Were Hitler's actions supported by the chrch?

And in view of events since his death was he right?

Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

As far as I know the Church was against Hitler's actions.

yes,although most catholics opposed him in his years in power he was supported my a large amount of the Lutheran church and almost everything he said was about god

Originally posted by TRH
almost everything he said was about god

Which means nothing.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
As far as I know the Church was against Hitler's actions.

Verily a man cannot serve two masters. And I consider the foundation or destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.

-Adolf Hitler speaking like Jesus in Matthew 6:24 (Mein Kampf)

The Lutheran Church indeed supported the Fuhrer

Originally posted by Boots
Verily a man cannot serve two masters. And I consider the foundation or destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.

-Adolf Hitler speaking like Jesus in Matthew 6:24 (Mein Kampf)

The Lutheran Church indeed supported the Fuhrer

😑 "I truth I tell you my friends I am the light itself." - me just now

So does the LutheranChurch support my actions now?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
😑 "I truth I tell you my friends I am the light itself." - me just now

So does the LutheranChurch support my actions now?

Going by what the Christian clergy teach about the virtues that the faith inspires, Nazism, Hitler's wars, and the Holocaust should not have been possible. Not only did they occur, but with insignificant and wavering exceptions, neither theologians, clergy, nor ordinary Christians as individuals, nor churches as corporate bodies, objected. In fact they overwhelmingly supported them. Look at three of the most distinguished German Protestant theologians--Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanual Hirsch. These men were highly respected, extremely erudite, uncommonly productive, and internationally known professors, each at a different, first-class university.

Professor Robert P. Erickson did an unusually comprehensive investigation of the three theologians' writings, utterances, and activities as they pertain to Nazism and the Jewish Question. He reports his findings in a book, Theologians Under Hitler. If anyone should know whether submission or opposition is demanded of the followers of the living Christ when confronted with a regime as totally reprehensible as that of the Nazis, surely it would be these theologians.

What conclusions did Erickson reach as to the stance of the three men who would be expected to exemplify the ultimate in the embodiment of those noble values that millions of Sunday school children are taught attach to Christian folk? They are grim:

"They each supported Hitler openly, enthusiastically, and with little restraint." In fact, they deemed it the Christian thing to do. They "saw themselves and were seen by others as genuine Christians acting upon genuine Christian impulses." Furthermore, all three tended "to see God's hand in the elevation of Hitler to power." Hirsch was a member of the Nazi party and of the SS. The Nazi state, he said, should be accepted and supported by Christians as a tool of God's grace. To Althaus, Hitler's coming to power was "a gift and miracle of God." He taught that "we Christians know ourselves bound by God's will to the promotion of National Socialism."

Kittel and a group of twelve leading theologians and pastors issued a proclamation that Nazism is "a call of God," and they thanked God for Adolf Hitler. Kittel was a party member and he himself proudly claimed that he was a good Nazi. He explains that he did not join it as a result of pressure or for pragmatic reasons but because he concluded that the Nazi phenomenon was "a völkisch renewal movement on a Christian, moral foundation." He accorded Christianity a place of honor in Nazi Germany precisely because of its position on the Jewish Question. He said he was speaking for other theologians too when he maintained that agreement with state and Führer was obedience to the law of God.

Michael Hakeem, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin--Madison.

You asked about "the church" not about misguided people that thought Hitler was teaching god's word.

yes,although most catholics opposed him in his years in power he was supported my a large amount of the Lutheran church and almost everything he said was about god

Thank you finti. The church did nothing to combat Nazism. If anything, it may have aided it.

Originally posted by Alliance
Thank you finti. The church did nothing to combat Nazism. If anything, it may have aided it.

Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition.

-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

how about come up with some original bs of your own insted of quoting the farse of a human being named AH

Originally posted by finti
how about come up with some original bs of your own insted of quoting the farse of a human being named AH

Never forget that the most sacred right on this earth is a man's right to have earth to till with his own hands, and the most sacred sacrifice the blood that a man sheds for this earth.

-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

yeah, Hitler and his followers was a bunch of morons, still are

- finti (the truth hurts, but so f*ucking what)

This is appoaching spam point. You're not even posting relevant quotes.

I was about to award the trophy for most irrelevant to: the n00b.

They are relevant, look deeper!

...that is why the prophet seldom has any honor in his own country.

-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Why are you trying to say that the church supported Hitler by using Hitler's own quotes?

And by the by, using Mein Kampf quotations for all your arguments. probably won't win you a lot of friends around here...

That book is so terrible... Inconsistent and racist garbage. That's just calling a spade a spade.

The Catholic church certainly wouldn't have apologized for it's actions, or inaction as the case may be, if they hadn't felt compelled to do so out of substantiated evidence and guilt.

And Hitler had no love for christian ideology or teachings, except to use them to control people. Even Hitler could have agreed with Marx when it came to religion being the opiate of the masses. Hitler knew that totally removing religion from the public would have been a costly descision. Just because a nation's leader uses god to sway the masses, doesn't mean he believes in the same god he's using to control his people.

And we all know about the SS and Himmler, and that was far from christian.

Also, this likely belongs in the history forum.