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Comparing Hitler to the Biblical Jesus
Hitler not only believed he did the Lords work, but he thought of himself as a sort of saviour of Germany, and emulated Jesus of the New Testament. His friend Dietrich Eckart told of overhearing Hitler showing off to a lady by denouncing Berlin in extravagant terms: ". . . the luxury, the perversion, the iniquity, the wanton display and the Jewish materialism disgusted me so thoroughly that I was almost beside myself. I nearly imagined myself to be Jesus Christ when he came to his Father's Temple and found the money changers." Eckart described Hitler as "brandishing his whip and exclaimed that it was his mission to descend upon the capital like a Christ and scourge the corrupt." [Toland p. 143]
The following examples show further how Hitler compared with Jesus of the Bible.
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Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
-Jesus in Matthew 10:34
Who can deny that Hitler also did not send peace on earth? Through the sword of his speeches and commands, he created the most destructive war in human history to this date.
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Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
-Jesus in Luke 12:51
Hitler not only divided countries on earth, but divided Jewish families, many times setting family members against each other.
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If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
-Jesus in John 18:36 [NRSV]
Of course Hitler lived in this world and, indeed, his followers fought for him against the Jews.
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On the 4th of June, 1922, as Hitler entered Stadelheim prison for inciting a riot, he compared himself with Jesus when he told his followers:
Two thosand years ago the mob of Jerusalem dragged a man to execution in just this way. [Toland, p.115]
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Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
-Matthew 23:33
Hitler took Jesus to heart when he said:
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. 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 for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 [Baynes]
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And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
-Jesus in Mark 13:7-8
Although Hitler did not take it to such Biblical extremes, He certainly did not appear troubled by war. He considered war a necessity (needs be) to save Germany for his future Reich.
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But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
-Jesus in Luke 19:27
Anyone not conforming to political desires of Hitler would either get executed or imprisoned.
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And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
-Jesus in Revelation 2:23
Hitler killed the children of other faiths (her children), especially of the Jewish religion through the holocaust.
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Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
-Revelation 20:6
Many of Hitler's followers thought that his "Third Reich" would last a thousand years, and in the autumn of 1941, at Wolfsschanze, Hitler said:
I am Fuhrer of a Reich that will last for a thousand years to come. No power can shake the German Reich now. Divine Providence has willed it that I carry the fulfillment of a Germanic task.
In an interview with Richard Breiting, Hitler said:
We judge by the spiritual energy which a people is capable of putting forth, which will enable it in ten years to recapture what it has lost in a thousand years of warfare. I intend to set up a thousand-year Reich and anyone who supports me in this battle is a fellow-fighter for a unique spiritual-- I would almost say divine-- creation.
Adolf Hilter, June 1931, [Calic]
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For Jesus himself testified , that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.
-John 4:44
And Hitler wrote:
...that is why the prophet seldom has any honor in his own country.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
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But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth.
-Jesus in Matthew 6:3
And Hitler:
First, therefore, he goes about making up to the people for his previous sins against them. He begins his career as the 'benefactor' of mankind. Since his new benevolence has a practical foundation, that the left hand should not know what the right hand giveth; no, whether he likes it or not, he must reconcile himself to letting as many people as possible know how deeply he feels the sufferings of the masses and all the sacrifices that he himself is making to combat them.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
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Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.
-Matthew 26:2
In the last days of the war, Hitler realized that the end would come. Many of his generals betrayed him and he committed suicide.
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Comparing Hitler to Christians
Although many Christians may want to deny it, there simply occurs no way to honestly avoid the destructive actions by Christians throughout the history of Christianity. Not only did many prominent Christians perform or condone atrocities, but the established Christian denominations supported wars, inquisitions, and exterminations of other faiths and even heretical sects of their own religion. Adolph Hitler simply acted as one of many along a long line of Christians who used his beliefs as a foundation for his actions.
Hitler grew up in the anti-Semitic Austrian/German Catholic culture of his times. A priest baptized him. He got educated in a Catholic monastery under the schooling of Padre Bernhard Groner. On the way to the monastery, Hitler had to pass by a stone arch which had a carved monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika (which some speculate gave him the inspiration for the Nazi cross). He attended the choir. He attended religious services and festivals. An abbot became his idol and he hoped to join the Church as a priest. As a child he used to wear a kitchen apron pretending himself a priest giving sermons. In 1904 Hitler got confirmed at the Linz Cathedral. [Toland] 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."
He read evangelist literature and he 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:
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)
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)
And we know that were the great German reformer [Martin Luther] with us to-day he would rejoice to be freed from the necessity of his own time and, like Ulrich von Hutten, his last prayer would be not for the Churches of the separate States: it would be of Germany that he would think and of the Evangelical Church of Germany.
