Who is this artist?

[rogue06]

I don't know about Secret Conversations. Just the title sounds fishy. From Hitler's own words:

In the ranks of the movement, the most devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another. And yet, in these very years, the movement carried on the bitterest fight against the [Catholic] Centre [party], though never on religious, but exclusively on national, racial, and economic-political grounds. The results spoke in our favor, just as today they testify against the know-it-alls.

– A. Hitler, Mein Kampf

I think like many politicians both past and present Hitler spoke out of both sides of his mouth and invoked God's name in order to gain support. He patronized Christianity to prevent having to fight the Christian-based church. As Anton Gill noted in his An Honourable Defeat: A History of German Resistance to Hitler, 1933-1945:

"For his part, Hitler naturally wanted to bring the church into line with everything else in his scheme of things. He knew he dare not simply eradicate it: that would not have been possible with such an international organization, and he would have lost many Christian supporters had he tried to. His principal aim was to unify the German Evangelical Church under a pro-Nazi banner, and to come to an accommodation with the Catholics."

But as he grew in power his anti-Christian remarks increased in frequency as he began to see Christianity as a threat to the Nazi’s domination of Germany.

"It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood," he said in 1933. His countrymen would have to make a choice: "One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both." In the same year he is supposed to have told Hermann Rauschnig that he intended "to stamp out Christianity root and branch."

In the next couple years Hitler started arguing that Christian worship was a sign of weakness, and that it should be replaced by reverence for the nation and the state (the latter two embodied by the Nazi Party of course).

According to Albert Speer (the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, who served as Hitler's main architect before this period), in his Inside the Third Reich, at the conclusion of speculating on history Hitler often remarked:

“You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness….

Another telling quote comes from Allan Bullock’s A Study in Tyranny, who cites Hitler as saying:

"I'll make these damned parsons feel the power of the state in a way they would have never 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."

One of the primary sources for the evidence revealing Hitler’s increasingly anti-Christian rhetoric and sentiment would have to be the controversial Table Talk. From it we get such gems as

"Christianity is an invention of sick brains”

"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”

“The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity ... The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity”

"I shall never come to terms with the Christian lie . . . Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity”

In it he apparently accepted a largely Nietzschean explanation of Christianity as being a conspiracy of the Jews for a slave revolt against their Roman conquerors:

"Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilization by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society”

But as they say, actions speak louder than words. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, members of the clergy were specially targeted. For instance, in West Prussia two-thirds of the 690 parish priests were rounded up with only those that fled escaping. After only a month in custody 214 of those priests were executed while by the end of 1940 only 20 (about 3.5%) were left in their parishes.

Further, according to testimony presented by several top Nazi officials including Albert Speer, Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Alfred Rosenberg at the Nuremberg Trials, the Nazi’s had a plan to eliminate Christianity altogether.

You might find this, The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches put together by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the CIA, an interesting read.

[little_monkey]

Further, according to testimony presented by several top Nazi officials including Albert Speer, Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Alfred Rosenberg at the Nuremberg Trials, the Nazi’s had a plan to eliminate Christianity altogether.

These people faced the death penalty at the trial. We must take with a grain of salt what they said then. Other authors have different views: for instance, Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era assisted in the legitimization of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933.

For Hitler's declarations on Christianity, see http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm

[rogue06]

These people faced the death penalty at the trial. We must take with a grain of salt what they said then. Other authors have different views: for instance, Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era assisted in the legitimization of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933.

For Hitler's declarations on Christianity, see http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm

Again, politicians tend to say things in public pronouncements that they may not really believe. They are after all politicians for whom lying is second nature. It's what they say to their friends and allies in private that I put more credence in. For instance both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams often spoke like traditional Christians in public speeches, writings and the like but their private letters revealed that wasn't the case at all.

Likewise, Hitler proclaimed Christian beliefs in a predominantly Christian Germany but his private conversations illustrate that he had only contempt for Christianity.

