Who is this artist?

[Thersites]

From your own link:

Both British historian Owen Chadwick and Jesuit ADSS editor Robert A. Graham dismissed the existence of a plot as British wartime propaganda.

True, there is controversy over whether such a plot actually existed; however, did Hitler have good reason to want the Pope kidnapped?

[little_monkey]

True, there is controversy over whether such a plot actually existed; however, did Hitler have good reason to want the Pope kidnapped?

Not that I can think of. What would it serve? To remove him? That would bring another pope to be elected, and Hitler would not have any more garantees that the next pope would be more in favor towards him. So for Hitler to want to kidnap the pope, he would have had plans to influence the election of the next pope. Does history show that he worked towards that plan? I'm not aware of any.

[little_monkey]

I see. So you tactic is to define Christian so loosely that it becomes an amorphous burlap sack that can more or less be tossed over anyone. Reminds me of What Dara O' Briain said: "I wouldn't be a very spiritual man, right, I don't believe in God, right... Still Catholic. Because there is nothing you can do when you're Catholic. Once you've started Catholic, frankly, there's no real way to stop being Catholic. Even not believing in God isn't regarded as sufficient reason to get out of the Catholic Church. You'd think it'd be fairly fundamental to the whole thing, but no, Catholicism, the most sticky, adhesive religion in the world. There's no website you can de-register online, you can't cut up your membership card in front of a priest, and go "[censored] you, I'm outta here", and walk away. You could join the Taliban, you'd merely be regarded as a bad Catholic."

Whatever "christian beliefs" Hitler had might not meet your approval but he was Christian, and remained so until he died. I don't know what is your objection. I did mention that what he did does not reflect on Christianity. The man was madly insane, and had he been of another religion, he would have acted the same way.

[Rational Gaze]

Whatever "christian beliefs" Hitler had might not meet your approval but he was Christian, and remained so until he died. I don't know what is your objection. I did mention that what he did does not reflect on Christianity. The man was madly insane, and had he been of another religion, he would have acted the same way.

Hitler didn't have any Christian beliefs whatsoever. Hitler also frequently spoke about how much he hated Christianity and was very clear that he was only using Christianity as a tool.

From that site I linked to:
Murder of Erich Klausener, the German leader of Catholic Action and other Catholic leaders by the SS. [Bullock, p. 305].
Hitler killed himself (a mortal sin).
Hitler was married to Eva Braun by a secular city official [Last Days of Hitler, p. 234]. He took no counsel from a clergyman before his death. [Last Days of Hitler, Ch. 6-7].
The Nazis removed Catholic nuns from all social service jobs.

A good start on appreciating the unreliability of Hitler's public statements is this letter from Hitler to the French fascist Hervé and published in the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter on October 26, 1930 [Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 414] :

I think I can assure you that there is no one in Germany who will not with all his heart approve any honest attempt at an improvement of relations between Germany and France. My own feelings force me to take the same attitude.... .The German people has the solemn intention of living in peace and friendship with all civilized nations and powers.... .And I regard the maintenance of peace in Europe as especially desirable and at the same time secured, if France and Germany, on the basis of equal sharing of natural human rights, arrive at a real inner understanding....The young Germany, that is led by me and that finds its expression in the National Socialist Movement, has only the most heartfelt desire for an understanding with other European nations.

That by the man who started World War II.

Then there are the following quotes from Hitler's Table Talk:

When National Socialism has ruled long enough, it will no longer be possible to conceive of a form of life different from ours. In the long run, National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together. … No, it does not mean a war. The ideal solution would be to leave the religions to devour themselves, without persecutions. But in that case we must not replace the Church with something equivalent…The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. [Hitler's Table Talk, p. 6-7]

Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. [p. 51]

[Regarding a concordat with the Churches] Firstly, in this way the authority of the State would be vitiated by the fact of the intervention of a third power concerning which it is impossible to say how long it would remain reliable. In the case of the Anglican Church, this objection does not arise, for England knows she can depend on her Church. But what about the Catholic Church? Wouldn't we be running the risk of her one day going into reverse after having put herself at the service of the State solely in order to safeguard her power? If one day the State's policy ceased to suit Rome or the clergy, the priests would turn against the State, as they are doing now. History provides examples that should make us careful.

