"which he considered regressive. According to Speer, Hitler believed that Japanese religious beliefs or Islam would have been a more suitable religion for Germans than Christianity, with its ""meekness and flabbiness"". Historian John S. Conway states that Hitler was fundamentally opposed to the Christian churches. According to Bullock, Hitler did not believe in God, was anticlerical, and held Christian ethics in contempt because they contravened his preferred view of ""survival of the fittest"". He favoured aspects of Protestantism that suited his own views, and adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy, and phraseology. Hitler viewed the church"
"Religious views of Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs have been a matter of debate; the wide consensus of historians consider him to have been irreligious, anti-Christian, anti-clerical and scientistic. In light of evidence such as his fierce criticism and vocal rejection of the tenets of Christianity, numerous private statements to confidants denouncing Christianity as a harmful superstition, and his strenuous efforts to reduce the influence and independence of Christianity in Germany after he came to power, Hitler's major academic biographers conclude that he was irreligious and an opponent of Christianity. Historian Laurence Rees found no evidence that ""Hitler, in"
"To be both was impossible. Nazism itself was a religion, a pagan religion, and Hitler was its high priest... Its high altar [was] Germany itself and the German people, their soil and forests and language and traditions"". Nonetheless, a number of early confidants of Hitler detailed the Führer’s complete lack of religious belief. One close confidant, Otto Strasser, disclosed in his 1940 book, ""Hitler and I,"" that Hitler was a true disbeliever, succinctly stating: ""Hitler is an atheist."" According to Kershaw, following the Nazi Takeover, Race policy and the 'Church Struggle' were among the most important ideological spheres: ""In both"
"of the Christian church"". Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend from his early days in politics, says Hitler ""was to all intents and purposes an atheist by the time I got to know him"". However, historians such as Richard Weikart and Alan Bullock doubt the assessment that he was a true atheist, suggesting that despite his dislike of Christianity he still clung to a form of spiritual belief. Hitler was born to a practising Catholic mother, and was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church. From a young age, he expressed disbelief and hostility to Christianity. But in 1904, acquiescing to his mother's"
"his personal life, ever expressed belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church"". Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend from his early days in politics, says Hitler ""was to all intents and purposes an atheist by the time I got to know him"". However, historians such as Richard Weikart and Alan Bullock doubt the assessment that he was a true atheist, suggesting that despite his dislike of Christianity he still clung to a form of spiritual belief. Hitler was born to a practising Catholic mother, and was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church. From a young age, he expressed disbelief and"
"and of serving the interests of ""sinister alien forces"". Nazi radicals also disdained the Semitic origins of Jesus Christ and the Christian religion. Though the broader membership of the Nazi Party after 1933 came to include many Catholics, aggressive anti-Church radicals like Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler's chosen ""deputy"" Martin Bormann saw the campaign against the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anticlerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists. While the Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler's public relationship to religion in Nazi Germany may be defined as one of opportunism, his personal position on Catholicism and Christianity"
"the future of religion in Germany. Anti-Church radicals included Hitler's Personal Secretary Martin Bormann, Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, paganist Nazi Philosopher Alfred Rosenberg, and paganist occultist Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Some Nazis, such as Hans Kerrl, who served as Hitler's Minister for Church Affairs pushed for ""Positive Christianity"", which was a uniquely Nazi form which rejected its Jewish origins and the Old Testament, and portrayed ""true"" Christianity as a fight against Jews, with Jesus depicted as an Aryan. Nazism wanted to transform the subjective consciousness of the German people—their attitudes, values and mentalities—into a single-minded, obedient ""national community"". The Nazis"
"Churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anticlerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists. The Hitler regime permitted various persecutions of the Church in the Nazi Empire, though the political relationship between Church and state among Nazi allies was varied. While the Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler's public relationship to Religion in Nazi Germany may be defined as one of opportunism, his personal position on Catholicism and Christianity was one of hostility. Hitler's chosen ""deputy"", Martin Bormann, an atheist, recorded in Hitler's Table Talk that Nazism was secular, scientific and anti-religious in outlook. Biographer Alan Bullock wrote that, though"
"Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was a German politician, demagogue, and Pan-German revolutionary. He was leader of the Nazi Party (""Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei""; NSDAP), and rose to power in Germany as Chancellor in 1933 and Führer (""Leader"") in 1934. During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland in September 1939. He closely supervised military operations during the war and by December 1941 had full control of all strategic decisions, especially on the Eastern Front. He was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust. Hitler"
"20s in Vienna state that he never attended church after leaving home at 18. In Hitler's early political statements, he attempted to express himself to the German public as a Christian. In his book ""Mein Kampf"" and in public speeches prior to and in the early years of his rule, he described himself as a Christian. Hitler and the Nazi party promoted ""Positive Christianity"", a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as Jewish elements such as the Old Testament. In one widely quoted remark, he described Jesus as an ""Aryan fighter"""
"formed, with the objective of supporting and promoting the Catholic press in Germany. Adolf Hitler was raised as a Catholic, a faith which he rejected as an adolescent, only receiving confirmation unwillingly and never receiving the sacraments again after leaving home. Even before he rose to power, the Catholic Church was in opposition to Nazism, because this ideology was deemed incompatible with Christian morals. Therefore, under threat of excommunication Catholics were forbidden to join the Nazi Party (NSDAP) or its organizations. The leaders of the NSDAP for their part shared the church's view about the incompatibility of national socialism and"
"it dependent on ""faith in Christ as the son of God"", upon which Christianity relied, rather, it was represented by the Nazi Party: ""The Führer is the herald of a new revelation"", he said. To accord with Nazi antisemitism, Positive Christianity advocates also sought to deny the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible. In such elements Positive Christianity separated itself from Nicene Christianity and is considered apostate by all of the historical Trinitarian Christian churches, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. Hitler identified himself as a Christian in an April 12, 1922 speech. Hitler also identified himself as a Christian"
"of God"", upon which Christianity relied, but rather, as being represented by the Nazi Party: ""The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation"", he said. The propaganda machinery of the Nazi party actively promoted Hitler as a saviour of Christianity, and Nazi propaganda supported the ""German Christians"" in their formation of a single national church that could be controlled and manipulated. According to Bullock, as an adolescent in Vienna, Hitler read widely, including books on Occultism, Hypnotism, Astrology. However, his interest in these subjects was fleeting, and there is no evidence that he ever subscribed to any of these"
"However, in a diary entry of 28 December 1939, Joseph Goebbels wrote that ""the Fuhrer passionately rejects any thought of founding a religion. He has no intention of becoming a priest. His sole exclusive role is that of a politician."" In Hitler's political relations dealing with religion he readily adopted a strategy ""that suited his immediate political purposes."" Christianity remained the dominant religion in Germany through the Nazi period, and its influence over Germans displeased the Nazi hierarchy. Evans wrote that Hitler believed that in the long run National Socialism and religion would not be able to coexist, and stressed"
"leaving home at 18. In Hitler's early political statements, he attempted to express himself to the German public as a Christian. In his book ""Mein Kampf"" and in public speeches prior to and in the early years of his rule, he described himself as a Christian. Hitler and the Nazi party promoted ""Positive Christianity"", a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as Jewish elements such as the Old Testament. In one widely quoted remark, he described Jesus as an ""Aryan fighter"" who struggled against ""the power and pretensions of the corrupt"
