…and this is a 
This is a fascinating article about Hitler's library: he was an avid collector and reader, and part of his collection still exists, and you can even stroll down to the Library of Congress and ask to browse through the stockpile. The bulk of the books are about military strategy and tactics, and a subset are Hitler's personal favorite light reading, cowboy stories. But there are also many religious texts that give insight into the way his mind worked.
Experts since then have been of two minds on the matter of Hitler's spiritual beliefs. Ian Kershaw argues that Hitler consciously constructed an image of himself as a messianic figure, and eventually came to believe the very myth he had helped to fashion. "The more he succumbed to the allure of his own Führer cult and came to believe in his own myth, the more his judgment became impaired by faith in his own infallibility," Kershaw writes in The Hitler Myth (1987). But believing in a messianic myth is not the same as believing in God. When I asked Kershaw in 2001 whether he thought Hitler actually believed in divine providence, he dismissed the notion. "I don't think that he had any real belief in a deity of any sort, only in himself as a 'man of destiny' who would bring about Germany's 'salvation,'" he declared. Gerhard Weinberg, who helped sort through the Hitler Library back in the 1950s, likewise dismisses the notion of Hitler as a religious believer, insisting that he was driven by the twin passions of Blut und Boden--racial purity and territorial expansion. "He didn't believe in anything but himself," Weinberg told me last summer. Most historians tend to agree.
Some non-historians, however, have different views. In the 1960s Friedrich Heer, a prominent and controversial Viennese theologian, identified Hitler as a misguided "Austrian Catholic," a man whose faith was disastrously misplaced but nevertheless sincere. In a dense, 750-page treatise Heer saw Hitler the Austrian Catholic at every turn: the nine-year-old choirboy catching his first glimpse of a swastika in the coat of arms at the Lambach Monastery; the beer-hall orator whose speeches resound with biblical allusions; the Führer of the Reich who re-created the splendor of the Catholic mass at the annual Nuremberg rally. Even his virulent hatred of Jewry found sustenance in those roots. Fritz Redlich, an eminent Yale psychiatrist, asserts in his book, Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet, that Hitler acted from a profound belief in God. Noting Hitler's own words "Man kommt um den Gottesbegriff nicht um" ("You cannot get around the concept of God"), Redlich told me last summer that he was certain Hitler believed in a "divine creature." He rejected suggestions that Hitler's invocations of the divine were little more than cynical public posturing and insisted that we ought to take Hitler at his word: "In a way, Hitler was a terrible liar, but he was a tactical liar. In his essential line of thinking he was honest."
I tend to favor the opinion that he was a lousy Catholic…but an even lousier atheist.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Posted by: alex.asolis.net
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November 28, 2009 10:12 AM
We can't know for certain whether Hitler actually believed in God or if he was merely trying to appeal to Christian Germans. Either way, the people who actually committed Hitler's atrocities were largely religious people following his orders.
Posted by: Zeno | November 28, 2009 10:15 AM
But some of the Catholic clergy in Germany regarded Hitler as a good Catholic. We shouldn't be too hasty to dismiss their opinion.
Posted by: Thomas Galvin | November 28, 2009 10:18 AM
But what about Hitler's copy of Origin of Species, set on an illuminated podium and open to the chapter about killing Jews? Why wasn't that in the article?
Posted by: Susan vD | November 28, 2009 10:24 AM
He was a lousy atheist because whether he subscribed to the Catholic God or saw himself as a God, he was still using the the precepts all religions use to control other people. This is my only fault with religion.
Posted by: madbull
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November 28, 2009 10:28 AM
Doesn't Hitler represent all that is wrong with religion. Blind faith in a messiah with no free thought.
Posted by: John D Stackpole | November 28, 2009 10:29 AM
I've seen it said
http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/ >>
(go to the Nov 20 entry) that Darwin was banned in Nazi Germany.
Maybe that didn't apply to the boss.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 28, 2009 10:40 AM
Michael Burleigh in his book on the Third Reich makes exactly this point. National Socialism (as well as Stanlinism) can be regarded as religious in nature as they fill similar social spaces normally occupied by religion.
Posted by: Lynna | November 28, 2009 10:44 AM
"Hitler's Private Library" by Timothy Ryback notes that Hitler had several books about horse breeding. He went through them and marked out with a red pen the mares in pictures that showed both stallions and mares -- females being inferior in all species, apparently. Hitler was also into woo, astrology, and had four hundred plus books on the Catholic Church. Once you're set on a course of gullibility it seems to extend to all areas.
Posted by: mayhempix | November 28, 2009 10:59 AM
Of course I had to see if The Origin of Species appeared anywhere in the article, and I was happily disappointed.
Does anyone know if it shows up on the archive list?
I really hope it doesn't so that we can watch Fundie heads instantaneously implode into the vacuum whence they came.
Posted by: Yakaru
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November 28, 2009 11:03 AM
There's a church here in Berlin in which the Nazi decor hasn't been completely removed. (I stress that it is being preserved as a historical record and a reminder.)
http://www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/bezirke/article161867/Kirche_mit_Nazi_Symbolik_Abriss_verhindert.html
Click on the photo for the enlargement - picture of a Nazi soldier walking as one of Jesus' disciples.
The nazis closed down a large atheist group with a few hundred thousand members and later beheaded its leader. People who claim Darwinism or atheism led to Nazism are insulting the memories of an awful lot of victims.
Posted by: mayhempix | November 28, 2009 11:08 AM
#6 "Maybe that didn't apply to the boss."
Does that mean Origin of Species was in the article and I missed it?
If so blame in on my atheist blind spot.
;^ )
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 11:12 AM
Michael Burleigh in his book on the Third Reich makes exactly this point. National Socialism (as well as Stanlinism) can be regarded as religious in nature as they fill similar social spaces normally occupied by religion. - Matt Penfold
It's true that both Nazism and Marxism (not just Stalinism) have many points in common with religion and particularly Christianity, but they are not religions: neither invokes the supernatural and indeed Marxism specifically repudiates it. The "fill similar social spaces" argument is also easy for the religious to use: look, see what happens when the hold of religion is weakened! Rather, note how authoritarian, patriarchal religious culture paves the way for totalitarian political movements.
Posted by: Ten Bears | November 28, 2009 11:33 AM
There are accounts of his being schooled by, or the product of, Illuminati. Which explains his on-the-one hand apparent disdain for organized religion and the on-the-other hand skillful manipulation of The Church and its populi.
Posted by: Thomas Galvin | November 28, 2009 11:40 AM
Hitler was trained by Charles Xavier? No wonder Magneto hates him so!
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lahhhhndaan_Taowwwn | November 28, 2009 11:45 AM
I tend to favour the opinion he was a fruitcake.
There are plenty of unambiguously religious fruitcakes.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 11:49 AM
... Hitler's personal favorite light reading, cowboy stories.
Actually, apparently, Indian stories.
Posted by: TheBlackCat | November 28, 2009 11:54 AM
I would be curious as to their reasoning behind the conclusion that Hitler was/was not religious. They just throw that out there on their own authority, rather then providing any specific reasons why they think that to be the case.
Posted by: hyperdeath
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November 28, 2009 11:56 AM
I despise the "was Hitler an atheist" debate, as it completely misses the point. I am primarily a rationalist, and my atheism is merely a subset of that position. My position is not "there is no god", but "prove it or fuck off", where "it" is any fantastic claim made in the complete absence of evidence or reason.
It is feasible that Hitler's outward support for religion was for political expedience, and that privately he was an atheist. However, even if this wasn't the case, he certainly wasn't a rationalist. All he did was substitute one set of ludicrous childish counter-factual superstitions with another set of ludicrous childish counter-factual superstitions.
Posted by: hyperdeath
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November 28, 2009 11:57 AM
Damnit... that should read "However, even if this was the case..."
Posted by: Lynna | November 28, 2009 11:58 AM
[Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pp. 239-40]Posted by: Notagod | November 28, 2009 12:00 PM
I'm not so sure that Hitler was a lousy catholic. Catholics have always had an eagerness to shorten life and celebrate suffering, they even eat their own god-idea. The methods may be different but dead is dead.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | November 28, 2009 12:06 PM
no, they're cowboy stories of sorts. like spaghetti westerns, just a lot worse and even more corny.Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 12:10 PM
Knockgoats @ # 12: ... both Nazism and Marxism (not just Stalinism) have many points in common with religion and particularly Christianity, but they are not religions: neither invokes the supernatural and indeed Marxism specifically repudiates it.
Both tended to have strong mystical elements. Nazism was fairly inchoate in that regard, offering a mishmash of Hitler's vague pronouncements, Rosenberg's pseudointellectual paganism, & Himmler's opportunistic superstition, but a consistent call on immaterial forces such as "destiny", "providence", and the like comes through.
Marx's version of historical dialecticism - vast, impersonal, irresistible - often reminds me of the Judeo-Islamic vision of an abstract & unknowable god, one whose prophesied final battle and inevitable utopian triumph would ring multiple bells with certain modern christian sects.
Posted by: Nomen Publicus | November 28, 2009 12:31 PM
Even if Hitler was a lifelong, explicit, ranting atheist, not believing in the existence of god(s) doesn't require, imply or excuse a lack of humanity.
We are all surrounded in many influences and guess what, we don't suddenly decide to commit genocide. Yet some people do - I think the fault lies in the person, not what they read or hear.
