Hitler was mentally ill.

Paranoid schizophrenics are obsessed with God. That doesn't make them religious.

Well its fine for Christians of today to say that Adolph Hitler was not a Christian by their current day standards of what Christianity entails. The problem with that assessment is it makes very little difference now, in the wake of the aftermath that was the Third Reich. Hitler was a Catholic up until he committed suicide. I dont believe he was a very religious man in the sense of observation. He probably did not even attend church services very often, yet he never once denied being a Catholic or holding Christian beliefs.

This is historic reality.

Thomas, I would believe their estimate on that website as accurate in that the numbers of people who consider themselves practicing Christians are falling roughly about a percentage point per year.

Forgive me but your source which is not even current and taken from the sound a little fishy to me.

I don't doubt Hitler was born into a Catholic family and had some familiarity with the religion, enough to use it for his own gain.

In pretty much the same vein as he used the theory of the Aryan race.

"The term Aryan race was used to refer to what they saw as being a master race of people of northern European descent. They worked to maintain the purity of this race through eugenics programs (including anti-miscegenation legislation, compulsory sterilization of the mentally ill and the mentally deficient, the execution of the institutionalized mentally ill as part of a euthanasia program.

Heinrich Himmler (the Reichsfuhrer of the SS), the person ordered by Adolf Hitler to implement the final solution (Holocaust), told his personal masseur Felix Kersten that he always carried with him a copy of the ancient Aryan scripture, the Bhagavad Gita because it relieved him of guilt about what he was doing — he felt that like the warrior Arjuna, he was simply doing his duty without attachment to his actions.[23]

Himmler was also interested in Buddhism and his institute Ahnenerbe sought to mix some traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism"


I do not think we need to blame Hindus or Buddhists for the failings of Himmler or the evil he committed.

Greed and power are the things they seek and they will use anyone or anything to get that.

I would agree Britty. Indeed, he based a lot of ideas on militarism and machines; does that mean technology is morally wrong? Should you turn off your computer right now?

He was a Christian or a Catholic but he was also insane and a narcissist. The two do not automatically equate, nor do they preclude one another.

Its just how it is from a historical vantage point.

Of course it does not mean I am going to turn off my computer, nor does it mean people should not have the right to bear arms.

Unlike being born in the USA and receiving an automatic birthright, one does not automatically become a Christian.

A Christian at the very least has to believe that Jesus is their savior. Nothing to stop someone keeping the label of Christian, Baptist or Catholic, but they don't necessarily believe.

However, to the naive they may use that in order to get 'something', in his case - power.

Chamberlain had been prepared to believe Hitler’s promise that he had no more demands for territory in Europe, but Czechoslovakia proved that Hitler had lied.

Before 1939, many people in Britain had sympathised with Hitler’s aim for German unity – the Treaty of Versailles gave self-determination to every other country, why not Germany? They had hoped that German had just wanted to be secure and united. But March 1939 made it clear that Hitler’s demands for lebensraum and world domination in Mein Kampf were not just talk. The British realised that they were faced with someone who would take over the world unless he was stopped, by force if necessary.

If a man can lie to a world leader, turn around and kill hundreds of innocent people, why would anyone take the word of such a person to be true without question?

Britty,

I don't think anyone is blaming Christianity for Hitler's agenda.

I think the point is simply that the religion can indeed be used to justify such things.

I don't see how there can be any doubt about that, even among Christians themselves.

The Old Testament teaches that God commanded people that it is their duty to investigate "heathens" and to in fact, murder them. It even claims that God demands that we murder not only the heathens, but also their wives, children, and everyone in the towns from whence they came.

This is in the Bible. It's in Deuteronomy 13:13-17 as well as many other places throughout the Bible. That is not an exclusive occurrence.

Many modern Christians attempt to argue that these were only instructions for certain people at a certain time in history. But that's absurd. Once we start arguments like that to justify the Bible we may as well just toss the whole thing away based on the argument that the whole thing was intended for a different time and different people.

Moreover, arguments that these commandments of God were absolute and should still be respected as valid hold every bit as much merit. Thus the Bible can be used to condone the murdering of heathens, not merely because you might want to murder them, but according to the Bible it is you duty to God to murder them! To not murder them would be to disobey the Biblical God.

That's a valid argument based on the Bible.

Now Christians will often argue that Jesus Changed all that. But that argument is extremely weak, because they also argue that he holds the same principles!

They claim that when Jesus returns he will murder all the heathens Himself!

Clearly heathens are the enemy of God including Jesus.

And what's a heathen? Anyone who refused to accept the Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior.

