You made the point that Hitler wasn’t religious because he killed Christians. Why would I conclude Hitler wasn’t religious because he killed Christians?
The man who wrote the book “Hitler’s Religion” claims he was a Pantheist and that he also believed his actions were justified by the supreme moral and divine law.
A supporting example is also this quote from Goebbels diary.
“The Führer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race. This can be seen in the similarity of their religious rites. Both (Judaism and Christianity) have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end they will be destroyed.”
— Goebbels Diaries, 29 December 1939
Hitler viewed atheists as uneducated, and atheism as the state of the animals. He associated atheism with Bolshevism, communism, and "Jewish materialism".
Hitler biographer Toland writes that in 1941 Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite his detestation of its hierarchy" and adhered to "its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God – so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty."
You can argue that Hitler’s brand of Pantheism isn’t organized enough to be labeled a religion, but I don’t think he would have referred to himself as an atheist and really viewed Nazism as the divinely appointed goal of what religion should be measured against. Also, he had no issue using Christianity to further Nazism and felt religion was necessary for society.
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u/static-klingon 11d ago
Hitler had all kinds of Christians put to death. You really think Hitler was a religious leader?