[PublicAnimalNo9]

Derby; I think this is an appropriate place to pick up where we left off on a previous thread based on the direction this thread went lol

First off, I dunno how old you are but I've been studying this stuff for almost 36 years now. The only revisionist history I've seen in this matter is the more RECENT insistence that Hitler was indeed a Christian cuz his mommy and daddy took him to church. And he used scripture in some of his speeches and writings. This sems to be a clarion call for atheists lately and it's a rather sad attempt to try and paint the 20th Century's biggest asshole as a Christian, as the hate all religions train rolls along.
What a shock as atheism is on the rise that it tries to point out how inherently evil religion is, without understanding the fundamental fact that HUMANS can be inherently evil regardless of what they may or may not believe.
Merely pointing out Communist examples of this simply illustrates the point that without religion, nothing would change. It's got nothing to do with deflection or mitigating anything. You may see it as such but I merely suspect it's only because you have no logical answer and you can't blame it on religion. Religions frequently get used as a scapegoat for the reasons for war, greed, murder and no doubt, some instigators of aggrressive war have used religion as their reason.
But HERE is where we come to the crux of things. What you fail to understand is, there is a HUGE difference between using religion as a means to further your own ends, and actually believing in and following the dogma of the church.

You gave me quotes from Hitler, and few of them really, to illustrate your point.
I've seen the atheists on this site quote Bible scripture too. And I'd be willing to bet at least one of them was "dragged" to church as a kid. I guess that actually makes them a Christian too by your criteria.
Now, let's look at Hitler's "association" with the church. Hitler was smart enough to recognize that banning the church in what was essentially a Christian country was not going to sit well with Germans. This made him unique among totalitarians. Although he still wasn't above having priests and ministers murdered that dared to speak out against him in the "sanctity" of the Church you keep insisting he's a believer and follower of.
His "alliance" with the Vatican was another of his games. He knew the vatican was STAUNCHLY anti-communist, and anti-Jew as he was. Makes sense to get THE religious presence on the continent to back you if you can get 'em. It furthers the "legitimacy" of your cause, especially when yer the leader of a country of church goers. In simple terms its' called, "Know your audience".
But what you have done is draw a bunch of circles a la Glenn Beck and started making connections that simply don't exist.
I'm not going to dispute that the Catholic church he attended when he was younger may have helped plant the seeds of his hatred for the Jews. In either case, it becomes readily apparent that his hatred really took flame based on his perceptions in and of Germany after WW1.
But let's stop with the history again for a sec cuz this really begs the question; if the rampant anti-Jew sentiments in the west are all religion's fault, why are there anti-Jew atheists? Can't really blame the church for that now can ya?
See Derb, this is my point. Your claim that Hitler was a Christian is simply another way for atheists to claim how evil religion TRULY is cuz Hitler "was a God-fearin' Cathloic man". You guys are the ones trying to revise history by playing a convoluted game of connect-the-dots.
What's really funny is, megalomaniacs tend NOT to believe in God, and Hitler was, by every definition of the word, a megalomaniac.
One last piece of info for ya Derb. I'm the LAST person yer gonna see defend the horrors the Catholic Church visited upon millions of people throughout its history, but claiming Hitler was not only a believer but a devout Christian is quite frankly, laughable.
Oh wait, that's right, he wanted to be a priest. My friend's dad went through the seminary and got his D.D. He's an atheist now. Still has friends in the church though so I guess that means he's actually still a Christian right?

Now, here's the really funny thing. Thanos gave me a wiki link as "evidence" of Hitler's Christianity, and yet, THIS wiki link states the opposite, that he in fact USED the church and did NOT believe in it.

$1:

Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but after he left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments. Hitler favoured aspects of Protestantism if they were more amenable to his own objectives. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics. After he had moved to Germany, where the Catholic and the Protestant church are largely financed through a church tax collected by the state, Hitler never "actually left his church or refused to pay church taxes. In a nominal sense therefore," the historian Steigmann-Gall states, Hitler "can be classified as Catholic." Yet, as Steigmann-Gall has also pointed out in the debate about religion in Nazi Germany: "Nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."
In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an Aryan Jesus Christ, a Jesus who fought against the Jews. In his speeches and publications Hitler spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "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." His private statements, as reported by his intimates, show Hitler as critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but had severe hostility towards its teaching. Here Hitler's attack on Catholicism "resonated Streicher's contention that the Catholic establishment was allying itself with the Jews." In light of these private statements, for John S. Conway and many other historians it is beyond doubt that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches. The various accounts of Hitler's private statements vary strongly in their reliability; most importantly, Hermann Rauschning's Hitler speaks is considered by most historians to be an invention
In the political relations with the churches in Germany however, Hitler readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes". Hitler had a general plan, even before the rise of the Nazis to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich The leader of the Hitler Youth stated "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position. His intention was to wait until the war was over to destroy the influence of Christianity.
Hitler for a time advocated for Germans a form of the Christian faith he called "Positive Christianity, a belief system purged of what he objected to in orthodox Christianity, and featuring added racist elements. By 1940 however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianty. Hitler maintained that the "terrorism in religion is, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalized and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men's minds."
Hitler once stated, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler
Seems just a little incongruous with YOUR revisionsit view of history there Derb.

[andyt]

PA9 - Hitler was raised a Christian, never renounced it that I am aware of. So on balance of probability he was a Christian. He certainly wasn't an atheist. He was probably a casual Christian the way so many people are, but if any group has to own him, it's you guys. As I wrote previously, he didn't spread his seeds of hate in the name of Christianity, but he certainly planted them in the fertile anti-semitic soil that had been plowed by Christians for centuries.

[fifeboy]

andyt andyt:

PA9 - Hitler was raised a Christian, never renounced it that I am aware of. So on balance of probability he was a Christian. He certainly wasn't an atheist. He was probably a casual Christian the way so many people are, but if any group has to own him, it's you guys. As I wrote previously, he didn't spread his seeds of hate in the name of Christianity, but he certainly planted them in the fertile anti-semitic soil that had been plowed by Christians for centuries.

The Holocaust was just the last in a long line of pogroms.

[angler57]

fifeboy fifeboy:

2Cdo 2Cdo:

fifeboy fifeboy:

Wow! Funny thing is I am a Christian (Catholic). Sad thing is how ashamed I am of the actions taken by my church in recent times and by the actions of some Christians, now and in the past.

Funny thing is I am a Canadian and I am ashamed of the actions of some of my fellow Canadians now and in the past.

See how ridiculous that looks. Why should you be ashamed for actions others took.

Because, as a part of the Church, it (choose your action here: Child abuse in Church, Christians and ethnic cleansing, Christians and racial inequality etc, etc, etc) reflects on me and my beliefs.

Sadly there have been times, and still are, in history were
groups from all belief systems have commited terrible offenses. No, matter, it is
always necessary to learn from history and not repeat these terrible acts.

[ShepherdsDog]

angler57 angler57:

Sadly there have been times, and still are, in history where
groups and individuals from all belief systems have commited terrible offenses. No, matter, it is
always necessary to learn from history and not repeat these terrible acts.

fixed

These belief systems are made up of individuals.. each individual interprets their own belief. Hell, even within the rank and file of the Nazi party there were good people. Oskar Shindler is one of the best examples of this fact. A member of the Nazi Party who was responsible for saving over a thousand Jews. A man who was honoured in Yad Vashem as a righteous gentile, and is now buried near the Zion Gate in Jerusalem.

He and innumerable other Europeans, both German and non German, saved Jews, and risked their lives and that of their families, to shelter Jews. It was their cultural mores that had them do this.....shock of all shocks, Christianity. For every evil act there were a thousand acts of bravery and sacrifice, all the result of...... Christianity. For every demon produced by a twisted interpretation of faith, a thousand angels are created by their interpretation of those same beliefs. If great evil can be laid at the feet of Christianity, so too can some of the the greatest good.

The 'Christianity' of Hitler is a strange concoction of pseudo science, norse mythology, mysticism and revisionist philosophy. Hell, the Nazis claimed that Jesus was not really a Jew, but an Aryan fighting the Jews, and that Aryans themselves were supermen from the stars. It was as close to mainstream Christianity as Scientology is.

Christianity preaches that it is the fulfilment of Judaism and God's covenant with Israel. Accepting Christ as the messiah was all a Jew needed to do to stop being a Jew, according to Church/Christian doctrine. The Nazis saw it as a genetic taint that only their science could eradicate. Conversion was insufficient, as the Nazis proved when they gassed people whose families had converted generations ago. The Nazi's beliefs may have been the root of their actions, but what those beliefs really were, are still up for interpretation.

On an aside related to this, the Japanese also took in and protected Jews within their territory, during the time of hostilities. Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who issued thousands of illegal visas Jewish people enabling them to emigrate to Japan. Now was it Buddhism that was reponsible for Japanese atrocities or was this responsible for their acts of compassion?


What inspired Stalin's hatred of Christianity(actually he stopped persecuting the Russian Orthodox Church, realizing he could harness Russian patriotism/nationalism to fight the Germans) , the fact that he was a failed monk or the atheism of communism? Some feel it was one, and aothers feel the other. Since almost every Communist movement has been hostile towards any and all religious beliefs, one has too assume that it is the atheism espoused by Communism that has been reponsible for the death of millions of believers persecuted and executed by Communist regimes.

[DerbyX]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

First off, I dunno how old you are but I've been studying this stuff for almost 36 years now. The only revisionist history I've seen in this matter is the more RECENT insistence that Hitler was indeed a Christian cuz his mommy and daddy took him to church. And he used scripture in some of his speeches and writings. This sems to be a clarion call for atheists lately and it's a rather sad attempt to try and paint the 20th Century's biggest asshole as a Christian, as the hate all religions train rolls along.

Far from it. First off, since christians have done their very best to not only deny Hitlers christianity but to claim he was in fact an Atheist it seems not only understandable but inevitable that we Atheists would explain the truth. In fact that is exactly how I came into this debate many moons ago when some moron blamed the holocaust and WW2 on Atheism. Certainly Darwinism/evolution have long been linked to it. In fact if you asked around your church (assuming you attend one) you'd likely find a majority of people will consider him an Atheist.

Second, nobody but nobody considered Hitler anything but a christian until the horrors of the holocaust very fully understood (and lets not forget the many hundreds of thousands of willing participants in that horror who were also christian). He was never excommunicated and all the way up top the end had high level church officials at his side.

Third, once the true horrors of the holocaust were realized the allies went about engaging in the Nuremberg deception where they made a deliberate attempt to show that christian churches were targeted for persecution alongside Jewish synagogues and other identifiable ethnic (gypsies), political (communists), and religious (Atheists). Such a comparison is a slap in the face to the true victims. Christian churches suffered the least of all the groups and suffered no worse then German society did as a whole and in every case they suffered only because their leaders and/or parishioners spoke out against him. The ones that went along with him either willingly or out of fear were certainly not treated like the Jews or communists or so many others who regardless of what they did were targeted by him. Hitler was often photographed alongside church higher ups. How many Rabbis do you see him with. No, the idea that he persecuted christian churches is a sick joke and ignores the fact that throughout history christian churches have in fact persecuted rival sects and faiths and no doubt all of them thought the were doing the lords work.

Fourth, the evidence for Hitlers christianity goes FAR beyond mom and dad taking him to church and him peppering his speeches with bible quotes. The fact is the man made religious instruction a integral part of the Hitler Youth and prayer a part of school in general. His seminal and personal writings contain his most personal thoughts and all throughout it he places his faith front and centre and far from being the carefully crafted political piece christian apologists would have us believe it was indeed his seminal work. Everything he did was forecast in that book including his "surprise" invasion of Russia.

The reason you think this is a "recent" phenomenon is that the US made a massive concentrated effort to minimize or invalidate any links Hitler had to christianity and the anti-communist/anti-Atheist hysteria of the 50s and cold war made the rebuttals few and far between. Just like all those studies showing that gay parents made bad parents once the other side has had its chance to run its own studies and fact finding the truth comes out.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

What a shock as atheism is on the rise that it tries to point out how inherently evil religion is, without understanding the fundamental fact that HUMANS can be inherently evil regardless of what they may or may not believe.

Well, the truth is that evil is entirely a religious concept just as sin is. Atheists are well aware of human nature and far better then religious folk since we don't believe bad acts can be simply linked to the devils influence or other such nonsense.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Merely pointing out Communist examples of this simply illustrates the point that without religion, nothing would change. It's got nothing to do with deflection or mitigating anything. You may see it as such but I merely suspect it's only because you have no logical answer and you can't blame it on religion.

Straw man argument once again. I'm not making the argument that Atheists or non-religious people are less violent or better then religious people. Many of your christian brothers however will make that claim since within the religion category you will find muslim and they will indeed claim that religion is inherently violent. Of course the irony that the people on this forum (and in society) who seem to be claiming that all muslims are "evil and violent" (not a very "christian attitude eh?) that they must be dealt with "violently". Why is that?

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Religions frequently get used as a scapegoat for the reasons for war, greed, murder and no doubt, some instigators of aggrressive war have used religion as their reason.

Just for the record are you including all religions in that definition? I don't recall you ever posting anti-muslim stuff before so I just want to know where you stand. Lets not forget that "religion" and this includes people like the pope, have frequently targeted Atheism, liberalism, and the decline of religious influence for the worsening of societies in general. If that aint scapegoating then what is? For myself my so called anti-christian attitudes almost always pops up when some self-righteous christian attacks the faith of others and claims their religion is to blame for whatever violence and you saw a very good example with CDN_Patriot on the NY - times square bomb thread. He claimed that muslims were flying planes into buildings and that you did not see christians doing things like that. Notice the wording. Christians did not do things like that. I responded by referencing the holocaust and the Rwanada genocide (there are many more example) which illustrated that YES christians were doing things just like that. Now notice his abrupt change in tact. He then claimed I didn't have my facts straight because they weren't using christian theology to justify their actions. See what he did? See the difference? Aside from the fact the statement was we don't see christians doing things like that he didn't seem to understand that just because they weren't justifying them by using the bible they were still doing them. I'll also point out that in fact Hitler did use the bible and christianity as justification. I'll also point out that abortion bombers use biblical justification and that those that are against homosexuality quote from the bible as their justification. In fact just as you say humans are inherently evil, religious folk are inherently predisposed to think their religion is the one true faith and that their interpretation is also the true one and therefore when they use it as a basis and justification for their actions they are indeed justified. As for claiming his anti-semitism was not pulled from a religious source but that is revisionist. There is no serious historical evidence to the contrary that Hitler was influenced heavily by the anti-semitism of the Viennese Christian Social movement and that he was influenced my Martin Luther, author of On Jews and their lies (what religion was Martin Luther again?) There is also no historical evidence contradicting that society in general was very anti-semitic, as evidenced by the voyage of the damned (of which Canada was culpable) and there is no doubting that long before the holocaust Jews were fleeing anti-semitic pogroms and general atmosphere. Sounds to me like there were actually very few christians in that era then.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

But HERE is where we come to the crux of things. What you fail to understand is, there is a HUGE difference between using religion as a means to further your own ends, and actually believing in and following the dogma of the church.

