Luther and Hitler
Published on June 4, 2008 By Larry Kuperman In Religion

Some time ago I got into a discussion with a fellow blogger about Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation and a notorious anti-Semite. I was amazed to find that anyone would defend Marin Luther, a man who urged his followers to kill without mercy, let alone that Luther would be regarded as a "good man." If Luther was so good, then he must have gone to Heaven, right? And if Luther gets in, why not his best known protege, Adolf Hitler?

In 1543, Luther wrote his infamous tract On the Jews and Their Lies, as vile a peice of hate speech as you will find. Previously, Luther had written That Jesus Christ was born a Jew, in which Luther advocated kindness toward the Jews, but only with the aim of converting them to Christianity: what he called Judenmission. However when he realized that the Jews were not going to convert, he turned on them. He advocated stripping the Jews of their property, burning their synagogues and holy books and in the end, killing them. Luther urged his followers to commit murder saying "We are at fault in not slaying them."

For 400 years, Christian preachers continued to echo Luther's words. It was this preaching of hatred that set the stage for the Holocaust and explains why Hitler's ideas won such easy acceptance in Germany and elsewhere. Nazis displayed Luther's tome at the Nuremberg rallies and held Kristallnacht on Luther's birthday in 1938. The Lutheran church would distance itself from its founder saying "It is imperative for the Lutheran Church, which knows itself to be indebted to the work and tradition of Martin Luther, to take seriously also his anti-Jewish utterances, to acknowledge their theological function, and to reflect on their consequences. It has to distance itself from every expression of anti-Judaism in Lutheran theology." But that was in 1998, more than 50 years AFTER the Holocaust.

Adolf Hitler was indebted to the writings of Martin Luther and felt that Luther was a great man.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20th, 1889. He was the illegitimate child of Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl. Klara was related to Alois, his half neice, and the couple needed to receive a special dispensation from the Vatican in order to marry. Finally, the dispensation was granted and Klara became Alois' third wife. But since young Adolf was born prior to the marriage, he was Adolf Schicklgruber (his mother's maiden name, they all married a LOT) until he was 39. Alois would not consent to him his bastard son his surname.

Hitler was raised in a religous household. He was baptized in the Roman Catholic church in Austria, attended school at a monastery and became an altar boy. Writing in Mein Kampf, he recalls how he wanted to become a priest. “I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals.  As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.” Throughout  most of his life he maintained close ties to the church and in fact received support from the church.

Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, came to Hitler's birthday party in 1939, under instructions from Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who would become Pope Pius XII, and the celebration of Hitler's birhtday by the church became a tradition. Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was instructed to send “warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with “fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars.” (Source: Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell) But there are well documented photos of meetings between Hitler and representatives of various churches well after the Holocaust began.

Hitler reciprocated. He would say “The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity.  It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines, and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.” Hitler opposed abortion, was anti-homosexual and enforced religous teachings in German schools. He was widely regarded as a model Christian leader...except for that little genocide thing. But maybe that wasn't considered so bad.

There is Biblical support for genocide in the Bible. The first recorded genocide in chronicled in Samuel as follows:

"2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3). Saul the first king of the Israelites is deposed because he fails to follow orders.

Hitler had a lot of support in his war of extermination. Father Charles Coughlin was a radio preacher in the US, based out of Michigan. Millions of people tuned into his broadcasts. In a rally in the Bronx, New York in 1938, Coughlin said "When we get through with the Jews in America, they'll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing." (By the way, my parents were living in the Bronx at that time, think how terrifying that must have been.) In all fairness, many Catholics opposed Coughlin, but he had the support of Detroit Bishop Michael Gallagher and there was a concern that if the church silenced Coughlin, he would lead a schism. The sense was that the lives of the Jews were not worth risking a drop in membership.

Until the end of World War II, anti-Semitism was tolerated by the Christian churches, if not  felt to be a Christian duty. So maybe Hitler and Luther are hanging out in Heaven with all the other religous haters.


Comments (Page 3)
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on Jun 21, 2008

Hitler had a lot of support in his war of extermination.


Ya, it was from a Russian guy named Stalin.

Please explain in detail, historic if possible, how the Polish Catholics were hateful to the Jews.


They turned a blind eye.


Please see my post #30.

KFC POSTS:
They are hateful to the Protestants just like they were to the Jews before that.


Not according to this from Wikipedia. (Sorry I don't know how to link a link.)

