Hitler might have thought he was a catholic…
Not likely. In private conversation Adolf Hitler expressed a low opinion of Christianity:
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together… The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity… Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (source: Hugh Trevor-Roper,
Hitler’s Table Talk: 1941-1944, pp 6-7)
10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (
ibid, p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday:
So it’s not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the Churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that’s left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.
Originally, religion was merely a prop for human communities. It was a means, not an end in itself. It’s only gradually that it became transformed in this direction, with the object of maintaining the rule of the priests, who can live only to the detriment of society collectively.
… Christianity, of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And that’s why one day its structure will collapse. Science has already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline…
the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little…
It’s Christianity that’s the liar…
The man who lives in communion with nature necessarily finds himself in opposition to the Churches. And that’s why they’re heading for ruin – for science is bound to win…
As for the men close to me, who, like me, have escaped from the clutches of dogma, I’ve no reason to fear that the Church will get its hooks on them. We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (
ibid, pp 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society.
21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer… The decisive falsification of Jesus’ doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work… for the purposes of personal exploitation… Didn’t the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it’s in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St. Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (
ibid, pp 63-65)
13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery… When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (
ibid, pp 118-119)
14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself… Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (
ibid, 119-120)
9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (
ibid, p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. It will last another hundred years, two hundred years perhaps. My regret will have been that I couldn’t, like whoever the prophet was, behold the promised land from afar." (
ibid, p 278)
You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
(source: Albert Speer,
Inside the Third Reich, p 115)
