Born in Austria, Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi movement and was named chancellor of the German Republic on 30 January 1933. Two years later he gained complete control of the government. During his rise to power Hitler courted Christian support by emphasizing national pride and pretending to favor the churches’ role in the state. In 1933 the Fuhrer signed a concordat with the pope guaranteeing the freedom to practice the Catholic religion, which greatly increased Hitler’s prestige and successfully excluded Catholics from German politics, but he had no intention of keeping his part of the bargain. Eventually it was claimed that Nazism itself represented the true fulfillment of Christianity. Hitler would brook no organized resistance from the Church. Eventually the churches were to be subordinated to the "new order," the clergy stripped of all privileges, and Christianity left to suffer what Hitler called "a natural death."
[tags]Adolph-Hitler, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Nazism[/tags]