During the early days of internet debates, a lawyer proposed “Godwin’s Law” (named after himself) to describe how online discussions tend to escalate. “As an online discussion continues,” he said, “the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches one.” In other words, when people run out of arguments, they resort to comparing their opponents with the evilest person imaginable. 

Godwin’s law has held up in the decades since and now applies to political discourse and campus protests. A common trick the last few election cycles is to call anyone to the right of Barack Obama, “literally Hitler.” Activists on college campuses have successfully stifled debate without an argument, by simply referring to opponents as Nazis. 

Godwin may not have anticipated the day that someone who has been called a Nazi would reply, “I’m okay with that!” Since the middle of the last century, Hitler has been considered the worst, and rightly so. Though plenty of Western academics have been willing to overlook the atrocities of Communists, Hitler, as historian Tom Holland has said, has always been the archetype of evil.  

Today however, on the anniversary of Hitler’s death (April 30), it is important to say again that Adolph Hitler was among the worst, and perhaps the worst, villain of history. There’s an ongoing reevaluation of the Nazis, which began on the fringes of online culture. It must be soundly rejected, especially now as more people seem to be doubting that the Holocaust happened and suggesting that Hitler was just misunderstood.  

What is behind the vibe shift for Hitler? Kanye West’s swastika T-shirt campaign brought the conversation to pop culture, but what really made a difference is when an amateur historian went on two of the world’s biggest podcasts and claimed that the Nazis didn’t kill as many Jews as people say, or if they did, they did not “mean to.” He also claimed that Hitler rarely made antisemitic speeches, despite overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary, and suggested that the hero status of Winston Churchill should be questioned, along with the “post-war consensus.” 

What’s fascinating is that there have been no new revelations about Hitler. No secret files have exposed his true humanitarian impulse, or that he was just “misunderstood.” The deadly reality of the Holocaust is well documented. The thousands of books written about Hitler agree, from Willam Shirer’s account as a journalist in Germany to the autobiographical work of Albert Speer, who was part of Hitler’s inner circle. As does Ian Kershaw’s massive, two-volume, highly detailed biography of Hitler, as well as Konrad Heiden and H.R. Knickerbocker, who both wrote before the war ended and any “postwar consensus” emerged. 

Hitler’s well-documented evils include crafting the Nazi Party platform that expressly alienated Jews; organizing the Party and the entire German state under the idea of Führersprinzip (where he alone held all authority); and creating the SA Storm Troopers whom he used as thugs to intimidate and even kill rivals, as well as the SS which orchestrated the Holocaust. As far back as 1922, Hitler outright proclaimed, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.” In 1939, he authorized the Aktion T4, a group which set into motion a euthanasia program to eliminate the mentally ill, the criminally insane, dementia patients, and those with epilepsy. This program murdered over 200,000 human beings. 

In addition to his antisemitic beliefs, Hitler sought the subjugation and elimination of other non-Germans such as Roma and Slavs. His intense hatred of the Slavs led to vicious wars under the guise of Lebensraum, or the search for German “living space.” What he had articulated in Mein Kampf became, by 1942, the intentional starvation and mass slaughter of Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarussians. 

Hitler suppressed church or religious leaders that defied him and broke promises he made to the others. He did keep his promise to transform Germany, turning it into a pile of rubble and a pariah to the world. He was primarily responsible for the most horrible war in human history and is easily in the top five of all-time murderers, with tens of millions killed. 

At the close of his book The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis noted how many scientists had begun to believe in UFOs, though no evidence for extraterrestrial life had been discovered. The shift in the social imaginary that made aliens more plausible was, he thought, partly due to the publication of science fiction.  

Something similar has happened today. No new facts have been discovered about Hitler, but decades of skepticism, fueled by methodological doubt and untrustworthy institutions have robbed many of the ability to trust. People who think that nothing is true are susceptible to lies. Like the dwarfs of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, having been duped into believing in a false god, they too now refuse to believe what is obviously true.  

A Christian worldview commits us to exposing error but also commits us to the side of what is true. Thus, Christians should never be lost in cynicism. The best antidote for lies is, as Paul prayed for the church at Philippi, love that abounds in truth and in discernment.