An open letter
to:
Erwin Lutzer
Pastor, Moody
Bible Church
Dear Pastor
Lutzer,
This letter is
written to request that you assume responsibility for, and publicly correct,
serious errors in your book Hitler’s
Cross.
In that book you
incorrectly identify Adolf Hitler as involved in the occult. Your source
material for this thematic claim is entirely unreliable and should not have
been used in any serious discussion of Hitler’s religious beliefs.
In point of fact,
Hitler was not an occultist. There were a fraction of Nazi leaders who were
occultists, notably, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schultzstaffel. There were also some who might be termed paganists,
such as Alfred Rosenberg, an influential early leader in the Nazi Party who
wrote The Myth of the Twentieth Century.
However, the few
credible and documented Hitler comments and actions we have on the subject of
the occult clearly indicate that he had no use for it. Hitler’s only close
friend as a youth, Augustin Kubziek, says that the
young Hitler was “absolutely skeptical of occultism.” Commenting on Himmler,
the Party’s leading occultist, Hitler declared: "What nonsense! Here at
last we have reached an age that has left all mysticism behind, and now he
wants to start that all over again...” This sums up Hitler’s view of the occult
as found in recorded history.
His views on paganism are more equivocal, but indications
are that he also rejected it. The World War Two historian Steigmann-Gall asserts,
"Not once did Hitler have anything positive to say about paganism."
Your assessment of Hitler as an occultist, as
noted, is based on entirely unreliable source material. You repeatedly cite, in your chapter titled
“The Religion and the Third Reich,” two exceptionally unreliable sources:
Trevor Ravenscroft’s The Spear of Destiny
and Dusty Sklar’s Gods and Beasts.
Ravenscroft’s work is nothing but an outlandish
fantasy. Despite Ravenscroft’s constant appeal to a man named Walter Stein as a
source of information on Hitler, not a single scholarly biographer of Hitler is
aware of a man named “Walter Stein” in Hitler’s background. The simple reason
for this is that Ravenscroft made up the story out of whole cloth. The British
historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, author of The Occult Roots of Nazism, describes Ravenscroft’s work as
“fanciful.” Clearly, Ravenscroft’s book cannot be taken seriously.
Sklar’s work is little better. In addition to
using Ravenscoft as a source, she also uses the works of Hermann Rauschning and
Josef Greiner, who are also widely recognized by serious historians as
unreliable (or at best, tenuous) sources on the life of Hitler. Like
Ravenscroft, Sklar does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Other sources used for the chapter are no more
credible. Authors like Dave Hunt, Gerald Suster, and Texe Marrs are not
responsible historians and have no place in any serious historical work.
Beyond this, Hitler’s
Cross, though it gets some facts about Hitler correct, is
marred by
numerous factually incorrect statements, such as:
·
"[T]he Third Reich reinterpreted the
cross of Christ to advance a pagan agenda"
·
"[Hitler] was initiated into deeper levels
of occult transformation"
·
"Hitler was fascinated by Hinduism"
·
"Himmler said that he did not act without
reference to the Hindu writings"
You also retrieve an alleged deathbed quote by
Hitler’s early mentor, Dietrich Eckart:
Follow Hitler!...I have initiated him into the 'Secret Doctrine,'
opened his centres in vision and given him the means to communicate with the
Powers.
In reality, no such quote can be credibly
documented from Eckart. Nor can any documentation be offered for an alleged
quote by Hitler you refer to, "Man is God in the making.”
Given the depth of error in your book in this
regard, I am publicly calling upon you to repudiate these mistakes, and issue a
formal apology to your readers. As
Christians we have a responsibility to be honest and forthcoming with the facts.
Although I assume your errors in this book were not intended, it would indeed
be irresponsible to continue to allow them to stand uncorrected.
Sincerely,
James Patrick Holding (tektonics.org)
***
I'll be spreading this around in various places over the next few weeks.
