationalist trends...". Hitler dispatched the Catholic conservative ] to negotiate a ] with the Vatican. He obtained an agreement that clergy would refrain from politics, in return for guarantees of Church rights.<ref name="Richard Overy 2004. p 283-5">Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p 283-5</ref><ref name="Ian Kershaw p.290">Ian Kershaw; ''Hitler a Biography''; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; p. 290.</ref> Hitler was delighted, and received the congratulations of German Catholic leaders.<ref>an Kershaw; Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998, p.467</ref> However, violations of the treaty began almost as soon as it was signed.<ref name="ReferenceA">]; ]; pp. 495–6</ref><ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Company; London; p. 295.</ref> 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 234-235</ref> Catholic publications were shut down. The ] began to violate the sanctity of the confessional.<ref name="William L. Shirer p. 234" /><ref name="Ian Kershaw pp. 381–382"/> | |||
| 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 Germany of violations of the Concordat and of sowing the tares of "open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church", and denounced the pagan myth of "blood and soil".<ref name="William L. Shirer p. 234" /> Hitler's invasion of the 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 name="Ian Kershaw p.661">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p. 661."</ref> | |||
| ] as Minister for Church Affairs in 1935. Kerrl rejected Christ as the basis of Christianity.<ref name="William L. Shirer pp 238"/>]] | |||
| On Protestantism, Hitler proposed to unite Germany's 28 evangelical churches into one ]. Steigmann-Gall wrote 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> Hitler's interest was opportunistic: "From Hitler's point of view, a national church was of interest purely from a point of view of control and manipulation", wrote Kershaw.<ref name="Ian Kershaw 1998, p.489-90">Ian Kershaw; Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris; Allen Lane/Penguin Press; 1998, p.489-90</ref> He installed his friend ] as leader of the movement and sought to establish a pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic unified Reich Church.<ref>William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; pp. 234–238.</ref> Resistance quickly arose in the form of the ], led by ], which had 40% of clergy by 1934 and founded the ], from which some clergymen opposed the Nazi regime.<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 ''German Christians'' called for rejection of the Bible as "Jewish superstition" and of the Christian calling to "love thy neighbour", the movement lost still further support. Hitler's move to have Muller elected Bishop failed - despite intimidation. He then abandoned his efforts to unite the Protestant churches, appointed ] as Minister for Church Affairs in December 1934, and distanced himself permanently from the so-called "German Christians".<ref name="Richard Overy 2004. p 283-5"/><ref>Poewe, Karla (2006). Routledge, p. 30.</ref> According to Steigmann-Gall, he 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> A relative moderate, Kerrl initially had some success 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". Kerrl said Nazi Positive Christianity rejected the ] and Divinity of Christ as the basis of Christianity, 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> Hitler had Neimoller sent to the Concentration Camps in 1938, where he remained until war's end.<ref name="Richard Overy 2004. p.286">Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p.286</ref> Hitler largely ignored Kerrl, who died in office in 1941 and was not replaced. | |||
| ] for clerical enemies of the Hitler regime.]] | |||
| From the mid 1930s, the Nazi movement came increasingly to be led by vehement anti-Christians, whom Hitler appointed to key positions.<ref name="pp. 13–50"/><ref name="Steigmann-Gall 2003 257–260"/><ref name="Bundle7"> | |||
| *]; ''Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany'', p. 240, Simon and Schuster, 1990: "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". | |||
| *]: ''The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia''; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p. 287 : "From the mid 1930s the regime and party were dominated much more by the prominent anti-Christians in their ranks - Himmler, Bormann, Heydrich - but were restrained by Hitler, despite his anti religious sentiments, from any radical programme of de-Chritianization. Hitler 'expected the end of the disease of Christianity to come about by itself once its falsehoods were self evident" | |||
| *Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889–1936: hubris, pp. 575–576, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000</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". 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> 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> | |||
| ====Long term plans for the churches==== | |||
| Overy wrote that Christianity was ultimately as incompatible with National Socialism as it was with Soviet Communism and that "Hitler expected the end of the disease of Christianity to come about by itself once the falsehoods were self evident-evident. During the war he reflected that that in the long run 'National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together'."<ref name="Richard Overy 2004. p.286"/> Other historians have written of a more active intent on the part of Hitler and the Nazi leadership.<ref name="Bundle"> | |||
| *Sharkey, Joe (13 January 2002). "". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-07. | |||
| *Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p.661 | |||
