Many people are in denial of Adolf Hitler’s Christianity. This is the same mindset that propels the creationist cults. Whether they want to admit it or not, Hitler was a devout Christian up to the day he killed himself. What we see revealed is that religion is a primary means to justify one’s acts and provides the easy removal of responsibility for those actions.
Below is a speech given by Hitler in 1922 expressing his Christian faith. This speech is only one of many such declarations. Deny him all you want, but he is a prime example of the danger religion can cause.
“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 in Munich on 12 April 1922
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Most people today do not understand that Jesus was against the Jews, so to some Christians today, the idea of standing up to the Jews combined with Jesus seems flawed.
The truth is that everything Jesus did was against the Jews and against their religion.
Christianity itself was a religion created for the gentile and slaves, not for the Jews.
Who created Christianity? watch this if you are interested:
http://vimeo.com/69145519
The Jews crucified Jesus, the Jews rejected their messiah but the illiterate peasants and slaves of the roman period recognized him.(the irony)
Christianity originated by roman propaganda during a period of war between the Romans and the "Christian" Jews.
Christ= messiah in Greek and the Jews had several messiahs which were declaring war to Rome. (the messiahs were militaristic)
The concept of a pacifistic messiah was invented by the Romans to not let the Jews join forces with the slaves and gentile against them.
Hitler tried to use Christianity for the same purpose.
Hitler was raised christian and died christian, but that has nothing to do with Christianity.
Christianity is just a political tool as is any other theistic religion that tries to control the mind of the people to do what the representative of god says.
Just for Reference....
I know many of us have encountered the "Hitler was an Atheist" argument....
When I saw this I thought I need to put this somewhere where it can do some good ,so for future reference ,check this out...
Adolf Hitler on God: Quotes from Adolf Hitler Expressing Belief & Faith in God
Adolf Hitler had Faith in God that His Agenda was Divinely Ordained
By Austin Cline,
If Adolf Hitler was an atheist, why did he keep saying that he believed in God, had faith in God, and was convinced that he was doing God's work? Adolf Hitler was not just certain that his attacks on Jews were divinely mandated, but also his efforts to clamp down on society by restoring traditional morality. Christian apologists only seem to claim that Hitler was an atheist because they cannot handle the idea that a Christian theist would cause so much evil in the name of their God.
link:
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/AdolfHitlerFaithGo...
Topic made me think of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_iNCGH9kY
Here is another one of Hitler's quotes I thought should be added:
“We were convinced that the people need and require 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
I don't really care if hitler was a xtian or not. I just do not think, in the end, it really matters. Hitler was a megalomaniac. He used what he thought would work to further his own pursuit of power.
My grandmother and her two sisters made it out of Germany, the rest were killed...most likely at Bergen-Belsen. I do not blame xtianity for this. I blame all the people who chumped out to the nazi party for it.
IMO, all megalomaniacs who use religion to further their aims are doing just that...using it. They may or may not believe that which they espouse, but it is as clear as the nose on my face that they crave power. And it doesn't really matter if they, personally, believe in a god or not...for they do believe in power.
Had I lived in hitler's Germany, I would have been killed. I would have been killed not because I believed in a jewish god. I do not believe in any gods. Many jews killed were secular. I would have been killed because I am of jewish decent and the nazis were able to gain power because of an already existing bigotry, not because they were following the tenets of any religion. They were leveraging bigotry to increase their power. It was all about power.
This may also be the case for all those who use any religion to further their aims. It probably has less to do with religion than it has to do with power.
So perhaps what we should actually focus on is megolamania, not a particular religion, that religion is used for the pursuit of other things.
Perhaps the best thing we can say, when apologists posit that hitler (or Mao, or any other a-hole) was an atheist, is with the rebuttal that it doesn't really matter. That all that really matters is that people who are megolamaniacs must be guarded against.
Food for thought...
Two points:
1. Depending on which gospel you read, it changes. Mark portrayed a Jesus that was very Jew-centric. To the point of almost completely dismissing gentiles as "dogs". Paul was the one that really HATED the Jews, his stuff is fairly dripping with antisemitism.
2. Hitler's Germany was a nationalist fascist state, the state was like a religion with propaganda and even doctrine. While I am certain that religion played a crucial role in uniting the base, it is no more the reason for the holocaust as atheism was for Stalin. Nationalist fascist states are just bad no matter who is at the helm, or what they believe.
