Can we finally put a nail in the "Hitler was an atheist" coffin?

Question

I asked this in histor as well. Here's a link to the question.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoyepxbP8X4eKMrinmCjLX3sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071211071627AAOdn1H

Yeah, Acid, I know. It seems they weren't as against him in '33. They might have thought he was a "good guy"? Y'know, being against the godless atheists and all....

Answer 1

I think it is important to acknowledge what Hitler practiced and what he publicly declared hundreds of times and what the people who lived in Europe at the time believed ABOUT HIM THEN. I say this is because to forget means that it could happen again ..and what I mean by that is..that religious fundamentalism can be used to incite people to do uncivilized things in a civilized nation. The Christian majority populace in Europe who gave him massive popular support did so because they believed they were also serving the interests of THEIR faith. If millions can be brainwashed by such things, we need to KNOW HOW it happened! Denial that he used Christianity is so dangerous in my view. Europe, from the mid 1800s until World War 2, had been riding a tidal wave of religious fundamentalism. The following are quotes and statements and links to where one may find evidence from the HUNDREDS of existing transcripts of speeches ( in print and on FILM) that directly refer to his Christian belief.
The Communists..because they were “godless” were condemned and were the political enemies and rivals of the Nazi party. Political posters using religious symbolism to gain support from Christians for the Nazi party demonized the Communists because of their atheism. Now here are some links and quotes and comments PLEASE read them and study this more on your own. An excellent book from a NON JEWISH persepective of how Hitler and the Nazis gained the support of GOOD HEARTED PEOPLE who did not realize the enormity of the atrocities they unwittingly aided until it was too late, is “The Resistance of the White Rose” by Inge Scholl. She wrote a chilling tale from the perspective of one of many youth who were at first enticed by this movement..and then when it became clear that evil had gripped the nation under the guise of good..her family suffered greatly as a result. Their resistance movement is something I hope all read about.



http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
Hitler’s beliefs

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” --1941, Adolph Hitler to General Gerhart Engel

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has 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.... We need believing people." Adolf Hitler, speech given during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933, 26 April 1933

He made Christian school prayer mandatory for the 1930's German schoolchildren who grew up to be his SS. He did this in all occupied nations as well, Yugoslavia and Poland EMBRACED this Christian prayer in their schools and saw it as superior to the godless Communist rulers.

And Nazi soldiers wore belt buckles inscribed with "Gott mit uns" (God is with us). (there is a photo of the belt buckle at a page at that site along with many other photographic evidence of Hitler’s personal practices and affiliations)


“The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will.”-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter." --Adolph Hitler, in a speech delivered at Munich, April 12, 1922
‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’”-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
"“I may not be a light of the church, a pulpiteer, but deep down I am a pious man, and believe that whoever fights bravely in defense of the natural laws framed by God and never capitulates will never be deserted by the Lawgiver, but will, in the end, receive the blessings of Providence.”-- Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered on July 5, 1944
“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”--Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933.


Relevant To Today: Excerpts From Adolf Hitler's Speeches.
In view of the political climate, we should take notice of Hitler's speeches and how he came to office in Germany in 1933.
Hitler was Catholic and comitted to the Order of Skull and Crossbones during his reign. There were only two denominations in Germany: Lutheran and Roman Catholic. Martin Luther tried to close down Masonic Lodges which were prevalent among the politicians in Germany especially.
In the 1920s, Hitler's German Workers' Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a "Programme" with twenty-five points. In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a "positive" Christianity: "We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession.... "
Hitler's speeches and proclamations, even more clearly, reveal his faith and feelings toward a Christianized Germany. Nazism presents an embarrassment to Christianity and demonstrates the danger of faith. The following words from Hitler show his disdain for atheism, and pagan cults, and reveals the strength of his Christian feelings:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... "
"And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited." Adolf Hitler, in his speech on April 12,1922 [Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt. 3:7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple.]
"It will at any rate be my supreme task to see to it that in the newly awakened NSDAP, the adherents of both Confessions can live peacefully together side by side in order that they may take their stand in the common fight against the power which is the mortal foe of any true Christianity." (Adolf Hitler, in an article headed "A New Beginning," Feb.26, 1925)
"Except the Lord built the house they labour in vain.... The truth of that text was proved if one looks at the house of which the foundations were laid in 1918 and which since then has been in building.... THe world will not help, the people must help itself. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it we may wage the battle of our life.... The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almighty-- of Him Who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward, let us never forget the duty which we have taken upon us.... We are all proud that through God's powerful aid we have become once more true Germans." (Adolf Hitler, in a speech in March 1933) [Note, "Except the Lord built the house, they labour in vain" comes from Psalms 127:1 ]
Excerpt: "The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.... The National Government regard the two Christian Confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed.... It will be the Government's care to maintain honest co-operation between Church and State; the struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our Christian faith."
"The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them." (Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933)
"We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty 'Lord, make us free'!-- we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: 'Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonour, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.' 'Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.' (Adolf Hitler, giving prayer in a speech on May Day 1933 )
"This is for us a ground for satisfaction, since we desire that the fight in the religious camps should come to an end... all political action in the parties will be forbidden to priests for all time, happy because we now what is wanted by millions who long to see in the priest only the comforter of their souls and not the representative of their political convictions." (Adolf Hitler, in a speech to the men of the SA. at Dormund, July 9, 1933 on the day after the signing of the Concordat).
"National Socialism has always affirmed that it is determined to take the Christian Churches under the protection of the State.... The decisive factor which can justify the existence alike of Church and State is the maintenance of men's spiritual and bodily health, for it that health were destroyed it would mean the end of the State and also the end of the Church.... It is my sincere hope that thereby for Germany, too, through free agreement there has been produced a final clarification of spheres in the functions of the State and of one Church. (Adolf Hitler, on a wireless on July22, 1933, the evening before the Evangelical Church Election)
"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." (Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on Oct.24, 1933) [This statement clearly refutes modern Christians who claim Hitler as favoring atheism.]
"I believe that Providence would never have allowed us to see the victory of the Movement if it had the intention after all to destroy us at the end." (Adolf Hitler, in a speech to old members of the Party at Munich on Nov. 8, 1933 )
"The German Church and the People are practically the same body. Therefore there could be no issue between Church and State. The Church, as such, has nothing to do with political affairs. On the other hand, the State has nothing to do with the faith or inner organization of the Church. The election of November 12th would be an expression of church constituency, but not as a Church. (Adolf Hitler, answering C. F. Macfarland about Church & State (in his book, The New Church and the New Germany) )
"While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions. (Adolf Hitler, in his New Year Message on Jan. 1, 1934)
"Embued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions." (Adolf Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on Jan.30, 1934)
"It would have been more to the point, more honest and more Christian, in past decades not to support those who intentionally destroyed healthy life than to rebel against those who have no other wish than to avoid disease. Moreover, a policy of laissez faire in this sphere is not only cruelty to the individual guiltless victims but also to the nation as a whole.... "
"If the Churches were to declare themselves ready to take over the treatment and care of those suffering from hereditary diseases, we should be quite ready to refrain from sterilizing them. (Adolf Hitler, in his speech on ..Jan. 30, 1934)
"We have experienced a miracle, something unique, something the like of which there has hardly been in the history of the world. God first allowed our people to be victorious for four and a half years, then He abased us, laid upon us a period of shamelessness, but now after a struggle of fourteen years he has permitted us to bring that period to a close. It is a miracle which has been wrought upon the German people.... It shows us that the Almighty has not deserted our people, that He received it into favour at the moment when it rediscovered itself. And that our people shall never again lose itself, that must be our vow so long as we shall live and so long as the Lord gives us the strength to carry on the fight." (Adolf Hitler, in a speech to the "Old Guard" of the Party at Munich on March 19, 1934)
"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 to-day. " (Adolf Hitler, on June 26, 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda)

