Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible

By Joseph Keysor

In this updated edition, author Joseph Keysor addresses the growing trend among secularists to label Hitler as a Christian and therefore attribute the atrocities of the second world war to the Christian religion. Keysor does not settle for simply contrasting the Nazis' behavior with the Biblical record. He also examines the true sources of Nazi ideology which are anything but Christian: Wagner, Chamberlain, Haeckel, and Nietzsche, to name a few. Keysor does not shy away from discussing Christian anti-semitism (alleged and real) throughout history and discusses Martin Luther, medieval anti-semitism, and the behavior of the Roman Catholic church and other Christian denominations during the Holocaust in Germany.

Joseph Keysor's well reasoned, well researched, and comprehensive defense of the Christian faith against modern accusations is a useful tool for scholars, pastors, and educators who are interested in the truth. "Hitler and Christianity" is a necessity in one's apologetics library, and secularists, skeptics, and atheists will be obliged to respond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: apgroup
• Release date: Jun 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476133447

Joseph Keysor

Joseph Keysor is the author of "Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible" and an authority on Nazi ideology.

Book preview

Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible:

A Scriptural Analysis of Anti-Semitism, National Socialism,

and the Churches in Nazi Germany

By Joseph Keysor

Smashwords Edition

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Copyright 2010, 2011, 2012, by Joseph Keysor

Website: www.hitlerandchristianity.com

Published by Athanatos Publishing Group

Website: www.athanatosministries.org/group

Cover by Luke Thompson

Website: www.sojournerdesign.org

3rd Edition, Hard Cover ISBN: 978-0-9822776-4-5

Soft Cover ISBN: 978-0-9822776-5-2

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-9368302-2-0

A word from the author about quotations:

Some of the sources used in this book are in the public domain. Some have been quoted with permission from the authors or publishers. I have relied on fair use. If any possessors of copyright feel I have transgressed the boundaries of fair use (I often use less than 100 words) they may contact the publisher and we will take necessary steps to rectify any perceived violation of copyright. I was unable after repeated attempts to locate the source of the internet translation of Mein Kampf.

Table of Contents

Preface to the second edition

Some changes have been made to the first edition. With the help of some constructive criticisms, as well as more research materials obtained from the States, I have been able to strengthen the bibliography and add more historical detail and accuracy to the work. Some of the Christian polemics have been deleted from the second part, which is after all more academic in nature (as well as from chapter 4). The sections on Luther, Bonhoeffer, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Wagner in particular have been added to and revised.

Whatever flaws there might be in the book—and no book on these topics will satisfy everyone—I am confident that the main points are unassailable. Biblical Christianity, as taught by Christ and the apostles, and as practiced by many sincere Christians over the centuries, has nothing whatever to do with modern secular hallucinations such as National Socialism or Communism. Criticisms which do not touch upon these points may be interesting and useful, but cannot I think be anything other than secondary.

Finally, it should be pointed out that this book is a work of Christian apologetics, not of secular academic scholarship. As such, it legitimately deals with aspects of the human experience beyond the confines of conventional studies of Hitler.

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 books of pop philosophy and pop science, 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. The well-known support of German Christians for Hitler; statements about God, Christianity, and the churches by Hitler and by leading Nazis, including strong opposition to atheism; Hitler’s Catholic upbringing and his Concordat with the Vatican; the fact that Hitler never officially withdrew from the Catholic Church; the official support for positive Christianity in the Nazi party platform; the supposed fact that Hitler came to power in an overwhelmingly Christian country; centuries of Christian anti-Semitism; verses in the New Testament that seem hostile to Jews; the massacres of the Canaanites in the Old Testament—all of these and even other arguments have been emphasized by those who see more and more evidence of connections between Hitler and Christianity. Hitler’s opposition to birth control, abortion, and homosexuality are easily connected to the family values of the religious right.

Reputable scholars and historians have studied Hitler’s ideology more objectively. George Mosse’s The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich; Daniel Gasman’s The Scientific Origins of National Socialism; Peter Viereck’s Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind; Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany; Michael Mack’s German Idealism and the Jew: The Inner Anti-Semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses; Paul Lawrence Rose’s German Question / Jewish Question: Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner—these all show from different perspectives and with different emphases how the 19th century's secular philosophies opened the door to the emergence of horrors unprecedented in the history of the human race. John Conway’s The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945 does not deal with the origins of National Socialism, but it demonstrates that Hitler viewed Christianity as a rival for the allegiance of the German people and sought to eliminate its influence as much as possible, his devious political rhetoric notwithstanding.

The works of these and other authors too numerous to name have had a significant impact, but unfortunately there remain those who seem to relish attacking Christianity. Oblivious to historical realities and misinformed or even hopelessly ignorant of biblical teachings, they continue to try to link Christianity to Hitler. They have had an impact as well, and we should not underestimate them. Too few Christians understand the extent to which what they perceive as a beneficent religion of grace, peace, and forgiveness is increasingly associated by many with the cruelties of the Third Reich.

A Holocaust video checked out from the local library asserts that centuries of Christian anti-Semitism made Jews Hitler’s natural target (completely omitting all of 19th-century secular and racial anti-Semitism). A history of the Third Reich compares Hitler’s Nazi party rallies to religious revival meetings, and a popular biography of Hitler agrees with a Holocaust scholar that Hitler was just carrying out the policies of the Roman Catholic Church when he slaughtered the Jews. An in-depth academic analysis of the Holocaust published by a prestigious university press and acclaimed by scholars from top American universities refers to the false and venomous anti-Jewish teachings of the New Testament and asserts that by demonizing the Jews Christianity played a significant role in laying the foundations for the Holocaust.¹

The debate over what Hitler believed and where he got his ideas has not merely continued over the years, it has intensified. This is true to such an extent that Richard Evans, editor of the prestigious Journal of Contemporary History has written, The relationship of German National Socialism to religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has recently moved to the forefront of historical inquiry.² Partly this is due to a natural human desire for deeper spiritual understanding that the countless secular books about Hitler have not satisfied and will never satisfy. Partly it is due to the fact that linking Hitler to Christianity is an increasingly common tactic in the culture wars. If Naziism can be convincingly blamed on Christian influence, then obviously Christians are potentially dangerous fanatics who deserve to be marginalized or even excluded from the political process as much as possible. This reasoning explains why some believe they are protecting American liberty and democracy by working to eliminate Christian influence. There are those who sincerely believe that they are defending democracy by attacking and marginalizing Christianity.

