this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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I’m sorry, but this reads as the many, many coping ‘readings’ that try to downplay his overt Christianity.
I get it, and I’m not trying to attack you, but this is just wrong.
He did not convert in the years after this quote, as can be evidenced by his favouring of the church up to the end days, the Catholic Church supporting his efforts due to mutual reciprocity, his integration of christian teachings and outright requirements into the Nazi requirements (including requirements for medals), continued iconography, etc.
I’m sorry if it hurts, but Hitler was a Christian, and you can’t say his own words don’t matter because a quote is from a few years before he took power.
They objectively weren’t. Can I ask where you’re getting that impression?
Do his words and actions which contradict that after he took power not matter by comparison?
Hitler was only a Christian insofar as he revered a figure called Jesus Christ to some degree. That he rejected nearly every common theological thread of Christianity, from Biblical authority, to the divinity of Christ, to the authority of any church, to questions of salvation of the soul, to pacifism, to Jesus's very existence as a Jew, should very much cast into question any characterization of Hitler as a Christian in any serious sense.
Which words and actions? Do you have sources?
Every time I’ve heard this, nobody can give actual sources. I can, though, for everything from a sanctioned christian state to the individual regulations for official Nazi groups and the delegation of medals. For instance:
Do you have sources to refute this?
E: sorry, I just saw you’re not my original interlocutor. I’m not trying to be adversarial here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler
296 citations there.
That Hitler used Christianity, and that Christians supported Hitler in exchange for preferential treatment and asspats, is not the same as saying that Hitler was a Christian in any realistic sense. Like Mussolini converting to Catholicism and persecuting atheists after a lifetime of personal atheism, fascists will use anything and anyone, and likewise say anything in public, to get their slimy hands on the power to brutalize more people.
I'm an enemy of Christianity on multiple levels, and Christians, both the protestant conservatives and Zentrum Catholics, were an instrumental part of enabling Hitler, and many became enthusiastic Nazis, but Hitler himself was not, realistically speaking, a Christian.
Again, lots of Christians (which have informed the mythology surrounding Hitler and thus his Wikipedia page) really, really don’t want history to think he was Christian. That does not make it not true.
I am sourcing his actual words and actual actions, throughout his reich. I have many, many direct sources.
This is very similar to people claiming the fascists currently decimating US democracy aren’t ‘real’ Christians. Yes they are.
e: and does what was in his heart of hearts really matter? His reich was xtian, just as trump’s is, whether or not he truly believed, whatever that even means.
That there were very deep and serious strains of neopaganism and atheism in Nazi Germany that were exceptional by the standards of the time and the region is likewise well-documented. Not even getting into 'positive Christianity'.
There are serious threads of neopaganism in evangelical Christianity now – just look at ‘crunchy moms’.
I feel like my original point has been lost. I’m specifically speaking against the ‘no true Scotsman’ thing we’re seeing, and how that thinking is leading many people to accidentally cheerlead for the very forces that are ripping us apart.
That's... not even close.
Really, look into the religious practices of Nazi institutions and high-ranking Nazis.
I don’t want to argue with you in this comment section, truly. I think we have very different perspectives on the same data, and I’m struggling to see exactly how we’re coming to loggerheads here.
In everything I’ve studied, including extensive reading of his personal and professional writings (I was obsessed for a while when I was younger), I’ve come to the conclusion that Hitler was a Christian. I am nowhere near alone in this. It’s late and I’m tired, so whatever, I’ll concede this point.
I don’t get why you want to argue about the rest with me? I’ve seen your name here a lot and you seem like a cool dude. If you want to continue this with me, I guess I’m game, but tomorrow.
It goes on, in fact, but there's a character limit for comments. Not sure what more you want other than Hitler's own words, accounts of allies and enemies, and actual practical action of the Nazi regime at Hitler's behest.