Posted by: Orac
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November 28, 2009 12:32 PM
It's well known (at least among those who've studied the Third Reich) that Hitler was a voracious reader and that he used to like to underline passages and write notes in the margins of his books. What's hard to figure out from his taste in reading material is what that meant for his belief system. I tend to agree that Hitler was probably a (mostly) lapsed Catholic, having rejected the teachings of Jesus because they went against his belief that might makes right. However, he realized that both Catholicism and Protestantism were too powerful an influence for him to reject out of hand; so he tried to coopt them, with images of a Jesus who could have been a body builder, baptismal fonts adorned with storm troopers, and the like:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1975382,00.html
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 12:32 PM
Jadehawk @ # 22: ... they're cowboy stories of sorts. like spaghetti westerns...
Well, close. Do they eat pasta in the Balkans?
Posted by: Thomas Galvin | November 28, 2009 12:38 PM
I think the answer to "nature v. nurture" is a resounding "both." I once heard someone say that you can have two people, one a hopeless alcoholic, the other a complete teetotaler, and if you ask them why, they'll give you the same answer: "because my dad was a drunk."
What we experience combines with what we are to produce what we become. Some people just don't seem to have the capacity for what we call evil, and some people seem to be one bad day away from becoming monsters.
I don't believe in free will, but I still believe that stimuli have an effect on us. Different inputs produce different outcomes, just like any algorithm.
Posted by: jolly | November 28, 2009 1:02 PM
The sentence not only caught Hitler's attention—beneath it is a thick line, and beside it in the margin are three parallel pencil marks—but was echoed two years later in one of his monologues. "Mind and soul ultimately return to the collective being of the world," Hitler told some guests in December of 1941. "If there is a God, then he gives us not only life but also consciousness and awareness. If I live my life according to my God-given insights, then I cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know I have acted in good faith."
(from the article linked)
I think this sums up one of the biggest dangers of God belief. As long as you think you are doing god's work, you may do anything.
Posted by: G. Tingey | November 28, 2009 1:06 PM
Knockgoats @ 12
WRONG
Look:
The "communist" states are classic theocracies.
They have "holy books" which are an infallible guide.
The "holy predictions" are also infallible, and so is the church (the Party) even when it is manifestly not so.
[ The classic, of course is that "the revolution" will occur in the MOST DEVELOPED states FIRST ... ]
They persecute, with equal vigour, heretics (that is, believers in other forms of communism) and believers in other, competing religions.
At one point, they even joined christianity and islam in rejecting a central foundation of modern biology: have you ever heard of Trofim Lysenko?
They kill thousands/millions of unbelievers and “evil” people, in order to bring a perfect world about...
In short, the whole thing is modelled on the mediaeval RC church ......
The ultimate classic of a communist theocracy is, of course, North Korea, where the hereditary god-kings of the Kim family rule over their religiously terrorised subjects.
Furthermore, communism isn't intrinsically atheist; it is (just) that the theocrats/ideologues saw (and still see) all the other religions as competitors with their own holy cause, and adopted “atheism” as a convenient stalking horse for persecution.
Atheism doesn't lead to communism, nor even vice versa – you are pointing to a correlation but there is no underlying causation until you examine the interesting dynamics of a secular evangelical religion with a big god-shaped hole in it.
Which is filled by the infallible Party.
Posted by: Notagod | November 28, 2009 1:10 PM
Tomas Galvin@27
So you had no free will with regard to the exact form and content of the comment that you posted at exactly 12:38 PM? What of decisions that you make when you have no clear preference of choice?
People can and do change, if they didn't do that and it didn't have a effect on future options and potentials then there is a whole industry that is redundant - advertising.
Posted by: scooter | November 28, 2009 1:16 PM
Or you could take him at his own word. Read any of his major rally speeches and he mentions god by name as often as Billy Graham.
That doesn't prove anything, but the best evidence that he was religious, he says so, like GW Bush.
Most people take GW on his word, even though he doesn't act like Jesus in the Bibull stories
Posted by: Norman Doering | November 28, 2009 1:20 PM
Yea, I read about some of the books in Hitler's library. Wrote about it on the tail end of this blog post:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/04/if-hitler-was-atheist.html
From a long quote I used:
"Timothy W. Ryback, who examined Hitler's books, found more than 130 books devoted to spirituality and religion including the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some of the titles included, Sunday Meditations; On Prayer; A Primer for Religious Questions, Large and Small; Large Truths About Mankind, the World and God; a German translation of E. Stanley Jones's 1931 best seller, The Christ of the Mount; and a 500-page work on the life and teachings of Jesus, published in 1935 under the title The Son: The Evangelical Sources and Pronouncements of Jesus of Nazareth in Their Original Form and With the Jewish Influences. Ryback also found a leather-bound tome -- with WORTE CHRISTI, or "Words of Christ," embossed in gold on the cover -- According to Ryback, it "was well worn, the silky, supple leather peeling upward in gentle curls along the edges. Human hands had obviously spent a lot of time with this book...."
By the way, anyone know if the Hitler quotes posted by TruthUnadulterated in the comments to my youtube video are fake?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvmsieqUyOo
Posted by: eddie
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November 28, 2009 1:35 PM
There. Fixed that for you. No charge.Posted by: inkadu | November 28, 2009 1:38 PM
Ian Krenshaw's first two works were on monastical life and published by a Priory... I wonder if a personal religious conviction might make someone reluctant to see Hitler as religious? Hm.
Posted by: eddie
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November 28, 2009 1:49 PM
Anyway, you can make a comparison between the nazis' policy of lebensraum and israeli settlements, between the ghettoisation and oppression of untermensch in 1930s europe and in today's palestine, and between their ideology of master race and the ideology of chosen people.
Are we to conclude that hitler was an israeli or zionist? A conclusion that he was in fact a jew would be flawed as many many jews oppose the israeli state's continuation of nazi policies.
Posted by: biogeek | November 28, 2009 1:53 PM
@#10
Yes, I think “victim blaming” sums it up. Christian folk piety was still intact and going strong in 1930’s Germany. Few could escape god-belief in that social climate. An atheist back then would most likely have been a secular Jew, Marxist intellectual, or free-spirited artist/academic. Each of these groups, as we all know, ended up on the receiving end of repression and atrocities.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 1:59 PM
G. Tingey@29,
Um yes: the things you point out are exactly what I was referring to when I said:
"It's true that both Nazism and Marxism (not just Stalinism) have many points in common with religion and particularly Christianity".
None of them make a religion: indeed the idea of a "secular religion" is obvious nonsense: a religion is, by definition, not secular. When atheists respond to religidiots who wave Stalin (and often Hitler) around as examples of what atheism inevitably leads to, it appears (and in my view is) merely dishonest to respond that Marxism and Nazism are religions. It's a "No True Atheist&trade" response.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 2:16 PM
Pierce R. Butler@23,
Yes, that's a valid point, but Nazism was not, as you say, attached to any fixed mystical belief system, and Marxism's self-image was one of complete secularity: so I still think it's stretching the truth to describe either as "religions".
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lahhhhndaan_Taowwwn | November 28, 2009 2:18 PM
Has there ever been a thinker so prone to misappropriation (to use an inappropriate word) as Karl Marx?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 28, 2009 2:19 PM
Comments 23 and 29 have mostly dealt with this. Let me just spell out that, while Marxism (unlike National Socialism) claims to repudiate the supernatural, it is in fact chock full of it (and just doesn't notice, amusing as that is). Exhibit A: historical inevitabilities. German idealism (Hegel) from start to finish.
In practice, really existing communism has everything of a religion, except that the afterlife is limited to Kim Jong-il, the president of North Korea (no, I did not write "former president").
(...Yeah, and Mao has entered the "Chinese folk religion". They sacrifice oranges to him in temples. But every larger-than-life figure ends up in "Chinese folk religion" sooner or later; omnibenevolence is not required.)
This, on the other hand, is a good point.
"Accounts"? LOL.
Let me put it this way: spaghetti westerns are all, to varying extents, parodies; Karl May stories are meant seriously. The kitsch oozes from the 400 or 500 pages per book (depending on the edition – page size, font size). Winnetou, the alleged Apache whose culture is half Sioux, is almost a textbook example of a noble savage, the first-person white protagonist can beat anyone unconscious with one fist hit to the temples... It's just impossible to read if you're over 12 years old. (Before that age I read a lot.)
The movies were made in Croatia, including the stunning national park of Plitvice. Still, don't watch them, the music is too kitschy to bear.
Posted by: Rey Fox | November 28, 2009 2:20 PM
Ah but you see, you atheists, this is what happens when you reject God and try to make yourself God! 'Tis the folly of man, and we all must trust the real Word of God, which is spoken by that preacher over there. No, not that one, that one!
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 2:24 PM
Actually, apparently, Indian stories. - Pierce R. Butler
Useless fact #5763: the Sioux were officially classified as Aryans by the Nazis, or so I have read in Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the name of Science. Allegedly because a Nazi leader (it is not specified which) had a Sioux grandmother - but maybe Hitler's fondness for Karl May's stories also had an influence.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 28, 2009 2:28 PM
I would say it was, only that few beliefs were fixed: destiny, providence, sanctity of blood & soil, antirationalism.
The origins of the movement are deep in turn-of-the-century woo: theosophy, anthroposophy, Thule, Lanz von Liebenfels's nightmares full of religious racism...
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 2:37 PM
David Marjanović, OM,
Marxism (unlike National Socialism) claims to repudiate the supernatural, it is in fact chock full of it (and just doesn't notice, amusing as that is). Exhibit A: historical inevitabilities. German idealism (Hegel) from start to finish.
Certainly: as I argue with Marxists, Marx turned Hegelian idealism "upside down", but that didn't stop it being idealism. Still doesn't make it a religion: religions are explicitly supernatural, regarding this as not a bug, but a feature! Similarly, while various Nazis were into various forms of woo, there was no specific woo you had to believe in to be a Nazi: loyalty to Hitler was the central requirement.
Posted by: eddie
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November 28, 2009 2:42 PM
Nazism, stalinism, were not attached to mystical belief systems? It's almost as if you think that the mumbo jumbo of christianity is valid or something? Or that that is mostly what's wrong with religion.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 28, 2009 2:45 PM
@ #20:
Rauschning is largely rejected these days as an accurate source for Hitler's statements. Kershaw discusses this in his biography.
@ #40:
You wrote: "Marxism (unlike National Socialism) claims to repudiate the supernatural, it is in fact chock full of it (and just doesn't notice, amusing as that is). Exhibit A: historical inevitabilities."
I don't have any special brief for Marxism, but I'm definitely missing something here. Just what is necessarily supernatural about the notion of historical inevitablity? And I don't think it's enough to say that Marx got the idea from German idealism (genetic fallacy, for one thing).
Posted by: DaveH_of_London_Town | November 28, 2009 2:50 PM
If I said the pursuit of Cold Fusion was a supernatural endeavour, I would be stretching the English language too far.
I think the words dogmatic and dogma are plenty sufficient, and perhaps would get closer to the heart of the problem with ideologies, rather than worrying about comparisons to popes.
Posted by: Walton | November 28, 2009 2:56 PM
As I understand it, Himmler and some other leading Nazis were heavily influenced by Theosophy and occult mysticism. Some Nazis adopted a form of neo-paganism as their religion, incorporating elements from Norse mythology. While vocally opposed to Christianity, they certainly weren't rationalists; they simply adopted a different form of woo which fitted better with their racist-ultranationalist political ideology. Many other Nazis, however, were at least nominally Christian, and a Protestant "Reich Church" was established which was loyal to the Nazi regime. And, of course, Hitler paid lip-service to Roman Catholicism throughout his life, and maintained a cosy relationship with the Catholic Church hierarchy (one of the more shameful chapters in the Vatican's history, ranking up there with the Irish child abuse scandal).
We should reiterate, however, that while discussion of this is historically interesting, it's completely and utterly irrelevant to questions such as the truth of evolution or the existence of God. Whether or not Hitler believed in the Judeo-Christian God, and whether or not religion or the lack thereof influenced his evil deeds, has absolutely nothing to do with the evidential question of whether or not that God actually exists. This forms a larger part of the argument from consequences which is often deployed by religious apologists: "If there is no God to dictate moral commands, how do you know that action X is immoral?" Moral philosophy and ethics disclose various secular answers to this kind of question, of course. But irrespective of that, it's irrelevant to the question of whether deities actually exist; even if we could provide no justification for being "good without God", it wouldn't follow that God necessarily exists. We need to keep reiterating that it is for the religionists to adduce positive evidence for the existence of their god, and they have not done so.
Posted by: Walton | November 28, 2009 3:02 PM
As to Marxism, it's a secular worldview, but one which (in some of its manifestations) took on the psychological and social role of a religion. Orthodox Marxism has much in common with orthodox Christianity; while it has a certain internal logic, and plenty of high-sounding buzzwords (on the one hand, "Trinity", "eucharist", "sacrament", "intercession" and the like; on the other, "proletariat," "bourgeoisie" and "dialectic"), it is more-or-less completely divorced from any kind of empirical evidence and actual reality. It can only be believed as a dogma, and, like all irrational dogmas, it has to perpetuate itself by demonising those who seek to challenge it.
Posted by: Drosera | November 28, 2009 3:03 PM
I also read Karl May books as a child. It didn't turn me into a genocidal maniac.
Isn't it an amusing thought that during the battle for Stalingrad the Führer was perhaps reading children's books about cowboys and indians for inspiration?
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 28, 2009 3:16 PM
An annoying feature of this article:
"Some non-historians, however, have different views. In the 1960s Friedrich Heer, a prominent and controversial Viennese theologian, identified Hitler as a misguided "Austrian Catholic" . . . ."
Heer WAS a historian, NOT a theologian, though he was a (liberal) Catholic; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Heer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
For me, that there's an ongoing controversy about Hitler's religious beliefs (or lack thereof) owes a great deal to the fact that he was wildly inconsistent in his statements (public and private) on the subject--as well as to the fact that he was a supremely cynical and manipulative liar when it suited him. When is he telling the truth? becomes at times a mind-bendingly difficult problem.
I've tended to place more weight on his private statements (although it's very likely that he was calculating the effect of these on his audience the whole time, as with his public speeches). That he nonetheless lets slip a hostility to Christianity that would have caused him a great deal of trouble in public seems to me to give the private statements an indicium of reliability (among his sycophantic associates, he could just as well have talked up Christianity as ragged on it, I think).
Unlike Kershaw, however, I've tended to take Hitler at his word when he talks about God (granted that the word "God" looks pretty much interchangeable with "destiny"). It seems plain to me that when he considered himself specially favored by destiny, he's thinking in supernatural terms. (I'm sure, btw, that Kershaw forgets more about Hitler between breakfast and lunch than I'll ever know; so my disagreement may not be worth that much.)
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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November 28, 2009 3:27 PM
Only two members of Hitler's inner circle had any post-secondary education. Speer had the equivalent of a bachelor's in architecture and Goebbels had a PhD in German literature from Heidelberg University. Hitler was intrigued by intellectual pursuits but he disliked intellectuals.
Posted by: MadScientist | November 28, 2009 3:42 PM
No Darwin? I guess Hitler learned Evilution via the religious approach: Divine Inspiration. It sure beats having to read a book.
Posted by: milton. | November 28, 2009 4:04 PM
Hitler was not only catholic (however lapsed), but also an occultist obsessed with astrology, and one who held to pagan beliefs of germanic/norse gods and heroes. it baffles me that people to this day still think he was an atheist, or that respected historians cannot fathom that he was religious (due to lack of a better term), simply because he was so evil. i mean, come on.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | November 28, 2009 4:19 PM
Hitler woo
Like all woo
Is just woo
Unless you
Really believe it.
And if you
Big boo hoo
With your woo
Do undo
All my woo
I should'a seen it.
The impression is that Adolph looked around for examples of how large groups of people are influenced and directed to a predetermined mind set by a small minority. Naturally his attention was drawn to established religions since they have the longest history of success, or at least practice. So he learned from their examples, imitating them when convenient, even co-opting evangelical delivery and appeal to higher powers to sway the masses. He was quite rational in doing so.
He was also trapped in his own woo which featured the timeworn but to Adolph entirely captivating idea that one set of rules will suffice for all the people of the world. It really is a lovely idea, all of us in general if not total agreement. Problem is that for all of human history up to and including the mid-twentieth century the only way to accomplish this was to convince group A and group B that it was necessary to eliminate group C before A and B could fight it out for real, true World Domination.
Eighty years on Adolph's sycophants still whip that dead horse as do those who compulsively trot out his legacy as some prototypical example of evil.
What he did was really routine. He was certainly not the first though he did have the advantage of premier manufacturing base already geared for weapon production. He is however fresh in memory. In a couple of generations maybe not so fresh. The future will bring more of his type. The difference today is that there is a much louder and cohesive voice to expose such woo by means of cogent argument and the weight of scientific knowledge.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 28, 2009 4:27 PM
What else than a supernatural force could it possibly be? It's a lot like karma: impersonal, behaving as if it were a law of physics, but no physics is involved.
They weren't intended for children that much. And in some there's a Christian background message.
To me, too.
Hitler personally probably not. Himmler tried to, however. I don't know enough about Rosenberg.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 4:28 PM
Walton@49,
Someone (I thought it was Russell, but can't find it) drew up a table of the equivalences between Christian and Marxist notions, something like this:
Jesus/Marx
The Bible/Das Capital
The Elect/The Proletariat
The Church/The Party
The Second Coming/The Revolution
Judgement Day/Expropriation of the Expropriators
As to "It can only be believed as a dogma", there have been attempts to reformulate Marxism as a rational theory of historical processes, notably an interesting one by G.A.Cohen, but this involved gutting it by removing the "dialectic".
Posted by: Stephen Wells | November 28, 2009 4:31 PM
I think you'll find it in Russell's History of Western Philosophy.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 4:34 PM
What else than a supernatural force could it [historical inevitability] possibly be? - David Marjanović, OM
A positive feedback loop between population, innovation, and productivity.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 28, 2009 4:36 PM
Just for laughs: can you give examples of large-scale social movements on roughly the scale of naziism--big enough to take over something like a nation-state over politically and radically change its course--that DID NOT have significant religious elements to it
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | November 28, 2009 4:56 PM
@60
The bikini and the mini-skirt?
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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November 28, 2009 5:01 PM
Speaking of Nazi paganism (i.e. I'm going off topic now).
I seem to recall watching part of a documentary many years ago about Himmler and a his crazy ideas. The thing that's plaguing me at the moment is that I think he set up a whole 'shrine' to this new religion his. The image that's stuck in my mind is a cellar/crypt of this castle, decked out it marble, that was supposed to be the eventual burial place of all the Nazi heroes and leaders.
But I cannot for the life of me remember the name, nor seem to find anything about this place online. Is this all some fevered imagination of mine?