A notable advocate of this Christians-are-dangerous-potential-fascists line of thought is one Mr. Jim Walker. He has put up a website called Hitler’s Christianity at http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm, arguing that Hitler was a Christian and acted like a Christian. From this he draws the inevitable conclusion that American Christians today are a menace to society. One wonders what Christians he has met who want to exterminate the Jews or who believe that the Americans are the master race whose destiny it is to rule the world, but we can examine his arguments later.

As groundless as such arguments are, they are effective with people who know little about history and nothing about Christianity. In more than one internet debate, I have been referred to Walker’s website for proof that Christianity leads to hatred, cruelty, and fascism. Such accusations have gone for far too long without a direct response. As was the case in Germany, the Christians in America have been too passive and inert while the forces of darkness grow in strength and intensity. The spread of such ideas will affect us directly and has already begun to affect us. We are mistaken if we think that because God has blessed America with liberty in the past, we are therefore guaranteed of this blessing forever.

A more academic attempt to directly link Christianity to Naziism is Richard Steigmann-Gall’s The Holy Reich (Cambridge University Press). Reflecting views increasingly popular among secular scholars, the book argues that many Nazis were not anti-Christian at all, but thought themselves to be Christians, understood their movement (among other ways) within a Christian frame of reference and drew on Christian traditions to articulate their vision of Naziism.³ The book even goes so far as to assert that Hitler regarded Christ’s struggle as direct inspiration for his own⁴ and claims Hitler insists that Christianity is at the center of Nazi social thought and regards the teachings of Christ as direct inspiration for the ‘German’ socialism advanced by the party.⁵ This explains why Hitler cared nothing for political power, was a pacifist, and commanded his followers not to fight on his behalf.

Walker and Steigmann-Gall are by no means the only ones presenting such theories. The Holy Reich has been called (on its back-cover promotion at least) a thought-provoking work of admirable scholarship . . . deeply researched and thoughtfully argued . . . brilliant . . . important and original and so on. This sounds impressive, but back-cover blurbs always do. Some recent critiques of Steigmann-Gall in the same issue of the Journal of Contemporary History quoted above were considerably less flattering.⁶ These point out some of the many historical and scholarly errors in Steigmann-Gall’s work, but unfortunately don’t address the central problem of his total indifference to the meaning, spirit, and essence of Christianity as taught by Christ and the apostles.

Non-Christians with more insight into Christianity don’t base their ideas on a total or near total ignorance of essential Christian beliefs. They recognize that Christianity is profoundly different from Naziism, but still claim that Christianity contributed significantly to the Holocaust by creating a deep reservoir of anti-Jewish hate that Hitler tapped into. Scholars debate the exact nature of the relationship between Christianity and National Socialism. Some see more of a connection, others less, but the fact of some sort of connection is accepted as a given among non-Christians—and it is non-Christians who now dominate academia, the courts, the government, and the media. They are increasingly receptive to the view that Christians are dangerous.

A huge amount of literature has been generated on the origins of the Nazi ideology and on the resultant Holocaust, and Holocaust studies has become a significant field with notable figures and competing schools of thought. It is a field which has been too much ignored by those who believe in the Bible as the word of God. Those who do not believe in the Bible and have little understanding of its teachings too often dominate the discussion—as a result there is growing agreement among secular scholars, historians, and experts, that Christianity is to blame (to a disputed but always significant degree) for the emergence of Naziism, and for the crimes of the Nazis.

The Christian response

It is easy for Christians to dismiss such attacks as being too absurd to dignify with a response—but given that a growing chorus of unbelievers has been attacking our beliefs, silence is a serious mistake. When the slaughter of six million Jews is laid at the feet of Christ and the apostles and at the door of the church, we do not honor or serve our Saviour by saying nothing. More people than we would like to think really do not know what Christianity is, and find it easy to conclude from photographs of church leaders saluting Hitler that Christianity is compatible with Naziism, and the religious right is a menace to democracy.

When serious academic publishers make a direct assault on Christianity as an evil religion and present historical information to support their claims, and when such ideas are given credit in American universities and taught as fact, there is little or no Christian response. Unbelievers are too often allowed to dominate discussions about Christianity and Hitler, and spread distortions and lies unopposed.

From the vantage point of faith in the Bible as the divinely inspired and inerrant word of God, this essay will examine the charge that biblical Christianity was in some way involved with the emergence of Naziism. It will assert that all forms of hatred and persecution are directly contrary to the message of Christ and the apostles; that supposedly Christian anti-Semitism was a result of ignorance of the Christian message; that medieval cruelties (nowhere mentioned or sanctioned by the New Testament) and modern racial anti-Semitism were the result not of the Bible, but of rebellion against the Bible; that the common and unifying factors between medieval or Czarist pogroms and the Nazi persecutions are not biblical teachings, but sin and evil in the human heart, manipulated by Satan and by invisible spiritual powers of wickedness. This was also the motivating force behind Pharaoh’s and Haman’s attempts to exterminate the Jews long before the introduction of any Christian or modern racial elements—the power of Satan, the prince of darkness, working through cruel, ignorant, and evil men, void of the Spirit of Christ.

