Hitler’s Religious Views

[Bane]

There was a thread about this on the old forum that went quite in depth into the matter. I remember sifting through it shortly before the old forum went down, and would like to see if we can have it back here. Anyhow, my memory is faint on the thread but the crux of it was whether or not Hitler was a Christian and wanted to have Germany be a Christian nation. Some members mentioned how the Protestant Reformations, for example, wrecked Germany and how that perhaps gave way for Hitlers perceived anti Christian sentiments.

[fireofice]

In my view, Hitler was not a Christian and in fact was rather anti-Christian. Before getting into specifics, I'd recommend these sources:

https://notourguy.substack.com/p/hitler ... uperthread

https://historyforatheists.com/2021/07/ ... christian/

https://t.me/NSHeathenry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious ... olf_Hitler





On books to read, I recommend:

The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity by Bruce Walker

Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich by Richard Weikart

This twitter thread produced a list of historians/scholars who have studied the Third Reich, both mainstream and revisionist, who conclude that the Reich was anti-Christian.



Of course, those in this forum know that "consensus" isn't always right, but I thought it was worth noting regardless. There are 3 exceptions to this that I am aware of and which the thread takes note of: Richard Steigmann-Gall (a Jewish historian), Mikael Nilsson, and Richard Carrier (who has written articles on his website). They argue that Hitler held to a fringe "Positive Christianity". The books are:

The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945 by Richard Steigmann-Gall

Christianity in Hitler's Ideology by Mikael Nilsson

I do suggest reading these as these books do have some useful information. However, I don't think they are successful in ultimately proving their case, which I will get into.

Hitler's Table Talks

The most controversial source on this seems to be the Table Talks. The main book critically analyzing the Table Talks is:

Hitler Redux: The Incredible History of Hitler’s So-Called Table Talks by Mikael Nilsson

Here are some quotes from his book:

"The table talks are full of ...statements – and they are CORRABORATED by other independent sources.." - Page 64

"The evidence suggests, beyond any reasonable doubt, that [Heinrich] Heim’s proof pages are genuine." - Page 194

"They are both [Heinrich Heim's Monologe & Henry Picker's Tischgespräche] based on real utterances by Hitler." - Page 200

"[Henry] Picker had told Quick(German magazine) that [Gerhard] Engel and [Karl-Heinrich] Bodenschatz(Göring’s liaison officer by Hitler) , as partakers at the dinners in the FHQ, had testified to their authenticity. In addition, it had been concluded that “new finds in the United States and Switzerland” proved “that the documents are authentic.” The latter must have referred to [Heinrich] Heim’s proof pages, found by Mau in July, and to [François] Genoud’s manuscript, which had been brought to the IfZ’s attention since the publication of Tischgespräche. This conclusion was of course ... valid in so far as it related to the documents themselves." - Page 76

"However, and this is very important, the results presented in this book should absolutely not be interpreted as meaning that the table talks are not authentic. They really are, at least for the most part, memoranda of statements that Hitler made at some point or another in his wartime HQs." - Page 388

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/346

"In the table talks Hitler is also frequently depicted as criticizing every effort of the Church to meddle in politics, expressing the idea that organized religion (Christianity in particular) cannot be done away with until a viable alternative ideology is in place and the view that the Church could only lose a conflict with science. These views were developed and PRESENT already in Mein Kampf, and thus contain essentially nothing new at all. What the table talks do add to what we find in Mein Kampf, however, is the strong criticism of Christianity and Christian dogma. We see the same in other independent sources, too, such as WERNER KOEPPEN’S NOTES and Rosenberg’s and Goebbels’s diaries, SO WE CAN BE SURE THAT HE EXPRESSED SUCH VIEWS ..."

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/920

Here is a post on X which goes over several of the statements in the Table Talks that are corroborated by other sources:



Here is a video which goes over the Table Talks as well:



Basically, the main issue with the Table Talks are that the English version has some faulty translations. The German originals are much better and based on the things Hitler said. Of course, they aren't perfect sources. No source is. But I don't think they have been demonstrated to be on the whole unreliable. It should also be noted that anti-Christian statements are found in sources other than Table Talks, so throwing them out wouldn't help you much in trying to make Hitler not anti-Christian.

Positive Christianity

So did Hitler believe in some form of Christianity as Steigmann-Gall thinks? First, it should be noted that Steigmann-Gall's claims have not gone uncriticized. Here is a sampling:



From Weikart's book:

For critiques of Steigmann-Gall’s position, see Richard Weikart, review of Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich, in German Studies Review 27 (2004): 174–76; the special edition of Journal of Contemporary History (vol. 42, no. 1, 2007) devoted to critiques of Steigmann-Gall; and Mark Edward Ruff, “The Nazis’ Religionspolitik: An Assessment of Recent Literature,” The Catholic Historical Review, 92 (2006), 252–66.

