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22 Comments
- Claverhouse, on 04/07/2009, -6/+14Nope.
'Goebbels notes in a diary entry in 1939: "The Führer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay." Albert Speer reports a similar statement: “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"'
'In 1998 documents were released by Cornell University from the Nuremberg Trials,[42] that revealed Nazi plans to exterminate Christianity at the end of World War II. The documents cover the Nuremberg trials of leading Nazis and demonstrate the deliberate genocide of Jews during the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were killed. One senior member of the U.S. prosecution team, General William Donovan, as part of his work on documenting Nazi war crimes, compiled large amounts of documentation that the Nazis also planned to systematically destroy Christianity.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_reli ...
Plus he married in a civil service just before committing suicide. Both of which are mortal sins according to the Catholic Church.
PS: WWII German soldiers had 'Gott Mit Uns' on their belt buckles as a holdover from the previous German Army. - Justavian, on 04/08/2009, -0/+5Hitler regularly invoked jesus in his speeches. While this waned in the later years, he certainly never renounced his religion - and prayers were said for him by order of the vatican on his birthday every year until the end of the war. Not only that, but 50% of the SS were *confessing* catholics.
However, none of that is actually relevant. Hitler didn't do what he did because of christianity. And he certainly didn't perpetrate the holocaust because of atheism. He committed those atrocities because of other dogmas - nationalism, dogmas about the purity of german blood, and long standing hatred of jews that probably predated christianity.
The problem is dogma - regardless of its form. The solution is reason, rational discourse, and skeptical inquiry. - avataros, on 04/07/2009, -0/+5Respectfully, bontzmachine, I don't think it's so cut and dry there. I think it's a lot more accurate to say he specifically persecuted and killed Catholics who dissented from the party's teachings and ideals. Much like he did to the protestants. In any case, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that Hitler wasn't a Christian.
It's like saying Stalin wasn't a communist because he persecuted his own. Stalin, like Hitler, cleaned the slate of his enemies - ideology, faith, whatever, be damned. Power does that to people in such a position. - cyberdork, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4The Nazis were actually very active in replacing Christian traditions with old Germanic pagan rituals. Like renaming Christmas to "Jule fest" and reintroducing solstice festivals.
The biggest problem the Nazis had with Christianity was that the Church was a very powerful institution in their country over which they had no control. - SisyphusFragmnt, on 04/07/2009, -3/+5Germans were well known for crimes against Jews long before Hitler's arrival. Look up “Host Desecration” in Wikipedia and you'll see some "wonderful" examples of Catholic compassion.
- SisyphusFragmnt, on 04/07/2009, -1/+3the word is Jews. Jews.
- philodygmn, on 04/07/2009, -5/+7Belief in Christ by definition makes one a Christian (mere belief in the existence of a historic Jesus of Nazareth does not). Hitler was indisputably a Christian. If you're going to dispute what _kind_ of Christian he was, you'll also have to admit that it isn't Christianity making that distinction, which is what Richard Dawkins is constantly obliged to remind non-atheists of given so often people presume atheism to be amoral. Dawkins has documented, time and again, that it is not religion from whence come humanitarion notions of so-called morality.
- ryan83189, on 04/07/2009, -4/+5Hitler was raised a catholic, but abandoned religion and only really referenced it to gain political power. I believe he referenced Christ a few times, and a non secular "God" or creator whenever he talked about manifest destiny and the master race and all of that *****, but he was full of it at that point. Christ was a jew, his followers were jews, there is a strong relationship between Christianity and the jews, it is flawed logic to say that Christ, or Christian teachings are anti semitic, sure they refute the old testament to some extent, nut not enough to take it out of the bible.
- bontzmachine, on 04/07/2009, -5/+6um. Hitler specifically persecuted and killed Catholics. The answer is no.
- tgjerusalem, on 04/07/2009, -3/+4I don't know how religious influence could be avoided when you're talking about the psyche of a man who grew up in a country where religion was massively socially and politically important, influential, and conflicted.
But to call it *the* driving force is overstating it. The guy had a lot going wrong with him, as did Germany and Europe as a whole at the time. The change in only about a generation from an pre-industrial feudal collection of small powers, through the first and second industrial revolutions, electrification and mass migration to the cities was also damn important.
Use and misuse of scientific and pseudo-scientific thought, especially once filtered through popular culture, was pretty significant too. The tale end of the old colonial era, Germany's feeling that it got cheated out of its chance to exploit various non-european countries, and then turning the same colonial ideologies everyone had been using to justify this exploitation onto other Europeans.
Or the war reparations Germany was made to pay following WWI, coupled with the great depression, and mass poverty to the point that it was cheaper at one point to bundle your money together and burn it rather than buy firewood. And the rise of modern nationalism and militarism post-WWI, and the extreme attraction highly ordered fascism can have for a society in the middle of chaos and desperation.
To talk about this as a "Christian" issue is as dangerous, simplistic and misguided as when anti-science crowds latch onto the eugenical reasoning used by the Nazi's, and the high respect it commanded around the world as a field of science, and use this to claim that science as a whole is therefor inherently evil.
To talk about "Christianity" in this context is a bit like talking about Democracy. The core definitions were there - one could call a Nazi a Christian, just as one can call Nazi Germany a Democracy. That this particular manifestation of these ideologies turned out particularly warped and evil doesn't necessarily damn the ideologies as a whole. It just reminds us that great ideals don't automatically produce great results, and constant vigilance is always necessary. - inactive, on 04/08/2009, -0/+1It's hard to say exactly what Hitler ultimately believed, he used all sorts of things including neo-paganistic ideologies to inspire him. Anyway, one can be quite sure that Heinrich Himmler, was a Roman Catholic.
- avataros, on 04/07/2009, -1/+2He USED religion, that much we do know. And his followers certainly bought some of his "divinely inspired mission" propaganda crap.
The debate presented in the article is one in the context of the ends for der Fuhrer. When you intertwine it with the means, the truth gets lost in there somewhere. - GlassAgate, on 04/08/2009, -0/+1Quite a few people want to label Hitler as an Atheist.
The next thing is to say "If your an Atheist, then
you may be a future Hitler." - sanman, on 04/08/2009, -1/+2I notice there's a desire to associate Hitler with Oriental/Asian religion, in order to palm off the blame onto them - as if Hitler's barbarism came from imported Asian values. Apparently, European culture is some kind of teflon culture that is able to ward off any stain.
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -0/+1Actually you're absolutely right, however, that doesn't stop the reverse happening; people using religion to justify their own actions
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -2/+2I really Don't know who he was....but i know is he was the gud man...
- SamSlater, on 04/07/2009, -8/+6'Was Hitler a Christian?' is the wrong question.
The right question is 'Were the Catholic church Nazis?'
Anyone who's done the research will know the answer. - inactive, on 04/08/2009, -1/+1This should get interesting.
- Blinker1315, on 04/07/2009, -6/+3Does it matter?
- pjsorgi, on 04/07/2009, -4/+3I don't believe enogh evidence has been presented. The article mentions laws and actions but does not link it to a specific law just rhetoric. As far as I can surmise Hitler used ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to gain power and carry out his evil plan.
- OfNumbers, on 04/07/2009, -6/+0That's religulous.
- inactive, on 04/07/2009, -11/+1No religion teaches to do what he did.
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