Hitler and Eugenics, Dawkins and Boteach

Hitler and Eugenics, Dawkins and Boteach, Concepts of God [Excerpts]

[German biologist and naturalist Ernst] Haeckel and [Adolph] Hitler had an authoritarian and hierarchical view of government. Haeckel never advocated National Socialism--that was (in its final form) inconceivable given the stability of the imperial government. Nevertheless, a shared philosophical hostility to democracy as unhealthy and unnatural, with a strong emphasis on the right of the stronger to dominate, is significant.

Also significant is the very similar concept of God shared by the two men. This was not the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It was a god that emerged out of a modern and uniquely German philosophical tradition, a god that was merely the projection of man-made ideas onto the cosmos as a whole. Hitler was not a systematic thinker outside of the limited confines of his ideology, though within those confines he was rigorously logical. Basically his concept of god was a peculiar hybrid: a combination of a Folkish spirit that advanced the human race through the instrumentality of conflict with the German people as its chosen group, and a scientific naturalist view of God as working through, and being understood by, scientific and natural law.

“God” for Haeckel and for Hitler, and for many others of that day, was thus merely an abstract and impersonal concept. It could be described with language borrowed from religion--”Almighty,” “Supreme Being,” “the Creator,” “Providence”-but it was a god invented by human reason and working within the confines of human reason. This is clearly illustrated by Martin Bormann’s concept of God [Martin Bormann was a high ranking Nazi who was considered by some to be Hitler's natural successor].

It is worth noting how perfectly Bormann’s concepts match Haeckel’s. Some of those concepts are (quoting a Nuremberg document written by Bormann):

“National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable . . . National Socialism is based on scientific foundations . . . National Socialism on the other hand must always, if it is to fulfill its job in the future, be organized according to the latest knowledge of scientific research . . .the concepts of Christianity, which in their essential points have been taken over from Jewry...[i]

That Hitler valued science is insufficiently appreciated. Some quotes from his Table Talk could easily have been made by such apostles of the New Atheism and enemies of Christianity as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, or Richard Dawkins. For example, he reportedly stated that people were attracted to religion by fear of the unknown or by intellectual simplicity, but the time would come “when science can answer all the questions.”[ii]

[i] J.S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945 (Vancouver 1968), pp. 383-384.

[ii] “Excerpts from Hitler’s Table Talk,” see note 7 above.

In his book "A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People 110 B.C. to the 21st Century" (London 2004), Prof. Steven Ozment uses the Table Talk to document Hitler’s belief in evolution and in the superiority of science over religion (p. 282). He also states that it was the decline of traditional values and the emergence of modern ideology that opened the door to Hitler (pp. 252, 276, 286).

http://hitlerandchristianity.com/eugenics-god-dawkins-boteach-himmler/58.html