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Adolf Hitler

2016-03-30T20:42:53Z

CatholicKing:

{{Dictator bio
| image =[[Image:Hitler7.JPG|200px]]
| name =Adolf Hitler
| birth =April 20, 1889 Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
| parents =Alois Hitler (Schicklgruber) Klara Pölzl
| religion =Lutheran (rejected), [[Evolutionism]]
| spouse =Eva Braun
| children =none
| death =April 30, 1945 Berlin, Germany
| deathmanner =Suicide by gunshot
| education =Realschule Linz, Austria
| country =[[Third Reich|Germany]]
| military =16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment Imperial German Army (1914-1918)
| rank =''Obergefreiter'' (Lance Corporal/Private First Class)
|burial = none, burned.
| polbeliefs =[[Socialism]] [[National socialism]] (Nazism)
| party =German Workers' Party (''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' 1919–1920) [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' 1920–1945)
| dictatordate =March 23, 1933
| war =[[World War II]] in Europe
| deathnumber =12,000,000+ exclusive of battle casualties
20,000,000 to 25,000,000 altogether

Rummel: 21,000,000
}}

'''Adolf Hitler''' (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was the Austrian-born Chancellor of [[Germany]] from January 30, 1933, and dictator of [[Third Reich|Nazi Germany]] from August 2, 1934 (as ''[[der Führer]]'') until his death on April 30, 1945. He was also the leader of the [[National Socialist German Workers Party]] (''National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei''; NSDAP or [[Nazi]] Party) which gained political power through threat, intimidation, and outright violence throughout Germany in the aftermath of the [[First World War]]. He was born a Catholic, but he never took religion seriously beyond initially rebelling against his Catholic father by showing preferences for Lutheran Protestantism in predominantly Catholic Austria, as well as using quasi-religious rhetoric in his book, [[Mein Kampf]] and in speeches in order to not lose potential religious supporters. He was far more interested in [[Social Darwinism]]. After having minor wounds from an assassination bombing attempt in 1944, Hitler abused drugs originally intended to help with his injuries long after he had recovered from his injuries.

Hitler in his youth was an financially-irresponsible Bohemian (a German word of the time roughly the same as [[Hippy]]) who became broke after spending his father's inheritance wandering around Austria as a watercolour artist, practicing [[vegetarianism]], and rarely attempting to seek serious employment. Hitler worked with a Jewish art dealer and after being rejected entry into Vienna's leading art school due to his unoriginal art, Hitler was a complete failure and broke. Rather than accept responsibility for his Bohemian lifestyle, Hitler in denial and increasing signs of the mental illness of [[psychosis]], followed the political current in Europe at the time of blaming Jews for exploiting him. [[Anti-Semitism]] had become a significant phenomenon in Germany ever since [[Martin Luther]] during his severe mental illness at the end of his life had become anti-Semitic.

However, the anti-Semites in Germany refused to acknowledge that Luther prior to the onset of mental illness was highly sympathetic towards Jews. It was adopted by a number of misguided conservative Protestants who were not aware of Luther's mental state when he became anti-Semitic. Hitler being rebellious to his Catholic father took up a brief interest in Lutheranism and may have been influenced by Luther's anti-Semitic remarks. Hitler without any prospects sought to be conscripted into the German Army (but refused to serve the Austrian army due to many Jews being in it), there Hitler mixed his anti-Semitic views with some of the anti-Semitic factional-Lutheran conservative nationalist aspects (that left-wing historians exaggerate by calling Hitler "far right") in order to be accepted amongst conservative German army officers but also began to adopt radical socialist ideas as revolutionary socialist movements in Germany and elsewhere grew in strength.

After World War I, Hitler acted as an army political agent to investigate a small pan-German nationalist party called the German Workers' Party that used the anti-Semitic factional-Lutheran nationalist theme in combination with a revolutionary socialist agenda that denounced Jews as being responsible for capitalism, exploitation of Germany, and for Germany losing World War I. It was anti-Marxist - though only because [[Karl Marx]] was a Jew and due to their anti-Semitic hatred, and saw Marx as no different than capitalist Jews. The Party was disorganized and Hitler with his strong anti-Semitism took advantage of the situation and used demagoguery to raise himself in the party. In February 1920 the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party). He used the party and its members to exact revenge for his psychotic perception of Jews and capitalists as having ruined him in his youth, along with the belief that weak civilian leaders and Jews were responsible for Germany's loss in the First World War, and his psychotic, megalomaniac view of himself as being the "Leader" (German: ''Fuhrer'') of Germany. Many leaders of the Nazi Party were mentally-unbalanced people with delusions of grandeur of both themselves and Germany, such as [[Heinrich Himmler]], and [[Hermann Goring]] who was a morphine addict and an animal rights activist who preferred to have Jews used for scientific experiments.

Due to the thematic influence of the historic anti-Semitic faction of conservative Lutheran extremists on the Nazi movement, left-wing Marxist historians have exaggerated the role of conservative Lutherans in the Nazi movement and because of it claim that the Nazis are "far right". They completely ignore and deny the far left socialist parts of the Nazis, out of political dogmatism just as the Nazis themselves completely denied the socialist elements of Marxism because Marx was Jewish. And left-wing historians almost always neglect to note the very clear similarity of Hitler's loose Bohemian lifestyle as a youth to that of Hippies.

Adolf Hitler was an [[Evolution|evolutionary]] [[racist]] and [[socialism|socialist]] (see also: [[evolutionary racism]]).<ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=268</ref><ref>http://mises.org/daily/1937</ref><ref>http://www.hourofthetime.com/socialist.htm</ref> Hitler’s policies and beliefs resulted in the [[Genocide|mass extermination]] of the [[Jews]], [[Gypsies]], and other peoples he considered “[[Racial Supremacy|inferior]]” throughout central and eastern [[Europe]] and were directly responsible for the outbreak of [[World War II]], which caused the deaths of untold millions on and off the battlefield and reportedly ended only after Hitler's [[suicide]] in his Berlin bunker.

==Early life==
[[File:Hitler Roses.jpg|thumb|Roses by Adolf Hitler.]]
Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, [[Austria]]. Hitler's father, Alois (born 1837), was a customs official who was himself born out of wedlock, carrying for a time his mother's name, Schicklgruber. By 1876 he had his baptismal entry corrected in his church records, establishing his father as Johan Heidler, which was altered slightly to Hitler.

When his father retired the family moved to Linz, Austria, where it remained a favorite for young Adolf for the rest of his life, and where he gave his wish to be buried. When Alois died in 1903 he left enough of a pension to support his wife and children; Adolf would take his and live off of it in Vienna after leaving school, dreaming of becoming an artist. Although somewhat competent as a painter of landscapes and architecture, his renderings of humans were considered “lifeless” and “crude” by the standards of the Academy of Fine Arts, and his application was rejected twice. Remaining in [[Vienna]], he moved from one cheap flop house to another, painting postcards and advertisements to earn a meager living after his allowance had dried up. By then he had developed traits which characterized his life as a whole: secretiveness, loneliness, a Spartan mode of everyday life, and a hatred of the cosmopolitan, multinational character that was the makeup of Vienna. ''He never sought a proper job or regular employment. Instead he immersed himself in the works of [[Hegel]], [[Nietzsche]], and the anti-Semitic writings of the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain. He loved the operas of Wagner, and the stories of the Nordic Gods... In early 1910, he entered a shelter for the homeless, populated in the main by poor Jews, on Meldemenstrasse, and was eating at soup kitchens. By this time he had pawned all his belongings.''<ref> [https://web.archive.org/web/20111015014300/http://socyberty.com/history/young-adolf-the-adolescent-hitler-and-beyond/ Young Adolf: The Adolescent Hitler and Beyond.]</ref>

==Who And What He Was==
[[Image:Cupid Complaining to Venus by Lucas Cranach.jpg|150px|left|thumb|This painting, one of the best-loved paintings in the National Gallery, had once belonged to Hitler. New evidence has come to light that Lucas Cranach's ''Cupid Complaining to Venus'', currently on loan to an exhibition in Bristol, hung on the sitting-room wall of his flat in Munich. <ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/mar/28/art.secondworldwar Hitler owned painting now in National Gallery]</ref>]]
[[Elie Wiesel]] wrote famously, and most eloquently about Hitler in 1998:
<blockquote>''"At the same time that he terrorized his adversaries, he knew how to please, impress and charm the very interlocutors from whom he wanted support. Diplomats and journalists insist as much on his charm as they do on his temper tantrums. The savior admired by his own as he dragged them into his madness, the Satan and exterminating angel feared and hated by all others, Hitler led his people to a shameful defeat without precedent. That his political and strategic ambitions have created a dividing line in the history of this turbulent and tormented century is undeniable: there is a before and an after. By the breadth of his crimes, which have attained a quasi-ontological dimension, he surpasses all his predecessors: as a result of Hitler, man is defined by what makes him inhuman. With Hitler at the head of a gigantic laboratory, life itself seems to have changed."''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"How did this Austrian without title or position manage to get himself elected head of a German nation renowned for its civilizing mission? How to explain the success of his cheap demagogy in the heart of a people so proud of having inherited the genius of a Wolfgang von Goethe and an Immanuel Kant?"''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"Was there no resistance to his disastrous projects? There was. But it was too feeble, too weak and too late to succeed. German society had rallied behind him: the judicial, the educational, the industrial and the economic establishments gave him their support. Few politicians of this century have aroused, in their lifetime, such love and so much hate; few have inspired so much historical and psychological research after their death. Even today, works on his enigmatic personality and his cursed career are best sellers everywhere. Some are good, others are less good, but all seem to respond to an authentic curiosity on the part of a public haunted by memory and the desire to understand."''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"We think we know everything about the nefarious forces that shaped his destiny: his unhappy childhood, his frustrated adolescence; his artistic disappointments; his wound received on the front during World War I; his taste for spectacle, his constant disdain for social and military aristocracies; his relationship with [[Eva Braun]], who adored him; the cult of the very death he feared; his lack of scruples with regard to his former comrades of the SA, whom he had assassinated in 1934; his endless hatred of [[Jews]], whose survival enraged him — each and every phase of his official and private life has found its chroniclers, its biographers."''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"And yet. There are, in all these givens, elements that escape us. How did this unstable paranoid find it within himself to impose gigantic hope as an immutable ideal that motivated his nation almost until the end? Would he have come to power if Germany were not going through endless economic crises, or if the winners in 1918 had not imposed on it conditions that represented a national humiliation against which the German patriotic fiber could only revolt? We would be wrong to forget: Hitler came to power in January 1933 by the most legitimate means. His [[Nationalist Socialist Party]] won a majority in the parliamentary elections. The aging [[Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg]] had no choice but to allow him, at age 43, to form the new government, marking the end of the Weimar Republic. And the beginning of the [[Third Reich]], which, according to Hitler, would last 1,000 years."''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"From that moment on, events cascaded. The burning of the [[Reichstag]] came only a little before the openings of the first concentration camps, established for members of the opposition. Fear descended on the country and squeezed it in a vise. Great writers, musicians and painters went into exile to France and the U.S. Jews with foresight emigrated toward Palestine. The air of Hitler's Germany was becoming more and more suffocating. Those who preferred to wait, thinking that the Nazi regime would not last, could not last, would regret it later, when it was too late."''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"The fact is that Hitler was beloved by his people — not the military, at least not in the beginning, but by the average Germans who pledged to him an affection, a tenderness and a fidelity that bordered on the irrational. It was idolatry on a national scale. One had to see the crowds who acclaimed him. And the women who were attracted to him. And the young who in his presence went into ecstasy. Did they not see the hateful mask that covered his face? Did they not divine the catastrophe he bore within himself?<ref name="time">http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hitler.html"''</ref></blockquote>

{{Clear}}

== Beliefs ==

According to Albert Speer, Hitler never left the Catholic Church, but was hostile to its teachings. He did admire its power. Hitler only mentioned [[Christianity]] in his speeches to gain votes and favor. Any voiced tolerance during the 1930s changed to targeted persecution, mainly of Protestant "resisters" to Nazism.<ref>McNab, Chris. ''The Third Reich''. (2009) pp. 182, 183</ref>

Although Hitler may have had some Christian rhetoric in his speeches, he certainly rejected it on a personal level. In the book, ''Hitler's Table Talk'', it reveals that Hitler thought of Christianity as a great "scourge" of history.<ref>http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0110.htm {{dead link}}</ref>

See also: [[Atheists, Adolf Hitler and the no true Scottsman fallacy]]

=== Hitler, Nazism and socialism ===

''For more information please see:'' [[Nazism and socialism]]

[[Image:Hitler.jpg|thumb|250px|right|One of the most well known political parties of the 20th century which was [[socialism|socialistic]] was the [[National Socialist German Workers Party]] (NAZI) which was headed by the [[Evolutionary racism|evolutionary racist]] Adolf Hitler.<ref>http://mises.org/daily/1937</ref><ref>http://creation.com/darwinism-and-the-nazi-race-holocaust</ref><ref>http://www.hourofthetime.com/socialist.htm</ref> ]]
The [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]] declares:
{{cquote|The identification of [[Nazi]] [[Germany]] as a [[socialism|socialist]] state was one of the many great contributions of [[Ludwig von Mises]]...

