Germany's Nazis

What they believed

Christian Nazis, in their own words

Some quotes from Hitler's most powerful Nazis and sympathizers on how they felt about Christianity, Church and God:

I take the Bible, and all evening long I read the simplest and greatest sermon that has ever been given to mankind: The Sermon on the Mount! 'Blessed are they who suffer persecution for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'!
-- Joseph Goebbels

When today a clique accuses us of having anti-Christian opinions, I believe that the first Christian, Christ himself, would discover more of his teaching in our actions than in this theological hair-splitting.
-- Joseph Goebbels

I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people.
-- Heinrich Himmler, reminding his hearers about the oath taken by all SS men as well as by the military forces

An early member of the Nazi party and one of its principle leaders, [Hermann] Göring founded the Gestapo and served as the Reichsluftfahrtminister of the Luftwaffe.

With the Catholic Church the Führer ordered a concordat to be concluded by Herr Von Papen. Shortly before that agreement was concluded by Herr Von Papen I visited the Pope myself. I had numerous connections with the higher Catholic clergy because of my Catholic mother, and thus-- I am myself a Protestant-- I had a view of both camps.
-- Hermann Göring (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol.9)

God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany.
-- Hermann Göring

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, in a statement to the Nuremberg Tribunal

Erich Koch ... functioned as President of the East Prussian Protestant Church Synod when the Third Reich began. He founded his own regional variation of the German Christians (Deutsche Christen) party.

We commit ourselves, and we demand this commitment not only from the elected representatives of the church, but above all from all Protestant men and women, to service in our communities! We want to serve: through tireless recruitment to our worship; through chivalrous intervention for the poor and needy, through defence of our faith;... through true Evangelical witness in public.
-- Erich Koch

The Protestant League stands very close to the NSDAP. It is consciously German and, through moral and religious power, wants to contribute to the building up of the German people.
-- Hans Schemm

It is henceforth the goal of the Education Ministry that every child in Bavarian schools shall be made familiar with the principles of the Christian and national state.... Religious instruction is nothing other than service to the soul of children. Faith in God and the personality of the teacher must be expressed in a realistic instruction filled with religious sincerity.
-- Hans Schemm

May God save Germany!
-- Joachim Ribbentrop, [fanatical Nazi and anti-Semite] his last words before his hanging

Now it goes to God!
-- Julius Streicher, as he mounted the gallows platform to his death

The page contains many more.

Hitler, another Christian

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.

Source: The Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations

Acclaimed Hitler biographer, John Toland, explains his [Hitler's] heartlessness as follows:

"Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god..."

Source

Like military leaders of the past and present, Hitler thought of God as on his side. On January 1, 1932, Hitler told a Munich audience that God was on his side in the battle for a better world. [Toland p.260] According to Toland,

"The born and bred Catholic Hitler rebuilt his SS on Jesuit principles by assiduously copying "the service statutes and spiritual exercises presented by [Saint] Ignatius Loyola." [Toland p. 760]

Source

Statements by clergy, Hitler's admirers and henchmen

Those who knew Hitler remarked about his Christian views.
The established Methodist church paper, the Friedensglocke, vouched for the authenticity of a story about Hitler where he invited a group of deaconesses from the Bethel Institutions into his home at Obersalzberg:

One sister could not refrain from saying: Herr Reichkanzler, from where do you get the courage to undertake the great changes in the whole Reich?
Thereupon Hitler took out of his pocket the New Testament of Dr. Martin Luther, which one could see had been used very much, and said earnestly: "From God's word." [Helmreich, p. 139]

Even the Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich who visited Hitler at his mountain retreat in Obersalzburg confessed:

Without a doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture...[Helmreich, p.279]

And on Hitler's allegiance to his "true" Christian spirit:

I do not remember even a single occasion when Hitler gave any instructions that ran counter to the true Christian spirit and to humaness.
-- Wagener, in Hitler - Memoirs of a Confidant, p.147

Source

Although he himself [Hitler] was a Catholic, he wished the Protestant Church to have a stronger position in Germany, since Germany was two-thirds Protestant.
-- Hermann Göring, Nazi (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol.9)

Source

Reichmarshall Herman Goering proclaimed of Hitler:

"Only a Catholic could unite Germany."