-Adolf Hitler, in his Proclamation at the Parteitag at Nuremberg on 5 Sept. 1934 [Baynes]
Throughout the history of Christianity, priests and religious leaders have excommunicated those who desecrated the image of the Lord. Hitler appears just like a medieval priest when he wrote:
Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Note how the following reads like many Religious Right sermons of today:
Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth... Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Many Religious Right rail against liberals and far right groups such as the KKK use Jews and liberalism as a sword for their holy cause. Notice how Hitler appears like a Christian extremist here:
But even more: all at once the Jew also becomes liberal and begins to rave about the necessary progress of mankind.
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Just as many preachers today speak against the unfaithful, Hitler fought against atheism and felt convinced that people require faith:
We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 [Baynes]
Most Christians rail against occultism and mystical thinking. So did Hitler:
We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. . .
-Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept. 1938 [Baynes]
Hitler even defines Christianity in his own terms, just as many Christians do today in opposing communism, atheism, degeneracy and crime in what he calls "real" Christianity:
National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity....
For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life... These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles!
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech at Koblenz, to the Germans of the Saar, 26 Aug. 1934 [Baynes]
Politically, Hitler acted from a dictatorial stance to enforce what he called "positive Christianity." The original twenty-five point party program, a Constitution of the Nazi party, included a demand for liberty "for all religious denominations in the State" and that it stood for "positive Christianity." Hitler insisted and declared the twenty-five points as unalterable [Toland p. 218] (in spite of the anti-Catholic feelings of Martin Bormann). Hitler got his way.
Hitler stressed the importance of a strong, well-organized Evangelical church which would work in close cooperation with the state. He conceived of creating one large united Protestant church to stand parallel to the Catholic Church. And to the Catholics, Hitler wanted their freedom of spiritual and educational power, as long as they did not come in conflict with the political will of the government. Thus, the Nazis and the Vatican worked for an agreement, conducted by Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII). On July 20, 1933, the Nazis and the Vatican singed the Reich Concordat, establishing the freedom and power of the Catholic Church in Germany.
If anyone has doubts as to the support of the German Churches for Hitler, one need only to examine the respects paid to him during his birthday by Church leaders throughout Germany and the Vatican. For example, Pope Pius XII initiated the celebration of Hitler every April 20, whereby Hitler received a message stating: "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."
Hitler once celebrated Christmas in a speech which asserted his Christian feelings: "Christ," he said, "was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews." Hitler thought of himself prescribed by Providence when he said, "The work of Christ started but could not finish, I-- Adolf Hitler-- will conclude." [Toland p.222]
[Note that the Mischling regulation saved Jesus from being Jewish, who by Hitler's argument, being the son of God, had but two Jewish grandparents; neither did he practice the Jewish religion (as he saw it), nor did he marry a Jew.]
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 Ignatius Loyola." [Toland p. 760]
When the Law Against Overcrowding of German Schools reduced the number of Jews in higher institutions, Hitler defended his action by reminding the priests that the Church had banished Jews into ghettos and forbidden Christians to work with them. Hitler only did more effectively what the Church of Rome had attempted to do for many centuries. [Toland p. 311] Note the Church of Rome not only condoned Hitler but blessed him as well! Pope Pius XII subscribed to the same principles as Hitler and proved by a concordat signed between the Vatican and Hitler. The Vatican felt so appreciative of the recognition as a full partner that it asked God to bless the Reich. There followed an order for German bishops to swear allegiance to the National Socialist (Nazi) regime. The oath went as follows: "In the performance of my spiritual office and in my solicitude for the welfare and the interest of the German Reich, I will endeavor to avoid all detrimental acts which might endanger it."
Hitler campaigned to convince the German people to back his withdrawal from the League of Nations. The Church gave enthusiastic support. Every bishop approved as well as did Cardinal Faulhaber. [Toland p. 320]
During Hitler's re-education program, deification of Hitler showed itself though a required invocation recited by the children of Cologne:
Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, bequeathed to me by the Lord,
Protect and preserve me as long as I live!
Thou hast rescued Germany from deepest distress,
I thank thee today for my daily bread.
Abide thou long with me, forsake me not,
Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, my faith and my light!