1. Depending on which gospel you read, it changes. Mark portrayed a Jesus that was very Jew-centric. To the point of almost completely dismissing gentiles as "dogs". Paul was the one that really HATED the Jews, his stuff is fairly dripping with antisemitism.
Hmm, I think you are misunderstanding the whole concept here.
Please quote the pessage you feel that is directly supporting your claim.
Jesus is not calling the gentile dogs because he prefers the Jews, but because he wants to insert a black humor joke about the people who believe his message.
Jesus is saying that it is OK to be like dogs and eat the scrubs of the master.(the Romans), it is OK to be a slave in other words.
If you take into consideration that the authors are greko-roman then you get the right context and can understand Jesus message quite clearly.
There are no more enigmatic and contradictory passages.
http://www.amazon.com/Gentiles-Gospel-Mark-Childrens-Testament/dp/056703...
26Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27And He was saying to her, "Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 28But she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children's crumbs."
as you can see there is a different interpretation here too.
he is neglecting to heal a gentile because the Jews need more his attention.
Which means that the Jews are worse then a gentile woman possessed by a daemon.
Got the second meaning of the joke?
The first meaning is that the religion is also for gentiles and it is ok to be a christian(roman) slave.
The Romans in that period were (jesus)Christians while the Jews were militaristic Christians(they have several militaristic Christs)
This is literature, which means the author tries to insert more then one meaning in everything in the gospel.
In fact practically everything in the gospels has 2 or 3 meanings but we can fully recognize only a few of those since we are so detached from the roman period and context of the LATE first century.
A roman living in the year 80-130 would easily have recognized these meanings because they mirror historical events or propaganda of the period.
We can only compare things that were written down and copied in the gospels.
It's really ironic to know that he is a Christian but I think his being a Christian has nothing to do with all the malevolent things that he have done. He's just a psychopathic narcissist.
Matthew 15:8, Isaiah 29:13. "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me...". You know the rest. Wake up man, Hitler told many lies...being Christian was just one of them.
Yea, he did tell many lies, but he was born in a christian upbringing(that is a historical fact) and used religion as a means to cement his agenda.
Religion was created for political reasons in the first place, to control the people.
One can say that he was an opportunist and his hate for the Jews was boosted by Christianity.
The church supported him in this, it did not make a stand against evil like Jesus did, but preferred to do like peter and betray the people until the cock was killed(instead of crowing 3 times).
So yes religion supports evil even if some priests disagreed because people are naturally good regardless of their religion not because of it, religion is the evil in disguise, just appearing good to control.
Whether you like to admit it or not: YOU LOST THIS DEBATE! The atheists supplied facts and you supplied conjecture and went into denial. You have no credibility. Hitler was a Christian and we provided provided evidence. You provided nothing.
Denial Hitler was a Christian is a lie, just like people who deny the Holocaust lie to themselves. That is what your doing Eric.
If Hitler was an atheist, why would he have 'Gott mit Uns' (God with Us) on the belt buckles of the Reich's soldiers? Always be wary when war is waged for; 'God and Country'.
Hitler was also known and is documented to have dabbled in the Occult....so I think most of his propaganda (whether religious, political, personal, etc.) was to ultimately serve himself and his own agenda, not 'God' or 'Country'. In the end, he killed his wife and committed suicide, which is interesting for a man of such great faith and love of country. Perhaps his psychology was more of a megalomaniac and murderer than a misunderstood Christian, and his ideals were not rooted in any religion, let alone the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.
We didn't say he was religious, he just used religion as a tool, since religion was created for this purpose, as a tool to control the masses.
No, Sir. That is not correct. The poster's (ImFree) premise and assertion was that "Hitler was a devout Christian up to the day he killed himself...", thereby conveying to the reader(s) that his practice of Christianity was in fact genuine and not just a "rouse" or tool to control the masses.
Here is an article you might find interesting to read:
Adolf Hitler was a Devout Christian doing the Lord's Work
Some people say Adolf Hitler was an atheist. They blame atheism for Hitler's philosophy and actions. But the historical record shows that Hitler believed in God and was convinced he was carrying out God's will.
Hitler was raised in a Catholic family. He went to Catholic schools and served as an altar boy in the Catholic Church. Growing up in this environment, he surely learned something of the centuries of discrimination and persecution the Church had supported against Jews in Europe.
Former Jesuit theologian Peter de Rosa describes the groundwork Catholic theology laid for Hitler and the Nazis: "[Catholicisms] disastrous theology had prepared the way for Hitler and his final solution. [The Church published] over a hundred anti-Semitic documents. Not one conciliar decree, not one papal encyclical, bull, or pastoral directive suggest that Jesus command, love your neighbor as yourself,' applied to Jews."
