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WAS HITLER AN ATHEIST OR A CHRISTIAN? This question is still being debated by believers and atheists. Some Christians have erroneously asserted that Hitler was an atheist; some atheists have erroneously asserted that Hitler was a Christian. Both assertions are wrong. Hitler was neither -- but…. Hitler was born in a Catholic, Austrian family. In time Hitler rejected Catholicism and Christianity in large part because of the influence of a fanatical “atheist” by the name of Friedrick Nietzsche. Nietzsche was an influential German philosopher of the 1800’s who saw Christ and Christianity as an abhorrent expression of weakness. A true leader, in Nietzsche’s view, had to be a “Superman,” free from the shackles of religion and ready and willing to use cruelty to achieve power and control over the masses. “Thus...Nietzsche offered grounds for the reprehensible Nazi ideology of a superior race exercising its will to power as it saw fit. Hitler was living out what Nietzsche had envisioned, trying to prove himself to be the Übermensch and the precursor of the Master race. He despised weakness as much as Nietzsche did and wanted to "transvalue" the current social values into something that supported the aggressive instinct. He wanted to become, as Nietzsche called it, a "lord of the earth."[i] Hitler was so enamored with Nietzsche that he gave his fellow fascist dictator Mussolini a set of all of Nietzsche’s works during one of their meetings. Nietzsche’s works may have helped solidify Mussolini’s atheism and his cruelty. Hitler’s other mentor was a Renaissance political writer by the name of Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s very influential work, The Prince, was Hitler’s bedtime reading. Machiavelli had no place for Christian morality and openly encouraged leaders to use deceit and cruelty to gain and to retain power. Machiavelli acknowledged a divinity, but in his teachings one cannot see any glimmer of support for the Christian God or for Christian principles. Machiavelli argues that Christianity fosters the wrong civic virtues. The Christian learns humility, denial and contempt of the mundane things of this world. Christianity he says fosters submissiveness and indifference to one's duties and responsibilities as a citizen.[ii] Thus the two greatest forces that shaped Hitler’s mind and that molded his proud, arrogant and cruel spirit were both “anti-Christian.” Nietzsche, the major force that shaped Hitler’s unstoppable cruelty, was undeniably an atheist. Did Hitler, therefore, believe in some kind of undefined Divinity? It appears that he did; but we must say so with some reservation, as he may have used references to God to ingratiate himself with the majority of Germans who professed to be Catholics or Lutherans. One thing we can assert with absolute certainty, though: Hitler had no place in his life and politics for the Christian God and manifested that with a beastly cruelty that may have been surpassed only by the arch-atheist, Stalin.
[i] Crime Library, Nietzsche and Hitler. http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/nietzsche_crimes/7.html [ii]Machiavelli: Discourses on Titus Livy. http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfcjh/wiu/extend/discussion/machhum.htm
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