True Left

Hitler’s View of Christianity

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.

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 :

...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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Every Major Nazi Myth Explained By a German by Brofessor Stein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3ZFY_pfpu0

In September 1931, Goebbels recorded that Hitler wished to withdraw from the Catholic Church but was waiting for the right moment. Hitler's wish seemed to excite Goebbels, even though he admitted it would cause a scandal. But Goebbels relished the thought that he. Hitler, and other Nazi leaders would someday leave the churches en masse. He also wrote that Hitler "even wants sometime later to carry out the fight against it the Catholic Church|.*

Goebbels, diary entry on September 12, 1931, in Die Tageblicher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, part l: Aufzeichnungen 1923- 1941, vol. 2/I1: Juni 1931-September 1932 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2004), 96.

In January 1937, Goebbels was with Hitler during an internecine debate on religion and reported, "The Führer thinks Christianity is ripe for destruction. That may still take a long time, but it is coming."

Goebbels, diary entry for January 5, 1937, in Die Tageblicher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, part l: Aufzeichnungen 1923- 1941, vol. 3/II: März 1936-Februar 1937 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2001), 316.

On December 13, 1941, Two days after declaring war on the United States, he (Hitler) told his Gauleiter (district leaders) that he was going to annihilate the Jews, but he was postponing his campaign against the church until after the war, when he would deal with them. According to Rosenberg, both on that day and the following, Hitler's monologues were primarily about the "problem of Christianity." (Rosenberg underlines this term on page one)

Goebbels, diary entry for December 13, 1941, in Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, part II: Diktate 1941-1945, vol. 2: Oktober-Dezember 1941 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1996), 498-500.

Alfred Rosenberg, diary, entry for December 14, 1941, 625, accessed January 22, 2014 http://collections.ushmm.org/view/2001.62.14.

"the business owner experiences a shortfall in monetary revenue and responds by reducing workers’ wages"

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/questions-debates/re-national-socialists-were-socialists-3223/msg31886/#msg31886

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A standard employee contract guarantees a fixed minimum pay per month. This is not open to negotiation until the contract expires and the employee demands renewal of contract.

Any business owner who tried what you describe would get sued.

Contract violations in the form of wage-reduction practices imposed by business owners or producers can be minimized when production and consumption are coordinated through state or community-based planning. Under such arrangements, the structural incentives for wage cuts—arising from uneven or insufficient consumer demand across competing enterprises—are substantially reduced. Producers no longer operate as market actors engaged in competition and marketing; rather, they function as administrators of labor processes and managers of productive assets, with demand pre-assigned through institutional coordination.

In this system, consumption is regulated by state authority rather than by spontaneous market dynamics. Each producer is guaranteed a defined consumer base, as surrounding communities are institutionally obligated to consume goods and services produced according to state determined plans. By stabilizing demand and removing market uncertainty, such coordination limits the transfer of economic risk from capital to labor and weakens the structural conditions that enable wage compression under market-driven systems.

Competitive labor relations among producer organizations—driven by the struggle to secure sufficient consumer demand—result in the exclusion of workers with limited skills from employment, rendering them unemployed. Under the so-called natural laws of the market mechanism, it is inevitably those producers whose goods and services most fully satisfy consumer preferences who capture adequate demand, and such outcomes can only be achieved through workers who are able to endure continuously escalating demands for high-level performance. Workers who are unable to meet these demands are consequently excluded from productive activity.

By contrast, if all acts of production and consumption were planned and regulated, workers with limited capacities would still be able to contribute value, so long as their output remains socially useful and non-harmful. This is because social consumption would be collectively organized and planned to accommodate products resulting from diverse conditions of labor, rather than privileging only those outputs deemed maximally satisfying at the cost of intensified labor exploitation, inaccessible performance standards, and widespread unemployment.

Competitive systems of production and consumption governed by market demand thus generate conditions in which survival disproportionately favors social groups characterized as intelligent, manipulative, and aggressive, rather than those who are sensitive, empathetic, and conscious of the necessity of maintaining accessible forms of life so that the weak—yet non-harmful—can continue to meet social contribution requirements and remain protected from domination. The operation of market laws within social life therefore tends to produce discriminatory relations, whereby groups that succeed according to market criteria dominate and marginalize those who fail to conform to market demands.

Yet failure to meet market requirements does not in itself render an individual or group immoral or harmful. Those who fail within market conditions but continue to act ethically remain fully deserving of citizenship and dignified treatment. Conversely, it is those individuals or groups who succeed in capturing market share while disregarding or demeaning those who fall into hardship and deprivation who ought to be subject to regulation and social sanction.