Not surprisingly, then, Hitler wrote in his book, 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." He made essentially the same claim in a speech before the Reichstag in 1938.
Hitler considered himself a Catholic until the day he died. In 1941 he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." In fact, Hitler was never excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and Mein Kampf was not placed on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
As for atheism, Hitler specifically opposed it in a 1933 speech in Berlin: "We were convinced that the people need and require 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."
Hitler's biographer John Toland explains Catholicism's influence on the Holocaust. He says of Hitler: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him 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. . .."
Even after World War II, Catholic assistance to the Nazis continued. The Vatican aided the escape of more Nazis than any other governmental or private entity. Christopher Hitchens adds: "It was the Vatican itself, with its ability to provide passports, documents, money, and contacts, which organized the escape network and also the necessary shelter and succor at the other end."
The Protestant influence on Nazi Germany was no better. Hitler is said to have greatly admired the German founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther. Among Luther's many denunciations of the Jews, there are such religious sentiments as: "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."
When Hitler was asked in 1933 what he planned to do about the Jews, he said he would do what Christians had been preaching for centuries. And the Nazis carried out their first large-scale pogrom of Jews in honor of Luther's birthday.
Christians constituted a wellspring of support for Hitler. Steve Allen notes that Nazi Germany in the 1930s "was the most church-affiliated nation in Europe. The German people were almost entirely Catholic and Lutheran. Despite such factors they launched the Holocaust and World War II." Charles Kimball likewise says the Holocaust "would not have happened without the active participation of, sympathetic support of, and relative indifference exhibited by large numbers of Christians."
http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/adolf-hitler-was-a-devout-christia...
...he also cited a 1922 Hitler speech in which Hitler supposedly "expressed his Christian Faith".
excuse me..."expressing his Christian faith" (lower case), intimating that this was a distinctly personal belief or trait and not just a political trapping or artifice to fool the masses. Hitler was not doing much in the way of "controlling the masses" in 1922.
"Hitler was a devout Christian"
that is all he said, so it does mean that he was religious at all.
We call a devout christian all the popes.
Which if we had to judge today, they were mass murderers, back stabbing pricks.
It depends on your definition of devout Christians.
My definition is a hypocrite(with himself and others) and an uninformed person.
Hitler just fits that bill.
Perhaps, Jeff. But I believe that the poster is aware of the nuance that he tried to "slip by" if not outright convey about Hitler's "Christianity". Hence, the content and very title "Onward Christian Soldier".
Hitler was a soldier of war, of murder, of politics, of bigotry, hatred, and horrible atrocities on a scale arguably not surpassed by any generation before or yet after his coming.
He was also very charismatic and not too terrible with a canvas and paintbrush. Hitler was a lot of things. Hitler was not, however, a soldier of Christ.
Most antichristian movements and smear campaigns would no sooner attempt that twisted argument, than I would attempt to single handedly twist a titanium Christian cross into the shape of a swastika lol.
But this poster, even if by illusion, would have you believe that he has done just that. Not on my watch, pal...not on my watch.
Hitler was a Christian. This undeniable fact couldn’t be made any clearer than by his own confessions.
HITLER
“Besides that, I believe one thing: there is a Lord God! And this Lord God creates the peoples.” [1] ~Adolf Hitler
“We were convinced that the people need and require 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” [2] ~Adolf Hitler
Hitler’s Christianity’s boy, they own him pal, and don’t think your going to get away trying to project him as an atheist like some so-called Christians have attempted. Not on my watch pal…
Yo ImFree - I thought you were once a Christian? And according to your profile are NOW an atheist?
Wow, Hitler debates aside, first time in history that must have ever happened...
Game, set, match.
Yes, indoctrination in lieu of evidence does not always work.
Christopher Hitchens comments on christians trying to blame atheists with Hitler's atrocities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3JyMpwkSew
I will check it out. Thanks for the link, ImFree.
well Hitler was christian, now if he was a christian by name or for political reasons we do not know but he surly had a christian upbringing.
So we must accept the fact that he was a christian.
can we agree there?
Jeff, we have already established that the poster (ImFree) had a Christian upbringing.
We have further established that he is NOW an atheist, and feels (despite his upbringing) that he had not been indoctrinated.
So, no, there is no reason for any of us to agree there.
where did you demostrate that he was an atheist?
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