Hitler and God: God in Hitler's policy-making
Abstract
This Senior Scholar's project, completed in the spring of 1995, has sought to push forward the notion that Hitler had a powerful faith in God. The recent thrust of scholarship to identify and delineate Hitler's ideology has meant a rereading of the material. Behind the furtive push of Eberhard Jackel, among others, scholarship has maintained that not only was this ideology present, but that it played an enormous role in Hitler's policy making. With this notion as the backdrop, I have sought to highlight Hitler's faith in God as the determining factor in Hitler's policies. Hitler's faith in God was based on his interpretation of the natural world; Hitler believed that God created the world, and made struggle the key aspect of life on earth. Thus, Hitler reasoned that if Germany was to succeed it would need to struggle according to the laws of nature. According to Hitler, since God had created nature, and since struggle was inherent in nature, then God had willed struggle. Therefore, Hitler believed that for first the National Socialist party and then Germany as a whole to be successful, it would have to struggle according to God's laws. And if this was done, Hitler stated, God would bless Germany and then Germany could fulfill its mission to dominate the world.