What you fail to understand is that so many evil and atrocious things have been done throughout history by people who actually and truly believed they were following the will of whatever god they worshiped and that includes the christian god. What you are also failing to understand or simply dismissing is that prior to him ever entering politics he led a belieiving christian life and that is evidenced by his person writings in mein kampf. He led a far more christian life then at a low ball guess I'd say 50% of christians. His entire life by the time of the writing had been inundated with christianity. He studied to join the priesthood. He took holy communion. He was baptized. Hell that alone was what made him a christian according to some people although that might have been an assholish attempt by a coworker to try and dig at me and claim despite my Atheism I remained in fact a christian. He admired the monks and their dedication and as already written had intentions of joining the priesthood. At this point the % of christians who could meet Hitlers level of christianity is dropping fast. The fact is that in every measurable way he was a christian.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

You gave me quotes from Hitler, and few of them really, to illustrate your point.
I've seen the atheists on this site quote Bible scripture too. And I'd be willing to bet at least one of them was "dragged" to church as a kid. I guess that actually makes them a Christian too by your criteria.

I gave you one quote. Many, many more can be found here and here. All are a matter of the historical record which is entirely why christian apologists were forced to resort to the argument "he lied". They had to since the massive amount of pro-christian writings and speeches was so accurately recorded so as to leave no doubt he in fact said and wrote those things.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Now, let's look at Hitler's "association" with the church. Hitler was smart enough to recognize that banning the church in what was essentially a Christian country was not going to sit well with Germans. This made him unique among totalitarians. Although he still wasn't above having priests and ministers murdered that dared to speak out against him in the "sanctity" of the Church you keep insisting he's a believer and follower of.

Again, wrong. We have already demonstrated that he had a deep admiration for the church including giving serious thought to joining the order. What evidence do you have he hated all churches? He was intolerant of competing versions of christianity, something lifted directly from the playbook of just about every sect of the faith. He desired a united German church with a seat of power in Berlin and not Rome, again something so many other sects of christianity have not only sought after but done. Even in the OSS documents they admitted that under Hitler the nazis made it illegal speak out against German religions and christian churches. They closed all secular schools and made prayer mandatory for all remaining schools and made religious instruction mandatory as part of the curriculum. This was not the actions of somebody merely going along societies religion. No, he made it part of his platform and lets not forget that he was such a egotistical man he believed all of Germany should follow his example and millions of people did just that. Do you honestly think if he really hated the church as mush as say Jews and communists he would have tried to destroy it. Far from it, he and his leaders had drawn up plans for a post war untied German church reflecting his belief in what christianity should entail (no different then any other version).

Lastly, and not least any religious leaders that were executed or persecuted were done so because they spoke out against him politically. Everywhere in Germany there was a great risk for speaking out against him politically but that isn't the same as being targeted and persecutued simply for being a Jew or a communist or black. They were attacking his political position and not some defence of the "sanctity" of the church. I'll also point out that all throughout history church leaders have spoken out against other church leaders and been persecuted for it as well and for the same political nature. In fact churches often targeted other churches for spreading the false word or for not being "true christians".

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

His "alliance" with the Vatican was another of his games. He knew the vatican was STAUNCHLY anti-communist, and anti-Jew as he was. Makes sense to get THE religious presence on the continent to back you if you can get 'em. It furthers the "legitimacy" of your cause, especially when yer the leader of a country of church goers. In simple terms its' called, "Know your audience".
But what you have done is draw a bunch of circles a la Glenn Beck and started making connections that simply don't exist.

You do see that all of your arguments rely entirely on the supposition that "he lied about it all" and that is unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. All the evidence shows that throughout his life he was not only a faithful believing christian but that the church itself had no small importance.

I'm not drawing imaginary links. You just keep refuting all this links under the theory "he was just pretending". By using that logic anybodies christianity can be refuted. Hell your Hitler youth pope could just be pretending so he can wear a funny hat and ride in the pope mobile.

Hell for that matter Jesus Christ was just pretending and there really is no god.

Of course even if Hitler was pretending what does that say about the church and all those good catholics who went along with him? Doesn't say much about them does it? How about the millions of Germans who were christians and went along with him?

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

I'm not going to dispute that the Catholic church he attended when he was younger may have helped plant the seeds of his hatred for the Jews. In either case, it becomes readily apparent that his hatred really took flame based on his perceptions in and of Germany after WW1.

That is rather nice of you to concede a point that is simply a matter of historical record. Notice your choice of words though? "the Catholic church he attended when he was younger". In other words you are perfectly willing to admit the guilt of a single catholic church and heap all the blame on them but you don't want to accept the anti-semitism that permeated not only the catholic church as a whole but European and NA society as a whole including most the other christian sects. You'll also note that one of the reasons Hitler himself cited for not winning WW1 was because of his belief that Germany had turned its back on god, a belief echoed by many many leaders throughout history for a variety of reasons and across the globe of faiths.

At the same time you are also admitting Hitler received his anti-semitic influence from a christian church.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

But let's stop with the history again for a sec cuz this really begs the question; if the rampant anti-Jew sentiments in the west are all religion's fault, why are there anti-Jew atheists? Can't really blame the church for that now can ya?

First off you just admitted that Hitler received his anti-semitism from a church. You are perfectly willing to blame that church because its only a single church and you can tolerate a tiny fraction so you can simply dismiss it as an outlier.

Second, just because Atheists might be anti-semetic doesn't mean they do so for the reasons christians are. For example christians say the Jews killed jesus and that is there reason. Atheists might say they hate them for the same reasons they hate christians, namely they are just another religion to hate. The reason for one groups hate has nothing to do with the reason for another groups hate and they are mutually exclusive.

Third, you seem to make the ludicrous example that since there are Atheist anti-semites that it automatically means the church can't be blamed. What logic did you use to arrive at that conclusion.

Forth, you are simply ignoring all the many other verified examples of anti-semitism in christian churches. Shall I re-reference Martin Luther again? How about the pope reinstated a special prayer to convert Jews? That is anti-semitism.

Are you honestly doubting the wide spread anti-semitism that has existed in christian churches and society in general for a very very long time?

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

See Derb, this is my point. Your claim that Hitler was a Christian is simply another way for atheists to claim how evil religion TRULY is cuz Hitler "was a God-fearin' Cathloic man". You guys are the ones trying to revise history by playing a convoluted game of connect-the-dots.

No, my claim is based on factual evidence and used almost exclusively to show that contrary to christian propaganda christians do in fact commit atrocities then and now. I don't claim all christians are evil.

For you to dismiss Hitlers christianity you need to mitigate, minimize, and out right dismiss a very large volume of evidence showing that nowhere does Hitler ever profess anything but a christian belief. Far from some 9/11 conspiracy attempt showing the twin towers demolition and and claiming that independent associated people lied such as the flight 95 conspiracy nuts who claim they lied, your claims rely entirely on the supposition he was pretending throughout his life, a theory that has no basis in evidence.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

What's really funny is, megalomaniacs tend NOT to believe in God, and Hitler was, by every definition of the word, a megalomaniac.

