Hitler's Religion

Hitler's Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich by Richard Weikart, 286 pages

Identifying a person's religious beliefs can be difficult in the best of circumstances.  The very concept of religion is itself notoriously difficult to define, and the task of disentangling what a person actually believes from what they profess requires considerable insight even when it is one's own self.  The matter is further complicated when the subject is a public figure with a vested interest in dissimulation.  Then, too, a person's religious views do not often remain static and unchanging throughout their lives.  But when the subject is Adolf Hitler, the modern world's foremost icon of evil, the tangled question becomes a matter of considerable rhetorical weight.  Was he an example of the depths to which modern godlessness can sink or a fanatic whose antisemitism was rooted in an admittedly somewhat unorthodox Christianity?  Was he an occultist in league with diabolic forces or a neo-pagan anticipating a restoration of the old Norse religion?

Based on an analysis of Hitler's speeches, writings, and the testimony of those close to him, Richard Weikart concludes that Hitler was none of these things.  Hitler's religious beliefs were vague and inchoate, but certain beliefs remained consistent.  He definitively rejected Christianity, reimagining Jesus as a Gentile warrior killed for attacking "Jewish materialism".  He was not an atheist or an agnostic, as his constant faith that he was the chosen instrument of Providence endured even at the very end.  He was thoroughly dismissive of any form of occultism or pagan revivalism, mocking those in his entourage who involved themselves in such things.  Instead, Hitler was a believer in a form of "scientific pantheism" which imagined that the will of God was embodied in Darwinian "laws of eternal fight and upward struggle".

Despite the sensationalistic subtitle, the book is carefully reasoned, though not perfectly organized.  Weikart demonstrates both a clear command of the primary sources and a familiarity with a wide range of scholarship.