I have had some experience of scholars and intellectuals who are incapable of even understanding, let alone responding fairly to, the biblical viewpoints I hope to articulate. I know that if this writing should ever come into public view it will be dismissed by dogmatic secularists. Their beliefs that the invisible and eternal truths of God are non-existent will inhibit objective analysis. People of other faiths will also find my presuppositions and conclusions unacceptable. I haven’t tiptoed delicately around such things so as to avoid causing disagreement.

The plan of this essay

The nature of Hitler’s relationship to Christianity can be seen in the answers to two questions: Which teachings of the Sermon on the Mount did Hitler follow? and Where in the New Testament does it say that the blond, blue-eyed Aryans are the master race, that it is their destiny to rule the world, or that Jews are subhuman vermin who should be exterminated? Anyone who answers these questions knowledgeably and fairly will have a correct understanding of the point at issue. Since, however, there are those who do not have an adequate understanding of and are sometimes even openly hostile to biblical Christianity, further explanation is necessary.

Attempts to link Christianity to Naziism rely on a few key points: (a) teachings in the Bible itself; (b) teachings and actions of Christian anti-Semites in the centuries preceding the modern era; (c) statements by Hitler and his followers; and (d) the support of the churches and of different varieties of Christians for Hitler. After having responded to those arguments, it will also be necessary to consider (e) the origins of Hitler’s ideology. After all, if National Socialism did not arise out of a Christian context, the question logically arises as to where it did come from. The essay, then, will have five main parts:

I. The Bible and anti-Semitism

II. Medieval Christian anti-Semitism

III. Hitler’s unbiblical ideas

IV. The support of German Christians for Hitler

V. The secular origins of National Socialism

An overview of the five parts: Part I

This will have to include a brief discussion of the biblical concepts of Satan and original sin. These are out of fashion in our secular age, but the failure to take these basic truths of existence into account has led to the superficiality of many attempts to understand Hitler and the Holocaust. The idea that Hitler received his mysterious power from the devil himself is irrelevant to many, but it explains his destructive power on the deepest level.

A definition of the term Christian is also needed. Since so many have assumed that all non-Jewish Poles were automatically Christians; that German soldiers who wore God with us belt buckles were Christians; that anyone who had been baptized as an infant, attended church once every five or ten years, or used the words God and Jesus on occasion was a Christian, we need some rudimentary definition of what a Christian is.

That there are plain biblical warnings about false Christians and false teachers will need to be mentioned. We also need to remember Paul’s admonition in I Corinthians that Christianity without love is worthless. Too many people are discussing Christianity in hostility and ignorance with no knowledge of its essence, spirit, or purpose.

It will then be necessary to look at verses in the New Testament that supposedly show hostility toward Jews. It will be shown that Paul’s statements on the inability of the Jews to obtain salvation by the law or teachings on the Jewish rejection of Christ and the subsequent adoption of the Gentiles into the covenant relationship formerly occupied by the Jews provide no license or incentive for hatred and killing. The participation of the Gentiles with the Jews in the crucifixion of Christ and their shared guilt will be elaborated on. Understanding that Christ died according to the will of the Father; that his death and resurrection were for our redemption; that insofar as we have all sinned we all were involved to some degree in Christ’s death—these and yet other factors forbid anger and malice toward Jews on the part of sincere Christians.

Having completed a brief survey of passages in the New Testament, it will then be necessary to look at the Old Testament as well. The Jewish massacres of the Canaanites have sometimes been compared to Hitler’s crimes. Christians have even been publicly challenged to show that Hitler’s massacres were any different from those commanded by God in the Bible. Similarly, the Nuremberg Laws that were designed to exclude Jews from German life have been compared to the Old Testament prohibition of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.

Part II

Many or all of the comments in Part I can be dismissed as nothing but spin-doctoring—attempts to put a favorable interpretation on unpleasant facts. We Christians can put the best possible face on disputed verses—the fact remains that many Christians over the centuries have hated and persecuted Jews. This, it will be argued, is proof of the inherent anti-Semitism in Christianity.

That many Christians have never persecuted Jews and that many Jews have had decent lives in western countries are also facts, however. Jews have not been subjected to an unending succession of pogroms and hate. We have to look beyond the Middle Ages and consider the Jewish experience not only in medieval Europe or Czarist Russia, but in the New World and in western Europe in the centuries between the Protestant Reformation and World War I. Surely if medieval pogroms and hatred were inherent in Christianity the Jews in America, Canada, England, Denmark etc. would have experienced at least one pogrom in the last few centuries. The fact that western Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans have not been rampaging through Jewish neighborhoods killing Jews shows that serious faith in the Bible does not inevitably lead to violent anti-Semitism.

Moral restraints inherent in Christianity ensured that centuries of Christian cultural domination never gave birth to any mad schemes to exterminate all Jews. Biblical concepts of ethics and law ensured that they were never reduced to the arbitrary will of a Fuhrer. Examples of these restraints, ensuring that the Jews were more widely tolerated and even protected in the medieval period than is commonly known, will be presented. The totally unbiblical Crusades and Inquisition will be taken into account and shown to be radically different, both in nature and in degree, from the institutionalized and industrialized madness of Nazi Germany. Medieval theological criticisms and condemnations of Judaism were far removed from the hallucinations of German racial theorists.

It will then be necessary to look at the writings of two Christian authors whose names regularly come up in these discussions: John Chrysostom and Martin Luther. Luther’s attacks on the Jews in particular will be analyzed carefully, given the fact that he was a German, and the Nazis (including Hitler) professed to have admiration for him. Luther’s case is doubly important because he is still rightly respected by many Christians today as a deeply spiritual man who accomplished a great deal of good. A careful study of his comments against the Jews will reveal them to be different from what is usually claimed, and nothing like the modern racial anti-Semitism of the Nazis. They were also a distraction and a diversion from the basic principles of the Reformation.

