Hitler and Christianity

Excerpt from Chapter 8

So much of National Socialism can be found in the Folkish movement that it is not surprising two major studies have located the origins of Hitler’s ideology there. Viereck’s Meta-politics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind focuses on the ideas of Wagner. Mosse’s The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich focuses on broader intellectual trends and currents of which Wagner was only a representative. Viereck spends more time elaborating on the Folkish roots in romanticism, especially in philosophy, while Mosse concentrates more on the spread of Folkish ideas through German society in the 19th and early 20th centuries-but in spite of their differences, both studies have a lot in common. Taken together, they provide a significant part of the explanation for Hitler.

Neither Mosse nor Viereck pay much attention to Darwin, and neither of their books lists Darwin in the index. Viereck makes only one passing reference to “social Darwinism,” the belief that the Darwinian law of survival-of-the-fittest applied to people as well as to animals. Mosse devotes a few pages to social Darwinism and recognizes its importance, but asserts the fundamental incompatibility between National Socialism and Darwinism proper. He claims that the Darwinian concept of the origins of man was not acceptable to Nazi race theorists.[i] Not only (in Mosse’s view) was such a humiliating ancestry unsuitable to a race of superior beings destined to rule; it also required a common origin of all races-another blow to the Aryan ego.

It might seem, then, that Darwinism as Darwin taught it is of little relevance to our study-and those who believe that Darwinism is true and beneficial will find no difficulty in detaching it from National Socialism, which was false and harmful. Apart from this basic presupposition, they have a number of other reasonable points to make against the idea of a Hitler-Darwin connection. (more…)

That the self-proclaimed advocates of secular tolerance might themselves be (like some theists) fully capable of killing for their beliefs is exemplified by the popular atheist author Sam Harris. In his book The End of Faith, he states that “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”[i] This statement raised so many eyebrows, even among atheists, that Harris felt compelled to give an explanation on the internet.[ii] Since this attitude is directly related to the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao, it merits some discussion.

Attempting to dispel criticisms of his remark, Harris first gives on the internet the relevant passage from The End of Faith. Then he concedes that he did not express himself as well as he might have-”Granted, I made the job of misinterpreting me easier than it might have been”-and goes on to claim that saying he wants to kill people for their ideas “remains a frank distortion of my views.” He explains:

When one asks why it would be ethical to drop a bomb on Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri, the answer cannot be, “because they have killed so many people in the past.” These men haven’t, to my knowledge, killed anyone personally. However, they are likely to get a lot of innocent people killed because of what they and their followers believe about jihad, martyrdom, the ascendancy of Islam, etc.

At this point we can breathe a sigh of relief-if he only wants to kill some terrorists then it’s alright-and Harris (who wears a white hat) can go back to his hobby of demonizing theists (who wear black hats). A closer examination of his explanation reveals, however, a couple of difficulties.

For one thing, millions of people share Osama bin Laden’s ideas. Should they be killed? If Sam Harris says “Yes,” then he wants to slaughter millions of people not because they have done anything wrong, but because they might do something wrong someday. That was Lenin the atheist’s reasoning in a nutshell. It’s easy for people who deny the immortal soul to advocate-and do-such things. If, on the other hand, Harris says millions of people should not be killed for their ideas, but should only be killed if they put their ideas into practice, or if they enable and cause others to put those ideas into practice, then he has shifted ground considerably, and did express himself poorly.

A second problem with this is that in his aforementioned book The End of Faith, Harris has repeatedly identified not only Islamic extremists, but also Christians who believe in the Bible, as threats to the survival of humanity. According to him, belief in the Bible is a threat to civilization and Christians, not just Osama bin Laden, could easily be included among those whose dangerous ideas require their elimination.

