Following immediately D-Day, 1944, was the Battle for Normandy. Two interesting thoughts ……..
image: Hitler and his favourite cleric, Mufti Amin Al-Husseini, all the way from …… Palestine
MEPHISTOPHELIAN POWER
As Christians consider that person known as The Antichrist in the Bible, we can glean instructive insights from the person we all know as Adolf Hitler. The quotations below are taken from the book “The Battle for Normandy”, by Eversley Bellfield and H. Essame, page 164.
Hitler exercised an almost Mephistophelean power. The tough, efficient production minister Speer has testified about Hitler that:
“all who had worked closely with him [Hitler] for a long time were entirely dependent on, and obedient to, him. However forceful their behaviour in their own sphere, in his presence they were insignificant and timid. Cowardice alone does not account for this. As a result of their long cooperation, they not only developed an uncanny faith in him, but also fell completely under his influence. They were in his spell, blindly subservient to him and with no will of their own”.
Admiral Doenitz, regarded by his subordinates in the [German] Navy as a hard and inflexible commander, made a similar confession: “I purposely went very seldom to his HQ, for I had the feeling that I would thus best preserve my power of initiative and also because after several days there I always had the feeling that I must disengage myself from his power of suggestion”.
We know that there have been many “anti-Christ” figures in history, who exercised evil genius in their own locales, and sometimes internationally. Amongst these Hitler undoubtedly had a genuinely demonic power about him. The Nazis’ connection to and fascination with the occult, suggests that the demonic – indeed the satanic – was a genuine power base in Nazi-Germany. Many modern commentators wonder whether the Bible’s figure called The Antichrist will exercise a Hitler- like power over the people whom he rules. In that sense, Hitler may provide a fascinating, and troubling, sense of what the future Antichrist will be like and what power he will wield over individuals.
WAYWARD PADRE?
From the same book (“The Battle for Normandy”, by Bellfield and Essame) comes another thought provoking incident relating to the military campaign known as Operation Goodwood, and the Canadian sub-operation to take the strategically important Carpiquet Aerodrome. This quote is from page 143 of the book, and also causes us to stop and think:
“at the height of this bloody conflict a very strange incident occurred. As a chaplain was going forward in his Jeep carrying a load of him books, he lost his way. To everyone’s consternation he was next seen driving across the open concrete runways of the car Carpiquet aerodrome passing through a veritable wall of small arms, mortar, and artillery fire. Realising that he had made a mistake and was in the wrong place, he turned round and drove back through this lethal barrage. Miraculously he emerged, shaken, but otherwise unhurt. The more cynical asserted that this event caused a religious revival amongst the Canadians it was also rumoured that all the Padres were temporarily withdrawn to be given a brief, but intensive, course in map reading!”
God moves in mysterious ways!
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