# So who was the most senior Nazi that was definitely, unambigously, a practicing Christian? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773 "2012-12-21T19:43:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/1 "2012-12-21T19:43:47Z")
Question inspired by this [creepy slide show](http://life.time.com/history/inside-a-nazi-christmas-party-photos-from-1941/)… There is a long running debate as to how “Christian” Hitler was, which I don’t want to get into. What about the other Nazis? Which is the most senior Nazi who was unarguably, a church-going, practicing Christian? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/2 "2012-12-21T20:23:13Z")
Hm, not certain. I would like to make the observation that has happened with me before - looking at the picture of the lower level officers in the general mass of people dining how many of them were dead within the next 5 years. I get that feeling looking at most German military pictures of the WW2 and just a few years prior to 1940 [especially submarine pictures, who had a heck of a mortality rate.] ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/3 "2012-12-21T20:31:37Z")
Me. Wait, did I say that out loud? CRAP! 67 years and I accidentally blow my cover over a stupid message board post! Dammit, now I have to go change my identity. _SIgh_ You know how hard it is to fake a past in this day and age? It sure was a lot easier post WWII. _Grumble_ 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/4 "2012-12-21T20:45:36Z")
Were ANY ranking members of the Nazi party openly practicing Christians? I may be a little shaky on the point, but Hitler was as anti-Xian as he was anti- so many other things. I would think it unsafe to be a good Lutheran in an SS officer’s getup. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/5 "2012-12-21T20:52:17Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Were ANY ranking members of the Nazi party openly practicing Christians? I may be a little shaky on the point, but Hitler was as anti-Xian as he was anti- so many other things. I would think it unsafe to be a good Lutheran in an SS officer’s getup. There was a [Nazi church](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Christian) you could happily be a member of however. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/6 "2012-12-21T21:54:17Z")
\*\*I am not aware of any leading Nazis who were also practising Christians. Those who were probably tried to keep it private. If you were to join the SS, you were encouraged to formally leave the Church (which in Germany was and to some degree still is a major step). SS leader Heinrich Himmler considered Christianity a mental disease. However, atheism at the time was also associated with communism. That’s why they invented a new term for those who left the Church and thus organized religion, but who were also reluctant to completely break with tradition and declare themselves “atheist”: _gottgläubig_ (literally: believing in God). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/7 "2012-12-21T21:57:28Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > However, atheism at the time was also associated with communism. That’s why they invented a new term for those who left the Church and thus organized religion, but who were also reluctant to completely break with tradition and declare themselves “atheist”: _gottgläubig_ (literally: believing in God). Was the “Gott mit uns” belt buckle etc. more a WWI element than later? ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/8 "2012-12-21T22:08:17Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Was the “Gott mit uns” belt buckle etc. more a WWI element than later? Much older than WWI: > **[Gott mit uns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns)** > > Gott mit uns ('God \[is\] with us') is a phrase commonly used in heraldry in Prussia (from 1701) and later by the German military during the periods spanning the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and until the 1970s on the belt buckles of the West German police forces. > Matthew 1:23 refers to the prophecy written in Isaiah 7:14, glossing the name Immanuel (Emmanuel, .mw-parser-output .script-hebrew,.mw-parser-output .script-Hebr{font-family:"Ezra SIL SR","Ezra SIL","SBL Hebr... ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/9 "2012-12-21T22:32:20Z")
Thanks. What I was thinking of was the use by soldiers, and it appears that it was both: troops in WWI (who wrote it on their helmets) and then the slogan of the WWII Wehrmacht (belt buckles). Interesting that it would have survived the purge of Christianity, even with the more general “god-believing” pronouncement. I guess even a Hitler can’t erase all cultural elements. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/10 "2012-12-21T22:48:35Z")
Also, it doesn’t say \*which \*god. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/11 "2012-12-21T22:56:24Z")
Debate about Hitler being a Christian? Somehow, I rather doubt a real case could be made that he had committed to Christ any more than Mao or Kim Il Sung. Closer to mental than godly by a mile. I thought folks were going to ask who was the highest Nazi ignorant of the holocaust. Who was it? ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-was-the-most-senior-nazi-that-was-definitely-unambigously-a-practicing-christian/644773/12 "2012-12-21T23:02:39Z")
_Gott mit uns_ was still in use after WWII, the post-war Germany army used it as late as the 1960s, IIRC. BTW, the vast majority of Germans in the 1930s and 40s still were Christians, either Protestant or Catholic. Consequently, most members of the Nazi party also happened to be Church members. The Nazis did not prosecute Christians, they just made sure that the Churches weren’t a political force. However, being a practising, “pious” Christian and being a committed Nazi were almost mutually exclusive.