Heil, my Fuhrer! [Toland p. 404]
When Hitler survived a bomb assassination attempt, instead of feeling depressed, he felt ecstasy, repeating over and over, "Think of it. Nothing happened to me. Just think of it. . ." He thought of himself as fated by Providence. On July 20, 1944, he remarked that it "only confirmed the conviction that Almighty God has called me to lead the German people-- not to final defeat but to victory." [Toland p. 799]
His mistress and later, his wife, Eva Braun, who decided to commit suicide with Hitler came from the product of a convent and had faith in God. In many of her letters she appealed to God and prayed for Hitler. [Toland p. 236, 377]
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Humanitarian acts alone cannot cannot support Christian identity
If any Christian for one moment attempts to support Christianity through example from humane actions by Christians, then I submit that the same reasoning could apply toward a support of Nazism as well.
Virtually any Christian who argues against Nazism but supports Christianity usually trots out examples of humanitarian acts by unselfish Christians who opposed Hitler and saved Jews from extermination. But, sadly, there exists only meager examples to choose from. The unfortunate truth reveals that most Catholic and Protestant institutions as well as mainstream Christians in Germany, not only supported Hitler but held antisemitic beliefs as well. In fact, of the few who opposed Nazism, the majority of them opposed it not for humanitarian or religious reasons but for political and power control reasons. In any case, I submit that it appears just as dishonest to support Christianity through its few examples of humanitarism than to support Nazism from its few examples.
For example, people well know that Oskar Schindler spent a fortune to save twelve hundred Jews from the Auschwitz gas chambers. John Rabe in the 1930s saved many Chinese from slaughter from Japanese soldiers in the rape of Nanking even though Germany aligned itself with Japan more than it did with China. Schindler held membership in the Nazi party and Rabe acted as the leader of the Nazi Party in Nanking China [Chang].
If we take the very few Christians who saved lives as examples for the support the Christian faith, then should we not also take humanitarian acts by a few Nazis as support for Nazism? Why not? In fact, there live many Neo-Nazis today who wish to bring back the ideas of Hitler's idealism. Many of them declare that the Holocaust either never occurred or that the Jews concocted the math to make it appear more atrocious than it "really" happened.
Of course, appealing to transient acts of kindness by itself cannot support Christianity or Nazism. Most Christians see clearly the problems with Nazism, but unfortunately they use similar mental barriers to shield themselves from the problems of Christian belief.
Moreover, one's humanitarian or inhuman actions have little to do with the historical definition of Christianity. As stated above, Paul established Christianity by faith alone. And from the earliest 1st century priests, faith alone served as the bases for defining one's Christianity. As an example, Clement wrote, "We are justified not by our own works, but by faith."
Through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever.
-Clement (The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, Chap. XXXII)
At best, one's works can only show the parallel and consistency to one's faith, and in this, Hitler showed a pattern of actions in agreement with his faith and with the horrific works of past faithful Christians.
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Nazi violence does not exclude one from Christianity
Although most Christians do not adhere to violence and many do not view themsleves as political, non-violence or abstaining from political action by itself does not make one a Christian. One can also argue that Most Nazis thought of themselves as peace loving and most did not kill Jews, but non-violence never excluded one from the Nazi party, nor does it supply any fuel for supporting Nazism. Similarly, neither can one defend Christianity on the grounds of non-violence.
Most soldiers never go into battle but that does not make them any less a soldier. And one must apply the same logic to leaders who opt for war, including those who create holocausts. Hitler and the Nazis may have acted uniquely in their destruction, but they acted according to their beliefs, just as the majority of believers do today.
Interestingly, most German Christians supported Hitler before and during the war. They felt empathy for him and loved him, sometimes, in messiah-like fashion. (There even exist news reels showing Hitler giving a laying-on-of-hands, Jesus-like, to his admiring German audience.) Although the German citizens may not have desired to kill their enemies themselves, they felt perfectly willing to support others to do the killing for Germany.
Even in the United States today, most Christians support a strong military and (as has been shown in the Gulf wars) will willingly condone the killing of others through "legal" war. Religious leaders such as Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Billy Graham, et al, preach the need to defend the Christian faith through war if necessary, and will even condone the "unfortunate but sometimes necessary" deaths of innocents.
Clearly, violence, nor non-violence cannot determine a Christian from a non-Christian. Many freethinkers and atheists, for example, live peacefully, but that does not make them, in any sense, a Christian or even Christian-like.
Moreover, the Christian use of the doctrine of sin prevents any meaningful argument against ousting one's claimed Christianhood, regardless of how atrocious the crime. According to Christian interpretation, ever since Adam's fall, all humans live in a 'state of corruption.' Thus all people, including all Christians commit sin. No one in Christian theology makes the claim that Christians subsist in levels of degrees of Christianity depending on how sinless or sinful one lives. Any person, regardless of how much misery he or she has caused in the world, can achieve Christianhood along with an alleged redemption right up to the last second of his or her death. Belief alone determines one's Christianity, not how one acts. However odd it may seem, any conscious human who has the neurological makeup that maps into a belief in God & Jesus, determines his ownership into this belief system.
