Best Known Christian of the Twentieth Century
The best known Christian of the twentieth century was not Albert Sweitzer, Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Billy Graham or Martin Luther King, Jr. Not the best Christian but the person best known to be a Christian. The best known Christian of the Twentieth Century was Adolf Hitler. In December 1941, he said, “If I live my life according to my God-given insights, then I cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know I have acted in good faith.”
No present politician has more blatantly declared his Christianity than Adolf Hitler and since Hitler the faith of no politician has been so widely accepted. Millions of Christians around the world admired him. In Austria priests were authorized to display the swastika. Some bishops wrote “Heil Hitler” on official letters. A parish newspaper declared “One people--one Reich--one Fuehrer--one God.” Bishop Alois Hudal helped Franz Stangl, commander of Treblinka death camp, and other war criminals, to escape.
While writing an article on the meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in Berlin in 1936, Lloyd Allen, professor of church history and spiritual formation at the McAfee School of Theology, discovered that “an immense Nazi flag, hung where the congress met, was a vivid reminder of the bloody purge executed only a few weeks before by anti-Semitic fascists. “Most of the BWA delegates spoke out for soul liberty, the kinship of all humanity and the separation of church and state, but too many Baptist leaders did not. Indeed, a number of U.S. Baptists wrote sympathetically of Hitler’s Germany.” (Disclosure: I am a Baptist but no longer a Southern Baptist.)
The Watchman-Examiner printed a letter by Boston pastor John Bradbury who wrote, “It was a great relief to be in a country (Germany) where salacious sex literature cannot be sold; where putrid motion pictures and gangster films cannot be shown.” John Sampey, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, expressed gratitude to Hitler for prohibiting German women from smoking cigarettes and wearing red lipstick in public. Southern Baptist Convention President M.E. Dodd defended Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, who he declared were guilty of ‘self-aggrandizement to the injury of the German people.’ Besides, Dodd continued, most of the 200,000 Jewish refugees who went to Germany from Eastern Europe ‘were communist agitators against the government.’”
Some German-American Bunds taught German propaganda, as did Defenders of the Christian Faith, Knights of the White Camellia, Sentinels of the Republic and the Christian Front. The America First Committee accepted funding from Germany. On February 23, 1933, the Associated Press reported, “Hitler Aims Blow at ‘Godless Movement.” The article described Hitler reaching out to Catholics for support in his attack against the “spread of atheism,” citing a papal encyclical admonishing priests to “serve the religious interests of the nation.”
The reasons for this admiration are many, but some are:
•His morality. He did not smoke or drink and he abhorred pornography and homosexuality.
•He called his nation to repentance. “Providence withdrew its protection and our people fell. . .And in this hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that He may bless us, that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people. So help us God.” March, 1936
•His family values: “And marriage cannot be an end in itself, but must serve one higher goal, the increase and preservation of the species and of the race. This alone is its meaning and its task.” (1) “...man limits procreation, but is hysterically concerned that once a being is born it should be preserved at any price.” (2)
•His faith-based charity: “With a tenth of our budget for religion, we would thus have a Church devoted to the State and of unshakable loyalty.” (3)
•God had given him a mission to cleanse Germany of evil as personified by the Jews, liberals, homosexuals, labor leaders, homeless people, immigrants from inferior cultures, and the weak and sick. “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” (4) “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. . .” (5)
•His patriotism and the belief that his nation’s weakness was because “...the watchword of German foreign policy ceased to be: preservation of the German nation by all methods; but rather: preservation of world peace by all means.” (6)
•Because he condemned others who sought to use religion for personal gain. “Worst of all, however, is the devastation wrought by the misuse of religious conviction for political ends. In truth, we cannot sharply enough attack those wretched crooks who would like to make religion an implement to perform political or rather business services for them. These insolent liars, it is true, proclaim their creed in a stentorian voice to the whole world for other sinners to hear; but their intention is not, if necessary, to die for it, but to live better.” (7)
•Because he had no doubts: “The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others. If an idea in itself is sound and, thus armed, takes up a struggle on this earth, it is unconquerable and every persecution will only add to its inner strength.” (8)
•Promised an end to terrorism: “. . .we must not dodge this struggle, but prepare for it, and for this reason acquire armament which alone offers protection against violence. Terror is not broken by the mind, but by terror.” (9)
•He said the Ten Commandments were the foundation of Nazi Germany: “The Ten Commandments are a code of living to which there’s no refutation. These precepts correspond to irrefragable needs of the human soul.” (10)
•God seemed to favor him. “I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany.” “I follow the path assigned to me by Providence. . .there is a God. . .And this God again has blessed our efforts during the past 13 years.” February, 1940
More tolerant Christians died resisting this evil and millions died, including many Christians, to defeat Hitler’s armies. Nevertheless, the once vibrant churches of Europe are now largely deserted at least in part because of Hitler’s excesses in the name of Jesus. Those of us who declare Jesus as Lord must never again allow anyone to use our Savior’s name for political power or personal profit.
NOTE: the information about Baptists is from an article written by Lloyd Allen, professor of church history and spiritual formation at the McAfee School of Theology, and published in EthicsDaily.com, a publication of the Baptist Center for Ethics. The information about Austria is from “Gruess Gott und Heil Hitler,” (Hail God and Heil Hitler) by Stefan Moritz. References to Mein Kampf are to the translation by Ralph Manheim, published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1971.
Footnotes
(1) Mein Kampf, p. 132
(2) Mein Kampf, p. 252
(3) Hitler’s speech to Reichstag, Jan. 30, 1939
(4) Mein Kampf, p. 65
(5) Hitler’s Speeches and Proclamations, (1932-1945 ) Quoted by The Institute for the Study of Religion in Politics (www.isrp.org)
(6) Mein Kampf, p. 142
(7) Mein Kampf, p. 268
(8) Mein Kampf, p. 351
(9) Mein Kampf, p. 358
- Hitler’s Table Talk, p. 85, translated by Cameron, Stevens & Trevor-Roper, Enigma Books
A slightly different version can be found on SoMa Review: A Journal of Religion and Culture. (www.somareview.com)