Can you back that up with any verifiable evidence? I don't think so since its not a hall mark symptom of Atheism. It is however s symptom of the type of people that run TV evangelist ministries though. Fits them quite nicely.

Nope. In fact a symptom of megalomania is believing that their god thinks highly of them and that he is speaking to him and trusting him to do his work.

Now, notice though how you are perfectly willingly to infer that Hitler was in fact an Atheist. You are perfectly willing to draw a link to Hitler and Atheism based entirely on your perception that megalomaniacs tend to not believe in any god. Even of this is in fact true that doesn't mean that some megalomanics do believe in a god and/or Hitler didn't. You are willingly to make such a supposition based on zero evidence while refuting a careful analysis based on volumes of evidence.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

One last piece of info for ya Derb. I'm the LAST person yer gonna see defend the horrors the Catholic Church visited upon millions of people throughout its history, but claiming Hitler was not only a believer but a devout Christian is quite frankly, laughable.

Nope. It is based on historical evidence. Again, to hammer the point home the only way you can refute the volume of evidence is to put forth the unsupported theory that he lied.

It is a slap in the face of the victims of the holocaust not to understand and admit the truth of what happened.

BTW, I'll note again you are willing to single out the catholic church rather then christian churches. More then just the catholics have done this throughout history.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Oh wait, that's right, he wanted to be a priest. My friend's dad went through the seminary and got his D.D. He's an atheist now. Still has friends in the church though so I guess that means he's actually still a Christian right?

Does he still proclaim his faith in the divinity of JC and express that he is to this day a christian like Hitler did right up until he put a bullet in his head?

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Now, here's the really funny thing. Thanos gave me a wiki link as "evidence" of Hitler's Christianity, and yet, THIS wiki link states the opposite, that he in fact USED the church and did NOT believe in it.

Again, I have provided links that deal specifically with that and the laughable idea that a few minor nazi officials with only a few heavily edited pieces of work can invalidate or trump that massive amount of evidence that exists supporting the fact Hitler was a believing christian and the connection that belief played in the holocaust.

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Seems just a little incongruous with YOUR revisionsit view of history there Derb.

Well as everybody can now see I have refuted every point you have made. Again, the only 2 arguments that Hitler was something other then a christian rely on a) He lied about everything; and B) he didn't act like how I think a christian should act so therefore he isn't one.

The argument that Hitler was indeed a christian is supported by his entire historical documented speeches and writings and the very manner in which he showed his willingness and desire to include christianity (albeit his version of it) in every facet of German life.

That is what the evidence supports and that is why denying not only the fact of his christianity but that link that it played in the holocaust. Everything else is simply ahistorical revisionist drek.

[BartSimpson]

fifeboy fifeboy:

The Holocaust was just the last in a long line of pogroms.

Unfortunately, it was not the last pogrom. The Soviets persisted in persecuting Jews until the fall of the USSR and now with 'Tsar' Putin's reign the persecution of Jews is again starting to be an issue in Russia as anyone who is not Orthodox is an open target.

And, given the open hatred of Christians and Christianity that seems prevalent in the West these days it will not surprise me to see anti-Christian pogroms in my lifetime.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

DerbyX DerbyX:

[

Well as everybody can now see I have refuted every point you have made. Again, the only 2 arguments that Hitler was something other then a christian rely on a) He lied about everything; and B) he didn't act like how I think a christian should act so therefore he isn't one.

Actually, you haven't refuted shit and made yourself look foolish in the process. All you've done is confirmed that yes indeed, Hitler was a showman and "knew his audience".
Here's a nice quote from Goebbels on the subject. "The Fuhrer is deeply religous, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race... Both [Judaism and Christianity] have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end, they will be destroyed."

Of course, you little revisionists always seem to forget this little entity in Germany: THE NAZI MASTER PLAN Annex 4: The Persecution of the Christian Churches.



(The above is a photo of a Nazi belt-buckle saying "Gott mit uns" -- or "God with us", in English. Which conception of god is being referred to is of course not specified. Nazism did have some attachment to old pagan gods and even Allah found some favour)


"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 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 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.

-- Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)



So was Hitler really a Christian or was he just using the knowledge of Christianity that came from his Catholic schooling as a propaganda tool? I think the deeds of his regime answer that much more clearly than words could, so let us look at what Nazism did and tried to do:

Adolf Hitler was politically astute enough to maintain some public distance between himself and the Neo-Pagan ideologues of the Nazi Party. But he was not far from them at heart. After his death documentation became available showing that Hitler had approved grandiose plans to wean the German churches away from Christianity and into the Neo-Pagan fold. To quote Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:

"...under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists. As Bormann, one of the men closest to Hitler, said publicly in 1941, 'National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.'

What the Hitler government envisioned for Germany was clearly set out in a thirty-point program for the 'National Reich Church' drawn up during the war by Rosenberg, an outspoken pagan...


"The National Reich Church of Germany categorically claims the exclusive right and the exclusive power to control all churches within the borders of the Reich: it declares these to be national churches of the German Reich.

"The National Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably...the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800...

"The National Church has no scribes, pastors, chaplains or priests, but National Reich orators are to speak in them.

"The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany...'"

"On the altars there must be nothing but 'Mein Kampf' (to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book) and to the left of the altar a sword.

"On the day of its foundation, the Christian Cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals and chapels...and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika."

(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer, p. 240 in some editions, p. 332 in others. Chapter headed "Triumph and Consolidation", subsection "The Persecution of the Christian Churches")



Martin Bormann was faithful to Hitler till the end, sprinkling gasoline on the bodies after Hitler's suicide. This true believer put it this way:


"National Socialist and Christian concepts are incompatible. The Christian Churches build upon the ignorance of men and strive to keep large portions of the people in ignorance because only in this way can the Christian Churches maintain their power. On the other hand, National Socialism is based on scientific foundations. Christianity's immutable principles, which were laid down almost two thousand years ago, have increasingly stiffened into life-alien dogmas. National Socialism, however, if it wants to fulfill its task further, must always guide itself according to the newest data of scientific researches.

"The Christian Churches have long been aware that exact scientific knowledge poses a threat to their existence. Therefore, by means of such pseudo-sciences as theology, they take great pains to suppress or falsify scientific research...No one would know anything about Christianity if pastors had not crammed it down his throat in his childhood. The so-called loving God by no means reveals the knowledge of His existence to young people, but amazingly enough, and despite His omnipotence, He leaves this to the efforts of a pastor. When in the future our youth no longer hear anything about this Christianity, whose doctrine is far below our own, Christianity will automatically disappear.

"[...] When we National Socialists speak of a belief in God...[we mean] [t]he force which moves all these bodies in the universe, in accordance with natural law, is what we call the Almighty or God. The assertion that this world-force can worry about the fate of every individual, every bacillus on earth, and that it can be influenced by so-called prayer or other astonishing things, is based either on a suitable dose of naivete or on outright commercial effrontery."

"Any influence that would impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by the Fuhrer with the aid of the NSDAP has to be eliminated. To an ever increasing degree the people must be wrested from Churches and their agents, the pastors...Only the Reich leadership, together with the party and the organs and associations connected with it, has a right to lead the people. Just as the harmful influence of astrologists, soothsayers, and other swindlers has been suppressed by the state, so it must be absolutely impossible for the Church to exercise its old influence."

(Martin Bormann, Reich Leader, 1942, 'National Socialist and Christian Concepts are Incompatible', From Kirchliches Jahrbuch fur die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, 1933-1944, pp. 470-472, quoted pp. 245-247, George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: A Documentary History).

Hitler's contempt for Christians and the Bible was genuine and well-attested. Of Roman Catholic upbringing, he was, however, a theist, who seems to have had a vague religious faith, attributing his escape from Stauffenberg's bomb to "Providence." (Colonel Stauffenberg had placed a briefcase containing a bomb at the Fuhrer's feet, then hastily departed. Not owing to any break in the course of nature, but simply because somebody found the clumsy briefcase to be in the way, it had been moved before exploding, and Hitler survived.) He spoke to the nation: "The bomb planted by Colonel Count Stauffenberg exploded two meters to the right of me...I myself an entirely unhurt, aside from some very minor scratches, bruises and burns. I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence..." (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer, p. 1069). He considered this "Providence" to favor the strong over the weak:


"...I may be no pious churchgoer, but deep within me I am nevertheless a devout man. That is to say, I believe that he who fights valiantly obeying the laws which a god has established and who never capitulates but instead gathers his forces time after time and always pushes forward---such a man will not be abandoned by the Lawgiver. Rather, he will ultimately receive the blessing of Providence."

(Adolf Hitler, in his June 26, 1944 speech to industrialists, quoted by Albert Speer, p. 555, Inside the Third Reich.)


But He was no Christian, and his movement was no celebration of Christianity. He thought ill of Christianity, preferring Islam for its warrior spirit:


"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 much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"

(Adolf Hitler, quoted by Albert Speer, p. 96, Inside the Third Reich.)

The "meekness and flabbiness" to which Hitler objected in Christianity fell straight from the lips of its Founder: "But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also." (Matthew 5:39).

While it is difficult to fix the boundary between the fringe and the mainstream, the general tenor of Nazi ideology was in favor of the old Nordic paganism and against Christianity:


"The German people is no longer blinded by illusions as at the time of the Reformation. It has come to recognize not only Judaism, but Christianity too, as foreign to its genius.-- Der Blitz, January 12, 1936, quoted p. 6, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"But today a new faith is awakening: the myth of the blood...Then in place of the Old Testament stories of cattle breeders and the exploitation of prostitutes, we shall have the Nordic sagas and fairy tales, at first simply recounted, later assuming the form of symbols." (Alfred Rosenberg, Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1932, quoted p. 6, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"The teaching of mercy and love of one's neighbor is foreign to the German race and the Sermon on the Mount is according to Nordic sentiment an ethic for cowards and idiots.-- Hans Hauptmann, Bolshevism in the Bible (Nazi textbook), 1937, quoted p. 28, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"If Jehovah has lost all meaning for us Germans, the same must be said of Jesus Christ, his son...He certainly lacks those characteristics which he would require to be a true German. Indeed, he is as disappointing, if we read his record carefully, as is his father.-- E. K. Heidemann, 'What the Christian Does not Know about Christianity,' September, 1935, quoted p. 105, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).
And perhaps a summary of the conclusions of Michael Burleigh should also form a summary here. Burleigh is the historian who has perhaps done most to look at the relationship between Nazism and religion:
"In both The Third Reich and Sacred Causes, Burleigh emphasizes the widely unknown or deliberately ignored fact that the strongest opposition to Nazi ideology and criminality came from conservative "men of God." This is no accident. While left-wing critics of Nazism wrongly saw in it only a virulent version of either "late capitalism" or German nationalism, its conservative Christian opponents were far more sensitive to the movement's profoundly antitraditional character. The more discerning among them saw in Nazism nothing less than a "revolution of nihilism." And not a few of them courageously rose to the challenge of resisting the new barbarism.

In addition to Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen, the "lion of Munster," who in a series of famous sermons in 1941 denounced the murderous Nazi euthanasia campaign, some of the Austrian and German bishops did not shrink from attacking the "racist madness" of Nazism. In his great encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (1938), written pointedly in German and clandestinely smuggled into Germany, Pope Pius XI attacked modern racialism, the cynical Nazi appropriation of Christian symbolism, nationalist idolatry, and a false cult of human greatness. Likewise, in the first encyclical of his pontificate, Summi pontificis, released in the fall of 1939, Pius XII affirmed the "fundamental unity" of the human race and expressed his profound sympathy for the plight of Poland. The whole world had no doubt at the time whom the same pontiff had in mind in his 1942 Christmas message when he spoke of "the hundreds of thousands of innocent people put to death or doomed to slow extinction, sometimes merely because of their race or descent." This prudent, perhaps too prudent, diplomat-pope, despising National Socialism but solicitous of putting an end to a suicidal total war, helped inspire the heroic witness of groups like Temoignage chretien in France (whose anti-Nazi pamphleteers included such eminent philosophers and theologians as Gaston Fessard and Henri de Lubac) as well as the Italian Catholics who saved tens of thousands of Jews in the fall of 1944 when the Nazis unleashed full scale war against the Jews in occupied Italy.

The rewriting of history to suggest that the Christian West was somehow culpable in the murderous agenda of the National Socialists is one of the greatest intellectual distortions of our time.



Hitler and the Nazis enjoyed widespread support from traditional Christian communities, mainly due to a common cause against the anti-religious German Bolsheviks. Once in power, the Nazis moved to consolidate their power over the German churches and bring them in line with Nazi ideals. The Third Reich founded their own version of Christianity called Positive Christianity which made major changes in its interpretation of the Bible which said that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but was not a Jew and claimed that Christ despised Jews, and that the Jews were the ones solely responsible for Christ's death. Thus, the Nazi government consolidated religious power, using allies to consolidate Protestant churches into the Protestant Reich Church, which was effectively an arm of the Nazi Party.

Dissenting Christians went underground and formed the Confessing Church, which was persecuted as a subversive group by the Nazi government. Many of its leaders were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and left the underground mostly leaderless. Church members continued to engage in various forms of resistance, including hiding Jews during the Holocaust and various attempts, largely unsuccessful, to prod the Christian community to speak out on the part of the Jews.

The Catholic Church was particularly suppressed in Poland because of the Church's opposition to many of Nazi Party's beliefs. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members, 18% of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps. In the annexed territory of Reichsgau Wartheland it was even harsher than elsewhere. Churches were systematically closed, and most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. The Germans also closed seminaries and convents persecuting monks and nuns throughout Poland. In Pomerania, all but 20 of the 650 priests were shot or sent to concentration camps. Eighty percent of the Catholic clergy and five of the bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; in the city of Breslau (Wrocław), 49% of its Catholic priests were killed; in Chełmno, 48%. One hundred eight of them are regarded as blessed martyrs. Among them, Maximilian Kolbe was canonized as a saint.

Protestants in Poland did not fare well either. In the Cieszyn region of Silesia every single Protestant clergy was arrested and deported to the death camps.

Not only were Polish Christians persecuted by the Nazis, in the Dachau concentration camp alone, 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 different countries were killed.

Yep, he sure looks like a Christian to me.
I'd love to stick around to see what other histories you'd like to revise, but if I'm gonna read fantasy I'd at least prefer to read well written and thought out fantasy.

[DerbyX]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Actually, you haven't refuted shit and made yourself look foolish in the process. All you've done is confirmed that yes indeed, Hitler was a showman and "knew his audience".