Many quotes could be given to show that Harris sees theism, including biblical Christianity, as a danger.

our religious differences-and hence our religious beliefs [emphasis in original]-antithetical to our survival [emphasis added]. We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation . . .Words like “God” and “Allah” must [emphasis added] go the way of “Apollo” and “Baal,” or they will unmake our world. “[iii]

. . . faith is still the mother of hatred . . . The only salient difference between Muslims and non-Muslims is that the latter have not proclaimed their faith in Allah, and in Mohammed as his prophet. [Harris is imprecise in his use of language here-he says "non-Muslims" when he means "non-Muslim theists like Christians and Jews," not "all non-Muslims"-but his meaning is clear from the preceding words and from the whole thrust of the chapter.][iv]

Words like “the fall of civilization,” “could ultimately destroy us,” “driving us toward the abyss,” “life-destroying gibberish” (this of both the Koran and the Bible)[v] tell us that Sam “The-sky-is-falling” Harris wants to save the human race from religion-and what might not be done if the fate of humanity is at stake? Wouldn’t it be justified to kill some people to save humanity-especially if they have no immortal souls and are nothing but matter?

Harris does not just want to save humanity-he wants to “create the world anew.” This requires “the building of strong communities”[vi] where everyone will think the way Sam Harris wants them to. Wouldn’t life be so much easier in a “unified” community where everyone marched to the beat of the same drum? That was Hitler’s and Lenin’s dream exactly. To achieve this secular paradise religion, especially Christianity and Islam, needs to go. It is urgent for the future well-being of humanity. Religious faith “must” disappear. “Religious tolerance . . . is one of the principle forces driving us toward the abyss.” Along with this clear call for intolerance, Harris advocates “uprooting” religion, which he falsely describes as “the most prolific source of violence in our history.”[vii] Somehow he blames the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the War of 1812, drug related ghetto violence and World Wars I & II on religion.

Sam Harris has a strong incentive to “uproot” the ideas that “must” disappear-the salvation of the human race. Do I need to point out that the word “uproot” has connotations of violence? Harris openly said people with dangerous ideas should be killed, and then, when questioned, said “Oh, I just meant a few terrorists.” He has identified theists, including Bible believing Christians, as people with dangerous ideas that menace the human race. That Christianity is dangerous is one of the main themes of his Letter to a Christian Nation. What is to prevent him, or those with his “values,” from believing that killing Christians, or any other believers, is necessary for the good of mankind?

“The world would be a much better place if we could just get rid of (a) the capitalists and kulaks; (b) the Jews; (c) people who believe in God. They are to blame for all our problems. They are enemies of humanity, and we are doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.”

Once an atheist accused me of “paranoia” on this point-but I am not the least bit paranoid about Sam Harris. I realize he may just be talking without knowing what he is saying-though I doubt it. I realize he will probably never get his hands on the levers of power. I only want to suggest that he may, like Hitler, be pointing at other people as the source of evil when he is a source of evil himself. Certainly the atheists Lenin, Stalin, and Mao make Osama bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. Hitler also gave plausible explanations to those who were concerned about his radical statements.

Perhaps, since the idea that bloodshed follows from secular ideas is one of the main ideas of this study, it might not be too much of a digression to look at another place where Sam Harris advocates a policy that could lead to the deaths of millions. Referring to the SARS scare that emerged out of China in 2003, Harris states that the consequences of China’s irrational and politically motivated policies did not lead to catastrophe-that time. He goes on to say that it is “not difficult to imagine” a situation where inability to properly handle such a health crisis would be too dangerous for the entire world. In that case, “There is little doubt we would ultimately quarantine, invade, or otherwise subjugate such a society.”[viii]

This is a remarkable statement. If a truly world-threatening epidemic were to emerge from China, the Sudan, Burma, Mexico, Rumania, or some other country whose health-standards were less than adequate, Harris thinks it might be necessary to “invade” or “subjugate” such a country. Oh, he allows for the possibility of a quarantine as well, but he can calmly and rationally advocate a policy-including subjugating China or, who knows, even Russia-that would cause unimaginable suffering and slaughter.