Finally, an examination of Matthew Henry’s 18th-century commentaries will show how the Evangelical understanding of the Jews that emerged from the Reformation leads to toleration, not anti-Semitism.

Part III

This part will examine seemingly religious statements uttered by Hitler. Does mere use of words like God, Providence, or the Lord make one a Christian, or does even a casual glance at 19th-century German philosophy and religion show the frequent use of spiritual terms in a non-Christian context? Were Hitler’s public statements about respecting and supporting the churches truthful (like his expressed desire to expand to the east), or were they politically motivated deceptions (like his feigned desire for peace and cooperation with other nations)? If a reference to God proves Hitler was a Christian, do references in Mein Kampf to gods and goddesses, or to evolution and to survival of the fittest, show that Hitler was a Christian-Darwinist-polytheist?

A notable feature of Hitler’s combined comments about the meaning of life is a complete absence of any reference to essential Christian doctrines. Did Hitler even once refer to Jesus Christ as the son of God who died on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and then rose from the dead? Did this supposed Catholic mention the Virgin Mary one single time? The idea of Chancellor Hitler counting rosary beads or going to confession is ludicrous. Does anyone think Hitler believed that eternal life through faith in Christ made political affairs of secondary importance, or that there is one passage in the Sermon on the Mount that can be even remotely connected to Hitler?

Hitler not only avoided essential biblical teachings. He also expressed in Mein Kampf ideas totally foreign to biblical Christianity. Christ is referred to briefly as a teacher of ethics (a common secular view) and also as an anti-Semite who drove the Jews out of the temple. The origin of the human race is attributed solely to secular causes. Biblical ethics are dismissed and replaced by a social Darwinist emphasis on survival of the fittest. Nearly all of the Old Testament is rejected as unhistorical, sin is described as racial impurity, happiness and the true meaning of life are achieved by racial purity.

Hitler also expressed overt hostility to Christianity. Africans who converted to Christianity are described in Mein Kampf as a rotten brood of bastards.⁷ Christianity is condemned as intolerant—a common argument of secularists today—and its undeniable and well-known Jewish origins are referred to with open hostility. The failure of the churches to understand the Jewish problem is pointed out, and a future blueprint for the elimination of the churches’ influence is laid out (this was to be achieved by carefully controlled repression combined with educating the young in Hitler’s new faith).

Next it will be necessary to look at a couple of rare occasions (one of them quoted second-hand) when Hitler claimed to be a Christian. Not surprisingly, they contain no doctrinal substance and prove nothing but Hitler’s dishonesty. Some of Hitler’s references to God and to the Bible will be examined, as will his promises to support the churches and protect them. The Nazi party platform and Hitler's policy toward the churches—not only in Germany but also in Austria and Poland—require consideration.

Jim Walker’s aforementioned Hitler’s Christianity website will then be examined in detail. Some of the numerous errors of logic and fact will be emphasized, and the paganism underlying even Hitler’s seemingly religious statements will be exposed. Nazi support for positive Christianity, Nazi violations of the Concordat with the Vatican, and church policies of the Nazi government are some of the topics that will be discussed to show the value of Hitler’s religious rhetoric—rhetoric that is still deceiving people today. It is necessary to look not only at Hitler’s words, but also at his actions. The treatment of the churches in Nazi Germany reveals Hitler’s Christianity clearly enough.

Part IV

The support of German Christians for Hitler—or at least their failure to oppose him—is commonly pointed to by unbelievers as proof of a Nazi-Christian connection of some kind. It is also said that Hitler emerged in a Christian country; that Christianity was easily harmonized with National Socialism; that the Christians in Germany were silent about the persecution of the Jews because their theology led them to approve of it.

To deal with these arguments, it is not sufficient merely to state that Christianity is defined by Christ and by the apostles, not by the churches of Germany. True as that is, it is also necessary to give some historical background information, followed by an examination of the churches in Nazi Germany. It will be demonstrated that Germany was not a Christian country and that Hitler did not, as is so often falsely claimed, arise out of a Christian environment. Germany was in many ways a deeply secular country, and the churches did not have sufficient power or influence to prevent Hitler’s rise.

Nevertheless, while the extent of Christian influence in Germany is usually overstated, it must be said that much more could have been done by the churches than was done. Hitler and the lies of National Socialism were not sufficiently opposed from church pulpits and presses with the spiritual sword of biblical truth. There were several reasons for this. German Christians who claimed National Socialism was compatible with Christianity and supported Hitler for theological reasons had totally abandoned biblical Christianity. Those more orthodox who supported Hitler for political reasons and hoped he would bring stability to Germany were gullible and deceived. Much of the failure to oppose Hitler was due not to Christian teachings, but to fear. Too many Christians kept silent and went along because they did not want to be sent to a concentration camp.

The few exceptions who showed extraordinary courage and did speak out should not be forgotten. They represented the potential opposition that Hitler was mindful of in formulating his church policies. These policies were a careful combination of administrative challenges aimed at making the churches entirely subordinate to the state; of an ideological campaign to draw people away from the churches; and naked repression where extreme cases made it necessary. This has been described in scholarly detail in Conway’s book The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945.

Having completed this brief overview of the churches in Germany, it is necessary to say more about the failure of the churches to speak out for the Jews. Was this due to anti-Semitism inherent in Christianity, or were there Christians who knew that the Nazi policies were wrong but said nothing because of fear? There is ample evidence to show that many German Christians said nothing because of the latter rather than because of the former reason. After all, the churches said little or nothing about the torture and murder of other Germans either. Even the well-known opposition to Hitler’s euthanasia program was limited to a very small number of heroic individuals while most remained silent. Those who did hold to some kind of traditionally anti-Semitic views were not necessarily in favor of shoving Jews into gas chambers.