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | November 28, 2009 5:04 PM
@61
Ignoring, for the moment, ecumenical outrage which is always present or lurking.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 28, 2009 5:13 PM
Just for laughs: can you give examples of large-scale social movements on roughly the scale of naziism--big enough to take over something like a nation-state over politically and radically change its course--that DID NOT have significant religious elements to it
Oooh, tricky, tricky, let me see: the American, French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese and Portuguese revolutions. The Bolivarian liberation of Spanish South America. The Italian Risorgimento. German unification. Swedish Social Democracy. The Norwegian independence movement. The end of the Soviet Union. The Chinese reform programme. Vietnamese Doi Moi. The end of apartheid in South Africa.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | November 28, 2009 5:24 PM
But how to deal withe the expressions of 'ecumenical outrage' that accompanies social/political revolutions as surely as it accompanied the bikini and the mini skirt?
I know. I'm at a loss too . . .
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | November 28, 2009 5:27 PM
Also, the Anglican Church.
Posted by: Esve | November 28, 2009 5:30 PM
On the debate between Hitler believing in god and having a god complex, I think that people with sufficient mental dexterity could possibly create for themselves just such a system. Jim Jones of People's Temple certainly did both- he was charismatic and controlling, a great speaker and event planner, very spiritual, and towards the end of his life, utterly paranoid and insane. If he could be a devout believer in Yeshua of Nazareth, and proclaim that he would be his congregation's God if they wanted it, Hitler probably could have held similar ideas.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 28, 2009 6:08 PM
@ #56: "What else than a supernatural force could it possibly be? It's a lot like karma: impersonal, behaving as if it were a law of physics, but no physics is involved."
Except physics can very well be involved: all you need to assume to believe in historical inevitability is that every human action is solely the product of antecedent (physical) causes. If you believe that, I think you also have to believe that everything human beings have ever done they HAD to do. To be sure, the causal links to human action are so complex that you can't adequately predict what human beings will do in a given situation; but that's a weakness of the observer. It in no way proves that what people finally do wasn't inevitable. What supernatural force do you need to believe in this kind of inevitability or necessity?
Posted by: Mine's a Newt | November 28, 2009 7:09 PM
The trouble with ascertaining Hitler's religious views is that there's an enormous amount of dodgy material out there. There are two reasons. This first is that it was important to the Allies, for propaganda purposes, to stress that Hitler was something alien, weird, and not at all like ordinary British, Americans, French, etc.
So you got things like the Hermann Rauschning hoax, "The Voice of Destruction", also published as "Hitler Speaks", which was actually written by Emery Reeves, and is the source for most of the anti-Christian quotes attribute to Hitler.
Now, I love anti-Nazi propaganda, and I admire Emery Reeves' style a lot. He was an expert on early Provencal poetry, a friend of Churchill's, and because he stayed in France after the German invasion, a hell of a brave man. He was also a literary faker for anti-Nazi purposes - 'Hitler Speaks' wasn't his only hoax. He's a great guy and he deserves a biography. But after the fact, it's necessary to sort out what as true and what was just fiction. The anti-Christian quotes Hitler is given, in the Rauschning/Reeves book, are fiction.)
There's a similar problem with the anti-Christian quotes in the book published in English as "Hitler's Tabletalk", with the introduction by Trevor-Roper. For long and complex reeasons, this book was published in French and then English at a time when the original German transcripts of Martin Bormann's recordings of Hitler's ranting were not available. When the original German transcripts did become available (in two separate versions; it's complicated), it emerged that the French and English translators had systematically distorted Hitler's remarks on religion, to create an anti-Christian Hitler who resembled the Hitler of the Rauschning/Reeves book, which was not then known to be a fake.
Thus, for example, a Hitlerian remark that was actually an attack on the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was changed, in "translation", into an attack on Christianity as such. This could not have been done by mistake, though there are plenty of mistakes in the English version in addition to the deliberate misinformation. All of the anti-Christian remarks in the "Table Talk", with one possible exception, are faked in this way.
(My source on this is an article by Richard Carrier in the "German Quarterly". I can't give the publication date or article title from where I'm typing, but it's in an issue during the last five or six years. It's only a Quarterly; you won't find it that hard to find it you want to.)
The second problem I'll save for a second post, because I don't want to be more boring than I can help.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 7:22 PM
milton. @ # 54: Hitler ... held to pagan beliefs of germanic/norse gods and heroes.
Sili @ # 62:
Both quotes above from Heather Pringle, The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust.
Posted by: No BS | November 28, 2009 7:23 PM
Lenin's corpse:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/21/article-1172374-0492B3FD000005DC-392_468x286_popup.jpg
It may not be religion, but it's pretty creepy.
Posted by: Mal Adapted | November 28, 2009 7:26 PM
#39:
Charles Darwin?
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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November 28, 2009 8:12 PM
Machiavelli?
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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November 28, 2009 8:16 PM
Thank you, Pierce.
It's just as I remembered it.
What Pharyngula doesn't know, is not worth knowing.
Posted by: Mine's a Newt | November 28, 2009 8:43 PM
The second problem is more of a post-war one, which is that publishers love books about Nazis! and they love books about the occult!! but what they love even more is books about occult Nazis!!! But it's nearly all bullshit.
There's no evidence connecting things like Theosophy to Nazi doctrines. Theosophy is/was splendidly dotty (though I suspect that Mme Blavatsky never believed a word of her doctrines, or her channelled holy books, etc), but it was pretty harmless. It promoted religious tolerance, supported the rights of colonised peoples, and originally taught that the most advanced kind of human would be found in America, because of the racial inter-mixing that was happening there. Not really much there for Nazis. The Nazis thought so too, since they banned Theosophy, and various mystical offshoots, including Steiner's Anthroposophy. (Steiner and his movement are racist, and a bit sinister, but it's still true that the Nazis didn't like him a bit, and banned his cult.)
The only real connection between Nazism and occultism is tenuous and second hand. It's that Goering and a couple of second-level Nazis were, when young, briefly involved with the Thule Society, which was NOT an occult society, but which had taken some members from an earlier group that was. But what the likes of Goering would have heard, if they attended any Thule Society lectures (there's no evidence that they did, not that it would have mattered), was pseudoscience with slide shows of ancient burial grounds, architecture and artefacts, etc, all arranged so as to prove that every great civilisation in human history was Aryan, and that the German people were the true descendants of the Aryan people.
So the Thule Society was indeed promoting pernicious nonsense, but it wasn't occult nonsense. It was pseudoscience. We don't like pseudoscience either, but it's good to keep the two categories separate.
By the way, speaking of Darwin, the ur-text for the Nazis' "racial science" was Arthur Gobineau's "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races", which was translated into German in the 1880s. Gobineau was not a Darwinist but a creationist, who believed that the world was created by the Christian God literally in six days. Also a devout Catholic.
So: racist pseudoscience? Oh, that was a Catholic creationist invention. Useful debating point, sometimes.
Similarly, Alfred Rosenberg was not a pagan. He was a Gottglaubige, which is to say that he believed in one god, though not necessarily in Jesus and the Bible. (I've read the two volumes of his collected speeches, the Mythus, and his confessions before they hanged the bastard, and I can't really tell whether he was a Christian or a deist. He certainly admired many Christians, especially Luther and Meister Eckhardt, and he seems to have been strongly taken with the Gospel of John (perhaps because it's the most antisemitic). He never proposed worshipping Odin and so on, but said in the 'Myth of the Twentieth Century' that it would be good if modern Germans worshipped their current god with the fervour with which the old Germans worshipped theirs, which is a slightly different thing.
Likewise, Himmler sent scientists to Tibet because he thought the Tibetans might be the most racially pure Aryans. That's a nonsensical belief. But he didn't send anyone to Tibet, or anywhere else, to find the Holy Grail, or the Holy Spear, or anything on those lines. That's a different kind of nonsensical belief, and it wasn't Himmler's kind of nonsense. (By the way, the 'ancient legend' that whosoever possesses the Holy Spear has the power to rule ze vorld: that "ancient legend" was invented in the 1960s. The Nazis never heard of it, unless they had, um, spiritual time machines.)
The SS castle at Wewelsburg was a creepy place for human and political reasons: people were worked to death there. Not for "spells", but for the same reasons the Nazis murdered people elsewhere. There are serious biographies of Himmler as well as the stuff that drifts into the new age and occult sections of bookstores, and Himmler was clearly interested in pseudoscience and pseudohistory. Not the occult. The two best words for the Wewelsburg Castle are "evil", because people were killed rebuilding it, and ... "kitsch".
So, the Nazi-occult connection has sold many books. But the closest thing to a respectable history on the point is Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's 'The Occult Roots of Nazism', which, despite the title (publisher-insisted, I suspect), tends to the view that the supposed occult roots are a myth rather than a reality. It's my main source for the above.
According to Albert Speer, apart from Bormann and Hitler himself the others in Hitler's circle were simply Christians. Christianity has a rich history of violent totalitarianism, and of violent antisemitism, as well as of better things, so it's not really all that strange for Nazis to be religiously rather unremarkable.
Something on Hitler's religious beliefs in another post, unless people beg me not to. But this one is long enough.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 9:02 PM
Sili @ # 74 - an interesting link, though neither my German nor Google Translate's seems adequate to explain where those pictures came from, as Wewelsburg was destroyed in the last days of the 3rd Reich:
Color photography was not available at the time W'burg was photogenic, last I heard - and who the hell would build an accurate reproduction?
Posted by: N.Schuster | November 28, 2009 9:05 PM
According to this:
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id2.html
The nazis wanted to elminate the Church in Germany.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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November 28, 2009 9:38 PM
I just grabbed the first picture that looked recognisable. If I understand Wikipedia correctly the castle has been restored.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 9:53 PM
Sili @ # 78 - Looks like you're right:
Wikipedia doesn't say why or by whom, and I'm more than a little puzzled. Given that the German government found it desirable to destroy the entire Spandau prison after Rudolf Hess died to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine (the site representing the shame of one the goosesteppers considered a traitor), the restoration of Himmler's pride'n'joy makes no sense at all...
