In my last post I provided numerous quotes from Mein Kampf indicating that Hitler was a theist – even a Christian – and not the atheist many people seem to think he was. Much more such evidence may be gleaned from his speeches and other sources. Since I believe what I have already presented is sufficient to prove the point, however, let’s move on to an examination of how Hitler’s theism fits into the broader contexts of the Nazi party and Germany as a whole.

Someone might claim that even if Hitler was (or at least presented himself as) a theist and a Christian, he still led an atheist political party which somehow fooled the German people into committing the “un-Christian” crimes associated with World War II and the Holocaust. Such a claim must overcome a great deal of evidence to the contrary, including the following:

- Article 24 of the official Nazi program explicitly stated “The party stands for positive Christianity.” (William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 324)

- The Nazis stressed their belief that Jesus was not Jewish so that they could continue to have him as their god. (John Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 507)

- On Feb. 4, 1933, Hitler’s “Decree For The Protection Of The German People” took effect. It was immediately invoked against intellectuals and artists who had allegedly made atheistic statements. (Joachim C. Fest, Hitler, p. 391)

- Before the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941, they attempted to secure their rear areas and supply lines by arresting those people they thought might be a threat. Among those they expressly went looking for and arrested were atheists. (Garry Wills, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, p. 63)

“Has there ever been a mortal as beloved as you, my Fuhrer? Was there ever belief as strong as the belief in your mission. You were sent us by God for Germany!” – Hermann Göring, one of Hitler’s main Nazi associates (Reden und Aufsatze, Munich, 1938)

“I myself am not what you might call a churchgoer, but I have gone now and then, and have always considered I belonged to the Church and have always had those functions over which the Church presides – marriage, christening, burial, et cetera – carried out in my house by the Church.” – Hermann Göring (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol.9)

“No matter what human beings do I shall some day stand before the judgement seat of the Eternal. I shall answer to Him, and I know he will judge me innocent.” – Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s secretary and deputy, in a statement to the Nuremberg Tribunal

“He [Hitler] is the creative instrument of fate and Deity… He seems like a prophet of old….” – Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, writing in his personal diary, 1925 (History of the Second World War, Sir Basil Liddell Hart, editor; p. 67)

“We have a feeling that Germany has been transformed into a great house of God, including all classes, professions and creeds, where the Fuhrer as our mediator stood before the throne of the Almighty.” – Joseph Goebbels, radio broadcast, April 19, 1936

“I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people.” – Heinrich Himmler, Nazi Gestapo chief, quoting the oath taken by all SS men and members of Nazi Germany’s military forces (Louis L. Snyder, Hitler’s Elite)

For many more pro-God/pro-religion quotes from the Nazis, click here. While it does seem to have been the case that some high-ranking Nazis wanted to seize control of and completely remold religion for their own ends, so have countless other theists throughout history. Despite much research, I have not been able to find any convincing evidence that any Nazis were atheists, claimed to be atheists, or even had sympathy for atheists.

What about Germany as a whole during the Nazi era?

According to William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the country which conferred absolute power on Hitler and the Nazis was two-thirds Protestant. The rest was mainly Catholic. Most Protestant ministers had been condemning the Weimar Republic for years and welcomed Hitler’s chancellorship in 1933. As Hitler’s rule grew more cruel and authoritarian, these Protestants split into three groups. On one side were the “German Christians” who ardently supported all Nazi doctrines and wanted the establishment of a single Reich Church which would bring all Protestant sects together into one all-embracing body. In 1933, they had the active allegiance of about 3000 pastors out of a total of 17,000. Opposed to them and the Nazis was the “Confessional Church,” also with approximately 3000 pastors (but fewer parishioners). “In between lay the majority of Protestants, who seemed too timid to join either of the two warring groups, who sat on the fence and eventually, for the most part, landed in the arms of Hitler, accepting his authority to intervene in church affairs and obeying his commands without open protest” (Shirer, p. 326). Three pages later, Shirer says “… resistance to the Nazification of the Protestant churches came from a minority of pastors and an even smaller minority of worshipers.” By 1938, the vast majority of Protestant clergy were swearing a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler, “thus binding themselves legally and morally to obeying the commands of the dictator.” (p. 331).

Why? Shirer stresses that these actions were not an aberration of German history but the logical outgrowth of a mindset dating back to Martin Luther. It was the great founder of Protestantism himself who had condemned the Jews in the harshest of terms over 300 years before Hitler was born. And it was this same great Christian leader who urged the princes to use the most ruthless, authoritarian methods to suppress the great uprising of poor, oppressed peasants which occurred in 1525.

“The influence of this towering figure extended down the generations in Germany, especially among the Protestants. Among other results was the ease with which German Protestantism became the instrument of royal and princely absolutism from the sixteenth century until the kings and princes were overthrown in 1918. The hereditary monarchs and petty rulers became the supreme bishops in their lands…. In no country with the exception of Czarist Russia did the clergy become by tradition so completely servile to the political authority of the State. Its members, with few exceptions, stood solidly behind the King, the Junkers, and the Army, and during the nineteenth century they dutifully opposed the rising liberal and democratic movements.” (p. 327)

Hitler and the Nazis weren’t some mad, atheist-inspired disease which somehow came out of nowhere to corrupt the good Christian people of Germany. Instead, Hitler’s hatred of the Jews, his authoritarianism, his “divine mission” claims, and his demand that religion (and everything else) bend to serve his dictates fit an old pattern which the German people had long accepted and eagerly re-embraced after experimenting with democracy in the form of the Weimar Republic.

That’s why people accepted it when German schoolchildren were required every day to recite an invocation at lunchtime which began, “Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, bequeathed to me by the Lord….” (Toland, p. 404)

That’s why when Hitler turned 50 in 1939, special masses were held in every German church “to implore God’s blessing upon Fuhrer and people” and the Bishop of Mainz instructed his parishioners to pray for “the Fuhrer and Chancellor, the inspirer, the enlarger and protector of the Reich.” (Toland, p. 528)

That’s why, when Hitler sent German soldiers marching out into the world on missions of conquest, they marched not as atheists but as Christians with “Gott Mit Uns” (“God Is With Us”) stamped on their belt buckles.

And that’s why, when Hitler returned to Berlin in the summer of 1940 after those troops had brutally conquered the low countries and France, all the church bells in Germany rang for an hour in celebration.

One man, even one political party didn’t plunge the world into war and send millions of Jews and others into concentration camps and ovens.

A nation of tens of millions of theists living in a culture molded by centuries of Christianity did….