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Adolf Hitler, Christian Extrordinaire

Ordeet

Member
Hitler Was Not An Atheist

In George Orwell's 1984, it was stated, "Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past." Who is going to control the present-fundamentalism or freedom?

History is being distorted by many preachers and politicians. They are heard on the airwaves condemning atheists and routinely claim Adolph Hitler was one. Hitler was a Roman Catholic, baptized into that religio-political institution as an infant in Austria. He became a communicant and an altar boy in his youth and was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" in that church. Its worst doctrines never left him. He was steeped in its liturgy, which contained the words "perfidious jew." This hateful statement was not removed until 1961. "Perfidy" means treachery.

In his day, hatred of Jews was the norm. In great measure it was sponsored by two major religions of Germany, Catholicism, and Lutheranism. He greatly admired Martin Luther, who openly hated the Jews. Luther condemned the Catholic Church for its pretensions and corruption, but he supported the centuries of papal pogroms against the Jews. Luther said, "The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and "We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them." "Ungodly wretches" he called the Jews in his book Table Talk.

Hitler seeking power, wrote in Mein Kampf, "... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." Years later, when in power, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech in 1938.

Three years later he informed General Gerhart Engel: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." He never left the church, and the church never left him. Great literature was banned by his church, but his miserable Mein Kampf never appeared on the index of Forbidden Books. He was not excommunicated or even condemned by his church. Popes, in fact, contracted with Hitler and his fascist friends Franco and Mussolini, giving them veto power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain, and Italy. The three thugs agreed to surtax the Catholics of these countries and send the money to Rome in exchange for making sure the state could control the church.

Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and microphones. Acclaimed Hitler biographer John Toland explains his heartlessness as follows: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite the detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jews 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. ..."

Hitler's Germany amalgamated state with church. Soldiers of the vermacht wore belt buckles inscribed with the following: "Gott mit uns" (God is with us). His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the priests. It was a real Christian country whose citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church and blindly followed all authority figures, political and ecclesiastical.

Hitler, like some of the today's politicians and preachers, politicized "family values." He liked corporeal punishment in home and school. Jesus prayers became mandatory in all schools under his administration. While abortion was illegal in pre-Hitler Germany, he took it to new depths of enforcement, requiring all doctors to report to the government the circumstances of all miscarriages. He openly despised homosexuality and criminalized it. If past is prologue, we know what to expect if liberty becomes license.

As a young child, I remember my late father, Martin J. Murphy, practicing a speech and loudly quoting the following: "Light up the mountain. Bring out the wild and fiery steed. Let it be known, that I, Gustavus, have insulted the King." Thinking for yourself and speaking your true thoughts - now that's a real family value.
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
Hitler was an insane megalomaniac who used and abused a whole range of beliefs, philosophies and pseudosciences to support his aims. None of us can really know what he actually believed at any point in his life, certainly from the point when he would be aware that everything he said and wrote would be one day open to a wider audience.

Arguing whether Hitler was Atheist or Christian is of absolutely no use what so ever and is, in my experience, only ever done as a mean to attack whichever group he is being associated with.
 

evolved yet?

A Young Evolutionist
Hitler was an insane megalomaniac who used and abused a whole range of beliefs, philosophies and pseudosciences to support his aims. None of us can really know what he actually believed at any point in his life, certainly from the point when he would be aware that everything he said and wrote would be one day open to a wider audience.

Arguing whether Hitler was Atheist or Christian is of absolutely no use what so ever and is, in my experience, only ever done as a mean to attack whichever group he is being associated with.
Mitgliedsabzeichen.JPG
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Insane megalomaniac? I don't see him as substantially different from any number of political opportunists you could find anywhere. Germany was in political chaos and an economic depression. People were desperate for order, security, jobs and answers. Hitler was in the right place at the right time (so to speak).
I'm not saying he was psychologically healthy and well adjusted. Clearly he had what today would be called a personality disorder, but half the population has some degree of personality disorder.

