Now I don't really know if Hitler is in heaven or not, but that is not the point of this page. The point is God's grace and why he would allow someone like Hitler to go to heaven or why would God even allow such an evil man to live? Read my paper below to find out. You can also download this as a PDF.
Adolf Hitler, the epitome of evil in our time. A man who’s only concern was with himself and his own glory. He would be responsible for the death of millions of innocent people and for the tragedies that would cover the entire world. Families in every nation would feel his impact. Often by the loss of the ones they loved, and he reveled in it. The thought that others were suffering because of him brought him joy. It was under his leadership and approval that death was worshiped and humans were treated worse than animals. People were murdered for their skin, so the Germans could use it to make wallets and other leather goods. The heads of prisoners were shrunk and given as gifts between Hitler’s soldiers. The fat of their victims was used to make soap. Adolf Hitler was probably the most hated man on the earth during his reign of terror.
The very generals that served under him recognized that Hitler’s lust went far beyond simple national pride and a desire to restore Germany to its past glory. Hitler had just as little concern for his own people than he had for the nations that he murdered. He was twisting every motivation, every value that the people had into a lie that would serve him. He twisted Christianity into a lie that would force pastors to murder enemy prisoners. He twisted healthy national pride into a hate for every other nation. He twisted the goodness of medical science into a lie that would torture and mutilate innocent victims. All of this had one goal. It was to glorify himself. He was setting himself up as god.
Churches had to swear an allegiance to Hitler instead of to God. Armies had to swear an allegiance to Hitler instead of to a nation and what it stood for. Blind and absolute devotion and dedication to him was the only thing that Hitler accepted from his followers. Any question or hesitation was met with a fit of rage and anger, if you were lucky. If you were not so lucky, then it was met with a firing squad. He was a god who demanded absolute obedience and loyalty. No other value or moral or law was higher than his word or his command.
Hitler had become what every single human would become if they were completely devoid of God’s grace and influence. Scriptures talk about God forsaking people over to their own desires, and this is what happened to Hitler. William Golding’s book “The Lord of the Flies” is an example of this concept. When God totally abandons a person and removes all restraints from them, they turn completely evil. We are all born with a knowledge that there is a God, that there is a higher power, but Hitler had simply removed God and placed himself in that position. We are all born with a conscience, the knowledge of good and evil, but Hitler had seared his conscience. Hitler rejected every godly teaching he had learned as a child. Instead of trying to do good and seek God, Hitler had turned the opposite way and God gave him over to his own desires. As Satan had entered Judas and drove him to murder Jesus, so had evil entered into Adolf Hitler and drove him to commit the atrocities that humanity had tried to forget about since the last time such evil had ruled the world.
Hitler certainly wasn’t the first man to be this way. Many other rulers had turned evil in times past. One does not have to look too far back to see a Roman Cesar who set himself up as god and commited heinous crimes against humanity. Genghis Khan is another historical figure that comes to mind who killed more than Hitler and Stalin combined. The man who rode across Asia with an army who lived off their own battle horses. They rode wet mares and the solders would survive by drinking the mare’s blood and milk. This allowed them to travel great distances with minimal supplies. This enabled Genghis the ability to murder about 40 million people, while at the same time fathering hundreds of illegitimate children by raping his victims and taking them as his concubines. His impact on the world was so great that we can measure the death toll by the reduction of the world’s carbon footprint during those years.
So Hitler certainly wasn’t the first of such men. What made Hitler so significant though, was three things. The first is that he was recent to us. We remember him, whereas the other are so far past that they become mere fairy tales. The horror of the past monsters has been forgotten and is simply “history” or statistics. The horrors of Hitler are still remembered in peoples dreams today. The generation that lost loved ones is still with us, but not for much longer. Secondly, Hitler had something that his evil predecessors did not. Hitler had modern technology. He had gunpowder, airplanes, rockets,tanks and gas chambers. Hitler’s killing spree was evil in overdrive. He could accomplish what the depraved minds of the past could only dream of, and Hitler put these tools to use. The death that Hitler caused literally spanned over the entire globe. In the past, evil men could only touch the their “known world”, but Hitler had access to it all. The third main difference with Hitler, is that his actions caused the exact opposite of his goal. Due to his absolute hatred of God’s people, the nation of Israel was reformed. Hitler became the modern day Haman who tries to do the impossible and exterminate God’s chosen people. As a result they are strengthened and united, only to the demise of the instigator.