The basis of the claim that Nazi Germany was capitalist was the fact that most industries in Nazi Germany appeared to be left in private hands.

What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.<ref>http://mises.org/daily/1937</ref>}}

=== Hitler and the Theory of Evolution ===
''For more information please see:'' [[Evolutionary racism]] and [[Social effects of the theory of evolution]]

[[Image:Hitlerrisetopower.jpg|right|225px|thumb]]
The staunch [[evolution|evolutionist]] Stephen Gould admitted the following:
{{cquote|[[Ernst Haeckel|[Ernst] Haeckel]] was the chief apostle of evolution in [[Germany]].... His evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for racial purity and unflinching devotion to a "just" state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others; the irrational mysticism that had always stood in strange communion with his brave words about objective science - all contributed to the rise of Nazism. - Stephen J. Gould, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1977, pp.77-78).<ref>http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/social.html</ref>}}

Robert E.D. Clark in his work ''Darwin: Before and After'' wrote concerning Hitler's evolutionary racism:
{{cquote|The Germans were the higher race, destined for a glorious evolutionary future. For this reason it was essential that the Jews should be segregated, otherwise mixed marriages would take place. Were this to happen, all nature’s efforts 'to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being may thus be rendered futile' (''Mein Kampf''). <ref>http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1675</ref>}}

Hitler wrote in ''Mein Kampf'':
{{cquote|The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he, after all, is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development (Hoherentwicklung) of organic living beings would be unthinkable.<ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=268</ref>}}

Dr. Robert E.D. Clark wrote in his work ''Darwin, Before and After'' the following regarding Hitler and the theory of evolution: “Adolf Hitler’s mind was captivated by evolutionary teaching — probably since the time he was a boy. Evolutionary ideas — quite undisguised — lie at the basis of all that is worst in Mein Kampf — and in his public speeches”.<ref name="courier">http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/the_holocaust_why_did_it_happen</ref>
[[Image:5712dawkins.jpg|alt=Richard Dawkins|right|thumbnail|200px|[[Richard Dawkins]] is a prominent [[atheism|atheist]] and [[evolution|evolutionist]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] stated in an interview: “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."<ref>http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-world/richard-dawkins-the-atheist-evangelist</ref> ]]
Richard Hickman in his work ''Biocreation'' concurs and wrote the following:
{{cquote|It is perhaps no coincidence that Adolf Hitler was a firm believer in and preacher of evolutionism. Whatever the deeper, profound, complexities of his [[psychosis]], it is certain that [the concept of struggle was important for]. . . his book, Mein Kampf clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and extermination of the weak to produce a better society. <ref>http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v08n3p24.htm</ref>}}

Noted evolutionary [[anthropology|anthropologist]] Sir Arthur Keith conceded the following in regards to Hitler: “The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution”.<ref name="courier" />

[[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning author Marilynne Robinson wrote the following regarding Hitler's racism in the November 2006 issue of ''Harper’s'' magazine:
{{cquote|While it is true that persecution of the Jews has a very long history in [[Europe]], it is also true that science in the twentieth century revived and absolutized persecution by giving it a fresh rationale — Jewishness was not religious or cultural, but genetic. Therefore no appeal could be made against the brute fact of a Jewish grandparent.

[[Richard Dawkins|[Richard] Dawkins]] deals with all this in one sentence. Hitler did his evil "in the name of ... an insane and unscientific [[eugenics]] theory." But eugenics is science as surely as totemism is religion. That either is in error is beside the point. Science quite appropriately acknowledges that error should be assumed, and at best it proceeds by a continuous process of criticism meant to isolate and identify error. So bad science is still science in more or less the same sense that bad religion is still religion. That both of them can do damage on a huge scale is clear. The prestige of both is a great part of the problem, and in the modern period the credibility of anything called science is enormous. As the history of eugenics proves, science at the highest levels is no reliable corrective to the influence of cultural prejudice but is in fact profoundly vulnerable to it.

There is indeed historical precedent in the [[Spanish Inquisition]] for the notion of hereditary Judaism. But the fact that the worst religious thought of the sixteenth century can be likened to the worst scientific thought of the twentieth century hardly redounds to the credit of science.<ref>http://solutions.synearth.net/2006/10/20</ref><ref>http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/someone-finally-said-it-dawkinss-hysterical-scientism/</ref>}}

[[Evolution|Evolutionist]] and [[atheism|atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]] stated in an interview: “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question."<ref>http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-world/richard-dawkins-the-atheist-evangelist</ref> The interviewer wrote, regarding the Hitler comment, "I was stupefied. He had readily conceded that his own [[philosophy|philosophical]] position did not offer a rational basis for moral judgments. His intellectual honesty was refreshing, if somewhat disturbing on this point."<ref>http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-world/richard-dawkins-the-atheist-evangelist</ref>

=== Adolf Hitler and Abortion ===

''For more information see:'' [[Abortion and Adolf Hitler]]

In 1942 Adolf Hitler declared:
{{cquote|In view of the large families of the Slav native population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many abortions as possible. We are not interested in seeing the non-[[German]] population multiply…We must use every means to instill in the population the idea that it is harmful to have several children, the expenses that they cause and the dangerous effect on woman's health… It will be necessary to open special institutions for abortions and doctors must be able to help out there in case there is any question of this being a breach of their professional ethics. <ref>http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07090708.html</ref>}}

== Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism ==

''See also:'' [[Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
![[Communism|Communist]] Manifesto
![[Nazi]] Party Platform
!Analysis
|-
|1
|"Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes."
|"We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land."
|The stripping away of land from private owners. [[Liberalism]] today demands "eminent domain" on property.
|-
|2
|"A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
|"We demand the nationalization of all trusts...profit-sharing in large industries...a generous increase in old-age pensions...by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor...and the creation of a national (folk) army."
|The points raised in the [[Nazi]] platform demand an increase in taxes to support them. Liberalism today demands heavy progressive and graduated income taxes.
|-
|3
|"Abolition of all rights of inheritance."
|"That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished."
|Liberalism today demands a "death tax" on anyone inheriting an estate.
|-
|4
|"Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels."
|"We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately."
|The Nuremburg Laws of 1934 allowed Germany to take Jewish property.
|-
|5
|"Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly."
|"We demand the nationalization of all trusts."
|Central control of the financial system.
|-
|6
|"Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State."
|"We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press...editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens...Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State...the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper..."
|Central control of the press. Liberals today demand control or suppression of talk radio and Fox News.
|-
|7
|"Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."
|"In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State. "
|Central control of education, with an emphasis on doing things their way. Liberals today are doing things ''their way'' in our schools.
|-
|}

==War==
[[Image:Hitler munich1914.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Hitler in the crowd in Munich, 1914, reacting to the news of Germany's entry in the First World War.]]
By 1913 Hitler was in Munich, Germany, with war clouds on the horizon. Classified as unfit for service in the Austrian army (possibly by faking, as he did not like the thought of serving Austria) in 1914, he volunteered for the German Army, joining the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, greeting the war with enthusiasm, and finding the military discipline and comradeship satisfying. He served during the entire [[First World War]] as a messenger carrying dispatches between units, and often at the front lines under fire; he was wounded in 1916, and gassed in 1918. His bravery during this time earned him the [[Iron Cross]], 2nd Class, in December, 1914, and in August 1918 he was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class – a rare decoration for a corporal. But the gassing would take him out of the war and into a hospital, where he would be told the heart-wrenching news of Germany’s defeat the following November.

==Path to power==
After the war ended, Hitler's future seemed uncertain. There was much discontent among demobilized veterans because of the lack of employment. The German military had felt it had not been defeated; indeed, the German Army stood on foreign soil when the Armistice was signed November 11, 1918 and not a square inch of German soil had been occupied. This was despite the fact that the German Army's strongest position, the Hindenburg line, had been broken by the Allies, and the German Army itself was in full retreat. However, the army felt they had done their job, and the nation had been "stabbed in the back" by a gang of traitors made up of civilian political leaders who betrayed the Fatherland. The "myth" that Germany had been defeated was the "big lie" Hitler spoke of, as if repeating it often enough would cause people to believe it.

After his discharge from the hospital, Hitler acted as an army political agent, assigned in Munich to gather information on the various political parties which had spring up amid the social chaos following Germany’s defeat. In September 1919, he was given orders to investigate the relatively-minor German Workers’ Party (''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei''; DAP); intrigued by the party’s apparatus and its racial, pan-German nationalism, he joined, becoming its 55th member. He remained on the army payroll until he was discharged in March 1920. By then, the party had changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei''; NSDAP) or Nazi Party. Hitler had already devoted himself to improving the party’s propaganda, as well as his own position within.

Conditions in Germany fostered the development of the party. Economic woes brought widespread discontent, added to the furor surrounding the loss of the war and the harsh terms heaped upon Germany by the Allied Powers in the Versailles Peace Treaty. Bavaria’s traditional separatism from the central government in Berlin made current conditions especially sharp, and Hitler was savvy enough to take full advantage of them. When he joined, he found the party ineffective in leadership and uncertain as to its aims; he accepted the party program, but regarded it as a means to an end. He caused friction with other members of the party, and their attempts to control him caused a threat of resignation; realizing that the future of the party now depended on Hitler, who clearly had a talent of organization, fund collecting, and above all, speaking, they declined to accept it; from July, 1921 Hitler was the party leader with nearly unlimited power. From his party newspaper, ''Völkischer Beobachter'' ("Popular Observer"), he spewed out propaganda. The meetings where he spoke grew from mere handfuls to hundreds, and then to thousands. A man of charismatic personality, he quickly attracted a circle of loyal and devoted followers: [[Rudolf Hess]], [[Hermann Göring]], Julius Streicher, and Alfred Rosenberg.

Munich was also a gathering place for former servicemen dissatisfied with conditions in the country; members of the Freikorps, which had been organized after the war from army units that refused to return to civilian life; and those civilians who plotted against the republic. Many of these men joined the Nazi Party. Among them was a staff member of the district command who had joined the German Workers’ Party before Hitler, [[Ernst Röhm]], a pudgy man with a scared face who saw his own ambition in helping further Hitler’s rise within the party. Röhm recruited what came to be known as the "Brown Shirts", the violent squads used by the Nazis to attack rival socialists, battle Communists, and to protect party meetings whenever Hitler was speaking. By 1921 they were organized into a private army of the Party called the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'', abbreviated to SA.

==The Beer Hall Putsch==
Germany in 1923 was marked by social and political unrest caused by hyperinflation. In this time Hitler was able convince [[Erich Ludendorff]], an accomplished general and leader of the German forces in the first World War, to join him in a coup d'etat (''Putsch'' in German). When Hitler learned that the nationalist prime minister of Bavaria was giving a speech to 3000 officials in one of Munich's biggest beer halls (the Haufbrau Haus), he ordered his paramilitaries to surround the building. Hitler went inside and took the prime minister hostage, announced a revolution, and attempted to convince him to join the coup against Berlin and become member in his new administration. The Bavarian prime minister agreed under pressure, but informed the nation via radio later that night that he did not support Hitler. The prime minister also informed the federal government in Berlin; the putsch had begun to fail.

