Tag Archives: Adolph Hitler

Was Hitler a Christian? – #9 Post of 2011

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Because of some public statements Hitler made about Christianity, some have argued that he was a Christian himself, notwithstanding the fact that all of the the atrocities he committed were blatantly contrary to everything Jesus and his apostles ever taught.  Nevertheless, these people maintain that he considered himself a Christian.

David Robertson, in his book The Dawkins Letters, explains that “if we really want to know what Hitler thought, his actions and above all his private words are the most compelling evidence.”  Roberston, who has studied Nazi Germany extensively, quotes Hitler’s personal secretary, Traudl Junge, speaking about conversations they had concerning Christianity.

Sometimes we also had interesting conversations about the church and the development of the human race.  Perhaps it’s going too far to call them discussions, because he would begin explaining his ideas when some question or remark from one of us had set them off, and we just listened.  He was not a member of any church, and thought the Christian religions were outdated, hypocritical institutions that lured people into them.  The laws of nature were his religion.  He could reconcile his dogma of violence better with nature than with the Christian doctrine of loving your neighbour and your enemy.  ‘Science isn’t yet clear about the origins of humanity,’ he once said.  ‘We are probably the highest stage of development of some mammal which developed from reptiles and moved on to human beings, perhaps by way of the apes.  We are a part of creation and children of nature, and the same laws apply to us as to all living creatures.  And in nature the law of the struggle for survival has reigned from the first.  Everything incapable of life, everything weak is eliminated.  Only mankind and above all the church have made it their aim to keep alive the weak, those unfit to live, and people of an inferior kind.’

As Robertson aptly comments after this quote, “That just about says it all.””

What Happens When the Church Is Married to Nationalism? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most important historical facts about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer was his reaction to the Nazi take-over of the Lutheran state church in Germany in the 1930’s.  Eric Metaxas, in his magnificent biography of Bonhoeffer, devotes an entire chapter to Nazi theology.  The program developed by the Nazis to coopt religion in Germany is of seminal importance to Christians today and in the future.

Metaxas starts by describing Hitler’s approach to Christianity:

One sometimes hears that Hitler was a Christian. He was certainly not, but neither was he openly anti-Christian, as most of his top lieutenants were. What helped him aggrandize power, he approved of, and what prevented it, he did not. He was utterly pragmatic. In public he often made comments that made him sound pro-church or pro-Christian, but there can be no question that he said these things cynically, for political gain. In private, he possessed an unblemished record of statements against Christianity and Christians.

According to Hitler, Christianity preached “meekness and flabbiness,” and this was simply not useful to the National Socialist ideology, which preached “ruthlessness and strength.” In time, he felt that the churches would change their ideology. He would see to it.

But Hitler’s lieutenants were far more anti-Christian than he was.  Metaxas traces the plans of Hitler’s henchmen:

Since Hitler had no religion other than himself, his opposition to Christianity and the church was less ideological than practical. That was not the case for many leaders of the Third Reich. Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and others were bitterly anti-Christian and were ideologically opposed to Christianity, and wanted to replace it with a religion of their own devising. Under their leadership, said Shirer, “the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists.”

Metaxas singles out Himmler as particularly hateful of Christianity:

Himmler was the head of the SS and was aggressively anti-Christian. Very early on, he barred clergy from serving in the SS. In 1935 he ordered every SS member to resign leadership in religious organizations. The next year he forbade SS musicians to participate in religious services, even out of uniform. Soon afterward he forbade SS members to attend church services. For Himmler, the SS was itself a religion, and its members, postulants in its priesthood. Many SS rituals were occultic in nature. Himmler was deeply involved in the occult and in astrology, and much of what the SS perpetrated in the death camps bore Himmler’s saurian stamp.

Heydrich, another of Hitler’s top officials, famously said, “Just you wait. You’ll see the day, ten years from now, when Adolf Hitler will occupy precisely the same position in Germany that Jesus Christ has now.”

Rosenberg, another important figure in the Nationalist Socialists, was tasked with putting together a thiry-point program for the future National Church of the Third Reich.  According to Metaxas, “Rosenberg’s plan is some of the clearest proof that exists of the Nazis’ ultimate plans for the churches.”  Below are some excerpts from that plan:

13. The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany. . . .     

14. The National Church declares that to it, and therefore to the German nation, it has been decided that the Fuehrer’s Mein Kampf is the greatest of all documents. It . . . not only contains the greatest but it embodies the purest and truest ethics for the present and future life of our nation. 

18. The National Church will clear away from its altars all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of saints.     

19. On the altars there must be nothing but Mein Kampf (to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book) and to the left of the altar a sword.     

30. On the day of its foundation, the Christian Cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals and chapels . . . and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika.

Those were the plans of the Nazis, but an interesting question to answer is, “How did the Lutheran church in Germany react to the attempted Nazification of their church?”  In part 2 of this post series, we will look at that question.

Would God Let Hitler in Heaven?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

I find that many non-believers are hopelessly confused about salvation by God’s grace.  This confusion was amply illustrated the other day on an Unbelievable? podcast when the atheist debater challenged the Christian debater with the following: “Isn’t it true that the Christian God would have allowed Hitler into heaven if he had repented and trusted in Christ on his deathbed?”

The  atheist questioner clearly believed that Hitler, based on his numerous evil deeds (I still don’t understand how atheists can say that Hitler did anything objectively evil, but that’s another issue altogether), did not deserve to be accepted by God, and the fact that the Christian God would accept Hitler under any circumstances was simply unacceptable.   He (the atheist) could never believe in a God that would let Hitler into heaven because justice would be denied if this were to occur.

One can sympathize with this point of view if we are dealing with the God of Islam, who weighs everyone’s good deeds and bad deeds on a scale to determine where they will spend the afterlife.  It is hard to imagine that Hitler could ever get into heaven under that system, but that is not how the God of Christianity works.

The Christian debater correctly pointed out that nobody deserves to be accepted by God, but that through Christ’s work on the cross, God will accept those who have placed their trust in what Christ did for them.  God will apply Christ’s atoning sacrifice to every person who desires it by dedicating themselves to their Savior.  Christ paid the penalty for all of mankind’s sins, including Hitler’s.  If Hitler had truly repented and trusted in Christ before he died, like the thief on the cross, he would have been welcomed into paradise by God.  There is no reason to believe that he ever did this, so this is a purely hypothetical exercise meant to illustrate a point.

That is why Christians are always talking about the grace of God.  God offers us eternity with him, but only because of Christ.  God knows that if a scale of justice were applied, every single one of us would be condemned for our thoughts and our deeds.  According to the Bible and to anyone who has really looked within their soul, we are a million miles away from the goodness that God expects of us.  The scale, after all, is calibrated to weigh our deeds against the standard of the righteousness of God.  Does anyone really believe they can stand before God on their own merit?

I thank God that I will never have to, and if you’ve trusted Christ, neither will you.