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TROP is not a religious site, but
we thought that the Christian holiday might be a good time to dispel a popular
religious myth that often comes our way, and is about as authentic as Santa
Claus and his elves.
"What about Hitler, wasn't he a Christian?"
This question is asked of us in various ways, sometimes by Westerners who
tend to view all religion monolithically and negatively, other times by
anti-Christian bigots, and most frequently by Muslims who think they've
discovered an advantageous way of trivializing the violence produced by Islamic
radicals. The fatigued logic of each is that Christianity must be
responsible for the crimes of Hitler, since Germany is a demographically
Christian country.
The veneer-thin reasoning in support of the argument seems to take root only in
the mind of shallow thinkers, or those whose anti-Christian bias eschews
critical examination. An extreme dearth of objectivity is critical to this
argument, since any measure of such shows it to be both logically inconsistent
and historically inaccurate.
It's true that Germany is a Christian country, in the same way that every nation
on the planet is identified with some form of religion, irrespective of whether
a majority of those living within its borders actually strive to live a life
that is congruent with the teachings of the faith. This hardly bestows
religious sanction on the actions of every citizen or elected official.
Indeed, the leadership and direction of a country is very often at odds with its
nominal religion. When the Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad, slaughtered
thousands of religious fundamentalists in 1982, he did it for the very secular
purpose of retaining power. Saddam Hussein has engaged in brutal acts of
torture against political dissidents - and their families. Yet, like all
Arab leaders at one time or another, both men hid behind the cloak of Islam when
it suited their conveniences. (A 2003 interview with Saddam, in which the
barbaric Hussein invoked the "will of Allah" several times in disingenuous
fashion, was particularly repugnant to this writer).
So, the fact that Hitler occasionally referenced Christianity is not necessarily
a sign of personal religious fervor (nor is it an indication of religious
sanction). There is no compelling reason to believe it to be anything more
than the same cynical ploy used ubiquitously by all leaders to appeal to the
deepest passions of their people (particularly in times of war) regardless of
the inconsistency that their national goals may have with religious teachings.
For honest inquirers then, the fundamental question becomes: What motivated
Hitler, and were his actions justified by Christian teachings?
These questions are rarely explored by those who make allegations of a
"Christian Holocaust" in hit-and-run fashion. Part of this is because
people simply prefer to believe what they prefer to believe. There is no
point in discovering whether a belief is right or wrong as long as it serves a
personal interest or provides comfort (ironically, the very charge made by
critics of religion). But another reason is the seductive appeal that
useful clichés (no matter how hollow) often have against intellectual inquiry,
which requires greater effort to pursue.
As an example of the perils of this sort of mental laziness, TROP often notes
that the same people who write to us alleging that the Nazis were a Christian
army in World War II are also prone to accuse the Americans of being a Christian
army in Iraq. Perhaps they are dimly aware that the Americans destroyed
the Nazi war machine in 1945 (and liberated the concentration camps), but the
bulb never really burns bright enough to illuminate the contradiction for them.
Muslims who write often forget that
Hitler was well received in the Islamic world, where his legacy of killing Jews
for the sake of killing Jews is still alive and well. And, although
Mein Kamph certainly provides the philosophical underpinnings of the
slaughter that followed, it doesn't actually order the killing of Jews in the
way that the Qur'an bluntly commands the slaying of non-Muslims.
Fortunately, for those who wish to dig beneath the surface, it doesn't take much
to discover that, rather than being motivated by Christianity, Hitler was very
much a Nazi. His entire philosophy was built around German nationalism and
Aryan supremacy, which were the fundamental planks of his National Socialist
Party. In his own words: "One is either a Christian or a German. You can't
be both."
Indeed, the Christian faith is based on the New Testament, which can easily be
used to justify pacifism, but not mass murder. There are no open-ended
passages about murdering those who reject the founder or conquering the world by
the sword as there are in the Qur'an. Instead, believers are told to "turn
the other cheek," "bless them that curse you," and warned that "those who live
by the sword shall die by the sword."
World War II was hardly a scheme to spread Christianity (or Lutheranism, since
Hitler invaded other "Christian countries" for the most part). The war was
the result of a quest for political and economic power by the Germans and the
Japanese, the same motives that drive most wars. Even the Nazi act of
killing Jews was purely racial, as Hitler made very clear in Mein Kampf by
insisting that Jews were a race and not a religion.
Those who followed Christian teachings in Nazi Germany wound up in
concentrations camps. In fact, during WWII, the largest community of Christian
clerics in Europe was to be found in these death camps - surpassing even the
Vatican in strength of numbers.
Although the strong Protestant and Catholic traditions in Germany limited the
Fuehrer's public comments about religion (and also made necessary the elaborate
measures taken to keep the existence of gas chambers concealed from the German
public) he was quite candid in his personal observations. "It is through
the peasantry that we will really be able to destroy Christianity, because there
is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood."
It's easy to isolate a few statements of political convenience made by Hitler,
particularly if one has an ulterior agenda, but a man is revealed by what he
does and Hitler's deeds prove that he was very much a pagan whose vision of the
future did not include a role for token Christianity.
When the Nazis stormed Poland in 1939, the Christian clergy were hunted as
relentlessly as the Jews. By 1940 only 3% remained in their parishes.
Thousands were slaughtered, along with fellow church workers and nuns.
Those who remained were strictly forbidden to evangelize, own property, or
preach uncensored from the New Testament. In other words, they lived very much
like dhimmis do under Islam.
The contempt that Nazis had for Christians was not softened by the fact that
nearly all of those Europeans involved in sheltering Jews were strong believers
who acted according to Christian teachings. Jesus was a very gentle man
who never hurt anyone and strongly disapproved of violence. (By contrast,
Muhammad was a military leader who conducted raids on caravans, supervised mass
slaughter and even advised his fighting men on how to rape women captured in
battle).
Given that Christianity neither motivated Hitler nor justified his actions, and
that Christians and Jews were amply represented among his victims (particularly
those who lived consistently with the teachings of their faith), it is certainly
puzzling that anyone should want to suppose otherwise. After all, what's
really gained by believing a lie? When does false comfort become more
appealing than existential truth?
Regrettably, these are fat and lazy times (intellectually speaking).
Although the information age offers an unprecedented opportunity to balance
worldview with fact, many choose instead to apply a paradigm that filters out
unpleasant truth, allowing the subject to wallow in opinions and aphorisms that
are tailored to preconceptions.
Is a U.S. Post Office shooting a 'Christian crime' because the killer was born a
Presbyterian? If a mentally deranged individual shoots up a mosque in
Yemen before turning the gun on himself, or if a member of the Kurdistan Workers
Party plants a bomb, is this really motivated by Islam? Who would make the
irrational assumption that any crime committed by a nominal member of a faith
must be attributed to that religion?
When Jihadis quote from the Qur'an and praise Allah as they videotape themselves
beheading an "infidel," it isn't illogical to assume that [their understanding
of] Islam is a prime motivator. This simply isn't the case when Germany
invades Poland (or when Iraq invades Kuwait).
Don't be fooled by the sleight-of-hand, or seduced by the moral superiority held
out as a reward. The historical record is clear, and the logic is sound.
Christianity neither motivated nor sanctioned Adolph Hitler and his demented
pagan dreams.
Additional Note:
Since posting this article, several
people have reminded us that Hitler was
known to have bemoaned the fact that Germany
was a Christian rather than Muslim nation, since it made it made his genocidal
campaign against Jews that much harder.
Additional Readings:
Kevin's Articles: Was Hitler a Christian?
Palestine Facts - The Grand Mufti and Hitler
List of Islamic Terrorist Attacks
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