One of the strangest things I have heard from atheists is the assertion that Christianity is somehow connected to the fascism, such as the fascism that existed under Adolf Hitler. Two posts by Jewish author Jonah Goldberg from National Review supply us with the facts to set the record straight.
Let’s start with the first post.
Here are some of the points:
1) Hitler wanted Christianity removed from the public square
Like the engineers of that proverbial railway bridge, the Nazis worked relentlessly to replace the nuts and bolts of traditional Christianity with a new political religion. The shrewdest way to accomplish this was to co-opt Christianity via the Gleichschaltung while at the same time shrinking traditional religion’s role in civil society.
2) Hitler banned the giving of donations to churches
Hitler banned religious charity, crippling the churches’ role as a counterweight to the state. Clergy were put on government salary, hence subjected to state authority. “The parsons will be made to dig their own graves,” Hitler cackled. “They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.”
3) Hitler replaced Christian celebrations with celebrations of the state
Following the Jacobin example, the Nazis replaced the traditional Christian calendar. The new year began on January 30 with the Day of the Seizure of Power. Each November the streets of central Munich were dedicated to a Nazi Passion play depicting Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch. The martyrdom of Horst Wessel and his “old fighters” replaced Jesus and the apostles. Plays and official histories were rewritten to glorify pagan Aryans bravely fighting against Christianizing foreign armies. Anticipating some feminist pseudo history, witches became martyrs to the bloodthirsty oppression of Christianity.
4) Hitler favored the complete elimination of Christianity
When some Protestant bishops visited the Fuhrer to register complaints, Hitler’s rage got the better of him. “Christianity will disappear from Germany just as it has done in Russia . . . The Germanrace has existed without Christianity for thousands of years . . . and will continue after Christianity has disappeared . . . We must get used to the teachings of blood and race.”
5) Hitler favored the removal of mandatory prayers in schools
In 1935 mandatory prayer in school was abolished…
6) Hitler favored the banning of Christmas carols and nativity plays
…and in 1938 carols and Nativity plays were banned entirely.
7) Hitler abolished religious instruction for children
By 1941 religious instruction for children fourteen years and up had been abolished altogether….
And now the second post.
8) Hitler opposed the ideas of universal truth and objective moral absolutes
…Just as the Nazi attack on Christianity was part of a larger war on the idea of universal truth, whole postmodern cosmologies have been created to prove that traditional religious morality is a scam, that there are no fixed truths or “natural” categories, and that all knowledge is socially constructed.
Practically everything this man believed was 100% anti-Christian. But he fits in fine on the secular left.
Conclusion
Adolf Hitler was a man influenced by two big ideas: evolution and socialism. His party was the national SOCIALIST party. He favored a strong role for the state in interfering with the free market. He was in favor of regulating the family so that the state could have a bigger influence on children. And he favored the idea of survival of the fittest. His ideas are 100% incompatible with Christianity and with capitalism as well. Christians value individual rights and freedoms, small government and the autonomy of the family against the state. The commandments about not coveting and not stealing are incompatible with redistribution of wealth from those who produce to those who “need”. The differences are clear and significant. The Bible favors voluntary charity by individuals and churches. It does not favor redistribution of wealth by a secular government to equalize life outcomes regardless of personal responsibility.
Ignorant atheists and their myths
In a recent debate between Matt Dillahunty and David Robertson, Dillahunty made the claim that Hitler was a Christian, because in a campaign speech, he told a Catholic audience that secular schools were bad, and religious schools were good. Dillahunty thought that this meant that Hitler was a Christian. Robertson asked him when those words were spoken, and whether they formed the basis of any POLICY after Hitler was elected. Dillahunty didn’t know, because he just cited the quotation without knowing anything about the context, or about the historical period. Robertson informed him that the words were spoken in a campaign speech, prior to Hitler’s rise to power, and that nothing in Hitler’s policies ever took the words seriously after he came to power. It was the equivalent of Obama claiming to support natural marriage, then legalizing same-sex marriage once elected. He lied in order to be elected. This kind of ignorance is very prominent in the atheist (“secular humanist”) community, which survives on mythology which is never subjected to rational inquiry. Here’s another good example of this ignorance.
Incidentally, Dillahunty later said, in the same debate no less, that he “didn’t know” if the Holocaust was morally wrong. Right – because on atheism right and wrong are meaningless concepts, rationally speaking. They are reduced to personal preferences only, where each opinion is as valid as the opposite opinion, since there is no objective standard by which to judge different opinions. That’s why atheists can’t make moral judgements about anything, they just have preferences, like their preference for certain foods and certain clothes. Very important to realize this when talking to atheists, because they use moral language to describe their personal feelings and opinions.
Whenever I hear atheists speculating about whether Hitler was a Christian, I immediately know that they have not investigated anything very carefully, and are merely being insulting. It’s not worth having a conversation with people who are stupid AND insulting.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
This is an interesting topic as most people seem to think that Hitler was right-wing when in fact he fits the bill for a FAR-left wing dictator.
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It doesn’t matter what modifier you put in front of the word “socialism” — it’s still socialism regardless. Put “democratic” in front of socialism and it’s still socialism. Put “national” in front of socialism and it’s still socialism. No matter what you try to justify it with, it isn’t going to make any difference whatsoever — with Nazism, we’re talking about an ideology that was about eugenics (and pro-abortion as a consequence) and about wiping out everyone and everything in its way. With Communism we’re talking about an ideology responsible for over 100 million deaths — second only to Islam, at a quarter of a billion, in terms of the number of people killed. I hope people realize just what this crap is about, and how easy most of this is to debunk.
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Reblogged this on Cyber Penance and commented:
This is a great post from Wintery Knight that sums it up in 8 points:
1) Hitler wanted Christianity removed from the public square
2) Hitler banned the giving of donations to churches
3) Hitler replaced Christian celebrations with celebrations of the state
4) Hitler favored the complete elimination of Christianity
5) Hitler favored the removal of mandatory prayers in schools
6) Hitler favored the banning of Christmas carols and nativity plays
7) Hitler abolished religious instruction for children
8) Hitler opposed the ideas of universal truth and objective moral absolutes
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This cropped up the other day: https://www.gotquestions.org/was-Hitler-a-Christian.html
You can also Google and download the UK TV series The Occult History of the Third Reich.
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Oops, previous comment incomplete…
When moderns and postmoderns make the claim that Hitler was a “good Christian” they always conveniently “forget” to define their terms. As a result the claim is bogus, empty. Look at it from another angle. If Madonna wears a cross in a concert, does that make her a “Christian”? What is in fact a Christian? This is a matter to be sorted out before any intelligent debate takes place. What happens to the statement “Hitler was a Christian” if you define a Christian as someone who FOLLOWS Christ’s teachings? There is no way to claim Hitler was a “good Christian” without perverting Christ’s message and Scripture too.
In my view the main function of the “Hitler was a good Christian” meme is primarily to protect Enlightenment derived ideologies (what Evangelicals sometimes call “Humanism”) from any serious reflection on the repercussions of this worldview. If Christians have a concept of repentance, which involves self-questioning, there is no such concept among the ideologies derived from the Enlightenment (or later by-products such as postmodernism).
Hitler did in fact exploit anti-Semitism existing among German Christians (Catholics and Protestants) and used religious language to do so, but the “Hitler was a good Christian” claim typically overlooks the fact that Hitler ruthlessly attacked any Christian group opposing his political objectives. Hitler’s true view of Christianity (and incompatibility with Nazism) appears clearly in his private conversations published under the title: Table-Talks (1944/1973: 51, October 10th, 1941):
> “War has returned to its primitive form. The war of people against people is
> giving place to another war — a war for the possession of the great spaces.
> Originally war was nothing but a struggle for pasture-grounds. Today war is
> nothing but a struggle for the riches of nature. By virtue of an inherent law,
> these riches belong to him who conquers them. The great migrations set out
> from the East. With us begins the ebb, from West to East. That’s in accordance
> with the laws of nature. By means of the struggle, the elites are continually
> renewed. The law of selection justifies the incessant struggle by allowing the
> survival of the fittest. Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a
> protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean
> the systematic cultivation of the human failure.”
HITLER, Adolf (1944/1973) Hitler’s Table Talks 1941-44 : His Private Conversations. Translated by Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens Weidenfeld and Nicolson London xxxix – 746 p.
In this regard, Hitler echoed attitudes previously put forward by Nietzsche in his essay Antichrist (1889) where he stated that Christianity is the religion of the weak and sick. Albert Camus, for his part, made this comment regarding Hitler’s rhetorical exploitation of the God concept (1951: 178):
> “As for Hitler, his professed religion unhesitatingly juxtaposed the
> God-Providence and Valhalla. Actually his god was an argument at the end of a
> political meeting and a manner of reaching an impressive climax at the end of
> speeches.”
Albert Camus, The Rebel, trans. Anthony Bower (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962)
Sir Arthur Keith, an evolutionist, writing shortly after WWII, observed (1947 : 27- 28) :
> The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he
> has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory
> of evolution… To see evolutionary measures and tribal morality being applied
> vigorously to the affairs of a great modern nation, we must turn again to
> Germany of 1942. We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the
> only real basis for a national policy… The means he adopted to secure the
> destiny of his race and people were organized slaughter, which has drenched
> Europe in blood… Such conduct is highly immoral as measured by every scale
> of ethics, yet Germany justifies it; it is consonant with tribal or
> evolutionary morality. Germany has reverted to the tribal past, and is
> demonstrating to the world, in their naked ferocity, the methods of evolution.
KEITH, Sir Arthur (1947) Evolution And Ethics. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York
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