Secondly, there is also a question of principle. Trying to take a long view of things, it is conceivable that one could found anything durable on falsehood? When I think of our people's future, I must look further than immediate advantages, even if these advantages were to last three hundred, five hundred years or more. I'm convinced that any pact with the Church can offer only a provisional benefit, for sooner or later the scientific spirit will disclose the harmful character of such a compromise. Thus the State will have based its existence on a foundation that one day will collapse.

An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature and bows before the unknowable. An uneducated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal) as soon as her perceives that the State, in sheer opportunism, is making use of false ideas in the matter of religion, whilst in other fields it bases everything on pure science.

That's why I've always kept the Party aloof from religious questions. I've thus prevented my Catholic and Protestant supporters from forming groups against one another, and inadvertently knocking each other out with the Bible and the sprinkler. So we never became involved with these Churches' forms of worship. And if that has momentarily made my task a little more difficult, at least I've never run the risk of carrying grist to my opponent's mill. The help we would have provisionally obtained from a concordat would have quickly become a burden on us. In any case, the main thing is to be clever in this matter and not to look for a struggle where it can be avoided.

Being weighed down by a superstitious past, men are afraid of things that can't, or can't yet, be explained--that is to say, of the unknown. If anyone has needs of a metaphysical nature, I can't satisfy them with the Party's programme. Time will go by until the moment when science can answer all the questions.

So it's not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the Churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that's left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.

Originally, religion was merely a prop for human communities. It was a means, not an end in itself. It's only gradually that it became transformed in this direction, with the object of maintaining the rule of the priests, who can love only to the detriment of society collectively....

Christianity, of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And that's why one day its structure will collapse. Science has already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline.

[Hitler's Table Talk, pp 58-62]

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. [Table Talk, p. 75]...The Jew who fraudulently introduced Christianity into the ancient world—in order to ruin it—re-opened the same breach in modern times, taking as his pretext the social question. Just as Saul became St. Paul, Mardochai has become Karl Marx. [p. 314]

The decisive falsification of Jesus's doctrine was the work of St Paul....For the Galilean's object was to liberate His country from Jewish oppression. He set Himself against Jewish capitalism, and that's why the Jews liquidated Him....The Jews, by the way, regarded Him as the son of a whore and a Roman soldier. [Table Talk, p. 76] ... Christ was an Aryan and St Paul used his doctrine to mobilize the criminal underworld and this organize a proto-Bolshevism.... Christianity is an invention of sick brains....The war will be over one day. I shall then consider that my life's final task will be to solve the religious problem. [p. 142-4]

If it's possible to buy the high dignitaries of the Church with money, let's do it. And if one of them wanted to enjoy his life, and for this purpose put his hand into the till, for the love of Heaven let him be left in peace. The ones we have to fear are the ascetics, with rings under their eyes, and the fanatics.[Table Talk, p. 411]... I'll make these damned parsons feel the power of the state in a way they would never have believed possible. For the moment I am just keeping my eye upon them: if I ever have the slightest suspicion that they are getting dangerous, I will shoot the lot of them. This filthy reptile raises its head whenever there is a sign of weakness in the State, and therefore it must be stamped on. We have no sort of use for a fairy story invented by the Jews. The fate of a few filthy lousy Jews and epileptics is not worth bothering about. [p. 625].

A fuller list of quotes:
http://www.davnet.org/kevin/articles/table.html

I would quote more, but I think this is enough to shatter your thesis. As a BA History student, I implore you not to attempt to step up to my historical skills, lest you get owned... again.

[little_monkey]

Hitler didn't have any Christian beliefs whatsoever. Hitler also frequently spoke about how much he hated Christianity and was very clear that he was only using Christianity as a tool.

From that site I linked to:
Murder of Erich Klausener, the German leader of Catholic Action and other Catholic leaders by the SS. [Bullock, p. 305].
Hitler killed himself (a mortal sin).
Hitler was married to Eva Braun by a secular city official [Last Days of Hitler, p. 234]. He took no counsel from a clergyman before his death. [Last Days of Hitler, Ch. 6-7].
The Nazis removed Catholic nuns from all social service jobs.

