The Nazi's thought they were christians

I knew the Catholic church supported Hitler's regime, but the sight of Catholic priests giving the Nazi salute during that time is positively disturbing. It appears Hitler managed to link the whole Nazi idea to far right christianity, confirming the old adage that religion and politics should never be mixed.

The Nazi's considered themselves pure of course, but it was more than that. By mixing it up with christianity the message became a religious one; that the Jews were evil, and that Hitler was fighting the good fight for god and the motherland Germany. 

You can read a lot about it here, but I've put some of the more starling images in this post. Even if Hitler believed or didn't believe, it doesn't make much of a difference. His followers did, religiously. He managed to make them believe they were doing the will of god by following Hitler's christian principles of purity.

This 1930's poster borrows from a standard Christian image, where heavenly light from a dove
(representing the Holy Spirit) falls upon a particularly holy figure favoured by God.

 

On the founding of the [German] state Church. The cross still wasn't heavy enough

A Nazi propaganda poster - A Nazi party member draped in the Nazi flag, is threatened by a multi-headed Jewish snake, and supported and encouraged by a ghostly Christian knight with a halo, emphasising the godly and historic nature of German Christian enmity against the Jews..

The fact that the swastica is a traditional adaptation of a cross, did not escape cartoonists

Catholic Bishops giving the Nazi salute in honor of Hitler.
With Joseph Goebbels (far right) and Wilhelm Frick (second from right). Frick was instrumental in the racial policy of Nazi Germany drafting laws against Jewish citizens, including the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. Frick was later convicted of planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was also implicated in setting up concentration camps.