Hitler's Theology: A Study in Political Religion

Abstract

In his study on Hitler's theology, German Catholic theologian Rainer Bucher examines the function of theological categories in Hitler's antiuniversalist Weltanschauung, or worldview, showing how Hitler's understanding of the nature of religious truths became a guiding principle of National Socialism and advanced the Führer's biopolitical projects, namely the creation of a racially united Volksgemeinschaft, the drive for Lebensraum, and the eradication of European Jewry. Despite his numerous misgivings about mainstream Christianity, Hitler nevertheless drew on Christian theology as a model of sociopolitical organization, admiring Christianity's moral absoluteness and ideological intransigence, as well as its capacity “to totalize, standardize and concretize” (p. 32). Hitler also incorporated the Christian elements of messianic election, rebirth, and, especially, Providence to promote himself as savior and redeemer of Germany. Although Hitler's projects were often articulated and legitimized in the name of God and his writings and speeches utilized a genuine theological discourse, the notion that Hitler possessed a theology all his own is provocative if also problematic. As Bucher notes, however, theology—understood simply as “discourse on God”—is neither the preserve of Christianity nor innately good.