Posted by: A.Lizard | November 28, 2009 9:59 PM
to Sili:
The name of the castle is Wewelsburg Castle, you can get more information about it in "The Middle Point of the World" section of Chapter 6 of Unholy Alliance by Peter Levenda.
Posted by: Thomas Galvin | November 28, 2009 10:02 PM
Notagod @30
Correct. We live in a (mostly) deterministic universe. The idea that there is something within humans that operates outside of natural law, a "force of will," is an illusion.
The decisions we make are just electrical impulses firing around inside of bits of matter. They are just as beholden to natural law as any other machine. The fact that our brains are very complex machines, and that we don't entirely understand them, doesn't change that.
Furthermore, science has shown that we make decisions before we are consciously aware of it.
You must have missed the part where I said "I still believe that stimuli have an effect on us. Different inputs produce different outcomes, just like any algorithm."
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | November 28, 2009 10:08 PM
@Pierce #79,
Dates will cure puzzlement.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 28, 2009 10:22 PM
DaveH_of_Lundun @ # 82 - Damn, and all I have in the house are dried figs & papaya.
Back in '48-9, Germany was still under the thumb of Allied occupation, no? Admittedly, the pardons & "de-nazification" were a bad joke, but with civilian infrastructure still needing so much work... why?
Oh well, I should know better than to expect history to make any more sense than current events.
Any idea whether the neo-nutsies are congregating at Wewelsburg these days?
Posted by: Mine's a Newt | November 28, 2009 10:45 PM
@ 76: Colour photography was around during the war, so the fact that the photos of Wewelsburg are in colour is no evidence against their authenticity. They could have been taken before the destruction, or after the reconstruction, probably the latter. But they're evidence that there was Nazi symbolism at Wewelsburg, as you'd bleedin' well expect. They do not show anything occult about the place. It was meant to be a Nazi museum and shrine, and that's what it looks like. Peter Levenda goes all "woo" about Wewelsburg, but that's his schtick.(And he's sticking to it.) Read some more Peter Levenda to get a feel for the sort of claims he makes, and the sorts of evidence he relies on, and then you'll probably stop citing him or taking him seriously.
There's a mausoleum down the road from my parents' place. It's for the first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, and they've made it as impressive as they can: flags, towers, symbols, all over the place. Labour dignitaries go there once a year. Believe me, mausoleums do not equal or even point to occultism.
And an erratum. I said Albert Speer said that Hitler's circle were mostly Christians. I meant Hess, quoted by his doctor.
By the way, I know too much about this stuff because I started to research and write a book on the holy grail silliness (Dan Brown etc), with comparisons to the earlier "Spear of Destiny" sillinesses (Trever Ravenscroft etc). It was as funny and savagely debunking as I could make it. But I dropped the book for another one that might actually make money.
Anyway, the day's getting away from me so I'll just do the conclusion without discussing the various kinds of evidence.
First, Hitler was certainly a Gottglaubige, a believer in god. He said so in public, in speeches, and he also said so in private, repeatedly, often with the additional remark that he thought he was doing god's work, or being guided by God, or Heaven, or Providence.
That part's easy. The hard part is what kind of god-believer Hitler was. One myth, often believed by atheists, is that Hitler was a Catholic. Atheists should stop claiming that because it isn't true, and because Catholics will say that it isn't true and they will happen to be right. So it's not a good place to put yourself in, when having an argument.
Hitler was brought up as a Catholic, and you can, if you like, find traces of Catholicism in the structure of his ideas. ("If you like" because that's not a style of argument I have any interest in or time for. You can find resemblances between any pair of ideologies, if you want to.)
But there is absolutely no doubt that he had rejected his mother church well before the 1930s. His comments on Catholic doctrines, and on Catholics priests, ceremonies, etc, are invariably contemptuous. (The - mostly - shameful dealings between the Catholic Church and the Nazis are a different issue from whether Hitler was Catholic.)
On the other hand, Hitler revered the violently antisemitic Christian Martin Luther, who rejected Catholicism and set up his own church. You'll find strongly admiring references to Luther in 'Mein Kampff', but also in private remarks. So insofar as Hitler was a Christian, he was a Protestant.
It's hard to say, though, whether Hitler was exactly a Christian. He admired Jesus, and said that in his attacks on Jews he was following Jesus's example, in driving the moneylenders out of the temple. He also referred to Jesus as someone killed in the struggle against the Jews.
However, he is also on record admiring Islam, partly for its antisemitism, but more for its promotion of a warrior ethos, which is where he thought Islam superior to Christianity.
So while he believed in a god, roughly the god of Jesus and Mahummad (yes, there are differences, but anyway...), it doesn't appear that he followed any particular church within Christianity.
Probably the best clue to Hitler's religious views is the Nazi program to establish a national (and Nazi) Christian church which would ultimately be the only one permitted in the Third Reich. It seems that the long-term plan was that all other churches would eventually be banned or incorporated into and placed under the direction of the German Christian church, which would meld Christian and nationalist doctrine, and in turn be beholden to the Nazi Party.
Hitler admired Martin Luther, who was scathing about the existing Christian church and established a new one. In a sense, Hitler didn't follow Luther's doctrines; he followed Luther's example.
(Actually, a better analogy for what the Nazis intended was Henry VIII's establishment of the Church of England, with the banning of all other churches, and the merging of the church and the state. But that analogy, though precise, never seems to have occurred to Hitler, or at least he never mentioned it.)
Richard Steigmann-Gal's 'The Holy Reich' has some of the history on this.
So in sum, Hitler believed in god, and he was a kind of Christian. It's just that it was a form of Christianity interpreted through Nazism, with him as the new church's Luther. Or Henry VIII. That's why he was hostile to the existing Christian churches - though much more hostile to Catholicism than to German protestantism.
So apart from saying that he believed in god, it's not that simple. He was a kind of Christian, but not attached to any of the existing Christian churches. He wanted to head his own version of Christianity.
So you would probably best categorise him as a Christian heretic, in roughly the same category as someone like David Koresh. Of course, if he'd won the war and successfully established German Christianity, then we'd categorise him with Luther, or Wesley.
One-line version: Hitler believed in god, and was also a sort of Christian, but he not sympathetic to any existing Christian church and planned to establish his own.
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | November 28, 2009 10:56 PM
:-)
I don't know why exactly, but it is an early C17 castle, so someone would have spoken up for it.
I don't think any meaningful comparison can be made to the 1980s decision to knock down Spandau, a late C19 prison.
I personally find the later decision less defensible.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | November 29, 2009 1:20 AM
As I recall, Darwin's "The Origin of Species" was one of the books that Hitler had burned.
Posted by: Evolution SWAT | November 29, 2009 1:25 AM
Great article Dr. Myers. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Jon H | November 29, 2009 2:34 AM
knockgoats @12 wrote: "It's true that both Nazism and Marxism (not just Stalinism) have many points in common with religion and particularly Christianity, but they are not religions: neither invokes the supernatural "
I'm not sure there really needs to be much that is "supernatural" for it to be considered a religion. Consider Imperial Rome's deification of emperors. Whatever was supernatural was, I think, a carryover from prior religious practices.
Had it lasted long enough, I could see Nazism turning into something like a modernized version of Roman state religion, with the Führers being deified.
Posted by: TheVirginian | November 29, 2009 3:09 AM
First, Richard Carrier's article on the problems with the English translation of Hitler's Table Talk is: in:
Carrier, Richard C., “Hitler’s Table Talk: Troubling Finds,” October 2003 “German Studies Review,” (vol. XXVI, no. 3), pp. 561-576
A shorter version of Carrier’s article appeared in the November 2002 “Freethought Today” (vol. 19 no. 9) “On the Trail of Bogus Quotes,” pp. 10-11.
Carrier has recommended "The Holy Reich," by Richard Steigmann-Gall, 2003, which recounts and analyzes the Christian aspects of Nazi leaders.
Based on my reading (not at the level of the scholars, but fairly extensive), I concur with the cautions about putting too much stock in any one source on Hitler, as they all have problems. "Table Talk" would be the best source if a collated, properly translated editon of the surviving copies is ever created. I really hope someone is doing that, as it likely would answer some serious questions about Hitler.
For what my opinion is worth, I think Hitler believed in some sort of divine power, the source of Christianity, and that he was a chosen agent to carry out a mission for it. He said so at times, plus his claim that his Third Reich would last a thousand years is almost certainly based on the apocalyptic theology of Joachim of Fiore (the world has 3 ages, Jesus started the 2nd; a great emperor would start the 3rd by cleansing Christendom of corruption and defeating the penultimate AntiChrist, which would start a 1,000-year countdown to the Apocalypse as described in Revelation.)
If Hitler meant what he said, then he believed he was the Great Emperor and the penultimate AntiChrist was Jews collectively, which many Christians would have agreed with. Cleaning Christendom meant destroying "atheism," in the form of church-state separation (which he blamed on Jews) and eliminating inferior races, so that Aryans, whom many racist Christian Germans identified as the true Christians, would not be threatened with impurity.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 29, 2009 3:13 AM
I think that's debatable, and probably wrong.
To the best of my knowledge, Hitler, having been baptized Catholic, was never excommunicated, and never did anything that would be considered deserving of automatic excommunication, like desecrate the Eucharist, as a completely random example.