| *]; '']''; 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.” | |||
| *] (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". | |||
| *]; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.pp.287: “During the War reflected that in the long run, ‘National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together. Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state, while the slow programme of scientific revelation destroyed the foundation of religious myth.” | |||
| *]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 547: wrote that Hitler believed that in the long run National Socialism and religion would not be able to co-exist, and stressed repeatedly that Nazism was a secular ideology, founded on modern science: "Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition". Germany could not tolerate the intervention of foreign influences such as the Pope and "Priests, he said, were 'black bugs', 'abortions in black cassocks'". | |||
| * ] ''Fascism's relation to religion'' in Blamires, Cyprian, , p. 10, ABC-CLIO, 2006: "There is no doubt that in the long run Nazi leaders such as Hitler and Himmler intended to eradicate Christianity just as ruthlessly as any other rival ideology, even if in the short term they had to be content to make compromises with it." | |||
| * ], , p. 240, Univ 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." | |||
| * ], , 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." | |||
| *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.” | |||
| *, Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Winter 2001, publishing evidence compiled by the O.S.S. for the Nuremberg war-crimes trials of 1945 and 1946 | |||
| *Sharkey, , New York Times, 13 January 2002 | |||
| *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> Kershaw noted that Hitler's scheme for the Germanization of Eastern Europe saw no place for Christian churches and that Goebbels wrote from conversations with Hitler that there was an insoluble opposition between the Christian and a Germanic-heroic world-view which would need settling after the war.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; WW Norton & Company; London p.661</ref> ] noted in his memoir that churches were not to receive building sites in Hitler's new Berlin.<ref>Albert Speer. (1997). '']''. New York: Simon and Schuster, </ref> Bullock wrote "once the war was over, Hitler promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches".<ref>]; ]; HarperPerennial Edition 1991; p 219</ref> The Nazi plan was to "de-Christianise Germany after the final victory", writes historian of German Resistance ].<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> "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", wrote ].<ref name="yadvashem.org">]; , published by ]</ref> | |||
| In its brief of evidence for the ] concerning the Nazi persecution of the churches, the American ] (a forerunner to the CIA) compiled a report entitled "The Nazi Master Plan" which examined the Nazi persecution of the churches and found that the Hitler regime had a plan to subvert and destroy German Christianity.<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=https://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><ref name="Annex 4p9">Office of Strategic Services (1945). . Annex 4. Ithaca NY: Cornell Law Library, </ref> The investigator wrote: | |||
| {{quotation|"National Socialism was by its very nature hostile to Christianity and the Christian churches Conflict was inevitable Important leaders of the National Socialist party would have liked to meet this situation by a complete extirpation of Christianity and the substitution of a purely racial religion tailored to fit the needs of National Socialist policy. This radically anti-Christian position is most significantly presented in Alfred Rosenberg's '']''...generally regarded after '']'' as the most authoritative statement of National Socialist ideology. Thus in a declaration of 5 November 1934, ], the German youth leader declared... 'the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognised as a purpose of the National Socialist movement'. Considerations of expediency made it impossible, however to to adopt this radical anti-Christian policy officially. Thus the policy actually adopted was to reduce the influence of the Christian churches as far as possible through use of every available means, without provoking the difficulties of an open war of extermination."|OSS; The Nazi Master Plan; Annex 4: The Persecution of the Christian Churches, 6 July 1945}} | |||
| According to Kershaw, in 1937 Goebbels noted Hitler was becoming more radical on the 'Church Question', and indicated that, though current political circumstances required waiting, his long therm plan was to eventually dissolve the Reich concordat with Rome, detach the church entirely from the state and turn the entire force of the party to 'the destruction of the clerics', and end the ] in a 'great world showdown'.<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis; WW Norton & Company; 2000; pp.40-41</ref> In 1941, when Bishop ] protested against Nazi Euthanasia and seizures of church properties, although Hitler's sympathies lay with the radicals who wanted Galen dead and church properties seized, he calculated that this would turn Catholic areas still further against the regime. "Only the need for peace in relation with the churches to avoid deteriorating morale on the home front determined his stance", wrote Kershaw, "Events in the Warthegau (where by 1941 94% of churches and chapels in the Posen-Gnesen diocese were closed, 11 % of the clergy were murdered, and most of the remainder thrust into prisons and concentration camps) showed the face of the future."<ref>Ian Kershaw; Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis; WW Norton & Company; 2000; pp.428</ref> | |||
