Ouch, on the very next post even!
Hitler never mentioned Darwin, but he mentioned Christianity and Catholocism frequently as sources of his beliefs.
Hitler believed Christ was the product of a rape of Mary by a Roman soldier. Want to tell me how that squares with Christianity? He was at best a pagan, and possibly a Deist. Personally, I think he was an atheist.
He didn't mentioned Darwin by name - Hitler rarely gave anybody else credit for idea - but evolution was absolutely central to his belief system. Here is a quote from Mein Kampf:
Such a dispensation of Nature is quite logical. Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. Such mating contradicts the will of Nature towards the selective improvements of life in general. The favourable preliminary to this improvement is not to mate individuals of higher and lower orders of being but rather to allow the complete triumph of the higher order. The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all.It goes on and on like this. Clearly this is a perversion of Darwinism even though Hitler doesn't explicitly name Darwin.
Darwinism was a central, guiding principle of Nazi ideology, especially of Hitler’s own world view. Richard Evans, historian at Cambridge University, has explained, "The real core of Nazi beliefs lay in the faith Hitler proclaimed in his speech of September 1938 in science—a Nazi view of science—as the basis for action. Science demanded the furtherance of the interests not of God but of the human race, and above all the German race and its future in a world ruled by ineluctable laws of Darwinian competition between races and between individuals." This is not a controversial claim by anti-evolutionists, but it is commonly recognized by scholars who study Nazism.
He also mentioned to the Soviets that they were buddies and should take out England together. Gee, do ya think he might have displayed a trend of telling falsehoods as a mechanism to influence the thinking and behavior of others so he could acquire more power without opposition? Maybe the slaughter of many believers in the Holocaust give some indication he was somewhat antiChristian. Even the name of the Third Reich is about as antiChristian as could be conceived.
I don't know if you ever actually read in Mein Kampf, but Hitler didn't talk much about Christianity or "Catholocism" as he did evolution and preserving the superior race.
I realize that word counts are rarely more then just amusing, but I did do a word-count on Mein Kampf for a few words:
race: 274
Evolution: 182
races: 60
Superior: 79
God: 54
Christ: 46
Christian: 41
Christianity: 7
Jesus: 0
Look at what he did say. And these are his words which not only line up with his actions but describe in careful detail his reasons for his actions. This is not the bablings of a madman; these are careful well thought out arguments -- and they are exactly the arguments describing his actions! To a mind which believes in no such thing as absolute wrong -- except that the best races should survive - this is a perfectly logical idea.:
The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all. (Mein Kampf, Page 237, Paragraph 1)You can see here that he believes in the scientific fact of evolution. And he's bound and determined to help it along.
When men have lost their natural instincts and ignore the obligations imposed on them by Nature, then there is no hope that Nature will correct the loss that has been caused, until recognition of the lost instincts has been restored. Then the task of bringing back what has been lost will have to be accomplished. But there is serious danger that those who have become blind once in this respect will continue more and more to break down racial barriers and finally lose the last remnants of what is best in them. What then remains is nothing but a uniform mish-mash, which seems to be the dream of our fine Utopians. But that mish-mash would soon banish all ideals from the world. Certainly a great herd could thus be formed. One can breed a herd of animals; but from a mixture of this kind men such as have created and founded civilizations would not be produced. The mission of humanity might then be considered at an end.Ahh, the end of humanity? But wait, he's not done:
Those who do not wish that the earth should fall into such a condition must realize that it is the task of the German State in particular to see to it that the process of bastardization is brought to a stop.Ahh, so it was his job to bring it to a stop. How is he going to do that? Here's his solution:
Our contemporary generation of weaklings will naturally decry such a policy and whine and complain about it as an encroachment on the most sacred of human rights. But there is only one right that is sacrosanct and this right is at the same time a most sacred duty. This right and obligation are: that the purity of the racial blood should be guarded, so that the best types of human beings may be preserved and that thus we should render possible a more noble development of humanity itself.There is one sacred duty - and that is to guard the purity of the favored race?!
And he says:
If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.(238,1)And so here he explains that the superior individuals should not mingle with the weaker ones.
And he says:
Whoever ignores or despises the laws of race ... places an obstacle in the victorious path of the superior race and, by so doing, he interferes with a prerequisite condition of all human progress. Loaded with the burden of humanitarian sentiment, he falls back to the level of those who are unable to raise themselves in the scale of being. (240,8)The laws of race that he's referring to here are the natural law that says that superior (or Aryan) races should not mingle with non-Aryan race.
On this planet of ours human culture and civilization are indissolubly bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he should be exterminated or subjugated, then the dark shroud of a new barbarian era would enfold the earth. (317, 1,2)But not to worry, he wants to do something about it:
Those who do not wish that the earth should fall into such a condition must realize that it is the task of the German State in particular to see to it that the process of bastardization is brought to a stop.(332, 2)And intervene he did: He killed millions in the gas chambers of Auschwitz -- all because there was only one moral law - and that was that the fittest needed to survive.If the case were different the progressive process would cease, and even retrogression might set in. Since the inferior always outnumber the superior, the former would always increase more rapidly if they possessed the same capacities for survival and for the procreation of their kind; and the final consequence would be that the best in quality would be forced to recede into the background. Therefore a corrective measure in favour of the better quality must intervene. (237,4)
Ideas do have consequences. And Hitler's actions were a direct calculated outworking of what he believed - and what he believed is that there was only one great law - and that was that the fittest should survive. The Aryans.
-Jesse