Was Adolf Hitler a Christian?

By: Omar Rushlive L. Arellano

Many purport Christianity to be too dangerous a religion to deserve our belief and allegiance. And they do this by claiming that it assisted Hitler’s rise to power, paving the way for the Holocaust. After all, the Nazi belt buckles which bear the inscription “Gott mit uns” or “God with us” indicate a collective profession to Christianity. The claim that Adolf Hitler was a Christian may be posited due to the fact that he never publicly renounced Catholicism. In his autobiography Mein Kampf, he expressed his continued adherence to his childhood faith saying, “And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.”¹

Nevertheless, we think that the supposed arguments are not enough to conclude that Hitler was a Christian because of the historical evidence. The proposition that we will defend is that Hitler was not a Christian. We will defend this by showing that (1) Hitler rejected his religious upbringing; (2) Hitler used religious language for his own propaganda in order for him to get support in his rise to power; (3) Hitler made many anti-Christian comments.

Hitler Rejected His Religious Upbringing

A person can deviate from his religious upbringing and therefore it must not be used as a sole basis to prove a person’s religious convictions. Dinesh D’Souza points to this fact in What’s So Great About Christianity (2007), when he mentioned that Stalin was born into the Russian Orthodox Church, and that Mao was raised as a Buddhist.² Citing the British historian Alan Bullock in the same work, D’Souza further argues that Hitler was raised as a Catholic albeit in an outward sense, as he “had no time at all for Catholic teaching…”³

In Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1962), Bullock provides a glimpse of Hitler’s fascination with the external elements of Catholicism and his severe disdain for Protestantism around the time he became the Chancellor of Germany. Hitler had begun to be fixated on the Church’s ‘hierarchical structure’, ‘skill in dealing with human nature’, and the ‘unalterable character of its Creed’. By contrast, his contempt for Protestantism was made evident as he thought of its clergymen both as ‘insignificant little people’ and ‘submissive as dogs’. Additionally, when compared to Rome, Hitler regarded Protestantism to be in a position too impoverished to be taken seriously, much less defended.⁴

Though Hitler seems to have a higher view of Catholicism when contrasted with Protestantism, it’s obvious that we still could not regard him as a Christian in any sense. The seeming respect that we see here is something that Bullock said to be pertaining to the Church lasting for many centuries. But Bullock explained that Hitler showed the ‘highest hostility’ toward the religion itself. Bullock said,

“In Hitler’s eyes Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest. ‘Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.”⁵

It seems that based on the information that we have provided here, though it could be conceded that Hitler was born as a Catholic, we do not have positive reasons to conclude that Hitler was in any sense a devout Christian.

Hitler Used Religious Language as Propaganda in Order for Him to Get Support in His Rise to Power

It is undeniable that Hitler used religious language in abundance, to stress that he was doing the Lord’s work. But that was part of his pragmatic efforts to consolidate power. One example of this is a quote I got from someone I debated with (the link in the references is the exact link he gave me to show that Hitler was a Christian):

“We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian.”⁶

Ironically, the very same link he showed me includes:

“It’s true that Hitler said this in 1928. The original quote was slightly longer than what has appeared in memes. At the same time, history showed that Hitler’s National Socialist Movement later sought to destroy Christianity once in power. Citing evidence from the Nuremberg war-crime trials, The New York Times reported that, “the Nazis simply lied and made deals with the churches while planning a ‘slow and cautious policy of gradual encroachment’ to eliminate Christianity.”⁷

He seems to not have read the exact same link that proves the very point I am making. Aside from that link, we also have other sources that support Hitler’s use of religious language as propaganda.

For example, Eric Metaxas explains in Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (2020), at the beginning of the 11th Chapter entitled, “Nazi Theology,” that Hitler’s pragmatism helped him to aggregate power. He argues that Hitler made public statements that made him seem to be pro-church or pro-Christian, but he only said these things for political gain. This is because, in private, Hitler’s statements against Christianity were unequivocal. Furthermore, Metaxas said that early in Hitler’s career, Hitler praised the churches as ‘bastions of morality and traditional values’, in order to be perceived as a ‘typical German’. Metaxas also explained that Hitler felt that the churches would adapt to his ‘National Socialist way of thinking’. Hence, Metaxas said that Hitler did not see the need to destroy Christianity at that time because it could be used as ‘vessels for Nazi ideology’. Another aspect that Metaxas showed in that chapter is Hitler’s ‘instinctive political sense of timing’. In comparison to his close anti-Christian compatriots such as Martin Bormann (head of the Nazi Party Chancellery) and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler is said to not do an open attack on the churches, because Hitler’s popularity diminishes. Thus, Hitler pretended to be ‘pro-Christian’. On the other hand, Metaxas explains that Bormann and Himmler never believed that the churches ‘should or could’ adapt. So they both wanted the ‘clergy crushed’ and the ‘churches abolished’.