Ok, but none of that proves he was not christian.

A good start on appreciating the unreliability of Hitler's public statements is this letter from Hitler to the French fascist Hervé and published in the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter on October 26, 1930 [Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 414] :

I think I can assure you that there is no one in Germany who will not with all his heart approve any honest attempt at an improvement of relations between Germany and France. My own feelings force me to take the same attitude.... .The German people has the solemn intention of living in peace and friendship with all civilized nations and powers.... .And I regard the maintenance of peace in Europe as especially desirable and at the same time secured, if France and Germany, on the basis of equal sharing of natural human rights, arrive at a real inner understanding....The young Germany, that is led by me and that finds its expression in the National Socialist Movement, has only the most heartfelt desire for an understanding with other European nations.

That by the man who started World War II.

Again, none of that proves he is not a christian.

Then there are the following quotes from Hitler's Table Talk:

The problem with these anti-Christian quotes is that the German text of the table-talk does not include them, they were made up by François Genoud, the translator of the French version, the very version that English translations rely on!

I would quote more, but I think this is enough to shatter your thesis. As a BA History student, I implore you not to attempt to step up to my historical skills, lest you get owned... again.

Sorry, but throwing your degree on the internet doesn't amount to much. But if you do have a degree in history, then you are quite capable of showing your expertise without making silly claims from dubious sources as Hitler table talk, they are regarded as fabrications.

[Raphael]

The word "Christian" has many meanings.

So do the words "fruit cake"

[Rational Gaze]

Ok, but none of that proves he was not christian. Again, none of that proves he is not a christian.

Sorry, but denying evidence, or the implications of that evidence does not wash either.

The problem with these anti-Christian quotes is that the German text of the table-talk does not include them, they were made up by François Genoud, the translator of the French version, the very version that English translations rely on!

Sorry, but throwing your degree on the internet doesn't amount to much. But if you do have a degree in history, then you are quite capable of showing your expertise without making silly claims from dubious sources as Hitler table talk, they are regarded as fabrications.

Sorry, but I am not aware of any historian who believes this... other than Richard Carrier, who is a dishonest fringe scholar (if the word scholar even applies to fundy wing-nuts) with a grudge against Christianity.

EDIT:
Just double-checked, and there are two version, the "mistranslated" one and the "correct" translation, and Hitler is critical of Christianity in BOTH, which even lying fraudster Carrier admits to. Damn, snap, pwned.

[little_monkey]

EDIT:
Just double-checked, and there are two version, the "mistranslated" one and the "correct" translation, and Hitler is critical of Christianity in BOTH, which even lying fraudster Carrier admits to. Damn, snap, pwned.

No, you should doublecheck, the table talk are a fabrication.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

[rogue06]

Perhaps but in looking at his priorities, we can see that his hate for communists and Jews were top. Then came his hate for anything that challenge the supremacy of the state, which he fervently believed in. His contempt for Christianity, if it is true, was way down the priority list. Most of his actions towards Christians, and in particular his cozy relationship with Pope Pius XII, gives the picture that he wasn't in any hurry to "stamp out Christianity", as some people have claimed after his demise.

Whether or not Hitler’s dislike for Christianity was as fierce as it was for Jews and communists is hardly the issue. Just because it wasn’t his top priority doesn’t make it any less a fact.

And the fact is that he was anything but a “devout Catholic” as you initially asserted and his own words as well as those who were close to him reveal that he was very contemptuous of Christianity in general seeing it as interfering with his setting up his dream of a national socialist society.

As for this “cozy” relationship between the Catholic Church/Pius XII and Hitler, this isn’t exactly the case. After Hitler revealed his true intentions, the Catholic Church opposed him. Even Albert Einstein acknowledged that in an article in Time magazine back in December 23, 1940:

“Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...

Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

True, in hindsight it looks like Pius could have spoken out more but in reality if he did the Nazis would most certainly have retaliated. For instance, immediately after the Archbishop of Utrecht issued a pastoral letter against Jewish persecutions in the Netherlands in July of 1942 the Nazis gathered as many Jews and Catholic non-Aryans as possible and deported them to the concentration camps.

At the same time Pius had prepared his own condemnation which he shelved after what just took place in the Netherlands concerned that speaking out would exacerbate the situation. And that assessment is adamantly supported by Jewish theologian and historian and Israeli consul Pinchas E. Lapide, who declared that "Any words of Pius XII, directed against a madman like Hitler, would have brought on an even worse catastrophe... [and] accelerated the massacre of Jews and priests."

Further, in his book, Three Popes and the Jews Lapide asserts that the concentration camp prisoners did not want Pius to speak out openly for fear of retaliation.


As an aside, Hitler most certainly had a motivation for having Pius kidnapped or even assassinated in that the report prepared by Ernst Kaltenbrunner after the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Hitler in July of 1944 specifically names Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, as being a conspirator in the attempt.

Kaltenbrunner became a close confidant of Hitler’s and was responsible for arresting and executing the plotters. He also headed Operation Long Jump, an unsuccessful plot to assassinate the leaders of the allies – Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt.

Keeping that in mind it seems reasonable that the Nazis had at some level planned to kidnap Pius though there isn’t a lot of evidence that such an operation ever got beyond the planning stage.

[little_monkey]

Whether or not Hitler’s dislike for Christianity was as fierce as it was for Jews and communists is hardly the issue. Just because it wasn’t his top priority doesn’t make it any less a fact.

And the fact is that he was anything but a “devout Catholic” as you initially asserted and his own words as well as those who were close to him reveal that he was very contemptuous of Christianity in general seeing it as interfering with his setting up his dream of a national socialist society.

As for this “cozy” relationship between the Catholic Church/Pius XII and Hitler, this isn’t exactly the case. After Hitler revealed his true intentions, the Catholic Church opposed him. Even Albert Einstein acknowledged that in an article in Time magazine back in December 23, 1940:

“Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...

Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

True, in hindsight it looks like Pius could have spoken out more but in reality if he did the Nazis would most certainly have retaliated. For instance, immediately after the Archbishop of Utrecht issued a pastoral letter against Jewish persecutions in the Netherlands in July of 1942 the Nazis gathered as many Jews and Catholic non-Aryans as possible and deported them to the concentration camps.

At the same time Pius had prepared his own condemnation which he shelved after what just took place in the Netherlands concerned that speaking out would exacerbate the situation. And that assessment is adamantly supported by Jewish theologian and historian and Israeli consul Pinchas E. Lapide, who declared that "Any words of Pius XII, directed against a madman like Hitler, would have brought on an even worse catastrophe... [and] accelerated the massacre of Jews and priests."

Further, in his book, Three Popes and the Jews Lapide asserts that the concentration camp prisoners did not want Pius to speak out openly for fear of retaliation.


As an aside, Hitler most certainly had a motivation for having Pius kidnapped or even assassinated in that the report prepared by Ernst Kaltenbrunner after the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Hitler in July of 1944 specifically names Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, as being a conspirator in the attempt.

Kaltenbrunner became a close confidant of Hitler’s and was responsible for arresting and executing the plotters. He also headed Operation Long Jump, an unsuccessful plot to assassinate the leaders of the allies – Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt.

Keeping that in mind it seems reasonable that the Nazis had at some level planned to kidnap Pius though there isn’t a lot of evidence that such an operation ever got beyond the planning stage.

Ok, I didn't mean he was a devout Catholic for his entire life. What I meant by this is that he was brought up in that way. We know very little about his early years, but we do know he had great affection for his mother who was very religious. We also know that Hitler was confirmed at age 15. And until he left home for Vienna at the age of 18, he was a practicing Catholic. After that, with his rejection from the Academy of Arts, Hitler was on a destructive path. In power, his relation with the church was complex, but more on the political side than the religious. But I don`t believe the table talks that tries to prove he was on the path to destroy Christianity. Perhaps there was a lot of musing on his part about how Christianity might be demoded or disappear from Europe, but nothing of that was policy or even in the planning stage.