Hitler, the Christian.

Professional historians never claim that Hitler was anything other than a nihilistic atheist.

"Timothy Snyder: So what Hitler does is he inverts; he reverses the whole way we think about ethics, and for that matter the whole way we think about science. What Hitler says is that abstract thought—whether it’s normative or whether it’s scientific—is inherently Jewish. There is in fact no way of thinking about the world, says Hitler, which allows us to see human beings as human beings. Any idea which allows us to see each other as human beings—whether it’s a social contract; whether it’s a legal contract; whether it’s working-class solidarity; whether it’s Christianity—all these ideas come from Jews. And so for people to be people, for people to return to their essence, for them to represent their race, as Hitler sees things, you have to strip away all those ideas. And the only way to strip away all those ideas is to eradicate the Jews. And if you eradicate the Jews, then the world snaps back into what Hitler sees as its primeval, correct state: Races struggles against each other, kill each other, starve each other to death, and try and take land.

Delman: And that’s a good world to Hitler?

Snyder: Yeah, that’s the only good. It’s a very dark, empty universe. I mean, that’s how Hitler describes it to himself. There are really no values in the world except for the stark reality that we are born in order to take things from other people. And so Hitler sees the only good thing as removing the Jews who pervert, as he says it, human nature and physical nature."

A Post-Christian culture will be a slave culture...

...according to Mark Shea, because slavery is the normal state of fallen man.

Here is Exhibit "A."

As always, please give me a "helpful" vote at this link.

			Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss by Laurence Rees Edition: Hardcover Price: $20.01		52 used & new from $15.00
Hitler and the charisma of a "weird hero.", June 7, 2013 This review is from: Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss (Hardcover) This is a very readable and interesting book that follows the arc of Hitler's political life in terms of his relationship with those who followed, assisted or were complicit in his remarkable rise to power. The idea of the book was to follow Hitler's life through the eyes of those who came within the sphere of his political influence, and while the book does follow that plan, it is actually more interested in the life of Hitler and therefore reads as a biography with occasional reflections on the issue of Hitler's "charisma." The information that the author, Laurence Rees, supplies is well-organized and insightful and often surprising. One interesting point is Hitler's political orientation may not have fully crystalized until after his military service. Notwithstanding the myth, Hitler was not a front line fighter. While he faced danger in running messages at the front, he slept in relative comfort behind the lines. During this period, he was considered odd and not very compelling. Hitler had a tendency to monologue on subjects - a trait he retained throughout his career. Hitler found something to criticize in everything he saw. After the collapse of the war effort, Hitler was at loose ends; he was described by one of his officers, Capt. Karl Mayr, as a "stray dog...looking for a master." Mayr also wrote at the time that "At this time, Hitler was ready to throw in his lot with anyone who would show him kindness." (p. 17.) (So, a plausible alternative history story might involve a Bolshevik Hitler.) In fact, Hitler remained in the Bavarian army during Communist take-over of Munich, rather than joining a right wing Freikorps to fight the Communists. Rees notes that many future Nazis - Himmler, Strausser and Rohm, for example - joined Freikorps, but Hitler was not one of them. (Interestingly, Rees also observes that "Fuhrer" was a term used in Freikorps to designate the leader of individual Freikorps.) Nonetheless, after the defeat of the Communists in Bavaria, Hitler was given a week-long political training course and was assigned to speak to soldiers about the dangers of Communism. Apparently, Hitler's ability to connect with other soldiers in long speeches appeared at this point. Hitler then visited the nascent Nazi party and gave an impromptu presentation, which was well received. Hitler thereby found an audience for the first time in his life. It was after this moment - by September of 1919 - that Hitler's virulent anti-Semitism makes its first documented appearance in Hitler's life as he spoke about the Jewish influence in the Bavarian Communist Revolution. Rees points out that this was not original with Hitler, but was a common trope among the right-wing movements. Rees organizes his analysis of Hitler's "charisma" through the observations of Max Weber. Weber observes that charisma is tied to a belief in a person's heroism. This belief in heroism is reinforced by factors including a distance between the follower and the "hero," and the "hero's" commitment, the "hero's" prophetic stance, and, of course, the life story of the "hero." In these factors, Hitler's weird personality actually helped him assume and maintain a heroic role. In other words, his inability to relate to other people apart from monologues, his lack of close friends, and his odd personality led to Hitler maintaining a physical and social distance from those who would follow him. Hitler also had a heroic life story in his military service and his receipt of the Iron Cross (which at that point in the war was being given out more liberally than previously in the war). Hitler's history, his weirdly dysfunctional personality, his egotistical belief in himself and his public speaking ability - fostered by his practice of monologuing to other people - all conspired to imbue him with a "charisma" for many people. These people were generally those people who (a) were looking for "savior" and (b) saw a "hero" in Hitler and (b) heard confirmation in Hitler's explanation for the ills of the world what they already believed. In post-war Germany, there were many who met all three criteria. There were also those who claim they never fell under the sway of Hitler's "charisma." Many of these people were from the older aristocracy, who didn't see in Hitler a heroic figure. On the other hand, as Rees points out, various individuals who claim not to have fallen under the spell of Hitler also acted or wrote as if they were jealous of the attention they weren't getting from the Fuhrer. Obviously, success and power, and a reputation for charisma carry their own "charisma." Rees points out the example of Fridolin von Spaun who paid no attention to the "small figure" in the "shabby coat" in the early 1920s, but who was spell-bound by Hitler in the 1930s. (p. 88.) My interest in Hitler and the Nazis was sparked by Christopher Hitchens' claim that "Hitler was a Catholic" and that the "Nazis were Catholic." At this point, my reading of reputable, objective historians has led me to the conclusion that this claim is absolute nonsense. (See The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 and Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin.) I'm going to add this book to the list of books that confirm that outside the fever swamp of new atheism, objective historians with no axe to grind put no stock in the "Hitler was a Christian" meme - Hitler was no believer in the Christian God: >>"What's missing from Mein Kampf - and this is a fact which has not received the acknowledgment it should - is any emphasis on Christianity. Germany had been a Christian society for more than a thousand years, and the belief in a Christian God and Christian redemption after death had been central to millions of German lives. But Hitler offers little of this comfort in Mein Kampf. He was later to alter his rhetoric about religion according to the time and situation, but his core belief is expressed here. And whilst he does say in just one sentence in Mein Kampf that a "religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of a survival after death in some form" the thrust of the work is one of bleak nihilism. Hitler never elaborates on what possible "form" any life after death might take - nor whether he as an individual believes in it. As a consequence, the most coherent reading of Mein Kampf is that whilst Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, he did not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of the individual "soul" - an analysis that, as we shall see, is borne out by many of his later private statements on the subject. For Hitler, there is little for the individual personality beyond the experience of here and now. We are animals and we face the choice of destroying or being destroyed."