HYPOTHETICAL regarding Hitler

[giblets]

Until recently, I had been lead to believe Hitler was an atheist, mostly because someone claimed it at some point and I never questioned it.

Apparently, aside from being baptized Catholic and never being excommunicated, he repeatedly referred to God in his speeches.

I found this article, which says:

In one 1933 speech, he said that "To do justice to God and our own conscience, we have turned once more to the German Volk." In another he said: "We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."

So, clearly, Hitler was no atheist.

Also, allegedly there were ties between the Catholic church and the Nazis:

Commonalities between Nazism and Catholics were anti-communism, anti-atheism, and anti-secularism. Catholic churches helped identify Jews for extermination. After the war, Catholic leaders helped former Nazis back into power.

I don't know if Hitler was a devout Catholic, but it doesn't seem like the church had a problem with Hitler.

It seems like Christians at the time didn't mind a totalitarian government if it lead to their socially conservative views being put into effect:

Key to understanding Nazism’s popularity with Christians is the Nazi condemnation of everything modern. The Weimar Republic was regarded as a godless, secular, and materialistic, betraying all of Germany’s traditional values and religious beliefs. Christians saw the social fabric of their community unravelling and the Nazis promised to restore order by attacking godlessness, homosexuality, abortion, liberalism, prostitution, pornography, obscenity, etc.

Now, thankfully there's no one at Apolyton who espouses these sorts of views, but let's say there was. Would the correct response be to:
A) ignore him
B) ridicule him
C) report him to the British Columbia Human Rights Commission
D) A&B only
E) All of the above

Remember, this is strictly a hypothetical question!

[OzzyKP]

re: the troll -

re: Hitler - all I've seen seems to indicate a rather Norse/pagan outlook.

[Kuciwalker]

The BCHRC is worse than Hitler.

[Barnabas]

Hitler was a member of the Catholic Church (since he was baptized), but his beliefs were not Catholic.

If I recall correctly he had a very high opinion of Luther, who was seen as a proto german nationalist antisemite. He certainly didn't believe that all humans were created equal by God, he thought that the church was something for old women and that it would disappear.
He has lots of crazy beliefs about the norse and germanic pantheon, he tried to find the garden of eden in germany, was jealous of the "better ruins" of southern european nations. I remember reading about an exploration to the himalayas in which german women tried to get pregnant from some indo european speaking tribe men because germans thought those men were descended from the first aryans.
Nazism wasn't really christian at all.


The church in Croatia collaborated with Naziss, that is the place in which you will find the most collaboration, but then, it was more like southern slavs killing each other than something about Hitler.
The church also saved many jews.

To be honest, a very right wing Catholic will oppose Hitler, but may support someone like Franco, or Salazar in Portugal.

[Al B. Sure!]

The Nazis were not particularly Christian but to be a popular populist and right-wing political party in a Christian nation requires some very Christian membership and Christian appeal.

Nazism was relatively heavily influenced by neo-paganism, new age mysticism, Nietzschean nihilism/atheism, and Schopenhaueran Buddhism/Hinduism.

Apparently, Himmler was fairly pro-Islamic; I remember reading a quote from him about the mutual compatibility of Nazism and Islam. While that sounds like something put out by the Israeli government, it was related to the whole Muslim SS division.

[Al B. Sure!]

The website has some biases although it's biases that I'm sure most people here and most people in the world would agree with (Nazis and militant Muslims are bad people):

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3964

Very interesting take on Nazi opinions of Islam.

British historian Peter Longerich recently published a 1035-page study on Himmler quoting, inter alia, from documents in the German Federal Archives in Berlin ("Bundesarchiv Berlin"). Longerich quotes Himmler as saying in November 1944 that Islam is "a practical and sympathetic religion for soldiers." "It promises that those who fall in battle will go to heaven.

On December 1, 1942, Himmler told Kersten:

"Mohammed knew that most people are terribly cowardly and stupid. That is why he promised two beautiful women to every courageous warrior who dies in battle. This is the kind of language a soldier understands. When he believes that he will be welcomed in this manner in the afterlife, he will be willing to give his life, he will be enthousiastic about going to battle and not fear death. You may call this primitive and you may laugh about it, but it is based on deeper wisdom. A religion must speak a man's language."