So there you have it. The religion supports hatred and bigotry against anyone who refuses to recognize Jesus Christ as God. And the Jews most certainly do not recognize Jesus Christ as God.

Whether Hitler was a "Christian" by modern views or not is truly irrelevant. The fact remains that the dogma the Christians worship as their "Word of God" can indeed be used to support Hitler's view, at least with respect to the Jews.

They clearly denounced the Biblical God and the Biblical God made it clear that it is the duty of his followers to murder heathens. Maybe Jesus didn't say that specifically, but Jesus did say that he didn't come to change the laws and that was certainly a law of the God of the Old Testament. So there's a clear-cut argument that the Biblical doctrine can indeed to be use to support Hitler's views.

Even Spider, had argued that only those who believe in Jesus are 'Children of God'. He had a big argument with Miguel about this very thing some time back. Spider claimed that Jesus agreed with him, and he posted specific versus that made it look like Jesus was supporting the idea that only those who accept him are Children of God.

Well, as soon as a Christian starts thinking like that, then they can very easily imagine that everything that Jesus talked about with respect to how to treat your 'brother' only applies to other Christians, because if a person isn't a 'Christian' then they aren't your bother based on this absurd notion.

This Bible is extremely dangerous because people can twist the so-called 'Word of God' into whatever kind of sick demented ideas they wish to support.

It also often comes down to the size of the mob that dictates what "Christianity" will be.

Bishop Carlton Pearson believed to have a revelation from God telling him that there is no such place as hell and that the whole thing is a misunderstanding.

Bishop Pearson was labeled a heretic for his believe in such a revelation. But in truth, there are actually many Christian denominations that don't believe in hell. Are they all heretics too?

Where does the buck stop?

When does the last congregation stand and say, "Our interpretation of the Bible wins because we are the biggest mob on Earth!"

Hitler and his armies almost became that biggest mob! Had he won the war and conquered the entire earth we'd all be practicing "Hitler Christianity".

In fact, Christians quite often use the fact that when surveys are taken more people check the checkbox marked "Christianity" than any other single checkbox.

In other words, they argue that the largest mob can't be wrong.

It's definitely a mob-driven religion. There's no question about that.

The only real question is whether or not the mob who's currently driving it at any point in history has any real moral values at all.

To deny the influence of Christianity on Hitler and its role in World War II, means that you must ignore history and forever bar yourself from understanding the source of German anti-Semitism and how the WWII atrocities occurred. This is something I am not willing to do. To simply sit there and ignore it means that you risk repeating this scenario.

By using historical evidence of Hitler's and his henchmen's own words, we can clearly see that mixing religion with politics can cause conflicts, not only against religion but against government and its people.

Through subterfuge and concealment, many of today's Church leaders and faithful Christians have camouflaged the Christianity of Adolf Hitler and have attempted to mark him an atheist, a pagan cult worshipper, or a false Christian. However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. In the 1920s, Hitler's German Workers' Party (pre Nazi term) adopted a "Programme" with twenty-five points (the Nazi version of a constitution). In point twenty-four, their intent clearly demonstrates, from the very beginning, their stand in favor of a "positive" Christianity:

24. We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health from within only on the principle: the common interest before self-interest.

Abra,

No sensible person could blame Christianity for Hitlers agenda.

As for the old Testament - there are things in there that are difficult to understand. I do not believe it is something that can be adequately addressed in an online post.

I somewhat understand your questions and concerns with the bible, I cannot fully understand naturally, I am not inside your head.

I am not denying any influence upon Hitler, and I certainly do not ignore history, when I came from a country that knows too well the evil that man would have perpetrated had he and his 'nazi war machine' not been stopped.

We absolutely should not ignore it and indeed it is incumbent upon any right thinking person to watch the words and actions of those in power.
The words may lie, their actions betray them.


One of Hitler's favorite phrases, which he claimed - very unfairly - to have taken from Mommsen was: "The Jew is the ferment of decomposition in peoples."

Trevor Ravenscroft reveals Hitler tried to combine the ideas of Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche, two polar opposites themselves, with Wagner holding that Jesus was born of Aryan blood. In this case it is easy to see how this may have developed his belief that Jesus was a German.

If that is the case, then he did not believe that Jesus was God and neither could he believe the bible when God speaks to Abram:

I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:2-3 NIV)

In which case he was not a true Christian.


He knew from the beginning he had to win over the
religious groups in Germany in order to gain power. He used them for his own gain.

I do not label him as an atheist, or any other thing however.

Britty just because he is not what you personally define as a Christian does make him not a practicing Catholic all of a sudden. Clearly enough evidence both written and photographic has been expressed on this thread. It is quite overwhelming.

