Hitler's alliance with Christianity

There are 100s of quotes here en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Religious … olf_Hitler

I’ll highlight just a few:

Mein Kampf (1925-1926)

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. (p. 65)

This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. (p. 152)

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. (p. 174)

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. (p. 307)

Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. (p. 383)

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. (p. 562)

As far as this variety of ‘folkish’ warriors, are concerned, I can only wish the National Socialist movement and the German people with all my heart: “Lord, preserve us from such friends, and then we can easily deal with our enemies.” (p. 565)

Since Germany never defends herself, except by a few flaming protests on the part of our parliamentary elite, and the rest of the world has no reason for fighting in our defense, and as a matter of principle God does not make cowardly nations free… (p. 622)

For this, to be sure, from the child’s primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’ (pp. 632-633)

Public speeches

1922

The national regime will concede and safeguard to the Christian confessions the influence due them, in school and education. It is concerned with the sincere cooperation of church and state. The struggle against a materialistic philosophy for the creation of a true folk community serves the interests of the German nation as well as our Christian belief.

My feeling 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.

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. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago—a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people.

For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. 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 today this poor people are plundered and exploited.

I say: my Christian feeling tells me that my lord and savior is a warrior. It calls my attention to the man who, lonely and surrounded by only a few supporters, recognized what they [the Jews] were, and called for a battle against them, and who, by God, was not the greatest sufferer, but the greatest warrior. . .

As a human being it is my duty to see to it that humanity will not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did that old civilization two thousand years ago, a civilization which was driven to its ruin by the Jews. . . I am convinced that I am really a devil and not a Christian if I do not feel compassion and do not wage war, as Christ did two thousand years ago, against those who are steeling and exploiting these poverty-stricken people.

1925

It will at any rate be my supreme task to see to it that in the newly awakened NSDAP, the adherents of both Confessions can live peacefully together side by side in order that they may take their stand in the common fight against the power which is the mortal foe of any true Christianity.

1928

We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian.

1933

January 30, 1933 — Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany

May God Almighty give our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for ourselves but for Germany.

The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."

And now Staatspräsident Bolz says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity.

If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these fourteen years when a party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government.

The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.

The Government of the Reich, which regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attaches the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See, and is endeavouring to develop them.

The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were. […] I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.

National Socialism has always affirmed that it is determined to take the Christian Churches under the protection of the State.

The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.

1934

Finally, I would like to say something to those people who keep talking to me about religion: I am also religious, profoundly religious on the inside, and I believe that Providence weighs us human beings.

The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity.

There may have been a time when even parties founded on the ecclesiastical basis were a necessity. At that time Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.

The Church’s interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles.

1935

It will take Christianity, as the basis of our collective morality, and the family as the nucleus of our Volk and state, under its firm protection… May God Almighty take our work into his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the trust of our Volk.

1938

Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so called democracies, is the charge that the National Socialist State is a hostile to religion. In answer to that charge I should like to make before the German people the following solemn declaration: 1. No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views, nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted. 2. The National Socialist State since 30 January 1933 from public monies derived from taxation through the organs of the State has placed at the disposal of both Churches the following sums:
In the fiscal year 1933 130 million Reichsmark
In the fiscal year 1934 170 million Reichsmark
In the fiscal year 1935 250 million Reichsmark
In the fiscal year 1936 320 million Reichsmark
In the fiscal year 1937 400 million Reichsmark
In the fiscal year 1938 500 million Reichsmark

It is therefore, to put it mildly; effrontery when especially foreign politicians make bold to speak of hostility to religion in the Third Reich. But if it be true that the German Churches regard this position as intolerable, that the National Socialist State is at any time ready to undertake a clear separation between Church and State as is already the case in France, America and other countries, I would allow myself only one question: ‘What contributions during the same period have France, England or the United States made through the State from the public funds?’"

The National Socialist State has not closed a church, nor has it prevented the holding of a religious service, nor has it ever excised any influence upon the form of a a religious service. It has not exercised any pressure upon the doctrine nor on the profession of faith of any of the Confessions. In the National Socialist State anyone is free to seek his blessedness after his own fashion.

It is however true that if priests, instead of being servants of God, prefer to regard as their mission the abuse of our present Reich, it’s institutions or it’s leaders, then the National Socialist State will relentlessly force them to realize that no one will be suffered to destroy this State, and that priests so soon as they set themselves beyond the law will by the law be brought to account precisely in the same way as any other German citizen.

