"We talked of the necessity of religion, as there had been published in the Arbeiterzeitung an article mocking a Corpus Domini procession. Hitler condemned it strongly on the ground that the religion of the common people was being destroyed without a substitute being offered them. He often said religion was necessary, and that if there were none it should be created. He spoke of Voltaire's having gone to church, because he had been robbed by peasants. The peasants said that if there were no God, as Voltaire claimed, then there was no sin either, so Voltaire went to church to prove to them that he believed in God.
Hitler often received benefits from convents. I have already spoken of his having been fed with convent soup, but also for medical advice he went to the Merciful Brothers (Barmherzige Brüder). But he charged Catholicism with Germanophobia, because the Popes were mostly Italians. He said the Catholic Church had reached her present power and greatness by good organization, and pointed to the past when the Church won her way with fire and sword. He also said the Catholic Church had spilt more blood than any other religion. He believed that the Western nations gained a great deal from the oriental civilizations during the crusades, and so our art rose to new heights.
If the Germans had remained faithful to their old mythology, they would today be a united nation, and would have reached a higher standard of civilization. He meant that the Germanic faith, if retained, would have become more ideal with the changing times, and in this connection pointed to the Greeks, in whose faith he said ideals were revered as gods. He was a particular admirer of the structure of the Greek state, where scholars and philosophers exerted a strong influence, a thing we should have emulated. That had been the epoch of philosophy, but in our technical age philosophy was badly neglected. He asserted that it would be easier to combat misery if there were more philosophy. And moreover, he said, there should be more business men in the government, that it should not be, as it was, full of jurists and bureaucrats.
Once Hitler remarked that the Protestant Church was Germany's true religion. I asked him why his father had not been converted to Protestantism. Hitler retorted that since his father was a governmental official it would have made difficulties. Hitler admired Luther as the greatest German genius."
-- Reinhold Hanisch, one of Hitler's roomies in the "House for poor working men on Meldemannstraße" in Vienna.
source: "I was Hitler's Buddy", The New Republic - April 5, 1939
