What did Adolf Hitler think about Christianity?

Hitler's Table Talk 1941- 1944 His Private Conversations | 1953 | Quotes by Adolf Hitler

[GOP_1900AD]

RE: I'm not sure how to describe it accuratly, Nordic? Pagan?

Not unlike certain elements of today's growing National Bolshevik movement.

[GOP_1900AD]

RE: Hitler put forth his belief that Christ was the child of a Roman Centurion and a Jewish harlot.

It is quite interesting (and sad) to me that Dan Brown's "The Davinci Code" attempts to smear Christ in a different manner, by claiming he married Mary Magdalene. I realize that this smear goes all the way back to the Gnostics, however, the way that Brown ties it in with a bunch of secret society mumbo jumbo could easily be twisted into a general call for liquidation of all traditional Jewish and Christian believers. I wonder if Brown realizes just what he has written?

[Rocketman]

How is this different than what athiests and humanists beleive about Christians Christianity the Bible and God. Other than the Jew part there is no diffeence.

How is this different than how the left views republicans and evangelical christians?

I will not brand them with this man's name but the views that the espouse to hate with all their hearts -- are their views.

[evangmlw]

[Tailgunner Joe]

Speer said that Hitler toned down his anti-Christianity when in the presence of women.

[voteconstitutionparty]

These must be private statements. I'd like to know the source of them. In all of Hitler's public statements he went on about what a great Christian he was. He was a typical hypocrite!

[baseball_fan]

If I recall from the History Channel show, "Last Secrets Of The Axis,"
[http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=43190&browseCategoryId=&location=&parentcatid=&subcatid=]
Hitler was highly influenced by German General Karl Haushofer who as then part of the German General Staff visited Japan in the early part of the century (before WWI I think) and adapted ideas from there. The Japanese Emperor was considered a god then and was synonymous with the homeland(?), and this [may have] become the origin of the "Fuhrer" concept. (My assumption is that Hitler came to see himself not unlike a god and that Nietche's concept of the Superman also factored in, i.e. anything that would justify unrestrained self-aggrandizement).

Also according to the show Haushofer met with the Japanese secret societies such as the Black Dragons which were influenced by the (pagan?) Samurai "The Way of War" Bushido traditions (which continue in some ways today as part of the Japanese criminal underground) which later influenced the Nazi SS troopers. Some information about the German secret societies is here (cannot vouch for the accuracy)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism_in_Nazi_Germany]

Haushofer also picked up Aryan mystical traditions influenced somehow by Hinduism (I'm no expert obviously) traveling through India (I think this is where the swastika symbol came from). (Haushofer met regularly during the writing of Mein Kampt with Hitler in prison - and is said to have influenced it - by way of his contact, one-time student, Rudolf Hess.)

What makes Hitler so dangerous is how he was able to exploit conflicts and half-truths and by putting them through a propaganda prism and using moral absolutism captured the conscience of a nation.

Some of the quotes referenced above may have been influenced by Nietzche (again I'm no expert or even a knowledgeable lay person) who was struggling (my speculation) with how does one exert power within the context of Christian ethics, which he saw as in some ways disabling.

Dostoevsky even wrote a novel called "The Idiot" and the famous chapter, "The Grand Inquisitor" from "The Brothers Karamazov" that dealt with these conflicts.

So there was in some ways to my best estimation a crisis regarding Christian ethics that was coming out of a misinterpretation of Christianity as requiring moral perfection or moral absolutism (and later the carnage of WWI in a battle between several "Christian" nations) and the crisis of faith this caused for many. (The inability to live up to what some saw as impossible standards created a backlash of hostility and resentment among some and thus they turned to atheism "God is Dead" - Communism became atheistic). What put me on the idea of moral absolutism (perfectionism) and its utopian dangers is reading Robert D. Kaplan's essay, "The Media and Medievalism."

Robert D. Kaplan talks about the dangers of moral absolutism (moral perfectionism) as a mindset that was present during the terror of medieval times with the religious Grand Inquisitors - (see his article "The Media and Medievalism," at Hoovers Institute's Policy Review Online:
http://www.policyreview.org/dec04/kaplan.html) - and is an ongoing danger for some in the press who function in some ways as "secular priests." Through moral indignancy they are able to destroy careers and individual reputations (as well as make reputations) which is a tremendous power that in some ways has been unaccountable.

I bring this up because he has written a new book (2003) called "Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos" that in some ways addresses this conflict [I haven't yet read the book, sorry]." Quoting from the Amazon.com editorial review: "Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics is an extended, willfully provocative essay arguing that the bedrock of sound foreign policy should be "comprehensive pragmatism" rather than "utopian hopes." Kaplan calls for a reestablishment of American (primarily) realpolitik, one distanced from Judeo-Christian (or private) virtue and closer to a "pagan" (public) one."

Hitler clearly demagogues what some serious thinkers have struggled with.

The way I reconcile the conflict is in recognizing first that we all have to make decisions. Even not making a decision is a decision, so it is an inescapable aspect of our mortality. Next as the ancient Greeks saw, we have to make decisions with only partial knowledge, thus the inescapably tragic aspect of life and their derivation of a sense of fate. Next we most often have to make decisions between two imperfect alternatives (lesser of two evils) and even when we make the right decision the result most often is imperfect. We can all be "exposed" if the light is shined brightly enough so the process can be highly selective and political if one wants it to be. So we do the best we can under the circumstances and this allows a leader to function without being paralyzed and disabled with moral anguish yet understand both he and his decisions to a certain extent are flawed and not have to maintain the false pretense that they could be completely otherwise.