Moreover, power structures operating within societies governed by market laws tend to be dominated by racial groups perceived as possessing higher cognitive capacities, while those who struggle to improve their skills but continue to behave in non-violent ways are systematically marginalized and exposed to material hardship. Such conditions incentivize dominant and economically successful groups to engage in racial discrimination against groups that are structurally disadvantaged within market competition. This dynamic underlies the emergence of racial discrimination and aggressive, colonial, and predatory forms of social interaction.

Historical evidence of this can be found in apartheid regimes in the United States, Israel, Europe, and former colonial territories. Contemporary manifestations are visible in the racial discrimination and aggressive social relations directed by segments of European populations toward refugees and immigrants from the Global South from 2015 to the present.

It was also for this reason that Hitler chose the principle of a planned economy over a market economy, as a means of shielding German society from domination by capitalists, financiers, and landlords, as well as from conditions of social instability and uncertainty.

"hoarding of surplus value extracted from the labor of workers constitute a fundamental injustice"

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/questions-debates/re-national-socialists-were-socialists-3223/msg30553/#msg30553

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A business owner is someone who has to risk making a loss if the product/service does not sell. An employee is someone who gets paid the exact same wages even if the product/service does not sell. Why should someone who takes greater risk, more precisely someone who takes on risk so that others (the employees) can avoid risk, not have a chance for greater reward?

Business owners have appropriated surplus value from the labor performed by workers—labor in which they themselves are not directly involved. They merely act as supervisors, nothing more. They therefore have no legitimate claim to profit from every product or service sold. Moreover, the risks of loss and profit arising from sales are borne by everyone, not solely by business owners. When an enterprise fails to sell its goods because it loses out in competition with other businesses for the same pool of consumers in a given area, workers also bear the risk of loss, as they are forced to accept wage reductions in order to preserve the efficiency of the business’s capital.

The proceeds generated from the sale of goods and services rightfully belong to the collective, not to the business owner alone. A business owner whose role often amounts merely to monitoring and supervising operations deserves, at most, a wage—because such activity constitutes nothing more than labor comparable to that performed by other workers within the functioning enterprise. Indeed, such an owner does not even merit a wage, given that they frequently engage in leisure and recreational activities while their workers labor under conditions of intensified exploitation, compelled to maintain efficiency in order to preserve market share and the consumer base that has chosen products created through the workers’ own labor.

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"social stratification"

Complaining about this makes you an egalitarian.

Putting an end to social stratification that obstructs the formation of a life grounded in empathy and simplicity cannot be condemned. Social stratification produced by apartheid practices and capitalism is justified in being transformed. A form of stratification based on the degree to which individuals understand empathy and the allocation of the means and results of production—ranging from those who understand it most to those who are least willing to do so—is the appropriate form of social stratification. I have not been an egalitarian from the outset of this discussion.

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"Voluntary transactions lead to economic outcomes that tend to prioritize the groups that win those transactions"

Yes, non-violent transactions tend to prioritize those who do not initiate violence. That's the point.

Voluntary transaction activities that have been operating for a long time have resulted in the exploitation of labor in the pursuit of improving the quality and quantity of production, with no clear endpoint. They have also led to the circulation of money and transactions being concentrated only among certain groups that win the competition for market share, rather than circulating among people who have acted ethically, empathetically, and non-aggressively but have failed to compete in securing market share. Thus, voluntary transaction activities do not result in a “non-violent” condition. A “non-violent” condition can only be realized if economic activities based on the principles of “free enterprise” and “freedom of transactions” are brought to an end in the sphere of general society through the enforcement of a planned economy.

Disadvantages of a Market Economy

- Inevitable periods of economic crisis due to the usual business cycle ebb and flow

- Possibly higher unemployment levels as compared to command economies

- Wider economic and social gaps

- Possible exploitation of labor

- Basic necessities may be harder to provide as they are affected by demand and supply

Profiteering is favored over social welfare

Source :

Market Economy Overview and definition of a market economy

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/definition-market-economy/

...In a market economics systems, the rich have far more choice and economic freedom. Production is geared to meet the needs and wants of the wealthy, thus basic services for the poorer members of society may be neglected.

...

...The absence of government control means that public goods, such as street lighting, public roads and national defence, may not be provided. Relief of poverty in society might only be done through voluntary charities.

Source :

The advantages and disadvantages of the market economic system

https://www.uyir.at/explore/eshaaan/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-the-market-economic-system

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"rather than providing assistance and protection to vulnerable, weak, and exploited people who are trapped in precarious working conditions as a result of the operation of such voluntary economic transactions"

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/questions-debates/re-national-socialists-were-socialists-3223/msg30564/#msg30564

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You keep talking about workers being exploited by the private sector, but the sufficient solution is for the state to ensure that public sector jobs are readily available, so that workers dissatisfied with their private sector jobs can easily switch to public sector jobs. You, however, want to eliminate private sector jobs altogether. Then what if the public sector is exploitative? I want to maintain the private sector precisely to guard against this possibility, so that workers dissatisfied with their public sector jobs can also easily switch back to private sector jobs. But what is your solution for workers exploited by the public sector if no private sector exists as an alternative?

