Comment by Albert Bakker on December 22, 2011 at 11:54am

That cannot be argued with. Yet the religion of Hitlerism seemed perfectly compatible with all manifestations of Christian beliefs and judging by their public reactions a perfect extension of it for many if not most. Either that or they are all part of the conspiracy too.

Comment by Atwas911 on December 22, 2011 at 12:00pm

That would have changed everything.. Any word on whether these txts says he planned on including the muslims too?

Had that been the case, and had i been alive at the time.. I would have enlisted in the German military.

Comment by Albert Bakker on December 22, 2011 at 12:21pm

I would have shot you on sight.

Comment by Mo Trauen on December 22, 2011 at 12:40pm

I have read that there was a secret plan presented to Hitler in a memo during the war to replace Christianity with "Hitler worship" (essentially) after the war was "won".  I even saw what purported to be a photo of the memo showing Hitler's approving comments.  I gather that Hitler was one of  those who thought Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and that the current Christian church was a perversion perpetrated by Paul (who was a Jew). 

This new religion would not have been a rejection of Christianity as a whole, however, and certainly not a rejection of god.  It would simply have treated Hitler as the new messiah and would have added Nazi ideas to the doctrines.

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2010/10/lie-that-nazism-wa...

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2010/12/lie-that-nazism-wa...

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2010/12/lie-that-nazism-wa...

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2011/07/lie-that-nazism-wa...

http://goodatheistarguments.blogspot.com/2011/07/lie-that-nazism-wa...

Comment by bob spencer on December 22, 2011 at 12:42pm

surely what matters (to us atheists) is that he lived and died a catholic.How can you "convert" to Atheism after you're dead? Oh what an irony that would be :)

Comment by Craig Nomazlab on December 22, 2011 at 1:45pm

They preached a sort of neo-paganism. The only reason he disliked Christianity was their promotion of peace. However, in his speeches, he frequently implied that he was a Christian. For example: "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 only 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 in 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.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited."

Comment by John Kelly on December 22, 2011 at 4:45pm

Hitler wasn't a Christian, I hope that we have all cleared this up.  It wasn't a lame defense.  The problem is that people just assume that any defense from their opponent is a lame defense far too often.

Also, Rutgers University did a study on this as well, and here is the NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/weekinreview/word-for-word-case-a...

Look, the Nazis were planning the elimination of Christianity as early as the 1920s from what I learned from my professor who used to teach at Teubingen university in Germany.  It is imperative that people know about the "Confessing Church" and a number of the features you saw in Germany.  It doesn't make Christianity more true just because a particular line of atheist argumentation arises and is based on misinformation.  That is why only the best arguments should be used.

Comment by Mo Trauen on December 22, 2011 at 10:40pm

Being critical of and in conflict with some or all of the current christian churches does not mean that one has ceased to be a Christian.  Hitler was baptized a Catholic, confirmed, considered entering the priesthood, and died a Catholic without ever being excommunicated.

The Catholic Church knew very well what was going on in the Nazi Reich and did nothing to stop it.  Not a single Nazi leader was excommunicated, yet the pope excommunicated every single communist in the world with the stroke of a pen in 1948.  A dissident church member is still a church member until kicked out of the church.  Even then they usually still remain Christian.

What I find upsetting about this issue is the constant stream of lies from religious people who assert that Hitler was an atheist.  In such a case, I have no problem with pointing out that he was as much of a Christian as most others who call themselves Christian. 

Comment by T A A on December 23, 2011 at 1:27am

Well, I just looked into the collection index for "christians" and there's at least one document which appears to state that line mentioned by the OP.

Archive Index result. I'm just starting to read the second document... seems interesting. I haven't read it all yet, it's a 12 MB doc, but it seems on point.

So maybe someone can get in there and check it out too...

Comment by T A A on December 23, 2011 at 1:35am

To those who say this is a moot topic, IMO it isn't. There are many, too many, atheists who make claims that with more non-religious or atheist people, the world would be a more humane place, but opponents usually bring up some pretty nasty historical atheists to counter this claim. Some great crimes in history can be traced to certain individuals, other great crimes seem more systemic. I feel it is worth discussing. Unless one concludes that cruel atheist leaders were simply exceptions suffering from mentally illness, without arriving to the same conclusion in regards to religious leaders of great crimes...

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