Hitler S Religion

A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

For a man whom history can never forget, Adolf Hitler remains a persistent mystery on one front—his religious faith. Atheists tend to insist Hitler was a devout Christian. Christians counter that he was an atheist. And still others suggest that he was a practicing member of the occult. None of these theories are true, says historian Richard Weikart. Delving more deeply into the question of Hitler's religious faith than any researcher to date, Weikart reveals the startling and fascinating truth about the most hated man of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler was a pantheist who believed nature was God. In Hitler's Religion, Weikart explains how the laws of nature became Hitler's only moral guide—how he became convinced he would serve God by annihilating supposedly "inferior" human beings and promoting the welfare and reproduction of the allegedly superior Aryans in accordance with racist forms of Darwinism prevalent at the time.

Was Jesus a Nazi? During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center. Based on years of archival research, The Aryan Jesus examines the membership and activities of this controversial theological organization. With headquarters in Eisenach, the Institute sponsored propaganda conferences throughout the Nazi Reich and published books defaming Judaism, including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Institute members--professors of theology, bishops, and pastors--viewed their efforts as a vital support for Hitler's war against the Jews. Heschel looks in particular at Walter Grundmann, the Institute's director and a professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena. Grundmann and his colleagues formed a community of like-minded Nazi Christians who remained active and continued to support each other in Germany's postwar years. The Aryan Jesus raises vital questions about Christianity's recent past and the ambivalent place of Judaism in Christian thought.

Hitler's Theology investigates the use of theological motifs in Adolf Hitler's public speeches and writings, and offers an answer to the question of why Hitler and his theo-political ideology were so attractive and successful presenting an alternative to the discontents of modernity. The book gives a systematic reconstruction of Hitler's use of theological concepts like providence, belief or the almighty God. Rainer Bucher argues that Hitler's (ab)use of theological ideas is one of the main reasons why and how Hitler gained so much acquiescence and support for his diabolic enterprise. This fascinating study concludes by contextualizing Hitler's theology in terms of a wider theory of modernity and in particular by analyzing the churches' struggle with modernity. Finally, the author evaluates the use of theology from a practical theological perspective. This book will be of interest to students of Religious Studies, Theology, Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Religion and Politics, and German History.

“A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review

"As one of the earliest of Holocaust deniers and the first to suggest that Adolf Hitler was an avatar -- a god come to earth in human form to restore the world to a golden age -- " ... [Devi's] appeal to neo-Nazi sects lies in the very eccentricity of her thought -- combining Aryan supremacism and anti-Semitism with Hinduism, social Darwinism, animal rights, and a fundamentally biocentric view of life."--Publisher informationt.

The story of Nazi Germany is one of conflict between two saviors and two crosses. “Deine Reich komme,” Hitler prayed publicly—“Thy Kingdom come.” But to whose kingdom was he referring? When Germany truly needed a savior, Adolf Hitler falsely assumed the role. He directed his countrymen to a cross, but he bent and hammered the true cross into a horrific substitute: a swastika. Where was the church through all of this? With a few exceptions, the German church looked away while Hitler inflicted his “Final Solution” upon the Jews. Hitler’s Cross is a chilling historical account of what happens when evil meets a silent, shrinking church, and an intriguing and convicting exposé of modern America’s own hidden crosses. Erwin W. Lutzer extracts a number of lessons from this dark chapter in world history, such as: The dangers of confusing church and state The role of God in human tragedy The parameters of Satan's freedom Hitler's Cross is the story of a nation whose church forgot its call and discovered its failure way too late. It is a cautionary tale for every church and Christian to remember who the true King is.

In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.