Hitler developed a 30-point plan for the new “National Reich Church,” which was even published by The New York Times in 1942. Among the rules:
- No pastors, chaplains or priests were allowed to speak in church…. only National Reich orators.
- All Bibles and pictures of saints were removed from the church altars and replaced with copies of Mein Kampf.
- The cross was also removed and replaced with the swastika.
- One of the most controversial Reich Church rules involved the Bible.
Although Hitler quoted scripture in many of his early speeches, he later referred to it as “a fairy story invented by the Jews,” and in 1942, the Bible became a banned book in Germany.
“Adolf Hitler hated the Bible,” says Comfort. “He had his own bible printed, 100,000 copies. There are some copies still around, but most of them were destroyed by people who realized what Hitler had done.”
In Hitler’s bible, all Hebrew words like hallelujah were removed. He also replaced the Ten Commandments with twelve of this own. Among them:
- Keep the blood pure and your honor holy.
- Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers.
- Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice.
- Honour your Fuhrer and Master.
Hitler also wrote his own version of the Lord’s Prayer, to be recited by the Hitler Youth:
“Adolf Hitler, you are our great Fuhrer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes; thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice, and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end, even with our lives We praise thee; hail Hitler Fuhrer my Fuhrer, given me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need; I thank you for my daily bread; be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Fuhrer my Fuhrer, my faith, my light – hail, my Fuhrer.”
Hitler had his own church, his own bible and even his own hymn, sung every day in German schools:
“Adolf Hitler is our savior, our hero. He is the noblest being in the whole wide world. For Hitler, we live. For Hitler, we die. Our Hitler is our Lord, who rules a brave new world.”
Now that Hitler had set up his own Reich religion, it was time to get rid of the competition. And while his persecution of the Jews was well- known, his “Final Solution” for Christians remained a secret for more than 60 years.
In 2002, a Jewish law student discovered a 120-page report from the 1940s.
It was compiled by members of the OSS, an American spy agency in World War II. The report was called The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches. The documents lay out a step-by-step plan to de-Christianize Germany:
- “Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers.
- Discredit, jail or kill Christian leaders.
- Re-indoctrinate the congregants.
- Give them a new faith in Germany’s Third Reich.”
So where were Germany’s Christians in all this? Most of them were too frightened to protest, but a small remnant of Christians did stand up against the Reich Church. A group of 3,000 Protestants known as the “Confessing Church” openly defied Hitler and paid the price.
Hitler said, “I’ll make those damned pastors feel the power of the state in a way they’ve never believed possible. If I ever have the slightest suspicion that they’re getting dangerous, I’ll shoot the lot of them.”
Seven-hundred pastors from the Confessing Church were arrested. Many of them were murdered or sent to concentration camps.
“There is such a thing as evil, in my judgment, and this man is evil,” says Santoro. “Hitler has no permanent loyalties. If you cross him, you'll die.”
The most important aspect of Christianity that Hitler ignored was the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. That’s a role Hitler preferred to take for himself. And even when he did mention Jesus, it wasn’t the Jesus of the Bible. For example, he refused to admit the fact that Jesus was Jewish.
“They didn’t take any notice of John 4, where the woman at the well says, ‘How is it, you being a Jew…’ and Jesus didn’t say, ‘Hang on – I’m a gentile.’” says Comfort. “And then you find the genealogies in the book of Luke; they go right back through David, through to Abraham, so obviously, they didn’t believe the scriptures, and they made up their own Jesus. “
The Jesus Hitler made up was an Aryan, to whom he often referred as “The Nazarene” and “the first great enemy of the Jews.”
Hitler denied the deity of Christ and forced people to worship him as god. Then he killed or imprisoned hundreds of Christian pastors and developed a detailed plan to destroy the Church. If he was a Christian, as many people suggest, then he wasn’t a very good one.
“If you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, if you are truly born again, you will have the evidence of fruit,” says Comfort. “The fruit of righteousness, the fruit of praise, the fruit of thanksgiving, the fruit of repentance, and especially, the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, generous, faith, meekness and temperance. So if you haven’t got love, you are not a Christian.” Was Adolf Hitler a Christian? - a report on How Hitler Viewed God - The 700 Club | CBN.com
If someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.
I John 4:3, 8, 18