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Was Whoopi Goldberg Right that Hitler Was a Christian?: A Historical Analysis
Townhall.com ^ | November 25, 2015 | Richard Weikhart

Posted on 11/25/2015 5:27:20 PM PST by Kaslin

Whatever one thinks about the controversy over Syrian refugees and ISIS, Whoopi Goldberg's recent comments on national television trying to convince us that Christian refugees are just as scary as Muslims disseminates an idea that circulates widely on the internet, i.e., that Hitler was a Christian. She stated, "There have been a lot of horrifying there have been a lot of monster Christians. Hitler was a Christian." When her interlocutors balked at this, she then defended her position by saying, "He didn't like the Catholics, remember? So he thought of himself as a Christian person." Goldberg apparently doesn't understand that Catholicism is a branch of Christianity, or that Hitler despite his opposition to Catholicism was officially a Catholic.

If Goldberg were the only one confused about Hitler's relationship to Christianity, we could ignore it. However, she was expressing a view that circulates widely, especially in atheist circles. Leading atheist intellectuals, such as Richard Dawkins, have insisted that Hitler was a sincere Christian. Their evidence? He said so himself in some of his speeches in the 1920s. In one famous quote circulating on dozens of atheist websites, Hitler stated (on April 12, 1922), "My Christian feeling directs me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. As a Christian I do not have the duty to allow the wool to be pulled over my eyes, but I have the duty to be a fighter for the truth and for what is right. As a Christian I also have a duty toward my own people (Volk)."

Strangely, those trumpeting this quotation as proof that Hitler was indeed a Christian display the attitude: Hitler said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Never does it seem to cross their minds that Hitler might be gasp lying for political advantage. They are as convinced of Hitler's veracity as the naïve British Prime Minister Chamberlain was when he arrived back from the Munich Conference waving a sheet of paper with Hitler's signature on it and proclaiming: "It is peace for our time." In short, they gullibly swallow Hitler's propaganda (and they blithely ignore a plethora of Hitler's anti-Christian remarks).

Fortunately, my forthcoming book, Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich (2016) will definitively lay to rest the canard that Hitler was a Christian. By examining in painstaking detail Hitler's writings, speeches, private conversations, and the testimony of his colleagues, I demonstrate that Hitler’s worldview was far more anti-Christian than Christian. For one thing, there is powerful evidence that Hitler purposely lied about his religious convictions. For instance, when Hitler was in Landsberg Prison, his right-hand man, Rudolf Hess, wrote in a confidential letter that Hitler told him that, as painful as it was for him, "for reasons of political expediency he [Hitler] had to play the hypocrite toward his church."

Secondly, Hitler often made anti-Christian remarks to his private entourage, and even occasionally slipped in some anti-Christian comments in his public writings and speeches.  Hitler not only abhorred the Old Testament of the Christian Bible as Jewish, but he rejected most of the New Testament, especially the epistles of Paul, whom he considered a sneaky Jewish rabbi who smuggled Jewish ideas into Christianity. To be sure, Hitler did esteem Jesus highly, because he thought Jesus was an Aryan antisemitic fighter fathered by a Roman solider (thus not the Son of God born of a virgin). His favorite Bible story, as he told it, was when Jesus wielded a whip to drive those money-grubbing Jews out of the temple. Hitler clearly did not believe in Jesus's resurrection, claiming that Jesus's life ended in failure, since he was martyred by the Jews.

Almost from the beginning of his political career to the end, Hitler portrayed Christianity as a tool of the Jews that supplanted the Greco-Roman culture that he loved. He continually complained that Christianity was still imbued with a Jewish spirit. He remonstrated against Christian morality, especially its exaltation of humility and compassion for the sick and weak.

On the other hand, Hitler held in the highest esteem anti-Christian philosophers, such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Hitler even donated his own personal funds to the Nietzsche Archive to promote the ideas of this God-is-dead philosopher. Hitler also expressed admiration for the religious views of Frederick the Great, who was a patron of such Enlightenment luminaries as the deist Voltaire and the atheist La Mettrie.

In sum, Hitler remained officially a Catholic throughout his life, and he esteemed Jesus highly. However, he denied that Jesus was God and ridiculed Christian doctrines, rejected the Christian holy book, and hated Christian moral standards.  In one diatribe in 1941 he stated, "Christianity is the most insane thing that a human brain in its delusion has ever brought forth, a mockery of everything divine."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: christian; hitler; jewish; jews; nazi; whoopigoldberg
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To: Kaslin
Was Whoopi Goldberg Right that Hitler Was a Christian?

Yeah? Well, so's Yobama. So what's your point?

21 posted on 11/25/2015 6:00:13 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: laweeks

Her real name is actually Caryn Elaine Johnson


22 posted on 11/25/2015 6:01:06 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

Hitler meeting with Grand Christian to discuss best method for executing Jews.

Oh. Wait.

23 posted on 11/25/2015 6:02:28 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Kaslin

Whoopski is an ignorant fool. Anyone pays any attention to her is a fool too....