No matter how bad a Catholic he was -- in the sense of being a heretic as you describe -- the Catholic Church did not explicitly convict him of this, so he was, still, a Catholic.
The historical details are fascinating, though. Were the Nazis researching psychic warfare? Would that be considered occult, or pseudoscience?
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 29, 2009 5:23 AM
Nazism, stalinism, were not attached to mystical belief systems? It's almost as if you think that the mumbo jumbo of christianity is valid or something? Or that that is mostly what's wrong with religion. - eddie
Um, where did you manage to get that from? New here, are you? I said they were/are not religions. Why does a simple statement of fact bother you so much?
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 29, 2009 5:38 AM
Stephen Wells@58,
Thanks, that's where I looked, but it's not in the chapter on Marx. Encouraged by your comment, I looked again and found it in the chapter "St. Augustine's Philosophy and Theology"! Here's the original version:
"To understand Marx psychologically, one should use the following dictionary:
Yahweh = Dialectical Materialism
The Messiah = Marx
The Elect = The Proletariat
The Church = The Communist Party
Hell = Punishment of the Capitalists
The Millennium = The Communist Commonwealth"
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 29, 2009 5:57 AM
Mine's a Newt,
Thanks very much - fascinating and informative stuff. I'd buy the book you abandoned if you ever write it!
Posted by: Mine's a Newt | November 29, 2009 6:03 AM
Hi The Virginian,
Thanks for giving the correct reference for Richard Carrier's article. I'm stuck without access to my library at the moment. (German Studies Review, not German Quarterly. Yes. Head-slap.) This is really one of the issues where it's essential to stick to the peer-reviewed lit, and not the stuff on the net.
At Owlmirror: the Catholic Church never repudiated Hitler, and generally managed to grab for and hold the moral low ground during the Holocaust. On top of the failure to condemn, there's the fact that the Vatican paper, L'Observatore, was pushing antisemitic propaganda right through WWII, while the Nazis were murdering Jews.
But while the Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler, you can leave the Catholic Church without being excommunicated. You can, for example, stop going to Catholic churches, and consistently say contemptuous things about Catholicism for twenty years or so. That's another way of becoming an ex-Catholic, and it's the route Hitler took. I can grab together an overview of Hitler quotes on Catholicism if you express a strong interest, but it's near bedtime in Australia, and it wouldn't be till tomorrow some time.
And no, the Nazis weren't investigating psychic warfare at all. All of the 'Nazi psychic warfare' stuff was invented after the war, mainly by Pauwels and Bergier ('Morning of the Magicians') and then Trevor Ravenscroft, who made up the Spear of Destiny stuff. Total bullshit from beginning to end, both books, but brilliant stuff just the same. Lots of other writers have used Ravenscroft's ideas in particular, so that it becomes part of the Zeitgeist, and people start thinking that sure it's exaggerated but some of it must be true.
But all those teams of Nazi psychics fighting it out with Allied warlocks: complete invention the lot of it, spun by hack writers needing money in the gullible and drug-hoovering 1960s. Drinking money, in Ravenscroft's case, though I'm not holding that against him. if you take his stuff as fiction rather than history, then it's quite a grand conception.
Posted by: Cimourdain
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November 29, 2009 8:36 AM
These analyses leave out another inspiration. What was the twentieth century's first extermination of a religious minority designated by a specific symbol they were forced to wear in public, involving such techniques as en mass purges, marches, and forcing prisoners to dig their own graves? The Armenian genocide. Which was observed by which power that was the ally of the Ottoman Empire in the Second World War? Germany.
Hitler drew much inspiration for his his poisonous insanity straight from Islam. Which is why he was on record as having contempt for Christianity, and admiration for Islam (Christianity was too weak an instrument of fanaticism, as he saw later). It's also why Churchill descrived Mein Kampf as "The New Koran"
Anyway, much of this is true - the pro-Christian/anti-Christian both - but it misses a more basic point. The Nazis were, in the strict, literal sense of the word, pragmatists. That is, the validity of a belief was less important to them than that it "worked", i.e. could be used to mobilize the populace. You can still see traces of this philosophy in the various idiotic "construct of identity" courses, but that's an amateur exercise in what the Nazis played at Grand Master level. They were entirely capable of assuming a belief, believing it fanatically, and abandoning it just as quickly. Look at the way they kept tinkering with their doctrines of racial purity to accept first the Arabs and then the Japanese alongside, whenever it suited.
The main axes of their thought can be summarised roughly as collectivism, the idea that the group was above the individual (racism and National Socialism are both subsets of collectivism), sacrifice as the way to serve the group, irrationalism, and war fever, though the last is mainly a result of the forgoing three. The Nazis were different from the Communists in that respect: they never pretended that the use of violence was something temporary for them, the way Communists and their apologists do to this day, they frankly admitted that, under those premises, violence would be forever.
Oh, and National Socialism was a varient of socialism.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2009 8:46 AM
The Russian and Chinese revolutions, I think, are open to debate since they both developed into movements that many here claim are quasi-religious and it was during that stage that the biggest changes in those societies were carried forward.
The Chinese Reform program, of course, was carried out by precisely those granted that quasi-religious authority over the state in the Chinese Revolution.
Vietnam had some pretty significant religious conflict at the core of the conflict, some of the early leaders of the anti-colonial movement were deeply religious. And, of course, if Stalinism is essentially religious, why wouldn't the cult surrounding Ho Chi Minh?
[Revolutionary socialist movements in general seem to have this conflict between romantic individualism, which is typically what leads people to join the movement, and the perceived need for extremely rigid, hierarchal discipline. Religion of a sort often seems to be the answer.]
Liberation theology was very important in the anti-apartheid movement.
Norwegian independence from Sweden doesn't really seem to meet the criteria of large-scale social change ;-)
And so on . . . in short, if we insist that Naziism and Stalinism are essentially religious, very few large social movements can escape being marked as essentially religious by the same type of analysis. In other words we are conceding that religion is the preferred way of organizing large social movements.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2009 9:41 AM
Just a few quick correctives here: the Ottoman Empire was gone by WWII. That was WWI where Germany was its ally. The way the alliances fell out in WWI is interesting history and has little to do with the Koran and more to do with Continental vs. Colonial power.
Ataturk was a strong secularist and a strong nationalist. (the Ottoman Empire had been religious and cosmopolitan, and he was reacting strongly to the contrary.) The Armenian genocide was driven by nationalism at the top, though no doubt religious prejudice played a part in the ranks. What else is new?
Churchill's quote reflects a long tradition of Western Orientalism, in which the Koran (and Mohammed) was a byword for unquestioingly followed authority which inspired a large, threatening social movement.
The analogy was only meant to go one way (Mein Kampf is the new document representing grave threat to the West NOT that the Koran is the proto-Mein Kampf, as Langworth, the Churchill historian who popularized this quote, has made clear.
It seems ironic that you seem concerned about genocide and then launch into a discourse whose logical end seems to be "let's wipe out Islam before it wipes us out."
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 29, 2009 9:49 AM
OK. I reduce my claim to that of pseudoscience – Marx made a hypothesis, but failed to test it (all stages except the last two were supposed to have already happened, so data were available), and Marxism kept it in the face of contradictory evidence.
This would mean that Werner Heisenberg disproved Marxism. <ostentatious twiddling of thumbs>
It was, though not quite in that quality.
Consider this stolen :-)
And what makes you think this book wouldn't make money?!?
Any religion which has gone through the Enlightenment is too weak an instrument of fanaticism. It's a historical coincidence that most of Christianity has been there while Islam has not.
Dude, in that case they would have won the war. One mistake after another, every one of them easily explainable by ideology, yet completely flabbergasting from any kind of pragmatic point of view. It's a bit similar to how the Catholic Church officially fears promiscuity more than overpopulation.
Look at how slowly they did that.
Look at what they did to all those people who had greeted them as liberators from Stalin, with bread and salt.
LOL. I've seen footage of the pathetic attempt to glorify the Workman® (Arbeitsmann® – they didn't even use the normal term "worker", Arbeiter, which is already masculine in German grammar!). The similarities end pretty soon after the collectivism stuff.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 29, 2009 9:54 AM
One important religious feature of National Socialism hasn't been mentioned yet: in the last 1 or 2 years, it was required to believe in the Final Victory® (Endsieg®, another such neologism). Failing to do so was treason, and the punishment for treason was, guessed it, death plus serious danger for the whole family (unlike the communists, the Nazis believed in family values...).
Posted by: Cimourdain
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November 29, 2009 9:59 AM
Oran Kelley,
Your corrections, I'm sorry to say, are largely incorrect.
Full marks for stating the obvious. I repeat: who was the Ottoman Empire's ally in WWI? And in which war did the young Hitler earn an Iron Cross?
I don't know where you get some of this stuff. The Armenian genocide was a response to a dhimmi population trying to free itself. If you think the Ottoman Empire was cosmopolitan, you really need to do some more reading. Start with Bat Ye'or's studies of dhimmitude. To return to the motivating factor behind the Armenian Genocide, here is what one Young Turk wrote in 1912:
In the prelude to the full-scale genocide, the 1894-96 massacres, an eyewitness reports:
In Lord Kinross's history of the Ottoman Empire:
And so on.
As regards the rest of this stuff, let's look at it objectively, shall we? What was Muhammad according to all the sources we have on the guy? A warlord who came to a broken and divided people, bringing a book and a Total System for All Life, believed in the glory of war and bloodshed, consider himself divinely inspired to lead his people to victory, was fiercely anti-semitic to the extent of championing systematic discrimination, distinctive clothing, and periodic massacres, and thought that the only proper place for a woman was Kinder, Kueche, Kirche. Now who else did I just describe?