<< (p. 45.) Hitler's approach to religion was "opportunistic" and premised on his need to maintain his political viability. Hitler's personal distance from Christianity was clearly evidenced throughout his life: >>"There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church. He once said to Albert Speer, "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."<< (p. 101.) Rees offers a "theological understanding" of Hitler's charisma. Hitler increasingly played a "quasi-religions role" in the Nazi state. (p. 101.)George Orwell noted that Hitler had an appeal premised on his seeming to be a man of suffering. (p. 99.) Hitler offered redemption to his followers, who had the embarrassment and shame of German defeat on their conscience. Hitler was venerated and children were taught that he was "sent from God." Hitler shifted the emphasis he placed on traditional notions of Christianity to a less precise idea of "Providence" (p. 101.): >>"Just who or what did Hitler think was this "Providence" who had "assigned" him his "path"? Almost certainly not the Christian God. As Hitler said to a group of Nazi leaders in 1937, "there is no universal agreement as to the specific nature of God" but "belief in God is one of the most ingenious and noblest presumptions of man which lifts us above the animals." So, most likely, Hitler was using what he saw as the ingenious device of a supernatural being in order to justify his own actions. If he was following "Providence," then his actions could only be questioned by that "Providence" - certainly not by mere mortals. And since he was the only route to this "Providence" then he could do whatever he liked and claim divine support. Moreover, the increasing ambiguity in Hitler's public speeches about whether or not his ideas of "Providence" bore any relationship to Christianity prevented any Catholic or Protestant clergy claiming that they had any special ability to interpret his claim of a direct link to a supernatural being."<< (p. 102.) In order to prevent his religious views from undermining his popularity, Hitler mingled two justifications for his authority - religion and scientific. On the one hand, Hitler claimed legitimacy from "Providence" and on the other he claimed that the fundamental laws of nature supported his beliefs. (p. 103.) These observations seem to tie directly into views outlined in Hitler's Theology: A Study in Political Religion (Continuum Resources in Religion and Political Culture). Rees says that Hitler developed a "bleak and violent vision" from various sources: Social Darwinism offered the idea that the essence of life was struggle, Arthur de Gobineau provided racism and the notion of the superiority of Germany came from Germany's spectacular success against the Russians during World War I. (Lees interestingly suggests that Hitler's attack on Russia was not necessarily as insane that we see it to be in retrospect; Germany had been spectacularly successful in its war against Russia during World War I and Stalin had decimated the German military with his purges.) Atheists and the contemporary mind tend to forget that the Nazis made extravagant claim for their regime on the basis of science. In Mein Kampf, Hitler actually outlined his "bleak and violent vision" and disclosed that this plan included eliminating Jews from Germany and fighting a war against Russia. Why didn't the German people listen to Hitler himself? Rees observes that the German people did not as a whole, or generally, as a majority, support either of these ends, even at the start of World War II. Rees points out that Hitler expressed his goals in sufficiently vague terms such that it permitted the German people to fill the broad goals with their own understanding of those goals, which often made Hitler's goals in their minds into metaphors rather than "action projects." The German people may not have knowingly signed on to either of Hitler's monstrous projects. An American might compare the German people's predicament with their having voted for "hope and change" and discovering that they had actually voted for the government to take over American health care. Rees does a wonderful job of explaining the personalities and machinations that led to the Nazis being handed power. I found it interesting to read about how General Ludwig Beck runs the gamut from initially supporting Hitler, and thereby giving Hitler a green light in his seizure of power, to being caused to resign, to, finally, committing suicide after his participation in the failed attempt in 1943 to assassinate Hitler. Hitler's personality and "weirdness" made his successes possible, but, as Rees points out, his personality and weirdness also made his defeat a reality. Rees does a terrific job of describing the end of the war, the loss of faith in Hitler's charisma and the end of his monstrous and barbaric regime. This book is very readable and very interesting. It provided some real insights into Hitler's personality and rise to power and sketches a general answer to the mystery of why Germany gave him the power to perform his evil deeds. Beyond that, Rees's book provides some fruitful material for reflecting on modern times and the pitfalls that modern democracies might have with modern charismatic leaders.  Comment | Permalink

