If Hitler had his way he would have exterminated Christians too

In a recent column, Michael Rosenwald writes in the Washington Post about Hitler’s view of Christianity by way of Alan Bullock’s classic work, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. The world is awash with Hitlerian analogy, and we should pay attention to that, not only for the way it represents fascist ideology but for the way that fascism was animated by anti-Semitic and anti-Christian materialism. Bullock describes Hitler as a “rationalist and materialist” who despised the Catholic Church as much as Judaism. Rosenwald highlights a wartime conversation with aides recounted by Bullock. Hitler proclaims:

“The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science ... Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left to prove that nature there is no frontier between the organic and inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.”

Hitler’s materialism was intimately wedded to his anti-Christian rage. Rosenwald quotes Bullock again, highlighting a vow that Hitler makes in 1942 to “root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches,” describing them as “the evil that is gnawing our vitals.” It seems that if Hitler had had his way, after he was finished with the Jews, he would have liked to have done the same with Christians — and he would not have called it martyrdom. If our elites are truly genuine in their desire to root out and destroy fascism they need to reckon squarely with the materialist disdain for God — which is at the root of the materialist disdain for Judaism and Christianity.