When writing to Prime Minister von Kahr of Bavaria in 1920, Rudolf Hess, the man who was to become Deputy Fuhrer, stated,

"I know Herr Hitler very well personally and am quite close to him. He has a rarely honorable, pure character, full of profound kindness, is religious, a good Catholic."

Source: Religion And The Holocaust

Statements by Hitler, the Catholic

Born and bred a Catholic, he grew up in a religion and in a culture that was anti-semitic, and in persecuting Jews, he repeatedly proclaimed he was doing the "Lord's work."

You will find it in Mein Kampf:

"Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's Work."

Hitler said it again at a Nazi Christmas celebration in 1926:

"Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews ... The work that Christ started but could not finish, I -- Adolf Hitler -- will conclude."

...
Hitler regarded himself as a Catholic until he died.

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so"

he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, in 1941.

There was really no reason for Hitler to doubt his good standing as a Catholic. The Catholic press in Germany was eager to curry his favor, and the princes of the Catholic Church never asked for his excommunication.

Source: Hitler's Religion

Hitler stated in February 1940,

"But there is something else I believe, and that is that there is a God. . . . And this God again has blessed our efforts during the past 13 years."

Hitler ...saw the value of exalting the cross while waging endless war:

"To be sure, our Christian Cross should be the most exalted symbol of the struggle against the Jewish-Marxist-Bolshevik spirit."

Hitler was fond of invoking the Ten Commandments as the foundation of Nazi Germany:

"The Ten Commandments are a code of living to which there’s no refutation. These precepts correspond to irrefragable needs of the human soul."

Source: Gott mit uns: On Bush and Hitler’s rhetoric

The source of Hitler's anti-Semitism
Initially, he was was not anti-Semitic, but over time his attitude changed as he became influenced by the Christian Socialist Party.

He [Hitler] read evangelist literature and greatly admired Martin Luther (a Jew hater). Many of his actions fulfilled what Luther desired in his book "On the Jews and their lies" (1543). It appears clear from Hitler's own writings that his anti-Semitism came directly from the community of Christians.

Source

In his day, hatred of Jews was the norm. In great measure it was sponsored by the two major religions of Germany, Catholicism and Lutheranism. He greatly admired Martin Luther, who openly hated the Jews.

Source: The Religion of Hitler

In Hitler's own words:

Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the word 'Jew,' with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions.... For the Jew was still characterized for me by nothing but his religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I maintained my rejection of religious attacks in this case as in others. Consequently, the tone, particularly that of the Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation.
-- Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought.
At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party.
-- Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(Note: Karl Lueger (1844-1910) belonged as a member of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party, he became mayor of Vienna and kept his post until his death.)

The man and the movement seemed 'reactionary' in my eyes. My common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment in proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work; and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today, more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times.
-- Adolf Hitler speaking about Dr. Karl Lueger of the Christian Social Party (Mein Kampf)

How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all.
-- Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Source
Hitler was not an anomaly, he was predictably influenced by the Christian Austrian mayor Karl Lueger, who would have been influenced by other Christians before him. It can be traced all the way back to when anti-Semitism started with the early Church, fostered as it had been by the Churches throughout the centuries.

Christ as the first and the greatest anti-Semite

It all began with Jesus. Bishop John Shelby Spong indicts him:

"Jesus is . . . depicted, especially in the Book of John, as being guilty of what we today would surely call antisemitism. Indeed, the hatred of the Jews that has been the dark underside of Christianity for two thousand years is fed by the pejorative attitudes found in the Christian Scriptures and even in the supposed words of Jesus. It has led to pogroms, ghettos, segregated housing and clubs, defaced synagogues, Krystallnacht, and Dachau."

Source: Holocaust: Its foundation in Christian anti-Semitism, FFRF

Having been indoctrinated by Christian anti-Semitic teachings for so long, it merely follows that the German population did not accept that Christ could be a Jew - a view that the Churches had only unwillingly entertained in the past. As such, Christian Nazis merely expressed the evolving sentiments of the Church and took their que from the New Testament's depiction of Jesus:

Christ is the genius of love, as such the most diametrical opposite of Judaism, which is the incarnation of hate. The Jew is a non-race among the races of the earth.... Christ is the first great enemy of the Jews.... that is why Judaism had to get rid of him. For he was shaking the very foundations of its future international power. The Jew is the lie personified. When he crucified Christ, he crucified everlasting truth for the first time in history.
-- Joseph Goebbels

