"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."2 (Hitler
admired religious figures).
"I thank Heaven that a portion of the memories of those
days still remains with me. Woods and meadows were the battlefields
on which the 'conflicts' which exist everywhere in life
were decided."3 (Hitler
believed in Heaven).
"I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic
tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some
food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me
acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days
guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian
Social Party ... The man and the movement seemed
'reactionary' in my eyes. My common sense of justice,
however, forced me to change this judgment in proportion as I had
occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work; and slowly
my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today, more than
ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times
... How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my
attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with
regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and
this was my greatest transformation of all."4 (Hitler was inspired to become a
radical anti-Semite by the Viennese Christian Social movement,
whose attitudes are almost identical to the far-right American
Christian fundamentalist movement today).
"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."5 (Hitler
obviously believed in a supreme being).
"Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye
than a great man be 'discovered' by an
election"6 (Hitler was
fond of paraphrasing the Bible (Mark 10:25 in this case), and he
does this many, many times elsewhere in the book).
"The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in
Schonerer's opinion, in the fact that the directing body of the
Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that for this very
reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our
nationality."7
(affirming that Hitler's only real problem with his childhood
religion was the fact that its power base was not in Germany).
"I had so often sung 'Deutschland u:ber Alles' and
shouted 'Heil' at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me
almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness
in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the
sincerity of this conviction."8 (the "divine court of the
eternal judge" seems a rather strange idea from anyone but a
Judeo-Christian, since Pagan and Eastern religions generally lack
any such divine judgemental entity, to say nothing of atheism)
"Certainly we don't have to discuss these matters with the
Jews, the most modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their
whole existence is an embodied protest against the aesthetics of
the Lord's image."9
"Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the
heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last
time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful
children."10
(recalling World War I).
"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and
reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our
children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence
of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the
fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the
universe."11 (it
would appear that Hitler agreed with modern "intelligent
design" creationists on the existence of a Creator).
"Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the
poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life
today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations.
Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville
and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not
the right kind of food, particularly for the youth ... Theater,
art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must
be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world
..."12 (Jerry
Falwell? Is that you?)
"But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not
fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred
years from now. I think you will find but few images of
God"13 (note
that when he says "images of God", he refers to racially
pure Aryans; this sentence comes in the context of a diatribe
against racial intermixing).
"While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa
in order to win new followers for their doctrine-- an activity
which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of
the Mohammedan faith in particular-- right here in Europe
they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are
alien to all religious life or simply so their own ways. The
consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are
not favorable."14
(Hitler agrees with George W. Bush that religion and morality are
intertwined).
"Also noteworthy is the increasingly violent struggle against
the dogmatic foundations of the various churches without which in
this human world the practical existence of a religious
faith is not conceivable ... The attack against dogmas as such,
therefore, strongly resembles the struggle against the general
legal foundations of a state, and, as the latter would end in a
total anarchy of the state, the former would end in a worthless
religious nihilism."15 (Hitler, trying to equate
criticism of dogma to an assault on civilization)
"The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief
always the following: (a) Lowering of the level of the higher race;
(b) Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of
a slowly but surely progressing sickness. To bring about such a
development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will
of the eternal creator."16 (Hitler tries to define racial
intermarriage as defiance of God's will, in exactly the way
modern racists do, particularly in the southern American states;
indeed, 40% of Alabama voters voted to keep interracial marriage
illegal in November 2000)
"And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which
lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form.
Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the
hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this
world."17 (Hitler
believes in the afterlife, and he agrees with modern Christian
fundamentalists about the importance of religious matters over
material matters)
"The best characterization is provided by the product of this
religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this
world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true
Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to
the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter
made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when
necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the
Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in
religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In
return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our
present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for
Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political
swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own
nation."18 (Hitler
demonstrates the common anti-Semitic view that Jesus was an Aryan
rather than a Jew, and glowingly described him as "the great
founder of the new doctrine".
