(Ed) Hitler's Atheism

[Girl 6]

Thaiboxerken... I deleted your post. You know it's wrong... LOL!

G6

 

[Nova Land]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight

Stalin was an atheist too and he is "celebrated" for the "diversity" he brought to the world via atrocities etc, and is glorified in US universities.

When Aaardvark_DK asked, "Could you possibly provide some evidence to back up that assertion?, I think it is the two items from your post I have colored in that he is asking about.

I too would be interested in more specifics about these claims. It's slightly off-topic (and an interesting topic in its own right) so it might be better to hold any essays making arguments about these claims for a new thread. However, if you'd be willing to briefly list sources where people made such statements about Stalin, that would be helpful and would not take up much space.

(1) Who, specifically, you are referring to who has celebrated Stalin for bringing diversity to the world via atrocities?

(2) Which university people ((by name), at which universities (by name), in what venue (specify the course, article, speech, or other source in which glorification occurred, by name) have glorified Stalin?

As to the second claim (glorification), I assume you are right that there are some university professors who have said positive things about Stalin (since there are university professors who have said just about anything), but I am curious how widespread this is. My impression is that it is uncommon, at least as I define "glorify." By providing specific names and references, you will enable me and others to check out and understand what you are talking about, which is the easiest way to convince me of something. If you provide a large number of names, all of which check out, you will have convinced me this is not uncommon.

As to the first claim, I am unfamiliar with anyone who has celebrated Stalin for bringing diversity via atrocities, which is why I would like a reference to anyone you are familiar with who has actually said this. Again, being referred to the actual quote (or quotes, if you know of more than one person who has said something like this) will let me see for myself that such a bizarre statement was actually made, and to read it in context.

Once I and others have seen that such quotes actually exist and say what you claim, we will be able to verify that you are correct in this assertion. I delight in knowing little-known facts, and what you are asserting is certainly a little-known fact (at least in this forum) so if you are indeed correct I will be glad to add my voice to yours in spreading the word.

 

[Nova Land]

When the Jews started to disappear inside the German state, what were the German people doing? They were helping.

If the Christian Church was in Germany from 1932 - 1940, the Jews would not have been led to concentration camps by the German people...

There may be a couple of words missing here. Are you trying to say these things would not have happened "if the Christian Church was in charge in Germany" during those years? If not I am puzzled by what you are trying to say, since my understanding is that there were numerous Christian groups -- Catholic and Protestant -- in Germany before, during, and after those years. Indeed, many of the people from those churches were the ones who brought Hitler to power.

I agree the Christian Church was not in charge in Germany, but neither was any organized atheist group. Christians were prominent supporters of the group that was in power, and atheists (as far as I know) were not. The Nazis, as I thought you had agreed, maintained a public pretense of Christianity during those years, as evidenced in public speeches and writings.

...
who did it willingly to be loyal to their atheist prince, Hitler himself.

That is what atheism does at the nation-state level.

Were the German people acting under the belief that Hitler was an atheist, or under the belief he was a Christian?

If they were acting under the belief he was an atheist, this would be good evidence for you to present in support of your claim that Hitler was an atheist. I have not seen any such evidence yet in anything I've read.

The fact that the Catholic Church never ex-communicated Hitler allowed him to maintain the public pretense of being a Christian. It was his intention to pose as one and he appears to have been successful. Can you point to any sources from the years 1932 - 1940 in which people allege that Hitler was an atheist? Or, if no one made this claim publicly during that time, can you point to sources in which people, after the Nazis were gone and it was safe to speak, revealed they had thought he was an atheist but were afraid to say it at the time?

 

[Nova Land]

A little while back I said I couldn't find my copies of table talks 47, 48, and 49. I now know why.

While # 47 and # 48 are brief, # 49 is long and extremely interesting -- very relevant to a key issue, Hitler's notion of the origins of Christianity and its relation to Judaism. I had set these pages aside to read more carefully, and then did not put them back with the rest of the stack.

I'm sorry now that I started posting # 51 already. I'm going to lay that aside for the moment, and pick it back up later.

I don't have time to type the relevant portions of # 49 now, so I'll do that early next week. Meanwhile here are # 47 and # 48, both of which are brief.

--------------------------------------
Table Talk # 47
19th October 1941, evening

...I find it a real absurdity that even today a typewriter costs several hundred marks. One can't imagine the time wasted daily in deciphering everybody's scribbles. Why not give lessons in typewriting at primary school? Instead of religious instruction, for example. I shouldn't mind that.
---------------------------------------
This is just a passing swipe at religion. It's minor enough that most people posting material on the web about Hitler probably ignore it. But this is precisely the kind of minor detail that makes me inclined to place some credence in the table talks rather than dismiss them out of hand.

I suspect that many of those who dismiss the table talks have not actually examined them. There are over 300 of these conversations recorded, and they are rambling affairs, touching on many trivial points. These are the kinds of things one says in BS sessions, not the stuff of carefully crafted propaganda.

The danger I see is of taking BS too seriously. People often do not choose their words as carefully in after-dinner conversation as in their formal writing or their planned speeches. And people are often inclined to exaggerate or distort their beliefs in order to make a point they think is witty.

It is therefore necessary to analyze and weigh the remarks carefully before drawing conclusions from them, rather than taking them at face value. But dismissing them entirely does not seem necessary.

----------------------------------------
Table Talk # 48
19th October 1941, night

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. Thus one understnads that the healthy elements of the Roman society were proof against this doctrine.

Yet Rome today allows itself to reproach Bolshevism with having destroyed the Christian churches! As if Christianity hadn't behaved the same way towards the pagan temples.
---------------------------------------------

The remarks in table talk # 48 set the stage for the remarks in # 49, 2 days later, in which Hitler rambles on at length about the Aryan origin of Jesus, how Jews stole and distorted Jesus's ideas, the relationship of Materialism to Judaism, how religion is subversive, a comparison of Paul with Marx, and lots more.

I think this table talk will address several of the questions Jedi has raised, and am looking forward to seeing his (and other people's) analyses of it once I return and have time to post it.

 

[Aardvark_DK]

Originally posted by Nova Land (quoting Hitler)
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. Thus one understnads that the healthy elements of the Roman society were proof against this doctrine.

Well, I think it's safe to say that Hitler wasn't a Christian.

 

[Jedi Knight]

There may be a couple of words missing here. Are you trying to say these things would not have happened "if the Christian Church was in charge in Germany" during those years? If not I am puzzled by what you are trying to say, since my understanding is that there were numerous Christian groups -- Catholic and Protestant -- in Germany before, during, and after those years. Indeed, many of the people from those churches were the ones who brought Hitler to power.

I agree the Christian Church was not in charge in Germany, but neither was any organized atheist group. Christians were prominent supporters of the group that was in power, and atheists (as far as I know) were not. The Nazis, as I thought you had agreed, maintained a public pretense of Christianity during those years, as evidenced in public speeches and writings.
Were the German people acting under the belief that Hitler was an atheist, or under the belief he was a Christian?

If they were acting under the belief he was an atheist, this would be good evidence for you to present in support of your claim that Hitler was an atheist. I have not seen any such evidence yet in anything I've read.

The fact that the Catholic Church never ex-communicated Hitler allowed him to maintain the public pretense of being a Christian. It was his intention to pose as one and he appears to have been successful. Can you point to any sources from the years 1932 - 1940 in which people allege that Hitler was an atheist? Or, if no one made this claim publicly during that time, can you point to sources in which people, after the Nazis were gone and it was safe to speak, revealed they had thought he was an atheist but were afraid to say it at the time?

The Christian Church nor any other religious institution has never been in charge of the United States in all of our recorded history. If the Christian Church had a presence inside Germany from 1932 - 1940, the Jews would not have been taken to the gas chambers.

The "church" does not need real political power with the leadership cells of a nation-state to be effective. The church simply needs to exist at the local level in the community of the nation-state and people inside that country have a tendency to not disappear.

Some dictatorships will reach out and assassinate politically powerless priests and nuns at times because of their frustration to not being able to spread atheism and remove religion (like Hitler and Stalin were successful at doing), but overall the people have a better chance of surviving if the church is there to feel their pain.

If there were Christian churches inside Germany in 1932 - 1940, as the Jews started to disappear from the general German population an alarm would have been sounded and it would have been easier to go after Hitler. But since Germany had abandoned God completely and religion and the supporting of the church was unfashionable, it was easier for the German people to eliminate the Jews because the German people became an immoral people under atheism.

The Germans believed that there was no God and that they would not be punished for what they were doing.

That is what happens when atheism runs unrestricted at the nation-state level. Populations begin to disappear because the true atheist wants to kill God, and since the atheist wants to kill God, killing his fellow humans that simply "believe" in God is much easier than killing God himself.

Over 6,000,000 Jews died because an atheist was in charge of Germany. That atheist was Adolf Hitler.

To disagree with this is fallacy because the atheist is on a mission to destroy God not just in the nation, but from books and thought as well. The true atheist must remind his fellow humans constantly that to believe in a God is to be a "kook" and a "woo woo". That is where it starts at the gutter level. Then if populations persist in believing in God as the atheists become more powerful it becomes necessary to identify them further. Perhaps a star on the chests of all those "stupid believers" would be appropriate--the atheists have done that before. Then if the country begins to suffer economic problems, the people who were ordered to wear the star only because of their religious beliefs can be blamed for that too.

Now, since the people that the atheist ordered to wear the star and the same people who were called names for many years just didn't "get it", the atheist must begin to look for other "solutions". "How could they ignore atheist enlightenment in the lie that God exists?", the atheist will ask. "It is better to be completely done with them.", the atheist will say.

But the solution must be final.

That is atheism at the nation-state level and why Hitler and Stalin used it so successfully in their totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Atheism steals from the people and subjucates them to the evil of dictatorship. Atheism is anti-freedom and a form of terrorism leading to the destruction of humanity in all cases.

To believe in atheism is no different than believing in Nazism and Stalinism. Men have no right to interfere in the beliefs (freedoms) of others that include the potential for an omnipotent being.

For Hitler it was jealousy. How could the people be allowed to believe in a different God other than Hitler? With atheism, the "state" and the "dictator or proletariat" is God. There is no room for any other God.

JK

 

[MRC_Hans]

If there were Christian churches inside Germany in 1932 - 1940, as the Jews started to disappear from the general German population an alarm would have been sounded and it would have been easier to go after Hitler. But since Germany had abandoned God completely and religion and the supporting of the church was unfashionable, it was easier for the German people to eliminate the Jews because the German people became an immoral people under atheism.

The Germans believed that there was no God and that they would not be punished for what they were doing.

This is clearly contrary to established history, including firsthand accounts from the time. You are obliged to provide evidence for this sensational claim.

Hans

 

[Aardvark_DK]

Ok, here goes (JK's comments in bold):


The Christian Church nor any other religious institution has never been in charge of the United States in all of our recorded history.

What does this have to do with what's being discussed?

If the Christian Church had a presence inside Germany from 1932 - 1940, the Jews would not have been taken to the gas chambers.

Why not?

The "church" does not need real political power with the leadership cells of a nation-state to be effective. The church simply needs to exist at the local level in the community of the nation-state and people inside that country have a tendency to not disappear.

What about the witch-hunts of the 17th century? What about the Inquisition? What the numerous massacres of Jews (by Christians), Protestants (by Catholics) and Muslims (by Christians) throughout history?

Some dictatorships will reach out and assassinate politically powerless priests and nuns at times because of their frustration to not being able to spread atheism and remove religion (like Hitler and Stalin were successful at doing), but overall the people have a better chance of surviving if the church is there to feel their pain.

What if the church is causing the pain?

If there were Christian churches inside Germany in 1932 - 1940, as the Jews started to disappear from the general German population an alarm would have been sounded and it would have been easier to go after Hitler.

Why should an alarm go off when massacres of Jews was nothing new in European history?

But since Germany had abandoned God completely and religion and the supporting of the church was unfashionable, it was easier for the German people to eliminate the Jews because the German people became an immoral people under atheism. The Germans believed that there was no God and that they would not be punished for what they were doing.

Like Hans I would like to see some evidence for this claim.

That is what happens when atheism runs unrestricted at the nation-state level. Populations begin to disappear because the true atheist wants to kill God, and since the atheist wants to kill God, killing his fellow humans that simply "believe" in God is much easier than killing God himself.

Why isn't this happening in Europe now? And I ask again: What about the Inquisition? What about massacres of the Jews during the time of the Crusades?

Over 6,000,000 Jews died because an atheist was in charge of Germany. That atheist was Adolf Hitler.

Simply repeating a claim over and over doesn't make is true.

To disagree with this is fallacy because the atheist is on a mission to destroy God not just in the nation, but from books and thought as well.

So if I disagree with you I prove you right? And two words for you, JK: Straw. Man.

The true atheist must remind his fellow humans constantly that to believe in a God is to be a "kook" and a "woo woo".

No, JK, the reason why some people have called you names is not because of your religious beliefs.

That is where it starts at the gutter level. Then if populations persist in believing in God as the atheists become more powerful it becomes necessary to identify them further. Perhaps a star on the chests of all those "stupid believers" would be appropriate--the atheists have done that before. Then if the country begins to suffer economic problems, the people who were ordered to wear the star only because of their religious beliefs can be blamed for that too. Now, since the people that the atheist ordered to wear the star and the same people who were called names for many years just didn't "get it", the atheist must begin to look for other "solutions". "How could they ignore atheist enlightenment in the lie that God exists?", the atheist will ask. "It is better to be completely done with them.", the atheist will say.

But the solution must be final.

JK, may I remind you that you have yet to prove that all Germans in the 30s and 40s were atheists?

edit: And if this was the case why would the Nazis be interested in persecuting Jews who had converted to Catholisism?

That is atheism at the nation-state level and why Hitler and Stalin used it so successfully in their totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Atheism steals from the people and subjucates them to the evil of dictatorship. Atheism is anti-freedom and a form of terrorism leading to the destruction of humanity in all cases.

Again: Why isn't it happening in Europe now?

To believe in atheism is no different than believing in Nazism and Stalinism.

Yes it is. If you can't see this... well, then there's really no point in continuing this discussion.

Men have no right to interfere in the beliefs (freedoms) of others that include the potential for an omnipotent being.

I agree - though the grammar could use some polishing.

For Hitler it was jealousy. How could the people be allowed to believe in a different God other than Hitler? With atheism, the "state" and the "dictator or proletariat" is God. There is no room for any other God.

So what was the point of the Inquisition? Exactly, to rid the Catholic countries of heretics (Jews and Protestants). Religious people are just as capable of atrocious acts as atheists. And since your proof that Hitler was an atheist is that he committed atrocious acts, then your proof is worthless.

But, conveniently, my refutation just proves your point...

 

[Bjorn]

Of course the Christian Church had a presence inside Germany - the problem is that the leaders of the catholic as well as the protestant societies not only supported Hitler, they followed a long tradition of anti-semittism. There must be a small library written about this:

Protestant:

On September 1, 1941, a national law made it compulsory for all Jews to display the Star of David when they appeared in public.

(Since JK seems to think that making jews carry a specific sign is an atheistic invention: Compelling Jews to wear yellow badges came from an invention of the Catholic Church. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 set up the Inquisition along with enforcement of Jews wearing a yellow spot on their clothes to mark them as the murderers of Christ and to remind them of their decent from the devil.)

The ordinance presented a problem to the churches because they did not know that many of the Christians in their congregations had Jewish origins.

How did the Protestant churches respond to this oppression of their fellow Christians? On December 17, 1941, Protestant Evangelical Church leaders of Mecklenburg, Thuringia, Saxony, Nassau-Hesse, Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Anhalt, and Lubeck collectively issued an official proclamation:

From the crucifixion of Christ to the present day, the Jews have fought Christianity or misused and falsified it in order to reach their own selfish goals. By Christian baptism nothing is altered in regard to a Jew's racial separateness, his national being, and his biological nature. A German Evangelical church has to care for and further the religious life of German fellow countrymen; racial Jewish Christians have no place or rights in it. [Helmreich, p. 329]

Catholic:

After Kristallnacht (where Nazis broke Jewish store windows and had synagogues burned) there issued not a single word of condemnation from the Vatican, the German Church hierarchy, or from Pacelli. Yet in an encyclical on anti-Semitism, titled Humani generis unitas (The Unity of the Human Race) by Pope Pius XI, a section claims that the Jews were responsible for their own fate. God had chosen them to make way for Christ's redemption but they denied him and killed him. And now, "Blinded by their dream of worldly gain and material success," they had deserved the "worldly and spiritual ruin" that they had brought down upon themselves.

The church was indeed present when 'the jews were taken to the gas chambers'.

In other words, this is simply not true:

If there were Christian churches inside Germany in 1932 - 1940, as the Jews started to disappear from the general German population an alarm would have been sounded and it would have been easier to go after Hitler.

I think it would be very difficult to prove anything along the line 'such and such evil things could not have been done by christians' - history shows that it has happened again and again.

To prove that Hitler was an atheist takes other evidence.

 

[CWL]

The Germans believed that there was no God and that they would not be punished for what they were doing.

JK. You have yet to back this claim up with facts. You see (without any prejudice) I could offer you an alternative explanation:

The Germans believed that God was on their side and that they would be rewarded for what they were doing.

Don't you agree that this is a possibility?

I personally believe that this was the case, because all evidence I have seen so far points to this. But perhaps I am wrong.

My personal belief or disbelief in a God has nothing to do with this. I am simply interested in a correct description of history. Perhaps you are right, perhaps Hitler was an atheist. If so, you are right in persisting in your claim. If you can provide convincing evidence, I will even support you in making it.

The floor is yours JK. Do not disappoint us.

 

[Nova Land]

If the Christian Church had a presence inside Germany from 1932 - 1940...

If there were Christian churches inside Germany in 1932 - 1940

... But since Germany had abandoned God completely....

The Germans believed that there was no God...

Sorry, I'm lost. I'd like to understand what you are trying to say, but I am totally baffled by your words.

Clearly there were buildings called churches in Germany during those years, so I assume that's not what you're talking about. Also clearly, there were people who came to worship in them on Sundays, and who said they belonged to those churches, so I assume that's not what you're talking about.

It sounds like you are saying that all of these people, in addition to Hitler, were saying publicly they believed in a god but in fact were lying and did not believe any god existed. Is that indeed what you are trying to say, or am I misunderstanding?

If this is what you are saying, I am curious when and how this happened.

Are you saying there were Christian churches in Germany prior to 1932, and they vanished suddenly in 1932, or are you saying they had vanished prior to 1932, or what?

And are you saying that the Christian churches returned later, or are you saying there are no Christian churches in Germany today?

You give a fairly specific period (1932-1940) for the non-existence of Christian churches, but the Christian Church suddenly vanishing in 1932 make no sense to me and the Church re-appearing in 1940 is also something I cannot make sense of.

If the Church had returned, 1940 seems an unlikely year for it to have happened. But it returning at all seems unlikely, since that would surely have been a major event in many people's lives that would have been widely reported.

If this is something you seriously believe, here are a few simple questions you can answer to help me and others try to get a handle on what it is you are saying.

1. How many, if any, German people were members of Christian churches in 1800? 1820? 1840? 1860? 1880? 1900? 1910? 1920? 1930? Please don't give an essay, just give some rough figures so I and others can get a sense of when Christianity vanished from Germany.

2. When, if ever, did Christian churches return to Germany? You have indicated there were no Christian churches in Germany in 1940. Were there any Christian churches in Germany in 1945? 1950? 1960? 1970? 1980? 1990? 2000?

3. Are there any Germans today who believe in god? I assume you believe there must be, since the Germans are not at present slaughtering Jews or others. At some time, then, between the time when Germany was a conquered, occupied country and today, I assume you believe Christian churches were re-established. Is that correct, or do you believe that Germany remains to this day a nation of non-Christians?

Hans, Bjorn, and the aardvark raise many good points and questions that I hope you will be able to respond to with serious answers. However, those may be too difficult for you to answer in a way we can follow until you clarify the more basic questions that have been raised (such as what exactly it is you mean by "atheist" and what it is you mean by "Christian").

There are a number of questions that have been raised that are simple yes / no questions. It would be helpful if you would respond to these before going into new territory.

[I'm still away from home -- will be spending today at the library, and returning home tomorrow -- so I won't be posting much of substance until Tuesday evening. But I'll be able to check in fairly easily using the library computers to read what people are posting , and can post simple responses such as this one.]

 

[CWL]

To believe in atheism is no different than believing in Nazism and Stalinism. Men have no right to interfere in the beliefs (freedoms) of others that include the potential for an omnipotent being.

Another few points I would like to make:

If Hitler's extermination of Jews was really directed towards their belief in God, why could a Jew not renounce his faith and be spared?

The answer is simple. Nazism was not so much about religious intolerance, as about racial intolerance (or rather, intolerance in general). I cannot see why non-belief in God is a necessary element in such an ideology. History is abundant with examples to the contrary.

What about Mussolini - Hitler's greatest ally - and his Lateran Treaty with the Holy See of February 1929? At the time, the Pope spoke of Mussolini as "a man sent by Providence". Were Mussolini and his Catholic followers also atheists?

What about Hitler's other important ally, the Japanese? Was the Emperor of Japan, considered by his subjects to be of divine origin, a renouncer of the divine? Were the kamikaze bombers, who zealously sacrificed their lives in this belief, in reality atheists?

I also ask all posters in this thread to consider the ending of one of Hitler's lengthy speeches (quoted from a Bavarian Political Police Report on Hitler's Speech in Augsburg, 6 July 1923):

Majority resolutions of a parliament cannot save us; only the value of a unique personality can do that. As Fuhrer of the National Socialist Party, I see my task as assuming full responsibility. We do not rely upon committees and majorities. We are aware that our path will be thronged with thorns. National Socialists demand from their leader that he renounce all vanity and expressions of personal admiration; he must not worry about what the majority of people want him to do, but must carry out whatever his conscience before God and man tells him is necessary. Unlike other parties, we did not write a party platform designed to enlarge the number of [parliamentary] mandates without regard to the well-being and even at the expense of the individual and the whole nation. That is not the creative path taken by the great lawgivers such as Christ, Solon, etc., but is the way pursued by little men who worry so much about their parliamentary dignity.

Thus, in our program we did not make promises. Instead we insisted:

1) You are a German. You should treasure your fatherland higher than anything else in the world. Your first responsibility in this world is to be a good German. You must not beg for the rights of your people, but demand them. Heaven blesses only those who use their fists to secure their rights.

2) Citizenship rights belong only to those who are worthy and have German blood. German citizenship must become the powerful cement which binds together everything German throughout the world.

3) Our State should not be the plaything of financial interests, but rather should offer to all its citizens the opportunity to maintain themselves honorably in this world. We demand that the State be freed from all unworthy interest payments and compulsory obligations.

4) The State must see to it that property and real estate speculation cease. Property belongs only to those who have built. The Reich exists in order to protect its people, its race. In our State, the press, art, and literature will not be free, but handmaidens of the State in order to educate the people to a sense of honor and decency. We want this state to be based upon true Christianity. To be a Christian does not mean a cowardly turning of the other cheek, but a struggle for justice and a fighter against all injustice.

Those are IMHO not the words of an atheist. Of course, JK may be right when he says that Hitler was only lying to get the masses to play along. This assertion of JK's however leads to two remarks:

• 
  1) What evidence is there that Hitler was lying - that he did not himself believe in what he was saying?
  
  2) What JK is saying is in reality that Hitler had to use religious arguments in order to make people follow his agenda. He needed to get the ear of the majority who were non-atheist. In this lies a fundamental contradiction for the case JK is trying to make. He is in fact saying that the rethoric of Nazi Socialism was religiously tinted because the majority of people were not atheists. Thus, JK is himself saying that the atrocities were in fact carried out in the name of God by people who believed in God - otherwise Hitler's religious rethoric would not have been necessary.

 

[headscratcher4]

Well, I stepped out for the weekend and returned to find that there is still some life left here, though I am not sure that any of this can lead to any further, productive discussions. A couple of comments on what has been posted the last couple of days.

JK…

I say this as someone who has made every effort, and will continue to make every effort, to treat you and your ideas with respect and civility.

However, I fear that you would rather rant – ok, I’ve been known to do so to – than coherently address questions and issues posed to you. My point is, as the minority (at least on this forum) I would have hoped you would have been more willing to defend your position by proof, counter-arguments, facts and logic than mere continual reassertion of propostitions lacking in all of the above. Once again, saying something is so doesn’t mean that it is so -- not without something more than the assertion that you are right, or that the things asserted are “fact.”

With respect to your last post directly to me, once again, I note that you’ve taken the opportunity to reassert your claims yet have continually and consistently failed to address any of the points – more particularly “facts” that with which I have so successfully countered your arguments. In particular, you have not once addressed (and CWL has now also raised the point) my demonstration that anti-Semitism as practiced by the Nazis could only arise from a deistic/theistic (and more particularly Euro—Christian) foundation than from “atheism” as used in any normal definition of the word.

Specifically:

JK: “It is understandable that religious atheist fanatics don't want to be associated with Hitler. I can understand why religious atheists would want to distance themselves from having to peer into the actions of the most evil atheist in all of history--Adolph Hitler.”

Indeed. However, you begin with a completely erroneous position. You start from an ideological position – i.e. you want Hitler to be an atheist as it confirms your bias – and as a result nothing that contradicts that assertion gets in the way of your position. The bottom line is that you’ve shown nothing to prove this proposition.

JK: ”Stalin was an atheist too and he is "celebrated" for the "diversity" he brought to the world via atrocities etc, and is glorified in US universities.”

This is completely off point…Stalin’s acknowledged “atheism” isn’t the point you were trying to make. We can talk about the evils of Stalin (indeed, I would likely agree with you that Stalin’s 30 million plus are easily as egregious and horrible as Hitler’s crimes), but what Stalin’s beliefs or lack of beliefs have to do with Hitler, his personal beliefs or the philosophy of Nazism it beyond me and has been from the start – save, of course your desperate and insupportable effort to associate not only all evil but everything you personally disapprove of with “atheism” and do so by using an apparently singular definition of the word that no one else, at least here, can recognize.
________

JK to Girl6: "Look, everyone wants to rewrite history, especially atheists. I understand that. The problem is that no amount of historical revisionism can make Hitler a Christian. Hitler was an atheist 100%.”

Perhaps here we some of the nub of your problem. Though you’ve never discussed it, you continue to make a fundamental error – hopefully it is merely ignorance and not fanaticism. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, one need not be a “Christian” to not be an atheist. If that is not true, than please show why. While some have indeed argued that Hitler was a “Christian,” not only have many disputed that contention here (Nova and I as prime contenders), but also more importantly, it – as has been repeatedly shown and never rebutted by you – is a false dichotomy. The issue isn’t, really, whether Hitler was a Christian, it is whether Hitler was an atheist – i.e. someone who believed there was no God or no proof for God.

As has been repeatedly shown there is much evidence that Hitler believed that he acted under a “higher” authority or God. You may reject that “proof” of course because it doesn’t fit with your view of humans being either “Christian” or “atheists” (with some give for Jews as precursors of Christianity). However, if Hitler believed in a deity and his mission/actions were proof of that deity, than by any reasonable, normal or allowable definition of the word “atheist” Hitler wasn’t an atheist. You can redefine words but at some point it becomes delusional – sort of like receiving messages from mars on one’s fillings.

Second, you are left with “actions” and underlying “philosophy” both from Hitler and from Nazi’s to prove your assertion as you reject so much of Hitler’s and Nazi words. However, and once again, I have conclusively shown that the actions taken by both can be seen as COMPLETELY CONSISTENT with the religious and specifically Christian traditions in Europe over the last thousand years.

Your argument that only an atheist could murder Jews is belied by hundreds of years of History – and history that predates Luther and the reformation. You’ve never addressed these “facts” and ignoring them doesn’t make them either go away or make them revisionist.

Further, as I have repeatedly demonstrated, evil atheists are capable of killing millions – Stalin proved that – however, targeting Jews because they are Jews (genetically) makes no sense. You’ve not shown anything to dispute this assertion. Killing Jews, ALL JEWS SIMPLY BECAUSE GENETICALLY THEY ARE JEWISH, is only understandable in the context of a long history of anti-Semitism inspired by the Christian Church. This doesn’t mean that Hitler was a Christian; it merely means that his “actions” and Nazi philosophy is perfectly understandable as an offshoot of general Christian/Catholic philosophy prevalent in Europe for over a thousand years.
____

Just two examples – one explicitly anti-Semitic, one not (BTW – you NEVER address any of the examples I, CWL, Nova or anyone else gives…I can only assume it is because you can’t – either you don’t know enough history or you don’t like to think of their implications for your assertions).

In the 1240s, the King of France, Phillip-Augustus, in concert with the Church, imprisoned all Jews in Paris and confiscated their property, closed their synagogue and expelled them from the City. Was this the act of an atheist? Was the cooperation of the Catholic Church an act of godless men?

Some years after that, the same king and his son conducted an Inquisition on behalf of the church in Southern France to stamp out the “Cathar” Heresy. Not only were individuals tortured and burned at the stake for their failure to accept orthodox Christianity as defined by the Catholic Church, but at the behest of the Church, several whole villages were rounded up, lead to their church, locked inside and burned to death – men, women and children (I note a resemblance to Nazi atrocities). This crusade and inquisition undertaken at the behest of the Catholic Church, acts of atheists?

 

[Nova Land]

I intended to get back to this thread sooner, but time often flies by faster than one would like.

First off, thank you to CWL for the book references. I was able to find 2 of the 3 books, and enjoyed both. I didn't find as much on the Goebbel's broadcast as I'd hoped, but learned a good bit of other interesting stuff from the book about Hitler's last days.

(One question the book reminded me of: why did Hitler marry Eva Braun before committing suicide? I can imagine religious justifications for it, but am hard-pressed to think of non-religious ones, and the religious ones that come to mind don't really square with Hitler's professed beliefs. It's a trivial point, since people often do strange and inconsistent things -- and people who commit suicide are not the most sensible people to begin with -- but it seemed an interesting point to ponder.)

Jedi: since you didn't list any specific Hegel or Nietzsche references, I did not read any works by them during this trip. (There were more than enough things I did know about and wanted to look up to keep me busy the entire time, and I still had to drag myself away with many things left to look up another time.) So I am still puzzled about what it is you believe and what evidence it is you base this on.

I'll be making another trip in a few weeks, so if you have sources that you think provide evidence for your views please list them and I'll make an effort to find and read them. CWL's method is an excellent one: make an interesting point, and provide places where others can look it up for themselves. If you followed CWL's example on this, you would probably have more people understanding what it is you are saying and possibly even agreeing with some parts of it.

There is material out there which supports some of your views, even if you are reluctant to cite it. I was browsing through Bullock again (even though you had said you did not consider Bullock a reliable source) and found a passage which seems to relate to what you're saying about Hegel / Nietzsche, and which also lends some support to your belief that Hitler was an atheist.

QUOTE: ------------------------------------------------------------
A hundred years before Hitler became Chancellor, Hegel, in a famous course of lectures at the University of Berlin, had pointed to the role of "World-historical individuals" as the agents by which "the Will of the World Spirit", the plan of Providence, is carried out...

It may well be questioned whether Hitler ever read Hegel, but like so many other passages in 19th century German literature -- in Nietzsche, in Schopenhauer, in Wagner -- it finds an echo in Hitler's belief about himself. Cynical though he was, Hitler's cynicism stopped short of his own person: he came to believe that he was a man with a mission, marked out by Providence, and therefore exempt from the ordinary canons of human conduct.

HItler probably felt some such belief about himself from an early period. It was clear enough in the speech he made at his trial in 1924, and after he came out of prison those near him noticed that he began to hold aloof, to set a barrier between himself and his followers. After he came to power it became more noticeable. It was in March, 1936, that he made the famous assertion already quoted: "I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleep-walker." In 1937 he told an audience at Wurzburg:

However weak the individual may be when compared with the omnipotence and will of Providence, yet at the moment when he acts as Providence would have him act he becomes immeasurably strong. Then there streams down upon him that force which has marked all greatness in the world's history. And when I look back only on the five years which lie behind us, then I feel that I am justified in saying: That has not been the work of man alone.

Just before the occupation of Austria, in February 1938, he declared in the Reichstag:

Above all, a man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or to a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission placed upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an enemy of the people.

It was in this sense of mission that Hitler, a man who believed neither in God nor in conscience ("a Jewish invention, a blemish like circumcision") found both justification and absolution.

END QUOTE. -- (from Allan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, pp 351 - 352)
------------------------------------------------------------

Note that Bullock expresses the opinion Hitler "believed neither in God nor in conscience" immediately after talking about Hitler's belief in "Providence".. Bullock obviously does not see a contradiction between belief in "providence" and no-belief-in-god.

Bullock appears to be a knowledgeable and reasonable person. I therefore accept that it is possible for a reasonable person to hold a definition of god which does not include the "Providence" Hitler refers to.

I therefore also accept that there are reasonable definitions of the terms god and atheist by which it could be said that Hitler was an atheist. They are not the definitions I normally use, they do not appear to be the ones Jedi is using, and they do not seem to be the definitions anyone else in this thread is using, so in one (important) sense these definitions are irrelevant. However, I hope it serves as a reminder that it is neither obviously true nor obviously false to say that Hitler was an atheist. Either belief is conceivably a reasonable one, depending on the definitions one uses. Simply saying "Hitler was an atheist" or "Hitler was not an atheist" tells us very little. It is only meaningful when we understand what the person saying it means by it.

Jedi has asserted that "Hitler was an atheist", and I believe the statement is meaningful to him. I would still like to understand just what it is he means.

Jedi's definition of atheist (as best I can fathom it) sounds odd to me. However, I believe Jedi is right that it is not an unusual one in other circles. Listening to Christian radio programs, I get the feeling there are a number of people who would find what Jedi is saying to make perfect sense. Dismissing Jedi's definition or his views without first understanding them is as unreasonable as accepting them without understanding them.

Jedi, I really wish you would define what you mean by atheist, so that others of us can understand what it is you are saying. I realize there is a certain degree of risk involved in doing that, but hope you will be willing to take that risk.

Even if you are still unwilling to state clearly what your definition of "atheist" is, I'd be interested in your opinions on this passage from Bullock. Is this part of what you had in mind with your own reference to Hegel and Nietzsche? Do you feel Bullock's analysis is on the mark here, and if not what would you put differently?

Also: you have said previously that you consider Bullock an unreliable source. Who do you consider reliable? Unless you were alive during the Hitler years and experienced things directly, you need to rely on some source for the historical facts you choose to base your opinions on. I know you have made comments in the past about "historical revisionism", so it would be useful to know which sources you consider historical and which you consider revisionist.

 

[Nova Land]

Some people in this thread have been inclined to dismiss the evidence of Hitler's views that can be found in the published "table talks." Here is a passage (from Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp 95- 96) that may be helpful in assessing their worth.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Amid his political associates in Berlin, Hitler made harsh pronouncements against the church, but in the presence of the women he adopted a milder tone -- one of the instances where he adapted his remarks to his surroundings.

"The church is certainly necessary for the people. It is a strong and conservative element," he might say at one time or another in this private circle. However, he conceived of the church as an instrument that oculd be useful to him. "If only Reibi [this was his nickname for Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller] had some kind of stature. But why do they appoint a nobody of an army chaplain? I'd be glad to give him my full support. Think of all he could do with that. Through me the Evalangelical [Protestant] Church could become the established church, as in England."

Even after 1942 Hitler went on maintaining that he regarded the church as indispensable in political life. He would be happy, he said in one of those teatime talks at Obersalzberg, if someday a prominent churchman turned up who was suited to lead one of the churches -- or if possible both the Catholic and Protestant churches reunited. He still regretted that Reich Bishop Muller was not the right man to carry out his far-reaching plans. But he sharply condemned the campaign against the church, calling it a crime against the future of the nation. For it was impossible, he said, to replace the church by any "party ideology". Undoubtedly, he continued, the church would learn to adapt to the political goals of National Socialism in the long run, as it had always adapted to the course of history. A new party religion would only bring about a relapse into the mysticism of the Middle Ages. The growing SS myth showed that clearly enough, as did Rosenberg's unreadable Myth of the Twentieth Century.

If in the course of such a monologue Hitler had pronounced a more negative judgment upon the church, Bormann would undoubtedly have taken from his jacket pocket one of the white cards he always carried with him. For he noted down all Hitler's remarks that seemed to him important; and there was hardly anything he wrote down more eagerly than deprecating comments on the church. At the time I assumed that he was gathering material for a biography of Hitler.

Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Goebbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide.
-------------------------------------------------------------

From Speer, then, we have verification that Hitler did indeed engage in the type of after-dinner ramblings recorded in Hitler's Secret Conversations.

More than 300 of these were hand-recorded at the time and later transcribed from these notes, translated, and published in the volume I've been quoting. How reliable is this material?

1. The most reasonable assumption is that these are indeed transcriptions of the notes made of Hitler's after-dinner remarks.
We know such remarks occurred and that notes were taken to capture them. There are about 600 pages of ramblings recorded; creating these from scratch would have been a major undertaking. Obviously they are not word-for-word accurate, but they probably capture the gist of Hitler's remarks.

2. How candid was Hitler being? As Speer noted, he modified his remarks somewhat depending on who was present. This is a normal thing that people do. However, there does appear to have been a reasonable consistency to his remarks. No one has commented on his saying one thing one day and saying the opposite another. Quite the contrary, it sounds as if he repeated the same ideas many times.

Would it be possible for someone to lie consistently, over and over and over, in the course of unscripted informal ramblings in the somewhat relaxed (and less guarded) state people are in after eating a meal? Yes, it would be. It would be especially possible to do so on one or two key points that a person strongly wished to conceal if the person were careful either (a) to avoid talking about in detail, or (b) to follow the same formula each time in talking about it.

So if we were to find Hitler repeating a set formula on a subject, and rarely straying from that, we would have reason to be suspicious of whether that represented his true feeling on the subject. If, on the other hand, we find Hitler to be expansive on a subject, and to ramble on about it from different angles, we could place greater weight on what he said representing his actual views.

3. Based on what Speer says about Bormann, two cautions come to mind. One is that Bormann seemed interested in anything anti-religious that Hitler said and took extra pains to make sure these were recorded. The note-taking was done by hand, so it is quite possible that the transcriber might occasionally miss some remarks (or that some table-talks went entirely unrecorded). Since Bormann wrote down notes on significant anti-religious remarks, and presumably checked to make sure the note-taker had gotten these, there is less chance of anti-religious remarks being omitted than pro-religious ones. That means we should be careful not to assign greater weight to anti-religious views simply because they appear more often in the table talks than pro-religious ones.

4. The other caution that comes to mind is that, since these are translations of transcriptions, the remarks are not word-for-word accurate. Often a significant difference in meaning can be obtained by very minor wording changes. (The insertion of words such as "only", for example -- there is a large different between "I care about money" and "I only care about money.") It seems unlikely to me that entire sections were dramatically re-written, but I could easily imagine a wording change here and there.

What does that mean in terms of how much reliance can be placed on passages in the recorded table talks? For me, it means I would place greater reliance on a detailed passage than on a short quip, and I would want to examine comments carefully with an eye and ear toward alternate shadings of meaning. (I'll give an example of this soon, using a previously quoted passage from the "table talks", to illustrate what I mean.)

 

[Nova Land]

Some analysis on a couple of Hitler's shorter remarks about religion.

Table Talk # 47

...I find it a real absurdity that even today a typewriter costs several hundred marks. One can't imagine the time wasted daily in deciphering everybody's scribbles. Why not give lessons in typewriting at primary school? Instead of religious instruction, for example. I shouldn't mind that.

As noted previously, I don't think as much weight can be given to brief remarks as to lengthy, detailed rambles. This short comment provides a good example.

Hitler, while talking about the high price of typewriters, appears to make a dig at religious instruction in schools. What does it tell us of Hitler's religious beliefs? Very little.

It's compatible with Jedi's theory that Hitler was an atheist -- an atheist certainly could feel this way. But it's also compatible with Hitler being a Christian who thought the schools were doing a lousy job of religious instruction, or a non-Christian theist who resented the schools indoctrinating kids with beliefs he didn't approve of, or any number of other possibilities.

Without knowing why Hitler was making a dig at religious instruction, all we can glean from this is that Hitler appeared not to be happy with religious instruction in schools.

Even so, there is information to be gleaned. This passage indicates that religious instruction was occurring in the German public schools, and that the Nazis permitted this to happen even though some aspect of this apparently was not pleasing to Hitler. The obvious reason for allowing this instruction to continue is that it would have been politically damaging to end it -- i.e. a significant number of the German people favored religious instruction in the schools and would have been upset with Hitler if he had come out against religious instruction.

This implies that, whether or not Hitler was secretly an atheist, he believed religious belief was important to a significant portion of his followers. By checking up on the kind of religious instruction being done in the schools, we would get a strong indication of the dominant religious belief among Hitler's supporters in the populace.

NOTE: in later table talks, such as # 100, Hitler does talk at greater length about his own school experiences and his rebellions against religious instruction. This brief dig at religious instruction may make more sense after people have read those remarks.

Table Talk # 43

... The precept that it's men's duty to love one another is theory -- and the Christians are the last to practice it! A negro baby who has the misfortune to die before a missionary gets his clutches on him, goes to Hell. If that were true, one might well lament that sorrowful destiny: to have lived only three years, and to burn for all eternity with Lucifer!...

Although Hitler referred to Hell and Lucifer in this comment, there is little to be gleaned from it concerning Hitler's religious beliefs. Certainly it's too thin to justify a conclusion that Hitler believed in Hell or Lucifer; this is the kind of dig at theology that an atheist could easily make.

(And a theist could easily make it as well. Different varieties of Christians have gotten deeply upset with each other over differing interpretations of how salvation is supposed to work.)

If we had an actual recording of the remarks, we might be able to gather from the exact words and tone whether Hitler believed the notions of Hell and Lucifer were nonsense, or only that this particular doctrine of salvation was nonsense. But we don't.

What we have here is a translation of a transcription of a minor comment. A lot of our impression of what he was saying comes from the exact wording -- and this is the translator's wording, not necessarily Hitler's. "If that were true, one might well lament..." gives a strong impression that Hitler did not believe non-Christian babies went to Hell. That may or may not be what Hitler actually meant.

In a longer passage, we could expect to receive help in being clear on the meaning from the way he expanded the point, from additional details he provided, or from general redundancy in what he said. In a short passage such as this, though, a very slight change of wording could provide an entirely different meaning.

Hitler, as recorded here, starts by talking about Christians lacking true love for their fellow humans. It's not clear whether he believed Christians should be loving and aren't living up to that, or whether he believed the doctrine of loving one another is stupid in itself.

The wording leads us to believe he is criticizing Christians for a nonsensical doctrine of Hell which contradicts their key teaching about loving one another. With a slightly different emphasis, however, he could actually have been saying the reverse: that "unsaved" babies do go to Hell because God is harsh, and that it is the "precept" that people are supposed to love one that is the nonsensical doctrine.

I'm not saying he was saying that, only that in a short undetailed remark like this it is more important to be aware of how a slight misperception by the note-taker, or by the translator, could yield something very different from what Hitler actually intended. It is easy to miss a raised eyebrow, a mocking tone, and to take a sentence to mean the exact opposite of what is intended.

That's one example of how a short passage might mean something very different from the way it appears in the translated "table talks". Creative people could probably find many additional possible interpretations.

With those caveats about shorter passages in mind, let's look at a longer passage...

 

[Nova Land]

In several previous posts, Jedi has asked how Hitler could have been a Christian and hated Judaism. Wasn't Jesus a Jew? Isn't Christianity based on Jewish writings (the old testament) as well as Jesus' teachings (new testament)?

In the following table talk, Hitler explains some of his beliefs about Jesus, the founding of Christianity, and the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. (This is one of several table talks in which he goes on at length about these matters.)

There is a lot I find interesting here. I'll refrain from highlighting or pulling out these parts yet, so others can read this for themselves first.

Jedi: I assume from your previous posts that you haven't read this table talk yet. After you do read it, I'd be interested in your analysis of it. (Even if you think it is pure propaganda, I'd be interested in what particular messages you think Hitler was trying to send with it, and to whom.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Table Talk # 49
21st October 1941, mid-day

When one thinks of the opinions held concerning Christianity by our best minds a hundred, two hundred years ago, one is ashamed to realise how little we have since evolved. I didn't know that Julian the Apostate had passed judgment with such clearsightedness on Christianity and Christians. You should read what he says on the subject.

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism the destroyer. Nevertheless, the Galilean, who later was called Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry. Galilee was a colony where the Romans had probably installed Gallic legionaries, and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded His as the sone of a whore -- of a whore and a Roman soldier.

The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work with subtlety and for purposes of personal exploitation. For the Galilean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him.

Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely. When he learnt that Jesus's supporters let their throats be cut for His ideas, he realized that, by making intelligent use of the Gallilean's teaching, it would be possible to overthrow this Roman State which the Jews hated.d It's in this context that we must understand the famous "illumination". Think of it, Romans were daring to confiscate the most sacred thing the Jews possessed, the gold piled up in their temples! At that time, as now, money was their god.

On the road to Damascus, St. Paul discovered that he could succeed in ruining the Roman State by causing the principle to triumph of the equality of all men before a single God -- and by putting beyond the reach of the laws his private notions, which he alleged to be divinely inspired. If, into the bargain, one succeeded in imposing one man as the representative on earth of the only God, that man would possess boundless power.

The ancient world had its gods and served them. But the priests interposed between the gods and men were servants of the State, for the Gods protected the City. In short, they were the emanation of a power that the people had created. For thst society, the idea of an only god was unthinkable. In this sphere, the Romans were tolerance itself. The idea of a universal god could seem to them only a mild form of madness -- for, if three peoples fight one another, each invoking the same god, this means that, at any rate, two of them are praying in vain.

Nobody was more tolerant than the Romans. Every man could pray to the god of his choice, and a place was even reserved in the temples for the unknown god. Moreover, every man prayed as he chose, and had the right to proclaim his preferences.

St. Paul knew how to exploit this state of affairs in order to conduct his struggle against the Roman State. Nothing has changed; the method has remained sound. Under cover of a pretended religious instruction, the priests continue to incite the faithful against the State.

The religious ideas of the Romans are common to all the Aryan peoples. The Jew, on the other hand, worshipped and continues to worship, then and now, nothing but the golden calf. The Jewish religion is devoid of all metaphysics, and has no foundation but the most repulsive materialism. That's proved even in the concrete representation they have of the BEyond -- which for them is identified with ABraham's bosom.

It's since St Paul's time that the Jews have manifested themselves as a religious community, for until then they were only a racial community. St. Paul was the first man to take account of the possible advantages of using a religion as a means of propaganda. If the Jew has succeeded in destroying the Roman Empire, that's because St Paul transformed a local movement of Aryan opposition to Jewry into a supra-temporal religon, which postulates the equality of all men amonst themselves, and their obedience to an only god. This si what caused the death of the Roman Empire.

It's striking to observe that Christian ideas, despite all St Paul's efforts, had no success in Athens. The philosophy of the Greeks was so much superior to this poverty-stricken rubbish that the Athenians burst out laughing when they listened to the apostle's teaching. But in Rome St Paul found the ground prepared for him. His egalitarian theories had what was needed to win over a mass composed of innumerable uprooted people....


Whilst Roman society proved hostile to the new doctrine, Christianity in its pure state stirred the population to revold. Rome was bolshevized, and Bolshevism produced exactly the same results in Rome as later in Russia.

It was only later, under the influence of the Germanic spirit, that Christianity gradually lost its openly Bolshevistic character. It became, to a certain degree, tolderable. Today, when Christianity is tottering, the Jew restores to pride of place Christianity in its Bolshevistic form.

The Jew believed he could renew the experiment. Today as once before, the ojbect is to destroy nations by vitiating their racial integrity. It's not by chance that the Jews, in Russia, have systematically deported hundreds of thousands of men, delivering the women, whome the men were compelled to leave behind, to males imported from other regions. They practiced on a vast scale the mixture of the races.

In the old days, as now, the destruction of art and civilization. The Bolsheviks of their day, what didn't they destroy in Rome, in Greece, and elsewhere? They've behaved in the same way amongst us and in Russia...

In the old days, the destruction of the libraries. Isn't that what happened in Russia? The result: a frightening levelling-down.

Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots. Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism.

Yesterday the instigator was Saul; the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul has changed into St Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx...
-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[c4ts]

Table Talk isn't a very reliable source on Hitler's beliefs, since they appear to be shifting all the time, and some may have been fabricated to make Hitler look more insane than he already was. Mein Kamph is better becasue Hitler wrote it himself, and much of it is anti-semetic ranting. If there is one thing we do know about Hitler's beliefs, it is that he was an anti semite, and Mein Kamph is consistent with that fact. I haven't read Table Talk, and I want to know if it is consistent with Hitler's views in Mein Kamph.

 

[c4ts]

This is really just speculation, but I think Jedi Knight may be confused about this part in Mein Kamph (I apologize to all who might be offended by Hitler's views, but be glad you're not persuaded by them):

from http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/

It is evidence of a very superficial insight into historical developments if the so-called folkists emphasize again and again that they will adopt the use of negative criticism under no circumstances but will engage only in constructive work. That is nothing but puerile chatter and is typical of the whole lot of folkists. It is another proof that the history of our own times has made no impression on these minds. Marxism too has had its aims to pursue and it also recognizes constructive work, though by this it understands only the establishment of despotic rule in the hands of international Jewish finance. Nevertheless for seventy years its principal work still remains in the field of criticism. And what disruptive and destructive criticism it has been! Criticism repeated again and again, until the corrosive acid ate into the old State so thoroughly that it finally crumbled to pieces. Only then did the so-called 'constructive' critical work of Marxism begin. And that was natural, right and logical. An existing order of things is not abolished by merely proclaiming and insisting on a new one. It must not be hoped that those who are the partisans of the existing order and have their interests bound up with it will be converted and won over to the new movement simply by being shown that something new is necessary. On the contrary, what may easily happen is that two different situations will exist side by side and that the-called philosophy is transformed into a party, above which level it will not be able to raise itself afterwards. For the philosophy is intolerant and cannot permit another to exist side by side with it. It imperiously demands its own recognition as unique and exclusive and a complete transformation in accordance with its views throughout all the branches of public life. It can never allow the previous state of affairs to continue in existence by its side.
And the same holds true of religions.

But if you read further:

Here again the Catholic Church has a lesson to teach us. Though sometimes, and often quite unnecessarily, its dogmatic system is in conflict with the exact sciences and with scientific discoveries, it is not disposed to sacrifice a syllable of its teachings. It has rightly recognized that its powers of resistance would be weakened by introducing greater or less doctrinal adaptations to meet the temporary conclusions of science, which in reality are always vacillating. And thus it holds fast to its fixed and established dogmas which alone can give to the whole system the character of a faith. And that is the reason why it stands firmer today than ever before. We may prophesy that, as a fixed pole amid fleeting phenomena, it will continue to attract increasing numbers of people who will be blindly attached to it the more rapid the rhythm of changing phenomena around it.

