Religious views of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was raised by an anticlerical., sceptic father and a devout Catholic mother.
Baptized and
Confirmed as a child, he ceased to participate in the
sacraments after childhood. In adulthood, he became disdainful of Christianity, but in power was prepared to delay clashes with the churches out of political considerations.
[1][2][3][4][5] It is generally believed by historians that Hitler's long term aim was the eradication of Christianity in Germany.
[6][7] Hitler's architect
Albert Speer believed he had "no real attachment" to Catholicism, but wrote that he had not formally left the Church prior to his
suicide. The biographer
John Toland noted Hitler's anticlericalism, but considered him still in "good standing" with that Church by 1941, while historians such as
Ian Kershaw,
Joachim Fest and
Alan Bullock agree that
Hitler was anti-Christian - a view evidenced by sources such as the
Goebbels Diaries, the
memoirs of Speer, and the transcripts edited by
Martin Bormann contained within
Hitler's Table Talk.
[8] Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler "hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity."
[9]