# Was Hitler Jewish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 8, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322 "2012-05-08T20:46:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322/61 "2012-05-23T02:59:49Z")
I’ve banned **NUFCToon** because he was a sock. ---
**Author:** ![wissdok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c4cdca/32.png) [@wissdok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wissdok)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322/62 "2012-05-29T23:54:59Z")
Recently as an atheist I have noticed many of my brethren have jumped on the… _ **Nazi Germany was Christian and they killed the Jews** _ … or more specifically… \*\*\*Hitler was a Catholic and killed the Jews. \*\*\*I personally don’t see the point in trying to criticize religion by matching one against the other, this especially true when you make general statements. In any event, I have debated the issue if you could really call the Nazi Government religious, but to the stuff about Adolf Hitler I really don’t see much to debate. Hitler was born into the Catholic church is about as much as you can directly connect Hitler to the Christian faith, much less to Catholicism. With that in mind, I am a little disappointed that in a 1999 column on WAS HITLER A CHRISTIAN? there were a few liberties taken with some Hitler quotes. [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1699/was-hitler-a-christian](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1699/was-hitler-a-christian) This passage: > [@](#): > > But in contrast to these quotes, some of Hitler’s speeches definitely seem to put him in the Christian camp as a fighter against atheism. For example, he said, on signing the Nazi-Vatican Concordat, April 26, 1933: “Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . .” To the best of my ability, I tracked that quote to the 1979 book _The German Churches under Hitler_ by Ernst Christian Helmreich. The book is listed on Google book and the complete passage is: > [@](#): > > In regard to schools, a matter of utmost importance to the Catholic heirarchy, Hitler went on: > _Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith._ From our point of view as representatives of the state, we need believing people. A dark cloud threatens from Poland. We have need of soldiers, believing soldiers. Believing soldiers are the most valuable ones. They give their all. Therefore we will maintain the confessional schools in order to train believing people through the schools, but this depends on having truly believing teachers, not by chance Marxists who do not stand fully by their religious faith, as teachers. First the quoted listed in the column stated that this was at the signing of Nazi-Vatican Concordat on April 26, 1933. The signing of the Concordat happen on July 20, 1933 in Rome by Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen. The meeting Hitler had in April was one of several private negotiations that Germany conducted with the Vatican leading up to the treaty. Other negotiations were held with Papen and with the German President Hindenburg along with respected delegates representing the Holy See. Outside the before mentioned book which uses Vatican records, there isn’t any information on what was directly said at these meeting. As everything else mentioned about that meeting in the book doesn’t directly cite quotes, along with the fact that neither Catholic representative at the meeting was there as a secretary or stenographer, I would think it more likely this shouldn’t been described as quote, but as a **paraphrased statement**. Later in the original column another quote is also questionable. General Gerhard Engel is listed as having heard Hitler call himself a Catholic in 1941. If the information on General Engel is correct, he kept a diary during the years of 1938 and 1943 and he recorded his daily events each night. When he first took them to get published in 1960, it would take 14 years before they saw the light of day. When published in Germany in 1974, the book was no longer in diary form. Admittedly General Engel edited many entries in the time between 1945 and 1960 and it was decided to keep the historical knowledge and atmosphere which was thought to be necessary in the released book. Many sections of the book included dates and events that have been proven wrong, which could be a question of General Engel writing or the later editing of the work. As General Engel died just 2 years after the book was published, the investigation is limited. Also there is a question about the paper and ink originally used, which like the 1980s \*Hitler Diaries \*, gives doubt about it historical fact. In any event, Engel quoted Hitler 33 years after the event, and without a better description of Hitler’s statement and knowing it wasn’t logged into his diary until that night or later…at best that is just a questionable quote, most likely another **paraphrase statement**. * * * MODERATOR Explanation: wissdok, since there was already a thread on this column, I’ve merged your comment into that earlier thread… just to keep like-discussion together. – CKDH ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322/63 "2012-05-30T07:11:09Z")
> [@NUFCToon](#): > > Johann Georg Hiedler was his grandfather accordingly and there is no reason to doubt. There is reason to doubt, and no conclusive proof that he was. It’s unlikely we will ever know. > [@](#): > > They were not second cousins, they were first cousins once removed - there is a difference. Before Alois’s legitimization and change of name, perhaps. Not afterwards, officially. What sources are you citing? ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322/64 "2012-05-30T07:32:49Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > What sources are you citing? Unlikely to get a response out of him now that he’s been banned. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322/65 "2012-05-30T11:10:28Z")
MODERATOR Explanation: **wissdok** , since there was already a thread on this column, I’ve merged your comment into that earlier thread… just to keep like-discussion together. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-jewish/621322.md?page=3)