Adolf Hitler's religious views are a matter of dispute. Raised by a skeptic Catholic father and a Catholic mother, Adolf Hitler ceased to participate in the Sacraments after childhood. In his book Mein Kampf and in public speeches he often made statements which affirmed a belief in Christianity.[1][2] Prior to World War II Hitler had promoted a "positive Christianity" purged of Judaism and instilled with Nazi philosophy. According to the controversial collection of transcripts edited by Martin Bormann, titled Hitler's Table Talk, as well as the testimony of some intimates, Hitler had privately negative views of Christianity. Others reported he was a committed believer.[3][4]
Hitler's father Alois, though nominally a Catholic, was somewhat religiously skeptical,[5] while his mother Klara was a practicing Catholic.[6] At the Benedictine monastery school which Hitler attended for one school year as a child (1897–1898), Hitler became top of his class, receiving twelve 1's, the highest grade in the final quarter. He was confirmed on 22 May 1904, and also sang in the choir at the monastery.[7] According to historian Michael Rissmann, young Hitler was influenced in school by Pan-Germanism, and began to reject the Catholic Church, receiving Confirmation only unwillingly.[8] Rissmann also relates a story where a boyhood friend claimed that after Hitler had left home, he never again attended Mass or received the sacraments.[8]
According to an interview with a British correspondent years after the Great War, Hitler claimed a mysterious voice told him to leave a section of a crowded trench during a minor barrage. Moments after he left the area, a shell fell on that particular spot. Hitler saw this experience as a message that he was a uniquely illuminated individual who had a special task to fulfill.[9] This story did not, however, appear in Mein Kampf.
Something of Hitler's religious beliefs can be gathered from his public and private statements, however they present a conflicting picture of a man who is somewhat spiritual and yet against organized religion. Some private statements attributed to him remain disputed. According to Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, in the early 1920s Bernhard Stempfle, a Catholic priest and journalist, and responsible for the anti-Semitic daily Miesbacher Anzeiger, was a prominent member of Hitler's inner circle and frequently advised him on religious issues.[10]
In public statements, especially at the beginning of his rule, Hitler frequently spoke positively about the Christian German culture,[2] and his belief in an Aryan Christ.[11] Before his ascension to power, Hitler stated before a crowd in Munich: "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."[12]
In a proclamation to the German Nation February 1, 1933 Hitler stated, "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."[13]
Historian Joachim Fest wrote, "Hitler knew, through the constant invocation of the God the Lord (German: Herrgott) or of providence (German: Vorsehung), to make the impression of a godly way of thought."[14] He used his "ability to simulate, even to potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity," according to biographer Ian Kershaw. Kershaw adds that Hitler's ability also succeeded in appeasing possible Church resistance to anti-Christian Nazi Party radicals.[15] For example, on March 23, 1933, he addressed the Reichstag: "The National Government regards the two Christian confessions [i.e. Catholicism and Protestantism] as factors essential to the soul of the German people. ... We hold the spiritual forces of Christianity to be indispensable elements in the moral uplift of most of the German people."[16]
According to Hitler's chief architect Albert Speer, Hitler remained a formal member of the Catholic Church until his death, and even ordered his chief associates to remain members, however it was Speer's opinion that "he had no real attachment to it."[17] According to biographer John Toland, Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within himself its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God — so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty."[18] Hitler's own words from Mein Kampf seem to conflict with the idea that his antisemitism was religiously motivated, stating: "In the Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he had a different faith."[19]
In his book Mein Kampf Hitler made numerous religious pronouncements.[1] In its pages, historian Richard Steigmann-Gall notes, "Hitler gave no indication of being an atheist or agnostic or of believing in only a remote, rationalist divinity. Indeed, he referred continually to a providential, active deity."[20]
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."[21]
In an attempt to justify Nazi aggression, Hitler drew a parallel between militantism and Christianity's rise to power as the Roman Empire's official state religion:
"The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world, but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror only by terror. Only then can a new state of affairs be constructively created. Political parties are inclined to compromises; philosophies never. Political parties even reckon with opponents; philosophies proclaim their infallibility."[22]
Elsewhere in Mein Kampf Hitler speaks of the "creator of the universe" and "eternal Providence." He also states his belief that the Aryan race was created by God, and that it would be a sin to dilute it through racial intermixing:
"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."[23]
According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler's references to Jesus, God as the "Lord of Creation" and the necessity of obeying "His will" reveals that Christianity was fused into his thinking. "What Christianity achieves is not dogma, it does not seek the outward ecclesiastical form, but rather ethical principles.... There is not religion and no philosophy that equals it in its moral content; no philosophical ethics is better able to diffuse the tension between this life and the hereafter, from which Christianity and its ethic were born," Hitler stated.[24]
Derek Hastings sees Hitler's commitment to Christianity as more tenuous. He considers it "eminently plausible" that Hitler was a believing Catholic as late as his trial in 1924, but writes that "there is little doubt that Hitler was a staunch opponent of Christianity throughout the duration of the Third Reich."[25]
Hitler's private statements about Christianity were often conflicting. Hitler's intimates, such as Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, and Martin Bormann suggest that Hitler generally had negative opinions of Christianity, while Gen. Gerhard Engel and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber report he was a believer.[3][4]
It was Goebbels opinion that Hitler was "deeply religious but entirely anti-Christian."[26][27] In his diary Goebbels reported that Hitler believed Jesus "also wanted to act against the Jewish world domination. Jewry had him crucified. But Paul falsified his doctrine and undermined ancient Rome."[28] Albert Speer quotes Hitler stating, "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"[29]
Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber wrote in a confidential report that Hitler "undoubtedly lives in belief in God" and that he "recognizes Christianity as the builder of western culture."[4] Historian Ian Kershaw believes that Hitler had deceived Faulhaber, noting his "evident ability to simulate, even to potentially critical church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity".[30] Nazi General Gerhard Engel reported in his diary that in 1941 Hitler stated, "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."[3]
The historical validity of other remarks has been challenged, particularly the English translation of Hitler's Table Talk.[31] Historian Richard Carrier states, "It is clear that Picker and Jochmann have the correct [German] text and Trevor-Roper's [English translation] is entirely untrustworthy."[32] One disputed example includes Hitler's statement that, "Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity."[33] Which Carrier translates from the original German as:
"I have never found pleasure in maltreating others, even if I know it isn't possible to maintain oneself in the world without force. Life is granted only to those who fight the hardest. It is the law of life: Defend yourself! The time in which we live has the appearance of the collapse of this idea. It can still take 100 or 200 years. I am sorry that, like Moses, I can only see the Promised Land from a distance.
In the Table Talk, Hitler praised Julian the Apostate's Three Books Against the Galilaeans, an anti-Christian tract from AD 362. In the entry dated 21 October 1941 Hitler stated, "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 clear-sightedness on Christianity and Christians.... the Galilean, who later was called the Christ, intended something quite different. He must be regarded as a popular leader who took up His position against Jewry... and it's certain that Jesus was not a Jew. The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore—of a whore and a Roman soldier. The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St. Paul.... Paul of Tarsus (his name was Saul, before the road to Damascus) was one of those who persecuted Jesus most savagely."[34]
Author Konrad Heiden has quoted Hitler as stating, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."[35] According to historian Laurence Rees, "Hitler did not believe in the afterlife, but he did believe he would have a life after death because of what he had achieved."[36] Historian Richard Overy maintains that Hitler was not a "practising Christian," nor was he a "thorough atheist."[37] Hitler simplified Arthur de Gobineau's elaborate ideas of struggle for survival between the different races, among which the Aryan race, guided by providence, was supposed to be the torchbearers of civilization.[38] In Hitler's conception, Jews were enemies of all civilization, especially the Volk. Although Hitler has been called a "Social Darwinist, he was not such in the usual sense of the word. Whereas Social Darwinism stressed struggle, change, the survival of the strongest, and a ceaseless battle of competition, Hitler, through the use of modern industrial technology and impersonal bureaucratic methods ended all competition by the ruthless suppression of all opponents."[39] His understanding of Darwinism was incomplete and based loosely on the theory of "survival of the fittest" in a social context, as popularly misunderstood at the time.[40][41]
For a time Hitler advocated positive Christianity, a militant, non-denominational form of Christianity which emphasized Christ as an active preacher, organizer, and fighter who opposed the institutionalized Judaism of his day.[42] Positive Christianity purged or deemphasized the Jewish aspects of Christianity and was infused with aspects of nationalism and racial antisemitism. Hitler never directed his attacks on Jesus himself,[43] whom Hitler regarded as an Aryan opponent of the Jews.[44] Hitler viewed traditional Christianity as a corruption of the original ideas of Jesus by the Apostle Paul.[45] In Mein Kampf Hitler writes that Jesus "made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross."[46] In a speech 26 June 1934, Hitler stated:
The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavour to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of to-day.[47]
Former Prime Minister of Bavaria, Count Graf von Lerchenfeld-Köfering stated in a speech before the Landtag of Bavaria, that his beliefs "as a man and a Christian" prevented him from being an anti-Semite or from pursuing anti-Semitic public policies. Hitler while speaking the Bürgerbräukeller turned Lerchenfeld's perspective of Jesus on its head:
I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling 'as a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I say: My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. .. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.[48]
Historian Steigmann-Gall argues that Hitler demonstrated a preference for Protestantism over Catholicism, as Protestantism was more liable to reinterpretation and a non-traditional readings, more receptive to positive Christianity, and because some of its liberal branches had held similar views.[49][50] These views were supported by the German Christians movement, but rejected by the Confessing Church. According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler regretted that "the churches had failed to back him and his movement as he had hoped."[51] Hitler stated to Albert Speer, "Through me the Protestant Church could become the established church, as in England."[52]
Not all the Protestant churches submitted to the state,[53] which Hitler said in Mein Kampf was important in forming a political movement. Hitler supported the appointment of Ludwig Müller as Reichsbischof over the Protestant churches, hoping that he would get them to adhere to Nazi positions. After 1935 Hitler was advised by the newly-appointed Reich Minister for Church Affairs Hans Kerrl. Many Protestants who were not persuaded by argument were arrested and their property and funds confiscated.
By 1940 it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity.[54]
In 1999 Julie Seltzer Mandel, while researching documents for the "Nuremberg Project", discovered 150 bound volumes collected by Gen. William Donovan as part of his work on documenting Nazi war crimes. Donovan was a senior member of the U.S. prosecution team and had compiled large amounts of evidence that Nazis persecuted Christian Churches.[55] In a 108-page outline titled "The Nazi Master Plan" Office of Strategic Services investigators argued that the Nazi regime had a plan to reduce the influence of Christian churches through a campaign of systematic persecutions.[56][57] "Important leaders of the National Socialist party would have liked to meet this situation [of church influence] by complete extirpation of Christianity and the substitution of a purely racial religion," said the report. The most persuasive evidence came from "the systematic nature of the persecution itself."[58] However "direct evidence" of this plan might possibly be obtained through an examination of the "directives of the Reich Propaganda Ministry" or by the "questioning of Nazi newspapermen and local and regional propagandists".[58] The O.S.S. outline suggested that the plan to neutralize the Churches was conceived by Hitler and an inner circle even before the Nazis came to power,[56] however editor and historian Richard Bonney stated this conjecture was an "interesting, but undocumented, assertion."[57] The report argued that "considerations of expediency made it impossible, however, for the National Socialist movement to adopt this radical anti-Christian policy officially."[58] Historian Alan Bullock is in agreement with this view, and argues that once the war was over it was Hitler's intention to "root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches."[59] According to its own self-assessment, however, the O.S.S. "document is still seriously lacking in evidence of probative value, and is consequently ill suited to serve as the basis for an international discussion."[58]
Under the supervision of Alfred Rosenberg and Heinrich Himmler moves were made to reduce Christianity's presence in German traditions, such as replacing Christian elements in Christmas carols with pagan references.[60]
Hitler often associated atheism with bolshevism, communism, and Jewish materialism.[61] Hitler stated in a speech to the people of Stuttgart on February 15, 1933: "Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years."[62]
In a radio address October 14, 1933 Hitler stated, "For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."[63]
In a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933, Hitler stated: "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."[64]
In a speech delivered at Koblenz, August 26, 1934 Hitler states: "There may have been a time when even parties founded on the ecclesiastical basis were a necessity. At that time Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity. The Church's interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles."[65]
During negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of April 26, 1933 Hitler argued that "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."[66]
Among eastern religions, Hitler described religious leaders such as "Confucius, Buddha, and Mohammed" as providers of "spiritual sustenance".[67] In this context, Hitler's connection to Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem — which included asylum in 1941, the honorary rank of an SS Major-General, and a "respected racial genealogy" — has been interpreted more as a sign of respect than political expedience.[68] Hitler expressed admiration for the Muslim military tradition and directed Himmler to initiate Muslim SS Divisions as a matter of policy. However, Nazi-era Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer acknowledged that Hitler was only cooperating with Muslim figures, such as al-Husseini, because he felt the antisemitic views they shared would eventually help him win power and influence over the Middle East in the long run.[69] According to Speer, Hitler stated in private, "The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"[69] Speer also stated that when he was discussing with Hitler events which might have occurred had Islam absorbed Europe:
Hitler's choice of the Hindu Swastika as the Nazis' main and official symbol, was linked to the belief in the Aryan cultural descent of the German people. They considered the early Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders and the sign as a symbol of the Aryan master race.[70] The theory was inspired by the German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna,[71] who argued that the ancient Aryans were a superior Nordic race from northern Germany who expanded into the steppes of Eurasia, and from there into India, where they established the Vedic religion, the ancestor of Hindu and Buddhist faiths.[71] While other Nazis such as Alfred Rosenberg and Heinrich Himmler were directly influenced by Vedic culture, Hitler was less interested in it.
In Hitler's political relations dealing with religion he readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes."[72] According to Marshall Dill, one of the greatest challenges the Nazi state faced in its effort to "eradicate Christianity in Germany or at least subjugate it to their general world outlook" was that the Nazis could not justifiably connect German faith communities to the corruption of the old regime, Weimar having no close connection to the churches.[73] Because of the long history of Christianity in Germany, Hitler could not attack Christianity as openly as he did Judaism, communism or other political opponents.[73] The list of Nazi affronts to and attacks on the Catholic Church is long.[74] The attacks tended not to be overt, but were still dangerous; believers were made to feel that they were not good Germans and their leaders were painted as treasonous and contemptible.[74] The state removed crucifixes from the walls of Catholic classrooms and replaced it with a photo of the Führer.[75]
Hitler issued a statement saying that he wished to avoid factional disputes in Germany's churches.[76] He feared the political power that the churches had, and did not want to openly antagonize that political base until he had securely gained control of the country. Once in power Hitler showed his contempt for non-Aryan religion and sought to eliminate it from areas under his rule.[77][78] Within Hitler's Nazi Party some atheists were quite vocal, especially Martin Bormann.[79] During negotiations relating to the Concordat with the Catholic Church and the Nazis state in 1933, Hitler expressed his view on the relationship between race and religion to Bishop Wilhelm Berning:[80]
Hitler often used religious speech and symbolism to promote Nazism to those that he feared would be disposed to act against him.[81][82] He also called upon religion as a pretext in diplomacies. The Soviet Union feared that if they commenced a programme of persecution against religion in the western regions, Hitler would use that as a pretext for war.[83]
In 1985 the Austrian author Wilfried Daim published a photograph of an alleged document signed by Hitler in 1943, which proposed the:
In his childhood, Hitler had admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organisation of the clergy. Later he drew on these elements, organizing his party along hierarchical lines and including liturgical forms into events or using phraseology taken from hymns.[85] Because of these liturgical elements, Hitler's Messiah-like status and the ideology's all-encompassing nature, the Nazi movement, like communism is sometimes termed a "political religion".[86]
To the extent he believed in a divinity, Hitler did not believe in a "remote, rationalist divinity" but in an "active deity,"[87] which he frequently referred to as "Creator" or "Providence". In Hitler's belief God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival as depicted by Arthur de Gobineau. The "Aryan race," supposedly the bearer of civilization, is allocated a special place:
"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and the reproduction of our race ... so that our people may mature for the fulfilment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. ... Peoples that bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, sin against the will of eternal Providence."[87]
In November 1936 the Roman Catholic prelate Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber met Hitler at Berghof for a three hour meeting. He left the meeting convinced that "Hitler was deeply religious" and that "The Reich Chancellor undoubtedly lives in belief in God. He recognises Christianity as the builder of Western culture".[88]
Hitler viewed the Jews as enemies of all civilization and as materialistic, unspiritual beings, writing in Mein Kampf: "His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine." Hitler described his supposedly divine mandate for his anti-Semitism: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."[89]
In his rhetoric Hitler also fed on the old accusation of Jewish Deicide. Because of this it has been speculated that Christian anti-Semitism influenced Hitler's ideas, especially such works as Martin Luther's essay On the Jews and Their Lies and the writings of Paul de Lagarde. Others disagree with this view.[90] In support of this view, Hitler biographer John Toland opines that Hitler "carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God..." Nevertheless, in Mein Kampf Hitler writes of an upbringing in which no particular anti-Semitic prejudice prevailed.
According to historian Lucy Dawidowicz, anti-Semitism has a long history within Christianity, and that the line of "anti-Semitic descent" from Luther to Hitler is "easy to draw." In her The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, she writes that Luther and Hitler were obsessed by the "demonologized universe" inhabited by Jews. Dawidowicz states that the similarities between Luther's anti-Jewish writings and modern anti-Semitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of Judenhass, which can be traced to Haman's advice to Ahasuerus, although modern German anti-Semitism also has its roots in German nationalism.[91] Catholic historian José Sánchez argues that Hitler's anti-Semitism was explicitly rooted in Christianity.[92]
Some scholars maintain that, in contrast to a few other Nazi leaders, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or mysticism (see also Nazism and occultism) and even ridiculed such beliefs in private and possibly in public. Hitler stated: "We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else—in any case something which has nothing to do with us."[93] Other scholars believe the young Hitler was strongly influenced, particularly in his racial views, by an abundance of occult works on the mystical superiority of the Germans, like the occult and anti-Semitic magazine Ostara, and give credence to the claim of its publisher Lanz von Liebenfels that Hitler visited him in 1909 and praised his work.[94] Indeed, evidence indicates Hitler was a regular reader of Ostara.[95]
Hitler's contact to Lanz von Liebenfels makes it necessary to examine how far his religious views were influenced by Ariosophy, an esoteric movement in Germany and Austria that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. (Whether Ariosophy is to be classified as Germanic paganism or Occultism is a different question.) The seminal work on Ariosophy, The Occult Roots of Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, devotes its last chapter the topic of Ariosophy and Adolf Hitler. Not at least due to the difficulty of sources, historians disagree about the importance of Ariosophy for Hitler's religious views. As noted in the foreword of The Occult Roots of Nazism by Rohan Butler, Goodrick-Clarke is more cautious in assessing the influence of Lanz von Liebenfels on Hitler than Joachim Fest in his biography of Hitler.[96] A Hitler biography by John Toland that appeared in 1992 reprints a poem that Hitler allegedly wrote while serving in the German Army on the Western Front in 1915.[97] This poem includes references to magical runes and the pre-Christian Germanic deity Wotan (Odin), but it is mentioned neither by Goodrick-Clarke nor by Fest.