Christ cannot have been a Jew. I do not need to prove this with science or scholarship. It is so!
-- Joseph Goebbels

In ideological training I forbid every attack against Christ as a person, since such attacks or insults that Christ was a Jew are unworthy of us and certainly untrue historically.
-- Heinrich Himmler

Julius Streicher held an enthusiasm about allegations that the Jews murdered non-Jews in order to obtain blood for the feast of Passover. He charged that Jews hated Christianity and mankind in general. Streicher went to grotesque lengths in his attacks on Jews claiming the discovery that

"Christ was not a Jew but an Aryan."
-- Julius Streicher

If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way-- the extermination of that people whose father is the devil...
-- Julius Streicher paraphrasing John 8:44 as his justification for extermination (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol. 12)

Only the Jews, he shouted, had remained victorious after the dreadful days of World War I. These were the people, he charged, of whom Christ said, "Its father is the devil."
-- Julius Streicher [See John 8:44, for Christ's accusation of father the devil], (Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen," Berkley Books, 1990)

Germans must fight Jews, that organized body of world criminals against whom Christ, the greatest anti-Semite of all time, had fought.
-- Julius Streicher

Source

Of course, Hitler was in agreement

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 against the Jewish poison.
-- Hitler, in a speech delivered April 12, 1922, published in "My New Order"

Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt. 3:7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple. The word "adders" also appears in Psalms 140:3

Source

the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.
-- Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Source

In his May 1923 speech at the Krone Circus in Munich, Hitler cried out:

"The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being an image of God, the Eternal. The Jews are the image of the Devil."

Source: Religion And The Holocaust

Nazism and its stance on atheism and pagans

In spite of Christians in the US trying to whitewash the facts of history and present the Nazis as atheists or pagans, the facts are that the Nazis, who were overwhelmingly Christian, opposed these non-Christian groups.

Against atheism
1933 Newspaper article - "Hitler Aims Blow At 'Godless' Move"

Chancellor's Forces Seek the Catholic Support for Latest Campaign
From the Lansing State Journal newspaper (Lansing, Michigan) of February 23, 1933.

The chancellor in the news subheading is none other than the one who would later become the ‘Fuhrer’: Adolf Hitler. Relevant excerpts follow, but go to the link and read the entire article: A campaign against the "godless movement" and an appeal for Catholic support were launched Wednesday by Chancellor Adolf Hitler's forces. They struck at two of his formidable opponents in the March 5 elections, the first at communists and the latter at the allied Catholic parties.
...
A campaign against the "godless movement" was announced by Bernard Rust, [a nazi commissioner]. [In a speech] Hitler attacked communists for the spread of atheism.

An appeal to Catholic nazis was printed Wednesday in Hitler's Voelkischer Beobachter, assailing the Catholic centrist and populist parties. It recalled the papal encyclical of January 9, 1928, which admonished priests to serve the religious interests of the nation and not to affiliate with political parties. Hitler, himself, is a Catholic.
...

A a year later, Hitler explains why he moved against the Catholic centrist/populist parties:

"While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions."
-- Adolf Hitler, in his New Year Message on 1 Jan. 1934

Source
Though he was for the promotion of religion by political parties - his own party NSDAP promoted Christianity - he did not approve of clergymen in politics. To make this point, he appealed to Christian doctrine itself, citing the papal encyclical mentioned.
However, Hitler was trying to exterminate atheism.

Against paganism

Göring attacked paganists:

Naturally there are always people at work who represent a type of provocateur, who have come to us because they imagine National Socialism to be something other than it is, who have all kinds of fantastic and confused plans, who misunderstand National Socialist racial thought and overstate their declaration to blood and soil [Blut und Boden], and who in their romantic dreams are surrounded by Wotan and Thor and the like. Such exaggerations can harm our movement, since they make the movement look ridiculous, and ridiculousness [Lacherlichkeit] is always something most harmful. When I hear that a "Germanic wedding' is to be celebrated, I have to ask: my God, what do you understand to be a Germanic wedding? What do you understand to be National Socialism?
-- Hermann Göring

We have not fought to build a paganistic temple, but to unite the German Volk for all eternity. We do not build temples against the Christian church, we do not want Valhalla as a substitute for a Christian heaven.
-- Bernhard Rust