Churchill saw the parallel, and given that he was the guy with direct experience of Islamic fanaticism and Nazism, I'm inclined to take his word over yours.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2009 10:00 AM
By the time it could play at national politics, National Socialism was NOT a branch of socialism.
If you look at who was in the early party, it quickly became dominated by the sort of people who had previously been associated with traditionalist conservative parties. There was also an element that was quite similar to the demographic of the *Communist* party.
But that element was pretty much brought to heel on the Night of the Long Knives, shortly after the party came to power. Hitler was actually hostile to the socialist-leaning planks in the party platform and largely governed to enhance the party's power and his own influence.
And as you say, the Nazis were nothing if not pragmatists. In a time of high unemployment among willing workers, it was important to pitch some sort of social program. just like it was important to express support for democratic institutions.
Socialist only in name.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 29, 2009 10:17 AM
OK. I reduce my claim to that of pseudoscience – Marx made a hypothesis, but failed to test it (all stages except the last two were supposed to have already happened, so data were available), and Marxism kept it in the face of contradictory evidence. - David Marjanović, OM
Exactly!
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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November 29, 2009 10:31 AM
Yes and no. More no than yes.
As a generic concept, National Socialism (NS) opposes capitalism, communism, democratic socialism and liberalism. Maurice Barrès (1862-1923) coined the term "national socialism." Barrès's concept of NS was similar to later kinds, although his rejection of pluralism, individualism, and materialism was rooted in a particular combination of the counter-revolutionary right (antisemitism, purging of democrats and internationalists) and the anti-liberal left (socialism, nationalism, republicanism) in 19th century France.
Hitler's NS was founded on a Weltanschauung (world view), in which history was reducible to a racial struggle (founded on a belief in racial and biological determinism) in the Social Darwinian sense. This NS was a Messianic movement, centered in the Führerprincip* and anchored in the idea that only through racial purity could Germany find her salvation. The movement was based on antisemitism, anti-Marxism and hyper-nationalism, manifesting itself through Pan-Germanism and the quest for Lebensraum.
In 1920, shortly after he became leader of the Nazi Party** Hitler promulgated his 25 point program. It remained the official party program throughout the party's existence, though most of its demands were not carried out after the NSDAP came to power.
Ten of the 25 points were pro-labor, the program championed the right to employment and called for the institution of profit sharing, confiscation of war profits, prosecution of userers and profiteers, nationalization of trusts, communalization of department stores, extension of the old-age pension system, creation of a national education program of all classes, prohibition of child labor, and an end to the dominance of investment capital.
Hitler only used the program for its propaganda value. He didn't mention any of the points in Mein Kampf. Many of the program's vague calls for economic reform and pro-labor legislation, as well as its endorsement of democratic politics, went directly contrary to Hitler's own Social Darwinist views and dictatorial ambitions. The program's calls for land reform and anti-trust legislation threatened the interests of the capitalists whose support and funding Hitler wanted.
On paper, NS was socialist. In reality, it was a form of corporatism.
*The Führerprinzip, German for "leader principle" prescribed a system with a hierarchy of leaders resembling the military structure.
**I am not going to muddy the waters by describing the conversation of the German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or DAP) into the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party or NSDAP).
Posted by: Notagod | November 29, 2009 10:41 AM
Thomas Galvin@81
Correct, regarding the force of will, nothing supernatural going on at all.
[Those stimuli can occur internal to the brain as well, because, the brain is complex and each little bit is external to each other little bit. Similar to stimuli that is completely external.]
Yes, and it is that stimuli that can make a difference. You can decide to edit your comment or not edit your comment, that is not predetermined (until it is done). I think there is a small amount of randomness that occurs in the universe, it isn't enough to change the overall structure but it can make a significant difference on a local scale. I think that is why evolution occurs, things don't always happen exactly the same way all the time, so mutations occur. I think animal brains may have evolved as a way to exploit that niche, that randomness. The human brain is a relatively highly evolved randomness exploiter and can think different thoughts and take different actions without breaking the overriding physical laws. It is basically the difference between a deterministic universe and a (mostly) deterministic universe.
As with any non-christian, I admit that I could be wrong but that is the way I think it works (roughly).
Posted by: Feynmaniac | November 29, 2009 10:46 AM
And the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) is a variant of democracy.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | November 29, 2009 10:46 AM
DaveH_of_Lahhhhndaan_Taowwwn (#39): Yes, or damn close anyway - Adam Smith.
Owlmirror (#90): "Would that be considered occult, or pseudoscience?" - Yes.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2009 10:50 AM
Wow. One young turk once said something in support of your thesis. Great. Who exactly said this/, and what was his role in the dissolution of the empire? I don't have to ask where you get your stuff: quote mining in the slagheap of history.
The Kinross passage you quote is not about the genocide you were talking about, but an earlier, 19th-century, conflict. And as practically anyone here will lay out for you, pretty much every religion of long standing has a good record of slaughtering others now & then.
The Ottoman Empire was, naturally, around for a long time, so cosmopolitanism varied over time. But when we were burning Jews, they ran where? And for how long did the Armenians survive within the Ottoman Empire before the empire began to dissolve?
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 29, 2009 10:55 AM
'Tis Himself,
Your review omits the vital contributions of Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau ("Inequality of the Races") and more particularly Houston Stewart Chamberlain ("Foundations of the Nineteenth Century") to Nazi ideology. "Social Darwinism" is such a vague term that describing it as among the sources of Nazi ideology is of little value. Still, it makes a lot more sense than the ludicrously unhistorical attempts to draw parallels between Hitler and Muhammed, which some paranoid lunatics come up with.
Posted by: Notagod | November 29, 2009 11:12 AM
David Marjanović@99
HA! Thanks! That's the first time I've ever seen 'family values' used in a way that provided a clear meaning as to what the intention was. I think it has the same problem today as it had back then.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 29, 2009 11:34 AM
Atatürk blasphemed a lot and drank alcohol, or so I've read. His policies were in any case strongly anticlerical. In 1928 he introduced the Latin alphabet in order to get Turkey out of Islamic culture and to make the clergy as illiterate (and then as literate) as everyone else...
Nationalism? Ne mutlu Türküm diyene. Look that up.
Posted by: Citizen Z | November 29, 2009 11:36 AM
One thing to note about "Table Talk", in addition to the anti-Christian quotes that are bandied about, Table Talk also includes this gem:
So pretty much the only source* for Hitler's supposed hatred of Christianity also has him specifically rejecting evolution.
*Every time I see a quote from Hitler speaking negatively about Christianity, the primary source is "Table Talk".
Posted by: raven
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November 29, 2009 11:49 AM
Genocide is very old. One of the most obvious genocidal maniacs is Yahweh, the xian god. He ordered and helped with supernatural support as the Israelites massacred their neighbors and took their stuff and land.
"Do not leave anything alive that breathes". It must have worked somewhat. When is the last time anyone saw a Hivite, Canaanite, or Amorite?
Hitler as a xian would be familiar with the OT god of mass murder. And it is known that he was familiar with another German, Martin Luther who drew up a Final Solution for the Jews centuries ago.
Who needs Darwin, when you have god, the OT, the NT, and Martin Luther on your side? Darwin, big deal. He was just an overeducated Brit. The roots of antisemitism and genocide lie far deeper, genocide is a central theme of the OT and antisemitism is a central theme in the NT.
Posted by: raven
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November 29, 2009 12:10 PM
Hitler could have said this and probably did somewhere.
But this is Jesus in John 8:44.
Antisemitism is a central theme in the NT. According to John, even Jesus the Jewish guy didn't think much of them.
The Xians spent the next 2,000 years persecuting, pogroming, slaughtering, and Expelling the Jews. No Darwin was needed, they had the bible, NT.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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November 29, 2009 12:17 PM
Sorry, Knockgoats. I'll try harder next time. :(
While I did wander somewhat off track, I was looking at National Socialism from an economic rather than a sociological viewpoint.
Posted by: raven
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November 29, 2009 12:18 PM
As has been noted before, the Hitler anti-xian quotes in Table Talk were forged after the war as part of xian damage control.
Richard Carrier has a good article on this with a confession by the forger, who was already known for his other forgeries.
When xians can't use the truth, they just lie a lot. This is a huge amount of the time.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 29, 2009 12:52 PM
Most of these peoples are probably made up. ("Canaanite" is a cover term.)
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2009 1:22 PM
Raven: The status of table talk is still open to debate, from all I've seen. And the confession is relayed to us by David Irving (!) about another document, or are you talking about something else?
Posted by: raven
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November 29, 2009 1:46 PM
Not really. The Virginian in #89 gives the references. The Freethought article is on the web and short and easy, read it.
Historians don't completely discount Table Talk. But they don't follow it out the window either. For one thing, it is Bormann's notes and he was a hardcore anti-Catholic. And the anti-xian comments were clearly forged post hoc during translation.
Posted by: Oran Kelley | November 29, 2009 1:59 PM
"And the anti-xian comments were clearly forged post hoc during translation."
I have read Carrier's popular piece on Table talk, and what Holy Reich has to say about. Carrier certainly believes they were forgeries, but Holy Reich seems reluctant to follow him there, in spite of the fact that it would provide support for the book's thesis.
I haven't seen anything that would indicate a historical consensus on the matter.
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 3:25 PM
I would like to apologise to alex.asolis @1 for my comment @33. It wasn't meant to sound so much a personal attack on them, but a comment on the church. Sorry.
