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« on: Today at 09:11:52 am »Hitler’s View of Christianity
Source:
Rudolf Hess to Ilse Pröhl, August 20, 1924, in Rudolf Hess Briefe 1908–1933, edited by Wolf Rüdiger Hess (Munich: Langen Müller, 1987), pp. 350–351.
Translated from German to English with ChatGPT :
- Adolf Hitler, Letter to Mr. Gött Magnus, Beneficiary of Lehenbühl, 2 March 1927.
Original text :
„… daß die Jahrhunderte, die nach Roms Zusammenbruch kamen, in den Sitten noch viel barbarischer waren, daß den 68 Fackeln eines Nero 100 000 von Scheiterhaufen folgten, den Märtyrern des Christentums Millionen von Gefolterten, den Gladiatorenkämpfen oft nicht minder grausamen Turniere, den Tierhetzen die Menschenjagden auf Azteken und Inkas, der antiken Sklaverei die Sklavenjagden des Mittelalters, die Verpflanzung von Millionen Negern auf den amerikanischen Kontinent
Und das alles in Zeiten, in denen es keinen liberalen Staat gab, sondern die Kirche selbst als höchster politischer Machtfaktor in Erscheinung trat.“
Source :
Paul Hoser, Hitler und die katholische Kirche. Zwei Briefe aus dem Jahr 1927, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 42, 3 (1994): 489
https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1994_3.pdf
Source:
Joseph Goebbels, diary entry for September 12, 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 2/II: June 1931–September 1932 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2004), p. 96.
Original German provided and originally translated by Richard Weikart:
Auch er möchte aus der kath. Kirche austreten. Will sogar später einmal den Kampf dagegen durchführen. Aber der Zeitpunkt! An den Zeitpunkten werden wir nochmal kaputt gehen. Zum Kotzen! Wir Führer sollen uns eines Tages geschlossen in diesem Christenverein abmelden. Na, das gäbe ja einen Skandal.
Source:
Goebbels, diary entry of September 12, 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 2/II: June 1931–September 1932 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2004), p. 96.
Source:
Goebbels, diary entry for January 5, 1937, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 3/II: March 1936–February 1937 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2001), p. 316.
Source:
Goebbels’ diary entry, December 28, 1939, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 7: July 1939–March 1940 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), p. 248.
Sources:
1. Rosenberg, diary entry for April 9, 1941, in Alfred Rosenberg Diary, p. 531, (accessed January 22, 2014).
2. Goebbels, diary entry for April 8, 1941, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 9: December 1940–July 1941 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), p. 234.
Sources:
1. Goebbels, diary entry for December 13, 1941, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part II: Diktate 1941–1945, Vol. 2: October–December 1941 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1996), pp. 498–500.
2. Rosenberg, diary entry for December 14, 1941, in Alfred Rosenberg Diary, p. 625, accessed January 22, 2014, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archives.
Quote
In August 1924, while imprisoned in Landsberg Prison, Adolf Hitler privately told Rudolf Hess that he had to camouflage his opposition to religion, just as he had to conceal his hostility toward alcohol.
During a discussion in which Hess and other Nazis were debating their positions regarding the Protestant Church, Hitler remained silent. Later, however, he confided to Hess how he truly felt. Although Hitler found it distasteful to behave like a religious hypocrite, he believed he could not openly criticize the church, because doing so might alienate many people.
Source:
Rudolf Hess to Ilse Pröhl, August 20, 1924, in Rudolf Hess Briefe 1908–1933, edited by Wolf Rüdiger Hess (Munich: Langen Müller, 1987), pp. 350–351.
Quote
In 1927, Hitler corresponded with a Catholic priest who had previously supported Nazism but by this time had some misgivings. Hitler contradicted the priest's claim that Christianity had brought an end to Roman barbarism. Instead, Hitler insisted that Christianity was even more barbaric than the Romans had been, killing hundreds of thousands for their heretical beliefs. He then rattled off a list of Christian atrocities: killing the Aztecs and Incas, slave hunts during medieval times, and enslaving millions of black Africans.
Translated from German to English with ChatGPT :
Quote
...followed the collapse of Rome were often far more barbaric in their customs: that to the 68 torches of Nero were added 100,000 stakes of burning; to the martyrs of Christianity, millions of tortured victims; to the gladiatorial combats, tournaments often no less cruel; to the animal hunts, the human hunts against the Aztecs and the Incas; to ancient slavery, the slave hunts of the Middle Ages and the transplantation of millions of Blacks to the American continent.
And all this in times when there was no liberal state, but when the Church itself appeared as the highest political power.
- Adolf Hitler, Letter to Mr. Gött Magnus, Beneficiary of Lehenbühl, 2 March 1927.