In Mein Kampf, in the sixth chapter, “War Propaganda”, Hitler argued that effective propaganda should reach the lowest mental common denominator among the masses. Its intention was to appeal to their feelings and awaken their imagination. In addition, Hitler said that propaganda was not meant to communicate the truth objectively, but to present only the aspect of the truth that was favorable to his view.

Here are some of the quotes that show this view respectively:

“The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. That this is not understood by those among us whose wits are supposed to have been sharpened to the highest pitch is only another proof of their vanity or mental inertia”⁸.

“Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side.”⁹

Thus, we have good reasons to doubt the sincerity of Hitler’s religious language.

Hitler Made Many Anti-Christian Comments

There is a collection of Hitler’s private opinions which were assembled on the initiative of Martin Bormann, and was first published in 1953. This work is entitled, “Hitler’s Table Talk, the contents reveal his seething animosity toward Christianity. The following are samples of Hitler’s opinions on Christianity (according to the historian and philosopher Nathan Johnstone, Hitler made 42 such comments in Hitler’s Table Talk; In context, Johnstone is exposing Richard Carrier’s unfounded conclusions about the alleged ‘forgery’ of all of Hitler’s anti-Christian statements.¹⁰):

“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. Thus one understands that the healthy elements of the Roman world were proof against this doctrine.

Yet Rome to-day allows itself to reproach Bolshevism with having destroyed the Christian churches! As if Christianity hadn’t behaved in the same way towards the pagan temples. (October 19, 1941)”¹¹

“The decisive falsification of Jesus’s doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galilean’s object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that’s why the Jews liquidated Him. (October 21, 1941)”¹²

A true Christian would not accuse the Apostle Paul of corrupting the doctrine of Jesus. Jesus was not anti-Jew, in the same way that Paul was not anti-Jew. In fact, Paul was willing to be accursed on their behalf, and he even said that they are included in salvation if they believe in the person and work of Jesus. Paul said in Romans 9:1–5:

“I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit — I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”

Paul also said in Galatians 3:26–29:

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

These views are consistent with Jesus’ views. In fact, Jesus focused on the lost sheep of Israel during His earthly ministry (Matt. 15:24) and even claimed that “salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22)”. Dr. Andreas Kostenberger comments that in this passage, Jesus identifies Himself as a Jew when he said that “we worship what we know” and that the verse shows that it’s not anti-Semitic, because “salvation is from the Jews” in a sense that the whole Old Testament, “was from the Jewish people” and that the Messiah “himself came from the Jews and not from the Samaritans (or Gentiles)”.¹³

In conclusion, since Hitler is known to have committed many atrocities against the Jews and that the Bible clearly shows that it values the Jews, that we can also see that Hitler did not take his childhood faith seriously, that he used religious language as propaganda, and that he made many anti-Christian comments, then we have firm grounds in saying that Hitler was not a Christian.

References:

1. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. James Murphy, 59, https://greatwar.nl/books/meinkampf/meinkampf.pdf.
2. Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great About Christianity (Tyndale House Publishers, 2008), 221.
3. D’Souza, What’s So Great About Christianity, 221.
4. Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1962), 388–389.
5. Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, 389.
6. Jordan Liles, “Did Adolf Hitler Say ‘Our Movement Is Christian’?”, Snopes, March 3, 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hitler-our-movement-is-christian/?fbclid=IwAR13lXNLb1Y_Lm26lFBBDfvXN7hB-7uLtgxRYliAVmuHYz7y_xZTzf236wQ.
7. Ibid.
8. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 156.
9. Ibid., 158.
10. Nathan Johnstone, The New Atheism, Myth, and History: The Black Legends of Contemporary Anti-Religion (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 89–90.
11. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944: His Private Conversations (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), 75–76.
12. Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s Table Talk, 76.
13. Andreas Kostenberger, Notes on John, ESV Study Bible (Illinois: Crossway, 2011), 2028.