Weikart’s book

Last year a commenter called to my attention a passage from Hitler’s Religion by Richard Weikart:

Worse yet, he [Hitler] actually threatened to obliterate Christianity later in the second volume. After calling Christianity fanatically intolerant for destroying other religions, Hitler explained that Nazism would have to be just as intolerant to supplant Christianity:

A philosophy filled with infernal intolerance will only be broken by a new idea, driven forward by the same spirit, championed by the same mighty will, and at the same time pure and absolutely genuine in itself. The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered in to the far freer ancient world, but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion, and terror only by terror. Only then can a new state of affairs be constructively created. (Mein Kampf, Chapter V)

Hitler’s anti-Christian sentiment shines through clearly here, as he called Christianity a ‘spiritual terror’ that has ‘afflicted’ the world. Earlier in the passage, he also argued Christian intolerance was a manifestation of a Jewish mentality, once again connecting Christianity with the people he most hated. Even more ominously, he called his fellow Nazis to embrace an intolerant worldview so they could throw off the shackles of Christianity. He literally promised to visit terror on Christianity. Even though several times later in life, especially before 1934, Hitler would try to portray himself as a pious Christian, he had already blown his cover.

Hitler’s tirade against Christianity in Mein Kampf, including the threat to demolish it, diverged remarkably from his normal public persona. He was usually more circumspect, refraining from open criticism of Christianity. However, many of his colleagues testified that Hitler’s personal opinion about Christianity did not match his hypocritical public stance; Hitler, for his part, thought religion itself was hypocritical.

Gilad Atzmon, a Jew whose relatively recent books have been reviewed by the racial right, said that the intolerant fanatics win.

He is right: and that was why Julian the Apostate failed: he was a very tolerant emperor towards Christians, Jews and pagans. The priest of the 14 words, on the other hand, is as intolerant as the Christians who destroyed the classical world.

As I said last year to the commenter who quoted the passage above, ‘Although Richard Weikart is ideologically an enemy, he is infinitely more honest about Hitler’s anti-Christianity than Richard Carrier. I guess I’ll have to get a copy of Weikart’s book…’

I just ordered it from Amazon.