Another example.

If I were to take 12 Christians from this forum right now and question them as to their beliefs as it pertains to their faith, the chances are very likely that they would disagree on several points and profess to hold conflicting interpretations of the scripture. Even identical passages.

That would not make them not Christian.

The same applied to Adolph Hitler.

No, it does not Krimsa.

You would not be asking their beliefs you would be asking their understanding of certain doctrines.

The bottom line is one has to believe that Jesus is God and the Savior of mankind. He obviously did not.

Going to church does not make Hitler a Christian.
No doubt he would be seen with powerful Christian leaders, what else would gain him the support of so many?

Pictures can lie, so that is not proof of anything.

You don't become a Christian by being photographed with Billy Graham.

I have stated what I have to say on this subject.
so I bid you goodnight.

Well Britty my point would still stand in that case. If Hitler was not a Christian, then he sure fooled pretty much everyone. And what difference would it make in the end? Can you really justify his use of Christianity as a dagger in the side of an entire group of humans? 9 million Jews were put to death while Christianity was utilized as a backdrop and a means of furthering this agenda.

I will leave you with yet another excerpt from one of his speeches and I hope it stands as fair warning.

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922

I totally disagree with you.

One of the reasons that I left Christianity was because it's impossible to argue with fundamentalists who use the Bible for their evil agendas.

So who's more sensible Britty? Me, or those hateful fundamentalists?

Take your choice.

It's all subjective.

The bible can, and is used to preach hatred against non-Christians every day that the earth turns on its axis.

Who are you trying to kid? You must be trying to kid yourself because you sure as heck aren't kidding me.



Face the truth Britty.

These are issues that haven't been consensually resolved for millennia.

Why do you think there are Catholics and Protestants?

Why do you think there are so many different denominations of Protestantism?

It's crystal clear that these issues can't be address by anyone given any amount of time.

Sure, like-minded people can indeed sit down with a cup of tea and try come to a consensus about what they'd like the Bible to be saying. But in order to do that they need to truly twist words around and ignore what they don't like in favor of pushing interpretations that they favor.

But that's pretty sad isn't it?

If a religious doctrine that is supposed to be the word of God requires that the readers are already highly moral people who are desperately trying to twist the words around to try to make it sound moral based on what they believe to be moral. Then what good is it?

Why don't they just toss the doctrine in the trash can and write their own book of morals?

It's ridiculous.

No, I'm afraid that I can't agree with you Britty.

You say that no sensible person could blame Christianity for Hilter's agenda. But that's already a flawed notion because you are assuming that only sensible people are interpreting the Bible.

If God wrote a book of morals that only makes sense to sensible people then the book would be moot.

That makes no sense at all in itself.

Face it. The Biblical stories are of a God who is quite violent. He solves all his problems using violence and bloodshed. He couldn't even deliver a 'promised land' without having to ask his people to murder all the heathens who are living on it. What kind of a God would be so lame? What kind of a God can't even deliver a piece of prime real-estate that isn't already occupied by sinning heathens that need to be murdered?

The Biblical story of God is a story of a God who has absolutely no problem whosoever with murdering heathens. And if Jesus was supposed to be this God then this doesn't change a thing. Jesus would clearly condone mass murdering heathens. Why not? That was his father's calling card. Even in the great flood God mass murdered heathens. It's pretty vividly clear that the biblical God has no problem at all with murdering heathens. Moreover, this is his STYLE. This is how the Biblical God solves all his problems.

Even the crucifixion itself was solution via violence. I personally don't believe that God had anything at all to do with such a dastardly plan. But if a Christian believes that this was God's plan then they can easily take that to mean that death and sacrifice for God's sake is the rule. This is what God does and he seems to have no problem with violence as a solution to a problem at all.

I'm totally convinced that it can be quite difficult to try to convince a madman that the Bible doesn't support violence and the murdering of heathens.

Moreover, why would a truly loving creator have every behaved in such a manner to set such hostile examples in the first place?

Do you really believe that the creator of this universe is as lame as the biblical stories claim. Do you really believe that God is so unwise that he can only solve problems using violence and bloodshed?

I don't know about you, but I'm convinced that if there is a God who is supposedly all-wise he would have never done the violent nasty things that the Bible claims. Those things just aren't wise. Period.

I personally don't believe that any sensible person should think they are wise. If you think the actions that the God of the Old Testament took were wise actions then all I can say is that I seriously question your sensibility.

The God of Abraham was supposed to be a Fatherly Figure. I would never tell anyone to read the Bible an look to God for examples on how to be a great father. On the contrary if a father acts like the biblical God I think he should be put up on some serious charges of child abuse.

