Hitler's Religion. The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich by Richard Weikart

Abstract

Hitler's Religion. The Twisted Beliefs That Drove Third Reich. By Richard Weikart. (Washington, D.C.: Regnery History. 2016. Pp. xxx, 386. $29.99. ISBN978-1-62157-500-0.)In this eminently readable and insightful book, Richard Weikart investigates Adolf Hitler's personal beliefs. Questions about Hitler's continue to animate and divide scholars, not least because Hitler frequently lied about his religious convictions to mollify and mislead his supporters and gain political advantage.Not surprisingly, Hitler was much preoccupied with and Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany. Weikart takes to task scholars, most notably Richard Steigmann-Gall, who, in part based on Hitler's early conciliatory tone toward churches, concluded that Hitler was sincere Christian, at least until 1937 (p. 71). Weikart instead contends that the evidence is preponderant against Hitler embracing any form of for most of his adult life (p. 105). Aside from his vicious private condemnation of churches and Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness, a careful reading of Hitler's speeches that are often cited as proof of his Christian faith reveal such a distorted conception of that few would recognize it as such (p. 96). Hitler endorsed a kind of Kampfchristentum (Christianity of sword) that cast Jesus as pugnacious antiSemite in order to persuade Christians to join in his persecution of Jews (p. 77).Although Weikart acknowledges role of Christian antisemitism in preparing soil for Holocaust, he nonetheless posits that Hitler's antisemitism had little or nothing to do with or religion (p. 171). Some scholars no doubt will bristle at this assertion, which is consistent with author's conclusion that Hitler rejected in its entirety and, in long-term, sought to destroy churches. In this discussion, Weikart closely follows extant historiography on topic, and many of arguments and evidence he presents will strike scholars of churches as familiar. This is case because author did not conduct archival research for this monograph but relied on published primary and secondary sources. What makes Weikart's work noteworthy and important, however, is his methodical and broad analysis that situates familiar history of Hitler's complex relationship with Christian churches within a wider discussion of myriad philosophical schools of thought and spiritual movements that may have influenced Hitler's beliefs. …