"As far as leaders go, the Hitlers and the Goerings, the Goebbels and all the rest of them were not special types. Their personality patterns indicate that, while they were not socially desirable individuals, their like could very easily be found in America. Neurotic individuals like Adolf Hitler, suffering from hysterical disorders and obsessive complaints, can be found in any psychiatric clinic. And there are countless hundreds of similar ones, thwarted, discouraged, determined to do great deeds, roaming the streets of any American city at this very moment". --- Dr Douglas Kelley. Official US Psychiatrist, Nuremberg trials.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
... but half the population has some degree of personality disorder.

But very few people have the access to a war machine and the desire to irraticate the Jews from Europe.
 

Rainbow Mage

Lib Democrat/Agnostic/Epicurean-ish/Buddhist-ish
Yes Hitler was influenced by Christianity, but you can't say he was a Christian in later life, or that he acted on behalf of Christians. Hitler proclaimed to be a Norse Pagan, far as I know, but again, you can't view him as acting on their behalf either. Hitler was a nut case, end of story, and religion had little to do with it. As for the Catholic Church's supposed anti-Jewish attitude back then, Pope Pius was a defender and protector of Jews during the Nazi regime. He called on Catholics althroughout Europe to shelter Jews and he himself had a memorial in his honor built in Israel, because of his friendship with Jewish people. The Chief Rabbi of Rome was his best friend, also worth mentioning.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Hitler's behavior is most likely more accounted for by his mental and emotional problems than by his ideological competence.
 

Darkness

Psychoanalyst/Marxist
The OP is slanted. Adolph Hitler probably believed in God and when he wrote Mein Kampf he was probably more of a Christian, but through his ascendency to his dictatorship he seems to mostly have used the mythology of old Germanic religions and Christianity to support his nationalistic beliefs.
 

Quiddity

UndertheInfluenceofGiants
More then likely he was pagan.

"A lot of people will say, 'I didn't realize that they were trying to convert Christians to a Nazi philosophy.' . . . They wanted to eliminate the Jews altogether, but they were also looking to eliminate Christianity."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/605604/posts

Also,
Only later, when Hitler assumed dictatorial powers, did his true policy toward both Catholics and Protestants become apparent. By 1937, Pope Pius XI denounced the Nazis for waging “a war of extermination” against the church, and dissidents like the Lutheran clergyman Martin Niemoller openly denounced state control of Protestant churches.

http://boundless.org/2001/regulars/kaufman/a0000541.html
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
More then likely he was pagan.

"A lot of people will say, 'I didn't realize that they were trying to convert Christians to a Nazi philosophy.' . . . They wanted to eliminate the Jews altogether, but they were also looking to eliminate Christianity."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/605604/posts

Also,
Only later, when Hitler assumed dictatorial powers, did his true policy toward both Catholics and Protestants become apparent. By 1937, Pope Pius XI denounced the Nazis for waging “a war of extermination” against the church, and dissidents like the Lutheran clergyman Martin Niemoller openly denounced state control of Protestant churches.

http://boundless.org/2001/regulars/kaufman/a0000541.html

Yeah, because places like Free Republic and Focus On the Family are where all the unbiased news is found. :facepalm:
 

Klaufi_Wodensson

Vinlandic Warrior
Hitler took pagan symbols and perverted them to his own use. But he was still a christian. It just sucks now that Pagans in Germany have to watch themselves, because they could get into some serious ****. A Pagan music festival had to be shut down because of it, the symbols and imagery were somehow "National Socialistic". It's ********
 

Quiddity

UndertheInfluenceofGiants
Yeah, because places like Free Republic and Focus On the Family are where all the unbiased news is found. :facepalm:
Uh huh......vs....say an unbias one right?

At any rate, this specific question was addressed in my history class and the professor (who isn't religious at all) considered Hitler to be in an occult of his own recipe.
 
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