The next morning, 9 November 1923, Hitler and Ludendorff were marching with approximately 2000 partly armed supporters through Munich in a show of strength to regain the momentum. In the ensuing fight between Hitler's marchers and a cordon of police and army units at least 14 Nazi supporters and three policemen were killed and hundreds wounded. Ludendorff handed himself over to the authorities, while Hitler fled soon after the fighting began. Hitler was arrested a few days later at a friend's house, were had been in hiding since the failed coup. Ludendorff was acquitted of all charges, while Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison (he would do eight months). <ref>http://history1900s.about.com/cs/thirdreich/a/beerhallputsch_2.htm</ref><ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/putsch2.htm</ref> The Bavarian prime minister, who foiled the plan, was killed in 1934 in the "Night of the Long Knives".

===''Mein Kampf''===
{{main|Mein Kampf}}
Hitler had his inner circle as frequent visitors in his prison cell, which was made more comfortable due to his celebrity. While there, he dictated to Rudolf Hess the first volume of ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' (“My Struggle”), his political autobiography and a compendium of his many ideas, including his [[evolutionist]] ideas.

Hitler believed in the inequality of the races, nations, and individuals as part of the natural order of mankind, and chief among them was the exalted “Aryan race”, and the greatest of the Aryans were the Germans. It was the German, according to Hitler, that gave the world civilization and the arts; to safeguard the German people as a race (the “Volk”), they would need to be united under a single leader (the Führer), where they would be protected from their three principle enemies: Marxism, which included social democracy as well as communism; democracy and its mob-rule, as shown by the failings of the Weimar Republic; and above all what Hitler called the poisoners of humanity, the Jews. “Rational anti-Semitism must lead to systematic legal opposition,” he wrote in 1919. “Its final objective must be the removal of the Jews altogether.” In Mein Kampf, he told the world that the Jew was the “destroyer of culture,” “a parasite within the nation,” and “a menace.”

From "Mein Kampf":
{{cquote|The Jew "... he blares out his merits to the rest of the world until people really begin to believe in them. Anyone who does not believe in them is doing him a bitter injustice. In a short time he begins to twist things around to make it look as if all the injustice in the world had always been done to him and not the other way around." <ref> [http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch11.html Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.]</ref> }}

{{cquote| Hitler portrays Jews as leaders in politics and banking, both groups seeking to strengthen their cause, [[Zionism]], to ensure Jewish domination. From his Social Darwinist perspective, Hitler perceived a racial war as inevitable and he sought to halt the "[[Jewish]] drive towards world conquest"... As Berlin collapsed around him, Adolf asserted: "Out of the ruins of our towns and monuments hatred will grow against those finally responsible for everything, International Jewry." <ref> [http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=32043&amid=30237234 Mein Kampf – The Text, its Themes and Hitler’s Vision] Robert Carr dissects a book frequently referred to but seldom read. </ref>
}}

==Rebuilding the Nazi Party==

[[Image:Hitler-3.jpg‎ |right|200px|thumb|Hitler in car, saluting passing S.A. at one of many parades.]]
Internal dissension within the party caused it to languish while Hitler was in prison. When released in December 1924, he saw difficulties in the country that had not existed before the Putsch, namely currency reform that brought economic stability, and the scaling back of the war reparations as a result of the Dawes Plan. Hitler was also forbidden to speak in public, and remained so until 1928; nonetheless he worked to rebuild the party and re-establish his own position within it as leader, despite Gregor Strasser’s opposition in northern Germany. By 1927 the number of Nazis was in the hundreds of thousands.

A new period of political and economic instability began with the onset of the Great Depression which threw millions out of work in Europe and North America. To campaign against the [[Young Plan]] (a second renegotiation of war reparations payments) Hitler made an alliance with one of Germany’s leading nationalists, Alfred Hugenberg, whose newspapers enabled Hitler to reach a national audience for the first time. The alliance also had another advantage: it enabled him to seek support from many in business and industry who controlled funds going into politics, and who themselves were desirous of seeing Germany under the control of a strong anti-Soviet and anti-Communist regime. The subsidies Hitler received placed the Nazi Party on a strong financial footing, enabling him to make his emotional appeal to the lower middle class and the unemployed in his faith that Germany would recover from its suffering and be a great nation once more. The alliance with the industrialists also demonstrated another aspect of Hitler, a skill of effectively using those that would use him, which many would discover when it was too late.

The electoral strength of the Nazis grew during the Depression, as unceasing propaganda accused the government of failing to improve conditions for the working man. By the fall of 1930 the Nazis captured more than 18 percent of the vote, compared to just 2.6 percent in 1928. Hitler captured 36.8 percent of the vote when he opposed Paul von Hindenburg in the 1932 presidential election; his mass following put him in such a strong position that he entered a series of closed-door intrigues with Franz von Papen, Oskar Hindenburg, and Otto Meissner, all sharing a fear and loathing of a communist government. Despite the party losing votes in the November, 1932 election, Hitler insisted on nothing less than the office of chancellor for himself. For him, it was all or nothing. Hindenburg offered it to him on January 30, 1933.

==In power==
Almost immediately, Hitler established himself as dictator. Less than a month after taking office, on February 27 the Reichstag building was set on fire under mysterious circumstances (but officially blamed on a feeble-minded Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe); Hitler soon after succeeded in getting several decrees passed removing much of the freedom guaranteed the constitution in the name of state security, and which also allowed an intensified campaign of violence against dissidents. Incredibly, in a special election set in those conditions on March 5, the Nazis won 43.9 percent of the vote. On March 21, the new Reichstag assembled at the Potsdam Church, as much a show of unity between the old guard under Hindenburg and the Nazis as it was a show of peace. Two days later the Enabling Act was passed, giving Hitler full powers; with the exception of the Nazis, all other political parties, including those which had helped pass the Enabling Act, ceased to exist within three months. Many of their leaders were imprisoned in concentration camps.

===Night of the Long Knives===
[[Image:HitlerRohm1933.JPG|right|200px|thumb|Hitler with Ernst Röhm in 1933]]
[[File:Diego Rivera, Hitler, Panel of Mural for the New Workers School, New York City, 1933..jpg|thumb|left|Hitler by [[Diego Rivera]], 1933.]]
Hitler, however, did not wish to start an immediate revolution. In order to implement his ideas he still needed the support of the army. But he did have one growing problem that was a thorn in the army’s side, the three million-plus men of the [[SA]] and their leader, [[Ernst Röhm]], who wanted nothing less than to merge the SA into the much smaller army, with himself in overall command. At first, Hitler tried getting Röhm’s support by persuasion, but Hitler’s inner circle was for removing him by any means possible. On June 29, 1934, Hitler ordered a purge, flew towards a resort near Munich where a number of SA leaders were vacationing, and had them all arrested; many would be shot without trial. Refusing to shoot himself when offered, Röhm was killed in his cell at Dachau, his last words, ironically, “Mein Führer, mein Führer!” <ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/roehm.htm</ref><ref>http://www.adolfhitler.ws/lib/nsdap/Rohm.html {{dead link}}</ref><ref>http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/roehm/index.html</ref> The purge took place between June 30 and July 2, 1934.

On July 13, Hitler gave speech in the Reichstag, announcing that some seventy-four individuals had been shot for threatening the stability of the Reich.
:''"If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people…It was no secret that this time the revolution would have to be bloody; when we spoke of it we called it 'The Night of the Long Knives.' Everyone must know for all future time that if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot." ''

Hitler also used this event to settle his account with other opponents, such as Georg Strasser, who stood for a more socialist and less racist national socialism, and the former Bavarian prime minister who foiled the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Satisfied that the SA leadership was thoroughly broken up (thousands of SA members were either arrested or killed that night), the army approved of Hitler’s actions. Hindenburg died a few days later on August 2, and Hitler merged the office of president with the chancellorship, and with it the supreme command of the German armed forces. During this time the world was slowly recovering economically from the Depression, but it quickened in Germany, coincidently with Hitler’s rise to power. Taking credit for the recovery made him very popular, bringing him a 90 percent approval rating in a voter plebiscite that year.

===Beginnings of expansion===
In matters of state, the running of domestic affairs was left to subordinates, which was something Hitler had little attention for. Foreign policy always peaked his interest, in so much as to the advantages of a “Greater Germany”, which was his chief ambition. The first part of realizing this, according to ''Mein Kampf'', was to be a reunion of the German peoples within Europe; the second would be an expansion of Germany to the east (lebensraum). Expanding would mean a renewed conflict with the Slavic peoples, whom Hitler intended to serve as slaves to the “New German Order.” To follow through on his ambitions, he would have to remove Poland and the Soviet Union as countries; France also would have to be stabilized in the west, as she was Germany’s enemy for more than a century. He counted as possible allies Italy, with its fascist government under [[Benito Mussolini]], and Britain, whom he regarded as having a similar, Teutonic heritage.
[[Image:Hitler6-thumb.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Hitler with his dog, Blondie.]]
Before any of his ambitions could take place, there was one thing he detested which needed immediate removal: the restrictions placed upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. Posing as a man of peace to allay suspicions, he insisted that he was a champion of Europe wishing only for the removal of the inequalities leveled by the treaty, and posturing as a shield against Bolshevism. In October, 1933, he had Germany withdraw from the [[League of Nations]]. The following January he signed a non-aggression treaty with Poland. His individual repudiations of parts of the treaty were followed by offers of negotiations for new agreements, while maintaining Germany’s limited ambitious nature.

While this was going on, Germany was steadily building up the armed forces. Rigorous training using wooden guns and trucks marked as “tanks” got needed battlefield training for officers. Potential fighter pilots began their training in gliders at public demonstrations – Germany, under terms of the treaty, was not allowed an air force – and later they would fly in new civilian stunt planes and transports, which on the drawing board were designed to be rapidly turned into fighters and bombers. Conscription was introduced in January, 1935, and in June of that year Hitler successfully signed a naval treaty with Britain, giving him rights to a respectable navy; but even while the ink was drying, Germany was secretly building a large U-boat fleet.

The matter of reuniting the German peoples came into being in July, 1934, and here Hitler overreached. German organizations were covertly aiding Austrian Nazis in the overthrow of their government, culminating in an attempted revolt as well as murdering Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. When the attempt clearly failed, Hitler denied involvement. In January, 1935, a plebecite was introduced in the Saarland; more than 90 percent voted to return the territory to Germany. Then in March, 1936, came his greatest slap to the Versailles Treaty: against the advice of his generals, and in open defiance of France and Britain, he ordered troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. Germany was once again becoming the leading power in continental Europe. By October, 1936, Germany had signed an alliance with Italy, proclaiming a “Rome-Berlin axis,” followed by the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. All three countries would sign a single, mutual alliance pact, the following year.

==Anschluss==

Removed from their offices in January 1938 were Hjalmar Schacht (economic ministry); Werner von Fritsch (soldiers’ representative); and Konstantin von Neurath (foreign office); the reason being was they were not fully accepting of Nazism. Beginning his plans of German conquest, he started with Austria. Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, was invited to Berchtesgaden in February, where he was browbeaten and forced to sign an agreement placing Austrian Nazis in the government. When Schuschnigg resisted and announced a plebiscite for Austrian voters concerning independence, Hitler ordered German troops into Austria, completely taking over the country within days. His return to Vienna was in triumph; enthusiastic crowds greeted him by the tens of thousands, in sharp contrast to the scenes of privation he had gone through there in his youth. Austria was annexed (Anschluss) to the Reich a short time later.

While the Anschluss was going on, Hitler was speaking in friendly terms with Czechoslovakia; nearly as soon as Austria ceased to exist, Hitler proceeded with his plans against the Czechs. The northwestern region of Czechoslovakia was the Sudetenland, inhabited by a German minority, and the leader of them, Konrad Henlein, was instructed to make impossible demands for those Germans on the Czech government. In the interest of preventing a general war (which Hitler wanted), Mussolini and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain concluded a peaceful agreement in Munich on September 30, giving Hitler the Sudetenland without firing a shot. Chamberlain would return to Britain, waiving the agreement signed between himself and Hitler, declaring it to be “peace for our time”, but his act of appeasement would ensure the peace would last only a few more months. Despite assurances that the Sudetenland was his last territorial demands, “Czechia”, as the remainder of Czechoslovakia was called, became a German protectorate on March 15, 1939, when Hitler ordered it occupied. Just over a week later, Lithuania was forced to cede to Germany the territory of Memel (Klaipeda), on the border of East Prussia.

