Charges that Hitler was Pagan

[Hektor]

Except for the first statement. "Almighty God" can be understood as not necessarily Christian. It's clearly that NS wasn't exactly atheist or materialist, but that doesn't make it specifically 'Christian' neither. I do believe that the public statements were sincere, though.

Considering his speeches and what he wrote in Mein Kampf one can surmise he's talking about Christianity in that context. His disdain and complains weren't against Christianity but against the Church. I have those same feelings as well. I refuse to step in to a church today knowing what they promote. My grandfather's old church, he was the preacher there and they spoke about how the jews crucified and murdered Jesus. Now today they don't speak about it, and they have the Israeli flag inside the church now.

Indeed, the churches changed their teaching to fit present day agendas and to be acceptable with a larger group of folks and to avoid to come under scrutiny. Christianity it however a broad term. Anything that got a statement with Jesus Christ in it can be considered Christian in a way.

One doesn't have to go to Church to be a Christian, as I have stated. I've told him this before multiple times. He was a spiritual man, as am I. One can be critical of churches and organized religion while still following Christ.
His last post I haven't even began to break down, nor do I have the time. In fact the response about Engel exchange is mere semantics in which he told him that he was a catholic and would remain so. He argues that Engels wrote that he told him that and was arguing about the format in which I had posted it, which means exactly the same thing regardless of who's perspective it is being told from. One doesn't say "And will remain so" if they aren't a Christian, as one would leave the Catholic faith anyways.
What the Fuhrer had was a disdain in the path the Catholic church has went, from before when they called out the jews to now defending them. This is the crux of his entire disdain of the Catholic church. that and how modern churches were being corrupted by jews in to supporting homosexual behavior and other things. This is the entire leadership's argument. Not against Christianity, but against the church and I will continue to say this.

The issue at hand was the churches (not only the Catholics) trying to dictate policy without being accountable for the consequences. Bear in mind that you never can satisfy all of them, because there are various factions in both the Catholic as well as the Protestant Churches. If a theologian, priest, pastor, preacher doesn't like you, he will use the pulpit to influence the community against you that way.

Of course those in government positions will get pissed with this. It also seems that they were shocked how hypocritical many of those church representatives were.

There was also a secret Bormann decree declaring that Christian and National Socialist are incompatible. and the argument is also around what they teach and that this stems from Judaism in large part:

"Nationalsozialistische und christliche Auffassungen sind unvereinbar. Die christlichen Kirchen bauen auf der Unwissenheit der Menschen auf und sind bemüht, die Unwissenheit möglichst weiter Teile der Bevölkerung zu erhalten, denn nur so können die christlichen Kirchen ihre Macht bewahren. Demgegenüber beruht der Nationalsozialismus auf wissenschaftlichen Fundamenten. Das Christentum hat unveränderliche Grundsätze, die vor fast 2000 Jahren gesetzt und immer mehr zu wirklichkeitsfremden Dogmen erstarrt sind. Der Nationalsozialismus dagegen muss, wenn er seine Aufgabe auch weiterhin erfüllen soll, stets nach den neuesten Erkenntnissen der wissenschaftlichen Forschung ausgerichtet werden. Unser nationalsozialistisches Weltbild aber steht weit höher als die Auffassungen des Christentums, die in ihren wesentlichen Punkten vom Judentum übernommen worden sind. Auch aus diesem Grunde bedürfen wir des Christentums nicht. Kein Mensch würde etwas vorn Christentum wissen, wenn es ihm nicht in seiner Kindheit von den Pfarrern eingetrichtert worden wäre. Wenn also unsere Jugend künftig einmal von diesem Christentum, dessen Lehren weit unter den unseren stehen, nichts mehr erfährt, wird das Christentum von selbst verschwinden. Aus der Unvereinbarkeit nationalsozialistischer und christlicher Auffassungen folgt, dass eine Stärkung bestehender und jede Förderung neu entstehender christlicher Konfessionen von uns abzulehnen ist. Ein Unterschied zwischen den verschiedenen christlichen Konfessionen ist hierbei nicht zu machen. Zum ersten Male in der deutschen Geschichte hat der Führer die Volksführung bewusst und vollständig selbst in der Hand. Mit der Partei, ihren Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbänden hat der Führer sich und damit der deutschen Reichsführung ein Instrument geschaffen, das ihn von der Kirche unabhängig macht. Alle Einflüsse, die die durch den Führer mit Hilfe der NSDAP ausgeübte Volksführung beeinträchtigen oder gar schädigen könnten, müssen ausgeschaltet werden. Immer mehr muss das Volk den Kirchen und ihren Organen, den Pfarrern, entwunden werden. Selbstverständlich werden und müssen, von ihrem Standpunkt betrachtet, die Kirchen sich gegen diese Machteinbuße wehren. Niemals aber darf den Kirchen wieder ein Einfluss auf die Volksführung eingeräumt werden. Dieser muss restlos und endgültig gebrochen werden. Ebenso wie die schädlichen Einflüsse der Astrologen, Wahrsager und sonstigen Schwindler ausgeschaltet und durch den Staat unterdrückt werden, muss auch die Einflussmöglichkeit der Kirche restlos beseitigt werden."