Demographics
Poland formerly played host to many languages, cultures, and religions. There was a particularly rich Jewish life in Poland prior to the Nazi Holocaust where Poland's Jewish population, estimated at 3 million was mass murdered, with an estimated 300,000 survivors. The outcomes of World War II and the following shift westwards to the area between the Curzon line and the Oder-Neisse line gave Poland an appearance of homogeneity. Today 36,983,700 people, or 96.74% of the population considers itself Polish (Census 2002), 471,500 (1.23%) declared another nationality. 774,900 people (2.03%) didn't declare any nationality. The officially recognized ethnic minorities include: Germans, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Jews and Belarusians. The Polish language, a member of the West Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, functions as the official language of Poland. Most Poles adhere to the Roman Catholic faith, 89.8% are Catholic (according to church baptise statistics) with 75% counting as practicing Catholics. The rest of the population consists mainly of Eastern Orthodox (about 509 500), Jehovah's Witnesses (about 123 034) and various Protestant (about 86 880 in the largest Evangelical-Augsburg Church and about as many in smaller churches) religious minorities.

In recent years Poland's population has stopped increasing because of an increase in emigration and a sharp drop in the birth rate. In 2005 the census office estimated the total population of Poland at 38,173,835, a slight fall on the 2002 figure of 38,230,080. Since Poland's accession to the European Union, a significant number of Polish people have moved to work in West European countries like the UK and Ireland.








on Jun 21, 2008
My husband was over there and talked to a Judge in Warsaw and a Police Chief in Tarnow. They told my husband there is INTENSE persecution of Protestants over there. They are NOT allowed to go to any Protestant church (and they are Protestants) or they will lose their jobs. So they attend house studies during the week instead.

The Catholic Chuches are tax EXEMPT in Poland. The Baptist churches ARE NOT.


One sentence seems to contradict the other.

I just googled churches in Poland and a bunch came up...all kinds too. I also note that in 2005, the Catholic Church and the Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and one other signed a mutual recognition on Christian Baptism. So, in this regard, the CC doesn't look too dictatorish to me.

Also the Polish government set up for 2008. No, as far as I can tell there isn't one Catholic priest running things.


Country name:
conventional long form: Republic of Poland
conventional short form: Poland
local long form: Rzeczpospolita Polska
local short form: Polska

Government type:
republic

Capital:
name: Warsaw
geographic coordinates: 52 15 N, 21 00 E
time difference: UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
daylight saving time: +1hr, begins last Sunday in March; ends last Sunday in October

Administrative divisions:
16 provinces (wojewodztwa, singular - wojewodztwo); Dolnoslaskie wojewodztwo, Kujawsko-Pomorskie wojewodztwo, Lodzkie wojewodztwo, Lubelskie wojewodztwo, Lubuskie wojewodztwo, Malopolskie wojewodztwo, Mazowieckie wojewodztwo, Opolskie wojewodztwo, Podkarpackie wojewodztwo, Podlaskie wojewodztwo, Pomorskie wojewodztwo, Slaskie wojewodztwo, Swietokrzyskie wojewodztwo, Warminsko-Mazurskie wojewodztwo, Wielkopolskie wojewodztwo, Zachodniopomorskie wojewodztwo

Independence:
11 November 1918 (republic proclaimed)

National holiday:
Constitution Day, 3 May (1791)

Constitution:
adopted by the National Assembly 2 April 1997; passed by national referendum 25 May 1997; effective 17 October 1997

Legal system:
based on a mixture of Continental (Napoleonic) civil law and holdover Communist legal theory; changes being gradually introduced as part of broader democratization process; limited judicial review of legislative acts, but rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal are final; court decisions can be appealed to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations

Suffrage:
18 years of age; universal

Executive branch:
chief of state: President Lech KACZYNSKI (since 23 December 2005)
head of government: Prime Minister Donald TUSK (since 16 November 2007); Deputy Prime Ministers Waldemar PAWLAK (since 16 November 2007) and Grzegorz SCHETYNA (since 16 November 2007)
cabinet: Council of Ministers responsible to the prime minister and the Sejm; the prime minister proposes, the president appoints, and the Sejm approves the Council of Ministers
elections: president elected by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 9 and 23 October 2005 (next to be held in the fall 2010); prime minister and deputy prime ministers appointed by the president and confirmed by the Sejm
election results: Lech KACZYNSKI elected president; percent of popular vote - Lech KACZYNSKI 54%, Donald Tusk 46%

