Some History Which the Churches Would like us to Forget
| The Inquisition | Was Hitler a Christian? |
The Inquisition
The Inquisition was set up by the papacy in the middle ages to persecute anyone
who did not agree with the teachings of the church. It was a legal institution
and took the form of a trial controlled almost entirely by the Inquisitors.
It began as a weapon of the state under the Romans during the 4th century
when the authorities deemed heretics enemies of the state. Excommunication
was the usual punishment. During the 12th century the Inquisition was used
in an attempt to put down organised resistance to the rule of the established
church. By the middle of the 12th century torture was sanctioned as a way
of gaining a confession. The punishment could then extend to death.
Many Inquisitors abused their power and engaged in excessive cruelty. By the
middle of the 15th century it was used to ensure that no one with influence
challenged the papal rule in thought or deed. It was an arm of the Inquisition
that condemned Galileo in 1633 and ensured that scientific progress was stifled
in southern Europe. It was this persecution that delayed enlightened scientific
and social progress until the middle of the seventeenth century when in Northern
Europe a different intellectual climate prevailed.
The total human cost of the Inquisition is not known but it is certain
that thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands were mistreated and tortured.
Hitler
It is quite common to hear Christians claim that Hitler and his followers
were Atheists or that the Third Reich was anti religious. This is far from
true.
Hitler was raised as a catholic in a culture seething with the influences
if Christianity. Any visitor to Germany will see that every small settlement
has at least one church, some villages have several and most towns can still
boast magnificent church buildings. I have visited a few myself.
In 1933 the German Freethinkers League, with about half a million members,
was disbanded by the Nazis.
There can be no doubt that Hitler believed in a Christian god and regarded
himself as a Christian.
The following quotes are translations from Hitler's speeches - I make no apologies
for pilfering them from the following excellent source: http://www.atheism.about.com/religion/atheism/library/quotes/bl_q_AHitler.htm
"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so"
[Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]
"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator.
By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work".
[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator." [Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 46]
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious
instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation
is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived
from faith . . . we need believing people."
[Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading
to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933]
"Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm,
I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting
me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time."
[Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter."
[Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922, published in My New Order, quoted in
Freethought Today April 1990]
"What we have to fight for...is the freedom and independence of the fatherland,
so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the
Creator."
[Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 125]
"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical
existence of a religious belief."
[Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.152]
"And the founder of Christianity. made no secret indeed of his estimation
of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of
the human race out of the Temple of God."
[Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.174]
"I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor
of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to
me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most
desirable ideal."
[Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 1]
"Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits
sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to
the expulsion from paradise."
[Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1]
"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."
[The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University
Press, 1942), pg. 871-872]