Scholarly Opinion
According to
Max Domarus Hitler promoted the idea of God as the creator of Germany, but Hitler was not a Christian or conservative.
[36] Domarus also points out that Hitler did not believe in organized religion and did not see himself as a religious reformer.
[36] According to historian
Laurence Rees, "Hitler did not believe in the afterlife, but he did believe he would have a life after death because of what he had achieved."
[37] Historian
Richard Overy maintains that Hitler was not a "practising Christian," nor was he a "thorough atheist."
[38] Samuel Koehne, a Research Fellow at the
Alfred Deakin Research Institute, working on the official Nazi views on religion, answers the question
Was Hitler a Christian? thus: "Emphatically not, if we consider Christianity in its traditional or orthodox form: Jesus as the son of God, dying for the redemption of the sins of all humankind. It is a nonsense to state that Hitler (or any of the Nazis) adhered to Christianity of this form."
[39] Koehne says Hitler was probably not an atheist and refers to the fact that recent works have asserted that he was a
deist.
[39] According to
Robert S. Wistrich Hitler thought Christianity was finished but he did not want any direct confrontation for strategic reasons.
[40]
Hitler simplified
Arthur de Gobineau's elaborate ideas of
struggle for survival between the different races, among which the Aryan race, guided by providence, was supposed to be the torchbearers of civilization.
[41] In Hitler's conception, Jews were enemies of all civilization, especially the
Volk. Although Hitler has been called a "
Social Darwinist, he was not such in the usual sense of the word. Whereas Social Darwinism stressed struggle, change, the survival of the strongest, and a ceaseless battle of competition, Hitler, through the use of modern industrial technology and impersonal bureaucratic methods ended all competition by the ruthless suppression of all opponents."
[42] His understanding of
Darwinism was incomplete and based loosely on the theory of "
survival of the fittest" in a social context, as popularly misunderstood at the time.
[43][44] According to Hitler's personal photographer
Heinrich Hoffmann, the Catholic priest
Bernhard Stempfle was a prominent member of Hitler's inner circle and frequently advised him on religious issues.
[45]