"who specialize on the life and thought of Hitler have concluded he was irreligious and anti-Christian. Alan Bullock was an early influential Hitler expert who wrote important biographies of the dictator in the 1950s and 1960s. He wrote that Hitler had been raised Catholic, and though impressed by its organizational powers, Hitler repudiated Christianity on what he considered to be rational and moral grounds. Bullock considered Hitler to be a rationalist and materialist, with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence. Bullock wrote that Hitler believed neither in ""God nor conscience"" but found both ""justification and"
"Concordat, closing all Catholic institutions whose functions were not strictly religious. Clergy, nuns, and lay leaders were targeted, with thousands of arrests over the ensuing years. Hitler was supportive of Christianity in public, yet hostile to it in private. Anti-clericalists like Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann saw the conflict with the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anti-clerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists. Hitler was born to a practising Catholic mother and an anticlerical father, but after leaving home Hitler never again attended Mass or received the sacraments. According to biographer Alan Bullock, Hitler retained some"
"Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg to senior positions in the Nazi movement. William Shirer wrote that, ""under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods with the new paganism of the Nazi extremists"". Blainey wrote: ""Nazism itself was a religion, a pagan religion, and Hitler was its high priest ... Its high altar [was] Germany itself and the German people, their soil and forests and language and traditions"". In 1924, during his imprisonment, Hitler had chosen Alfred"
"relationship between Nazism and religion in this way. Some historians see the Nazi movement and Adolf Hitler as fundamentally hostile to Christianity, though not irreligious. In the first chapter of ""The Nazi Persecution of the Churches"", historian John S. Conway elaborates that Christian Churches in Germany had lost their appeal during the era of the Weimar Republic, and that Hitler offered ""what appeared to be a vital secular faith in place of the discredited creeds of Christianity."" Hitler's chief architect, Albert Speer, wrote in his memoirs that Hitler himself had a negative view towards the mystical notions pushed by Himmler"
"against secular schools, stating: ""Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."" One of the groups closed down by the Nazi regime was the German Freethinkers League. Christians appealed to Hitler to end anti-religious and anti-Church propaganda promulgated by Free Thinkers, and within Hitler's Nazi Party some atheists were quite vocal in their anti-Christian views, especially Martin Bormann. Heinrich Himmler, who himself was fascinated with Germanic paganism, was a strong promoter"
"the organisational power of Catholicism, but he had utter contempt for its central teachings, which he said, if taken to their conclusion, ""would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure"". Many Nazis were anti-clerical in both private and public life. The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements. One position is that the Church and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a ""holistic Weltanschauung"" claiming the whole of the person. Adolf Hitler himself has been described as a ""spiritualist"" by Laqueur; but he has been described by Bullock as a ""rationalist"" and a ""materialist"" with no"
"of its Jewish origins), as did the official Nazi philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg. In his ""Myth of the Twentieth Century"" (1930), Rosenberg wrote that the main enemies of the Germans were the ""Russian Tartars"" and ""Semites"" - with ""Semites"" including Christians, especially the Catholic Church. According to Bullock, Hitler considered the Protestant clergy to be ""insignificant"" and ""submissive"" and lacking in a religion to be taken seriously. Hitler attempted to create a unified Protestant Reich Church from 28 separate regional churches through ""Gleichschaltung"". His bid to create a unified Reich Church ultimately failed, and Hitler became disinterested in supporting the so-called"
"there would be ""no place in this utopia for the Christian Churches'. Geoffrey Blainey wrote that Hitler and his Fascist ally Mussolini were atheists, but that Hitler courted and benefited from fear among German Christians of militant Communist atheism. (Other historians have characterised Hitler's mature religious position as a form of deism.) ""The aggressive spread of atheism in the Soviet Union alarmed many German Christians"", wrote Blainey, and with the National Socialists becoming the main opponent of Communism in Germany: ""[Hitler] himself saw Christianity as a temporary ally, for in his opinion 'one is either a Christian or a German'."
