Did Hitler Use Jesus To Justify His Actions?

Response: Unlike many Muslims assertions, this person gives a specific author and a particular book.  Hence, it should be possible to ascertain whether or not the Muslim's assertion is true. Mein Kampf can be obtain easily in a library, and it is on the Internet too. So, we have an opportunity to determine whether our Muslim friend is truthful or not. Did Hitler use the Bible and his belief in Jesus in his book, Mein Kampf, to justify the slaughter of Jews? 

The library edition of the book does not list either the Bible or Jesus in its Index.¹ Now, if Hitler had based his justification for murdering Jews upon the Bible and Jesus, one would expect to find a number of references to them in the Index of Mein Kampf. However, neither word is found there. So, it appears that the Muslim's assertion may be false. Secondly, using a Google search of the Adolf Hitler web site, which includes an English translation of Mein Kampf, a word search does not yield any result.² Now if the word Jesus or Bible is not found a single time in a book of 694 pages, the Muslim's assertion is clearly without foundation. Because, if the justification for killing 6 million Jews were Hitler's belief in Jesus, Jesus' name should be mentioned numerous times in Mein Kampf. As a result, this appears to be another Muslim claim that has no basis in reality. In other words the claim is false and shows a disregard for the truth.

Searching Mein Kampf further, there is one paragraph that refers to Jesus. The terms that Hitler used were the great founder of the new doctrine and Christ. However, Hitler's belief in Nazism was not grounded upon this book's paragraph. It vents his hatred of the Jews and his disgust for Christians who sought their votes. It admits that true Christianity is a spiritual religion and not a business enterprise. This is why Christ drove the Jewish businessmen from the temple.

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties — and this against their own nation.³

So, nowhere in Mein Kampf does Hitler refer to his personal belief in Jesus or the Bible to justify his actions against the Jews. In fact, Jesus was a Jew and Hitler hated Jews. So, why would Hitler turn to any Jew to support Nazism.  Where does Hitler turn to Christ's true doctrine to base his claims of race superiority, worldly economics, and earthly militarist conquest? So, even on the surface, the Muslim's charge is ridiculous to any who knows history and values the truth. This may not be the case with ignorant Muslims who are disposed against Jews and Christians and who are not acquainted with the history of Adolph Hitler. As stated during the Nuremberg War trials in Germany,

The Nazi Party always was predominantly anti-Christian in its ideology. ... the conspirators devised and carried out a systematic and relentless repression of all Christian sects and churches. ⁴

Reichsleiter Martin Bormann wrote in the secret decree entitled, Relationship of National Socialism and Christianity, that "National Socialist and Christian concepts are irreconcilable." ⁵

For a book on the relationship between Islam and Jews, we recommend one by Dr. Bat Ye'or.⁶

In fact, Hitler was very impressed by the Mohammedan faith as he saw its great advances in Europe. By contrast, he saw the Christian church in disunity, losing "millions and millions of inward adherents", and ineffective in its overseas mission efforts. However, we are not suggesting that Hitler based Nazism upon his admiration of the wonderful advancements of Islam in Europe. 

How widespread the general disunity was growing is shown by an examination of religious conditions before the War. Here, too, a unified and effective philosophical conviction had long since been lost in large sections of the nation. In this the members officially breaking away from the churches play a less important role than those who are completely indifferent. While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine — an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from the moral point of view, are not favorable.⁷

It is coincidental that Mein Kampf means My Struggle or My Fight in English and in Arabic means My Jihad. Hitler's Jihad was both idealistic and militaristic; it was personal as well as social; it was national as well as international. The German translation of the Qur'an uses the term, Kampf, in various places.

Kämpfe darum für Allahs Sache  Sure 4:84
Then fight in Allah's cause Sura 4:84

O Prophet, feuere die Gläubigen zum Kampf an. Sure 8:65
O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight. Sura 8:65

The Qur'an refers to the Jews who broke the Sabbath day as apes, Hitler referred to the Jews as apes too.

But even here, in reality, he [the Jew] is only a ' juggler,' or rather an ape.⁸ — Hitler

And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath: We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected." al-Baqarah 2:65 — Muhammad

Perhaps, our Muslim friend should not blame Jesus for Hitler's hatred of the Jews, since his hatred of the Jews is very much like the hatred expressed by many imams during their Friday sermon in masjids across the Middle East. Their fierce hatred of the Jews is very much like Hitler's hatred.

In conclusion, this Muslim scholar makes no attempt to provide citations from Hitler's Mein Kampf to support his allegation. If his allegation were true, he should be able easily to provide numerous and specific references in Mein Kampf to support his claim. Instead he spun out this assertion from his fanciful imagination without the slightest sense of embarrassment. Apparently, intellectual honesty is not an important virtue to him. The tragedy is that the Hitler and Muhammad had many Jews murdered, but the Lord Jesus Christ never murdered anyone. On the positive side, when Muslim apologists make these ridiculous assertions, they discredit themselves as well as their message.

Response: First of all, we notice that our Muslim friend seeks to discredit the English translation of Mein Kampf. Does he really think the translators engaged in intellectual dishonesty by giving a corrupt translation of Mein Kampf? It is typical for Muslims to claim a text has been corrupted when it disagrees with their preconceived notions. For example, Muslims claim that the text of the Bible has been corrupted.  Whereas, in truth, it was Muhammad who offered a corrupted version of the message of the divine prophets in the Qur'an. Secondly, he offers no evidence where the English translation is a bogus translation of the German Mein Kampf. Thirdly, and more importantly, he does not provide a chapter reference in the original German Mein Kampf to support his claim that Hitler appealed to the Bible or Jesus to pursue the holocaust of the Jews.

Actually, appealing to the original German language edition does not help our Muslim friend's case, because the German Mein Kampf lacks an instance where Adolph Hitler used the teachings of Jesus or the Bibel (German for Bible) to further the objectives of the Third Reich. So, we would challenge our Muslim friend to give us a specific chapter in the German Mein Kampf where Adolph Hitler used his belief in Jesus and the Bible to justify his hatred of the Jews. Wir brauchen eine Verweisung!

We must now leave it to our readers to decide for themselves whether or not this Islamic scholar's claims are true or false.

¹ Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, Translated by Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA, 1943, p. 694.
² A search for Jesus can be done on the Hitler web site using Google.com. Type the words between the brackets [Jesus site:www.hitler.org] into the Google search box. You will notice that the word Jesus does not yield any search results in Mein Kampf. By contrast, if the word, Jew, were used instead of Jesus, there are a number of search results.
³ Ibid, Mein Kampf, p. 307.
⁴ Trial of The Major War Criminals before The International Military Tribunal, Official Text in the English Language, Proceedings November 14-30, 1945, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947, Vol. II, p. 115.
⁵ Trial of The Major War Criminals before The International Military Tribunal, Official Text in the English Language, Proceedings November 14-30, 1945, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947, Vol. IV, p. 58.
⁶ Ye'or, Bat, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Translated from French by D. Maisel and P. Fenton, Associated University Presses, Cranbury, New Jersey, 1985 (4th Printing 1996), p. 444.
⁷ Ibid, Mein Kampf, p. 266-267.
⁸ Ibid, Mein Kampf, p. 266-303.

Last edited 05/09/2004
Top of Page.