What, then, should the churches have done? To what extent were they responsible for Hitler coming to power? To what extent did Christian beliefs about obedience to authority obligate them to support Hitler, or refrain from opposing him? These questions need to be answered by biblical teaching within the context of historical realities.

Part V

Hitler’s ideas seem preposterous to us, but they did not seem so to many in Hitler’s day, and were in fact the product of a long tradition going back well over a century before 1933. After commenting on such aspects of the Hitler riddle as the importance of technology, or the question Do we all have something of Hitler in us, or was he so far off the map as to be totally unique?, it will be necessary to try and untangle the roots of that tradition.

Various attempts have been made to analyze that tradition, and attention has been drawn to ideas similar and even identical to Hitler’s in the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. Other thinkers such as Gobineau, Jahn, Lagarde, Langbehn, Wagner, Chamberlain, Haeckel, and Nietzsche have also been pointed to as sources of National Socialism.

Ideas of extreme nationalism, political authoritarianism, and secular anti-Semitism emerged out of the so-called Enlightenment, grew in popularity over some decades, and coalesced to form what became known as the Folkish ideology (or movement). Advocated by a significant minority of German intellectuals—including scientists, doctors, professors, journalists, sociologists, politicians, and educators—it came to have a disproportionately large influence in the second half of the nineteenth century.

This study will examine the roots of the Folkish movement, especially as finally expressed in the writings of Richard Wagner and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and will point to those ideas as important sources of many of the essential ingredients of the toxic brew of National Socialist ideology. It will also argue that it was the combination of a pre-existing Folkish tradition with uniquely German interpretations of Darwinism that added immensely to the appeal and respectability of the movement. This combination is most clearly articulated in the writings of the eminent German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel—though many others had similar or identical ideas.

Given the scientific facts that life was nothing more than a pitiless and amoral struggle for survival, and that the more advanced human races were higher on the evolutionary scale than lower races, previous concepts of Aryan supremacy and enthusiastic militarism could be seen (and were seen) as scientifically based, and objectively factual. The belief that we are in essence only animals of a higher sort with no immortal soul contributed greatly to the devaluation of human life that made mass extermination more acceptable as a matter not of crime, but of rational policy.

After looking at the historical background in German romantic and idealistic philosophy going back as far as Kant and the Enlightenment, I will focus on four writers—not as causes of National Socialism, but as representatives of social and intellectual currents that converged in a unique set of circumstances to make Hitler’s ideas acceptable. Those four are Wagner, Chamberlain, Haeckel, and Nietzsche. Given the importance of these four, their writings will be examined in some detail.

Also not to be forgotten is the unique genius of Hitler. Far from dismissing Hitler as an idiot incapable of reading a book, or a crazy man (though he was mad in the end), I will seek to demonstrate that Hitler had a good though selective understanding of the above-mentioned thinkers, and consciously drew on their ideas to forge an exceedingly powerful and compelling ideology. Neither a nihilist nor an opportunist who believed in nothing but his own power, Hitler was passionately committed to a coherent and consistent (though false and ugly) world view. He believed that by leading the Aryan race to its rightful position of world dominance, by subordinating inferior races such as the Slavs and exterminating the Jews, he was benefiting the human race and guiding it to a better future.

A question of presuppositions

If doctors are puzzled by a new disease, they gather a lot of information and eventually understanding emerges. If the police want to solve a crime, they gather a lot of data and eventually a suspect can be identified. But, if one wants to understand how the most hideous evil could explode with volcanic force in the heart of supposedly civilized Europe, merely amassing a lot of data will not lead to a deeper understanding.

Can we explain why a man would kidnap a little child, sexually molest it, torture it, and kill it? If we can, we might have a concept of evil that would extend not only to National Socialism and the Holocaust but also to all of the horrors of World War II and beyond. If, however, we cannot even explain one murder, can we explain millions? If there is no higher moral understanding at all, then there is nothing left to do but record the facts and abandon all hope of going further. We cannot even say with confidence that what the Nazis did was wrong. If on the other hand there is a higher understanding, then it is only in the light of this that the evils of Naziism can be understood. It is a deficient understanding of morality and spirituality that leads so many to place the blame for the crimes of the Nazis wrongly, while the most immediately and obviously guilty parties are exonerated.

It is a common error to assume that a rejection of religion guarantees objectivity. Many take it as a given that those who believe in the Bible are hopelessly subjective and incapable of seeing life as it is, while those who reject the Bible are—this is supposedly an infallible and eternal truth—clear-sighted, rational, objective, unbiased. But this is itself only another kind of subjectivity and bias, more powerful because it is unrecognized. Approaching the subject of Hitler’s relationship to Christianity under the assumption of the non-existence or the irrelevance of God and the falsehood of the Bible, secularists miss an entire dimension of the problem—and the most crucial one at that. Then, attempting to understand the relationship of Christianity to Naziism, they seriously misinterpret the Bible because they do not know what it means. They leave out very important teachings completely, seriously distort others, and arrive at misguided conclusions—all the while complacently resting in their imaginary objectivity.

This is why so many will point to the Bible, Christian anti-Semitism, and Martin Luther to show the Christian origins of the Holocaust, while they ignore or lightly pass over 19th-century German thinkers who explicitly rejected the Bible and introduced new concepts and new ways of hating Jews that are much closer to the death camps both chronologically and spiritually. It is necessary to show that religious belief is ignorant and misguided, and leads to catastrophe, so that one can reject the claims of religion. That men can reject the Bible, assert their freedom from the need for divine revelation, and then with their secular human reason and logic come to the conclusions that the Aryans are the master race and Jews are vermin to be exterminated—this is a troubling fact that must be covered up at all costs. It is too frightening to consider that human reason without God can lead to such horrifying disasters, so the truth is avoided.