Not according to all the support PMs I got.

Now you go and cite the OSS document, jewel of the nuremberg deception, Annex 4, and AND you quoted Michael Borlans "table talk"

On Borlan:

$1:

A movement is often defined by its leader, and Christian
apologists have tried to perpetuate the "Adolf Hitler hated Christianity" myth for decades. Towards this end, they rely heavily on questionable sources such as "Hitler's Table Talk" or "The Voice of Destruction", even though they rely exclusively on uncorroborated hearsay accounts of private conversations supposedly held with Hitler. There are no audio/video recordings or manuscripts of these conversations (in the former case, the original manuscripts were destroyed after
having been "edited" by Bormann), and their nature is highly suspect. Are we to seriously believe accounts so contradictory with all other sources such as Hitler's writings and public speeches, not to mention his conversations with men
close to him such as Hess, Himmler, Goebbels, and Goring? Are we to seriously believe that Hitler would spill his secrets even after having been informed that his words were being documented for posterity?

On the Nuremberg Deception:

$1:

The OSS document


The prize jewel on the RJLR revival of Nuremberg propaganda is
an OSS document ("The Nazi Master Plan, Annex 4",
hereafter referred to as "the OSS document") which was
prepared for use as evidence in the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Its accusations were designed to show that the Nazi regime was
"persecuting the Christian churches in Germany and occupied
Europe"1. Notice the use of language: "persecuting the Christian
churches", as if there was some special hatred for Christianity in the Nazi regime. Need it even be said that if any religious or quasi-religious organizations could have been said to suffer special persecution under the Nazi regime, it was obviously the Jewish synagogues, not to mention the Communists? How
could the virulently anti-Semitic American Christians of 1945 stand
up and declare that the Nazis had a special grudge against
Christians, while keeping a perfectly straight face?


Right from the outset, the document reveals the dishonesty of
its intent. If its goal is to demonstrate the Nazis' attack on
"religious liberties" by using the Christian
churches as its prime example, it represents an astoundingly
audacious slap in the face to all of the Jews and Communists who
survived the horrors of the Holocaust! It can rightly be said that
as potentially competitors for the "hearts and mind" of
the public, virtually all public organizations suffered a
loss of liberties under Nazism, but if we were to list all of those
organizations in order, the indignities suffered by Christian
churches would come near the end of the list, not the
beginning! However, one must remember the context in which it was
written: postwar America was strongly Christian and highly
intolerant of both Jews and Communists. Its propagandists wished to
distance themselves from the Nazis as much as possible, hence their
desire to "prove" that the war was a battle of godless
Nazis against God-fearing Christians.


The rabid anti-Semitism of the era is no secret, as demonstrated
by countless incidents such as the infamous "Voyage of the
Damned"2. While they might have recoiled at Hitler's "Final Solution", it
seems likely that they did not find particular fault with his
persecution of Marxist or Jewish practices, so they may have
honestly felt that the Christian churches were the best
example of restricting "religious liberties". In reading
the document, I find that while Christian apologists would like to
use it as proof of the Nazis' anti-Christian policies, it is
nothing of the sort.


The OSS Document's Glaring Fallacy


Before we begin, I should note that one can paraphrase the basic
logic of the document as follows:


"Hitler tried to take control of the German
Christian churches. Their freedoms were restricted, and they were
arrested or killed if they spoke out against Nazi policies.
Christian churches outside Germany were treated even more harshly.
Therefore, the Nazis were actively persecuting Christian
churches."


This is a obvious non sequitur. To persecute is to
"pursue in a manner to injure, grieve, or afflict; to beset
with cruelty or malignity; to harass; especially, to afflict,
harass, punish, or put to death, for adherence to a particular
religious creed or mode of worship."3 Take particular note of the
phrase "for adherence to a particular religious creed".
In other words, in order to show that the Nazis were persecuting
the Christian churches, they would have had to show that they were
mistreated for being Christian, not for resisting Nazi rule,
opposing the Nazi party, or being foreigners. Therefore, examples
of mistreatment which arose from refusal to accept Nazi hegemony or
from vocal opposition to Nazi policies are a red
herring.


Moreover, a finding of persecution requires that a particular
group is being singled out, ie- they are being treated worse than
the rest of the population. And here is where we run into the
document's greatest flaw. Every indignity suffered by the
Christian churches under Nazism was also suffered by the German
population as a whole. Hitler wanted to control the
activities of the German people. Their freedoms were restricted,
and they were arrested or killed if they spoke out against Nazi
policies. Does this mean that the Nazis were persecuting the German
people?


The OSS document never even attempts to justify its leap
in logic from general mistreatment to active persecution. In
essence, it argues that B is true because A is true (punctuating
the point with a long list of examples), even though A is
not equivalent to B! Keep this in mind as we look through
the document in more detail.

The Accusations


The OSS document levels the following accusations against the
Nazis:


"Throughout the period of National Socialist rule,
religious liberties in Germany and in the occupied areas were
seriously impaired. The various Christian churches were
systematically cut off from effective communication with the
people. They were confined as far as possible to the performance of
narrowly religious functions, and even within this narrow sphere
were subjected to as many hindrances as the Nazis dared to
impose."


These accusations are so mild in comparison to the Nazis'
treatment of other public organizations that they seem almost
sheepish. The Christian churches were not allowed free
"communication", they were confined to "religious
functions", and they were subject to various
"hindrances"? How does this compare to being outlawed and
imprisoned (or even killed) across the board (not just for defying
the authorities), as was the case with all organizations of
Communists, Jews, and free thinkers?

Glossing over Obvious Objections


The OSS document is filled with obvious distortions, and it
repeatedly glosses over painfully obvious objections. For example,
it states that:


"Although the principal Christian churches of
Germany had long been associated with conservative ways of thought,
which means that they tended to agree with the National Socialists
in their authoritarianism, in their attacks on Socialism and
Communism, and in their campaign against the Versailles treaty,
their doctrinal commitments could not be reconciled with the
principle of racism, with a foreign policy of unlimited aggressive
warfare, or with a domestic policy involving the complete
subservience of Church to State."5


Notice how they claim that the "doctrinal commitments"
of church forbid racism, even though European colonialism was
characterized by incredible racism throughout its entire history
and anti-Semitism was still such a worldwide problem in 1945 that
postwar American Jews often changed their names to conceal their
ethnicity and avoid persecution6! They also claim that the
"doctrinal commitments" of church forbid "unlimited
aggressive warfare", even though Christians have eagerly
engaged in warfare for either church or state for nearly two
thousand years. Both racism and warfare can be easily reconciled
with Christian beliefs, and have been for many centuries. The
real problem, which they try to present as one of a list, is
the third item: complete subservience to the state. That
offends church doctrine, and that was the real sticking
point between the Nazis and the churches. But as previously stated,
Nazi demands for complete subservience were a problem common to
all German citizens regardless of religion, so it cannot be
used as a legitimate example of special persecution directed
against Christianity.


