Nov 10
23
Hitler’s rejection of Christianity
Received via email…
Subject: Re: Debate Dembski vs Hitchens
I did a paper on the subject of Hitler’s influences and leanings that led him to commit the holocaust. Although he attended a Catholic school when he was young and did express early desires to take holy orders, he never followed through with that childhood desire. As a high school student, he was influenced by Dr. Leopold Poetsch, who became a fanatic German nationalist after experiencing the struggles between the Germans and the Slavic speaking people. Hitler later applied for and was rejected from art school in Vienna, but stayed on there and lived a bohemian lifestyle. During that time, he began to read the writings of many of the philosophers of that time and region, including Leibnitz, Luther, Fichte, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and others, but was most influenced by Fichte.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, chair of the department of philosophy at Berlin University and an early thinker in German nationalism, in a speech following the defeat of the Prussians by Napoleon told the crowd, “the Latins, especially the French, and the Jews are the decadent races. Only the Germans possess the possibility of regeneration.” Hegel succeeded Fichte in his philosophy chair at Berlin and Hegel wrote the dialectical method that was the inspiration of Marx and Lenin. Nietzsche also had a tremendous influence on Hitler and the Third Reich. In fact, Nietzsche’s book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra was given to every soldier going to war for the Nazis. Nietzsche was an early influence on existentialism and his philosophy revolved around the “will to power” and the pursuit of the Overman (Übermenschen). My former pastor, Erwin Lutzer wrote a great book on Hitler (Hitler’s Cross), in which he makes the case that Hitler wanted to replace Christianity with Nietzschean philosophy.
Hitler tried to impose “Positive Christianity” on the church in which he wanted to create a German people’s church. He wanted to get rid of the Old Testament with its Jewish influence, as well as most of the New Testament, because of its Jewish influence. In short, Hitler was no Christian.
Paul