What can I say but that in 1938 Europe was considered a Christian continent with a Jewish minority. The Middle East was considered Muslim turf (territory) with a minority of Christians and Jews. People took their religions more seriously back then. Religions permeated the social and cultural life more so than today. There wasn't TV, video games, computers etc. to clutter one's mind with images, distractions. Yes, the nazis were pagans and so were many (but far from all) of their followers.
The Europe of June 1945 found 60%-65% of European Jews killed or having fled. 60%-65% is my quick estimate based on numbers below. The 3 URLs below give Jewish population estimates. Percentage killed by Nazis in WW2.
http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html
http://www.nizkor.org/qar-complete.cgi
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/36quest1.html#5
How many Jews were murdered in each country and what percentage of the pre-war Jewish population did they constitute?
- Answer: (Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust)
Austria 50,000 -- 27.0%
Italy 7,680 -- 17.3%
Belgium 28,900 -- 44.0%
Latvia 71,500 -- 78.1%
Bohemia/Moravia 78,150 -- 66.1%
Lithuania 143,000 -- 85.1%
Bulgaria 0 -- 0.0%
Luxembourg 1,950 -- 55.7%
Denmark 60 -- 0.7%
Netherlands 100,000 -- 71.4%
Estonia 2,000 -- 44.4%
Norway 762 -- 44.8%
Finland 7 -- 0.3%
Poland 3,000,000 -- 90.9%
France 77,320 -- 22.1%
Romania 287,000 -- 47.1%
Germany 141,500 -- 25.0%
Slovakia 71,000 -- 79.8%
Greece 67,000 -- 86.6%
Soviet Union 1,100,000 -- 36.4%
Hungary 569,000 -- 69.0%
Yugoslavia 63,300 -- 81.2%
I think two important historical phenomena disprove that: (1) the Holocaust, (2) the almost complete and utter dominance of openly anti-Christian and anticlerical Socialist and Communist parties in every major European country except Spain.
The fact that the largest cohort of Jews in Europe lived in Catholic Poland for centuries with minimal social friction, and then the fact that after barely three years of Nazi rule more than 3 million Polish Jews were murdered shows the difference.
Two groups were systematic targets of the Nazi persecution in Poland: first and foremost the Jewish people in general (men, women and children) and secondarily, the Catholic clergy.
If Christians were truly allies or architects of anti-Semitic persecution then one would expect the Polish clergy to have occupied a place of honor among the Nazi conquerors. Instead, they were almost eliminated. 7,000 of them were killed, including 1,500 at Auschwitz. About one-third of the Polish clergy were killed, about one-third were imprisoned and about one-third went into hiding.
I don't cite these stats as a comparison, since nothing can compare to the suffering of Polish Jewry - but as an illustration of the fact that Nazism had very little to do ideologically with Christianity.