Born into a Protestant family in Fallersleben, [Hans] Kerrl joined the NSDAP in 1923. He served as Prussian Justice Minister and later, Reich Church Minister. He also established a central "Reich Church Committee." [Steigmann-Gall]
...Kerrl strongly opposed Alfred Rosenberg's paganist and anticlerical attempts. At the end of 1939, Rosenberg sought to elevate his position from a purely party office to a more imposing state office so that he could have more control over religious issues. [Steigmann-Gall] In a meeting in 1940 to resolve the issue of Rosenberg's appointment, Kerrl noted that:

The Third Reich needs Christianity and the churches because it has nothing to replace the Christian religion and Christian morality.... His appointment will result in marked unrest among the Volk, which is precisely what we must avoid during the war under all circumstances.
-- Hans Kerrl, against the appointment of paganist Alfred Rosenberg

Many Nazis opposed Rosenberg's post, including Hitler. In fact Hitler cited Kerrl's argument as the most compelling for canceling Rosenberg's new post. [Steigmann-Gall]

Source: Hitler's Nazi henchmen

Distorting the facts

Myths and Mistakes about Hitler
Hitler Myths discusses and dispels the following eagerly and widely propagated myths about him:

• Myth 1: Hitler was not a Christian
• Myth 2: Hitler pretended his Christianity only for political purposes
• Myth 3: Hitler got his ideas of Aryan superiority and Jewish hatred from Darwinian evolution
• Myth 4: Hitler followed Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy

In order to distract people from the obvious cause of the rise and extremes of Nazism, apologists try to blame anything else but the true culprit: Christianity. Anti-Semitism has been a Christian (and Islamic) phenomenon, and it was not unique to Nazism. As we have seen, Church-sponsored and endorsed anti-Semitism was prevalent prior to Nazi Germany. The only thing that changed was the means used to exterminate Jews, and the fact that photos and even video-footage have captured some of the crimes.

"What about Hitler’s anti-Christian quotes?"

Those who argue against Hitler's Christianity use the Table-Talk as their main source. However, the reliability of the source comes into question, nor does it provide evidence against Hitler's own Christian beliefs, even if valid. [Source]

Discussed in depth at Hitler's table talk and other extraneous sources.

The reasoning by the apologists in regards to the Table-Talk seems to be that because Hitler spoke against organized religion, then he must therefore be anti-Christian.
...
But those that argue against Hitler's Christianity fail to see that Christianity comes in many forms, two of which consist as: a belief system held by Christians, and organized religion. It was the latter, organized Christianity, that Hitler spoke against (just as many Christians do today). Not once does Hitler denounce his own Christianity nor does he speak against Jesus. On the contrary, the Table-Talk has Hitler speaking admirably about Jesus.

Source

The Protestant and Catholic Churches in Hitler's time never accused Hitler of apostasy. Hitler's Christianity in Germany was never questioned until years after WWII and then only by Western Christians who are embarrassed to have him as a member of their faith-system.

Source

As he grew older, other Christians influenced him, Catholic and Protestant alike. He always paid his church taxes on time. He remained a member in good standing of the Church of Rome until his death. And in 1941 Hitler said:

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

Source
That was as late as 1941.
And in 1944:

"I may not be a light of the church, a pulpiteer, but deep down I am a pious man, and believe that whoever fights bravely in defense of the natural laws framed by God and never capitulates will never be deserted by the Lawgiver, but will, in the end, receive the blessings of Providence."
-- Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered on July 5, 1944; from Charles Bracelen Flood, Hitler: The Path to Power

The Church never excommunicated him either.

See more

Hitler, Christian Nazis and clergy

• Hitler's Christianity includes pages on:
  • Quotes from Hitler's Henchmen and Nazi Sympathizers
  • Hitler's religious beliefs and fanaticism (quotes from his book Mein Kampf)
  • The Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations
  • The source of Hitler's anti-Semitism
  • Hitler Myths; and Extraneous sources of Hitler quotes like Table Talk
• The Religion of Hitler, by John Patrick Michael Murphy at Secularweb
• Hitler's Religion, Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF)
• Religion And The Holocaust, Freethought Today.
  Deals with the questions Was Hitler a Christian? and Did religion have anything to do with the Holocaust?