David answers this question in today’s Mailbag Answers. I have one further question. A certain someone in my life (known for pulling “facts” out of thin air) would have me believe that Hitler’s parents were, in fact, Jewish, and that his father died of a heartattack after being operated on by a Jewish doctor (fueling his hatred of Jews.) Since you did not discuss Hitler’s geneology, is there any truth to this assertation?
Cessandra
Why sex is better than religion: There are laws against forcing sex on minors who can’t think for themselves.
Pulling this one out of the recesses of my memory banks. IIRC, Hitler reportedly had a grandmother (or maybe step-grandmother) who may or may not have been Jewish. I think this is a point not fully resolved with historians. I’ve never heard of anyone claiming that he had Jewish parents.
The confused nature of your attempt to answer the basic question, “Was Hitler Christian?” is an accurate reflection of what was essentially the non-existence of a formal state policy regarding organized religion in Nazi Germany. Even the persecution of the Jews was undertaken on political and racial grounds, rather than on religious grounds.
But I take exception to the statement: "Randy Alley, one of my best WWII history sources, noted that the SS were supposedly forbidden to believe in God–yet the military’s belt buckles said “Gott mit uns” (“God is with us”)! You confuse a “belief in God,” which was strongly encouraged within the SS, with the practice of any specific religion, which was discouraged to varying degrees. According to Heinz Hohne, in “The Order of the Death’s Head,” “A man could only be promoted Commander if he turned his back on the church and declared himself to be ‘a believer in God…’” Even so, Hitler and Himmler were largely unsuccessful within this most rabidly Nazi of organizations. According again to Hohne, “Two-thirds of the Allgemeine [General] SS remained in the church…”
It is of further interest to note that, according to several authorities, Himmler, who took over command of the SS in 1929, modeled his growing organization on the structure of the Jesuits. Reitlinger, for example, claims that even Hitler referred to Himmler as “my Ignatius Loyala.”
Weird, but interesting…
In the mid-'80s, construction walls in Chicago’s loop were plastered with a virulent anti-Catholic poster, featuring a photo of (allegedly) Adolph in his school choir and bearing the blaring headline, “Hitler Sings!” I always thought that would be a great title for a greatest hits album by some goth/punk/heavy metal band.
Hitler’s grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, became pregnant with Hitler’s father, Alois, while working as a servant. The family where she supposedly worked (and I don’t know that this is documented, although it’s often reported) was a Jewish family named Frankenberger. The family had a nineteen year old son at the time of Ms. Schicklgruber’s pregnancy and the speculation is that the two young people had a fling. (Since young people often have flings and the idea of a young man imposing on a servant of his family is hardly a rare occurrence, the idea is plausible, but without documentation.) It has also been suggested that Johann Hiedler, who later married Maria, may have fathered Alois, and only married Maria after he had established himself in a trade. There is no documentation for this, either.
In the above linked article, there is only slight mention of Hitler’s mother. (The Jewish religion is passed on by the mother, right?) Since her religion is not even mentioned, I am assuming that she is undoubtedly not Jewish. So, even if he possibly had some Jewish blood, he was not, himself, Jewish. Correct?
Cessandra
Why sex is better than religion: There are laws against forcing sex on minors who can’t think for themselves.
Several web sites state that Alois Hitler died of either a hemorrhage of the lungs or apoplexy while taking a stroll to the local bistro for a glass of wine. He died immediately in every story and no mention is made of any medical intervention, (Jewish or not, drunk or sober).
Most stories also indicate that Adolph Hitler never got along very well with his overbearing and harsh father.
Anyway, I know I’m late in the game (was traveling yesterday), but Cessandra, this is the first time I’ve ever heard that his parents were claimed to be Jewish – as somebody pointed out, the issue of one grandparent has been claimed before, but not parents. Looks like this was another non-fact pulled out of thin air by that certain someone.
Cessandra – correct, Hitler’s mother was NOT Jewish, so by the definition of Jews used by Judaism, Hitler would not be Jewish, no way.
However, the irony in wondering whether one of Hitler’s grandparents (or step-grandparents) was Jewish is that HITLER’s definition was that you are Jewish (and hence scum) if you have even one Jewish grandparent. Thus, the question is not what Judaism would say about Hitler, but what Hitler’s own perverted views would say about himself.
In the play The Deputy, a young priest is outraged by Nazi atrocities, but his bishop tells him to look the other way.
Hitler, I understand, was a born and baptized Catholic; he was a choirboy, he studied for the priesthood, and the Catholic Church never excommunicated him, not even after his death. (I found that the September 1, 1939, issue of the Cincinnati Telegraph-Register carried an open letter to Pope Pius, urging him to excommunicate Hitler.)
Hitler was indeed baptized a Catholic, I don’t know if he was ever a choirboy, but in his adult life he often told a his associates that one of the few things he agreed upon with his father was with the latter’s anti-clerical attitudes. I’ve occasionally seen the allegation he studied for the priesthood, but it is completely false. It probably arose from confusion with the fact that Josef Stalin had once been an Orthodox seminarian.
I might point out further that Pope Pius XI (who died in 1939) was known as Il papa tedesco (“the German Pope”), because of his love of all things German. The Church never did condemn the Axis’ atrocities–Pope Pius, after all, had signed a concordat with Mussolini’s Italy in 1929 and with Hitler’s Germany in 1933. And in The Deputy, the young priest tells the bishop: “Your religion was the first to show it could burn men just like coke.”
dougie_montie, The Deputy is a lie from beginning to end. Pius XII was the only leader in Europe who specifically condemned NAZI practices. While he was a cardinal, he was the author of the Papal Bull (I don’t think it was an encyclical) issued by Pius XI condemning the practices of the Nationalist Socialist Party. Pius XII did love the German nation, but he worked very hard to stop Hitler. The Deputy was written by a scurrilous little coward who wanted to find someone besides the German people to blame for the NAZI atrocities.
While Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin were publicly castigating Hitler for the war and remaining conspicuously silent on the subject of crimes against the Jews, Pius XII was actually condemning specific NAZI practices. (And unlike the three Allied leaders, Pius XII lived where Hitler could physically come and take him away at any time.)
There were two specific reasons for the apparent silences by Pius XII. On the one hand, he refused to publicly support either Fascism or Communism and much of the dialogue in Europe was couched in phrases which made Fascism vs Communism an either/or choice. (At one point during the war, a group of Fascist-leaning Catholic leaders encouraged him to call for a Crusade against the “godless Communists” saying that they could raise many troops from France, Belgium, and the other German-occupied countries to join Hitler in crushing the Bolsheviks if he simply lent his name to the effort. Despite the explicit condemnation of religion in the U.S.S.R. and the pro-religious lip service paid by the NAZIs, Pius XII denied the request saying that NAZIism was the greater threat to Christianity.) On the other hand, on several occasions, when he did issue specific proclamations, Hitler reacted by attacking innocent people because they were Catholic. Pius XII did not think that he could, in good conscience, put other people in harm’s way simply to make a rhetorical point.
(If Pius XII was so supportive of the NAZIs, why did Israel plant 700,000 trees in the Negev to honor him for saving 700,000 Jewish lives during the war?)
Pius XII died in 1958. Pius XI, “Il Papa Tedesco,” died in 1939.
Still, I don’t believe that the Roman Catholic Church came out of World War II with its skirts clean.