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 3:30 PM
Re KnockGoats @91. I would agree with the others here that point out that there are similarities between religions and other oppressive regimes in their adherence to dogma and, often brutal, stifling of criticism. I think that these aspects of religion are the most salient as reasons to oppose them, while the mystical aspects are trivial distractions, at best and, at worst, part of a deliberate smoke-screen that needs blowing out of the way so the reality may be seen clearly.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 29, 2009 4:09 PM
@ #98: "This would mean that Werner Heisenberg disproved Marxism. "
Well, no, unless Heisenberg had anything to say about indeterminacy above the subatomic level. Up here, with the rest of us, things seem to happen because of antecedent causes. If you assert that human choices don't fit that pattern, you're saying that human will is VERY different from everything else around it. You may be right, but you're the one making problems for physics, not the determinist.
@ # 111 # 118:
Raven, it's extremely important to remember in this context that several anti-Christian remarks by Hitler are preserved in Joseph Goebbels' diary and also in Albert Speer's memoir--both of which are free of the controversies surrounding Hitler's TABLE TALK.
Citizen Z:
How do you get a rejection of evolution out of the quoted passage? At most, Hitler's expressing agnosticism on the subject.
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 4:43 PM
Re N.Schuster @77:
That site you linked appears to have only two pages. The one you linked and an 'income tax is unconstitutional' rant. c.f. Hovind. Please try to assess your sources for credibility.
Posted by: Thomas Galvin | November 29, 2009 4:59 PM
Notagod @104
I don't think we disagree, I just think we're using our terminology differently.
I agree that there are things internal and external to our brains that influence the choices we make. What I'm saying is that we are not in control of those things, which eliminates the possibility of truly free will. We cannot chose to chose.
Posted by: Citizen Z | November 29, 2009 5:05 PM
@#122: I'm not going to get into a semantic argument with you, but he's clearly suggesting that man was always as he is now (special creation), and suggests man did not evolve from a monkey. It may be mealy-mouthed creationism ("Just asking questions!"), but it's still creationism.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 29, 2009 5:07 PM
On Carrier, btw, I've only been able to see an article of his that's posted online: "On the Trail of Bogus Quotes." (http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2002/nov02/carrier.php)
If this is typical of his methods, I'd say he should be used only with caution.
For one thing, he reaches his conclusions about Hitler (e.g. "Hitler was no more anti-Christian than your run-of-the-mill Protestant bigot") without referring once to the comments by Hitler quoted or paraphrased in Speer and Goebbels. For one example, see Speer, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH (English version, 1970), p. 96: [Hitler saying:] "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 Christianiy with its meekness and flabbiness?" In 1939, Goebbels wrote in his diary that "[t]he Führer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay."
Carrier also ignores the 1937 Hossbach memorandum, a summary of a speech given by Hitler to his generals, outlining his foreign policy aims. He said in passing: "It was only the disintegrating effect of Christianity, and the symptoms of age which appear in every country, which caused ancient Rome to succumb to the onslaught of the Germans."
Carrier also quotes the 1933 Nazi Concordat with the Catholic Church, Article 21:
"Catholic religious instruction in elementary, senior, secondary and vocational schools constitutes a regular portion of the curriculum, and is to be taught in accordance with the principles of the Catholic Church. In religious instruction, special care will be taken to inculcate patriotic, civic and social consciousness and sense of duty in the spirit of the Christian Faith and the moral code, precisely as in the case of other subjects."
and concludes: "So there can be no doubt that the Nazis were thoroughly and devotedly Christian, eager to inculcate Christian theism for future generations."
But this is to ignore completely the repeated violations by the Nazis of this Concordat (among them the shutting down of the very parochial schools mentioned in this section). There's a lengthy chapter about the exceedingly tense relationship between the Nazi regime and the Catholic Church, embittered to a large degree by Nazi disregard for the Concordat, in R.J. Evans, THE THIRD REICH IN POWER (I don't have a copy handy, so I can't give page numbers). Consequently, I think it's very dangerous to see the Concordat as much other than a tactical move (it was, among other things, Nazi agreement to sign he Concordat that convinced the German Catholic Zentrum Party (one of more important German political parties) not to resist its own dissolution).
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 29, 2009 5:10 PM
One other gripe with Carrier:
He quotes in this article from his "literal" translations of the German (arguably authentic) version(s) of the TABLE TALK, but he nowhere provideds the German texts themselves, which would be very helpful for someone evaluating his claims.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 29, 2009 5:16 PM
I am pretty sure that you cannot do any such thing -- at least, not in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
Why do you think the Church claims so many members?
Nope. Lapsed or indifferent Catholic is still Catholic -- according to the Church.
Actually, I see that I was wrong on two counts above: On the one hand, there is actually an automatic excommunication for an "apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic,", so if Hitler really was as genuinely and violently anti-Catholic as you imply, that might well apply to him. But on the other hand, even being excommunicated does not mean that you are no longer Catholic!
(I wonder if atheist former Catholics might use that code of canon law as a point of pride. "Are you under canon 1364?" "Damned straight I am!" "Canon 1364, represent!")
Sure, I'd be interested.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | November 29, 2009 5:26 PM
"They've occurred within the species, but none of these variations has an importance comparable with that which separates man from the monkey — assuming that this transformation really took place."
I think this passage (with the help of the preceding sentences) can be read plausibly as saying that IF human beings developed from monkeys (an idea that may or may not be correct), the transformation from one to the other was far more important than any other variation in nature. I would infer from those preceding sentences that Hitler isn't speculating at all about human origins but stating what he thinks has "always" been the nature of human beings (i.e. as long as they've been here, they've been this way). This passage seems (to me) to back up pretty well my earlier observation that Hitler was uninterested in evolution--rather than being concerned to attack it.
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 5:43 PM
Cimourdain @100:
ZOMG! Muhammad was a catholic as well!l1l!
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 5:46 PM
A link for Wewelsburg tourism:
http://www.asiarooms.com/travel-guide/germany/germany-tourist-attractions/wewelsburg-germany.html
In which, as well as the nazi history stuff, reports that the place was previously a centre for witch burning. Very popular with the neo-nutsies.
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 5:53 PM
I stopped Cim's quote a bit short there as I couldn't find a source for Muhammad learning any german.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 29, 2009 6:04 PM
Color photos during WWII - ya learn somethin' every day. Thanks for the corrections, all.
Hitler & Catholicism: it gets epistemological here, as to whether you define by the edges or by the core. The inner Hitler was, arguably, what some call a "recovering Catholic", but he was inarguably the product of a Catholic childhood - and we've all heard the stories, no?
He clearly rebelled against Church doctrines, and disrespected Churchly authority (to the degree of murdering at least one bishop and >1.5M civilian sheep (and not going to confession about it either!1!)), but did not defy the hierarchy so explicitly that they felt it necessary to rebuke, never mind to excommunicate. Adolf H. was a member of the church, his standing accepted at the highest levels, throughout his life and since.
So, I for one intend to continue to call Frau Hitler's wayward little boy a Catholic*, at least until such time as the Vatican either specifically casts him out or ceases to claim in their purported >1B membership all those who fail to attend services regularly, use contraception, disagree with Dogma™, or otherwise drive the Baby Jesus to colicky screams.
Mine's a Newt @ # 84: Hitler revered the violently antisemitic Christian Martin Luther, who rejected Catholicism and set up his own church.
It was Luther's goal to take over and "restore" the Catholic Church - having to settle for founding a breakaway sect must've been frustrating. Break out the violins...
TheVirginian @ # 89: ... [Hitler's] claim that his Third Reich would last a thousand years is almost certainly based on the apocalyptic theology of Joachim of Fiore...
Or the nominal duration of the Holy Roman Empire, with himself starring as Charlemagne. At any rate, the 1K-R formula was quietly yanked from the propaganda mills fairly early in what turned out to be the 12-yr Reich.
Mine's a Newt @ # 94: All of the 'Nazi psychic warfare' stuff was invented after the war, mainly by Pauwels and Bergier ('Morning of the Magicians')...
Was there any basis at all to P&B's story about the experimental radar station set up on some remote island, probing a certain area of the sky under orders to follow up on the "we live on the interior of a hollow in a solid-rock universe" theory by detecting the movements of aircraft over Britain?
Cimourdain @ # 95: Oh, and National Socialism was a varient of socialism.
Only in the sense that the name was one ingredient in the "National Socialist German Workers" soup Adolf cooked up right after taking over the German Workers Party. The S & A components of the NSDAP were basically ornamental.
Now I'm going to post this because it's long enough already, then read the refreshed thread...
*albeit with footnotes when context suggests.
Posted by: eddie
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November 29, 2009 6:19 PM
Peirce R Butler @133:
Seconded.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 29, 2009 6:39 PM
eddie,
Re KnockGoats @91. I would agree with the others here that point out that there are similarities between religions and other oppressive regimes in their adherence to dogma and, often brutal, stifling of criticism. I think that these aspects of religion are the most salient as reasons to oppose them,
I agree. What have I said that suggests otherwise?
while the mystical aspects are trivial distractions, at best and, at worst, part of a deliberate smoke-screen that needs blowing out of the way so the reality may be seen clearly.
Here, I disagree. I think the supernatural (a broader term than mystical) aspects of religions are central to their functioning, and have ill-effects distinct from those we agree on: promoting quietism, and additional layers of irrationality.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 29, 2009 6:58 PM
David Marjanović, OM @ # 110: Atatürk blasphemed a lot and drank alcohol, or so I've read.
Last night, I read:
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