The “dejewification” of the Bible by Adolf Hitler

That some people still argue, or assert, that Adolf Hitler was a Christian is clear evidence of unfathomable levels of ignorance of both Adolf Hitler as well as Christianity.

Arguments in favor of Hilter being a Christian boil down to an assumption that Hitler was such an honest and trustworthy fellow that when he claimed to be a Christian, to follow the Bible, to follow God; it must be true. Forget that he is one of the most infamous maniacs in history and that he was a politician.
Hitler’s Nazi propaganda is still capturing hearts and mind not because of its brilliance but because there are some people whose hatred of Christianity compels them to want to fall for it.

My section on Adolf Hitler / Nazism / Communism elucidates a great variety of Hitler and Nazi relates issues from various vantage points.
For more about Nazi “churches” and their replacement of the Bible with Mein Kampf in particular, see From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist

Also read this most excellent book (which I reviewed here):

Since some believe that Adolf Hitler, the most infamous anti-Semite in history, worshipped a Jew, Jesus, as his Lord, God and savior; consider that which Hitler did with the Bible:

An institute, founded on Hitler’s command, rewrote Bible texts, eliminating all mentions of the special role of the Jewish people. According to Hitler’s version, Christ was an advocate of Aryan ideas. Sections from the Nazi Bible will be published by German publication Bild on Thursday.

In May 1939, on the Furher’s command, a theological institute was founded in Eisenach with the purpose of contributing to “dejewification”. Its employees edited biblical texts, removing non-Aryan passages. Dozens of works printed by the institute were published in over 100 thousand copies of the new Holy Scripture. It was assumed that this work would become a standard household book amongst Germans.

For a long time, almost nothing was known about Hitler’s Bible, since believers burnt almost every copy. However, a few copies were discovered in German churches at the end of the 1980s, but this was kept hidden from the general public at the time, writes Izvestia.

German biblical archivist Hansjorg Buss has summarized the dubious achievements of Hitler’s myrmidons for Bild newspaper.

“Germans with the Lord – the German book of faith”: the renewed version of the Holy Scripture contained 12 edited commandments instead of 10, as follows:

1. Honor your Fuhrer and master.

2. Keep the blood pure and your honor holy.

3. Honor God and believe in him wholeheartedly.

4. Seek out the peace of God.

5. Avoid all hypocrisy.

6. Holy is your health and life.

7. Holy is your well-being and honor.

8. Holy is your truth and fidelity.

9. Honor your father and mother -- your children are your aid and your example.

10. Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers.

11. Be ready to help and forgive.

12. Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice.

In the new edition of the psalms, words of Jewish origin, such as messiah and halleluiah, were altered and the city of Jerusalem was referred to as Eternal City of God. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was presented as resulting from a battle he fought against the Jews.

In the 1940 edition, the following words can be found: “The Evangelical Jesus can only become the savior of our German people, because it does not incarnate the ideas of Judaism, but fights against them mercilessly.”

“The German people fought against the destruction of their life and essence by the Jews”, wrote the director of the institute Walter Grundmann. Hitler personally signed the decree on the appropriation of the awarding of the title of professor to him.

And finally, Jesus’ ancestors, according to the Nazis, came from the Caucuses, therefore there was no way that the savior could have been Jewish.1

For the discerning thinker, it is not enough to say, “Well, Hitler said ‘Jesus,’ ‘God’ and ‘Bible’ so he must have been a Christian—I trust him!”
Rather, the question is, “What did Hitler mean when he used the words ‘Jesus,’ ‘God,’ ‘Bible’ and many others.”

Another report reads as follows:

An institute in Germany has unearthed a Nazi bible ordered by Adolf Hitler to replace the old and new testaments expunged of all references to Jews.

Hitler's race theorists even rewrote the 10 commandments and added two more for good measure in the book called “German with God”? which was, alongside Hitler’s autobiography, meant to be required reading in every home in his Third Reich.

Thou shalt not kill, coveting one's neighbour's wife, thou shalt not steal and all other others were scrapped by a regime that stole, murdered and plundered its way across the world.

Hitler admired the ceremony and majesty of the church, he admitted as much in Mein Kampf, but hated its teachings which had no place in his vision of Germanic supermen ruling lesser races devoid of “outdated” concepts such as mercy and love.

But he knew the power of the church in Germany and even he could not banish it overnight. He was even forced to abandon the systematic murder of the handicapped and insane before the war when outspoken bishops began to speak against it.

Instead his plan was to gradually “Nazify” the church beginning with a theological centre he set up in 1939 to rewrite the Holy Bible. He appointed lackey professors to work on a thoroughly Nazi version that would remove all references to Jews and all compassion.

Their brief: “The cleanse church texts of all non-Ayran influences.” The first to go were the 10 Commandments. The Nazi 12 run:
“Honour God and believe in him wholeheartedly. Seek out the peace of God. Avoid all hypocrisy. Holy is your health and life! Holy is your wellbeing and honour! Holy is your truth and fidelity! Honour your father and mother ? your children are your aid and your example. Keep the blood pure and your honour holy! Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers. Always be ready to help and to forgive. Honour your Fuehrer and master! Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice. That is what God wants from us!”
More important for Hitler, however, was the eradication of Jewish words, including Hallelulja, Jehova and even Jerusalem, it was instead termed the “the eternal city of God.” “The book will have to serve the fight against the immortal Jewish enemy!” said Hitler in a memorandum to the institute in Eisenach.

Hansjoerg Buss of the Nordelbischen Church Office discovered the Bible in an archive search.

It was printed in 1941 by a company in Weimar and was shipped out to thousands of churches across Nazi-occupied Europe. It is understood most have been destroyed.

The name of the office Hitler created to shape the Bible in his image was the “Institute for the research and removal of the Jewish influence on German church life.” One of the major tasks was to ignore Jesus? Jewish roots and turn him into an Ayran. Other words specifically banned by Hitler’s race-haters were Zion, Hosanna, Galilee and Moses.

One order found in the archives for a special exhibition in Eisenach of the institute’s bizarre work came from Walter Grundmann, the anti-Semitic director appointed by Hitler.

He wrote in 1941: “The Bible must become Jew-free and the German people must see that the Jews are the mortal enemy who threaten their very existence.”

Hymn books were also trawled and “Ayranised” with no references to make the party elite balk during the few times they were ever likely to find themselves in a Christian church.

At its height, a team of 50 worked on re-writing hymn books and the Bible. But it was all a charade as far as Hitler and his S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler were concerned.

Both dreamed of being overlords of an essentially pagan society where the only virtues to be praised were iron hardness and a capability to obey any order, no matter what. “Human kindess and the moral compass as set by the Bible were laughable to them,” said Ulrich Messner, a Nazi expert.

The King James Bible is a little under 800 pages in paperback form. The Nazi “Bible” was 750 pages, after the references to Jews had been banished and Nazi2

1. 1. Leila Wilmers, trans., “Hitler rewrote the Bible and added two commandments”
2. 2. Jewish references erased in newly found Nazi Bible