Like Esther plotting against Haman, many attempts were made to stop Hitler as well. Some by his own people. Only for some reason, they all failed. It was as if God was protecting Hitler from the godly men who were trying to stop the evil. Indeed even Hitler recognized this phenomenon and said, “It was Providence that spared me! This proves that I am on the right track. I feel that this is the confirmation of all my work.” One assassination attempt should have shredded his body to pieces, but instead only made his hair look as if had placed his finger in a light socket, and it turned his uniform pants into a skirt. He shipped his tattered trousers to his mistress Eva with a note. “I have sent you the uniform of that wretched day. Proof that Providence protects me and that we no longer have to fear our enemies.”
Why would God repeatedly protect such a man? Why would God give him the impression that what he was doing was the “right” thing? It seems to make no sense to us. Wasn’t God offended by Hitler’s sins? Wasn’t God hurt at the suffering of all the innocent victims in Hitler’s wake of evil? Not only was God protecting this man, but he was encouraging him as well.
To rub salt into the wound of justice, it now looks as if Hitler may not have died in Berlin. We all kind of secretively take comfort in the image of Hitler and Eva running down into their bunker in fear of the allied forces. We smile inside at the thought of Hitler putting a pistol to his head in desperation and pulling the trigger. Justice had finally come to the embodiment of evil. But what if that didn’t happen? What if he had actually gotten away? What if, once again God had spared this wretched man from the fate he so desperately deserved?
There is evidence that this is what actually happened. The lack of his remains speak to this. Hitler may have escaped death once again and made his way to South America where he lived out his life in relative peace. He may not have ever had to face up to his crimes. He may have actually “gotten away with it”. With this idea, our sense of righteousness becomes enraged. We become indigent that the most evil man that we know of in history may have never faced justice of any kind on this earth. So then we take our righteous comfort in the thought of Hitler’s Judgment Day before God. Standing before the throne of God he would surely face his crimes and pay for them in eternity’s torment of Hell. The souls of the those whom he crushed would all testify against him and condemn him before the Almighty God. His evil deeds would all come flooding back to haunt him as he groveled before God in terror. But what if that didn’t happen either?
What if Hitler never in eternity past or future, had to pay for any of his sins? What if God forgave him? What if God had protected Hitler all those years in order to forgive his sins while he was living is South America? What if, when we walk through the gates of heaven, there is Adolf Hitler standing next to Abraham and St. Peter smiling at us? There standing before us is the short German man we were “allowed” to hate, and he is greeting us with open arms saying “welcome brother”.
Our knee jerk reaction is to reject this thought and say “It is wrong! It is unjust! It is not fair!”, and that is exactly the point. As I read through the Bible, I get this image of God’s personality, a sense of who he is and what he takes pleasure in. This is precisely what I would expect from a gracious God. The sins that Hitler committed were no more or less “evil” than the sins that you or I have committed. They are all an offense against the eternally righteous and holy God. They are all equally deserving of eternal hell and damnation.
God would be telling us, “I am going to demonstrate to you, just how much grace, love and mercy I have had toward you by forgiving him. The same amount of grace that I must posses in order to forgive this wretch of a man, is the same amount of grace that it takes to save you from your own sins as well. Adolf is going to be my constant reminder to you, how much you are in debt to me.”
God would forgive Hitler to God’s own glory. God would have allowed Hitler to do everything for Hitler’s own glory because in the end, God’s grace towards Adolf would transform every evil Hitler committed, instigated or even thought into glory for God himself.
Dan Van Wormer 2020