To provide protection for individuals who are sensitive but lack the intellectual capacity to compete under the laws of “free enterprise” and the “market economy,” economic activities based on those laws should be restricted to specific zones only. Furthermore, no individual should be allowed to own capital, so that they can be more easily guided to live in an fair, empathetic, and less aggressive manner.

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"enforcement of market laws"

Pick one.

If you regard ‘market laws’ as occurring without passing through any form of enforcement, then I still maintain that ‘market laws’ that arise naturally and spontaneously constitute an obstacle to true freedom. The socialization of production, distribution, and consumption is the only way to break through that obstacle.”

“… socialized man… rationally organizes their exchange with Nature, bringing it under their collective control, rather than being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature…”

— Marx, Das Kapital Vol. 3, p. 593.

Hitler's view that the positive results of NS economic policy are mainly to be attributed to state control of the economy is still shared today by historians. Karl Hardach, for example, writes: That the National Socialists were able to implement their extensive rearmament programme without any significant currency devaluation,'* or any significant reduction of the standard of living of the masses, was only possible because over the years - without following a preconceived plan - they had been able to convert what was left of the German free economy into a planned economy step by step.'!*

...

In a conversation with the Italian Minister of Justice Grandi on 25 November 1940, Hitler criticized the governments of the democracies: 'They actually do no work but leave everything to civilian initiative and business. With this their problems are not only not solved but simply ignored.''" In table talks on 27/28 July 1941 Hitler said that 'A sensible employment of the powers of a nation can only be achieved with a planned economy from above.*'* About two weeks later he said: 'As far as the planning of the economy is concerned, we are still very much at the beginning and I imagine it will be something wonderfully nice to build up an encompassing German and European economic order.'""The statement that as far as the planning of the economy was concerned one was still at the very beginning is important because it shows that Hitler was not thinking at all of a reduction of state intervention - not even for the time after the war - but, on the contrary, intended to expand the instruments of state control of the economy even further.

...

In the end, the speech Hitler had given on Speer's advice and which Speer had helped to formulate had a completely different result from what Speer had imagined. As Speer summarizes: "The avowal of a free economy in times of peace, which I had asked of Hitler and been promised, came out far less clearly than I had expected.' Nonetheless, said Speer, some of the statements in the speech had been noteworthy, so he asked Hitler for permission to file it in the archives - which never came about because Bormann prevented it and Hitler remained evasive. 14

...

And indeed, in his speech we find several statements in which he rejects any nationalization of the means of production, declares his respect for private ownership'" and explains the economic principle of competition in terms of socio-Darwinism. * Many of these statements are not to be taken seriously - even if they might have equated to some of his views in former years - because we know from Speer that the purely tactical objective of dispelling the suspicions of the industrialists was the overriding motive. And Hitler did not really succeed in presenting the assurances Speer had asked of him convinc- ingly and credibly. Speer reports on his impression of Hitler's speech: 'In his speech, in which he kept to my cues, Hitler gave the impression of being inhibited. He made frequent slips of the tongue, stopped, broke off in mid- sentence, lacked fluidity of expression and occasionally confused himself." Speer also attributes this to Hitler's state of exhaustion. What appears to be more important to us, however, was that Hitler had been compelled to state views which were far removed from his true convictions, and to give a speech which, in contrast to his custom, had partially been written by someone else.

Hitler : The Policies of Seduction by Zitelmann, Rainer Page 231, 232, and 235

https://archive.org/details/hitlerpoliciesof0000zite/page/232/mode/2up

Market Mechanism = Tyranny

"It is inaccurate for you to assume that my conclusion is that Hitler was close to and sympathetic toward Bolshevism"

Also you:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/questions-debates/re-national-socialists-were-socialists-3223/msg31800/#msg31800

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Historical facts have been clearly laid out showing Hitler’s closeness to command economic theory and Bolshevik thought, yet you reject all of this.

Hitler was only close to Bolshevik thought, not sympathetic to or supportive of the Bolshevik objective of achieving global communism. His support for a planned economy, a one-party state, and the confiscation of assets from the middle class, capital owners (the bourgeoisie), businesspeople, and landlords reflects a line of thinking that imitated the Bolsheviks and the ideas of Vladimir Lenin. However, Hitler’s leadership also embodied goals and life values that were more spiritual in nature, anti-humanistic, and dualistic—values that are absent from Marxist socialist thought

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"competitive labor sectors should be confined by the state to the private sphere and subjected to proper oversight."

Pick one.

If restricting competitive activities to only limited areas within the overall territory of the state constitutes a form of oversight, then I support ‘proper oversight. For me, such restrictive measures are referred to as ensuring that competitive activities within society are confined to limited private domains and are not carried out across the entire territory of the state.