Now if we are held to a standard of moral absolutism (by the media or the church), one becomes paralyzed by the conflict or turns into a fanatic to escape the conflict and self-awareness. A mature Christianity allows us to accept these limitations and forgives us and doesn't hold us to the moral absolute standard that the Nietzches and the "Idiots" (as in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot") and the atheistic communists and the pagan fascists of Hitler's stripe become morally disabled by.

The mention of the "heroic" in the Islam tradition, and it too being misued by the moral absolutist frame of mind is very interesting, especially in how Hitler seemed to have an admiration for it. Kaplan talks about how the medieval moral perfection standard caused "terror," how the media can cause with the same standard "terror," and how radical Islam can cause "terror." So my best guess is that this might be a clue as to the intellectual and moral crisis that we have to battle in almost every generation and face once again today.

The reason this way of thinking is so difficult to get past is that people are tempted to use moral absolutism because it is a way to gain power, to be sanctimonious, to strip other people of their dignity and power, to morally indict them and thus increase their own standing. (Our litigation crisis may partially be caused by this. Our political culture has moved away from civility to absolutism.) It also requires people to be hypocritical because no one can live by such a standard and they have to deal with the tremendous moral guilt and burden that comes from this approach. We thus see an increased fanatacism whereever we see this mindset.

I've gone on too long, this is obviously cobbled together and not refined, but I wanted to submit it so those who read Hitler's quotes do not become seduced by them and possibly point a way out of the intellectual and moral trap. I'm the first to admit in writing this on many counts I could be wrong, but I've done my best.

Cheers.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Haushofer's geopolitics was Hitler's inspiration for lebensraum, "living space." When he traveled to Japan as a young man at every port along the way, Cyprus, Alexandria, Aden, India and Singapore he was greeted by the British Union Jack.

In order to combat British naval supremacy he urged that the Reich take control of central Asia, the global "pivot area."

"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the world."

[stainlessbanner]

bttt

[keats5]

"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

As are those who rewrite history.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post; your input.

[Dark Skies]

bttt

[RetroWarrior]

"He talked for hours at a stretch, thought so highly of his own ramblings he had every word written down by various secretaries, he would keep his audience awake until the early hours of the am, most of them bored out of their minds, fighting the need for sleep"

That sounds a lot like Mohammad

[usa1776]

That's 100% right. However, there are more groups than just the tree-huggers in the crosshairs.

[Jeff Head]

Oh yes...many more.

[Schwaeky]

From what I understand, it was more or less a rule with the Nazis that they only selectively leveraged Christianity, for example, they discredited the entire Old Testament because that was the basis for Judaism. I have noticed that most West haters and Jew haters today have similar attitudes.

Don't forget, the "cult of Christ" (not Christians as a whole but a specific Church, I'll let the others on here figure it out) has utter disregard for the Old Testament and complete contempt for modern Jews/Israel as a matter of their theology. So the ideas borrowed from national socialism are still, sadly, alive in many circles, including the restorationist movement.

[Schwaeky]

Speer said that Hitler toned down his anti-Christianity when in the presence of women

what a disingenuine skirt chasing politician......

[GOP_1900AD]

10-4.

[rexcurrydotnet]

Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, one of the reasons that it was chosen and/or maintained by the National Socialist German Workers' Party is because it resembles two "S" letters for "Socialism." Some critics make the absurd argument that during the 25 year existence of the horrid Party no Nazi noticed the "S" shapes nor attached any meaning (nor anyone in the SS Division). They also ignore the fact that the Party leader was an artist. see more graphic examples of the swastika myth debunked with posters from 1933-1945 at http://rexcurry.net/socialism-posters/posters2.html and with pre-1933 National Socialist posters at http://rexcurry.net/socialist-propaganda/posters1.html see the swastika myth debunked with German medals at http://rexcurry.net/socialism/germany.html and http://rexcurry.net/swastikacross.html and with flags & banners at http://rexcurry.net/swastikaflags.html

Three terms sum up popular myths: “Swastika” and “Nazi” and “Roman Salute.” RexCurry.net exposed all three.

The "Roman salute" myth holds that the Nazi salute was from ancient Rome. The myth was refuted by the historic discovery that the salute of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) came from a national socialist in the USA who used a straight-arm salute as part of the original pledge of allegiance. http://rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html

The pledge of allegiance was written by a self-proclaimed National Socialist in the USA in 1892 (Francis Bellamy) who promoted "military socialism" and operated the "Nationalist" magazine and spread the straight-arm salute via kids in schools, three decades before the Nazis adopted similar behavior.

RexCurry.net also exposed the “Nazi” myth, that Nazis hate socialists. The word “Nazi” hides the actual name of the horrid party: the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The practice is so widespread that most people who use the word “Nazi” are ignorant of what the abbreviation abbreviates and why it ties into the pledge of allegiance and to earlier National Socialists in the USA. http://rexcurry.net/mediacover.html
and http://rexcurry.net/swastikamedia.html
and http://rexcurry.net/swastikaweb.html

Nazis always referred to themselves as "National Socialists" and never as "Nazis" and they always used the word "hakenkreuz" and not "swastika."

The "Swastika myth" is that the symbol of the Nazis was a swastika, and used as their "good luck" sign, or reversed for "evil." The use of the word "swastika" coincides with "Nazi" to hide the symbol's meaning for the horrid Party: Socialism and the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part): 62 million dead under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 35 million under the Peoples' Republic of China; 21 million under the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Today, most people would never make the connection between the swastika's "S" shapes and "socialism" because most people do not know that the Nazis were the National Socialist German Workers' Party. http://rexcurry.net/swastikaweb.html

The trio of myths are examples of astounding historical facts that were deliberately shoved down Orwell's "memory hole."

[david ford]

Hitler opposed Christianity
http://groups.google.co.in/group/talk.origins/msg/47c284defb4765dd?