Amazon Review

I do not recommend this book, but I gave it a gentle review in the hope that the kind of people who read this kind of book might be interested in reading further and deeper.

Helpful votes are always appreciated - I'm now at 2,285 and aiming for under 2,000.

				Hitler's Cross: The Revealing Story of How the Cross of Christ was Used as a symbol of the Nazi Agenda Price: $8.09		2 used & new from $8.09
Read this as theology, not as history, January 2, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Hitler's Cross: The Revealing Story of How the Cross of Christ was Used as a symbol of the Nazi Agenda (Kindle Edition) I began a project of reading scholarly history books on the Nazi relationship with Christianity because of the atheist claims that "Hitler was a Catholic" or "Hitler was a Christian." After reading Richard Stegman-Gall's The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 and Susan Heschel's The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany and Kevin Spicer's Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin and Hubert Wolf's Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich and Derek Hastings' Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism, my conclusion is that the truth is far more complicated and far more interesting than a simple yes or no answer can provide. The warm relationship between the Nazis and the Christian churches at an early stage had a lot to do with the particular history of Germany, which included a pent up sense of nationalism, but also a healthy dose of what we would call "liberal Christianity," which was willing to "re-imagine" Christ and the biblical canon in order to make Christianity "relevant" to "modern times." As a result of this background reading, I came Erwin Lutzer's Hitlers Cross with a great deal of interest. I had thought that the book might be a scholarly work that reviewed the history of the Nazi's subversion of Christian symbols for their own purposes. What I discovered was a book that really is an extended sermon, written from very few sources, by the Senior Pastor of the Moody Bible Church, as if he was giving a sermon to his congregation. For example, there are a number of occasions where Lutzer drops into rhetorical tropes that obviously come from Mr. Lutzer's clearly well-practiced skills a public speaker. This book is really Lutzer's attempt to come to grips with the problem that so many Germans, German Christians and German Christian pastors in the Nazi era either were willing accomplices of the Nazis or, at best, were compliant non-objectors to the evils of Nazism. Lutzer looks at various explanations, including occultism, Hinduism, German history, and the influence of Luther. Lutzer also stirs in what he finds to be parallels to trends in the America that he was writing about in the mid-1990s, trends, frankly, that have accelerated. It is Lutzer's conclusion that Hitler was an avowed Satanist who swore allegiance to Satan before the Spear of Destiny in Hofburg museum. (p. 64 - 66.) As a result, Lutzer infers that Hitler was imbued with occult powers to mesmerize his audiences and subordinate them to his will. I've never heard of the "Spear of Destiny" story in any of the books I've read. Lutzer's source for this story is Trevor Ravenscroft The Spear of Destiny: The Occult Power Behind the Spear which pierced the side of Christ , which a little internet research indicates is not a trustworthy source. Lutzer, for example, quotes verbatim a lengthy verbatim quote from Walter Stein as quoted by Ravenscroft, but Ravenscroft never met Stein, and much of Ravenscroft book is written in an obviously novelistic style with gross misstatements of fact. (Google "Bad Archeology Spear Lance Destiny Hitler".) Interestingly, Ravenscroft's book may have been an inspiration for "Raiders of the Lost Ark," one of whose major characters was "Marion Ravenwood." The occult connection with Nazism is problematic. Some Nazis - for example, Heinrich Himmler - were drawn to occultism. (See Peter Longerich's recent, encyclopedic Heinrich Himmler.) Others were not. Goering, for example, seems to have conceived of himself as a pious Lutheran throughout his career and viewed the pagan excesses of Himmler as "nutty." Even Hitler put the brakes on Himmler when Himmler went "over the top." (That's not to say that any of these people were Christian or committed to anything other than the complete revision of Christianity along Nazi lines.) Lutzer likewise seems to blame Hinduism for providing something to Nazism (p. 91), albeit he affirms that he doesn't intend to blame Hinduism (p. 96.) It is true that study of Hinduism was influential in Germany in the 19th Century and that Himmler, at least, read some scholarly works on Hinduism in his youth, but in my reading of Longerich's massively encyclopedic tome on Himmler, Hinduism is not mentioned as a substantial influence on him. Notwithstanding Lutzer's assertion, Himmler's statement about "decency" has more to do with being civil and courteous than it has to re-incarnation. Lutzer also considers German history, including the influence of Luther. Although a lot of this analysis is based on a popular understanding of history as viewed through modern American evangelical eyes - apparently there was a healthy undercurrent of real Christians throughout the Middle Ages who refused to baptize children - to his credit Lutzer is willing to lay some of the blame for German anti-semitism on the unfortunate anti-semitic writings of the later Luther, although Lutzer walks back some of that blame by contextualizing it, which may be a fair thing to do, since, in the words of historian Robert Louis Wilken, "every act of historical understanding is an act of empathy." (See John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century.) Of course, running through Lutzer's book is the sheer existential mystery of evil. Our ability to understand may forever elude us because there are, quite properly, limits to our ability to empathize. And yet empathize we ought to because we share with those Christians in Nazi Germany the same human propensity to "screw up" as they had. (For an interesting discussion on this propensity, see Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense.) Lutzer's sermonizing style may therefore not be inappropriate. Nor may it be inappropriate to discuss the Nazi era in terms of biblical truths and prophecies. We want to understand it so that we can explain it, but we also want to have some distance from it so we don't have to own it. However, Lutzer's theology doesn't make Lutzer's book history. He makes some real errors in history, both large and small, and often-times the small errors are the most impeaching. Thus, Lutzer incorrectly asserts that Houston Chamberlain was the nephew of Sir Neville Chamberlain (p. 89.). This is not true, and I was surprised that I had never heard such a thing before. I filed this away as possibly being true, until I did sufficient research to rebut it. (Frankly, I hate being misinformed on trivia like that because I hate looking like an idiot when I repeat it.) Likewise, there was no Catholic bishop in Berlin who was arrested and died in a concentration camp for "leading his people in prayer for the Jews." (p. 146.) German Catholic bishops were shot at and threatened with arrest and would have been summarily executed after the war, and many Catholic priests went to concentration camps, but the Catholic bishops of Berlin, although heroic figures, were not arrested. Lutzer is probably thinking of the Berlin Catholic priest Bernhard Lichtenberg, who did speak out for the oppressed Jews, and who was arrested and died in a concentration camp. Lichtenberg's heroic story deserves to be more widely known. Lichtenberg's story is told in Spicer's Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin. The true story is well worth reading. Another throwaway line is also problematic. Despite what Lutzer says, Poland did not receive territory that Bismarck had "conquered." (p. 30.) After World War I, Poland was reconstituted from the territory that had been "partitioned" by Prussia, Austria and Russia. Since those "partitions" had occurred in the 18th Century, and Bismarck unified Germany in the 19th Century, the Polish territory had long been "conquered" but not by Bismarck. Lutzer also does not appear to understand that the event that sparked the decision of Martin Niemoller and otehrs to form the Confessing Church was the fact that the majority of Protestant churches under the control of the German Christians had accepted the idea of removing the Old Testament from the Christian canon. This would have been a fascinating area for Lutzer to explore since it ties directly into two themes that he is very interested in, namely (a) the erosion of Christian core theology by liberal philosophy and (b) the mystery of how any bible-loving Christian could agree to such a disfigurement of God's word. If I was to rate this book as a work of history, I would give it one or two stars. I choose, however, to view this book as an effort to get evangelicals thinking about history and, in particular, the history of Christianity under the Nazis. As such, I choose to view this as introductory material that might whet the interest of those who don't know much about that history. I would recommend to any such readers, not to put too heavy a reliance on the data that you read in this book. Move on to more weighty books, like the ones, that I mentioned throughout this review, and think about what the history of that era says about our own era. I believe that such an exercise will pay dividends. Comment | Permalink