There was nothing remotely Christian about Nazism or their government. They were atheists who thought ancient pagan Germanic rituals should be revived to give the masses something to identify with and cling to. Christianity was considered weak minded nonsense and of Jewish heritage which made it doubly unsuitable for the New Germany.
The "Gott Mit Uns" motto on the Army's belt buckles was not a Nazi motto, it was a traditional Prussian motto that the Army carried over into the Nazi era. The Army and Navy also had chaplains by tradition. However Hermann Goring would not allow chaplains in his Luftwaffe. The SS, a thoroughly Nazi organization in function and origin made would be members denounce the church as a condition of membership. Theodor Eike, head of the SS Totenkopf Verbande made arrangements that soldiers who were disowned by their families for denouncing their religion had places to go during holidays so they would not be alone. When need be he even brought some TK members to his own home for holiday diners. The SS became a family unto itself, a very anti-Christian one.
Historically Germany was a Christian nation but that does not mean the church was alive and well in the hearts of the population by time the 20th century rolled around. The same can be said for other European nations then and now. Bill Clinton waves the bible around when he goes to church, does anyone here really believe he is a real Christian?
Well, there was a little bit of editting between the "You betcha" and the "Gott Mit Uns".
In my post, I made a disctinction between the Nazi leadership and the common German "soldier in the trenches".
It is hard to imagine the leaders that dreamed up the Nazi atrocities as anything other than atheists. However, the German common people still considered themselves "Christian" in the generic meaning. The Nazis replaced the Hohenzollern Crown on the World War One Belt buckle with Nazi symbolism but they left the "Gott Mit Uns" on the buckle for the very practical reason that it still resonated with the German people.
There is no doubt that God abhorred what the Third Reich did but a hefty percentage of the common German people still believed that Jesus was on their side and their Death Cards still sought comfort in religious terms.
It may be argued that, if you are not Born Again, you don't qualify as a "Christian" or that if you are not a full practicing Catholic you don't qualify as a "Catholic Christian". However, we need to consider what the German people considered themselves and how the Jews saw their Nazi German and Czarist Russian-era Eastern European persecuters.
If the common German people shouting Sieg Heil called themselves "Christian" and the Polish or Russian peasants conducting a pogrom called themselves "Christian", then that forms the Ashkenazi Jewish ancestral memory of what a "Christian" is.
As I elaborated in my Post 82, it is my belief that that Eastern and Central European Jewish ancestral memory is the underpinning of the hostility that many Ashkenazi Jews have against devout American Christians.
Devout American Christians, who wouldn't know a pogrom from a pierogi, are then left totally puzzled as to why so many Ashkenazi Jews react so negatively against them in view of the fact that American Born Again Christians are the Jewish people's strongest supporters.
If we narrow the historical definition of "Christian" to a narrow theological defintion that includes only those people that live their lives as Christ wanted them to live it, then the American devout Christian will always be left wondering why on Earth so many Jews have a gut reaction against anything labelled "Christian" and against any American Christian that takes his religion very seriously.