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| Magda Goebbels (1901 - 1945) image wikimedia |
The concept of God is actually very difficult to define in human languages.
Martin Luther gave a very practical - and therefore working - definition "to whom you attach from all your heart and whom you trust is your God".
We can assume that for millions of citizens in Third Reich Adolf Hitler was the one to whom people were attached from all their hearts and whom they trusted more than anything else - their Führer, their God. This is a helpful point of view releasing the concept of one's god from organized religion.
As for secular gods, Jesus said that a person may have earthly wealth, Mammon, as god and can then not worship also God.
The complex personality and history of Magda Goebbels (11 November 1901 – 1 May 1945) is an example of a person whose real god was Adolf Hitler even when she knew also the real God. She was from a Christian home and had been given the very Biblical name of Maria Magdalena.
But knowing that God exists was not enough: she could not worship both of Führer and God as one of them was for her true god.
Magda's farewell letter to her son from a previous marriage, Harald Quandt, two days before she killed her six children and herself is a powerful document about the significance of the chosen one, who sits in the throne of our hearts.
My beloved son! By now we have been in the Führerbunker for six days already—daddy, your six little siblings and I, for the sake of giving our national socialistic lives the only possible honourable end ...
You shall know that I stayed here against daddy's will, and that even on last Sunday the Führer wanted to help me to get out. You know your mother—we have the same blood, for me there was no wavering. Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything beautiful and marvelous that I have known in my life. The world that comes after the Führer and national socialism is not any longer worth living in and therefore I took the children with me, for they are too good for the life that would follow, and a merciful God will understand me when I will give them the salvation ...
The children are wonderful ...
there never is a word of complaint nor crying. The impacts are shaking the bunker. The elder kids cover the younger ones, their presence is a blessing and they are making the Führer smile once in a while. May God help that I have the strength to perform the last and hardest. We only have one goal left: loyalty to the Führer even in death. Harald, my dear son—I want to give you what I learned in life: be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country ...
Be proud of us and try to keep us in dear memory ...
wikipedia
Joseph and Maria Magdalena Goebbels had six wonderful children that they drugged and then killed with cyanide capsules in Mayday 1945
Helga Susanne
Hildegard "Hilde" Traudel
Helmut Christian
Holdine "Holde" Kathrin
Hedwig "Hedda" Johanna
Heidrun "Heide" Elisabeth
"Straight after Hitler's death, Mrs. Goebbels came down to the bunker with her children," Mr Misch recalls. "She started preparing to kill them. She couldn't have done that above ground—there were other people there who would have stopped her. That's why she came downstairs—because no-one else was allowed in the bunker. She came down on purpose to kill them.
"The kids were right next to me and behind me. We all knew what was going to happen. It was clear. I saw Hitler's doctor, Dr Stumpfegger give the children something to drink. Some kind of sugary drink. Then Stumpfegger went and helped to kill them. All of us knew what was going on. An hour or two later, Mrs Goebbels came out crying. She sat down at a table and began playing patience. This is exactly how it was."
Rocush Misch BBC News
These were not the only worshipers of Adolf Hitler who made suicide following the example of their god of choice.
