Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs have been a matter of debate. His opinions regarding religious matters changed considerably over time. During the beginning of his political life, Hitler publicly expressed his highly favorable opinions towards Christianity, but progressively distanced himself from it.
[1][2] Some historians describe his later posture as being potentially "anti-Christian".
[3] He also criticized atheism.
[4]
Hitler was born to a practicing Catholic
mother, and was
baptized in the
Roman Catholic Church. In 1904, he was
confirmed at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in
Linz, Austria, where the family lived.
[5] According to
John Willard Toland, witnesses indicate that Hitler's confirmation sponsor had to "drag the words out of him ... almost as though the whole confirmation was repugnant to him".
[6] Rissmann notes that, according to several witnesses who lived with Hitler in a men's home in Vienna, he never again attended
Mass or received the
sacraments after leaving home at 18 years old.
[7]
In his book
Mein Kampf and in public speeches prior to and in the early years of his rule, Hitler expressed himself as a Christian.
[8][9][10] Hitler and the Nazi party promoted "
Positive Christianity",
[11] a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as
Jewish elements such as the Old Testament.
[12][13] In one widely quoted remark, he described Jesus as an "Aryan fighter" who struggled against "the power and pretensions of the corrupt Pharisees"
[14] and Jewish materialism.
[15] In his private diaries, Goebbels wrote in April 1941 that though Hitler was "a fierce opponent" of the Vatican and Christianity, "he forbids me to leave the church. For tactical reasons."
[16]
Hitler's regime launched an effort toward coordination of German Protestants under a unified
Protestant Reich Church (but this was resisted by the
Confessing Church), and moved early to eliminate
political Catholicism.
[17] Hitler agreed to the
Reich concordat with the Vatican, but then routinely ignored it, and permitted
persecutions of the Catholic Church.
[18] Smaller religious minorities faced harsher repression, with the Jews of Germany expelled for extermination on the grounds of
Nazi racial ideology.
Jehovah's Witnesses were
ruthlessly persecuted for refusing both
military service and allegiance to Hitler's movement. Although he was prepared to delay conflicts for political reasons, some historians speculate that he could have had the intention to eventually eliminate
Christianity from Germany, or at least distort it and subjugate it to a Nazi outlook.
[19]
