HYPOTHETICAL regarding Hitler

[Al B. Sure!]

Gribbler:

How young are you and are you just trying to troll Ben Kenobi?

If you are actually sincere about this, read up on Nietzsche. The Nazis bastardized a lot of his ideas and Nietzsche wasn't much of an anti-semite (though he was a little bit but probably not more than your typical German in his time), but Nietzscheanism (and lesserly Schopenhauerism) were the philosophical beliefs behind Nazism.

In The Gay Science Nietzsche asks "And the Christians? Did they become Jews in this respect? Did they perhaps succeed?" The answer is 'yes,' as Nietzsche observes that "Christianity did aim to 'Judaize' the world."

Hitler was NOT a Christian. He was interested in Nietzsche, new age mysticism, and neo-paganism... but definitely not a devout Catholic.

The Nazis were also very interested in the Hindu Vedic tradition which makes since because of the Aryan origins of Hinduism and the caste system appealed to Nazi thinking.

[giblets]

I think you're right and my original intent wasn't to try to claim the Nazis were Christian. I just thought some aspects of their policies reminded me of certain people. Christians seemed to tolerate evil, authoritarian regimes if they gave the Christians the social policies they wanted. (Barnabas gave better examples)

[SlowwHand]

Yeah people like the KKK cal themselves Christians. That doesn't make it so.

[BeBMan]

Hitler was NOT a Christian. He was interested in Nietzsche, new age mysticism, and neo-paganism... but definitely not a devout Catholic.

The Nazis were also very interested in the Hindu Vedic tradition which makes since because of the Aryan origins of Hinduism and the caste system appealed to Nazi thinking.

Most of this sounds more like Himmler, Hitler himself wasn't that much into this afaik (except maybe the Nietzsche stuff). Hitler was formally catholic, if he was "a devout catholic" is another question.

Hitler often used "providence", though I don't think necessarily with christian connotation.

[MrFun]

You might as well claim the spanish inquisition wasn't christian. I don't see how that flies.

Exactly - the Inquisitors were not Christians, either.

[BeBMan]

Exactly - the Inquisitors were not Christians, either.

Like Stalin wasn't a commie, OBL not a muslim and Hitler not a German?

[Kitschum]

Hitler said a lot of things. Outwardly I think he really tried to be everything to everybody (except the Jews).

Here's some more private thoughts, from Hitler's Table Talk, 13 Dec 1941:

I can imagine people being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet, but as for the insipid paradise of the Christians! In your lifetime, you used to hear the music of Richard Wagner. After your death, it will be nothing but hallelujahs, the waving of palms, children of an age for the feeding-bottle, and hoary old men. The man of the isles pays homage to the forces of nature. But Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery. A negro with his tabus is crushingly superior to the human being who seriously believes in Transsubstantiation.

By what would you have me replace the Christians' picture of the Beyond? What comes naturally to mankind is the sense of eternity and that sense is at the bottom of every man. The soul and the mind migrate, just as the body returns to nature. Thus life is eternally reborn from life. As for the "why?" of all that, I feel no need to rack my brain on the subject. The soul is unplumbable.

[Al B. Sure!]

A negro with his tabus is crushingly superior to the human being who seriously believes in Transsubstantiation.

So racist but also so true...

Interesting for freaking Hitler to describe a primitive tribal African 'savage' as crushingly superior to a Catholic.

[Dinner]

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

I would love to find a picture of the Pope in his Hitler Youth uniform but it appears the church has done away with all the old pictures.

[Wernazuma III]

I would love to find a picture of the Pope in his Hitler Youth uniform but it appears the church has done away with all the old pictures.

Well,
1) actually I don't find it very appropriate to blame youths of that time for a certain admiration of the Nazis. After all, it was all they ever knew, and the totalitarian concept made it very likely that they never heard any opposite opinion - or if they did, someone denounced it. There was little escape if your family or surrounding wasn't staunchly Anti-Nazi.
2) Young people were coerced into the HJ, it was obligatory. Parents who refused their children to participate were menaced, and the very stubborn sent off to the KZ. Those who went there unwillingly though, often only a few times, keeping their HJ uniform in the wardrobe from thereon. Of course, I only rely on what Ratzinger himself said, but according to him he was forcibly enlisted but never actually went there. What speaks for him is the fact that he entered only at 14, when you couldn't avoid it, and not at the age of 10 (minimum age).

3) Google "Ratzinger HJ" and go on picture search. Since, if what Ratzinger says is true, there are no pics of him in HJ uniform, you won't find such. Yet you'll find him in the "Flak-helper" uniform where he served from 1943 onwards.

4) I'm no fan of Ratzinger, but I need more that an obligatory HJ membership to blame him for something...

[Al B. Sure!]

Apparently, even Hans Massaquoi, the mixed-raced grandson of the consul general of Liberia in Germany wrote that he wanted to join the Hitler Youth as a child and young teenager.

We're talking a Black kid in Nazi Germany here... So you can't blame the Pope.

[Dinner]

I can blame the Pope for actually agreeing to join the German Army though especially since three other people in his village got religious dispensations at the time. If the church was always his one true calling, as he claims, then why not even bother to file for a religious dispensation?

[Barnabas]

It is completely possible to be a christian and commit genocides and mass murders, that would only make you a bad christian.

The reason why Hitler was not a Christian, is that his beliefs were not Christian, not that he killed a lot of people. Many of his beliefs were not compatible with christianity.

At best, perhaps you would be able to say that he was a Christian the same way mormons are considered by some to be Christian.

[Wernazuma III]

I can blame the Pope for actually agreeing to join the German Army though especially since three other people in his village got religious dispensations at the time. If the church was always his one true calling, as he claims, then why not even bother to file for a religious dispensation?

"just file for a religious dispensation". Yes, cause it was as simple as that.
There were some cases of religious dispensation, but they were very few. You needed "vitamine P", as we call undue protection over here.

Most who objected for religious reasons were sent tried and murdered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_J...erst%C3%A4tter .
Nazis didn't actually ask very long. You were drafted and period. It's inane to blame someone for merely being drafted into the Wehrmacht (or even to the Waffen-SS after draft was installed in 1944).

It's what one was willing to do in that uniform what makes the difference. And, of course, what conclusions a seducted youth (and I'm not talking about Ratzinger but generally) would draw after the war.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If you are actually sincere about this, read up on Nietzsche. The Nazis bastardized a lot of his ideas and Nietzsche wasn't much of an anti-semite (though he was a little bit but probably not more than your typical German in his time), but Nietzscheanism (and lesserly Schopenhauerism) were the philosophical beliefs behind Nazism.

Well, there is also the whole Nietzsche would have despised the Nazis with ever fiber of his being as they actively promoted the herd mentality. Nietzsche was far more into a super-individualist society.