Was hitler a catholic?

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NE_Catholic said:
quite true.
I’m surprised a residential atheist hasn’t popped in yet with his whole “philosophy” on the question.
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Bad people label themselves with good names, but, you’d be better off by judging a man by his actions. I could call myself the King of Siam but that doesn’t make a credible or even arguable position.
 
Reservoir_Dog said:
Bad people label themselves with good names, but, you’d be better off by judging a man by his actions. I could call myself the King of Siam but that doesn’t make a credible or even arguable position.
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but that would mean you were accountable for actions :eek:
 
NE_Catholic said:
not according to the National Enquirer.
Yes, I’m being silly.
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Ah… the old guy next door with the toothbrush mustache and the haranguing tone of voice who says he’s got Elvis living in his basement.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
More to the point, if Hitler was a Catholic, was he a Catholic in good standing with the Church? Some like to point out that anyone baptized a Catholic is a Catholic until he dies, whether or not he renounces Catholicism. I don’t see the point of debating this. Clearly Hitler was baptized a Catholic. But the real question is whether as an adult he was a practicing Catholic in good standing with the Church.

Or if he was something else, what was he? Pagan? Atheist? Etc.:confused:
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Well, Sir, it is often said that very few people have been documentarily excommunicated. Most, they say, excommunicate themselves. Hitler is one that would, by his actions and beliefs, have self-excommunicated.

God bless,
jd
 
Rocinante

*(does anyone else sense a “no true scottsman” fallacy coming on?) *

Not sure what your point is.

Do you mean that someone here is going to argue no true Catholic would behave like Hitler?

That isn’t the point being raised by the thread. Did Hitler consciously take himself out of the Catholic Church (or out of Christianity altogether) by his words and/or actions? That seems to me to be the fundamental question. Hitler was reported by an underling to have made the following remarks shortly after his assumption of power in 1932.

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future – certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch and annihilating it in Germany.”

If this is a reliable remark, it would seem that Hitler right from the get-go was able and willing to persecute all Jews and Christians without exception. Obviously, the remark would not have been made in public for political reasons. In fact, Hitler, being the consummate liar that he was, would certainly be able to insist on his Christian and Catholic credentials all the while he was planning the persecution the the Christian churches in the years to come.

What Martin Niemöller said, a Lutheran pastor in Germany who spent several years in one of Hitler’s concentration camps, appears in the Congressional Record, 14, October 1968, page 31636, as follows:

“When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.”
 
JDaniel said:
Well, Sir, it is often said that very few people have been documentarily excommunicated. Most, they say, excommunicate themselves. Hitler is one that would, by his actions and beliefs, have self-excommunicated.

God bless,
jd
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And, one can certainly include El Caudillo de Espana por la Gracia de Dios in the same category. 😉

God bless,
jd
 
The only source I could find was in German. Sad to say, I cannot speak German so I cannot be sure of exactly what it says. I edited my post to put in the link, but here it is again ptwf.org/Downloads/Bavari…_17Feb1931.pdf

If someone can confirm this with another source, that’d be fantastic.
 
Without seeing the documents themselves, and having someone properly authenticate them, all this is second hand hearsay and unreliable.
 
*I think the reality is sadly that some Catholics and some Protestants eagerly embraced the Nazi’s party and it’s ideology for a variety of motives both good and bad. *

Another sad reality is that some Catholics and Protestants did not embrace it for noble reasons, and suffered the consequences.

*Without seeing the documents themselves, and having someone properly authenticate them, all this is second hand hearsay and unreliable. *

The again, it might be second hand and still reliable. Who is to say until the final documents are printed and authenticated?.
 
The Catholic Centre Party, the Conservatives, the Army among others all thought they could control him through coalition politics, obviously a failure. Any church’s active participation in politics at this level is clearly a bad idea, and this is a paradigm example.
 
Indeed, but in context some thought they were embracing it for good or just reasons and did not examine what they were actually embracing until later, often when it was too late to get away from the beast.

Not only that, the full horror of the beast was yet to be realized. Could they see 12 years into the future, Hitler would sure have been assassinated early on … very possibly by a coalition of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and atheists. 😉
 
Adeodatus said:
However he may have been baptized, he appears to have rejected the Christian religion and instead adopted an essentially occultic viewpoint. The influence of Theosophy (which still employs the swastika as a symbol) seems to have been prevalent. “Spiritual but not religious” seems to be a descriptor of the Hitlerian approach.

To cast his views in contemporary categories, probably the closest would be “New Age”. The Aquarian notions of contemporary New Agers owe to the Theosophical doctrines of the cataclysmic succession of races as a process of human spiritual evolution. Note the orientation of Nazi propaganda regarding the creation of a new society inhabited by new men, etc., as well as the Theosophical importations of Atlantean heritage of the Aryans, etc.
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Could be. I realize there are historians who believe this and have some basis for believing it. I do know, however, that Albert Speer, in his books, maintained that, in private, Hitler scoffed at such things. There are, of course, those who do not consider Speer reliable. So it will probably be debated forever without resolution.
 
dancing with the devil …

These parties passed the Enabling Acts that gave him total power and *Mein Kampf *had already been published, so they shouldn’t have been surprised that he did what he said he’d do. Most charitably, much wishful thinking.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Could be. I realize there are historians who believe this and have some basis for believing it. I do know, however, that Albert Speer, in his books, maintained that, in private, Hitler scoffed at such things. There are, of course, those who do not consider Speer reliable. So it will probably be debated forever without resolution.
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Did you perchance see my post on the previous page. I made a similar point. Most of the Atlantis-Aryan origin stuff along with the Christ was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan comes straight from Rosenberg and his book. Himmler was also given money in the '30s to do some archaeological work in places like Tibet and Scandanavia to find the Aryan roots of the German civilization. These activities were most likely indulged by Hitler, but I think their ultimate goals and findings weren’t of much interest to him.

ChadS
 
*These parties passed the Enabling Acts that gave him total power and Mein Kampf had already been published, so they shouldn’t have been surprised that he did what he said he’d do. Most charitably, much wishful thinking. *

The German bishops and Cardinal Pacelli had sized up Hitler and the Nazi thugs early on. What could they do other than oppose the Nazi Party, which they did before the elections. After the elections everyone ran for cover … a natural reaction when you know you are about to enter the belly of the beast. Unfortunately, the beast had a ravenous hunger for anyone truly religious, as they disappeared by the millions in the “kitchens” at Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
*These parties passed the Enabling Acts that gave him total power and Mein Kampf had already been published, so they shouldn’t have been surprised that he did what he said he’d do. Most charitably, much wishful thinking. *

The German bishops and Cardinal Pacelli had sized up Hitler and the Nazi thugs early on. What could they do other than oppose the Nazi Party, which they did before the elections. After the elections everyone ran for cover … a natural reaction when you know you are about to enter the belly of the beast. Unfortunately, the beast had a ravenous hunger for anyone truly religious, as they disappeared by the millions in the “kitchens” at Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
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Here’s a link to a summary history of the Centre Party, the Catholic political organization in Weimar Germany. The politics are byzantine, to say the least. The section “Enabling Acts” states that the Centre Party, although divided, sold out to hitler in return for some dubious promises. Obviously very few of the coalition partners could see the future. The party itself seems to have been negotiated out of existence by a concordat between hitler and the Vatican.

Another vivid example of why any church should stay out of politics.
 
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