==Poland==
Poland’s turn was next, and listening to the rumblings was France and Britain, which signed guarantees of mutual assistance to the Polish nation should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler also signed pacts: a “Pact of Steel” with Italy, strengthening the alliance between Rome and Berlin, and then a treaty that caught many off-guard: a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union on August 23. A secret clause in the pact allowed for the simultaneous invasion of Poland, and the division of the country in the center from north to south. Poland was invaded on September 1; two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Hitler assumed his own war strategy. Poland was conquered within weeks, and when a desired peace accord with Britain failed to materialize, he ordered the army to prepare for a western offensive. Norway was invaded and occupied, forestalling a British move on that country; Denmark was occupied by April, 1940. Hitler than adopted General Erich von Manstien’s plan for an offensive against France itself, which would move through neutral Belgium’s Ardenne Forest on May 10, taking that country as a matter of convenience, as well as avoiding the static fortifications of France’s Maginot Line. The German forces, extremely successful in their operations, reached the coastal ports on the English Channel in 10 days; Holland and Belgium both surrendered within days. But south of Dunkirk was where the army was ordered to halt. Hitler had hoped even at this stage in the battle that Britain would commit to peace; instead, the halting of the German army allowed the British to remove 170,000 fighting men.

On June 10, Italy entered the war as German tanks were sweeping across northern France. Hitler signed an armistice with France on June 22, the signing taking place in the same rail car at the same site where the Germans surrendered in 1918.

Having failed in getting the British to sign an armistice, Hitler prepared his forces for “Operation Sea Lion,” the invasion of Britain. However, the Luftwaffe was defeated in its attempt to gain air superiority over British airspace, also known as the Battle Of Britain, which forced the permanent postponement of Sealion.

Facing the failure of the British to give in, Hitler started to prepare to double-cross his erstwhile partner in the Poland conquest, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. Then Mussolini invaded Greece, got bogged down in the Balkans, and the threat loomed that he would lose his whole army there. Hitler found it necessary to come to his aid, while at the same time taking direct control of Yugoslavia in the wake of the overthrow of the pro-Nazi government.

==Barbarossa==
The attack on Soviet Russia began June 22, 1941. Rapid in its advancement, the German army captured a large swath of territory between the Baltic and Black seas, and captured close to 3,000,000 prisoners. But Hitler, already micro-managing military operations, became overbearing to his generals; he preferred to go after many targets, while his generals argued for a single objective. A few miles in front of Moscow, the German army was halted by a Russian offensive in December, as well as something he had absolutely no control over: the severe Russian winter.

In the lands already occupied by German forces, S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler was preparing the ground for Hitler’s new German order. Expelling the Jews from Germany was the first step, and this was carried out by laws and decrees beginning in 1933; the Germans would switch to outright force in 1939, as Jews were first deported en-masse to Poland, then walled into ghettos after the occupation began. By 1941, a policy crafted under S.S. general Reinhard Heydrich had changed expulsion for extermination in what was called "a final solution to the Jewish question" (''die Endlösung der Judenfrage''). The system of concentration camps was supplemented by the creation of specialized killing centers in the occupied countries, especially in Poland, where camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzac “processed” thousands of victims daily. Some six million Jews died during what was called the [[Holocaust]], as well as an additional five million Slavs, Gypsies, the handicapped, the aged, and many others that the Nazis considered “subhuman” in accordance with German racial policies.<ref>http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm</ref>

==Beginning of the end==
[[Image:Adolf_hitler6.jpg‎ |right|200px|thumb|Hitler in 1944, by now looking tired and strained.]]
Hitler grew increasingly strained by the end of 1942, depending on large amounts of drugs supplied by his physician, Theodor Morell, as a result of the twin defeats of El Alamein (which he lost the bulk of his Afrika corps to British general Montgomery), and Stalingrad (where he lost an entire army of 250,000 men to the Russians). He spent more time in his headquarters in East Prussia, and his time in the public eye ceased to exist. He refused to visit bombed German cities, and, as with Stalingrad, refused to allow German armies to withdraw from the battlefield when the situation was lost. Still, he could make stunning, decisive decisions when called for, such as the commando raid that resulted in the rescue of Benito Mussolini from Italian partisans in July, 1943.

But the defeat of Germany in the war was looming closer. Hitler’s relations with his leading commanders grew strained, the more so as he allowed units of the S.S. to take positions traditionally held by the army. The line at the eastern front was slowly being pushed back by the Soviets, while in the Atlantic his U-boats campaign had faltered. German cities were constantly being bombed, and a successful invasion on the Normandy coast of France in June, 1944 marked the beginning of the end.

===Assassination attempt===
[[Image:NWT Hitler dead.jpg|left|200px|thumb|Hitler's death as covered by the ''New York Times'', May 2, 1945.]]
Seeing Germany’s chances of surviving the war were desperate, a group of officers plotted to assassinate Hitler, planning several attempts in 1943-44, but nearly successful on July 20, 1944, when a bomb hidden in a briefcase by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg went off under a table that Hitler and others were leaning over; four were killed outright, several suffered injuries, but Hitler escaped relatively unharmed (the bomb itself was set down away from Hitler behind a solid oak table leg, saving him). The conspirators were quickly rounded up; Stauffenberg was shot. The remainder were put on show trials and condemned to hang on meat hooks with piano wire. It was said that Hitler enjoyed watching film of their executions. As a result of the bomb, Nazi members were employed at key positions within the army, removing any trace of the army’s independence.

Within months nearly all of the territory occupied by Germany was now in Allied hands. A last offensive in December, 1944 to take the port of Antwerp, Belgium, failed. Hitler had by them grown ill; his hopes for a German victory bordered on the fantastical and the imagination. By January, 1945 he had moved into his command bunker in Berlin, where he gave orders deploying fictional divisions to counter the ever-closer Soviets. When all seemed lost, he gave out his final orders: first, appointing Admiral Karl Dönitz as head of the state and his successor, and Josef Goebbels as chancellor; and second, dictating his last political will which was an attempt to justify his life’s work.

On April 29, he committed the one truly-chivalrous act of his life: he married Eva Braun, his long-time mistress. After retiring to his room in the bunker the next day, Eva took poison, and Hitler put a bullet in his head. In accordance with his wishes, both bodies were burned. His Third Reich would outlive him for another week.

[[Elie Wiesel]] wrote the following in [[Time Magazine]] regarding Hitler:
{{cquote|Adolf Hitler or the incarnation of absolute evil; this is how future generations will remember the all-powerful Fuehrer of the criminal Third Reich. Compared with him, his peers [[Mussolini]] and [[Franco]] were novices. Under his hypnotic gaze, humanity crossed a threshold from which one could see the abyss. "Before Hitler, we thought we had sounded the depths of human nature," argues Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler." "He showed how much lower we could go, and that's what was so horrifying. It gets us wondering not just at the depths he showed us but whether there is worse to come. The power of Hitler was to confound the modernist notion that judgments about good and [[evil]] were little more than matters of taste, reflections of social class and power and status. Although some modern scholars drive past the notion of evil and instead explain Hitler's conduct as a reflection of his childhood and self-esteem issues, for most survivors of the 20th century he is confirmation of our instinctive sense that evil does exist. It moves among us; it leads us astray and deploys powerful, subtle weapons against even the sturdiest souls." <ref name="time" />}}

All in all, Hitler survived over forty assassination attempts. The Stauffenburg attempt was the closest anyone ever came to killing Hitler. George Elser, a communist, came very close in 1938, having planted a bomb in a beam that Hitler stood in front of while giving a speech. Luck saved Hitler, as he left the hall early and twelve minutes later the bomb exploded.

==Death==
On the afternoon of April 30, 1945 as the Soviet Red Army closed in on the center of Berlin, Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide.<ref>Kershaw, Ian. ''Hitler: A Biography''. (2008) p. 955</ref><ref>Joachimsthaler, Anton. ''The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth''. (1999) [1995] pp. 160-182</ref><ref>Beevor, Antony. ''Berlin – The Downfall 1945''. (2002) p. 359</ref> The majority of contemporary historians have rejected the other accounts of Hitler's demise or reported escape from Berlin as either Soviet propaganda or surmise.<ref>Eberle, Henrik and Uhl, Matthias. ''The Hitler Book''. (2005) p. 282</ref><ref>Joachimsthaler. ''The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth''. (1999) [1995] pp. 160-182, 240-260</ref> Following the end of the war, because of the different versions presented by the Soviet Union as to Hitler being dead and alive, both British Military Intelligence (led by agent Hugh Trevor-Roper) and the FBI conducted investigations as to the different claims made. The declassified information from British MI5, confirmed that Hitler shot himself.<ref>https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/who-we-are/mi5-history/world-war-ii/hitlers-last-days.html</ref> The declassified FBI documents report that Hitler and Eva Braun may have escaped to Argentina in a submarine and changed his identity. However, as the report states, "because of lack of information to support the story advanced...it is believed impossible to continue efforts to locate Hitler".<ref>http://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler/adolf-hitler-part-01-of-04/view</ref> More recently in 2009, American researchers were allowed to perform DNA tests on the skull fragment the Russians claim was from Hitler. The tests revealed that the skull fragment belonged to a woman under 40 years of age who was not related to Eva Braun. However, the jaw fragments which had been recovered and identified as Hitler's<ref>Eberle and Uhl. ''The Hitler Book''. (2005) p. 282</ref> were not tested by the American researchers.<ref>http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/10/hitler.skull.debate/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD</ref> Therefore, most historians are very skeptical as to these popular conspiracy theories, in particular because there are credible witnesses, who saw the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun.<ref>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050137/Did-Hitler-Eva-Braun-flee-Berlin-die-old-age-Argentina.html</ref><ref>Joachimsthaler. ''The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth''. (1999) [1995] pp. 160-182, 240-260</ref><ref>Fischer, Thomas. ''Soldiers of the Leibstandarte''. (2008) p. 47</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Disturbed character]]
* [[Nazi Germany and homosexuality]]
* [[Police state]]
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]

== External links ==
[[File:Hitler Siegestor Munich Victory Gate.jpg|thumb|Watercolor of the Arch of Triumph in Munich by Hitler.]]
*[http://www.eucontest.org/go.php?pdf=www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%201994.pdf Extracts From Mein Kampf by Hitler]
*[http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/ Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.] Full text.
*[http://www.snyderstreasures.com/pages/hartworks.htm Adolf Hitler ORIGINAL Watercolor Artworks.]
*[http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/ Hitler Was a Leftist]

==Further reading==
*[http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/medical.htm STATE MEDICAL SERVICES OF THE THIRD REICH], FROM THE OPENING STATEMENT BY TELFORD TAYLOR, Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946–April 1949. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O, 1949–1953.] Retrieved from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Sources==
*[http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.htmlA Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler, His Life and Legend], Walter C. Langer, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D.C.

{{DEFAULTSORT: Hitler, Adolf}}

[[Category:Dictators]]
[[Category:Mass Murderers]]
[[Category:Nazis]]
[[Category:Evolutionists]]
[[Category:Totalitarianism]]
[[Category:Anti-Semitism]]
[[Category:Bigotry]]
[[Category:German History]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Evolutionary Racists]]
[[Category:War criminals]]
[[Category:Socialists]]
[[Category:Liberals]]
[[Category:Police State]]
[[Category:Anti Second Amendment]]
[[Category:Liberal Authors]]

Talk:Ku Klux Klan

2016-03-30T20:20:01Z

CatholicKing:

BY any reasonable standards, the KKK are terrorists.

