Religious views of Adolf Hitler

The religious beliefs of Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, have been a matter of debate. His opinions regarding religious matters changed considerably over time. During the beginning of his political career, Hitler publicly expressed favorable opinions towards traditional Christian ideals, but later deviated from them. Most historians describe his later posture as adversarial to organized Christianity and to established Christian denominations. He also staunchly criticized atheism.

Hitler was born to a practicing Catholic mother, Klara Hitler, and was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church; his father, Alois Hitler, was a free-thinker and skeptical of the Catholic Church. In 1904, he was confirmed at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Linz, Austria, where the family lived. According to John Willard Toland, witnesses indicate that Hitler's confirmation sponsor had to "drag the words out of him ... almost as though the whole confirmation was repugnant to him". Toland offers the opinion that Hitler "carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God".

Toland is wrong with regard to the official teaching of the Church, since during this period, the church already taught that the Jews were not collectively (or rather, exclusively) responsible for deicide, and that instead all human beings of a sinful fomes peccati were responsible for the death of their Lord and Saviour, especially—and perhaps ironically—the Catholic Church itself (Catechism of Trent).

Michael Rissmann notes that, according to several witnesses who lived with Hitler in a men's home in Vienna, he never again attended Mass or received the sacraments after leaving home at 18 years old.

After becoming absolute dictator of Germany, Hitler in December 1934 was reported by newspapers declaring that National Socialism was "based on positive Christianity. This comprises positive Catholicism and positive Protestantism. The essential element of positive Christianity is faith, coupled with Christian neighborly love."

Hitler seemingly praised Islam during several talks with intimate political and military allies, describing Islam as a religion of warriors. Much of these originate with Hitler's Table Talks and the "Last Testament of Adolf Hitler", which are considered unreliable on his religious views and an outright forgery respectively.

In a speech in 1932, Hitler declared himself "not a Catholic and not a Protestant, but a German Christian". The German Christians were a Protestant group that supported Nazi ideology. Both Hitler and the Nazi Party promoted "nondenominational" positive Christianity, In one widely-quoted remark, Hitler described Jesus as an "Aryan fighter" who struggled against "the power and pretensions of the corrupt Pharisees" and against Jewish materialism. Hitler spoke often of Protestantism and Lutheranism, stating, "Through me the Evangelical Protestant Church could become the established church, as in England", and that the "great reformer" Martin Luther "has the merit of rising against the Pope and the Catholic Church".

In the field of policy, the Nazis applied the practice of Gleichschaltung ('coordination') to the disparate Christian churches in Germany. Within months of coming to power, Hitler's régime launched an effort toward coordination of German Protestants into a joint Protestant Reich Church, and also moved early to eliminate political Catholicism. Hitler agreed to his 1933 Reich concordat with the Vatican, but then routinely ignored it, and permitted persecutions of the Catholic Church.

Several historians have insisted that Hitler and his inner circle were influenced by other religions. In a eulogy for a friend, Hitler called on him to enter Valhalla but he later stated that it would be foolish to re-establish the worship of Odin (or Wotan) within Germanic paganism. Most historians argue he was prepared to delay conflicts for political reasons and that he had long-term intentions to eliminate Christianity in Germany, or at least to reform it to suit a Nazi outlook.