So you can follow those threads if you want to go more in depth. But focusing just on Hitler, here's why I don't think he believed in an actual "Positive Christianity" and that it was basically just a way to undermine Christianity and not a genuine belief.

According to Goebbels diary Hitler said:

The best way to finish off the churches is to PRETEND to be a more positive Christian.

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/534

From the Table Talks:

Minister Kerrl wanted to create a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity in the NOBLEST sense. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE

This is corroborated in Rosenberg's diary:

The Führer said that Kerrl's motives were certainly only NOBLE, but that it was a hopeless attempt to unite National Socialism and Christianity.

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/1020

To me, these pretty much prove that Hitler didn't believe in any form of Christianity, not even a dressed up NS version of it.

If one wants to say he was "some kind" of Christian, I would just ask how so? He denied the resurrection as well as denied the Christian doctrine of salvation:

The idiocy of the Christian doctrine of salvation is for our time completely unusable. Nonetheless there are scholars, educated people, and men in high positions in public life, who hang on to it as on to a childhood faith. That even today one views the Christian doctrine of salvation as giving direction through a difficult life is completely incomprehensible.

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/1037

Even the most fringe forms of Christianity like Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses believe in salvation. I can only conclude from statements like this that Hitler wasn't any form of Christian.

Hitler's Views on Christianity

Here are some what people close to Hitler had to say on his views on Christianity:

Goebbels diary:

The Führer is deeply religious but utterly anti-Christian. He sees in Christianity a symptom of deterioration. With justification. It is an offshoot of the Jewish race. One sees that also in the similarity of religious rites. Both have absolutely no relationship to animals and will ultimately die out because of that

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/235

Hewel's diary:

Fuhrer at the table: Christianity is a rebellion against creation. It is the reversal of all the laws of nature, which even in the smallest process of fertilization are based on struggle and selection of the best
...
The teaching [of Christianity is] against the omnipotence of Nature. The glorification of the weak, the sick, the crippled, the simple-minded

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/1019
https://t.me/NSHeathenry/1152

Otto Dietrich:

Hitler was convinced that Christianity was outmoded and dying. He thought he could speed its death by systematic education of German youth. Christianity would be replaced, he thought, by a new heroic, racial ideal of God.

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/1089

Mein Kampf:

Christianity was not content with erecting an altar of its own, but rather first had to destroy the pagan altars. It was only from this passionate intolerance that an apodictic faith could take form; intolerance is an indispensable precondition.
It may be objected here that such phenomena in world history arise from mostly a specifically 𝗝𝗘𝗪𝗜𝗦𝗛 𝗠𝗢𝗗𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛𝗧; 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐃, that such fanaticism and intolerance embody the 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗝𝗘𝗪𝗜𝗦𝗛 𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬. This may be a thousand-times true, and it’s a deeply regrettable 𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗧. The appearance of fanatical intolerance in human history may be both deeply regrettable and 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗡 to human nature-but this doesn’t change the fact it exists today. The men who want to liberate our German nation from its present condition shouldn’t worry their heads with thinking how wonderful it would be if this or that had never arisen; rather, they must find ways to eliminate it. A worldview that’s inspired by infernal intolerance can only be broken by the same spirit, by a doctrine driven by the same determined will, and which is itself a pure and absolutely true new idea.
One may today regret the 𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗧 that the ADVENT OF CHRISTIANITY marked the appearance of the 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗨𝗔𝗟 𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗥 into the much freer ancient world. But the 𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗧 cannot be denied that, ever since then [i.e. ADVENT OF CHRISTIANITY], the world has been pervaded and dominated by this kind of 𝗖𝗢𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗜𝗢𝗡, and that violence has been broken only by violence, and terror only by terror. Only then can a new condition be constructively created.

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/392

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Would Hitler Lie About His Religious Views?

Of course, you can find positive statements Hitler made about Christianity as well. I think this is best explained as just him lying to the public about his beliefs so he could get elected, and the few times after he got elected (where such positive statements about Christianity are still made but less common) to get the people on his side. Evidence he was willing to lie about his beliefs:

According to Hewel, Hitler said:

As a private citizen I would never break my word. As a POLITICIAN for Germany, if necessary, A THOUSAND TIMES

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/520

In a letter to his wife, Rudolf Hess says Hitler told him that he played the role of religious hypocrite in not revealing his true feelings about religion.
https://t.me/NSHeathenry/1077

Hitler's Religious Views

As for his actual views, he definitely believed in a God of some kind. Was he a pagan? It depends on how you define the term. If you define it as in belief in the old European gods, probably not. He speaks against trying to resurrect a religion around Wotan in the Table Talks, for example. However there is a definition of pagan that just means a non-Jewish religion.