Original text :
„… daß die Jahrhunderte, die nach Roms Zusammenbruch kamen, in den Sitten noch viel barbarischer waren, daß den 68 Fackeln eines Nero 100 000 von Scheiterhaufen folgten, den Märtyrern des Christentums Millionen von Gefolterten, den Gladiatorenkämpfen oft nicht minder grausamen Turniere, den Tierhetzen die Menschenjagden auf Azteken und Inkas, der antiken Sklaverei die Sklavenjagden des Mittelalters, die Verpflanzung von Millionen Negern auf den amerikanischen Kontinent
Und das alles in Zeiten, in denen es keinen liberalen Staat gab, sondern die Kirche selbst als höchster politischer Machtfaktor in Erscheinung trat.“
Source :
Paul Hoser, Hitler und die katholische Kirche. Zwei Briefe aus dem Jahr 1927, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 42, 3 (1994): 489
https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1994_3.pdf
Quote
Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that Adolf Hitler not only wanted to officially withdraw from the Catholic Church, but even intended to “wage war against it” at a later time.
However, Hitler understood that leaving the Catholic Church at that moment would create a major scandal and would undermine his chances of gaining political power. Rather than commit political suicide, he preferred to wait for a more favorable moment before moving against the churches.
Goebbels, for his part, was convinced that a decisive day would eventually come when he, Hitler, and other Nazi leaders would collectively withdraw from the Church.
Source:
Joseph Goebbels, diary entry for September 12, 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 2/II: June 1931–September 1932 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2004), p. 96.
Original German provided and originally translated by Richard Weikart:
Auch er möchte aus der kath. Kirche austreten. Will sogar später einmal den Kampf dagegen durchführen. Aber der Zeitpunkt! An den Zeitpunkten werden wir nochmal kaputt gehen. Zum Kotzen! Wir Führer sollen uns eines Tages geschlossen in diesem Christenverein abmelden. Na, das gäbe ja einen Skandal.
Quote
In September 1931, Joseph Goebbels recorded in his diary that Adolf Hitler wished to withdraw from the Catholic Church but was waiting for the right moment. Hitler’s intention seemed to excite Goebbels, even though he acknowledged that such a step would cause a scandal. Nevertheless, Goebbels relished the idea that he, Hitler, and other Nazi leaders might one day leave the churches en masse. He also wrote that Hitler “even wants sometime later to carry out the fight against it [the Catholic Church].”
Source:
Goebbels, diary entry of September 12, 1931, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 2/II: June 1931–September 1932 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2004), p. 96.
Quote
In January 1937, Goebbels was present with Hitler during an internal discussion on religion and later reported in his diary: “The Führer thinks Christianity is ripe for destruction. That may still take a long time, but it is coming.”
Source:
Goebbels, diary entry for January 5, 1937, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 3/II: March 1936–February 1937 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2001), p. 316.
Quote
In a private conversation with Goebbels just a few days after Christmas in 1939, Hitler referred to “positive Christianity” in a far more cynical tone than in his pious public pronouncements.
This does not tell us what Hitler thought about positive Christianity in the 1920s, when he used the term more freely, but it still provides insight into his perspective in 1939 (only ten months after he had publicly equated positive Christianity with Nazi social programs).
In this conversation, Goebbels complained to Hitler about the churches. Hitler expressed sympathy for Goebbels’ anti-church attitude but told him that he would not take any action during the war. He then suggested another approach:
“The best way to finish off the churches is to pretend to be a more positive Christian.”
Source:
Goebbels’ diary entry, December 28, 1939, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 7: July 1939–March 1940 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), p. 248.
Quote
Alfred Rosenberg noted in his diary that Adolf Hitler once cited Arthur Schopenhauer as the source of the saying that “antiquity did not know two evils: Christianity and syphilis.”
Rosenberg, who was himself an admirer of Schopenhauer, apparently was unsure whether this quotation actually came from Schopenhauer, since he placed a question mark next to it in his diary.
Joseph Goebbels recorded the same conversation in his own diary, but he remembered Hitler phrasing the statement somewhat differently. According to Goebbels, Hitler said that “Christianity and syphilis made humanity unhappy and unfree.”
Sources:
1. Rosenberg, diary entry for April 9, 1941, in Alfred Rosenberg Diary, p. 531, (accessed January 22, 2014).
2. Goebbels, diary entry for April 8, 1941, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Vol. 9: December 1940–July 1941 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), p. 234.
Quote
On December 13, 1941—two days after declaring war on the United States—Hitler told his Gauleiters (district leaders) that he intended to annihilate the Jews, but that he would postpone his campaign against the churches until after the war, when he would deal with them. According to Alfred Rosenberg, both on that day and the following day Hitler’s monologues focused primarily on what he called the “problem of Christianity.” Rosenberg even underlined this phrase in his diary.
Sources:
1. Goebbels, diary entry for December 13, 1941, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich, Part II: Diktate 1941–1945, Vol. 2: October–December 1941 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1996), pp. 498–500.
2. Rosenberg, diary entry for December 14, 1941, in Alfred Rosenberg Diary, p. 625, accessed January 22, 2014, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archives.
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