Sam Harris has a vision of an ideal world. In this world, there would be no irrational health policies and no security threats, because everyone would have basically the same ideas (his ideas naturally). In order to attain this vision, some people will have to go. Religious people have to go, and threats to the general well-being must be subjugated, by force and invasion and full scale war if necessary. Sam Harris is a good example of how the road to secular Utopias leads through swamps, bogs, and quagmires of human blood and bones-and in the end proves to be unattainable, so all of the suffering was in vain.

---

[i] Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (London 2006), pp. 52-53.

[ii] Sam Harris, “Response to Controversy,” http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/; accessed September 2008.

[iii] Harris, The End of Faith, pp. 13-14.

[iv] Ibid., p. 30.

[v] Ibid., pp. 26, 26, 15, 23.

[vi] Ibid., pp. 24, 21.

[vii] Ibid., pp. 14, 15, 27.

[viii] Ibid., p. 233

The failure to understand the dark reality of original sin has nullified from the outset the vast majority of attempts to come to grips with the evils of the Third Reich. People with no firm convictions concerning righteousness, holiness, sin, or evil wander in a maze when they try to understand these matters. They are certain that the Nazis were evil, but are unable to provide any convincing or coherent explanation of the delight in cruelty that is one of the most outstanding features of the Holocaust. A real explanation is possible within a biblical framework. For those who see human nature as basically good, Hitler will forever remain an insoluble riddle—as will many of life’s other problems.

For example, in Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, a scholar who tries to understand these things without reference to that reality of God which alone gives meaning to ethics and moral standards lists conventional secular explanations for the cruelty of the Nazis.[i] Those who persecuted Jews were (a) coerced, forced to go along to avoid death or imprisonment; (b) blindly following orders with no moral sense; (c) conforming to peer pressure; (d) petty bureaucrats concerned only with their careers; (e) unaware of the big picture, committing individual acts without having a sense of the enormity of the whole.

Goldhagen rightly senses that although these explanations apply to varying degrees in individual cases, they are all somehow inadequate. He suggests that the criminals did evil because they wanted to do so. This is getting closer to the truth—but what is it that makes some people enjoy evil, revel in it, and pursue it to the farthest possible extremes? This question is totally beyond the reach of conventional secular scholarship. It is the problem of sin and evil in the human heart, and the Bible says the human heart is wicked by nature. Thus, any serious attempt to explain the Holocaust must take into account not only its uniquely German characteristics, but also evil itself.

Parenthetically, the title of Goldhagen’s book—Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust—implies that ordinary Germans were slaughtering Jews. This omits the fact that the majority of Germans never voted for Hitler and in fact voted against him. Finding themselves in a dictatorship not of their making, they went along to varying degrees (with rare exceptions), but only a small percentage of Germans were directly involved in the Holocaust.

Victor Klemperer, a Jew who was able to remain in Germany due to his Aryan wife, does not in any way minimize the cruelties of the Third Reich, but also records examples of Germans who went out of their way to demonstrate that they had nothing against him personally. In the second volume of his diary, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942-1945, Klemperer states that in the factory where he was forced to work, “ninety-nine percent of the male and female workers are undoubtedly more or less extremely anti-Nazi, well-disposed to the Jews, opposed to the war, weary of tyranny . . .” He adds “but fear of the one percent loyal to the regime, fear of prison, ax, and bullet binds them.”[ii]

To really understand the crimes of the Nazis we need more than stereotypes about Germans. We need coherent concepts of sin and evil. These are provided by biblical teaching. Satan and human wickedness are spiritual realities, not just Bible words, and these powers of sin and evil that drove Hitler and his followers did not disappear when Hitler killed himself. I knew an American years ago who enjoyed bullying people beneath him and then presented a false front of injured innocence when people objected. He once told me “I wish I could have been in the SS,” and I had the distinct impression he wasn’t joking. Those who do not have a convincing explanation for human evil in general can never have a convincing explanation for any particular manifestation of evil—be it Auschwitz, the Soviet Gulag, the Cambodian killing fields, or the abduction and murder of a single child by a random serial killer. Those who are nothing more than indifferent to others also show the power of sin, as do those who knowingly do what is wrong, or even just keep silent because they are afraid of persecution or disapproval.