While he was in power, Hitler was definitely less interested in the occult or the esoteric than other Nazi leaders. Unlike Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess, for example, Hitler had no interest in astrology. Nevertheless, Hitler is the most important figure in the Modern Mythology of Nazi occultism. There are teledocumentaries about this topic, with the titles Hitler and the Occult and Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail.[98]
Comparing him to Erich von Ludendorff, Fest writes: "Hitler had detached himself from such affections, in which he encountered the obscurantism of his early years, Lanz v. Liebenfels and the Thule Society, again, long ago and had, in Mein Kampf, formulated his scathing contempt for that völkish romanticism, which however his own cosmos of imagination preserved rudimentarily."[99] Fest refers to the following passage from Mein Kampf:
"The characteristic thing about these people [modern-day followers of the early Germanic religion] is that they rave about the old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield, but in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a dressed bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every Communist blackjack.[100]
However, this statement isn't really a denouncing of Germanic Paganism or Occultism, rather it is a denouncing of people who admire ancient Germanic warriors, but don't heroically fight like the ancients did. It is not clear if this statement is an attack at anyone specific. It could have been aimed at Karl Harrer or at the Strasser group. According to Goodrick-Clarke, "In any case, the outburst clearly implies Hitler's contempt for conspiratorial circles and occult-racist studies and his preference for direct activism."[101] Hitler also said something similar in public speeches.[102]
Older literature states that Hitler had no intention of instituting worship of the ancient Germanic gods in contrast to the beliefs of some other Nazi officials.[103] In Hitler's Table Talk one can find this quote:
"It seems to me that nothing would be more foolish than to re-establish the worship of Wotan. Our old mythology ceased to be viable when Christianity implanted itself. Nothing dies unless it is moribund.
Jackson Spielvogel and David Redles in an article published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center assert that the influence of the anti-Judaic, Gnostic and root race teachings of H.P. Blavatsky, the founder of The Theosophical Society with doctrines as expounded by her book "The Secret Doctrine", and the adaptations of her ideas by her followers, through Ariosophy, the Germanenorden and the Thule Society, constituted a popularly unacknowledged but decisive influence over the developing mind of Hitler.[104] The scholars state that Hitler himself may be responsible for turning historians from investigating his occult influences.[104] While he publicly condemned and even persecuted occultists, Freemasons, and astrologers, his nightly private talks disclosed his belief in the ideas of these competing occult groups - demonstrated by his discussion of reincarnation, Atlantis, world ice theory, and his belief that esoteric myths and legends of cataclysm and battles between gods and titans were a vague collective memory of monumental early events.[104]
In the Führerbunker on April 29, 1945, a day before their suicide, Hitler and Eva Braun married in front of a civil servant in a cramped map room without a religious service or blessing ceremony. This was due to the difficulty of finding an official who could conduct the marriage legally. The problem was solved by Goebbels, who knew of a registrar named Walter Wagner who was fighting with the depleted Volkssturm.[105]
"Hitler’s evident ability to simulate, even to potentially critical Church leaders, an image of a leader keen to uphold and protect Christianity was crucial to the mediation of such an image to the church-going public by influential members of both major denominations. It was the reason why church-going Christians, so often encouraged by their 'opinion-leaders' in the Church hierarchies, were frequently able to exclude Hitler from their condemnation of the anti-Christian Party radicals, continuing to see in him the last hope of protecting Christianity from Bolshevism."
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