Paganism (from Latin paganus 'rural, rustic', later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

Under that definition, I think it would be accurate to call him a pagan. But of course you have to be clear about what you mean by that term. He does explicitly say he is a heathen/pagan in three separate sources:

Rosenberg:

With a laugh Hitler emphasized more than once that he had always been a HEATHEN

Severus Ziegler:

You must know, I AM A HEATHEN. I understand that to mean: a non-Christian. Of course I have an inward relationship to a cosmic Almighty, to a Godhead.

Kurt Lüdecke:

I myself am a HEATHEN to the core!

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/690

I think there is also a good case to be made that he was a pantheist. This could be compatible with being a pagan depending how you define it since some pagans have engaged in nature worship. Weikart makes a fuller case for that in his book. Some people consider pantheism to be a form of atheism, and therefore if you consider Hitler to be a pantheist, you could then consider him to be an atheist under a certain line of reasoning. However, since Hitler disparaged atheism several times in public and private, I don't think he would like someone calling him that to his face.

[Wahrheitssucher]

There was a thread about this on the old forum that went quite in depth into the matter. I remember sifting through it shortly before the old forum went down, and would like to see if we can have it back here. Anyhow, my memory is faint on the thread but the crux of it was whether or not Hitler was a Christian and wanted to have Germany be a Christian nation. Some members mentioned how the Protestant Reformations, for example, wrecked Germany and how that perhaps gave way for Hitlers perceived anti Christian sentiments.

Wehrmacht belt buckle

Gott mit uns = God with us

Adolf criticised aspects of the Christian Church, the priesthood and the gullibility of the Christian masses but not the teachings of ‘Christ’ nor the basic premise of religion.

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2

“Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5

“I had so often sung "Deutschland über Alles" and shouted "Heil" at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5

“Once again the songs of the Fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children.”
- Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 7

“What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8

“But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples 500 years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10

“Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord [humanity] commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

“Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the "remaking" of the Reich as they call it.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

“It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

“The folkish-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.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2, Chapter 10

“To do justice to God and our own conscience, we have turned once more to the German volk.”
- Adolf Hitler in speech about the need for a moral regeneration of German, February 10, 1933

“I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.”
- Adolf Hitler, Speech, March 15, 1936, Munich, Germany

“May divine providence bless us with enough courage and enough determination to perceive within ourselves this holy German space.”
- Adolf Hitler, Speech, March 24, 1933

“We don't ask the Almighty, "Lord, make us free!" We want to be active, to work, to work together, so that when the hour comes that we appear before the Lord we can say to him: "Lord, you see that we have changed." The German people are no longer a people of dishonor and shame, of self-destructiveness and cowardice. No, Lord, the German people are once more strong in spirit, strong in determination, strong in the willingness to bear every sacrifice. Lord, now bless our battle and our freedom, and therefore our German people and Fatherland.”
- Adolf Hitler, Prayer, May 1, 1933

“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work.”
- Adolf Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

“The Catholic Church should not deceive herself: if National Socialism does not succeed in defeating Bolshevism, then the church and Christianity in Europe too are finished. Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of the church as much as of fascism. ...Man cannot exist without belief in God. The soldier who for three and four days lies under intense bombardment needs a religious prop.”
- Adolf Hitler in conversation with Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, November 4, 1936

https://www.learnreligions.com/adolf-hi ... tes-248193

[Wahrheitssucher]

Adolf’s views on Christianity

“We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession...”
- Article 20 of the program of the German Workers' Party (later named the National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP)

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognised 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. ...Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognise more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.”
- Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”
- Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941

“ And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11

“I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendour of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 1

“As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 3

“The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend on human beings... If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men of this earth... In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8

“ Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years.”
- Adolf Hitler, quoted in: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872

[Wahrheitssucher]

There is a great deal of content on Instagram that would have been censored and removed immediately just six months ago.
I’m suspicious of why Mark Zuckerberg’s meta is suddenly allowing it.
But, whatever… here is a translated speech of Hitler in an Ai simulation of how he would have sounded speaking it in English.
In this short extract he mentions God.

[fireofice]

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."
- Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941

This is a fake quote. The quote from Gerhard Engel's English memoir (not a letter as is often claimed) is:

Now as before HE was a Catholic and would remain so.

However, even this is a mistranslation of the original German. A better translation is:

He was still a member of the Catholic Church and would remain so. The Church was far too clever to excommunicate him.

In context, this is referring to Hitler being a member of the Catholic Church and remaining a nominal Catholic for pragmatic reasons, not being a believing Catholic. Within the same memoir this is quoted from, Gerhard Engel says:

Führer spoke at length again about religious belief and his attitude to the churches. Undoubtedly under sniper fire from B(ormann) and H(immler) a less conciliatory attitude is developing. Whereas in the past he wanted to live and let live, he [Hitler] is now determined to fight the churches. Führer literally: ‘The war, here as in many other areas, presents a favourable opportunity to DISPOSE of it (the church question) ROOT AND BRANCH.'

https://t.me/NSHeathenry/865