Holocaust denial

[politicus]

I really doubt that a Catholic like Hitler wanted to kill all Catholics.

I don't think Hitler did consider himself a Catholic.

You are right. But killing Catholics would have meant wiping out most of the population in Southern Germany, so it was always out of the question.
There is no evidence that he ever had such plans. And when it comes to Hitler historians have left no stone untouched.

[politicus]

I really doubt that a Catholic like Hitler wanted to kill all Catholics.

I don't think Hitler did consider himself a Catholic.

As he stayed member of the Church his entire life, yes he were Catholic (like much of the rest of the Nazi elite), something not even the Catholic Church try to deny.

But the question was not whether he was a member of the church, but whether he considered himself a Catholic. And Hitler did not think of himself as Catholic - or even Christian. He was highly negative to the entire Christian cultural heritage of Europe, which he saw as leading to weakness.
The leading Nazis where basically either neo-pagan romantics or atheists.

To Ingemann:
It is a bit ironic that you as a Dane equals membership of an established church with selfidentifying as a Christian. Given that more than 80% of Denmarks population are members of the established Lutheran church most of them simply because their families have always been church members and only half of them believing in God. The number of Danes that are church members without considering themselves Christian is very substantial.

[politicus]

The leading Nazis where basically either neo-pagan romantics or atheists.

And by "the leading Nazis" you mean Heinrich Himmler, right? 

He was one of them, but certainly not the only one.

The point is most top Nazi leaders where basically anti-Christian including Hitler. Ruling a predominantly Christian nation he of course tried to co-opt the Christian churches and was very successful in doing so. But that doesn't make him a Christian.

[politicus]

and would've eventually wiped out everyone who wasn't a white Aryan atheist.

Just in defense of my fellow heathens Hitler and the Nazi state was against atheism.

"Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany's fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years." - Adolf Hitler 1933.

Hitler defended Christianity in public and ordered Goering and Goebbels to remain in their churches. The reason is pretty obvious. Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation and he didn't think a new party religion such as the SS myth or Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century could adequately replace it.

But the diaries of Albert Speer and published notes from his private secretary Martin Bormann proves that he personally was very anti-Christian. Which is only logical given the ethos of Nazism.

Bormann's notes are published in English as "Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944" by Farrar, Straus and Young (1953) or "Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944" from Oxford University Press.

"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)
 
"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure". (p 43)

"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State". (p 49-52)
 
"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity".
 
"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, f****ts? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea". (p 63-65)
 
"Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease". (p 118 & 119)
 
"Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely wholehearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics". (p 119 & 120)
 
"It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold" ." (p 278)
 
In his memoirs "Inside the Third Reich" Albert Speer quotes Hitler for saying:

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japaneses, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness"

It is ironic that Hitler actually said, that Germany would have been better off if Islam had conquered Europe after the battle of Tours, and that Germany had the misfortune of having the wrong religion. Neo-nazis do not like that quote!

Basically Hitler had a purely instrumental view of religion. If it furthered his agenda it was a good religion, if it didn't it was bad. There is no indication that he had any real religious beliefs himself. But plenty that he hated Christianity "the faith of the meek".

[politicus]

What we're reacting to is the way Jersey and politicus are trying to turn the collaborators and perpetrators of Nazi atrocities into victims and potential victims of said atrocities.

And how on earth did I do that?

Trying to shift the blame onto only Hitler, or only Hitler's inner circle, or only the SS is propagandistic whitewashing of the first order.

Nobody did that!

I am quite shocked that you can read my posts in this light! During the discussion of the subject of this thread the question came up whether Hitler (and related to that the rest of the Nazi elite) where Christians. I was simply pointing out that Hitler can not by any meaningfull standard be considered a Christian since he despised the Christian faith and its influence on European culture (obviously also including the influence of the Catholic church as the main Christian church).

You owe me an apology. There is a limit to what you can accuse other posters of without a shred of evidence.

[politicus]

The Nazism and religion thing is less important by an almost infinite degree (except to morons)

Since Judeo-Christian ethics (with its idea of compassion for the weak/poor) is fundamental to Western culture the Nazi elites contempt for this tradition is highly relevant in a debate of holocaust. Basically Hitler wanted to break with the entire foundation of Western culture and replace it with a new ethic where might is always right and being strong and ruthless was idealised in an extreme way. The breach with Christian based culture (not religion) is fundamental to understanding the holocaust.

[politicus]

I disagree.

With whom? Jersey? Please specify when you are commenting below a post with a different topic. No reason to add to the confusion in this thread.

 I see no reason to believe he would one day, had he managed to achieve peace somehow, start rounding up German Christians (or specifically Catholics) to do the same thing..

Neither do I.

[politicus]

Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs were arguably not Catholic, but I wouldn't go as far as to say he was an atheist or a neo-paganist. Instead I would say that he had his own religion that brought in elements from pretty much everywhere that was crafted into the Nazi Party.

That is one way of looking at it, but given that the German nation and the supremacy of the Aryan race was what Hitler ultimately worshipped (with himself as "high priest"). I think it is more accurate to say he was an atheist with a political faith, worldview and mythology. But unlike Himmler or Rosenberg he never wanted that faith articulated in a religious language or mythology. And God certainly didn't play any part in his wordview, but then again there are religions without a God and extreme Nationalism does have some pseudo-religious traits.

A religion that he wanted taught in every Protestant and Catholic Christian Church in the Third Reich.  In other words, Hitler was for the consolidation of Church and State... I think it would be most accurate to say that Hitler wanted to subvert the Roman Catholic Church.

That's what I meant when I said he had an instrumental view of religion. It was a tool to serve his ideological goals.