This is why we are constantly given the examples of the Crusades and the Inquisition to show the dangers of religious fanaticism. The atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Pol Pot, much more relevant to our own times than events of centuries ago, and much greater in terms of numbers slain—these are not held up as examples of the dangers inherent in trying to organize society by reason alone, without regard to a higher and superior power whom we must obey. True belief in God imposes limits—the rejection of biblical values and the lowering of man to the level of a beast open the door to the most hideous and unbridled atrocities.

That the human mind once freed from the restraints of God’s law is capable of devising bizarre ideologies and inflicting merciless cruelties; that there is innate evil in the human soul which does not need to be encouraged but which rather needs to be limited and restrained—these are truths which many will reject. Nevertheless, it should be evident, and will be evident to an impartial observer, that it is not the fault of the Bible if secular human reasoning without divine revelation comes to the conclusions that life is only a pitiless struggle in which the strong survive and the weak die; that this struggle is the most fundamental law of life, the very source of our being; that heaven and hell are useless deceptions; that materially speaking the Europeans are superior to other racial and ethnic groups and materially superior means superior because the material reality is the only real criterion; that the Jews through Christianity have corrupted western civilization with false values; that kindness, forgiveness, and mercy are vices, while cold and pitiless cruelty is a virtue, and healthy; that man is only an animal, nothing more; that the Europeans lead the world, and the northern Europeans, the Germanic peoples, lead Europe, making the Germans the elite of the elite.

These ideas did not come from Christ, the apostles, or Roman Palestine. They didn’t come from the anti-Jewish sermons of Chrysostom, the Vatican, or from the Protestant Reformation. They came from modern man in the modern age. They gave birth to a philosophy that was nothing but the elementary evils of pride, vanity, and cruelty bolstered and intensified by pseudo-science, secular philosophy, and modern technology without the salutary restraints of Christianity, animated by the invisible but real powers of Satan and of human sin.

A final note

Except for brief periods in America and Canada, this essay was written while I was working as an English teacher in the Sultanate of Oman, and I would like to express my gratitude to the authorities of Oman for giving me the privilege of peacefully living and working in their beautiful country. I have been deeply impressed by the friendliness of the Omani people and have never been made to feel unwelcome as a Christian or as an American.

I would especially like to thank Prof. John Conway, Prof. Daniel Gasman, Simon Weil, and Walter S. Frank for permission to quote at length from their books and websites. My views are in many ways different from theirs, but in the material which I use pertaining to Hitler’s relationship to the churches; Ernst Haeckel’s basic ideas; Wagner’s anti-Semitism; and Hitler’s early life, I am in agreement with them and have used their material in accordance with their own purposes. I am indebted to Profs. Conway, Gasman, and Richard Weikart for instructive criticisms and comments, and to Prof. Weikart specifically for sending me chapter 2 of his work in progress, Hitler’s Ethic.

Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?

or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?

Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.

Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,

That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? (Job)

Part I: Christianity and National Socialism

Chapter 1. The New Testament and the Jews

The Hep Riots

In 1819 a series of anti-Jewish disturbances called the Hep (or Hep! Hep!) Riots broke out in Germany. They lasted for a short time, and various sources mention no loss of life. Local authorities used police and in some cases the army to suppress the riots. The violence spread to various parts of Germany and even to Denmark and Poland, but there was none in Protestant Prussia (except for Danzig) and little in Catholic Austria.

The cause of the riots is attributed not to pastors quoting a tract from Luther, or to Paul’s comments on the Jews in Romans, or to the Jewish rejection of Christ. The immediate causes are described as political and economic: resentment over Jewish demands for emancipation at the Congress of Vienna in 1815; the conspicuous wealth of some Jewish families; indebtedness of peasants to Jews; rumors of Jewish financial domination; perceptions of Jews as being conservative and anti-nationalist.⁸

Academics, politicians, and nationalist student associations were particularly active in the riots—and the inclinations of these sectors of society were more modern, liberal, and secular, more open to the influences of the Enlightenment, than traditionally Christian. The New Testament has zero emphasis on nationalism. People who view themselves as temporarily passing through this world on the way to a better place have some natural concern for their country, but are not going to center their hopes and dreams on it.

Whatever the cause of the Hep riots, we see various governments of a divided Germany using the police and the army to protect Jews. Something obviously changed between 1819 and 1933. At the beginning of the 19th century, when secular forces were on the rise but the old moral, religious, social, philosophical, and political order was inarguably much more intact, the Jews were discriminated against, but protected—what happened in the succeeding century? As is well known, Germany’s defeat in World War I, the destruction of the old order politically and economically, and the tribulations of the Weimar era had much to do with it. There were, however, also major moral, philosophical, and spiritual changes. These are often neglected or superficially studied by those who try to explain Hitler without due regard for the cultural background out of which he emerged.

An understanding of these changes will bring us much closer to the essence of Naziism than will studies of the four Gospels or the Protestant Reformation. That the Jews were scheming to control Europe; that they controlled the banking system; that their rigid adherence to laws and traditions was directly contrary to the dynamic life-force of new secular philosophies; that their lack of a homeland (rootless cosmopolitanism) demonstrated them to be less than fully human; that they opposed German unification or were a threat to racial purity—these and other ideas are not found in the New Testament or in 16th-century Protestantism. They were themes of a new kind of anti-Semitism with secular and often overtly anti-Christian philosophical origins.

Some may counter that it was biblical teaching which isolated the Jews in the first place, and set them up as natural targets for fanaticism and bigotry—so we need to examine the Bible and see if it does in fact teach hatred of Jews. If it does, then the nature of the relationship between Christian anti-Semitism (or anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism being a 19th-century coinage) and modern racial anti-Semitism can be explored in scholarly detail. If, however, the Bible does not in any way, shape, or form encourage hatred of Jews or of anyone else; if medieval anti-Semitism was in no sense the result of the Bible but was the result of direct disobedience to the Bible—then it will be necessary to look not at scriptural Christianity but elsewhere for an explanation of Hitler.