"and religion. Though he retained some regard for the organisational power of Catholicism, he had utter contempt for its central teachings, which he said, if taken to their conclusion, ""would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure"". Hitler ultimately believed ""one is either a Christian or a German"" - to be both was impossible. However, important German conservative elements, such as the officer corps, opposed Nazi persecution of the churches and, in office, Hitler restrained his anticlerical instincts out of political considerations. Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw wrote that, while many ordinary people were apathetic, after years of warning from"
"public to Christianity—indeed his relationship to religion in general—was opportunistic. There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church"". Considering the religious allusions found in ""Mein Kampf"", Rees writes that ""the most coherent reading of ""Mein Kampf"""" is that Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, but did ""not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of an individual 'soul'."" Max Domarus has written that Hitler replaced belief in the Judeo-Christian God with belief in a peculiarly"
"personal religious convictions, declaring to comrades, 'Now I feel as fresh as a colt in the pasture'"". Author Konrad Heiden has quoted Hitler as stating, ""We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."" Derek Hastings considers it ""eminently plausible"" that Hitler was a believing Catholic as late as his trial in 1924, but writes that ""there is little doubt that Hitler was a staunch opponent of Christianity throughout the duration of the Third Reich"". The biographer John Toland, recounts that in the aftermath"
"was done impersonally, without cruelty."" Nazi ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. It desired the subordination of church to state. Nevertheless, Nazi Germany was not formally atheist, and, other than for Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses, religious observance was permitted. Julian Baggini wrote that Hitler's Germany was not a ""straightforwardly atheist state"", but one which ""sacrilized"" notions of blood and nation. Hitler feared the results of overt attacks on the deep-rooted German churches, as around two thirds of Germans were Protestant and most of the rest were Roman Catholic. German conservative elements,"
"Hitler, sees Hitler as having been neither a practising Christian, nor a thorough atheist, but also notes the sentiment that Nazism and religion could not co-exist long term: ""Both Stalin and Hitler wanted a neutered religion, subservient to the state, while the slow programme of scientific revelation destroyed the foundation of religious myth."" Overy writes of Hitler as skeptical of all religious belief, but politically prudent enough not to ""trumpet his scientific views publicly"", partly in order to maintain the distinction between his own movement and the godlessness of Soviet Communism . In 2004, he wrote: Historian Percy Ernst Schramm,"
"1933, Hitler claimed that it was the Nazis not the Catholic Centre Party that had taken on atheist politics. When negotiating the concordat with the Catholic Church, Hitler said he supported religious education in schools. Once in office however, Hitler then pursued a policy of suppression of denominational schools and church youth organizations. Clergymen teachers were removed from virtually all state schools. By 1939 all denominational schools had been disbanded or converted to public facilities. In that year, Evans notes, some 95% of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic, while only 3.5% ""Deist"" (""gottgläubig"") and 1.5% atheist. Most in"
"insofar as the Christian denominations were concerned, Hitler declared himself to be neutral in Mein Kampf - but argued for clear separation between church and state, and for the church not to concern itself with the earthly life of the people, which must be the domain of the state. According to William Shirer, Hitler ""inveighed against political Catholicism in ""Mein Kampf"" and attacked both of the Christian Churches for their failure to recognise the racial problem..."", while also warning that no political party could succeed in ""producing a religious reformation"". The 1920 Nazi Party Platform had promised to support freedom"
"Hitler promised that the institutions of the Weimar Republic and churches would be protected, and said his government saw the churches as ""the most important factors for upholding our nationhood"". Amid threats and talk of civil war, the Centre Party voted for the Act. Hitler's false promises of protection for the churches and institutions of the republic were never kept. In January 1934, Hitler angered the churches by appointing the neo-pagan Alfred Rosenberg as official Nazi ideologist. The Fuhrer launched an effort toward coordination of German Protestants under a unified Protestant Reich Church under the ""Deutsche Christen"" movement, but the"
"However, leading Nazis varied in the importance they attached to the Church Struggle. William Shirer wrote that ""under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."" During a speech on 27 October 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt revealed evidence of Hitler's plan to abolish all religions in Germany. FDR declared: Your Government has in its possession another document, made in Germany by Hitler’s Government… It"
"Dawkins criticised Pope Benedict's remarks and described Hitler as a ""Catholic"" because he ""never renounced his baptismal Catholicism"" and said that ""Hitler certainly was not an atheist. In 1933 he claimed to have 'stamped atheism out'"". In contrast, historian Alan Bullock wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence: a ""man who believed neither in God nor in conscience"". Anton Gill has written that Hitler wanted Catholicism to have ""nothing at all to do with German society"". Richard Overy describes Hitler as skeptical of all religious belief"