The average Bormann goes further than the average National Socialist with this. His position maybe on the extreme side with in the NS movement. e.g. Goering didn't see it this way. Goebbels was divided on this. But many felt that the churches teachings were counterproductive and that clerical influence was often subversive. There is of course another aspect as well... And that is that what they teach as Christianity isn't the real thing, anyway. It is more about influence and control. And also self-serving to keep the organizations going. There was a slight loss in membership during the third Reich era. But it small, very small. And there may also be some circulation with people coming and going. And there is of course a variety of reasons. There will be a larger portion of church leavers that does leave, because they realize that what they teach is misleading interpretation of scripture. I don't think that was the case with Himmler or Bormann, they just saw it as a contrary influence in general.

Goering was rather elaborate on the church question during his interrogation in Nuremberg:

Und wenn ich hier die Gruppe nennen soll, die in der Kirche immer noch eine politische, sagen wir mal nicht Gefahr, aber nicht gerade wünschenswerte Institution sah, so waren dies vor [305] allem zwei Persönlichkeiten, die hier hervortraten: Himmler auf der einen Seite, Bormann – besonders später viel radikaler noch wie Himmler – auf der anderen Seite. Bei Himmler waren die Beweggründe weniger politischer, vielmehr verworrener, mystischer Art; bei Bormann waren sie zielbewußter. Es war auch klar, daß von der großen Gruppe der Gauleiter dieser und jener schärfer in diesem Kampf gegen die Kirche eingestellt war. So gab es eine Reihe von Gauen, wo alles mit der Kirche in bester Ordnung war, und es gab wieder wenig andere Gaue, wo hier ein scharfer Kampf gegen die Kirche stattgefunden hat. Ich persönlich habe mehrmals eingegriffen.

http://www.zeno.org/Geschichte/M/Der+N% ... agssitzung
Search for 'Kirche'
Goering explains this well in my opionion. Himmler and Bormann were the two most explicit anti-clericals... Which has a tradition in Germany, since the large churches always tried to have a say in politics, which didn't sit well with many for various reasons. One being that they were secularists, the other one were Christians rejecting the abuse of church authority for political reasons.
This is of course a source for division and controversy. And the protestant/catholic divide was the pretext for the 30 year war, which was very destructive for Germany. That also throws a strange light the churches engaged in after WW2. So it's no wonder, that people did only unchurched in droves long AFTER WW2.

[Hektor]

Also like I have said before, Hitler did attend some services. He's even seen in 1 image walking out of a church. One doesn't stop being a Christian if they don't go to church. I haven't stepped inside of a church since I was 13 because of the zionism yet I am still a Christian. I do not recognize myself as any denomination for the fact they all are tainted. Hitler felt the same way and is why positive Christianity was created. Had nothing to do with removing anything and everything with promoting true Christianity in the Reich.

If Hitler wasn't a Christian he wouldn't have spoken about God in his final broadcast.

He talked about God because he believed in a God. That doesn't make him Christian. "Positive Christianity" wasn't something he actually believed. According to Goebbels, Hitler said: "The best way to finish off the churches is to pretend to be a more positive Christian."