This State has only once intervened in the internal regulation of the Churches, that is when I myself in 1933 endeavoured to unite the weak and divided Protestant Churches of the different States into one great and powerful Evangelical Church of the Reich.

1942

Thus the home-front need not be warned, and the prayer of this priest of the devil, the wish that Europe may be punished with Bolshevism, will not be fulfilled, but rather that the prayer may be fulfilled: “Lord God, give us the strength that we may retain our liberty for our children and our children’s children, not only for ourselves but also for the other peoples of Europe, for this is a war which we all wage, this time, not for our German people alone, it is a war for all of Europe and with it, in the long run, for all of mankind.”

1943

I, too, am religious; that is, religious deep inside, and I believe that Providence weighs us human beings, and that he who is unable to pass the test of Providence but is destroyed by it has not been destined for greater things.

1944

I may not be a light of the church, a pulpiteer, but deep down I am a pious man, and believe that whoever fights bravely in defense of the natural laws framed by God and never capitulates will never be deserted by the Lawgiver, but will, in the end, receive the blessings of Providence.

The bomb which was planted by Colonel Count von Stauffenberg burst two metres to my right. It very seriously injured a number of associates dear to me; one of them has died. I myself am completely uninjured except for some very small scrapes, bruises or burns. I regard it as a confirmation of my assignment from Providence to continue to pursue my life’s goal as I have done hitherto.

I thank Providence and my Creator, not for saving my life, but for making it possible for me to endure my cares and pursue the task which my conscience commands me.

1945

God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work.

Private statements

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so. - Adolf Hitler in 1941 to General Gerhard Engel. In John Toland (1992). Adolf Hitler. New York: Anchor Publishing, p. 507.

The church is certainly necessary for the people. It is a strong and conservative element. - Speer, Albert (1997). Inside the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 95.

Through me the Evangelical [Protestant] Church could become the established church, as in England. - Speer, Albert (1997). Inside the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 95.

Truth in action:

Hitler required everyone to swear an oath by God to the Reich en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_oath

The German Army belt buckles said GOTT MIT UNS which means GOD WITH US. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns

The very very first treaty Hitler made was with the Vatican, exchanging political control of Germany for Catholic control of education. He himself said “This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.”

The Church celebrated the birthday of Hitler every year until his death, on the orders of the vatican.

The majority of the three million Nazi Party members continued to pay their church taxes and register as either Roman Catholic or Protestants. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany

For this reason Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall argues that “nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context” and determining someone’s actual religious convictions should be based on other criteria. It is important to keep this ‘official aspect’ in mind when turning to such questions as the religious beliefs of Adolf Hitler or these of Joseph Goebbels. Both men had ceased to attend Catholic mass or to go to confession long before 1933, but neither had officially left the Church and neither of them refused to pay his church taxes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany

Over 50% of the SS were confessing catholics, but none were excommunicated from the church except one: for the crime of marrying a protestant. It would seem therefore that genocide doesn’t merit the punishment of marrying protestants.

Christianity is itself antisemitic:

Matthew 23 King James Version (KJV)
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Who was the first to throw jews into ovens?

The fact that Jews are anti-christ is the central message in the proselytization of Brother Nathanael:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X-ZdkW9rt4[/youtube]

What better ally could Hitler have than Christianity itself!?!

He said:

[i]The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were. […] I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.

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.

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.

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.[/i]

And if after all this the objection remains that Hitler was an atheist going to incredible lengths to lie, both in his own book and in speeches spanning a decade, then that assertion would only serve to prove that religion must have been required to achieve Hitler’s goal of exterminating the Jews.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-E9EmeFXjk[/youtube]

So why did Hitler need Christianity?

Family values
Subjugation of women
Antisemitism
To make people regard themselves as sheep in need of a shepherd.
To facilitate submission to authority:

Romans 13:

1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

1 Peter 2:

13 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.
15 For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

If you don’t believe in God, then we cannot control you:

Heinrich Himmler, who himself was fascinated with Germanic paganism, was a strong promoter of the gottgläubig movement and didn’t allow atheists into the SS, arguing that their “refusal to acknowledge higher powers” would be a “potential source of indiscipline”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany