High expectations

Will Jesus return? And what will he do if he does? Will Jesus make things right? Will there be a final showdown between the forces of good and evil? Will evil people burn in hell forever? And what about Buddhists and atheists? They don’t believe in a god. And Hindus? They think there are many gods. Or Jews, Christians and Muslims?

And who are the good people, and who are the wicked? The Italian mafia bosses were devout Catholics. The usurers of Goldman Sachs claimed they were doing God’s work, which included defrauding entire nations. George Bush was talking to Jesus when he ordered the invasion of Iraq. A million people died in the subsequent war.

We are using more resources than the planet can deliver. Technology like artificial intelligence and weapons of mass destruction can end humanity as we know it. Perhaps we need a Messiah. But a Messiah already came, sort of at least, as a lesson for us all. Have we learned that lesson? And what is that lesson in the first place?

Adolf the Messiah or the Anti-Christ

At first sight, Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler appear opposites. Jesus is the personification of goodness, while Hitler is the epitome of evil. Christ stood at the cradle of Christianity, the Religion of Love. Jesus taught love would overcome hatred. ‘If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also,’ And, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ Hitler represents Nazism, an ideology of hate. A closer inspection reveals a few intriguing parallels.

His followers considered Adolf Hitler their saviour and worshipped him like one. Christians think Jesus will come down from heaven, and there will be a rapture when he returns (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Hitler was the first leader who flew around in an aeroplane to meet the cheering crowds. Rapture means ecstasy, enthusiasm and admiration. Few persons in history caused as much rapture as Hitler. The motto of the Third German Empire was, ‘One people, one empire, one leader.’ That is what Christians and Muslims expect to happen when Jesus returns.

In many ways, Hitler was a Messiah. Hitler told the Germans they were the chosen people for their superior race. Jews believe they are the chosen people because of the special relationship between God and the Jewish people. Like Moses, Hitler promised to end the unjust oppression, in this case, caused by the Treaty of Versailles. He claimed his Third German Empire would last a thousand years, while the Bible says that the reign of Christ would last a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-6). Hitler had a messiah complex.³ And seeking a definitive solution for the Jewish Question is a messianic project.

In traditional agricultural societies, lands remained within the family. The Jews were no exception. The Bible says the bond between people and land is not to be broken, and land is not to be sold (Leviticus 25:23). That is similar to the Nazi ideology of Blood and Soil, which focuses on ethnicity and homeland. It stresses the importance of the land people live on and celebrates rural living. The Nazis made selected lands hereditary. Those lands could not be mortgaged or sold.

Was Hitler the opposite of Christ, or an anti-Christ, or was he like Christ, as many of his followers expected him to be? Will there be a final reckoning in which billions of people die or face eternal torture in hell? The latter is worse than being gassed in a concentration camp because there is no end to it. To Hitler, World War II was about the survival of the German people. And to survive, you do whatever you believe is needed. And the stakes are much higher now. They are about the survival of humanity.

Hitler’s political views

Like many Germans, Hitler considered the Peace Treaty of Versailles unjust. The treaty stipulated that Germany accepted responsibility for causing World War I and had to pay massive reparations. The economist Keynes warned about the harsh peace terms imposed upon Germany. It could lead to World War II, he warned. These words turned out to be prophetic. Hitler also had a prophetic vision.

Hitler opposed interest after he had attended a lecture by Gottfried Feder named The Abolition of the Interest Servitude. It was the reason why Hitler joined the National Socialist Party. Hitler’s views on interest were similar to those expressed in the Bible and the Quran. The ideas of Feder became central in his views on international finance. Today, unchecked trade and finance might destroy human civilisation as we know it.

Hitler feared the Jews would take over Germany. In the United States, where the Jews could operate without restrictions, his paranoid vision more or less became a reality. Wealth inequality has increased in recent decades while Jews make up a disproportionate part of the American elites. And to get elected, American politicians must unconditionally support Israel. It is the irony of history, or perhaps, a joke from God.

Hitler could have been a painter if the Vienna Art School had not declined his application, and we would now have had a few additional acceptable wall decorations. Hitler would not have sought revenge if Germany had not lost World War I. Had he not lived in an impoverished multicultural neighbourhood in Vienna, he might not have thought mixing different people from different ethnic groups was a bad idea. And had there been no widespread anti-Semitism already, he would not have hated the Jews that much.

Hitler was good at giving speeches, which were angry rants that fired up his following. During the Great Depression, Hitler gained popularity and grabbed power in Germany. He started a war that killed fifty million people. Ten million people died in the Holocaust, including six million Jews. When American troops entered Germany in 1945, they were appalled by what they found in the concentration camps. Few people had imagined the Nazi regime was that gruesome.

Drug abuse

Hitler was a hypochondriac. He suffered from mood swings, Parkinson’s disease, gastrointestinal symptoms, skin problems and steady decline. His physician, a quack named Dr Theodor Morell, gave him unorthodox medications, often because Hitler demanded them, such as cocaine, speed, glucose, testosterone, estradiol, and corticosteroids. In addition, Hitler received a preparation made from a gun cleaner, a compound of small amounts of rat poison and atropine to treat his farting. He also took an extract of bulls’ semen and numerous vitamins and tonics.

These treatments may have contributed to Hitler’s erratic conduct and illnesses. Some of the potions, pills and injections he took may have aimed at improving his sexual performance so he could deal with the sexual appetite of his mistress, Eva Braun. There is no evidence to support the rumour that Hitler had only one testicle or a lesser-known fable that his penis was deformed.

Eva Braun

Eva Braun was the mistress and later wife of Adolf Hitler. Most historians consider Her an insignificant figure who did not participate in political decisions. But opinions differ. A letter demonstrates She knew of the concentration camps and the gas chambers. Some Nazi officials close to Hitler have said that Braun was at the centre of Hitler’s life for most of his twelve years in power. She was committed to Hitler, won his affection, gave him moral support, and enjoyed a sex life with him.

After learning about a failed plot to kill Hitler in 1944, She wrote to him, ‘From our first meeting, I swore to follow you anywhere even unto death. I live only for your love.’ And that was indeed how it ended. Over twenty plots to kill Hitler did not succeed, making Hitler believe a supernatural force protected him. When the end of the Third Empire neared, Braun became merrier. In the end, She married Hitler and committed suicide together with him. Perhaps this was the romantic ending She desired. So, was Eva Braun God and the mastermind behind Hitler’s rise and demise?

Coincidences could serve as a clue. Braun was Eva’s last name and the German word for brown. Her Adolf was born in Braunau am Inn, and brown is the colour associated with the Nazi ideology. Nazis were nicknamed brown shirts. And Eva is German for Eve. Eva had a passion for nude sunbathing, perhaps to become brown. And She loved being photographed naked. She had no shame like the original Eve in the Garden of Eden.

For Braun, the story may not have ended there. She might have turned into Marilyn Monroe. I contemplated that possibility when watching a Netflix documentary about Monroe’s life. Immediately after the thought, the word goddess appeared on the screen in massive lettering. That hint was as plain as it could get. Monroe had an affair with US President John F. Kennedy. He later dumped Monroe. Soon afterwards, he met the Grim Reaper in an epic scene dubbed Kennedy assassination. People still speculate about who assassinated Kennedy and why.

That might be of secondary importance. Perhaps messing with Monroe was not such a good idea after all. A set of intriguing coincidences surround the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. They appear to be part of an intricate scheme involving the premature deaths of US Presidents, including James A. Garfield. Furthermore, the Kennedy family suffered a series of accidents and early deaths called the Kennedy Curse. The book The Virtual Universe goes into more detail.

The prophecy of the Holocaust

Rumour has it that Nostradamus predicted the rise of Adolf Hitler, but that is incorrect. The word Hister in his ravings refers to the Danube. Far more ominous are the prophetic references to six million Jews in danger of being exterminated or a coming Holocaust of Jews that appeared in Jewish magazines before World War II. That is not as remarkable as it might seem. The figure emerged because six million Jews lived in the Russian Empire before World War I. Jews in Russia suffered from a hostile government and pogroms. Pogroms were riots incited to massacre or expel Jews.

The Russian Empire collapsed and became the Soviet Union. Still, the six million figure continued to circulate in Jewish publications. It subsequently became the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust.⁸ These prophetic statements are eerie, like the reference to the end date of World War I on the licence plate of Franz Ferdinand’s car. The most notable ones are listed below:

• In 1911, at the tenth Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, Max Nordau, co-founder of the World Zionist Organisation, together with Theodore Herzl, prophesied the annihilation of six million Jews.
• Shortly after World War I in 1919, Zionists feared that a Holocaust of six million Jews was imminent in Europe.
• According to the New York Times, in 1936, Zionists were lobbying for a Jewish state in Palestine to save the Jews from a European Holocaust. It was three years before World War II and five years before the extermination camps came into existence.
• In 1939, The Jewish Criterion predicted the coming world war would annihilate six million Jews in East and Central Europe.
• In 1940, the Jewish leader Nahum Goldmann predicted that if the Nazis achieved victory, six million Jews would be doomed to destruction.

A look in the mirror

The 1981 film The Wave was about a school teacher, Ben Ross. He showed his class a film about the Holocaust. A pupil asked him how the Germans could rally behind Adolf Hitler and commit these atrocities. Ross couldn’t answer the question and decided to start an experiment. He began with advice on proper posture and a few classroom rules for better efficiency. The pupils took it up with enthusiasm. The next day, he introduced The Wave, a youth movement with a secret salute and membership card.

Robert, an unpopular student, received the task of monitoring the other students, a position that filled him with pride. Robert began reporting unorthodox behaviour to Ross and the other Wave members. Two hundred more students joined. Wave members bullied other students. The school newspaper wrote a negative review about The Wave, so Wave members planned to attack the editor.

The following day, Ross said the Wave was a youth movement in schools spread in the country, and its leader would give a televised speech. The eager Wave students assembled in the auditorium with television monitors. To their horror, the monitors displayed a film of Adolf Hitler at a Nazi rally. Ross told them that this was their leader. The experiment showed that most of us are fit to become Nazis or would not resist a fascist takeover. In other words, similar atrocities can occur again, and they did.

We didn’t learn history’s lessons well enough because we never fairly assessed human nature and thus failed to draw the correct conclusions. If we had done so, we could have arrived at the disheartening conclusion that only a Messiah can save us.

Latest revision: 30 March 2024

Featured image: Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler

1. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 [link]
2. Revelation 20:1-6 [link]
3. WWII Adolf Hitler’s profile suggests a messiah complex. BBC (2012). [link]
4. Leviticus 25:23 [link]
5. Blood and soil. Wikipedia. [link]
6. Eva Braun. Wikipedia. [link]
7. Nazi loyalist and Adolf Hitler’s devoted aide: the true story of Eva Braun. The Guardian (2010). [link]
8. The Six Million Jews. [link]