Christianity in Hitler’s Ideology: The Role of Jesus in National Socialism

How did Hitler’s personal religious beliefs help to shape the development of National Socialism? Through close analysis of primary sources, Mikael Nilsson argues that Hitler’s admiration of Jesus was central in both his public and private life, playing a key role throughout his entire political career. Christianity in Hitler’s Ideology reexamines the roots of National Socialism, exploring how antisemitic forms of Christian nationalism de-Judaized Jesus and rendered him as an Aryan. In turn, the study analyses how Hitler’s religious and ideological teachers such as Völkisch-Christian writers Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Dietrich Eckart weaponised these ideas. Nilsson challenges the established understanding that Hitler only used religion as a tool of propaganda. Instead, it is argued that religious faith and deeply held convictions were at the core of National Socialism, its racism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust.