Inside Hitler’s Germany Part 1

Hitler did not discourage people from attending church. He was a baptized Catholic who had long since  abandoned his faith, but he did not mind if others continued to attend church as long as it did not  affect the way they lived or the values they held. In fact, he explicitly said that  he would not interfere with the specific doctrines of the church, just as long as the  churches were teaching those things that were in harmony with the good of the German people. He called this "Positive Christianity."

[He] believed that he could crush any opposition he might encounter--and in effect he did just that--by intimidation and controlling their salaries. (Because Germany had a state church, the pastors were dependent on the good graces of the government for their income.) Hitler ridiculed the Protestant pastors, saying they were cowering dogs who would do his bidding for the sake of "their miserable salaries.

So, right from the beginning Hitler sought to marginalize the church to guarantee that no Christian influence would be allowed to inform government policy. Worship would have to be a private matter between a man and his God; at all costs the official state policy would have to be based on humanistic principles to give Hitler the freedom to do what was "best" for Germany. He said that the churches must be "forbidden from interfering with temporal matters." The state would have to be scrubbed clean of all Christian convictions and values.

Christmas was turned into a pagan festival; in fact, at least for the SS troops, its date was changed to Dec. 21., the date of the winter solstice. School prayers were banned and carols and Nativity plays were forbidden in the schools; and in 1938 even the name Christmas was changed to Yuletide. Crucifixes were eliminated from classrooms. Easter was turned into a  holiday that heralded the arrival of spring. If religion was tolerated, it had to be secularized  so that it would be compatible with the state's commitment to the greater good of a revived Germany.

He was willing to give the churches freedom, he said, "as long as they did not do anything subversive  to the state." Of course behind that promise lay his own definition of what might be subversive.

Article 24 of the party platform demanded, "liberty for all religious denominations in the State so far as they are not a danger... to the moral feelings of the German race." Hitler spoke approvingly of his "Positive Christianity" that would contribute to the German struggle. He assured [the churches] that he was doing what was best for Germany. Of course, what was "best" would be defined by him, not by the churches, not by the Bible, not even by natural law.

The Germans had become accustomed to the doctrine of the "two spheres," which was interpreted to mean that Christ is Lord of the church, but the Kaiser (or Caesar) is, after a manner of speaking, lord over the political sphere. Allegiance to the political sphere was as high and honorable a duty as was one's allegiance to God. Indeed, allegiance to God was best demonstrated by allegiance to the State.

In the end, [Hitler] wanted to transform the church so thoroughly that every vestige of Christianity would be smashed. As he himself mused, "One god must dominate another."

Source: When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany (2010) by Erwin W. Lutzer.

On the TV show Forbidden History it said Hitler didn’t like Christianity because people had equal rights in the eyes of God, but Hitler didn’t see everybody as having equal rights like Jewish people, gypsies, etc.