So no, I don't think the doctrine is sensible at all.

Not in the least.

Maybe some of the moral teachings that were attributed to Jesus are good. But you can get those same moral values from the teachings of Buddha without all the violence of the Bible. So why bother going to the Bible for them, just learn Buddhism. It's much more sensible.

You have a good point here.

Abracadabra said:



This is why I dont understand why it matters. Clearly he used a platform that embraced Christianity beginning back in 1920s Germany. That is how he came to power. He never publicly (or privately) rejected Christianity either. Hitler's personal interpretation was one in which he would use the Protestant and Catholic clergy and Christian populace in order to further ignite feelings of hatred and resentment of the Jews in the aftermath of WW1. He created an atmosphere of "us wonderful, Aryan Christians" against the "poisonous Jews."

Christianity was instrumental in achieving this end and arguably it could not have been accomplished without its assistance. Also the Catholic church was responsible for moving all of those Nazi war criminals out of the hands of the allies immediately following the war. The Vatican was able to make fake passports for them and move them out swiftly. The Israeli government would be forced to locate them and bring them to justice.

Krimsa....

there is a big difference between " religious people" who call themselves christians ....

versus real christians, who have had a real heart change...because their spirits are truly born again.

Those truly born again christians,are the peaceable christians Thomas speaks of...which are many many many...

it is just that the religious ones who are just religious, and not saved,are sadly the ones who give Christianity a bad name thruout history.

True Salvation thru Jesus Christ(which is what christianity is all about) brings about a true heart change.... leaving a christians' heart filled with God's love (which is God's doing in us,and not even our own doing).

But religion doesn't do that...

only being born again brings this change from within.


Point is....

Religiousity is the real enemy ...not Christianity.

Religious spirits were around even in Jesus day..and still are around today.

Every religion has them...sadly.

But especially in these last days, religious spirits are abounding more and more...

and usually the "religious spirits"
attack and aim ,mainly against true Christianity......as well as against anyone who doen't follow their ways.

But the thing is....

religiousity is a tool of the enemy ....
and he uses religiousity and religious spirits for his gain....to disrupt the gospel from going forth ....

and does all he can to stop the gospel.....simply cause he knows his time is short.

By creating havoc and separation,
thru use of religiousity,

the enemy is able to keep
people turned away
from the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ,
as much as possible.


Religiousity(religious spirits)is a main tactic used of the enemy ,

to hinder and try to prevent the gospel from going forth.....

cause again, the enemy knows his time is short...

and does all he can to stop the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ from being told.

And if the enemy can work thru a person who has just religiousity in him , rather than the true love of God in him,

all the more better for the enemy to try and win with.

But sadly, religious folks don't even know they themselves are the tool the enemy uses.

Religious folk will attack, thinking they are doing God's work.

But Krimsa.....none of this is what true christianity is about atall.

TRUE Christianity is a Message of

Salvation...

Love ....

Peace ....

Joy....

Hope .....

to a crying dying world....

and is told from Christian hearts filled with love.......

nd not filled with hatred or judgment.

You see, God changes christians heart..and we are not the same!!-!

So again... big difference between religiousity....versus true christianity.

But despite all the attacks ,
Jesus has already won the Victory anyway.....

because of what he did for us on that cross, over 2000 years ago.

Despite the attacks the enemy uses, the enemy has already lost.

He just doesn't know it yet.

But MorningSong,

The whole paranoia about an enemy being out to do in Christianity is the very thing that gives Christianity it's war-mongering attitude in the first place.

It was that very superstition that drove Christians to burn witches at the stake.

It's an assinine idea.

There is no Satan!

There is no enemy of "Christianity".

All that exists is an predjudiced paranoid religion that denounces non-believers as being enemies of their God.

That's all that truly exists MorningSong. And you're caught up in the middle of it.

This is the real story of the relationship with the Nazi's and the Catholics.It is backed up with facts and dates that can easily be verified through many books and websites.Believe what you want here is the truth.I encourage you to visit the website and read the history for youself as there is too much to post here.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0033.html


Though Hitler felt a particular urgency — and hatred — when dealing with Jews and Communists, he viewed the Catholic Church as a pernicious opponent, a deeply-entrenched threat that must be controlled and eventually uprooted from German life in order to establish his promised Thousand-Year-Reich. To help eliminate Catholic influence, he turned to Alfred Rosenberg, arch-ideologue, anti-Semite, and despiser of Christianity. In his book The Myth of the Twentieth Century, Rosenberg had formulated a “scientific” theory of racism. For him, the supreme human value was that of race: individual races possessed their own collective soul, a mystical “power of the blood and soil.” Each race also possessed a religious impulse (in the case of the Aryan Germans, this was the pagan cult of Wotan, king of the gods). Christianity, for Rosenberg, was the distorted product of Semitic tribes who had tricked the Aryans into jettisoning their pagan truth. The Catholic Church, prime mover in this spiritual swindle, was singled out for sustained attack as the promoter of “prodigious, conscious and unconscious falsifications.” Rosenberg claimed that Jesus Christ had been an unwitting tool of Jewish world conspirators, active as early as the first century AD. In some writings, he would go further and argue that Christ was possibly not a Jew at all, but a prototype Aryan, son of a Roman soldier stationed in Palestine.


