TheGrayWolf wrote:A channel on telegram accuses Hitler of being Anti-Christian and pro-Pagan, citing multiple sources, such as the Table Talks, Goebbels Diary, The Kersten Memoirs, and Albert Speer himself.
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The charges against him supposedly being Pagan and anti-Christian is used to demean and attack the character much in the same way they accuse the holocaust as being real.
Not only are the table talks riddled with issues, so is Goebbel's diary, and other sources.
These lies are just as controversial as the holocaust, and is used to justify anything else that they are accused of and has to be called out.
Hitler was not a Christian and he was not a pagan. I will comment on the quotes you provided momentarily.
Speer was indeed a self serving megalomaniac, and his memoirs are not perfect
(see Matthias Schmidt's 'Albert Speer: The End of a Myth') but you cannot dismiss all of his reminiscences. Common sense in reading any text is crucial to weeding out unfalsifiable conjecture and the truth. You need to compare multiple sources as well. So, be cautious with Speer, but even if you were to quote him I don't see how you could manufacture a narrative around Hitler being a pagan:
Why do we call the whole world's attention to the fact that we have no past? It isn't enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up these villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds. All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture. We really should do our best to keep quiet about this past. Instead Himmler makes a great fuss about it all. The present-day Romans must be having a laugh at these relegations.
Adolf Hitler cited in: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (Macmillan, 1970), Pp. 94-95.
Hitler was evidently not a Christian either as Speers subsequent pages show. For example Hitler supposedly said:
"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
Ibid., p. 96.
On the same page Speer did remark that:
Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates, above all Goering and Goebbels, to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide.
Ibid., p. 95-96.
Whether Speer is correct to say that Hitler remained 'in the Church' is up for debate. I would say that if you don't go to Church, and if you don't act according to the Christian faith, you're not really 'in the Church' - which means Hitler certainly wasn't. Hitler 'protected' the Church only from the radical Pagans like Himmler, Bormann, or Rosenberg who would've seen it destroyed entirely. Hitler understood that many Germans still relied on the Church and so he wouldn't destroy it, he was also influenced in this regard by considerations regarding his own mother, who he knew would be an avid Churchgoer:
Immersed in ‘Barbarossa,’ Hitler remained unaware that Martin Bormann was already waging open war on the Church. On one occasion Hitler said, ‘If my mother were still alive, she’d definitely be a churchgoer and I wouldn’t want to hinder her. On the contrary, you’ve got to respect the simple faith of the people.’ Hitler assured Goebbels and Rosenberg that he would not easily forgive the German church leaders their behaviour during this emergency. But until the war was won the Party must proceed slowly against the Church. On July 30, 1941, Bormann personally circularised all the gauleiters, on Hitler’s orders, instructing them to refrain from any persecution of the religious communities, since this would only divide the nation which Hitler had so arduously united.
David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path (Focal Point Publications, Millennium Edition, 2002), Pp. 431. (PDF)
Hitler's motivation to temper attacks against the Church is therefore not a result of him being 'Christian', but his concern about maintaining unity among the German people. It'd be a grave mistake to misattribute views to Hitler that you haven't evaluated in their correct context.
Not only are there major issues with all of these sources, the public record of his speeches, and laws and actions completely contradict this.
Anyway. You say the Goebbels diary is riddled with issues. I mean, I don't think so, no issues with it have been proven, although there is understandably speculation about potential interference from the Soviet Union, but that seems less than likely.
TheGrayWolf wrote:A standard quote from Hitler himself from the same table talks:
"Nothing would be more foolish than to re-establish the worship of Wotan." -Hitler's table talks, page 49
This quote is taken out of context, Hitler, if you read the section in full is criticising the emphasis given to religious debate. He is therefore criticizing the people on both sides who would seek to become Christians, or Pagans:
It seems to me that nothing would be more foolish than to re-establish the worship of Wotan. Our old mythology had ceased to be viable when Christianity implanted itself. Nothing dies unless it is moribund. At that period the ancient world was divided between the systems of philosophy and the worship of idols. It's not desirable that the whole of humanity should be stultified—and the only way of getting rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.
A movement like ours mustn't let itself be drawn into metaphysical digressions. It must stick to the spirit of exact science. It's not the Party's function to be a counterfeit for religion.
Adolf Hitler, 14 October, 1941., Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944: His Private Conversations (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), Pp. 61.
This entire, rather short conversation is highly illuminative of Hitler's nuanced thoughts regarding spirituality in general. He doesn't endorse Christianity, nor does he endorse Paganism. He believes that both primitive doctrines of worship are being replaced by scientific thought. However this does not mean Hitler supports Atheism, as he himself says:
An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature and bows before the unknowable. An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal) as soon as he perceives that the State, in sheer opportunism, is making use of false ideas in the matter of religion, whilst in other fields it bases everything on pure science.
Ibid., p. 59.
I could go on and on quoting the whole section, but you should just read it for yourself. Hitler affirms the basis of National Socialism as being derived from nature, which is scientific, not mythical:
If, in the course of a thousand or two thousand years, science arrives at the necessity of renewing its points of view, that will not mean that science is a liar. Science cannot lie, for it's always striving, according to the momentary state of knowledge, to deduce what is true.
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The man who lives in communion with nature necessarily finds himself in opposition to the Churches. And that's why they're heading for ruin—for science is bound to win.
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I envisage the future, therefore, as follows : First of all, to each man his private creed. Superstition shall not lose its rights. The Party is sheltered from the danger of competing with the religions. These latter must simply be forbidden from interfering in future with temporal matters. From the tenderest age, education will be imparted in such a way that each child will know all that is important to the maintenance of the State. As for the men close to me, who, like me, have escaped from the clutches of dogma, I've no reason to fear that the Church will get its hooks on them.
Ibid., p. 61, 62.
You might wonder whether this conversation is genuine, personally I believe that it is. Albert Speer, independently of this Table Talk relates a similar conversation in his memoirs. For example, in this same conversation Hitler says:
I especially wouldn't want our movement to acquire a religious character and institute a form of worship. It would be appalling for me, and I would wish I'd never lived, if I were to end up in the skin of a Buddha!
Ibid., p. 61.
And from Speer:
Thus Hitler had little sympathy with Himmler in his mythologizing of the SS.
What nonsense! Here we have at last reached an age that has left all mysticism behind it, and now he wants to start that all over again. We might just as well have stayed with the church. At least it had tradition. To think that I may some day be turned into an SS saint! Can you imagine it? I would turn over in my grave. . . .
Speer, Third Reich, op cit., p. 94.
The Table Talk quotation only has Himmler listed as a guest, not Speer, but nonetheless, whether these are two different occasions or the same one, Hitler most certainly expressed consistent religious/spiritual sentiments.
All doubt can be expelled on this, because Goebbels also confirmed that Hitler said this, as he writes in his diary on December 28, 1939:
The Führer is passionately opposed to playing the role of the founder of a religion. He does not want to become a Buddha later on. He is only and exclusively a politician. The best way to deal with the churches is to pretend to be a more positive Christian. So, for the time being, it is important to maintain a reserve in these matters and to coldly stifle the churches where they become impudent and interfere in state matters.
December 28, 1939; Elke Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part 1, Vol. 7 (Munich: K.G. Sauer Verlag, 1998), p. 248.
The quote about the occult is fine, there's no need to comment on it. It's true that Hitler didn't like the influence of the Occult, but this didn't mean he endorsed Christianity.
Next you quote from
Mein Kampf no doubt an inferior translation, but no matter:
"For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the present nothing but spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every communist blackjack!"
- Adolf Hitler, (Mein Kampf, Chapter 12)
This quote is also taken out of context. If you read the full chapter Hitler is criticizing 'Volkish' larpers, who are Pagan, but that's not the same as criticizing Paganism. Hitler is addressing an attitude of a certain group of people, and ridiculing their inconsistencies. Hitler derides these 'folk-lore comedians' for being unproductive in the face of Jewish power. Hitler says in the same section:
Among those people, it's often hard to distinguish between those who are merely stupid and incompetent, and those who have a definite rationale. My impression, especially with the so-called religious reformers based on ancient Germanic customs, is that they are sent by those who don't wish to see a national revival of our people. Their whole activity leads people away from the common struggle against the common enemy, the Jew.
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Volume 1: A Reckoning (New English Translation by Thomas Dalton, Clemens & Blair, 2018), Pp. 357.
Hitler follows up immediately after by characteristically chastising those who would waste a peoples time on 'religious controversies':
This causes people to waste their strength on senseless and ruinous religious controversies. These are the grounds for an authoritative and dominant centralizing force in the movement. Only in this way can it counteract the activity of such ruinous elements. And that's why these folklore wandering Jews are so hostile to any movement whose members are firmly united under one leader and one discipline. They hate such a movement because it's capable of putting a stop to their mischief.
Ibid.
Both sides of this religious argument fail to comprehend Hitler's ultimate point, which is that when going up against a monolithic enemy, infighting about religion is a waste of time. Either get behind National Socialism or go away. Religion should always come second and not interfere with the forces that promulgate the life of the people and their right to existence.
This next quote simply cannot be found at the page numbers cited.
Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years.
- Adolf Hitler, quoted in: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872
Here are scans of the relevant pages from Baynes:
Norman H. Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler April 1922 - August 1939: Volume 1 (Oxford University Press, 1942), Pp. 871-872.As you can see, this quote is not present on these pages.
If you're interested in what Hitler's spiritual beliefs were, I would recommend you read Richard Weikart's book:
Book Description: For a man whom history can never forget, Adolf Hitler remains a persistent mystery on one front--his religious faith. Atheists tend to insist Hitler was a devout Christian. Christians counter that he was an atheist. And still others suggest that he was a practicing member of the occult. None of these theories are true, says historian Richard Weikart. Delving more deeply into the question of Hitler's religious faith than any researcher to date, Weikart reveals the startling and fascinating truth about the most hated man of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler was a pantheist who believed nature was God. In Hitler's Religion, Weikart explains how the laws of nature became Hitler's only moral guide--how he became convinced he would serve God by annihilating supposedly inferior human beings and promoting the welfare and reproduction of the allegedly superior Aryans in accordance with racist forms of Darwinism prevalent at the time.
This is by far the most accurate understanding of Hitler's spirituality and therefore, of National Socialism which is a belief in the divinity of nature, and her natural laws. A cosmic order that spans the universe.
Weikart's book isn't perfect, he's an orthodox historian after all so he's needlessly hostile about his subject and epoch, but his overall conclusion is correct and firmly puts an end to the ridiculous religious debates concerning Hitler, and those who want to appropriate him into their own camps.