Here are some direct quotes from Hitler's speeches (translated into English), containing his reaction to atheism:


Hitler often associated atheism with Germany's communist enemy. Hitler stated in a speech to the Stuttgart February 15, 1933:

"Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany's fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years."

In a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933, Hitler stated:

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."

In a radio address October 14, 1933 Hitler stated

"For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."

In a speech delivered at Koblenz, August 26, 1934 Hitler states:

"There may have been a time when even parties founded on the ecclesiastical basis were a necessity. At that time Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity. The Church's interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles."

During negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of April 26, 1933 Hitler argued that

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."

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I have posted the above not as a comment for or against either religion or atheism, but strictly for the benefit of Ron Davies. ;-)

I might also mention that every soldier in the German Army wore a belt buckle with a slogan inscribed upon it. The slogan was "Gott Mitt Uns". It means "God is with us". Germany was a consciously Christian nation during the Nazi era, while simultaneously turning its leader into a virtual demigod and its ruling political party into a virtual church, and while also kindling a sort of strange mystical revival of the Nordic god traditions, AND while worshipping philosophies of the Superman as expounded by Nietsche, AND while worshipping what they called the "Aryan race", AND while promoting Catholicism in the conquered areas of the Reich. Hitler proudly imagined that he was defending Christendom against "godless" Communism.

YES.   People are entirely capable of simultaneously worshipping many different "gods" and even many different gods which in some regards contradict one another. They do it just by focusing on whichever one they want to at the moment and not thinking about the inconsistencies. That even happens within an organized religion like Christianity, which is itself rife with inconsistencies and has, like the Nazis, sometimes committed great crimes against humanity.

It is asinine to assert that the Nazis were an atheistic movement just because you don't like the Nazis. They were a movement full of unconscious hypocrisy, that's all, and such movements are really very common, but they're not always quite that dangerous. They took naturally to religious mysticism of many sorts, and they made much use of their alliance with the Catholic church and the public's fear of atheism, as espoused by Stalinist Russia at the time.