See how many clues it takes you to guess the identity of this historical figure.

12. Although not a Lutheran by denomination, he was a great admirer of Martin Luther.

A few days ago I was in Eisenach and stood on top of the Wartburg, where a great German once translated the Bible.

…and from another setting,

And we know that were the great German reformer with us to-day he would rejoice to be freed from the necessity of his own time…

11. Although not a Lutheran, he was commemorated in this carving of a baptismal font inside the Martin Luther Memorial Church (image pixelated to maintain the quiz; click here to see the original image).

10. He argued that Christians should unite by rising above denominational conflicts.

We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls…. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people.

9. He urged people to live as one under the guidance of Jesus Christ.

So we have come together on this day to prove symbolically that we are more than a collection of individuals striving one against another, that none of us is too proud, none of us too high, none is too rich, and none too poor, to stand together before the face of the Lord and of the world in this indissoluble, sworn community.

8. He felt that religious faith was a necessary condition for a good life.

I say that they can be solved; there is no problem that cannot be, but faith is necessary. Think of the faith I had to have eighteen years ago, a single man on a lonely path… Life is hard for many, but it is hardest if you are unhappy and have no faith. Have faith.

7. Correspondingly, he rejected atheism in the strongest terms.

We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.

6. He railed against blasphemy, especially when used to support political agendas.

But he who dares to use the word “God” for such devilish activity blasphemes against Providence and, according to our belief, he cannot end except in destruction.

5. He warned against the dangers of occultism and paganism and even used the “some things mankind was not meant to know” argument.

We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement.

4. Although never inclined to promote unity of purpose with non-Christian churches, as a young man he was struck by the prevalence of anti-Semitism.

Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the word ‘Jew,’ with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions…. For the Jew was still characterized for me by nothing but his religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I maintained my rejection of religious attacks in this case as in others. Consequently, the tone, particularly that of the Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation.

3. He believed in fair distribution of wealth.

We must, therefore, coolly and objectively adopt the standpoint that it can certainly not be the intention of Heaven to give one people fifty times as much land and soil in this world as another.

2. He was reasonably talented as an artist and painted this glowing portrait of the Madonna and child in “naïve art” style. (There’s a really big clue in this painting, if you know what to look for!)

1. His most widespread motto (stamped on literally millions of belt buckles) was “God With Us.”

Answer after the break…

Who was this man? Adolf Hitler.

The “God With Us” belt buckle was standard issue for German infantrymen under the Nazis, and the material for this quiz is sourced from the website Hitler’s Christianity.

Now the purpose of this quiz is not to propose that Nazism was the godchild of Christianity. Hitler was, it should not need to be said, an egotistical megalomaniac psychopath with all the regard for truth and rhetorical fairness we commonly associate with egotistical megalomaniac psychopaths (see also Mugabe, R). If it suited him to conjure up Christ in his speeches, he would do so. If it suited him to attack church leaders, he would do so. It also should go without saying that many of the most admirable opponents of Hitler within Germany were Christians (think of Dietrich Bornhoeffer, the White Rose movement, and Admiral Canaris, all of whom paid with their lives).

I mention all this as a small matter of protest against the monstrosity that is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, an anti-evolution movie in which our host Ben Stein spends considerable time touring the death camps of Germany and drawing on his Jewish heritage while invoking Darwinian evolution as atheistic and the natural progenitor of Nazism. So while none of the information drawn on for this quiz should be used to attack Christianity, I present it to point out that Ben Stein and his financial backers are pathological liars who are trying to demonise Darwin and atheism by association with Nazism even though the historical record makes it quite clear that Hitler was raised a Catholic and remained a Christian all his life (albeit not one prone to doctrinal consistency), never criticised Jesus (although he often criticised other Christians for not being “True”), repeatedly attacked atheism, and never once in his writings or speeches referred to Darwin or biological evolution.

Why would Stein lie like this? Well, one can’t ever be sure how accurately one can gauge another’s motive from a distance, but three thoughts come to mind, to wit: unapologetic former speech writer for Richard Nixon; professional propagandist; the phrase “pieces of silver.”

And did you get the clue in the painting? Look again. Baby Jesus is a blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryan cherub and most definitely not the child of Levantine Jewish parents (OK, for the sake of argument, one Levantine Jewish parent and one God).