I ALSO recognize that it was LARGELY CHRISTIANS who were Hitler's DOWNFALL and I thank God for that! I do not intend to demonize Christianity in this answer..I intend to look at the harsh reality of what happened so that by examining it..people can RECOGNIZE when any leader tries to use ANY religion to incite hatreds and injustice to any group.

Answer 2

May I put things in perspective?

I'm Jewish and I personally know someone who was in Auschwitz as a young child; he saw his parents and siblings get tortured and then gassed to death.

So frankly, I couldn't give a damn whether Hitler and his fellow henchmen were Christian, Atheist, or from outer blinking space - they were evil incarnate on this earth and that is that.

I believe that 'true' Christians are decent, fair people. Alas, Christianity itself has enshrined many false and negative views of Jews and Judaism. And THAT is the relevant point here - not what a lunatic like Hitler believed or didn't believe!

Rant over.

Answer 3

Hitler had no religion per se, he subscribed to elements of Ariosophy and Theosophy. He did not lack a claim to a moral or metaphysical system such as is lacking completely in Socialism, but his ethic and belief arose from a hodgepodge mixture of several relatively obscure systems.

I don't think that anyone would argue wit the assertion that religion can and has often been used to justify atrocity - and so have non-religious ideologies like Socialism, democracy, and even environmentalism. I believe relativism and fundamentalism are equally dangerous....

Answer 4

Hitler came from Austria which was an extreme Roman catholic society with a long history of anti-semitism. He gave the Vatican preferential treatment for catholic schools in Germany .

Answer 5

From the heart, the mouth speaks. So we must look at what he said to discern where his heart was. His spoken record clearly indicates he was not a Christian.

However, he claimed to be. So, we press on.

A tree is known by its fruits. Looking at his actions, wow, clearly the jury is IN on that one!! Again, not a Christian.

However, he claimed to be. So, we press on and conclude that although he claimed a belief in God, clearly his spoken word and actions were hyper-non-Christian. But that doesn't make him an atheist.

Answer 6

Hitler was a weird neo-Pagan racialist mystic of his own device. He was neither atheist nor Christian, although he wasn't above mouthing Christian platitudes when it suited him.

EDIT: I second Faye, below. Whatever Hitler was, he was no Christian.

I also second paperback_writer, below. Christianity's embedded anti-Semtism did make Hitler's task easier. When Hitler cast around for things to bash the Jews with, the New Testament was there waiting.

Answer 7

Probably not. Most people are not impressed by facts, and hold to their view in the face of contradicting facts. How Hitler could imagine that the Almighty would be pleased with his actions is beyond me. But then how could FDR convince himself that Japan's attack on Pearl was a good thing?

Answer 8

I have heard various reports. What happened is that he played to the religious, just like politicians do even today.
Eventually, the truth comes out.

Answer 9

It would be nice, but unlikely. Look at how often people assume that the Crusades were based on religion, that evolving means that the original species disappears or any of the other fallacies that are "throw up" here.

Answer 10

I don't really understand what your saying. If he was a Atheist that's fine but he doesn't represent every Atheist in the world. People make their own decisions and using believing in God or not believing in God to back up ALL of their decisions is crazy.

Answer 11

Just because someone CLAIMS to be a Christian, or claims to believe in God, does not prove anything. Our fruits (actions) bear witness of what we really are. I think Hitler's actions tell the story.