Dunno...don't terrorists actually, you know...DO stuff? The think about the klan is they're not a centralized organization...just a lot of tiny splinter groups...they're no longer the powerful machine they were in the twenties. [[User:Czolgolz|Czolgolz]] 09:34, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I think this article is completely biased against the KKK. Ever since the Lincoln Administration, the South and by extension the KKK has been demonized for fighting against the Negrophile policies of the Democracts. [[User:CatholicKing|CatholicKing]] 3 March 2016

== Democratic link ==

I explained it in context. If the context is removed, so must be the link.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 16:31, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

==More fantasy==
I think this is pure fantasy:

:''Prior to the [[Reagan Realignment]], the [[Democratic Party]] was the party of the South - it overwhelmingly controlled the South. Especially prior to [[Strom Thurmond|Strom Thurmond's]] "[[Dixiecrat]]" splinter movement, the [[Democratic Party]] was responsible for a good deal of racist legislation, and was perceived to be connected to the Klan. However, such a causal connection is over fifty years old and the Klan bears no connection with any modern mainstream political party.''

Facts are, the Democratic party still controls the South at all levels of government, and any so-called "re-alingnment" was fictional or imaginary. But you get an "E" for "effort", putting Reagan's name on the KKK page. And the claim "the Klan bears no connection with any modern mainstream political party", we would have to actually ask Klansman what thier party preference is for this claim to be valid; anyone willing to wager what the result would be? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 17:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:Well, Rob, you could ask David Duke, who served as the chairman of the Tammany Parish Republican party for a while.

:Sorry, but the GOP's Southern Strategy is no fantasy, as anyone old enough to remember the '60s and '70s will tell you. And before taking me up on this wager I should warn you, in fairness, that I am from the south, and can remember the exodus of southern racists from the Democratic Party to the GOP.
--[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 17:08, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

: Actually, RobS, I could cite you to a dozen books about Southern politics describing the Reagan Realignment (they're all by Earl or Merle Black, one of which I studied with, so... got anything better?), but if you want to delete that whole paragraph, I'll remove the cartoon too. Seems a good compromise, ne? I'm shocked, though, that you don't care to understand your own party's history.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 17:10, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

It's incredible. All I can guess is that a lot of these people unaware of the GOP's famous "southern strategy" are too young to remember that time and haven't read much on the subject. --[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 17:14, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

: I choose to believe willful blindness - its practice is rampant on this site. Radiocarbon dating?! Lalalalala I can't hear you.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 17:16, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::''Facts are, the Democratic party still controls the South at all levels of government, and any so-called "re-alingnment" was fictional or imaginary.''
::Yet they have a hard time getting Southerners to vote for Democratic presidential candidates. How odd. It must be the same way the Liberals control the media, yet can't seem to get their candidates and policies show in a good light. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 17:19, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::PF Fox, wow, una.

:::AmesG & BDobbs, yes we've read much of that, too. Crossover Democrats who voted for Reagan were ''not'' restricted to Southerners; many Nothern Cartholic (whom according to the article, the KKK wants to supress), labor union Democrats also voted for Reagan. All this so-called "re-allignment", which was proven to be fiction in 1992, 1996, and 2006, tells us more about the quality of Democratic Presidential candidates (and probably the method they are chosen, too), over past decades than anything else. Facts ares, Democrats remain in control of Southern legislatures, governorships, municipal elected postions, judges, not to mention appointed regulatory positions, etc. Then we have the "blue dog coallition". In Reagans & FDR's day, they were called Democratic "bollweavils".

:::What is particularly objectionable about these falicious claims is the KKK is known for terrorist activities which have resulted in murder; there is absolutley no connection whatsoever between the name of Ronald Reagan, and/or Strom Thurmond to murder and lybnchings. This is particularly reprehensible editing activity, IMO. Now, on the other hand, a link can be forged between the name of a prominant living person, [[Sen. Robert Byrd]], and the KKK. Yet you have not done this. In my personal view, where in the case of Byrd we have such a basis to include his name on this page, other factors need to be considered first. Whereas this standared you've totally ignored in a blatant & naked attempt to paint Reagan, Thurmaond, and hence the Republican Party as racist.

:::I would suggest you stop this, now. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 17:54, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::::RobS, if you read the full paragraph, it SAYS THAT MUCH. LOOK AT THE BOLDED TEXT now that it'll be bolded, once I revert it. My concern is that I have no desire for the KKK to be linked to the Democrats by that cartoon, and if they are linked, then it must be fully explained byt he paragraph that you just deleted. So pick it: cartoon AND explanation, or neither. Which is it?-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 17:58, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::::You address the problem of Sen. Byrd ''first'' before impugning Thurmond, Reagen, or the GOP. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:03, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

RobS, you clearly misunderstand my intent in that paragraph. Re-read it with particular emphasis on the bold text. Our goals are the same. Don't get mad at me over nothing.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 18:00, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:I read it clearly; it says the KKK is not married to the Dems anymore but maybe a bunch of "Reagan Democracts", and other Southerners who vote GOP, are klansman. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:03, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::You're finding something that's not there. The bolded text could not be clearer. However, I think we both agree that associating the KKK with ANY party is bad bad bad bad bad. Accordingly I've removed the "comic." I'm sure you agree with this decision, and I'm glad we've reached a consensus.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 18:06, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::Too late now; you put Reagan & Thurmund's names in there and never bothered to address facts. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:09, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::::I'm trying to follow this now... are we trying to say that Strom Thurmon was ''not'' a segregationist? [[User:Myk|Myk]] 21:28, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::::Are we trying to say Strom Thurmond was a klansman? [[User:RobS|RobS]] 22:09, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

==Reverted text placed here==
[[Image:Artoon.jpg|right|thumb|A political cartoon depicting the KKK and the Democratic party as continuations of the Confederacy]]
Prior to the [[Reagan Realignment]] (after which point the [[Democratic Party]] became the "[[liberal]]" party, and the [[Republican Party]] the "[[conservative]]" party), the [[Democratic Party]] was the party of the South - it overwhelmingly controlled the South. In this era, the [[Democratic Party]] was responsible for a good deal of racist legislation, and was perceived to be connected to the Klan. '''However, such a causal connection is over fifty years old and the Klan bears no connection with any modern mainstream political party.'''<ref>Earl Black, ''The Vital South: How Presidents are Elected'' (1992, Harvard University Press)</ref><ref>Earl Black, ''The Rise of Southern Republicans'' (2002, Harvard University Press)</ref>

=== References ===
<references/>

== David Duke & Robert Byrd ==

I don't suppose mentioning David Duke's run for governor of Louisiana would help this at all, would it. --[[User:BDobbs|BDobbs]] 18:16, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

It IS one of the most notable instances of the KKK in the news in the past 15 or so years. [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 18:16, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:I would suggest we discuss both Duke & Byrd before proceeding down this path. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:19, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::And the fact that no prominent Republicans supported Duke (Reagan condemned him) [[User:MountainDew|MountainDew]] 18:21, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

We must either tar all party's names or tar none. I tried to tar all, but it honked RobS off, for some reason. I personally think not even engaging in this kind of finger-pointing is better practice; leave the article as it is without the comic. That way, it provides a minimum of offense.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 18:22, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:I think these kind of efforts that we've seen will fail. While in popluar media you can get some milage out of this fraudulent garbage, it's just not gonna work here. Seriously, you need a new, fresh approach. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 18:26, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:: You stopped making sense about an hour ago, but this crosses the line of nonsense. Can you explain, please?-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 18:33, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Yep, David Duke was pretty embarrasing to the Republican Party, and it's to Reagan's credit that he denounced Duke. The problem is, the Republicans in St. Tammany Parish liked Duke enough to make him their party chairman. --[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 18:41, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
::And David Duke is now supporting Cindy Sheehan.[[User:Jaques|Jaques]] 14:16, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

==Moving forward==
Two possible routes to a solution

===mindless partisan solution===
Turn this article into an arms race, each side piling up more attack pieces on the other, which ultimately will backfire against Dems trying to imply the GOP is the home of the modern KKK, or{{unsigned|RobS}}
: For the record, I NEVER IMPLIED that the GOP is the home of the modern KKK; my bolded line specifically denounced that -'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 20:55, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Exactly who has claimed that "the GOP is the home of the modern KKK?" --[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 21:10, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

: He read my statement above as suggesting that (!?!). Frankly, I was offended. I would never slander a political group like that.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 21:12, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Projection. --[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 21:14, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

===encyclopedic solution===
Write a clean history if this organizations first 100 years, roughly from the mid 1860s down to about circa 1964; how its membership peaked circa 1927 at about a 1,000,000, etc., and the political influence it once had at both the state and national level, etc. Then finish it off with a few paragraphs about how the organization hsa declined since the mid 1960s to what remains of it today. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 20:50, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
: Sounds fun. Get on it.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 20:55, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::Truth be told, US domestic history is outside my purvue (I'm only in the McCarthy junk as it relates to Comintern activities). So I'm really not the lead man here. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 21:21, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
:::You're not that big on US domestic history and you revert my political history statements.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 22:16, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
::::It wasn't a history statement; it was the recycled DNC program agenda from recent years. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 22:20, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
The Reagan Realignment is history buddy, and I provided two books written by conservative Republican political scientists, but I can see why those would be within your area of expertise to refute. But again, no problem. The article's wound up free of anything controversial.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 22:22, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:Well, we got the cites how groups like the SPLC go out at night and paint swastikas on tombstones, then they call in the local media to take pictures, then they cut the pictures out of the local newspaper and put them in national fund raising letters to allege the Klan is alive, active, and a big threat. All for the purpose of running a fundraising scam. Sorry, but the emphasis on writing this article to support fundraising scams, rather than accurate historical reporting, is where the probelm started. Let's put all those stupid games behind us, cause they just aren't going to go anywhere. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 22:36, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

:::I'd like to see those cites. Where are they? --[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 22:46, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

::::Here's one. [http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg74257.html] Wikipedia has an interesting write up about this group, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ásatrú#Politics >,

:::::"While Ásatrú is generally a tolerant religion, it is sometimes erroneously identified with neo-Nazi and "white power" organizations which also use the same symbolism.[6] The three largest American Ásatrú organizations have specifically denounced any association with racist groups.[7][8][9] "

:::::Amazing. You'd think WP would be bending over backwards to smear these folks. [[User:RobS|RobS]] 23:12, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I checked the cite.

Are you serious?
--[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 23:37, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
:They are just repeating information that's available elsewhere; and there is a list of cites. Personally, I recall the WCCO cause I saw it on TV in Minneapolis. Some of the cast of characters reapppeared in the 1991 San Fransicso spying case. [http://googlemail.com/attachment?realattid=f_eyf3retf&attid=0.1&disp=safe&view=att&th=110e208ac67d580b&saduie=1egnamis3jqslrufpey0ubx37b72kke&sadet=1175486168430&sads=90dc64b150d020aecbefa2cdb0d6e2e0]

In other words you have no evidence to offer that members of the SPLC have been dressing up as klansmen and defacing Jewish Cemetaries. So why should we believe such nonsense? --[[User:PF Fox|PF Fox]] 03:52, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

I have no idea what you just said, RobS. -'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 22:47, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

== Just a little grammar issue... ==

Should "Homosexuals" really be capitalized? [[User:MykalG|MykalG]] 15:30, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

== American Terrorists ==
I may be a little late to the party, but why does "terrorist organization" not appear anywhere in this article. They used fear, killed innocents, covered their faces and only a few of them ever disclosed who they were to the national public. Yet, they are not considered to be terrorists? How is that?
::good point and i'll fixit now. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 10:12, 22 May 2009 (EDT)

::{{template|Part of this article was copied from [[Citizendium]] and [[Wikipedia]] but the copied text was originally written by me, RJJensen (under the name Richard Jensen and rjensen) and does not include alterations made by others on that site.||category=Copied Articles}} [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 11:14, 22 May 2009 (EDT)

==SPLC==
The SPLC published malicious slanders by [[Chip Berlet]] against [[David Horowitz]]. They also trashed The bradley foundation and a few others. [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 23:34, 6 July 2009 (EDT)

:SPLC listed the [[American Enterprise Institute]] as a "Hate Group." [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Political_Profiling&diff=prev&oldid=542491#.22Hate_groups.22] [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 00:22, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