24 posted on 11/25/2015 6:03:06 PM PST by eeriegeno (<p>)
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To: ozzymandus

Should be no ore than a sentence long. It’ll be a quick read.


25 posted on 11/25/2015 6:03:22 PM PST by ealgeone
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To: Kaslin

He most definitely was not a Christian.


26 posted on 11/25/2015 6:03:28 PM PST by samtheman (I will build a great, great wall on our southern border... - DT)
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To: joethedrummer
Bears repeating.

ANYONE can "say" they're a Christian


27 posted on 11/25/2015 6:05:46 PM PST by uglybiker (nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-BATMAN!)
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To: Kaslin

General Heinrici was a Catholic. Cornelius Ryan interviewed him for one of his books. I remember Heinrici (unsure of spelling), said that Hitler told him that being a German general was incompatible with being a Christian.

He continued to go to church and he said Hitler never tried to force him to not go but made it clear more than once that Nazism was anti Christian.


28 posted on 11/25/2015 6:05:58 PM PST by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: Kaslin

Whoopi Goldberg has never been right on anything.


29 posted on 11/25/2015 6:06:25 PM PST by sport
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To: Kaslin

I m surprised that the insanity that was Hitler’s last fate was not examined more closely. It paralleled Hitler’s descendency into the occult.


30 posted on 11/25/2015 6:08:26 PM PST by Gumdrop
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To: laweeks

“This is a woman who has admitted to murdering (aborting) six of her own children”

Sick woman. If she did not want to get pregnant, why didn’t she take precautions?


31 posted on 11/25/2015 6:08:40 PM PST by make no mistake
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To: Kaslin

By their fruits you shall know them. Hitler was a Theosophist.


32 posted on 11/25/2015 6:09:42 PM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: Kaslin

So Whoopie thinks Hitler is now in heaven?


33 posted on 11/25/2015 6:10:37 PM PST by Brilliant
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To: Jim Robinson

They don’t now, but they certainly did in the past. Christian European countries conquered most of the world, and murdered a lot of people doing it. That doesn’t make them worse than others, because others conquered their neighbors when they could. They were just better at it.


34 posted on 11/25/2015 6:11:55 PM PST by Hugin ("First thing--get yourself a firearm!" Sheriff Ed Galt, Last Man Standing.)
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To: Kaslin

How is this a question.

Here is the education section ofwhoopi goldberg’s resume

Who could care about what she thinks?

Hitler or judas or Nero or Obama can call themselves anything. Hollywood people call themselves Jews, Catholics, Christian all the time, while esousing opposite beliefs. They think these religions are democratic

Hers where the utter lack of education comes in

They don’t call themselves Buddhist, Muslim, any of the non American so to speak religions

They believe that religions that predominate in America are democratic

They think it’s like a political party. Lincoln was a republican for instance ( though u won’t catch them admitting that just before any election

Hitler was born into a home that had a religion as all homes did back then in general. Whatever happened to him happened outside of that religion

He was not following jesus in eliminating Jews nor in being so cruel

So no. Of course hitler was not a Christian

So these people can all go spend six months or their lives in a Muslim country but that won’t change their thinking

They are ignorant


35 posted on 11/25/2015 6:13:32 PM PST by stanne
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To: Iron Munro
The bigger question:

Is Whoopi Goldberg a human?

Nope!!!
El-Aurian

36 posted on 11/25/2015 6:14:37 PM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life, Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: laweeks

Why are you writing about Karin Johnson when she is not mentioned in the post or comments at all until you bring her up? especially in the context of not giving a shit about what she says... when nobody has mentioned a word of her or what she says.

It seems odd to me.


37 posted on 11/25/2015 6:16:08 PM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: Kaslin

The very essence of socialism, be it internationalist socialism or national socialism, is the elevation of man over God. If you were to take The Bible, old and new testaments, and remove all references to God, attributing them instead to man, you lay the foundation for all varieties of socialism, because if God is not in charge, than man is.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran pastor, though this likely had little to do with Friedrich’s profound atheism and hatred of Christianity, as his father died when he was five. He renounced Christianity at 20.

Based on his exposure to the writings of Darwin, among others, he eventually characterized Christianity as *evil* in that it interfered with natural selection, helping the weak to survive, when in his mind, they should perish. Thus, over time, Christianity would cause a degeneration of society. This fed into the development of the then growing science of eugenics, that humanity must be improved by culling the weak.

As far as Hitler goes, he definitely enjoyed the illusion, the trappings of Christianity, but in ways no true believer would embrace. For example, some of his followers rewrote the Lord’s Prayer, and some Christian hymns and psalms to instead honor Hitler, and they were not discouraged from doing so. No real Christian would tolerate this.


38 posted on 11/25/2015 6:16:58 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: Kaslin

Yeah, Whoopi The Brain who said that Texas? should succeed from the union. Yeah, she’s brilliant. Let’s review..SUCCeed.


39 posted on 11/25/2015 6:17:39 PM PST by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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To: Hugin

And they were not true Judeo-Christians. Hitler was nowhere close to being Christian. If you hate Jews you hate Jesus.


40 posted on 11/25/2015 6:18:17 PM PST by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to to God!)
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