Standing in the Need, Adolphus Ward, III, WordPro Press, 2004, 0975357115, 9780975357118, . .
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Adolf Hitler was raised by an anticlerical, sceptic father and a devout Catholic mother. Baptized and confirmed as a child in Austria, he ceased to participate in the sacraments after childhood. In adulthood, Hitler became disdainful of Christianity, but in seeking out and in trying to retain power in Germany, he was prepared to set aside his views on religion out of political considerations. He repeatedly stated that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on science.[1] It is generally accepted by historians that Hitler's post war and long term goal was the eradication of Christianity in Germany.[2][3] The adult Hitler did not believe in the Judeo-Christian notion of God, though various scholars consider his final religious position may have been a form of deism. Others consider him "atheist". The question of atheism is debated, however reputable Hitler biographers Ian Kershaw, Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock agree Hitler was anti-Christian. This view is evidenced in sources such as the Goebbels Diaries, the memoirs of Albert Speer, and the transcripts edited by Martin Bormann which are contained within Hitler's Table Talk, an influential translation of which was completed by historian Hugh Trevor-Roper. During his early career, and for a variety of reasons, Hitler made various public comments against non-Nazi atheistic (i.e. "Bolshevik") movements, and in favour of so-called positive Christianity (a movement which purged Christianity of its Jewish elements and instilled it with Nazi philosophy). Once in power, the Hitler regime sought to reduce the influence of Christianity on German society, though by 1939, and with the encouragement of the Nazi Party, only around 5% of Germans had declared themselves neo-pagan deists (gottglaubig) or atheists.[4] The majority of the three million Nazi Party members continued to pay their church taxes and register as Christians.[5]
In his semi-autobiographical Mein Kampf, Hitler makes religious allusions, but declares himself neutral in sectarian matters and supportive of the separation between church and state, while criticising political Catholicism. He presents a nihilistic vision, in which the universe is ordered around principles of struggle between weak and strong, rather than on conventional Christian notions long prominent in Germany. While campaigning for office in the early 1930s, Hitler offered moderate public statements on Christianity, promising not to interfere with the churches if given power, and calling Christianity the foundation of German morality. In power, the Hitler regime conducted a protracted Struggle with the Churches. Hitler moved to eliminate political Catholicism, while agreeing a Reich concordat with the Holy See which promised autonomy for the Catholic Church in Germany. Hitler then routinely violated the treaty, moved to close all Catholic organisations that weren't strictly religious, and permitted a persecution of the Catholic Church. He launched an effort to co-ordinate German Protestants under a unified Protestant Reich Church under the Deutsche Christen movement, but the attempt failed and was resisted by the Confessing Church. He angered the churches by appointing the neo-pagan Alfred Rosenberg as official Nazi ideologist, and generally permitted or encouraged anti-church radicals such as Himmler, Goebells and Bormann to conduct their persecutions of the churches. Smaller religious minorities faced far harsher repression, with the Jews of Germany expelled for extermination on the grounds of racist ideology and Jehovah's Witnesses ruthlessly persecuted for refusing military service, and any allegiance to Hitlerism.
Kershaw wrote that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler - "he was by temperament a very private, even secretive individual", unwilling to confide in others.[6] In Hitler's Table Talk Hitler often voiced stridently negative views of Christianity. Bullock wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and materialist, who saw Christianity as a religion "fit for slaves", and against the natural law of selection and survival of the fittest.[7] Richard J. Evans wrote that Hitler used a Nazi variant of the language of Social Darwinism to persuade his followers that what they were doing was justified by "history, science and nature". Biographer John Toland, while noting Hitler's antagonism to the Pope and Catholic Church hierarchy, drew links between Hitler's Catholic background and his antisemitism.[8] Steigmann-Gall saw a "Christian element" in Hitler's early writings; and wrote that while use of the term "positive Christianity" in the Nazi Party Program of 1920 is commonly regarded as a tactical measure", he himself believes that it was "more than a political ploy for winning votes" and instead adhered to an "inner logic" - though anti-Christians later fought to "expunge Christian influence from Nazism" and that the movement became "increasingly hostile to the churches", but never quite "uniformly anti-Christian".[9] Following meetings with Hitler, General Gerhard Engel and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber wrote that Hitler was a believer. Kershaw cites Faulhaber's encounter as an example of Hitler's ability to "pull the wool over the eyes of even hardened critics". Laurence Rees concludes that "Hitler's relationship in public to Christianity - indeed his relationship to religion in general - was opportunistic. There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".[10]