The OSS document also makes special note of the "radically
anti-Christian position"7 of Alfred
Rosenberg, but this is a distortion: Alfred Rosenberg believed that
Jesus was a Nordic warrior whose legacy was distorted by his
followers, and he seized upon Jesus' statement that he came to
bring "not peace, but a sword"8 (not to
mention his subsequent statement that we should treat followers of
other religions as "enemies"). Rosenberg promoted a
vision of "positive Christianity" in which he promoted
his own view of Jesus' legacy (naturally, a Nordic-tinged
version), but this hardly amounts to a "radically
anti-Christian" position! Moreover, the document acknowledges
that Rosenberg's "Myth of the Twentieth Century" is
not as authoritative as Hitler's Mein Kampf (no surprise) as a
description of the Nazi agenda, yet it conspicuously fails to note
that Mein Kampf is filled with statements which make Hitler's
personal Christianity painfully obvious! Were there pagans in the
Nazi party? Undoubtedly. There were homosexuals too. But does this
somehow change the party's agenda? Not at all.


Another obvious objection (lack of credible evidence) was
quietly acknowledged and then glossed over by the document's
authors:


"The Problem of Proof. The best evidence now
available as to the existence of an anti-Church plan is to be found
in the systematic nature of the persecution itself."9


By admitting that they have no evidence apart from their
creative interpretations of Nazi actions, they are admitting that
despite tens of thousands of secret documents and hundreds of
tons of crated papers unearthed from various Nazi sites
around Germany, they couldn't find a single official document
sanctioning this mythical campaign of persecution against the
Christian churches! Instead, they must be content with examining
their behaviour, attempting to assign questionable motives to it,
and ignoring less problematic explanations.


Another massive problem with the notion of organized
anti-Christian persecution is the presence of practicing Christians
within the Nazi party, and often in stratospherically high
positions of power. Hess, Himler, Goebbels, and Göring were
all Christians, and these men represented much of the Nazi party
elite! The document acknowledges this, but in a deceptively worded
manner:


"Some Nazi leaders or sympathizers, and some later
collaborationists who were faithful Catholics or Protestants, such
as von Epp, Buttman and von Papen, may have been left in ignorance
of the real aim of Nazi church policy."10


Isn't it interesting that they would mention relatively
low-ranking Nazis or Nazi sympathizers who were known to be
Christian, but they would ignore men like Hess, Himmler, Goebbels,
and Göring? Together, these men constituted Hitler's
longtime confidante (not to mention his deputy fuehrer until his
strange flight across the lines), his SS leader, his propaganda
minister, and the leader of his Luftwaffe! This paragraph is
technically not a lie, but it carefully glosses over damning
portions of the truth. Its authors undoubtedly knew that
revelations about the religious faith of the Nazi party elite would
not be popular, but they were nevertheless forced to admit that
some Nazis were Christian, while doggedly clinging to their belief
that the Nazis opposed Christianity! Their only explanation for
this glaring inconsistency is the preposterous claim that these men
were kept in the dark but not molested in any way.


Perhaps the most glorious example of the OSS document's
refusal to accept the truth is the following admission:


"the Nazi government ... abolished the right to
pursue anti-religious and anti-Church propaganda. The Prussian
government closed the so-called secular (weltliche) schools in
which no religious instruction was given and re-established
religious instruction in professional and vocational schools. All
organizations of free-thinkers were forbidden."11


These actions are clearly anti-secular in nature, not
anti-Christian. The Nazis made it illegal to speak out against
religion or the Christian churches. They closed all secular
schools, and introduced school prayer and religious instruction in
all educational institutions. They outlawed all free thought
organizations. This is blatant disproof of the document's
central claims of anti-Christian persecution, yet its authors
happily glossed over this problem without skipping a beat, and
dismissed it nothing but a clever deception, designed to fool
Christians into believing that the Nazis were with them.


In a similar vein, the OSS document acknowledges that Hitler
made numerous pro-Christian statements, such as the following:


"... creating and ensuring the prerequisites for a
really deep inner religiosity ... the struggle against a
materialistic philosophy and for the creation of a true folk
community serves the interests of the German nation as well as our
Christian belief."12


It also acknowledges that despite the Nazi party's overt
racism and militarism, German Catholics "hastened now to
join"13, even
though it had previously claimed that there were irreconcilable
"doctrinal" incompatibilities between Christianity and
Nazism! Yet again, no one points out that the Emperor has no
clothes, and the authors of the document stubbornly soldier on
toward their pre-ordained conclusion that the Nazis were
anti-Christian.


Perhaps an even more fantastic refusal to accept reality comes
later, when the document acknowledges that the German churches
"derived their main financial support from state collected
taxes"14, ie- they
were officially funded by the state. But in yet another
example of their amazing audacity, the authors actually tried to
paint a picture of persecution despite this fact, by
pointing out that the Nazis tried to tell them how to use the
money, and that they restricted other forms of income!


Leaping in Logic


The OSS document repeatedly attempts to prove that the Nazis
were persecuting churches by demonstrating that the churches were
subject to the same restrictions that applied to the rest of German
society. In effect, through a perverse leap in logic, they conclude
that the churches were being persecuted because they did not
receive special exemptions from Nazi policies! For
example:


"The Nazis believed that the Churches could be
starved and strangled of all means of communication with the
faithful beyond the Church building themselves, and terrorized in
such a manner that no Churchman would dare to speak out openly
against Nazi policies."15


Yes, the Nazis did not permit church associations outside the
church, and they did not let churchmen speak out against them. But
is this evidence of persecution, or is it evidence of special
protection? Consider: the Nazis disbanded any and all
associations which could act as competitors for the "hearts
and minds" of the public, and the churches actually received a
partial exemption from this rule: they could associate, but only
within the confines of the church. This may have been only a
partial exemption, but it was still an exemption!
Communists, Jews, and free thought organizations did not receive
such special treatment, did they? And was anyone anywhere in
German society permitted to speak out against Nazi policies without
fear? It is a clear and blatant deception to claim that the
inability of churchmen to speak out against the Nazis was evidence
of special persecution.


In another example of the OSS document's unapologetic leaps
in logic, it boldly produces more "evidence" for its
conclusion:


"... purging Reich, state and municipal
administrations of officials appointed for their adherence to the
Center or Bavarian People's parties. Former leaders of those
parties, including priests, joined Communist and Social
Democrat leaders in the concentration camps ..."16


They persecuted members of opposing political parties, even if
they happened to be priests? Not to put too fine a point on it, but
so what? These men were obviously persecuted for their political
affiliations, not their religious faith! It is amazing that the
authors of the OSS document could somehow maintain a perfectly
straight face while pretending that the imprisonment of political
opponents who happened to be Christian was an example of
anti-Christian persecution. Yet again, its authors pretend that if
Christians don't receive special exemptions from Nazi
policies, they are being "persecuted".


The assault upon reason continues:


"A meeting of the Bavarian bishops adopted a
solemn statement directed against the tendency of attributing to
the state alone the right of educating, organizing and leading
ideologically the German youth."17


The OSS document goes on to state that the Nazis began breaking
up Catholic meetings shortly after this public act of defiance,
without acknowledging that the motivation behind this action was
obviously the bishops' open defiance of Nazi hegemony, and
not the fact that they were Christians. If any
organization had spoken out publicly against Nazi hegemony, they
would have suffered for it, and probably through much more painful
means than the mere breakup of public meetings.