A great and terrible mystery

Anyone can imagine a few lonely eccentrics with Hitler’s pitiful pseudo-philosophy, but that a man such as Hitler should swiftly rise from utter obscurity and ignominy to seize power in a fully industrialized and advanced modern state defies ordinary understanding. It does not defy spiritual understanding. Can it be that refusal to recognize the existence of an invisible spiritual realm guarantees from the outset that all secular attempts to resolve the riddle of Hitler are necessarily and inevitably flawed?

Hitler’s life continues to exert fascination. There was something more than merely human about the man, about his life, his power over people. There is a glimpse of something invisible and larger than we are working behind the scenes. There is also a sense of the literally demonic in Hitler. His hatred, his wrath, the devastating effects of his poisonous ideology—Hitler and his myriads of devoted followers made a mockery of the optimism expressed by many secular thinkers who were far too clever to believe in the Bible. The rejection of all of the accepted truisms of modern secular humanism; the glorification of war and the contempt for peace; the hatred of democracy; the piles of emaciated corpses; the terrible power of a modern industrial state put at the service of a devious maniac—these prove, or should prove, that there is something terribly wrong with the world, and with human nature. Hitler’s triumphs over diplomacy, law, democracy, international cooperation and even over ordinary human reason dramatically highlight the fragility of civilized norms.

The fact that many professional experts on Hitler and the Third Reich have no more understanding of the spiritual dimensions of the Hitler problem than the average man on the street has greatly hindered a deeper understanding of Hitler. This does not mean that Hitler should be demonized to such an extent that he ceases to be a historical figure. Recognizing the spiritual dimension, we can then see it at work in a specific cultural and historical context. Both the spiritual and the historical dimensions can then be considered, not the historical dimension only. There have been more than enough boring, lifeless, one-dimensional secular materialistic studies of Hitler.

An ultimate understanding of Hitler and his crimes is beyond the reach of conventional history and ordinary secular understanding. To go farther we need, I believe, not psychology, sociology, safely conventional history, or more statistical data. Hitler was out of the ordinary, and so we need something out of the ordinary to explain him. We need biblical insight and biblical wisdom to deal with what are, at bottom, spiritual questions, not material ones. Studies of what percentage of which social class in which region voted for Hitler have not gotten anywhere near to the heart of the Hitler problem and will never do so. Marxist analyses in particular with their crippling materialism can never get beyond secondary considerations.

One German, after having seen Hitler go by in a car, described him in this way: I am neither an occult nor a mystic. I am a child of my time . . . and I hold strictly to what I can see. But there is a frightful riddle . . .What I saw gliding by there, behind the fence of his Mamelukes, like the Prince of Darkness himself, was no human being. That was a figure out of a ghost story.⁹ Even if one accepts this description at face value (though ghost story is far too trivial for what we are discussing here, and highlights the secular character of the observation), a belief in the reality of invisible spiritual powers of evil of which Hitler was only an agent (an eagerly willing agent) does not mean that he was superhuman, or that he was a totally incomprehensible phenomenon that just materialized out of nowhere with no reference to his environment. He was very much a product of the world in which he lived—and hence a suitable instrument in the service of higher purposes of which he himself was not fully aware.

The biblical concept of Satan

Within the colossal framework of biblical teaching, the spiritual dimensions of evil have two aspects, both of them confined within the boundaries of God’s sovereign control. One of these is the existence of higher spiritual powers of wickedness—Satan and the demons. The other is the power of sin that works in the human heart. Without taking these into consideration there can be no final understanding of Hitler and of the people who followed him.

Few are willing to even consider, let alone write about, the idea that Hitler was an instrument of Satan. The idea that the devil has an undying hatred against the Jews because God has used them to shed his light into the world through Moses, the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, will seem incredible, even preposterous to many, and will in the eyes of some reduce or eliminate the credibility of this book, but it does explain a great deal about Hitler. Otherwise baffling aspects of the Hitler mystery become more comprehensible if we consider that there was a greater spiritual power of darkness behind him. The rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12), the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2)—these gave Hitler his unique and more than ordinary powers.

Of course, many will think the idea of Satan is irrelevant, but we are not examining Hitler from their non-falsifiable, non-testable, non-empirical faith assumption of the non-existence of Satan. In order to understand biblical Christianity and its relationship to anti-Semitism, we need to consider what the Bible says about this old-fashioned concept of the devil. Apart from whether or not the devil really exists, what is the Christian view of this important subject? Looking at the Bible’s teachings will reveal that supposedly Christian concepts of the Jew as the embodiment of evil, the personification of Satan, the focus of the struggle between darkness and light, all have no biblical basis.

The scriptural concept of evil is centered not on the Jews, but on sin in the hearts of both Jews and Gentiles, and on Satan as a lofty spiritual power of wickedness. There is much that is mysterious about Satan—but the use of the word mysterious does not automatically negate a concept or relegate it to the level of superstition. There are many mysteries even in the realm of science, many things we do not understand. Until fairly recently the workings of the sun were a complete mystery, and even today the vast majority of people don’t understand the sun’s inner processes—yet they produce heat and light nonetheless. Our failure to understand something does not negate its existence. Still, while Satan is a mystery, the Bible does give us some information about him.

Jesus referred to Satan as the father of lies and murder (John 8:44), and said he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18). The devil is described in II Corinthians as an angel of light. Revelation describes the devil, Satan, as the old serpent that deceives the world. He has numerous lesser spirits of evil devils and demons that serve him. In Ephesians he is described as being not of flesh and blood (6:12) but as a spiritual power who should be resisted with spiritual weapons of truth, righteousness, faith, the word of God, and prayer—not with pogroms, murders, hatred, tortures, and lies.