In my view, Hitler was most likely a pantheist (some say pantheism is just a form of atheism, but I won't comment on that). This view is best laid out in Richard Weikart's Hitler's Religion. I have seen the arguments against the "pantheist Hitler" interpretation and I just don't find it convincing. However, I will concede that one can reasonable disagree that Hitler was a pantheist. I personally think the evidence points in that direction, but I don't think someone is completely removed from reality if they don't agree. However, Hitler was clearly anti-Christian. That's something I don't think someone can reasonably disagree with. Hitler was so obviously anti-Christian that you have to be deliberately blinding yourself to think otherwise.

And no, you don't just have to rely on Table Talks to come to the conclusion that Hitler was anti-Christian. I don't think Table Talks is as bad a source as you think, but even if we threw out the Table Talks, Hitler was still clearly anti-Christian.

Pantheism is the believe that 'the universe is God'... that all that exists physically has divine attribute. It's the case with some 'natural religions'. This allows to attribute creative powers towards nature. Something a pure atheist Materialist models does struggle to do. I see neither with Hitler, for sure not a Materialist view and postulates like 'Vorsehung' are also difficult to harmonize with the pantheism. The whole affair also gets difficulties to be harmonized with hierarchy, leadership even with folk community.

Positive Christianity affirms Christianity as long as it doesn't go against German sovereignty and morals. Which is what some of the church representative, mostly Catholics, did do. Some of the Protestants did do that as well, it was however more veiled. The issue with the churches was that they wanted to tell government how to govern, without wanting to be in a position in which they'd be held responsible for that.

Bormann and people connected to him intended to give a farewell to Christianity and he also expressed that in statements. Goering deals with this in his testimony. Bormann's argument is that he considers Christianity at odds with NS and superstitious due to what he thinks is 'Jewish influence'. The problem is that Christianity is a broad umbrella term, a super-category that can include positions and sub-category that are fundamentally at odds with each other. It all depends what presuppositions are being used to 'read into the text' (or into teachings). This can include positions that are clearly at odds with the rest of the teaching. Essentially those are then positions made contradictory by way of bad hermeneutics and deconstruction. So one can read something anti-christian in NS-statements just as one can read something Christian into NS-positions. It should be noted that most of German theology, but also lots of German Catholicism was embracing most of National Socialism at the time itself, but that there was also a trend of alienation to some of the positions held by a faction of National Socialists (e.g. with Himmler and Bormann). A minority of the NS-leadership has left the official churches, but this wasn't always hostile as in the case of Ribbentrop. Alfred Rosenberg gets charged with being 'anti-Christian' at times, but he never took a hostile position to Christians or the Churches. he emphasizes this in his IMT testimony as well. It is quite clear that the Allies/IMT prosecutors tried to charge them with accusations they know would be unpopular with most people of the time. This would be that the NS would be genocidal warmongers that were anti-christians that persecuted christians and the church. That this wasn't exactly truthful should be quite clear, but they could always drag statements, incidents and events into it, such as a part of those imprisoned and executed being members of the clergy. That those people were arrested for totally other reasons than religious ones is ignored. But Goering did actually point out that this was the case and that priests were arrested for political hostility not religious ones. There is a tendency among some of the clergy to veil their political agendas into a religious cloak. Which I think was also the reason why Hitler and other NS were actually fed up with the churches. So were larger parts of the population and I think this is one big reasons why more people got alienated from the churches also after the war. The German Protestants did do a 180 degree turn on many of their positions they held prior to WW2. Today they are essentially a politically correct, essentially woke type of church that ticks the boxes of hegemonic main stream and social issues like the therapeutic welfare state, eco-bolshevism, usury, Zionism, migration, homosexuality, pacifism, human rights etc. They also do have no issue to change their positions whenever they deem it useful. Latest example is perhaps their stance on the Ukraine war, dismissing their previous stance on the military, military action and armaments. They were also on the forefront of reeducation and the 'cultural revolution', while there were always remnants of social conservatism, albeit marginalized in the church structure.