[Rational Gaze]

Sorry, but it is generally confirmed by historians that Hitler was not a Christian. See here for more:
http://www.davnet.org/kevin/essays/hitler.html

[Rational Gaze]

I have noticed that Richard Carrier has attacked Hitler's sentiments in Table Talk, et al. as being "mistranslations". Are there no intellectual lows the man is willing to stoop to?

[little_monkey]

Again, politicians tend to say things in public pronouncements that they may not really believe. They are after all politicians for whom lying is second nature. It's what they say to their friends and allies in private that I put more credence in. For instance both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams often spoke like traditional Christians in public speeches, writings and the like but their private letters revealed that wasn't the case at all.

Likewise, Hitler proclaimed Christian beliefs in a predominantly Christian Germany but his private conversations illustrate that he had only contempt for Christianity.

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.

[little_monkey]

Sorry, but it is generally confirmed by historians that Hitler was not a Christian. See here for more:
http://www.davnet.org/kevin/essays/hitler.html

From your own link:

Conclusions
It is an established historical fact that Hitler was baptized a Roman Catholic and confirmed at age 15, and that Hitler never formally and publicly left the Catholic Church.

Hitler considered himself religious, but had only contempt for organized religion and the teachings of the church about Jesus. Hitler had his own private view of Jesus, that of an economic revolutionary and Jew hater. So in some twisted sense Hitler thought he was acting in the tradition of Jesus. If the question is, "can someone read the New Testament and then go off and do horribly bad things?" then the answer is yes. If the question is "was Hitler in the tradition of mainstream Christianity" then the answer is no.

I guess it all hinges on what is a Christian?

[DesertBerean]

The second and the fourth paintings had always seemed a bit blotchy to me...no real clear delination of the buildings. The mother and child one is OK but has no feeling IMHO ... I hadn't really noticed her hand was too big until now when that was pointed out.

[Rational Gaze]

Sorry, but selective quote-mining does not wash. You cut off the end:
"The problem of saying "Hitler was a Christian" when by "Christian" is meant something totally different from normal usage and historical context, is that the sentence ceases to mean anything. One might as well have said "Hitler was a Zorb" because the last word is meaningless. The only "value" in saying "Hitler was a Christian" with an iconoclastic meaning for "Christian" is as a tool of anti-Christian propaganda towards the end of misleading people."

[Thersites]

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.

If "plan to kidnap or kill" is what you mean by a "cozy relationship" with the Pope, then your ideological bias is the least of your problems.

[Thersites]

Also, LM, I have a question for you: have you read John Cornwell's book Hitler's Pope?

[little_monkey]

Sorry, but selective quote-mining does not wash. You cut off the end:
"The problem of saying "Hitler was a Christian" when by "Christian" is meant something totally different from normal usage and historical context, is that the sentence ceases to mean anything. One might as well have said "Hitler was a Zorb" because the last word is meaningless. The only "value" in saying "Hitler was a Christian" with an iconoclastic meaning for "Christian" is as a tool of anti-Christian propaganda towards the end of misleading people."

I don't see how this paragraph supports your view. The word "Christian" has many meanings, I'm not the first one who points that out, Christians disagree among themselves as to what is the meaning of being "Christian" is. The controversy around Hitler is that he was a Christian, and went on to do terrible things. Does that reflect on Christianity? Not in my opinion. It is very easy to point out that there were monsters belonging to different religions, different ideologies.

[little_monkey]

If "plan to kidnap or kill" is what you mean by a "cozy relationship" with the Pope, then your ideological bias is the least of your problems.

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.

[little_monkey]

Also, LM, I have a question for you: have you read John Cornwell's book Hitler's Pope?

No I haven't. But what I read so far is that Pope Pius XII's motives were controversial. Some have claimed that privately, he was not anti-semitic, and that most of his decisions in regard to Hitler was expedient: live with the monster so as not to harm the church for fear of reprisals. However, if this was true, then the question is why Pius did not clear up his position and speak up after the demise of Hitler.

[Rational Gaze]

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."