| ] as official Nazi ideologist.]] | |||
| ====Atheism==== | |||
| {{See also|Irreligion in Nazi Germany}} | |||
| ], Hitler's deputy and a leading atheist of the Nazi movement.]] | |||
| The National Socialist movement was not formally atheist, and generally allowed religious observance.<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p278</ref> ] wrote that Hitler's Germany was not a "straightforwardly atheist state," but one which "sacrilized" notions of blood and nation.<ref>]; ''Atheism a Very Short Introduction''; Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 85-87</ref> On October 13, 1933, ] ] issued a decree stating: "No National Socialist may suffer any detriment on the ground that he does not profess any particular faith or confession or on the ground that he does not make any religious profession at all."<ref>Baynes, Norman H. ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig, p. 378.</ref> However, "The aggressive spread of atheism in the Soviet Union alarmed many German Christians," wrote ] and Hitler saw Christianity as a "temporary ally" against Bolshevism, and courted and benefited from fear among German Christians of militant Communist atheism.<ref name="Christianity pp. 495–6"/> In that same year 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= https://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=https://books.google.com/?id=YXOr4xQFSJsC&pg=PA124}}</ref> | |||
| When criticised for anti-Christian sentiments in February 1933, Hitler claimed that it was the Nazis not the Catholic Centre Party that had taken on atheist politics.<ref name="Norman H. Baynes 1969 p. 240">from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). ''''. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 240</ref> When negotiating the concordat with the Catholic Church, Hitler said he supported religious education in schools.<ref name="The German Churches Under Hitler">Ernst Helmreich, ''''. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1979, p. 241.</ref> Once in office however, Hitler then pursued a policy of suppression of denominational schools and church youth organisations.<ref name="Nazi trial documents made public">, BBC, 11 January 2002</ref> Clergymen teachers were removed from virtually all state schools.<ref name="The Third Reich p.157"/> By 1939 all denominational schools had been disbanded or converted to public facilities.<ref name="Evans, Richard J. 2005 pp. 245"/> In that year, Evans notes, some 95% of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic, while only 3.5% 'Deist' ('']'') 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 name="Richard J 2009, p. 546">]; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 546</ref> | |||
| ] 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">The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945, by John S. Conway p. 232; Regent College Publishing</ref> Aggressive anti-Church radicals like ] and ] saw the '']'' campaign against the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and ] sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.<ref name="Ian Kershaw p.381-382">Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography; 2008 Edn; W.W. Norton & Co; London; pp. 381–82</ref> From 1938, writes Overy "Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery and a prominent party atheist, took a leading role in trying to sever all all state financial support for the churches, and to limit their legal status and activities, but the need to mobilise church support for the war effort from September 1939 led, as it did in the Soviet Union after 1941, to a limited political truce between church and state."<ref>Richard Overy; ‘’The Dictators Hitler's Germany Stalin's Russia’’; Allen Lane/Penguin; 2004.p. 286</ref> Speer considered Bormann to be the driving force behind the regime's campaign against the churches and thought that Hitler approved of his aims, but wanted to "postpone this problem to a more favourable time":<ref name="Albert Speer p.123"/> | |||
| ====Jehovah's Witnesses==== | |||
| ] numbered 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 6,000 were sent to the concentration camps.<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; ]; Viking; 2011; pp.496</ref> | |||
| ====Judaism==== | |||
| {{See also|The Holocaust|}} | |||
| Anti-Judaism as well as racial anti-Semitism were central planks of Hitler's philosophy. His regime perpetrated the ] an effort to exterminate the Jews, which resulted in the deadliest genocide in history. Hitler's ideology presented the Jews as a biological challenge to the "purity" of German blood. | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| {{div col|colwidth=20em}} | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * '']'' | |||
| * ] | |||
| {{div col end}} | |||
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| {{cite book|last1=Cameron|first1=Norman|last2=Stevens|first2=R. H. Stevens|last3=Weinberg|first3=Gerhard L.|last4=Trevor-Roper|first4=H. R.|title=Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944: Secret Conversations.|year=2007|publisher=Enigma Books|location=New York|isbn=9781936274932|url=|ref=harv}} | |||
| {{refend}} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * ''''; by Adolf Hitler | |||
| * ''''; by Adolf Hitler (]'s translation, published by Hurst and Blackett in 1939) | |||
| * ; by ]. | |||
| * ; by ]; Quadrant Online | |||
| * ; by Jim Walker; ''nobeliefs.com''. | |||
| {{Adolf Hitler}} | |||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Adolf Hitler's Religious Beliefs}} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Revision as of 04:33, 16 June 2017
hitler if god the only god