== Typos ==

Found a few typos and grammatical mistakes; nothing major. Any chance we could unlock this article for an hour? -- [[User:JLauttamus|Jeff W. Lauttamus]][[User_talk:JLauttamus|Discussion]] 17:44, 9 November 2009 (EST)
::sure --I will do so now. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 18:41, 9 November 2009 (EST)
:::Still under <nowiki>[[Edit=sysop]] ((indefinite))]]</nowiki>, RJJensen. No rush! -- [[User:JLauttamus|Jeff W. Lauttamus]][[User_talk:JLauttamus|Discussion]] 18:43, 9 November 2009 (EST)
::try again. :) [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 18:46, 9 November 2009 (EST)
:::All done now. You can go ahead and re-protect it. Thanks a lot! -- [[User:JLauttamus|Jeff W. Lauttamus]][[User_talk:JLauttamus|Discussion]] 18:56, 9 November 2009 (EST)
:::: we can leave it open--the problem was an old edit war. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 19:01, 9 November 2009 (EST)

==SPLC==
The SPLC has been involved in numerous questionable fundraising practices relating to groups it claims "make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable
", [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=50#] like the American Enterprise Institute, the Bradley Foundation, or David Horowitz's organization. [http://97.74.65.51/Printable.aspx?ArtId=16570][http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29062] They are lacking in credibility given the record of these abuses. [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 22:57, 9 November 2009 (EST)
::that is an appropriate criticism about some other article, such as one on Center for the Study of Popular Culture. but their KKK coverage has not been challenged to my knowledge. We must watch out for moral relativism here--evil institutions like the KKK deserve exposure of the sort SPLC has provided for decades. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 23:18, 9 November 2009 (EST)
:::Are you familiar with the Wilcox Report? Wilcox, who publishes an annual guide to the Extreme Left aqnd Right [http://www.questia.com/library/book/nazis-communists-klansmen-and-others-on-the-fringe-political-extremism-in-america-by-john-george-laird-wilcox.jsp] claims SPLC grossly inflates the number of Klan groups for fundraising, and mainstream sources do not question thier figures. I can send you a copy of it if you'd like. [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 23:45, 9 November 2009 (EST)
::thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. What it does well is give a very useful digest of news reports of all KKK activities.[[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 00:09, 10 November 2009 (EST)
Here's an excerpt from the intro to the SPLC section:
:In February 1992 ''USA Today'' reported that ''Klanwatch'', a division of Morris Dees' Southern Poverty Law Center, had identified a total of "346 white supremacy groups operating in the USA, up an alarming 27% from the past year." Included were 97 Ku Klux Klan and 203 alleged neo-Nazi groups.

:What ''Klanwatch'' apparently did was list any group they could find mention of, including groups only rumored to exist. These included the large number of "post office box chapters" maintained by Klan and skinhead organizations. Some Christian Identity "ministries" consist only one person and a mailing list and many "patriot groups" consist of but three or four friends. They also listed many groups whose actual affiliation is neither KKK nor neo-Nazi'and who would argue with the designation of "white supremacy." In short, they misleadingly padded their list. When the SPLC releases their list, either in print or on the internet, it fails to contain actual addresses that might be checked by journalists or researchers. Several listings refer to "unknown group" and the name of a city or town.

:This writer publishes an annual directory (with addresses) of the American Righh as well as a companion directory of the American Left, and can attest to this irresponsible inflation of figures by ''Klanwatch''. In terms of viable groups, i.e., groups that are objectively significant, are actually functioning and have more than a handful of real members - not post office box "groups" or two man local chapters, the actual figure is about 50 - a far cry from 346!

:It's not atypical for a couple of guys to begin a "new" Ku Klux Klan by photocopying some flyers and renting PO boxes in several cities to create the image of a viable movement. Most inquiries to these PO boxes go unanswered or are returned when the rent expires. In point of fact, a large number of "groups" in both ''Klanwatch'' files and my directories are either unconfirmed or they consist of a single individual.

:One example is the Farmer's Liberation Army which received considerable press after the [[Oklahoma City bombing]]. Subsequent news accounts established that this "army" was the creation of one man - Keith Shive - and had no other "members." The SPLC still lists it as a "hate group." Unfortunately, this kind of exaggeration is typical.

:A good example of SPLC disinformation occurred in June 1998 when SPLC spokesman Mark Potok responded to a newspaper request for background information on three accused cop killers. According to news reports

::'Alan "Monte" Pilon, one of the men suspected of killing a Cortez police officer and wounding three other officers, is a member of a local militia group linked to an extreme right-wing religion, a militia expert said Thursday.

::Pilon, 30, of Dove Creek, is a member of the Four Corners Patriots, according to Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups: The Four Cotners Patriots is an underground militia linked to the Christian Identity religion, a faith Potok described as "viciously racist and anti-Semitic.

:Potok further claimed to have been tracking the group since 1995 and estimated the group had 25 members. These claims, along with this detailed information, clearly gives the impression that the SPLC knows what it's talking about. Potok's claims were, picked up by wire services and repeated nationwide, including ''NBC Nightly News'' with Tom Brokaw One small problem: There apparently is no "Four Corners Patriots" organization. It doesn't exist. Nobody in the broader militia and patriot movement had ever heard of them. My own efforts to pin down the organization were without success. Even local law enforcement couldn't vouch for their existence and no evidence has developed that any of the suspects ever belonged to a militia organization.

:The interplay between the SPLC and the media that depends upon them for information is complex and corrupt. Potok, a former writer for ''USA Today'', was a consistent public relations agent for the SPLC during his tenure at the newspaper. Apparently pleased by Potok's performance, SPLC recruited him into their direct employ where he engages in an endless litany of "linking and tying" people with one infamous doctrine or another.

:Dees is the classic example of an opportunist waging a holy war against unpopular foes and profiting from it, both financially and ideologically. His primary talents have always been in the area of fundraising and promotion. According to a 1989 article in the ''Atlanta Constitution'':
::In 1972, he raised $24 million as George McGovern's finance director, then used the campaign's donor list of 700,000 liberals for the law center. (He also recommended Richard Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail whiz, to friends in the Wallace campaign.) The law center now raises more than $5 million a year and has a $34 million endowment [in 1989]...

:The harshest critic is Millard Farmer, the Atlanta death penalty lawyer who teamed up with Mr. Dees before ending their relationship with a lawsuit. "It's a Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker operation," he says flatly. "You read his letters and you'd think he's on his last penny." The article also quoted a former employee to the effect that Morris Dees marketed social consciousness in the same detached way that he once marketed cakes. "The Center is something he can sell. People want to contribute something to relieve their conscience."

'''Comment''': given the record of this organization, and the [[MSM]]'s role as dupes in these scams, why should CP perpetuate myths about it? [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 00:50, 10 November 2009 (EST)
:::We need a link to up-to-date 2009 reports. (The complaints seem to come from the early 1990s--over 15 years ago.) [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 01:08, 10 November 2009 (EST)
::::Wilcox maybe semi-retired. Here's his site, [http://www.lairdwilcox.com/tool/order00-01.html#Watchdogs ''Who's Watching the Watchdogs?''] and the [http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/kc/wilcox.shtml Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements] at the University of Kansas. An arfticle in the ''Military Law Review'', a DOD publication, refers to John George and Laird Wilcox as "two of the foremost analysts of right and left-wing extremism." ([http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/Military_Law_Review/pdf-files/277C75~1.pdf pg. 7 pdf]). A more recent article states, "After years of fighting to clear its name, a small Kansas town [has finally been] taken off a list of hate group homes," ...The town of 2,500 "was once named as a home of Ku Klux Klan members....The Southern Poverty Law Center has finally relented and removed Lakin from its national "hate group" map, which had listed the town as hosting the "Imperial Klans of America" since 2000." [http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-13878465_ITM] Wilcox wrote, “What happened in this case is that someone rented a PO box for a bogus Ku Klux Klan group and then kept the rent paid on it for years, thus allowing the Southern Poverty Law Center to list Lakin, Kansas as having a ‘KKK presence,’" Wilcox (a Kansas resident) explains. “This was pure disinformation and an example of the terrible things the SPLC does in its campaign to keep the money rolling in from frightened liberals and blacks. Several years ago with a minimum of effort I went through a list of some 800-plus ‘hate groups’ published by the SPLC and determined that over half of them were either non-existent, existed in name only, or were inactive.”

'''Personal comment''': and after examining some of the information Mr. Wilcox has uncovered, it would not be surprising ''at all'' if SPLC itself rented the PO Box in another fundraising scam. This personal comment attributable to myself, [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 02:23, 10 November 2009 (EST)

P.S. See [[Oklahoma_City_Bombing#Media_reporting]]. [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 02:42, 10 November 2009 (EST)

== I was wrong about the 1920s KKK ==

...in terms of opposing Federal policies--my bad, I misread the Prohibition thing. But the article certainly undersells activities like the lynching of returning black servicemen and the Leo Frank case. Is there a reason for that? [[User:MichaelHWC|MichaelHWC]] 23:24, 9 November 2009 (EST)
::yes, the KKK was not involved in either. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 00:09, 10 November 2009 (EST)
:::Alright, then. Who lynched those servicemen? [[User:MichaelHWC|MichaelHWC]] 00:15, 10 November 2009 (EST)
:::: Good question. The servicemen were lynched in 1919; the Klan got going about 1921-22. In general, local lynch mobs were not part of any organized group--they formed spontaneously for the moment. There are a few cases of possible KKK involvement in lynchings in the 1920s but the evidence is very thin. (the Klan was not involved in Tulsa either) There was no KKK anywhere when Leo Frank was lynched. Lynching declined sharply in the 1920s in the South. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 00:24, 10 November 2009 (EST)

==Three incarnations of the same racist group==
* The name '''Ku Klux Klan''' has been used by three entirely different organizations in the U.S. While these copied the same name and regalia, they had very different goals and activities.

What was '''very different''' about them? Weren't they all pro-white and anti-black? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 18:34, 8 May 2012 (EDT)

User:CatholicKing

2016-03-30T05:20:12Z

CatholicKing: Created page with "Hi, I'm a 27 year old Catholic Civil War Historian from Maine, my real name is Connor MacGuire. While I'm not Protestant, I am heavily Conservative and proud of my Southern He..."

Hi, I'm a 27 year old Catholic Civil War Historian from Maine, my real name is Connor MacGuire. While I'm not Protestant, I am heavily Conservative and proud of my Southern Heritage on my mother's side. My grandfather was an Irish Immigrant, but he came over legally, unlike the illegals these days.

Talk:Pope Francis

2016-03-30T05:16:04Z

CatholicKing:

could an admin please redirect this/copypaste it to an article titled Pope Francis? Thanks!--[[User:DTSavage|DTSavage]] 20:57, 13 March 2013 (EDT)

also, I don't have picture uploading ability, I don't think, so if someone who does could put up a picture, that'd probably be good.--[[User:DTSavage|DTSavage]] 23:07, 13 March 2013 (EDT)

Can we add something about Francis' rampant support for gay marriage and abortion? [[User: CatholicKing|CatholicKing]] 29 March 2016

Talk:Pope Francis

2016-03-30T05:15:01Z

CatholicKing:

could an admin please redirect this/copypaste it to an article titled Pope Francis? Thanks!--[[User:DTSavage|DTSavage]] 20:57, 13 March 2013 (EDT)

also, I don't have picture uploading ability, I don't think, so if someone who does could put up a picture, that'd probably be good.--[[User:DTSavage|DTSavage]] 23:07, 13 March 2013 (EDT)
Can we add something about Francis' rampant support for gay marriage and abortion?

Roman Catholic Church

2016-03-30T05:06:43Z

CatholicKing:

{{Christianity}}
The '''Roman Catholic Church''' is the best denomination of [[Christianity]] headquartered in [[Vatican City]]. Roman Catholics believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, and worship the God of [[Abraham]]. The Roman Catholic Church has a single leader, the [[Pope]], who is also the [[Bishop]] of [[Rome]] and the voice of God. The current Pope is [[Pope Francis|Francis]]. Present day governance of the Church is divided hierarchically into Dioceses overseen by a Diocesan Bishop, who in turn oversees Diocesan priests and deacons on the level of the individual Church.