In yet another fanciful leap in logic, the document's
authors acknowledge that the Nazis treated the German Protestant
churches differently than the foreign-controlled Roman Catholic
church, and that they actually tried to assimilate it into their
organization, or in their words, "capture and use the church
organization for their own purposes."18 Sure enough, there were
numerous Nazi-controlled churches, which Hitler tried to weld into
the so-called "Faith Movement of German Christians".
Reverend Joachim Hossenfelder called it "the Storm Troops of
Jesus Christ", and it proclaimed that "In the person of
the Fuhrer we behold the One sent from God who places Germany in
the presence of the Lord of History." It is apparent that
Hitler was no different from hundreds of other Christian cult
leaders through history (such as the founder of the Mormons), who
thought of themselves as new prophets, or modern Messiahs who would
carry on Christ's work. At no point do they acknowledge that
the Nazis did not attempt to assimilate Communist or free thought
organizations into their fold, and that this is obviously evidence
in favour of the Nazis' Christian leanings, not against
them.


Indeed, the OSS document is awash with examples of these Nazi
attempts to assimilate the German churches. The appointment of a
Reich Bishop19 (Ludwig
Muller) and a Reich Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs20 (Hanns Kerrl), and the passing
of "a law for the safeguarding of the German Evangelical
Church" are all explicitly mentioned, yet nowhere does the
document acknowledge that this is curiously inconsistent with the
notion that they wished to persecute Christianity. Had the authors
completely forgotten the definition of persecution? Look to the
Jews and the Communists for examples of real persecution;
there was certainly no attempt to assimilate them into the
Nazi party, was there?


The travesty continues, as the document acknowledges that in
occupied territories such as Slovakia,


"where the Churches proved generally cooperative
with the occupying authorities, they were officially favored. But
in countries where the spirit of national resistance was widely
supported by the local churches, the Nazis felt no compunction
about persecuting them vigorously. The countries to suffer most in
this respect were the General Government of Poland and occupied
Norway."21


Need it even be said that this is yet more evidence for
the Nazi policy of persecuting real or potential sources of
political opposition, rather than a campaign of persecution
against Christianity? How much more blatant does it need to be?
Christian churches which co-operated were treated well, and
Christian churches which supported active resistance were punished.
How does this distinguish them from any other group within
Nazi-controlled territory? How many times can the document's
authors misrepresent a lack of special exemptions as
"persecution"?


Unfortunately, the answer to that question is: "a
lot of times". In fact, after laying out their clearly
fallacious leap from point A to point B, the authors begin to
exhaustively list examples of point A. The fact that point A does
not lead to point B is quietly ignored, if it had ever
occurred to them in the first place.


At one point, they try to paint a picture of Nazi suppression of
religious education (amazingly enough, despite Nazi enactment of
state-sponsored school prayer and religious indoctrination, not to
mention forced closure of all secular schools and criminalization
of anti-religious and anti-church propaganda), using examples such
as the theological faculty of the University of Munich22. In this example, the Reich
Minister for Public Instruction (Rust) appointed two professors
which Cardinal Faulhaber categorically rejected. When he instructed
his students to boycott their classes, Rust closed the faculty.
Once again, punishment for acts of defiance is magically
transformed into "anti-Christian persecution" in the eyes
of the OSS. Other examples betray similar dishonesty; case
6723 describes
the last "independent" theological school in Norway being
closed, but it quietly acknowledges that it was only closed so that
the Department of Church and Education could create an
alternate theological program, designed to produce pro-Nazi
clergymen.


The document's use of quotes is invariably misleading. It
quotes the Nazi Minister for Public Instruction (Rust) declaring
that "the exercise of denominational influences in the
education of the young is from now on, and for all times,
impossible. From that it follows as a consequence that
denominational distinctions between German schools should be
brought to an end as soon as possible."24 Notice that he speaks only of
eliminating "denominational distinctions" in favour of a
single unified religion. This is completely consistent with the
Nazi "one faith" policy, yet it is misrepresented in the
OSS document as an attempt to attack Christianity!


Conclusions


Throughout its tedious bulk, the OSS document consistently
glosses over obvious objections, and it consistently misrepresents
attacks on other specific denominations as attacks on Christianity
as a whole. It claims that Hitler's attempt to create a unified
German Christian sect with himself at its head (much like the way
the Mormons' "Modern-day Prophets" set themselves at
the head of their sect, or the way the Pope sets himself at the
head of the Roman Catholic church) was actually an attempt to
destroy Christianity (by that token, the Catholic and Mormon
churches are both attempts to destroy Christianity). It
misrepresents Nazi attempts to replace denominational
religious texts with their own German Christian texts as
attempts at "elimination of religious instruction"
(again, if we employ that logic, the Catholic church is
anti-Christian). It makes a point of mentioning that many hundreds
of clergymen were imprisoned or killed, while quietly glossing over
the fact that tens of thousands were not. In general, it
consistently misrepresents Nazi mistreatment of the German people
as special persecution of Christianity whenever Christians just
happened to be ensnared by policies which applied to the
entire population.


Moreover, the document admits that churches which were friendly
to the Nazis were treated well in return, despite its claims of an
organized program of anti-Christian persecution. It admits that
there were Christians within the Nazi party (although it
conspicuously fails to mention the presence of high-ranking
Christians such as Himmler, Goebbels, and Göring), it admits
that the Nazi party undertook numerous harsh and conspicuous
anti-secular, pro-religious actions, it admits that it hasn't a
shred of hard documentary evidence for the existence of this
large-scale plan of persecution, and it admits that Hitler himself
made pro-Christian statements! Yet it simply ignores all of these
things, because its conclusion is obviously pre-ordained, and it
really didn't matter to its authors whether the evidence added
up. Perhaps most amazingly of all, almost every one of these
inconsistencies is easily visible right in the text of the document
itself, without even bothering to consult external sources! In a
classic example of the slothful induction fallacy, the authors
simply dismiss every one of the Nazis' pro-Christian actions as
part of a propaganda campaign to pretend that they were
pro-Christian, thus creating a theory which is carefully designed
to be completely unfalsifiable no matter how much evidence is
dredged up against it.


In conclusion, the OSS document is an excellent example of the
sort of deceptive postwar propaganda which led to the creaton of
many modern myths surrounding Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Its
methods are wholly illogical, its conclusions are unsupportable,
and its self-contradictions are seemingly innumerable. And the most
amazing thing of all is that in the year 2001, Rutgers law students
would dredge this up, dust it off, and present it to the public as
proof positive that Hitler wanted to exterminate Christianity!
Their appeals to authority are not surprising (the legal profession
relies heavily upon appeals to authority and seems blissfully
ignorant of the fact that they are inherently illogical), but it is
a sad statement nonetheless on the inability of Christian
apologists to face the truth. Christianity can only move forward by
confronting its past and vowing never to repeat it, and not
by glossing over the truth.

Yep. The Nuremberg Deception was designed to create the myth that Hitler was anything but a christian.

The only way Hitlers christianity can be refuted is to ignore the massive volume of evidence supporting it with a "he lied" defence which isn't supported by a shred of evidence or to claim a circular logic argument.

Even if one accepts he wasn't a true christian, something many christians say about many other christians based on denomination or sect it still doesn't erase the fact that millions of christian Germans went along with the horrors he planed and executed.

The facts remain and the conclusion remains. That you don't like it does not alter the fact, Hitler was a christian as supported by the evidence.

Oh, and very nice your quote and readily acceptance of his connection to islam. You'll ignore mountains of evidence concerning his christianity but then accept even the smallest of links to any supposed Atheism or muslim beliefs.

Very nice.

[BartSimpson]

Bottom line: Derby hates Christians with about the same amount of reason and logic that Fred Phelps 'hates fags'.

[Scape]

Enough!

Ilock