As a fallen angel in opposition to God, Satan has a hatred of truth, and is supernaturally skilled at concocting the numerous deceptions that have led countless people astray since the beginning of human history. He also has a hatred of mankind in general, and delights in the misery and suffering of the human race. That Satan has a hatred of the Jewish people in particular is demonstrated in the twelfth chapter of Revelation. To say that this is not subject to empirical investigation and hence beyond the realm of consideration is, in my view, a bad mistake that illustrates a profound confusion about the nature and the limitations of the scientific method.

The devilish nature of anti-Semitism

The Bible records that Pharaoh wanted to exterminate the Jews. He saw them as a threat, and planned their extinction. Later in Jewish history, the Old Testament records that Haman also wanted to massacre the Jews. Needless to say, these attempts at genocide were not the result of Christian values. Any attempt to fully explain anti-Semitism has to go beyond New Testament teachings or medieval anti-Judaism. Experts on the problem of Christian anti-Semitism have to explain pre-Christian as well as post-Christian anti-Semitism.

Why is it that the Iranian government today has such a virulent hatred of Israel? What is this mysterious power of hatred that persists in essence unchanged over thousands of years but manifests itself in different forms according to the prevailing cultural conditions? It appears as one form in medieval Europe, in another form in modern Germany, in yet another form in present-day Iran, yet differently in leftist political circles—so many variations on the same persistent theme: hatred of Jews. There is no secular explanation which can cover such a vast field.

To the secularist, this subject must forever be an impenetrable mystery. From the biblical point of view, however, it all fits into place. From Pharaoh to 19th-century German philosophers to Nazis to Iranian mullahs and to loony left-wing college kids, there is definitely a continuity underlying the many significant variations of anti-Semitism in world history. This underlying continuity comes, according to the Christian understanding, from the devil himself and from human sin. It is Satan, the prince of darkness, who manipulates sinful people to do his will. He has a deep and undying hatred of the Jews, yet adapts it to suit the changing historical contexts within which he works. Viewed in this light, National Socialism can be seen as a lie concocted by the devil, and carried out by blind, foolish, hateful, ignorant and evil people who were thus by nature.

Describing National Socialism as a lie of the devil does not preclude further analysis. False philosophies that emerged out of the so-called Enlightenment’s reliance on human reason and rejection of divine revelation contributed to new concepts of nation, race, and the Jew unheard of in nearly 2,000 years of Christianity. Jews as a threat to racial purity; as scheming to control the world; as selfish and egotistical materialists inherently alienated from the mystic life force that had destined the German people for greatness; as the source of diverse and disconnected social evils—these and other aspects of a new and more virulent form of anti-Semitism than anything seen before can still be traced historically, even as we attribute them to Satan and to human sin.

The New Testament by no means focuses on the Jews as the living embodiments of Satan. The Bible does not warn us of Jews poisoning wells, torturing communion wafers, or using Christian blood for ritual purposes. Neither does it warn of Jewish conspiracies to control the banking system, take over the world, or destroy the purity of a non-existent master race. That Christianity makes Jews the embodiment of evil is a fiction presented by people who do not understand its character or its teachings (or else who deliberately state what they know to be false).

The fiercest attempts to destroy the church in the first few centuries came from the Gentiles, not from the Jews, and I Corinthians says that the Gentiles sacrificed to devils (10:20). Acts says that the people healed by Jesus had been oppressed of the devil (10:38), without indicating that it was the Jews who made other Jews blind, lame, and leprous. I John says He that committeth sin is of the devil (3:8). That this extends to the entire world, not just the Jews, is clear from many passages. Revelation says that Satan deceives the whole world (12:9), and we can see the sins described in Romans chapter 1 (hatred, lying, murder, immorality) clearly manifest in the world, not just in Israel or in Jewish neighborhoods. As John said, the world truly does lie in wickedness (I John 5:19).

When someone discovered that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, the mere discovery of a cause did not terminate further inquiry—quite the contrary. It opened up many new avenues of research. Similarly, if we say that Satan was behind Hitler and gave him not only his philosophy but also his remarkable powers, this not only opens up new avenues of exploration. It also allows previously gained knowledge of Hitler’s background and methods to be viewed in an entirely different light.

Jesus called Satan the father of lies and murder, and said that murderers were children of the devil. There is no more concise and insightful description of the true nature of National Socialism than this. Here is the source not only of the Holocaust, the massacres of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the pogroms of eastern Europe, but of every kind of deviltry and sin: the wickedness of the unregenerate human heart, played upon and manipulated by Satan and the devils beneath him. This would account for an anti-Semitism that is above and beyond history, yet is within it as well, and is consistently adjusted to fit various historical situations. It harmonizes perfectly with Paul Rose’s idea that Christian and revolutionary antisemitisms both reflect the same kind of inner psychological structure, albeit one whose formal expression mutates as intellectual and religious systems change.¹⁰

What secular or materialist explanation fits these facts so precisely? What else so exactly explains the singularity of Nazi anti-Semitism, yet also sees the connection with many other historical situations? We can as Christians agree with Rose’s statement that there is a universal essence of ‘antisemitism’ that pervades all its various manifestations.¹¹ This essence includes, as he points out, resentment against Jews for remaining apart. This essence of antisemitism also includes (a point Rose does not make) hostility toward the clear statement by the continued existence of the Jewish nation that God exists, and he has rules for us to follow. Neither of these essential aspects of Judaism are a problem for decent and honest people who have happiness and peace of mind within themselves. The hidden, underlying common denominator Rose is seeking is sin—not Christian teaching, but disobedience to or ignorance of Christian teaching.

Original sin

A second essential factor behind the extraordinary manifestations of humanly inexplicable cruelty described in so many narratives of the Nazi era is the reality of original sin.