The word "Catholic" means "universal." It's use as a name for the Church comes from Nicene-Constantinople Creed of 381, which defines the church as, "one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic." In the Christological controversy of the fourth century, Catholics opposed the heresy of [[Arianism]].

The Church has always been [[pro-choice]] and its leadership is mostly [[liberal]], with the current Pope admitting his advocacy for degeneracy and Homosexuality The Church noted that "the group was not speaking out strongly enough against" [[hetrosexuality]].

Catholicism is the oldest [[Christian]] denomination in the world. It is also the largest, with more than 1.3 billion officially baptized adherents, or 17.4% of the world's population; over 64 million of these are in the [[United States]]. In recent years growth has been greatest in Africa and Latin America, while membership and influence have declined in Europe, and a rise of [[Muslims]].

The Pope is the divinely-chosen successor of [[St. Peter]], believing him to be the 'rock' ([[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 16:18) upon whom Jesus built his Church. The Catholic Church consists of those Christians who are in full communion with the Pope, including "Uniate Catholics" in Eastern Europe who, strictly speaking, are not part of the "Roman" rite.

The Roman Catholic Church has suffered several schisms over its history. Most notable are those involving the Church of the East following the First Ephesian Council, the [[Oriental Orthodoxy|Oriental Orthodox]] churches following the [[Council of Chalcedon]], the [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox Church]] following the [[Great Schism]] of 1054, and the several [[Reformation]]s of the 16th century leading to the development of [[Protestantism]].

The Protestants made the most radical break. Two of the principal issues raised by Protestants were
''[[sola scriptura]],'' the doctrine that the Bible alone is the final authority for Christians (which is also a denial of the infallibility of Sacred Tradition, the Pope, and the infallibility of ecumenical Church councils) and ''sola fide,'' the doctrine popularized by [[Martin Luther]] that faith alone, as opposed to faith and good works both, is sufficient for salvation.

[[Image:Cathpop.jpg|right|thumb|350px|Catholics in the world.]]

==Organization==

The Pope and the the international leadership of the Church are based in [[Vatican City]], a sovereign elective monarchy and an enclave of [[Rome]] established by the 1929 Lateran Treaty.

The Catholic Church has a complex hierarchy of clergy, including (in descending order of rank):

* The [[Pope]]
*[[Cardinal]]s
*[[Archbishop]]s
*[[Bishop]]s
*[[Abbot]]s
*Monsignor|Monsignori
*Archpriests
*[[Priest]]s
*[[Deacon]]s

The key roles are played by the Pope and the bishops, and the question of whether secular governments should play a major role in ecclesiastical appointments has been a major issue for centuries. The [[Investiture Controversy]] in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] was over this question, as was the dispute between [[Gallicanism]] and [[ultramontanism]] in France.

==Teachings==
[[Image:JpII.jpg|right|thumb|[[Pope John Paul II]] reigned 1978-2005]]
The chief teachings of the Catholic church are set out in the [[Catechism of the Catholic Church]] in order to foster and promote the Profession of the Faith (first part), the Celebration of the Christian Mystery (second part), the Life in Christ (third part), and Christian Prayer (fourth part). They are:

* God’s objective existence.
* God’s interest in individual human beings, who can enter into relations with God through direct and intercessory prayer and through the intercession of a priest ordained by Holy Orders.
* The [[Holy Trinity]] and [[christology|divinity of the person of Jesus Christ]].
* The immortality of the [[soul]] of each human being, each one being accountable at death for his or her actions in life, with the award of Heaven or Hell.
* The resurrection of the dead.
* The historicity of the [[Gospels]].
* The divine commission of the Church and infallibility of revealed scriptural interpretation.

The Roman Catholic Church stresses that since the members, living and dead, share in each other’s merits, the [[Virgin Mary]] and other saints and the dead in Purgatory are never forgotten,<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/65/ro/RomanCat.html The Columbia Encyclopedia]</ref> may be addressed in prayer, and intercede with God on the behalf of the living. The very physical and spiritual body and blood of Christ are believed to be present in the Eucharist, [[Transubstantiation|the bread and wine being Jesus himself]], replacing the material of bread and wine. The principal sources for the essential beliefs of the Catholic Church are the Sacred Scriptures (the Bible), Sacred Tradition, and the Living Magisterium of the Church.

The term "Catholic" is frequently used as an adjective meaning, "pertaining to the Roman Catholic Church." [[Protestantism|Protestant]]s sometimes take exception to this use, as the defined meaning of "catholic" (the adjective) is "universal" (from the Greek ''καθολικός'', or ''katholikos'', meaning "universal"). The [[Anglican Communion]] and other Protestants also speak of themselves as part of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."<ref>http://www.answers.com/topic/catholic</ref> The Orthodox Church understands herself to be the one universal Catholic Church and rejects the claims of Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches respect for all human life. It opposes the practices of contraception, abortion,<ref>Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (1968) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html</ref> euthanasia and (in most cases) capital punishment. But under the current Pope; Francis has abused his position to attempt to allow contraception <ref> John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995) http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/_INDEX.HTM</ref> The Church is in favor of social justice and "the common good."<ref> Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (2009) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html</ref> Some Catholics take this idea further, espousing a "[[consistent life ethic]]," under which ''all'' killing of humans is said to be unlawful. This position should logically entail [[pacifism]], although the Catholic Church is not opposed to war under all circumstances in the manner of some "peace" churches. (See [[just war]].)

The Catholic Church allows evolutionist research, but not any denial that God was the '''creator''' of all things. The only Evolutionism that Catholics are allowed to believe in is Theistic Evolution.

== History ==

===Early Church===

The original Christian community was founded by Jesus Christ and led by the Apostles. The Roman Catholic Church considers itself to be the sole and uninterrupted continuation of the first-century Church. St. [[Paul|Paul the Apostle]] was the most prolific contributor to the [[New Testament]] and the most notable of the Early Christian missionaries. Christians were subjected to persecution, first under [[Nero]] in A.D. 64 and again, more severely, under the emperors [[Domitian]], [[Marcus Aurelius]], [[Decius]], and [[Diocletian]], in the second and third centuries.

After almost 300 years of persecution against the Church failed to stop the growth of Christianity, the Emperor [[Constantine I]] had a religious experience and, by the [[Edict of Milan]] issued in the early fourth century, legalized Christianity. Going to war with the co-Emperor of the east [[Lucinius]] over his continued persecution of Christians, Constantine won and became sole Emperor. The age of persecution was over.
[[Image:Christians.jpg|thumb|450px]]

===Barbarians converted===

Until the early fourth century AD Christianity enjoyed a mixed reception in the Roman Empire, and Christians were frequently subject to persecution. After its legalization, the Christian Church became increasingly powerful in the Roman Empire, although [[Arianism]] remained strong. In 380 AD, [[Theodosius I]] established the Church as the official religion of the Roman Empire and proscribed the former pagan practices. There was a brief [[pagan]] revival in the West under the usurper [[Eugenius]], but that was brought to an end with his death. While the Empire continued to decline, Christianity continued to grow both among those directly under the Empire and among the barbarians, until the time that Rome was sacked by [[Alaric]] in 410. Alaric was an Arian Christian.

After the collapse of the Western Empire, the Roman Church became the most powerful political and religious force in Latin-speaking Europe, and by the 8th century it had achieved near total religious dominance.

Aggressive missionary activities accomplished the conversion of most of the pagan tribes in Europe by the year 1000 AD. The last pagan country in Europe to be converted was [[Lithuania]], in 1387.

=== Great Schism ===

Numerous disputes between the eastern and western churches became more pronounced from the ninth century onwards. The Church experienced the [[Great Schism]] in 1054 that divided it into a Western (Latin) branch, which has been called the Catholic Church, and an Eastern branch, which has become known as the [[Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox Church]]. Both traced their roots to the time of Jesus, but the Eastern Orthodox Church rejected the claims of the Pope to universal jurisdiction.

The Schism's causes were not purely religious. Cultural and geographic elements also played a role. Later attempts at reconciliation occurred, such as at the [[Council of Basel]], but the two churches remain separate to this day.

=== Late Middle Ages ===

The Crusades, a series of religious wars instigated by the Church against the Muslims and other groups in the Holy Land, began in 1092 and continued until the end of the 13th century. Despite the focus on regaining the Holy Land from Muslim control, the Crusaders also massacred Jews and sacked the Christian city of Constantinople.

During this time period, the [[Inquisition]]s started and would continue through the time of the Protestant Reformation and beyond. The medieval inquisition focused on rooting out [[Cathars]], while the later inquisitions, such as the [[Spanish Inquisition]], focused on people who were believed to be secretly practicing [[Judaism]] or [[Islam]] following the [[Alhambra Decree|legally mandated]] conversion to Christianity of all Jews and Muslims remaining in Spain.

===Reformation and Counter-Reformation===

In 1517, [[Martin Luther]] began the [[Protestant Reformation]] with a public protest against the sale of [[indulgences]]. It grew into a movement that covered a wider variety of issues. Eventually, [[Protestantism|Protestants]] rejected the notions of saintly intercession, the authority of the Pope, and any sacraments other than [[Baptism]] and [[Communion]]. This movement eventually led to a Catholic revival (the "Counter-Reformation") and a series of religious wars in [[Europe]]. The Protestant-Catholic split became one of the dominant themes in European and American events until recent times.

===1815 to 1914===

====Conservatism====

After 1800 the Papacy became the center of conservatism in Europe in reaction against the radicalism of the French Revolution. Pius VII (1800-23) was stripped of powers by [[Napoleon]] but made a striking comeback after Napoleon's fall in 1815. His unusually able Secretary of State Cardinal Consalvi won the restoration to the Pope of most of the territories in Italy which Napoleon had seized. He reinvigorated numerous monastic orders and helped create new societies for men and women, especially those engaged in teaching and missionary work. Most important was the restoration of the Jesuits in 1814. They grew more numerous and even more influential in the 19th century.

The Papacy recognized that throughout Europe millions of peasants and poor folk were devoted to the saints and traditions of the Church; the Popes responded energetically by promoting various Marian devotions (such as the rosary). Rome had fallen into disrepair, and Pius VII began the restoration of the city's artistic glories, an enterprise that continues in the 21st century. <ref> Kelly (1999); Duffy (2006); Latourette (1958) vol 1. </ref>

====Ultramontane vs Gallican====

The "ultramontane" tendency in the Church centralized more power and authority in the Papacy. It was opposed by the "[[Gallican]]" tendency, especially in France, to give national churches more control over their affairs. The ultramontine forces generally won out, especially with the promulgation of [[Papal Infallibility]] at the First Vatican Council in 1870. The ultramontane forces cited the old doctrines of [[Robert Bellarmine]] (1542-1621) and [[Francisco de Suárez]] (1548-1617) to bolster the papal claim to absolute power in spiritual matters.

Gallicanism in France was damaged by the rise of ultramontanism in the 1850s and the devotional revolution that shifted piety to devotions sponsored by Rome. Gallicanism was officially suppressed by the First Vatican Council in 1870, which established the paramount authority of the pope as a matter of dogma. However informal manifestations of Gallicanism continue in some countries, especially China. In Canada, the Irish clergy fought for ultramontanism against the French clergy, who were Gallican. The [[Catholicism in Ireland|Irish]] won out with the support of the Vatican.

====Facing Modernity====

Nineteenth century urbanization brought millions of peasants from the villages to industrial cities where church facilities were few. The Church escaped irrelevance by using the same means as emerging nation-states: promoting a homogeneous culture aided especially by universal use of Latin; authorizing new rites and folk devotions, especially those focused on Mary and other favored saints; promoting pilgrimages to holy sites; encouraging clergy to endorse and lead regional nationalist movements that focused on historic languages and cultures; creating many new teaching orders and schools; supporting intellectuals and publishing houses; cultivating an image of theological, canonical, and moral superiority; and establishing more administrative and doctrinal centralization (in Rome). Of special importance was the missionary activity, based especially in Germany, that was in competition with Protestant missions in China, India, Africa and other non-Christian lands. The Jesuits proved highly adept at promoting the Papal cause.

The resurgence of Papal leadership caused internal dissent among some Catholic intellectuals, such as the historian [[Lord Acton]] in Britain and the theologian Ignaz von Döllinger in Germany, who opposed the declaration of the dogma of papal infallibility. This caused further schisms, with breakaway groups centering on the Archbishop of [[Utrecht]] to form the [[Old Catholic Church]].