Legislative branch:
bicameral National Assembly or Zgromadzenie Narodowe consists of the Senate or Senat (upper house) (100 seats; members are elected by a majority vote on a provincial basis to serve four-year terms), and the Sejm (lower house) (460 seats; members are elected under a complex system of proportional representation to serve four-year terms); the designation of National Assembly is only used on those rare occasions when the two houses meet jointly
elections: Senate - last held 21 September 2007 (next to be held by September 2011); Sejm elections last held 21 September 2007 (next to be held by September 2011)
election results: Senate - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - PO 60, PiS 39, independents 1; Sejm - percent of vote by party - PO 41.5%, PiS 32.1%, LiD 13.2%, PSL 8.9%, other 4.3%; seats by party - PO 209, PiS 166, LiD 53, PSL 31, German minorities 1; note - seats by party as of December 2007 - PO 209, PiS 160, LiD 53, PSL 31, German minorities 1, nonaffiliated 6
note: one seat is assigned to ethnic minority parties in the Sejm only

Judicial branch:
Supreme Court (judges are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the National Council of the Judiciary for an indefinite period); Constitutional Tribunal (judges are chosen by the Sejm for nine-year terms)

Political parties and leaders:
Catholic-National Movement or RKN [Antoni MACIEREWICZ]; Civic Platform or PO [Donald TUSK]; Conservative Peasants Party or SKL [Artur BALASZ]; Democratic Left Alliance or SLD [Wojciech OLEJNICZAK]; Democratic Party or PD [Janusz ONYSZKIEWICZ]; Dom Ojczysty (Fatherland Home); German Minority of Lower Silesia or MNSO [Henryk KROLL]; Law and Justice or PiS [Jaroslaw KACZYNSKI]; League of Polish Families or LPR [Roman GIERTYCH]; Left and Democrats (LiD) (a coalition formed by the SLD, PD, SDPL, and UP) [Aleksander KWASNIEWSKI]; Peasant-Democratic Party or PLD [Roman JAGIELINSKI]; Polish Accord or PP [Jan LOPUSZANSKI]; Polish Peasant Party or PSL [Waldemar PAWLAK]; Ruch Patriotyczny or RP [Jan OLSZEWSKI]; Samoobrona or SO [Andrzej LEPPER]; Social Democratic Party of Poland or SDPL [Marek BOROWSKI]; Social Movement or RS [Krzysztof PIESIEWICZ]; Union of Labor or UP [Andrzej SPYCHALSKI]

Political pressure groups and leaders:
All Poland Trade Union Alliance or OPZZ (trade union) [Jan GUZ]; Roman Catholic Church [Cardinal Jozef GLEMP]; Solidarity Trade Union [Janusz SNIADEK]

International organization participation:
ACCT (observer), Arctic Council (observer), Australia Group, BIS, BSEC (observer), CBSS, CE, CEI, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, EIB, EU, FAO, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, ITUC, MIGA, MINURSO, MONUC, NAM (guest), NATO, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OIF (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNDOF, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIFIL, UNMEE, UNMIL, UNMIS, UNOCI, UNOMIG, UNWTO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WEU (associate), WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, ZC

Diplomatic representation in the US:
chief of mission: Ambassador Janusz REITER
chancery: 2640 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009
telephone: [1] (202) 234-3800 through 3802
FAX: [1] (202) 328-6271
consulate(s) general: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York

Diplomatic representation from the US:
chief of mission: Ambassador Victor ASHE
embassy: Aleje Ujazdowskie 29/31 00-540 Warsaw
mailing address: American Embassy Warsaw, US Department of State, Washington, DC 20521-5010 (pouch)
telephone: [48] (22) 504-2000
FAX: [48] (22) 504-2688
consulate(s) general: Krakow

Flag description:
two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red; similar to the flags of Indonesia and Monaco which are red (top) and white

NOTE: The information regarding Poland on this page is re-published from the 2008 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Poland Government 2008 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Poland Government 2008 should be addressed to the CIA.

on Jun 21, 2008
KFC,

Here's Poland's Constitution regarding religions:

[edit] The Polish Constitution and religion

Chapter 2, Article 53:
1. Freedom of faith and religion shall be ensured to everyone.
2. Freedom of religion shall include the freedom to profess or to accept a religion by personal choice as well as to manifest such religion, either individually or collectively, publicly or privately, by worshipping, praying, participating in ceremonies, performing of rites or teaching. Freedom of religion shall also include possession of sanctuaries and other places of worship for the satisfaction of the needs of believers as well as the right of individuals, wherever they may be, to benefit from religious services.
3. Parents shall have the right to ensure their children a moral and religious upbringing and teaching in accordance with their convictions. The provisions of Article 48, para. 1 shall apply as appropriate.
4. The religion of a church or other legally recognized religious organization may be taught in schools, but other peoples' freedom of religion and conscience shall not be infringed thereby.
5. The freedom to publicly express religion may be limited only by means of statute and only where this is necessary for the defence of State security, public order, health, morals or the freedoms and rights of others.
6. No one shall be compelled to participate or not participate in religious practices.
7. No one may be compelled by organs of public authority to disclose his philosophy of life, religious convictions or belief.

