The “Hitler Was A Christian” Mythos

There is often a misguided belief among rabid anti-Christians (and sometimes even believers) that Hitler was a Christian in adulthood because he was a catholic in his youth. This supposed “fact” that Hitler was Christian is then made into a fallacy of composition to say that Nazi’s and the Nazi movement in general was Christian also. This is then taken to a third level of absurdity to try and prove that Christians are probably madmen and evil due to an extremely tenuous connection to Hitler. This of course is a convenient but false bridge of fallacies (fallacy of association, red herring among others).  If we examine the facts, exact quotes and history...we will arrive at a dramatically different conclusion than that of our misguided friends.

This is a warped understanding of history and frankly, frighteningly wrong. Sadly, the belief that Hitler was Christian during his tenure as Früher or that Christianity was somehow complicit in the Holocaust is further exacerbated by what is perceived as a deafening silence from the Vatican during the 1920’s to 1940’s. The Catholic Church is sometimes rabidly pursued as anti-Semitic for this silence also (probably unfairly at times). It is often mentioned that the Vatican was right in the heart of Mussolini’s fascist regime in Italy (one of Hitler's allies) so it is implied that they are somehow guilty due to geographical location. Furthermore it is assumed that because the Roman Church did not fight back against the Axis powers they were somehow guilty by omission or by failure to act.

Never mind the fact that it would’ve been foolhardy to try and fight the Axis gears of war when even places like France capitulated and only a nation like the USA had the proper resources to overcome Germany. It is clear the Vatican was not the only state that was rendered impotent by the Axis Powers in Europe and the Mediterranean area. Let us keep in mind that the fascist states like Germany systematically butchered millions who would dare oppose them. The church leaders whether they be Catholic or Protestant that did resist were mercilessly crushed. History need only visit the life and untimely demise of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

As for Nazi Germany and Hitler being Christians. I really don’t think the Nazi’s connection to occultism is a surprise to anyone. Nor do I think it is a concealed fact of history that Hitler thought of Christianity as a poison to his military and State goals. The only time he supported Christianity is when it helped him rise to power within a Christian populated Germany or when it helped undermine Judaism.

"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?” ~ Adolf Hitler [Albert Speer quoting Hitler in his book Inside the Third Reich (1971)]

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. ~Adolf Hitler [Munich Speech, April 12, 1922, in opposition to Count Lerchenfeld, who opposed anti-Semitism based on personal Christian feelings]

In the time period leading up to Nazi Germany, Germany and the rest of Europe were characterized by growing animosity to Christianity and Judaism. Europe had become smitten with Darwinian and Communist philosophies. The theories of Karl Marx and Charles Darwin after the Enlightenment had captured the hearts and minds of a large swathe of the people. By the time of Nazi Germany, God had become unnecessary. In men’s minds, humans were now self-made. The idea of survival of the fittest was the preferred method of improving the human race provided by the only god that still existed—naturalism and science. Grace and mercy of a Sovereign God were no longer necessary in their minds. As a matter of fact, mercy and grace were viewed as weaknesses incompatible with Nazism. Science and technology would now be the German savior. 

Hitler viewed Christianity as too passive and effeminate and felt it would totally undermine his Blitzkrieg rampages in Europe. As Hitler appears to be at least a loose adherent of Nietzsche it is not surprising to see correlations between Nietzsche’s “ubermensch” (superman) and Hitler’s Aryan Race of men and women. It is also not surprising that Hitler would view his Aryan race as the obvious successor to the existing human race because of his belief and adherence to Social Darwinism and evolution. This all fed into his megalomania and grand delusion for himself and the German people.

Christianity and its founder Jesus Christ would therefore pose a thorny issue for Hitler to overcome if he would allow for it to persist in Germany. The problem was that Jesus Christ was of Jewish descent. It is ironic that Hitler would deny Jesus' Jewish ancestry yet he would use things like Christ’s stand against the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducee as his justification for calling Jesus a fighter and a warrior to support his militaristic goals. This sadly is sometimes the same type of twisted logic use by socialist Christians (Social Gospel) now for protest and fighting against “the man”. Regardless, Hitler ended up using Jesus as a springboard into the heart of the German people. He painted Jesus out to be fighting the Jewish people for the truth of God. A sad twisting of biblical truth. As we all know, even the Devil can quote and contort Scripture. In reference to the overturning of tables in the Temple Hitler stated:

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.” ~ Adolf Hitler [Munich Speech, April 12, 1922, in opposition to Count Lerchenfeld, who opposed anti-Semitism based on personal Christian feelings.]

It was all a demonic plan by a demonic madman. He used just enough truth of Scripture to serve his needs. As we all know, the best counterfeit is one that is so close to the original that it is indistinguishable from it. Hence the reason why even now most people including some Christians are convinced Hitler was “Christian” when in reality he was demonically insane. The truth is that he wasn’t even remotely Christian. The man was nearly remote-controlled by Satan himself.

In the end it was all a pragmatic plan to implement a demonic nightmare. For Hitler to have tried to institute a fascist/socialistic religion at the time would’ve dramatically limited his ability to take over Europe quickly. So he piggybacked a madman’s dream into Christianity and hijacked it. While spewing his vile twisted Christianity he was simultaneously formulating the horrors behind Auschwitz and the gas chambers. All of this based on Social Darwinism, Nietzschean philosophies and atheistic underpinnings.

Hitler certainly believed in a god. The problem was that it was a perverse god of his own warped mind. It was a god of war akin to Odin. The idea of an Aryan god would inevitably merge into Hitler himself. Strangely, not unlike emperor worship of two millennium earlier. In the end, he didn’t worship a god but instead became a demonic despot just like his contemporaries Stalin and Mussolini. This being Hitler’s view made it incompatible with true Christianity even though he had been raised Catholic. Hitler never really had a problem with Christianity or with God. He used God and the religious institution of Christianity as a tool to propagate his vile murderous plans. While the Nazis retained the name Christianity for their religion, it was in reality a state controlled tool, nothing more. The Reichsminister for Church Affairs Hans Kerrl was known to have stated:

"There has arisen a new authority as to what Christ and Christianity really are - that is Adolph Hitler. Adolph Hitler ... is the true Holy Ghost."

Children of Nazis were taught to pray to Hitler instead of to Jesus. A sort of baptismal service was held for children, baptizing them not in the name of Christ, but as "new hereditary links into the ancestral chain and were charged to guard their blood so that descendants for a thousand years after you will be thankful to you...for God is pure blood. Sir William Teeling who had studied the Nazi youth movement extensively in the 1930’s wrote that at the Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally in September, 1937, there was a huge photograph of Hitler underneath which was the inscription, "In the beginning was the Word…" He also says that the Mayor of Hamburg assured him, "We need no priest or parsons. We communicate direct with God through Adolph Hitler. He has many Christ-like qualities." It wouldn't be long before these sentiments were introduced officially at a national level.

The Nazi “Christianity” was nothing more than a religion of a martial paganism (occultism), which was slowly instituted in the place of Christianity when the proper time came. Once the martial paradigm was instituted, the “state religion” head went from being a twisted version of the Christian God to an embodiment of evil. It became Hitler…an Antichrist, a version of Lucifer personified.

Anyone that can draw a bridge this wide and say Hitler and the Nazis were Christian are just as twisted and demented as Hitler was. Perhaps they are as duped as many of the German people in the 1930’s too. Sadly, anyone that could say the Nazi war machine was Christian are actually emulating the foolishness and blindness of the very people that allowed Hitler to come to power. History is indeed repeating itself if people can unabashedly make the same asinine statements to push their atheistic agendas. Is there anything new under the sun? 

I suspect not.