Clearly, the common denominator for any Christian comes from a self identification to Christianity through belief and faith, and this alone can only come from personal confession. Only from the use of religious language, spoken or written with an apparent honesty, can anyone determine the identity of its believers. Hitler stated his position in clear words with an honesty that never contradicted his actions or his faith; his personal beliefs through his own words identified himself as a Christian.
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Conclusion
Not only did Hitler's atrocities remain consistent with God and Jesus' actions in the Bible, but his intransigent attitude parallels many of the fanatical beliefs of Right-wing conservatives of today. He even uses his faith in the same way as many mainstream Christians. It appears clear from the history of Christianity that Hitler brought nothing new to Christianity, albeit he brought its violent nature to new heights.
Like the Biblical God, Hitler created war and destruction.
Similar to the Biblical laws against marrying outside one's group, the Nazi race laws outlawed Jews from marrying Aryan Germans as outlined in Hitler's private notes. Julius Streicher confessed that the race laws got based on Old Testament laws.
Like the Biblical Jesus, Hitler did not live for peace. He created many divisions among the people.
Like many Christians in the past and today, Hitler aimed to protect the image of the Lord.
Like Christian leaders of the past, Hitler wished to unite the churches. He fought for his beliefs using the Lord as his justification. He created intolerance, divisions, and hatred as have Christians of the past.
Hitler lived as a confessed Christian. He got brought up a Catholic and spoke and prayed as a Christian. He believed that the Bible represented the history of mankind. Nothing in his rhetoric spoke against Christian faith. Although he did have a few Chrisitan enemies, they posed a political danger, not a religious threat.
Hitler allowed the destruction of Jewish synagogues and Temples. But if for one moment you still harbor the thought that Hitler acted against Christ belief, then ask yourself why he never ordered the destruction of Catholic or Protestant churches? Why did he not prevent his Nazis from worshiping in Christian churches, but instead encouraged it? And why did he spend so much time in trying to strengthen and unite the religion into one Christian Reich Church?
Even acknowledging Hitler's most atrocious acts as sinful cannot exclude him from Christianity. Tenets of Christian belief allege that all people sin and only redemtion through faith in Jesus Christ can absolve them.
A Christian, therefore, can never use sin alone, regardless of how horrible or atrocious, as an argument against Hitler. Clearly, Hitler's own words reveal his Christian faith, and Christians must, by their own tenant and upheld by their Bible, not judge others.
Under all possible conditions then, Hitler lived and acted as a Christian and anyone who does not think so can only redefine Christianity from their own ignorance and denial.
For those who have begun to acknowledge Hitler's Christianity, they might also see that Christianity itself does not create the root problem but rather that the foundations of any faith (reliance on hope and ignorance) creates a defense mechanism that must act to protect itself at all cost, including the slaughter of innocents if necessary. It can come just as well from any belief-set such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, communism, or from any of the Christian denominations. A fanatical believer who gains political control of destructive weapons cannot help but use these instruments to favor his religious and political inclinations. A belief-system that contains violent scripts such as Bibles, Korans or manifestos, can easily create similar intolerances that occurred in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler's faith, his Christian actions, the majority of Christian churches who supported him, his followers who believed in him, and the very Bible with its appeal to superstition, provides important examples of how beliefs can create dangers to society.
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References (click on a book title highlighted in blue if you want it):
Baynes, Norman H., ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, Oxford University Press, 1942
Chang, Iris "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II," Basic Books, 1997
Cornwell, John, "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII," Viking, 1999
Calic, Edouard, ed., "Secret Conversations with Hitler: The Two Newly-Discovered 1931 Interviews," The John Day Co., 1971
Helmreich, Ernst Christian "The German Churches Under Hitler," Wayne State University Press, 1979
Hitler, Adolf "Mein Kampf," translated by Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971
Goldhagen, Daniel Johah , "Hitler's Willing Executioners," Alfred A. Knoph, NY, 1996
Maser, Werner, (translated by Arnold Pomerans) "Hitler's Letters and Notes," Harper & Row, 1974
Shirer, William L. "The Rise and Fall of the Thired Reich," Simon and Schuster, NY, 1960
Toldand, John , "Adolf Hitler," Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1976
For a few selected quotes from the above material, see:
Hitler's religious beliefs and fanaticism
The Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations
Religion and The Holocaust: Was Hitler a Christian:
infidels.org
Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 -- 1 October 1946, Published at Nuremberg, Germany, 1947, Vol. 12
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." |
