Two new books unite Dr Ben Carson's boogeymen

According to Albert Speer, Hitler once offered a remarkable counterfactual history of Europe. He speculated about what might have been if the Muslim forces that invaded France during the eighth century had prevailed against their Frankish enemies at the Battle of Tours. “Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate” of Northern Europe. Therefore, “ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire.”

Speer quoted Hitler expressing his enthusiasm about such an alternative inheritance: “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion…. The Mohammedan religion…would have been much more compatible with us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”

There are other accounts of Hitler expressing similar views. Eva Braun’s sister, Ilse, recorded that during his table talks, Hitler often discussed Islam and “repeatedly compared Islam with Christianity in order to devalue the latter, especially Catholicism,” in Motadel’s summary. “In contrast to Islam, which he portrayed as a strong and practical faith, he described Christianity as a soft, artificial, weak religion of suffering.”

Himmler’s fascination with Islam is more fully documented. His opinions ran along similar lines. Felix Kersten, Himmler’s doctor, wrote an entire chapter of his memoirs about his patient’s enthrallment with Islam and with the Prophet Muhammad. According to Kersten, Rudolf Hess introduced Himmler to the Koran, which Himmler sometimes kept at his bedside. He reportedly regarded the Prophet as one of history’s greatest men.

Himmler left the Catholic Church in 1936, and as the war later raged he sometimes reflected on Islam’s supposed advantages in motivating soldiers. “Mohammed knew that most people are terribly cowardly and stupid,” he told Kersten in 1942.

That is why he promised every warrior who fights courageously and falls in battle two [sic] beautiful women…. You may call this primitive and laugh about it…but it is based on deeper wisdom. A religion must speak a man’s language.

 Hitler explains that, under National Socialism, no one has a bigger schwanzstucker than der Fuhrer.