Monicks: Unleashed

Was Hitler really an atheist?

Written by

Monica

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The eternal debate, was Hitler an atheist? Well, who cares?

From what he said throughout his life, he was a catholic, we can still find some evidence of his liaison with the Roman Catholic Church.

In this picture, Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII) signs the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican at a formal ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933.


Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen sits at the left, Pacelli in the middle, and the Rudolf Buttmann sits at the right.

The Concordat effectively legitimized Hitler and the Nazi government to the eyes of Catholicism, Christianity, and the world.

You can read the full text of the concordat on the Concordat Watch website. Read it here.

But, can anyone really tell what was in Hitler’s mind and what were his true beliefs? … and, does this really make any difference? I think it doesn’t. He was a Nazi with power without boundaries and really weird ideals.

We cannot link Hitler’s actions to his religious affiliation – or lack thereof.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments on this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_iNCGH9kY&w=640&h=385]

Oh! This video is excellent.

Comments

One response to “Was Hitler really an atheist?”

  1. AndrewFinden Avatar
    AndrewFinden

    I think you’re right, it’s almost impossible to know for certain what he thought on the matter. I don’t think it’s right to say he was an atheist, just as I don’t think it’s right to say he was a Christ-follower. He cynically played on the prevalent Catholicism, for sure, but there are so many conflicting statements. He was a politician after all!
    I do think that his view of ‘God’ was a mixture of Teutonic and Nordic mythology mixed with a bit of Catholicism and a particular view of the German national identity. I also think there is evidence that the Nazi’s were ultimately anit-Christian and intended to shut them down once they had no more need for them.
    It was Hitler’s close associate, Martin Bormann who wrote:

    “When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean, like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe, we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or else upon shameless professional self-interest.”

    And even a quick look at Wikipedia pulls up the following:

    “Hitler and other Nazi leaders clearly made use of both Christian symbolism combined with indigenous Germanic pagan imagery mixed with ancient Roman symbolism and emotion in propaganda for the German public and this worried some Protestants.[47] Many Nazi leaders subscribed either to a mixture of then modern scientific theories (especially Social Darwinism),[48] as Hitler himself did,[9] or to mysticism and occultism, which was especially strong in the SS.”

    And:

    “Nazi party leaders viewed Christianity and National Socialism as competing world views (even though some Christians did not see a conflict) and Hitler planned to eliminate the Christian churches after securing control of his European empire. The churches were permitted some self governing and allowed to remain because Hitler did not want to risk strong opposition until other more pressing issues were dealt with.[55]”

    Even the ‘Gott mit uns’ belt buckles were really about Imperial symbolism rather than any Christian idea (it after went back not only to the WWI Prussion forces, but to the Roman Empire).

    This is a bit of rehash of what I wrote here.

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