As an infant, Hitler was baptised a Catholic in April 1889. Hitler attended several primary schools. For six months, the family lived opposite a Benedictine Monastery at Lambach, and on some afternoons, Hitler attended the choir school there.[14] Around this time, Hitler is said to have dreamed of taking holy orders.[15][16][17] Hitler was confirmed on 22 May 1904. Rissmann relates a story where a boyhood friend[who?] claimed that after Hitler had left home, he never again attended Mass or received the sacraments.[18]
In 1909, Hitler moved to Vienna. According to Bullock, his intellectual interests vacillated and his reading included: "Ancient Rome, the Eastern religions, Yoga, Occultism, Hypnotism, Astrology, Protestantism, each in turn excited his interest for a moment... He struck people as unbalanced. He gave rein to his hatreds - against the Jews, the priests, the Social Democrats, the Hapsburgs - without restraint".[19]
According to historian Michael Rissmann, young Hitler was influenced by Pan-Germanism, and began to reject the Catholic Church, receiving confirmation only unwillingly.[18] Toland wrote of the 1904 ceremony at Linz Cathedral, that Hitler's confirmation sponsor said he nearly had to "drag the words out of him... almost as though the whole confirmation was repugnant to him".[20]
Hitler's public and private statements on religion were often in conflict. The biographer Kershaw wrote that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler - "he was by temperament a very private, even secretive individual", unwilling to confide in others.[6] In private Hitler scorned Christianity to his friends, but when out campaigning for power in Germany, he publicly made statements in favour of the religion.[21] "The most persuasive explanation of these statements", wrote Laurence Rees, "is that Hitler, as a politician, simply recognised the practical reality of the world he inhabited... Had Hitler distanced himself or his movement too much from Christianity it is all but impossible to see how he could ever have been successful in a free election. Thus his relationship in public to Christianity - indeed his relationship to religion in general - was opportunistic. There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".[10]
In Hitler: A Study in Tyranny Alan Bullock, wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence: a "man who believed neither in God nor in conscience ('a Jewish invention, a blemish like circumcision')".[22] Bullock wrote: "From political considerations he restrained his anti-clericalism, seeing clearly the dangers of strengthening the Church by persecution. Once the war was over he promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches".[7] According to Bullock, Hitler had some regard for the organisational power of Catholicism, but utter contempt for its central teachings, which he said, if taken to their conclusion, "would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure".[23] German conservative elements, such as the officer corps opposed Nazi efforts against the churches and, in office, Hitler restrained his anticlerical instincts out of political considerations.[23][24] Bullock wrote that, in the long run, Hitler intended to destroy the influence of the Christian churches:[7]
Hitler had been brought up a Catholic and was impressed by the organization and power of the Church. For Protestant clergy he felt only contempt: 'They are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs...[-] They have neither a religion you can take seriously nor a great position to defend like Rome'. It was the 'great position' of the Church that he respected; towards its teaching he showed only the sharpest hostility. In Hitler's eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.
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'".
Ultimately, Domarus wrote, Hitler replaced belief in the Judeo-Christian God with belief in a peculiarly German "god".[25] He promoted the idea of God as the creator of Germany, but Hitler "was not a Christian in any accepted meaning of that word."[26] Domarus also points out that Hitler did not believe in organized religion and did not see himself as a religious reformer.[26] According to historian Laurence Rees, "Hitler did not believe in the afterlife, but he did believe he would have a life after death because of what he had achieved."[27] Historian Richard Overy maintains that Hitler was not a "practising Christian," nor was he a "thorough atheist."[28] According to Robert S. Wistrich Hitler thought Christianity was finished but he did not want any direct confrontation for strategic reasons.[29] Samuel Koehne, a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, 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 a nonsense to state that Hitler (or any of the Nazis) adhered to Christianity of this form."[30] Koehne says Hitler was probably not an atheist and refers to the fact that recent works have asserted that he was a deist.[30] Richard Evans concluded his statements on Hitler's religious views by suggesting that the gap between Hitler's public and private pronouncements was due to a desire not to cause a quarrel with the churches that might undermine national unity.[31]
The biographer John Toland, noted that, in the aftermath of a 1939 attempted assassination, Hitler told dinner guests that Pope Pius XII would rather have seen the "plot succeed" and "was no friend of mine".[39] Later in his biography, Toland wrote that, in 1941, Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within himself its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God — so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty."[40] (for the official Catholic position against Nazi racism in the 1930s see Mit brennender Sorge). Derek Hastings sees Hitler's commitment to Christianity as more tenuous. He considers it "eminently plausible" that Hitler was a believing Catholic as late as his trial in 1924, but writes that "there is little doubt that Hitler was a staunch opponent of Christianity throughout the duration of the Third Reich."[41]
