Weikart's study is a well-argued and clear response to the enduring confusion about the nature of Hitler's religion. He is particularly concerned with challenging current arguments that Hitler was a Christian, as advocated by the British scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins, among others. Likewise, he challenges common perceptions that Hitler was an atheist, or that his beliefs and policies were the result of a materialist worldview. Others, such as Michael Hesemann, have claimed that Hitler was an occultist and that the evil of National Socialism can only be understood in the context of occult and esoteric influences in early twentieth-century Germany. Alternatively, Weikart presents evidence from the early 1920s to Hitler's death in 1945 to argue that Hitler was a pantheist, one who identified nature with God. As Weikart acknowledges, this is not a new thesis—indeed, some German observers in the Nazi era asserted as much. Instead, he offers clarity to a topic that still divides scholars and the public, and provides the most detailed examination of Hitler's religion in the English language.

Weikart divides his book into ten chapters in which each asks a central question about Hitler's religion, such as “Who influenced Hitler's Religion?” “Was Hitler an Atheist?” and “Who was Hitler's Lord?” He builds a convincing case by utilizing sources as varied as Hitler's writings, speeches, and policies, as well as sources from individuals who heard Hitler's private musings about religion, including friends, secretaries, and high-ranking officials in the Nazi regime.

Indeed, it is this discerning use of sources that sets Weikart's book apart. One reason there have been so many different interpretations about Hitler's religion is that he made public statements that on the surface seemed contradictory, and that lent support to any conclusion one wished to draw: that he was either a Christian, an atheist, or occultist. Wiekart concludes that Hitler was a “religious chameleon, a quintessential religious hypocrite,” who used religion to appeal to the masses (13). Whether drawing up Point 24 of the Nazi Party Platform that advanced “positive Christianity” in the Nazi vision of the state, or publicly affirming Christian belief in Christ as savior, Weikart contends that Hitler pandered to his predominantly Christian audiences to garner their support. As Hitler knew, a nation that was 97 percent Christian would not accept an identified pantheist as its leader. Nevertheless, Hitler made his true religious views known publicly in various speeches, and most importantly, in Mein Kampf, but also privately to his subordinates, most of whom dismissed any notion that he was a Christian or an atheist.

Weikart sifts through Hitler's statements on religion, which were oftentimes unclear or contradictory, to find the common thread that is consistent with Hitler's ideology, antisemitism, government policies, and war aims: the belief in pantheism. Hitler equated nature with God, and thus, the laws of nature, including the survival of the fittest, provided him with the only moral guide he needed. This explains why Hitler believed he was doing God's will in exterminating “inferior” people groups, such as the Jews and the Roma and Sinti, as well as anyone the Nazi regime deemed “unworthy of life.” Hitler believed he was serving nature by helping the strongest and purest, the “Aryan” race, to thrive. Weikart makes a convincing case that Hitler's moral system was not derived from atheism or nihilism, but from pantheism and his understanding of nature's laws. In fact, Hitler believed that in hastening the eradication of the “weak,” his policies were not only “morally justified, but morally praiseworthy” (247). Weikart's argument is immensely strengthened by his attention to the object of Hitler's worship and the source of his morality. He emphasizes the differences between Hitler's pantheist view of God and the traditional Christian view of God, thus demonstrating their utter incompatibility.

Furthermore, Weikart identifies one of the major problems in recent debates about Hitler's religion: the lack of a clear definition of who is a Christian. In his criticisms of Christianity, Richard Dawkins identifies Hitler as a Christian simply because the German leader was baptized. The American historian Richard Steigmann-Gall identifies Hitler as a Christian because Hitler publicly acknowledged God and Jesus while on the stump. But Weikart takes the conversation deeper by probing Hitler's specific religious beliefs. If being a Christian refers to the belief that Jesus is the Son of God and that salvation is through him, then based upon Hitler's own statements, as well as the recollections of many who heard Hitler ruminate on religion, Hitler cannot be a Christian as traditionally understood, regardless of his baptism or membership in the Roman Catholic Church.

While Weikart expertly analyzes the writings and speeches of Hitler, as well as the memoirs and recollections of close associates of Hitler, it could have strengthened his argument to examine the sources of Christians in the German churches and their views of Hitler's religion. Did Christians within the German churches see Hitler as one of their own? In my own work on the sermons of the Confessing Church, the evidence suggests wide disagreement about the religious nature of National Socialism. While some pastors voiced enthusiasm when Hitler took office in January 1933 (because they witnessed a marked increase in church attendance), pastors increasingly criticized National Socialism as a “false belief,” as “neo-pagan,” or simply as an ideology in contradiction to Christianity. Several, in fact, condemned the image of Hitler as a messiah figure in Nazi Germany. The question is, how frequently if at all, did Christian pastors and leaders challenge Hitler's purported Christianity?

Weikart's thorough examination of Hitler's religion is the place to begin for anyone interested in the topic. It deserves to be the standard work on the subject because of his thorough examination of the sources and the strength of its argument.