Hitler a Pantheist, Christian, Atheist. Oh My!

ladsin
Hitler a Pantheist, Christian, Atheist. Oh My!

The question of Hitler's religious beliefs frequently comes up in debates and discussions with each side claiming that the other is Hitler-like and pointing to various quotes and books on each side claiming that Hitler is an atheist, a pantheist, and a christian. This gets silly and of course is just an attempt at poisoning the well, but I still thought that I should cover my thoughts/ findings on the issue. Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich by Richard Weikart is one of the most recent works on the subject and he is convinced that Hitler was actually a pantheist that believed Nature was/is god. Other's like Richard Carrier propose that in fact Hitler was a christian, albeit a perverse or different form of Christianity called Positive Christianity. I couldn't actually find a scholar claiming that Hitler was an atheist, but I know of several Christian apologists who make this claim, so I'll just list one for ease. Dinesh D'Souza wrote about, " the God-hating Nazi regime."

I was wondering how I ought to best go about addressing this and I figured I'd just do a section on each position with their evidences and then conclude with the argument I find most compelling.

HTT

At the outset though I will have to state that I will refrain from utilizing any argument that appeals to Hitler's Table Talk which I'm sure will be frustrating to some, but I find it important that I do so. I think this is the case because the table talks have shown to be incredibly incorrect on many issues, and perhaps intentionally. This was done either intentionally or accidentally by translating the Table Talks into English from a later French manuscript rather than the original German. This has been shown to be the case by Ricahrd Evans, Ian Kershaw, Mikael Nilsson, and Richard Carrier. I will refrain from referencing it at all as I don't have the language skill necessary to fact check it myself.

Pantheist

This view is best espoused in Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich by Richard Weikart. Richard W is a professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, and works at both the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute. These (CSC is actually a part of DI) are both extremely Christian groups, and Weikart is one as well. I bother to mention this only because I worry that many Christian readers may feel more comfortable of the conclusions that are espoused by someone who shares that initial belief.

Although Dr. Weikart's book is the most recent I'm aware of on the subject it is certainly not a new phenomena. In fact even the Catholic Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937 states,

Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God.

Whilst this does not explicitely call Hitler, or the Nazi regime, pantheists it is quite evidently referencing them based on the surrounding text.

Creator

Hitler quite evidently believed in a creator, but those who uphold the pantheist view of Hitler say that in fact this was not recognizably the Christian god, rather, it was a worship of nature. I believe that the arguments typically proposed by those advocating this hypothesis state that when Hitler talks about God's Will or Divine Providence, or other similar statements that he is actually referencing Nature as a god and enacting a sort of social darwinism in fact. They'll point out that scholarship has shown that pantheism was quite common among the intellectual elites of this time.

I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.

Non-Christian

The largest argument here is that Hitler was certainly not a Christian because he had a very queer set of beliefs about Christianity. When he talks about his "christian" beliefs he does not accept the Old Testament, he thinks that Jesus had failed, Jesus was not god, and that Jesus was an Aryan.

Why do people think otherwise?

People think otherwise because the Nazi political party and Hitler himself claim to be Christians, but proponents of this hypothesis are convinced that they were lying or misrepresenting their views to gain an advantage over the predominantly Christian population in Germany.

Positive Christian

Defined

As I stated with the last position the other proposition is that of Positive Christianity, but many people aren't aware of what this sect is. This sect combined the nationalist and ideologies of the Nazi regime with elements of Christianity. This form of Christianity sought to discard all of the Jewish bases for Christianity and did not accept the Trinitarian view.

Statements and Programme

The Nazi party accepted Positive Christianity on it's party platform, "the Party represents the standpoint of Positive Christianity". Hitler says, "My feeling 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".

Why do people think otherwise?

In some of Hitler's private talks he speaks quite negatively of Christianity. Most of these quotes come from the Table Talks which I won't go into for reasons stated above, but one that I don't think comes from there that gets the idea across is,

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"

Atheist

As I stated before, I'm not aware of any recent scholar (or really any for that matter, I could just find non-historian apologists) making this claim. From what I could gather from them though, the argument bases entirely around the Table Talks in which Hitler supposedly lambastes Christianity, and I think supposedly even admits that he is simply faking being a Christian in order to placate the masses.

Of course, simply not being a Christian wouldn't make him an atheist so this line of argumentation makes no sense to me.

Conclusion

I don't think I did a great job on this myTake, but I hope it was at least passable. In the process of writing this I read a few articles and listened to a few debates and at the end of the day I think that the question about Hitler's religious beliefs largely become a question of definition. Namely, the question revolves around how we're to define "Christianity." It is evident that Hitler was a theist of some sort, and this deity has a will, intention, and as such I would refer to Hitler as a proper theist at least, rather than a pantheist. He certainly fits into this "positivist" Christianity and their views are actually quite similar to Luther's on multiple points, but determining whether or not "positivist Christianity" is really "Christianity" is difficult for me. They don't accept most of the Old Testament, Paul, the Gospels, Church tradition, etc. Other than their name and general belief in a deity + some sort of non-god Jesus I can't see anything noticeably Christian about them.

Anyway, if I missed something or you have a point to correct me on please do. You should definitely read the works of the people I mentioned above.

Hitler a Pantheist, Christian, Atheist. Oh My!
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