"Official religion" is maybe pushing the phrasing - but the Nazis were unabashedly Christians, and proclaimed that what they were doing was important *because God told them to*
In 1941, Martin Bormann, a close associate of Hitler said publicly "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable".[51] In 1942 he also declared in a confidential memo to Gauleiters that the Christian Churches 'must absolutely and finally be broken.' Thus it is evident that he believed Nazism, based as it was on a 'scientific' world-view, to be completely incompatible with Christianity.[52]
When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean, like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe, we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or else upon shameless professional self-interest.[53]
There were, obviously, a lot of Christians in the Nazi party, but the leadership were generally anti-clerical.
My general understanding has always been something like this: Nazi party leaders viewed Christianity and National Socialism as competing world views (even though some Christians did not see a conflict) and Hitler planned to eliminate the Christian churches after securing control of his European empire. The churches were permitted some self governing and allowed to remain because Hitler did not want to risk strong opposition until other more pressing issues were dealt with.
Sure, if we assume that all his speeches and all his books and all his letters are lies to avoid giving away his secret future plans to destroy Christianity, then Hitler was totally not a Christian.
The Nazi state hated authorities it did not control. This does not preclude their own stated belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Jew-Hunter.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-09-17 12:01 pm
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When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean, like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe, we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or else upon shameless professional self-interest.[53]
There were, obviously, a lot of Christians in the Nazi party, but the leadership were generally anti-clerical.
My general understanding has always been something like this:
Nazi party leaders viewed Christianity and National Socialism as competing world views (even though some Christians did not see a conflict) and Hitler planned to eliminate the Christian churches after securing control of his European empire. The churches were permitted some self governing and allowed to remain because Hitler did not want to risk strong opposition until other more pressing issues were dealt with.
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The Nazi state hated authorities it did not control. This does not preclude their own stated belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Jew-Hunter.