Five days later, Himmler told Kersten that he regretted the fact that the Turkish Muslim armies had not been able to conquer Europe in 1683:

"Let us assume that the Turks in whose ranks Europeans were fighting as well, even in high positions, would have conquered Vienna and Europe in 1683 instead of having been forced to withdraw. If the Mohammedans would have gained the victory at the time and Islam would have swept victoriously over Europe, then the Christian churches would have been depoliticized. (...) For the Turks were religiously tolerant, they allowed each religion to continue to exist, provided it was no longer involved in politics – otherwise it was finished."

The information is very interesting and there's more quotes. If this Longerich and this Kersten is to be believed, there was some very non-Christian undercurrents in Nazi party leadership and thinking.

[Berzerker]

I think Robin Williams was being interviewed by a German woman for TV over there and she asked why Germany doesn't have many comedians, and Mork said "you killed all the funny people". It went over her head

[Al B. Sure!]

Since no one ever looks at links on Apolyton, I'll put some more info up:

Himmler, whose parents were devout and conservative Bavarian Catholics, publicly left the Catholic Church in the summer of 1936. In his conversations with Kersten he later lashed out against the Catholic Church, the Vatican and Christianity in general. Christianity does not promise anything to the soldiers and warriors who die in battle, Himmler said. They either go to hell or heaven – there is just no reward for fighting bravely. "And now compare this, Herr Kersten, to the religion of the Mohammedans, a religion of people's soldiers."

In other words, Himmler admired the Muslim concept of martyrdom: if you die on the battlefield as a jihadist (Muslim holy warrior) and so become a martyr, you will be amply rewarded in the afterlife ("paradise"). This is precisely what Haj Amin Al-Husseini told the Muslim soldiers in the SS.

It was in the first half of 1942 that Himmler and an SS officer named Adolf Eichmann befriended this firebrand cleric – the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem whom the Nazis had welcomed to Berlin. Haj Amin Al-Husseini, whose hatred of the Jews equalled that of the Nazis, arrived in Nazi Germany in November 1941 and was received by Hitler that same month. The Grand Mufti wanted the Nazis to approve his plan for a pro-Nazi Muslim fighting force or "Arab legion." Hitler initially declined, but Himmler was enthousiastic about the idea. In November 1943, the SS Reichsführer sent a telegram to the Grand Mufti, saying there existed "a natural bond between National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom loving Mohammedans throughout the world."

Earlier that year, a special Muslim unit had been created inside Himmler's "Waffen-SS" (the combat arm of the SS). It was called the "SS-Handschar Division" and largely consisted of Bosnian Muslims. In 1944, the Handschar Division committed serious war crimes in Yugoslavia killing Serb civilians. (After the war, Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito wanted Al-Husseini for war crimes but the French and the British had no intention of upsetting the Arab world.) Al-Husseini traveled to Sarajevo in October 1944 to address his men from the Handschar Division. He said that the National Socialist and the Islamic world view largely ran parallel. "The Germans are the real friends of the 400 million Muslims," he added. In April 1944, the SS founded its own "Imam training school" in Guben, near Cottbus. Himmler strongly supported this initiative and the Grand Mufti gave the opening ceremony speech.

Himmler told his masseur Felix Kersten on December 2, 1942, that he was reading serious books on the "Mohammedan religion." When the war was over, he said, he wanted to visit the Islamic countries himself with a view to continuing his studies. "Look, how wise ("vernünftig") this religion is."

[Berzerker]

so a fascist liked islam [/surprise]

[SlowwHand]

A) ignore him

[Al B. Sure!]

Oh this is about Ben Kenobi?

[SlowwHand]

No.

[giblets]

The Nazis were not particularly Christian but to be a popular populist and right-wing political party in a Christian nation requires some very Christian membership and Christian appeal.

Nazism was relatively heavily influenced by neo-paganism, new age mysticism, Nietzschean nihilism/atheism, and Schopenhaueran Buddhism/Hinduism.

Could you provide some examples of these influences? You could make the same cynical claims about any political group that tries to win support from Christians so I'd like more evidence that they weren't particularly Christian.

[SlowwHand]

The gas chambers weren't particularly Christian.

[Al B. Sure!]

gribbler:

Well the Himmler Muslim connection... The fact that there was a Muslim SS division, not very much what you would expect in a very conservative Christian state.

and the Nazis were very openly Nietzschean. An interpretation of Nietzsche was the philosophical underpinnings on Nazism.

For neo-paganism, runes were a very big part of Nazi culture (the SS symbol was runes for example). The Nazis naturally would look favorably on the religion of the ancient Nordic peoples.

All this stuff is very well known and well documented.