Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology

[Pope George Ringo II]

44. Well, it's certainly in the general historical record

It's almost like the problem is with the people who miss it rather than the existence of the information. No, wait. It's exactly like that.

I first learned of the SS prohibition against atheists while reading Kurt Meyer's memoirs. He tells some whoppers in there--nearly half as big as your tales about atheists involved in the Holocaust--about the SS not getting priority for men or equipment, but his comments on atheism have been supported. Padfield's biography of Himmler mentioned his frequent comments that atheists did not have the moral requirements to commit genocide. Hitler's views on religion were a bigger part of Toland's and Kershaw's biographies than most of the others. Kershaw in particular ran with it for his view of Hitler as having a "drummer" phase before the "called by god" phase. Incidentally, the two-volume Kershaw set is probably the best biography of the man, with apologies to Snyder's dual Hitler/Stalin biography. The substance of the SS regulations I've already told you about twice are a historical document and available to anybody who can google them for 5 seconds. Here. Let me help:

On October 13, 1933, Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess issued a decree stating: "No National Socialist may suffer any detriment on the ground that he does not profess any particular faith or confession or on the ground that he does not make any religious profession at all." However, the regime strongly opposed "Godless Communism" and all of Germany's freethinking (freigeist), atheist, and largely left-wing organizations were banned the same year.

In a speech made during the negotiations for the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933, Hitler argued against secular schools, stating: "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith." One of the groups closed down by the Nazi regime was the German Freethinkers League. Christians appealed to Hitler to end anti-religious and anti-Church propaganda promulgated by Free Thinkers, and within Hitler's Nazi Party some atheists were quite vocal in their anti-Christian views, especially Martin Bormann. Heinrich Himmler, who himself was fascinated with Germanic paganism, was a strong promoter of the gottgläubig movement and he did not allow atheists into the SS, arguing that their "refusal to acknowledge higher powers" would be a "potential source of indiscipline"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Atheists Their cite is Michael Burleigh

Many of the concepts promoted with the SS violated accepted Christian doctrine, but neither Himmler nor his deputy Heydrich expected the Christian church to support their stance on abortion, contraception or sterilization of the unfit – let alone their shared belief in polygamy for the sake of racial propagation. This did not however represent disbelief in a higher power from either man nor did it deter them on their ideological quest. In fact, atheism was banned within the SS as Himmler believed it to be a form of egotism that placed the individual at the center of the universe, and thus constituted a rejection of the SS principle of valuing the collective over the individual. All SS men were required to list themselves as Protestant, Catholic or gottgläubig ("Believer in God&quot . Himmler preferred the neo-pagan "expression of spirituality". Still, by 1938 "only 21.9 percent of SS members described themselves as gottgläubig, whereas 54 percent remained Protestant and just under 24 percent Catholic." Belief in God among the SS did not constitute adherence to traditional Christian doctrine nor were its members consummate theologians, as the SS outright banned certain Christian organizations like the International Bible Research Association, a group whose pacifism the SS rejected. Dissenting religious organizations like the Jehovah's Witnesses were severely persecuted by the SS for their pacifism, failure to participate in elections, non-observance of the Hitler salute, not displaying the Nazi flag, and for their non-participation in Nazi organizations; many were sent to concentration camps where they perished. Heydrich once quipped that any and all opposition to Nazism originated from either "Jews or politicized clergy."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology_of_the_SS The cite for atheism is Buchheim in that pesky historical record.

Remember those "godless communists" the Nazis had such a problem with?

In a speech made later in 1933, Hitler claimed to have "stamped out" the atheistic movement. The word Hitler used in this speech, "Gottlosenbewegung", means "Godless Movement" in German, and it refers to the communist freethought movement, though it might not refer to atheism in general.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists#Nazi_Germany

How about the way the Wehrmacht oath changed in 1933 from

I swear loyalty to the Reich's constitution and pledge, that I as a courageous soldier always want to protect the German Reich and its legal institutions, (and) be obedient to the Reichspräsident and to my superiors.

to

I swear by God this holy oath, that I want to ever loyally and sincerely serve my people and fatherland and be prepared as a brave and obedient soldier to risk my life for this oath at any time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichswehreid

Because the way you (not the rest of us, just you apparently) tell an atheist is the way he runs around putting god in everything.

You want some awesome photos of "atheist" SS troops wearing their fezzes, reading books like "Islam und Judentum" and kneeling on their prayer mats while facing Mecca?

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/