Hitler combined elements of autobiography with an exposition of his racist political ideology in Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), published between 1925 and 1927.[43] According to the biographer Ian Kershaw, the reflections Hitler himself provided in Mein Kampf are "inaccurate in detail and coloured in interpretation", information that was given during the Nazi period is "dubious", as can be the post-war recollections of family and acquaintances.[44] The book contains various religious pronouncements.[45] Laurence Rees described the thrust of the work as "bleak nihilism" revealing a cold universe with no moral structure other than the fight between different people for supremacy: "What's missing from Mein Kampf", wrote Rees - "and this is a fact that has not received the acknowledgement it should - is any emphasis on Christianity" - though Germany, Rees noted, had been Christian for a thousand years. So, concluded Rees, "the most coherent reading of Mein Kampf is that whilst Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, he did not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of an individual "soul"... we are animals and just like animals we face the choice of destroying or being destroyed."[10] Mein Kampf makes various statements on Christianity.[45]
Paul Berben wrote that insofar as the Christian denominations were concerned, Hitler declared himself to be neutral in Mein Kampf - but argued for clear separation between church and state, and for the church not to concern itself with the earthly life of the people, which must be the domain of the state.[21] According to William Shirer, Hitler "inveighed against political Catholicism in Mein Kampf and attacked both of the Christian Churches for their failure to recognise the racial problem...", while also warning that no political party could succeed in "producing a religious reformation".[46]
Hitler spoke of the importance of a definite and uniformly accepted Weltanschauung (outlook on the world), 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 a religious belief". The various substitutes hitherto offered, he said could not "usefully replace the existing denominations". Therefore he said:[47]
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 the existing religion.
Examining how to establish a new order, Hitler argued that the greatness of powerful organisations was reliant on an intolerance of all others, thus he said the greatness of Christianity arose from the "unrelenting and fanatical proclamation and defence of its own teaching". Hitler rejected a view that Chritianity 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 euthanasia in Nazi Germany, Hitler said 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".[47] The Christian churches should forget about their own differences and focus on the issue of "racial contamination", Hitler said:[47]
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
When he arrived in Vienna as a young man, Hitler indicated that the later fervency of his anti-Semitism had not fully formed: "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."[48] Hitler decided that anti-Semitism based on religious, rather than racial grounds, was a mistake: "The anti-Semitism of the Christian-Socialists was based on religious instead of racial principles. The reason for this mistake gave rise to the second error also... this shilly-shally way of dealing with the problem the anti-Semitism of the Christian-Socialists turned out to be quite ineffective.[49]
"His [the Jewish person's] 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." [52]
"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."[53]
"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."[54]
Hitler's intimates, such as Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, and Martin Bormann record that Hitler was deeply hostile to Christianity. Ian Kershaw wrote that, while Hitler would occasionally tell his inner circle that he wanted to delay the 'Church struggle" out of political considerations, his inflammatory remarks gave his underlings license to intensify their church struggle.[56]
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 suicide.
According to Speer, Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, relished recording any harsh pronouncements against the church: "there was hardly anything he wrote down more eagerly than deprecating comments on the church".[59] Speer wrote that Bormann was the driving force behind the regime's campaign against the churches. Hitler approved of Bormann's aims, but was more pragmatic and wanted to "postpone this problem to a more favourable time":[60]
"Once I have settled my other problem," [Hitler] 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, wrote Speer, viewed Christianity as the wrong religion for the "Germanic temperament":[57] Speer wrote that Hitler would say: "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?"[61] 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.[62][63]
Extensive transcripts on Hitler's thoughts on religion are contained within Hitler's Table Talk. Between 1941 and 1944, Hitler's words were recorded in these transcripts.[64] 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.[65] Within the transcripts, Hitler speaks of Christianity as "absurdity" and "humbug" founded on "lies" with which he could "never come personally to terms."[66]
Michael Burleigh contrasted Hitler's public pronouncements on Christianity with those in Table Talk, suggesting that Hitler's real religious views were 'a mixture of materialist biology, a faux-Nietzschean contempt for core, as distinct from secondary, Christian values, and a visceral anti-clericalism.'[67] 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, writing, '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.[68] http://edufb.net/141.pdf http://edufb.net/371.pdf