In February 1933 Hermann Goering banned all Catholic newspapers in Cologne, citing that ‘political’ Catholicism — ie commenting on government policy — would not be tolerated.

He made a public appeal for the Church to negotiate the terms of a new Concordat (Church-State agreement); an offer he knew the Vatican would find hard to refuse. Almost from the outset, however, discussions took place against a drumbeat of threats that the SA would be unleashed on defenceless Catholics unless agreement were quickly reached.

n fact, large-scale arrests were already taking place. Thousands of Catholic Center Party (Zentrum) activists were in concentration camps by the end of June 1933.

In view of the controversy that later surrounded the Concordat, Pacelli always argued that the Church had to accept the lesser of the two evils presented to it. Without the agreement, Catholics would have been left to the mercy of SA, SS and Gestapo hit squads. With the agreement, they at least had legal grounds on which to protest injustices.

The ‘Immorality’ trials sought to destroy the reputation of Catholic religious, aimed in particular at those working in primary and secondary schools. Priests, monks, lay-brothers and nuns were accused of “perverted and immoral” lifestyles — euphemisms for homosexuality and paedophilia. The Gestapo set numerous traps in order to furnish bogus evidence.

Although roving SA and Hitler Youth gangs were warned in general against turning prominent clergy into martyrs, threats and violence against priests became common. Sometimes, in the wake of local instructions, senior clergy would be intimidated. Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich was shot at and Cardinal Innitzer’s residence in Vienna was ransacked in October 1938.

The only really true Christians are the people who actually wrote the Bible.

Everyone else is just their followers.

The most important strand of Nazi policy was, essentially, to strangle Catholicism by eliminating all organisations supported by the Church, from schools and children’s groups to Catholic Trade Unions. By 1939, this had been largely accomplished. Replacing them were National Socialist or “Community Schools”, the workers Labour Front and the Hitler Youth with its female counterpart, The League of German Girls. One initial campaign against Catholic schools in Munich reduced the percentage of students attending from 84% in 1934 to 65% a year later. In 1937, parents were asked to choose their child’s school in front of two witnesses, usually SA men in full uniform. Hints would be given of possible future trouble and loss of employment if Catholic schools were chosen.


In spite of the growing atmosphere of intimidation and fear, protests were made by senior clerics who challenged the Third Reich and its racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian policies. These included Bishop Clemens Count von Galen of Munster, Archbishop von Preysing of Berlin, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, Cardinal Schulte of Cologne and possibly the most famous of all, Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich. His series of Advent sermons, preached from the pulpit of St. Michael’s Church, aroused national and international interest. They proved so popular that thousands listened, with overflows into the streets outside. In the first of the sermons, preached on December 3 1933, Faulhaber defended Christianity by defending the people from whom it sprung: the Jews. He reminded the congregation that Christianity made no racial distinctions but asked only that its adherents should possess faith. In March 1934, the published edition of his sermons, Judaism

With the coming of war in 1939, Hitler insisted that overt persecution of Christians had to take second place to the effective prosecution of military aims. Others in the party held different views, believing it was a mistake to slow the Kirchenkampf, the battle against the Church. Martin Bormann, ‘deputy’ Fuhrer, reminded Heinrich Himmler in 1941 that the “influence of the Church must be entirely eliminated.” In the event, however, the destruction was to be given a longer time-scale for accomplishment. A clue can be found in the published edition of Hitler’s Table Talk, where he stated as part of a lengthy and rambling attack on the Church that: “I have numerous accounts to settle, about which I cannot think today. But that doesn’t mean I forget them. I write them down. The time will come to bring out the big book.”

Though the scale of Christian persecution cannot be compared to the Jewish Holocaust of 1941-1945, except perhaps in Poland, the ultimate destruction of Christianity was one of the Nazis long-term aims. From his early years of political dreaming, from within the pages of Mein Kampf to the Table Talk Hitler himself made his contempt for the ‘slave’ ideology of Christianity and its Jewish roots perfectly clear.