Chapter 2, Article 85
3. Any citizen whose religious convictions or moral principles do not allow him to perform military service may be obliged to perform substitute service in accordance with principles specified by statute.

Chapter 2, Article 35
2. National and ethnic minorities shall have the right to establish educational and cultural institutions, institutions designed to protect religious identity, as well as to participate in the resolution of matters connected with their cultural identity.


Major denominations in Poland

A list of churches according to special legislation

The Catholic Church in Poland
33,550,000 adherents, or 88 percent of the population

Latin Rite
Armenian Rite
110,380 Eastern-Rite Catholics
Byzantine-Slavonic Rite (Obrządek Bizantyjsko-Słowiański)
Byzantine-Ukrainian Rite (Obrządek Bizantyjsko-Ukraiński)

506,000 Orthodox Church members

The Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland
76,000 Lutherans (Augsburg)

The Pentecostal Church in Poland
21,200 Pentecostals

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Poland
9,600 Seventh-Day Adventists

The Christian Baptist Church in Poland
6,500 Baptists

The Islamic Religious Union in Poland
5,100 members of the Muslim Religious Union

The Evangelical Methodist Church in Poland
4,460 Methodists

The Evangelical Reformed Church in Poland
3,500 Reformed

The Karaim Religious Union in Poland
180 members of the Karaims Religious Union


Union of Jewish Confessional Communities in Poland
1,222 members of the Union of Jewish Communities. Estimamed number of polish Jews is between 10 and 30 thousands. Not all of them are religiously Jewish. Oppositely, many of them are Christians, predomenantly Catholics.


[edit] List of minor denominations registered in Poland
(Currently available only in Polish, see talk page)


[edit] Religious demography
Percentage of Polish citizens who say that they actively participate in religious ceremonies (denomination not mentioned): 68 percent.

Number of Polish citizens who consider themselves Roman Catholics: 33,550,000 or 88 percent of the population.
Number of Polish citizens who are Jewish but not necessarily religious: between 10,000 and 30,000.
Number of Polish citizens of other denominations:

506,000 Orthodox Church members;
220,000 Jehovah's Witnesses;
76,000 Lutherans;
53,000 Uniates;
23,300 Old Catholic Mariavits;
21,200 Pentecostals;1
18,900 members of the Polish Catholic Church;
9,600 Seventh-day Adventists;
6,500 Baptists;
5,123 members of the Muslim Religious Union;
5,043 Hare Krishnas;
4,800 members of the New Apostolic Church;
4,460 Methodists;
4,100 members of the Church of Christ;
3,500 Reformed;
2,150 Catholic Mariavits;
1,222 members of the Union of Jewish Communities;
950 members of the Eastern Old Ceremonial Church;
180 members of the Karaims Religious Union.

on Jun 21, 2008
It's nice to be naive. Looks good on paper.

So you want me to believe your articles of Faith of the CC instead of the real life experiences of even a Judge?

The CC is like the Mafia in Poland. You can do whatever you want...just don't cross us. You will get fired.

My husband says....tell her....."you have no idea. You just don't understand. There is NO freedom of religion in Poland in PRACTICE....paper yes, practice no"


argue it all you want. Go to Poland and talk to the people.




on Jun 21, 2008
You will get fired.


The other Protestant denominations seem to be getting along, so it sounds like your friend has a personal beef going on rather than it being a universal problem.

It certainly appears that Poland's Constitution allows your friend to practice Protestantism in his church, have Bible studies, etc. They just are not allowed in the public schools and not allowing Protestantism be taught there is reasonable.

Perhaps he should move to Ireland where the Protestants maintain their dominance, sometimes violently, over Catholics. They own the banks, run the economy, and have full representation in the government, including schools, while Catholics have none. Is this right?

What we need to do is pray for unity amongst ourselves and for charity in all that we do.







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