Was Hitler a Christian?
This is both the reason I started this
blog and the idea I wanted to avoid. There's just no way to really
win it, either way. So let's deal with it either way.
The argument for is that Hitler's
parents were Roman Catholic, and so he was a good little Catholic
boy. Throughout his career, Hitler maintained his belief, maintaining
a belief that he held in common with those underneath him. It was his
deep respect for Catholicism that would lead him to making a deal
with the Catholic Church so that he would leave Catholics alone as
long as it didn't interfere with Germany's rise to power. Although he
was eventually disillusioned with Christians, an issue that would
magnify itself as World War II turned against Germany, he was
nonetheless looking at helping Christianity expand after the Germany
won, with an eye towards linking Christianity and historical German
beliefs.
However, there is the argument against.
Sometime during the First World War, Hitler lost his faith, but
realized that religion could be used to manipulate the masses;
religion in service to the state could create a much more loyal
population. He wrote as such in "Main Kampf", devoting a
full chapter to it. He would emphasize his Christian background in
the biographical sections, bu most of writings seem to indicate that
he was only interested in looking like a religious person in order to
solidify his following. Based of the journals of those around him, he
also wanted make the pact with The Vatican in order to take it off
the list of people who would oppose Germany's rise to power. During
World War II, those around him noted that he talked derisively of the
religious. His plan for Christianity after the war was to mix
Christianity with his beliefs on Aryan perfection, re-fashioning
Jesus Christ into a warrior.
Although there is a part of me that
would love to see Jesus Christ wielding a huge ax into battle smiting
sinners, it's just wrong. Obviously I'm going to go with the idea
that Hitler was not a Christian, but that he using that religion in
order to make it seem as if he were one of the people. I appreciate
that people expect that of politicians anyway, but there just feels
as if there were an extra level of cynicism attached to it in this
case. He had, after all, written that he a leader only need to
pretend to share the religion of the people, and that he should then
use that religion to mollify the people so that he could lead them
without question.
I am obviously offended that atheists
use him as an example of what Christian leaders become. As I believe
that Hitler was never a Christian beyond convenience, Hitler was
never an example of what a Christian leader can be. His actions never
had anything to do with any form of Christianity as practiced at the
time; antisemitism was even being decried by the Church at the time,
and killing on such a scale went well beyond any killing in the past.
Sure, it can be argued that individual Christians wanted the
Holocaust to happen, but it would be hard to argue that more than a
small minority of churches wanted to see something like that to
happen.
I'm definitely not saying that
Christian kings are without sin. Just look at the examples of David
and Louis XIV. There were a lot of Christian kings that could have
acted more kingly, and definitely more Christian. I'm just arguing
that Adolf Hitler was only Christian in the most general sense, and
not someone that could be used as an example for any belief system;
I'm just not sure he was completely sane based on some of the
profiling I have seen done on him. I'm just not really convinced that
he was a Christian by any but the most cynical stretch.
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