But Hitler also had personal reasons for hating Christians.
Writing about Hitler, historian Michael Rosenwald states: “He loathed Christianity.” Young Adolf accepted the ideas of his father, Alois Hitler, who “thought religion was essentially a scam.”
Another historian, Bradley Smith, reports that Alois “looked upon religion as a series of conventions and as a crutch for human weakness” and expressed “a firm opposition to” religion.
Adolf, following his father’s lead, rejected “religion as a teenager,” Rosenwald adds. Adolf “followed his father’s religious path straight into infamy” and “was full of contempt for everything” spiritual, “pious, and divine.”
Because Adolf Hitler had scorn for all religions, his ultimate goal was to eliminate them. He began by infiltrating and weakening the Christian churches. He needed to impair them, because they would be the source of opposition and resistance. Once the churches were enfeebled, Hitler could begin his full assault on Judaism: the Holocaust. He planned to totally eliminate Christianity, as Michael Rosenwald phrases it, “but first, he had to finish off the Jews.”
The word ‘Nazi’ is an abbreviation for ‘National Socialist Party.’
Because Naziism was an irrational and passionate movement, it was filled with ambiguities and internal contradictions. Some of those ambiguities were there by design, like vague phrases in the race laws, to allow Nazi authorities to do as they pleased and not be hampered by the rule of law. Some of the internal contradictions were the result of the inherent irrationality of Naziism: although Naziism opposed all religion, some officers within the National Socialist Party embraced brutal and primitive forms of pagan religion.
For the purposes of propaganda, Hitler was quite willing to say nice things about religion in general and about Christianity in particular. He could drop these deceptions in 1933 once he had taken complete power. For example, in the early years of the National Socialist movement, the Nazis were quite careful to avoid direct verbal attacks on Christianity and churches. Later, however, they decisively ended the public practice of Christianity and replaced it with their own substitute pseudo-religion.
Frederick “Fritz” Redlich wrote a psychiatric study of Hitler, noting that Hitler “adhered to his father’s views that religion was for the stupid and old women.” He took these childhood lessons from his father into adulthood: as the National Socialist dictator, he “was effectively opposed by Catholic and Protestant theologians” who organized underground resistance groups to weaken the Nazi war effort and rescue Jews. The Nazis murdered thousands of Christians. In 1942, during meetings with his officials, he explained, “I will have them shot.”
Hitler hated Christianity for several reasons: it would encourage anti-Nazi activities, and it promoted forgiveness and respect for human life. “Christianity is the craziest thing a human brain in its madness could produce,” he said.
Assuming that he’d win the war, Hitler had plans, as historian Alan Bullock writes: “Once the war was over, he promised himself, he would root out and destroy the influence of the Christian churches in Germany.”