Catholics can't disown Hitler completely. After all, he says he learned something from the Catholic Church. But what did he learn from atheism? According to him, all Jews were atheists because they're all Marxists.

It was at this time that the first ideals took shape in my breast. All my playing about in the open, the long walk to school, and particularly my association with extremely 'husky' boys, which sometimes caused my mother bitter anguish, made me the very opposite of a stay-at-home. And though at that time I scarcely had any serious ideas as to the profession I should one day pursue, my sympathies were in any case not in the direction of my father's career. I believe that even then my oratorical talent was being developed in the form of more or less violent arguments with my schoolmates. I had become a little ringleader; at school I learned easily and at that time very well, but was otherwise rather hard to handle. Since in my free time I received singing lessons in the cloister at Lambach, I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal. For a time, at least, this was the case. But since my father, for understandable reasons, proved unable to appreciate the oratorical talents of his pugnacious boy, or to draw from them any favorable conclusions regarding the future of his offspring, he could, it goes without saying, achieve no understanding for such youthful ideas. With concern he observed this conflict of nature.

That bit of nostalgia was in the first chapter. Here's the first line of the book:

TODAY it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace.

Why would an atheist hold Fate or providence responsible for anything? Of course, "Fate" and "providential" may have other German meanings.

And there's more:

In any case, this period before the War was the happiest and by far the most contented of my life. Even if my earnings were still extremely meager, I did not live to be able to paint, but painted only to be able to secure my livelihood or rather to enable myself to go on studying. I possessed the conviction that I should some day, in spite of all obstacles, achieve the goal I had set myself. And this alone enabled me to bear all other petty cares of daily existence lightly and without anxiety.
In addition to this, there was the heartfelt love which seized me for this city more than for any other place that I knew, almost from the first hour of my sojourn there. A German city! What a difference from Vienna! I grew sick to my stomach when I even thought back on this Babylon of races. In addition, the dialect, much closer to me, which particularly in my contacts with Lower Bavarians, reminded me of my former childhood. There were a thousand and more things which were or became inwardly dear and precious to me. But most of all I was attracted by this wonderful marriage of primordial power and fine artistic mood, this single line from the Hofbrauhaus to the Odeon, from the October Festival to the Pinakothek, etc. If today I am more attached to this city than to any other spot of earth in this world, it is partly due to the fact that it is and remains inseparably bound up with the development of my own life; if even then I achieved the happiness of a truly inward contentment, it can be attributed only to the magic which the miraculous residence of the Wittelsbachs exerts on every man who is blessed, not only with a calculating mind but with a feeling soul.

I had come to know this state formation better than the so-called official 'diplomats,' who blindly, as almost always, rushed headlong toward catastrophe; for the mood of the people was always a mere discharge of what was funneled into public opinion from above. But the people on top made a cult of the 'ally,' as if it were the Golden Calf. They hoped to replace by cordiality what was lacking in honesty. And words were always taken for coin of the realm.

It must be said that such a territorial policy cannot be fulfilled in the Cameroons, but today almost exclusively in Europe. We must, therefore, coolly and objectively adopt the standpoint that it can certainly not be the intention of Heaven to give one people fifty times as much land and soil in this world as another. In this case we must not let political boundaries obscure for us the boundaries of eternal justice. If this earth really has room for all to live in, let us be given the soil we need for our livelihood.

To me those hours seemed like a release from the painful feelings of my youth. Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.
A fight for freedom had begun, mightier than the earth had ever seen; for once Destiny had begun its course, the conviction dawned on even the broad masses that this time not the fate of Serbia or Austria was involved, but whether the German nation was to be or not to be.
For the last time in many years the people had a prophetic vision of its own future. Thus, right at the beginning of the gigantic struggle the necessary grave undertone entered into the ecstasy- of an overflowing enthusiasm; for this knowledge alone made the national uprising more than a mere blaze of straw The earnestness was only too necessary; for in those days people in general had not the faintest conception of the possible length and duration of the struggle that was now beginning. They dreamed of being home again that winter to continue and renew their peaceful labors.
What a man wants is what he hopes and believes. The overwhelming majority of the nation had long been weary of the eternally uncertain state of affairs; thus it was only too understandable that they no longer believed in a peaceful conclusion of the Austro-Serbian convict, but hoped for the final settlement.
I, too, was one of these millions.

(Looks like Hitler wasn't a skeptic.)

Any attempt to combat a philosophy with methods of violence will fail in the end, unless the fight takes the form of attack for a new spiritual attitude. Only in the struggle between two philosophies can the weapon of brutal force, persistently and ruthlessly applied lead to a decision for the side it supports.

(Thinks Marxism's lack of theism is a sign of failure, yet he blames the Jews for Marxism. As a philosopher, he makes about as much sense as Franko on free will.)

For these people change their convictions just as the soldier changes his shirt in war – when the old one is bug-eaten. In the new programme everyone gets everything he wants. The farmer is assured that the interests of agriculture will be safeguarded. The industrialist is assured of protection for his products. The consumer is assured that his interests will be protected in the market prices. Teachers are given higher salaries and civil servants will have better pensions. Widows and orphans will receive generous assistance from the State. Trade will be promoted. The tariff will be lowered and even the taxes, though they cannot be entirely abolished, will be almost abolished. It sometimes happens that one section of the public is forgotten or that one of the demands mooted among the public has not reached the ears of the party. This is also hurriedly patched on to the whole, should there be any space available for it: until finally it is felt that there are good grounds for hoping that the whole normal host of philistines, including their wives, will have their anxieties laid to rest and will beam with satisfaction once again. And so, internally armed with faith in the goodness of God and the impenetrable stupidity of the electorate, the struggle for what is called 'the reconstruction of the Reich' can now begin.

.

The folk conception must therefore be definitely formulated so that it may be organically incorporated in the party. That is a necessary prerequisite for the success of this idea. And that it is so is very clearly proved even by the indirect acknowledgment of those who oppose such an amalgamation of the folk idea with party principles. The very people who never tire of insisting again and again that the conception of life based on the folk idea can never be the exclusive property of a single group, because it lies dormant or 'lives' in myriads of hearts, only confirm by their own statements the simple fact that the general presence of such ideas in the hearts of millions of men has not proved sufficient to impede the victory of the opposing ideas, which are championed by a political party organized on the principle of class conflict. If that were not so, the German people ought already to have gained a gigantic victory instead of finding themselves on the brink of the abyss. The international ideology achieved success because it was organized in a militant political party which was always ready to take the offensive. If hitherto the ideas opposed to the international concept have had to give way before the latter the reason is that they lacked a united front to fight for their cause. A doctrine which forms a definite outlook on life cannot struggle and triumph by allowing the right of free interpretation of its general teaching, but only by defining that teaching in certain articles of faith that have to be accepted and incorporating it in a political organization.

I could keep on quoting for days (although I'm rather sick of Hitler's contradictory ramblings already). Now why do you say Hitler was an atheist again? Because he was evil? Because he hated Jews and Communists for no apparent reason?

Given what Hitler says in his book, I'd say he was a theist (and therefore not an a-theist). But sure, there's no conclusive evidence.

 

[Aardvark_DK]

The only person to claim that Hitler was an atheist is Jedi Knight and he has left the discussion...

So... how about those Buccaneers?