=====Syllabus of Errors=====

The [[Syllabus of Errors]] of Pope [[Pius IX]] in 1864 rejected the liberal doctrines of the modern world.<ref> see text at [http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9syll.htm]</ref> It denounced pantheism, naturalism, nationalism, indifferentism, socialism, communism, freemasonry, theological rationalism, [[separation of church and state]], and removal of [[public school]]s from Church control. The Pope claimed for the Catholic Church total control over science and culture. Liberals viewed this as a declaration of war by the Church on modern civilization. Opponents stressed the Papacy had become intolerant and medieval and largely political in nature.<ref> Latourette (1958) vol 1 ch. 6</ref>

====Facing Liberalism====

In Germany in the 1840s the ultramontane movement used mass meetings and pilgrimages to combat the growth of liberalism and modernism. However, the anti-clerical press attacked these mass meetings, and in response a large number of Catholic newspapers emerged in Germany starting in the 1840s. To ensure their own survival, these newspapers championed a liberal idea--[[Freedom of the press|press freedom]]. In addition, local clubs were established to mobilize the Catholic working class. These clubs tried to end discrimination against ordinary Catholics by advocating other liberal concepts--freedom of religion and freedom of thought--and by entering the electoral process.

With the unification of Germany in 1870, the new nation faced the problems of consolidation, one of which was secularization. The laws dealing with secularization opened a political battle between Chancellor [[Bismarck]] and the Catholics, which struggle is called the "[[Kulturkampf]]." The Catholics organized their own political parties and protected their interests by voting as a bloc into the 1930s, when the Nazis closed down all other parties.

====Freemasons====

Freemasonry is a secret society that was, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, politically active in numerous countries. The Catholic Church opposed Freemasonry and forbade its members to belong to Masonic lodges. The Catholic Church first condemned Freemasonry in 1738. This was partially because Masons were often aligned with popular uprisings that had the objective of replacing traditional monarchs and class privilege with national independence and voting rights. A large number of the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence had been Freemasons, for example. Some, though not all, of the French Revolution's leaders were Masons, although Robespierre was not a Mason. The Masonic role in the French Revolution was part of the reason the Catholic Church condemned Freemasonry.

The Papacy coordinated attacks against Masonry in countries such as Brazil, where the religious question in the 1870s centered on Masonry and the struggle between regalist and ultramontane forces. One method of Catholic action was to found Catholic universities. Ignace Bourget, second bishop of Montreal, Canada, founded Laval University, saying that the university would be the principal instrument for "wresting the elite from the clutches of liberalism." At the time, political Liberalism was closely associated with national liberation and democracy.

====Women====

A spiritual revolution took place in the 19th century, moving individuals to a renewed interest in personal piety. There was a new emphasis on the role of Mary and a greatly increased involvement of women in the life of the Church. The number of sisters and nuns increased from 20,000 to 400,000 between 1815 and 1914.

Camp (1990) traced the treatment of women by the Church. In the late 19th century, the papacy began to revise its public teachings about the proper role of women in the Church and society. From Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) to Pope John Paul II (1978-2005), papal social pronouncements revealed an evolution in attitudes from the view that women are passive subordinates to men in all spheres of life to the current teaching that lay and clerical women are equal but complementary partners with men in religious, political, economic, and social endeavors. Nevertheless, the papacy has remained firm in the conviction that ordination is for men only.

====Arts====

[[Image:Cerro_de_Angeles.jpg|right|thumb|230px|Cerro de los Angeles, Madrid, Spain.]]
The arts provided a refuge from modernity in the form of a nostalgic aesthetic. Church architecture saw the revival of the medieval [[Gothic]] style. Romantic literature, for example by Chateaubriand, helped inspire a Catholic revival. In music, Catholic churchgoers were likely to be exposed to an officially sponsored revival of ''a cappella'' singing in the manner of Palestrina. The rapid development of symphonic and operatic forms affected sacred music, resulting in many masses, requiems, and te deums for large orchestra and chorus, sometimes even composed by skeptics such as Berlioz and Verdi.

====Politics====

In politics, as democracy and popular government spread, religious motivations moved people into one party or the other. In Catholic countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, sharp confrontations emerged between clericals and anti-clericals; in countries with mixed Catholic and Protestant populations such as Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain and the U.S., political splits occurred along confessional lines. In the U.S. the great majority of the Catholics became [[Democratic Party|Democrats]]. In Germany the Catholics formed their own Center party to fight off attacks from the Protestants, as during the [[Kulturkampf]].

The British attempt to impose Protestantism on Ireland not only fueled the Catholic revival there but also contributed to its spread via emigration to the U.S. and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and England itself, all of which increased the Catholic population. The Irish often took control of the Church in each of these countries. The Poles, having lost their nation state in the 1790s, turned to an intense religiosity that preserved national identity and which they carried with them to industrial centers in the U.S. and Germany. In the U.S., some Poles, frustrated with the Irish control of the Church, founded the [[Polish National Catholic Church]].

===20th century===

====Vatican II====

[[File:John-23.jpg|right|thumb|270px|[[Pope John XXIII]] reigned 1958-63]]

The "Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican" (termed [[Vatican II]]), was called by [[Pope John XXIII]] and was in session from 1962 to 1965. It dramatically modernized and transformed church policies, with major changes to official theology and liturgy. Liturgical changes included the introduction of Mass in local languages instead of Latin. Theologically, the council deemphasized the centrality of Mary while also adding a new emphasis on individual and personal holiness. These were ideas previously associated with Protestantism and had, in some cases, been features in the opposition to the Catholic Church since the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Council asserted the Church's support for [[freedom of religion]], declared that the Jews were not guilty of [[deicide]], and recognized the possibility of salvation for Jews, Muslims, and Protestants.

After Vatican II, 1962-65, the controversy among Catholics over papal authority and infallibility largely ended, though some significant degree of opposition to it remains,<ref>such as by historian Garry Wills, author of ''Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit'' (Sophia Institute Press, 2003), and liberal theologian Hans Kung, author of ''Infallible?: An inquiry'' (1970)</ref><ref>David Carlin, ''The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America'',‎ appendix 2</ref><ref>[http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/3543/vatican.htm Raymond Taouk, ''What are Catholics to think of Vatican II?'']</ref> This dissent is mainly manifested in disagreement with Roman Catholic teaching on birth control and abortion.<ref>[http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/014/Infallibility%20in%20Ethical%20Perspective%20By%20John%20M.%20Swomley_014_26_.htm John M. Swomley, ''Infallibility in Ethical Perspective Christian Ethics Today], Issue 014 Volume 4 No 1 February 1996</ref> For example 56% of U.S. Catholics said that the pope is not infallible "when he teaches on matters of morals, such as birth control and abortion"; 80% of Catholics believed it is possible to disagree with the pope on official positions on morality and still be a good Catholic. <ref>Time/CNN nationwide poll of 1,000 adults, conducted by Yankelovich Partners, Sept. 27-28, 1995</ref>

Reactions among Catholics to Vatican II fall into three camps. "Liberal" Catholics, drawing on the established Catholic belief in the "journeying" nature of the Church, see Vatican II and the new period that it marked in Catholic history as representing a significant advancement in man's understanding of the Gospels, which in turn justifies changes in Catholic belief and practice. "Conservative" Catholics (including the most recent popes) hold that the decrees of the Council, properly understood, are wholly in line with the historic Catholic faith, and that they should not be used as an excuse for unwarranted innovations. "Traditional" (or "[[Traditionalist Catholicism|traditionalist]]") Catholics regard the teachings of Vatican II as problematic, or even as heretical. Some of these Catholics created new churches which use the old liturgies.

===21st Century===

Current issues facing the Catholic Church include:

* The effects of Obamacare and other liberal legislation on Catholic hospitals (such as funding for abortion)
* The aftermath of a series of sexual abuse scandals by priests and other clergymen. In the early 2000s, it was found that bishops were privately settling cases of molestation of minors by priests, occurring primarily between the 1940s and 1980s. The attempted cover-up of this abuse by the church has caused many Catholics to become disillusioned with the church.
* Increasing atheism and secularism in Europe
* Pope Francis' Liberal Agenda

Islam is also increasingly becoming a threat to Catholicism. Sharia Law's rejection of religious freedom and the ongoing genocide of Chaldean Rite Catholics in Iraq are among these threats. There is a very strong trend of Muslim immigration into Europe, which is subverting the judicial system towards a Sharia theocracy. This trend is fueled through assassinations and threats towards anti-Islamic politicians (such as [[Theo Van Gogh]] and [[Geert Wilders]]). While Christianity remains the world's largest religion, all denominations of Islam combined now outnumber Catholicism (the most popular Christian denomination).

The Church has taken stances on recent controversial issues, including opposing the [[Iraq War]]<ref>Richert, Scott P. "What Is the Papacy's Response to the War in Iraq?" About.com Catholicism. http://catholicism.about.com/od/thechurchintheworld/f/popes_on_iraq.htm</ref>, supporting [[universal health care]] (including many aspects of [[Obamacare]])<ref>Clarke, Kevin. "Papal prescription for universal health care." January 16, 2011. U.S. Catholic. http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/social-justice/2011/01/papal-prescription</ref>, and supporting assistance to unauthorized [[immigrant]]s.<ref>Kerwin, Donald. "Immigration Reform and the Catholic Church." May, 2006. Migration Information Source. http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=395</ref> The Church continues to oppose birth control and abortion, as discussed above.

== See also ==

*[[Cafeteria Catholic]]
*[[Catholic views on creationism‎]]
*[[Pope Francis I]]
*[[Vatican City]]
*[[Catholicism in Crisis]]
*[[Revelation, Book of (historical exegesis)]]

==External links==
[[Image:Virgen.jpg|right|thumb|Virgin Mary and Child]]

*[http://www.Vatican.va The Vatican]
*A digital version of [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ ''The Catholic Encyclopedia''].
*[http://www.cua.edu/ The Catholic University of America] Washington, D. C.
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11567b.htm St. Paul] Catholic Encyclopedia.
*[http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm Catechism of the Catholic Church] Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic Church web site.
*[http://www.pellegrinocattolico.com/index.html Al Pellegrino Cattolico] Italian web site.

==Further reading==
* Bokenkotter, Thomas. ''A Concise History of the Catholic Church'' (2005) [http://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Catholic-Church/dp/0385516134/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241119912&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Brown, Peter. ''The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity 200-1000 AD'' (2002), 640pp
* Chadwick, Owen. ''A History of the Popes, 1830-1914.'' (1998), 616pp; a standard recent history. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=12355195 online edition],
* Holland, Joe. ''Modern Catholic Social Teaching: The Popes Confront the Industrial Age 1740-1958.'' Paulist Press, 2003. 404 pp.
* Kung, Hans. ''The Catholic Church: A Short History'' (2003), by a leading Catholic scholar [http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Church-History-Library-Chronicles/dp/0812967623/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241119912&sr=8-15 excerpt and text search]
* Latourette, Kenneth Scott. ''Christianity in a Revolutionary Age: A History of Christianity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' 5 Vol'' (1958), a detailed history of Christianity 1800-1950 by a Protestant scholar. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=101463833 vol 1 online edition]
* O'Toole, James M. ''The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America'' (2008) [http://books.google.com/books?id=BFlBzSAVW6kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:The+intitle:Faithful+intitle:A+intitle:History+intitle:of+intitle:Catholics+intitle:in+intitle:America&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=0 excerpt and text search]

===Reference===
* ''New Catholic 'Encyclopedia'' (1967), complete coverage of all topics by Catholic scholars
* ''Catholic Encyclopedia,'' (1913) [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ online edition] complete coverage by Catholic scholars; the articles were written about 100 years ago
* Coppa, Frank J., ed. ''Great Popes through History: An Encyclopedia.'' (2002). 600 pp.
* Kelly, J.N.D. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Popes'' (1988). 349pp; scholarly short biographies; [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54850171 online edition]

==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Catholic Church| ]]
[[Category:Christian History]]
[[Category:Christian Denominations]]