That Christianity teaches we are more than animals and far above a mere struggle for survival, and that Christianity is profoundly Jewish in its origins and outlook do not need to be documented. That Hitler wanted and needed the votes of millions of people who were either Christians or respectful of Christianity also does not need to be documented.

The belief in the animal nature of man explains some of the more bizarre and seemingly inexplicable aspects of the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of cattle or poultry can be legally and ethically slaughtered to prevent the spread of cattle disease or bird flu. If people are essentially animals, who-except a born weakling, a pacifist windbag, or someone who thoughtlessly parroted Jewish nonsense-would allow poetical ethical notions to interfere with the need to eliminate harmful human beings for the good of society? By the way, I could slaughter a hundred thousand chickens to prevent the spread of bird flu and then go home and enjoy a normal life with my family-and so could someone who rid the earth of some noxious and harmful subhumans.

Also, we breed better forms of cattle or horses, and there is nothing wrong with that. Himmler was being perfectly logical and reasonable in trying to breed better and more advanced types of humans-if, that is, people are essentially no more than animals as Darwinists claim. We use the hair and skin of dead animals-why not do the same with people? To waste the skin and other useful by-products of dead people makes no sense at all-if people are the same as animals.

One of the most weird and difficult aspects of Nazi ideology and actions to comprehend is that they followed logically from certain presuppositions. The Nazis had a clear, consistent, and coherent world-view and acted accordingly. Much of their world view-thought not all of it of course-can be found in the writings of Haeckel, and of many other less prominent German social Darwinists who shared his views.

Returning to our comparison, both Haeckel and Hitler had a sense of hierarchy. Some human animals were higher than, superior to, and worth more than others. This follows logically from an evolutionary scenario-and which group of people, according to secular standards, was the most highly developed in the world? Who had the most advanced technology, and were able to dominate other groups most easily? The Europeans. And who dominated among the Europeans? The Spaniards, the Greeks, the French, the Italians had had their day. The Eastern Europeans were dismissed as backward. It was the northern Europeans, the Germanic peoples, who occupied by right the highest place on the evolutionary tree-all others were beneath them.

Haeckel and Hitler also had an authoritarian and hierarchical view of government. Haeckel never advocated National Socialism-that was (in its final form) inconceivable given the stability of the imperial government. Nevertheless, a shared philosophical hostility to democracy as unhealthy and unnatural, with a strong emphasis on the right of the stronger to dominate, is significant.

Also significant is the very similar concept of God shared by the two men. This was not the God the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It was a god that emerged out of a modern and uniquely German philosophical tradition, a god that was merely the projection of man-made ideas onto the cosmos as a whole. Hitler was not a systematic thinker outside of the limited confines of his ideology, though within those confines he was rigorously logical. Basically his concept of god was a peculiar hybrid: a combination of a Folkish spirit that advanced the human race through the instrumentality of conflict with the German people as its chosen group, and a scientific naturalist view of God as working through, and being understood by, scientific and natural law.

“God” for Haeckel and for Hitler, and for many others of that day, was thus merely an abstract and impersonal concept. It could be described with language borrowed from religion-”Almighty,” “Supreme Being,” “the Creator,” “Providence”-but it was a god invented by human reason and working within the confines of human reason. This is clearly illustrated by Martin Bormann’s concept of God.

It is worth noting how perfectly Bormann’s concepts match Haeckel’s. Some of those concepts are (quoting a Nuremberg document written by Bormann):

National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable . . . National Socialism is based on scientific foundations . . . National Socialism on the other hand must always, if it is to fulfill its job in the future, be organized according to the latest knowledge of scientific research . . .

. . . the concepts of Christianity, which in their essential points have been taken over from Jewry.

When we National Socialists speak of a belief in God, we do not understand by God, like naïve Christians and their spiritual opportunists, a human-type being, who sits around somewhere in space . . . The force of natural law, with which all these innumerable planets move in the universe, we call the Almighty or God.

. . . we National Socialists impose on ourselves the demand to live naturally as much as possible, i.e., biologically. The more accurately we recognize and observe the laws of nature and of life, the more we adhere to them, so much the more do we conform to the will of the Almighty.[i]

That Hitler valued science is insufficiently appreciated. Some quotes from his Table Talk could easily have been made by such apostles of the New Atheism and enemies of Christianity as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, or Richard Dawkins. For example, he reportedly stated that people were attracted to religion by fear of the unknown or by intellectual simplicity, but the time would come “when science can answer all the questions.”[ii]

This source has many comments to that effect. Religion would “crumble” before the “advances of science”; science cannot err too much because it is non-dogmatic and self-correcting. Hitler is quoted as saying, “science postulates the search for, and not the certain knowledge of, the truth.” Religious dogma was in conflict with research, and would collapse “under the battering-ram of science.”[iii]

In what became a minor internet controversy, the aforementioned Richard Dawkins compared one of his opponents, Shmuley Boteach (a Jewish rabbi), to Hitler. Elaborating on his comment, Dawkins was careful to explain that he did not mean Boteach thought like Hitler, or acted like Hitler, only that he sounded like Hitler, or spoke like Hitler.[iv] Not enough people have pointed out that, on the level of ideas, Dawkins can also be compared to Hitler-although Dawkins is far too humane and decent a man to really try and live by the evolutionary theory he professes to believe in. Hitler was much more consistent.

---

[i] J.S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945 (Vancouver 1968), pp. 383-384.

[ii] “Excerpts from Hitler’s Table Talk,” see note 7 above.

[iii] Ibid.

In his book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People 110 B.C. to the 21st Century (London 2004), Prof. Steven Ozment uses the Table Talk to document Hitler’s belief in evolution and in the superiority of science over religion (p 282). He also states that it was the decline of traditional values and the emergence of modern ideology that opened the door to Hitler (pp. 252, 276, 286).

[iv] Richard Dawkins, “My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach,” The Huffington Post; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/my-response-to-rabbi-shmu_b_100910.html; accessed September 2008.

Introduction

 The present situation

             Christianity is being attacked in America today as never before. On TV shows and in movies, in the news media, in academia, in best-selling books, etc., Christians are being increasingly portrayed as narrow-minded, intolerant, ignorant, hypocritical, and even evil. This goes beyond mere ridicule. The basic teachings of Christianity are being condemned to an extent previously unimagined in this country.

            It is being increasingly said that Christianity has had a negative impact on America’s history and culture-not just because of abuses, but because of fundamental characteristics of the religion. It was the Christians, it is argued, who enslaved the blacks, exterminated the Indians, oppressed women, burdened people with guilt and denied them sexual freedom, and forced the gays to stay in the closet.

            Christianity has even been blamed for pollution and the destruction of the environment. God’s commandment in Genesis to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion” over the creatures is said to be a license for ecological plundering and pillaging. Never mind that the destruction of the environment only emerged as a serious problem in the modern era, nearly two thousand years after Christ died and rose again. Never mind that those who make the most noise about the destruction of the environment continue to enjoy their wasteful and environmentally destructive modern lifestyles while they attack the Bible.

            Part of this negative trend has been increasing attempts to link Christianity and the Bible to Adolf Hitler and the crimes of the Nazis. While it will seem incredible to some that the teachings of Christ and the Bible should be linked to Aryan supremacy, German militarism, the horrors of the death camps, and the extermination of six million Jews, such is sadly the case.

 Christianity linked to Naziism

            In the recent past, it was much more commonly assumed that Christianity had nothing to do with National Socialism. It was believed that Christianity was basically benevolent, while National Socialism was basically evil, that Hitler was as far removed from the Sermon on the Mount as it is humanly possible to get. The great majority of Americans would have assumed that the Jewish experience in America was the norm, the result of the Christian influence on American culture.

            The cultural climate has changed in the last fifty years, however, and the growing power of secularism makes people less inclined to view Christianity so tolerantly. (more…)