How Hitler replaced the Devil

Alec Ryrie argues that the age of Hitler is not the 1930s and 1940s, it is our own lifetimes. As the influence of Christianity receded from the 1960s onwards, the figure of Hitler stepped into the breach – the most potent possible symbol of evil, around whom the Western moral imagination was structured.

But as the Second World War recedes into history, this anti-Nazi moral consensus is unravelling, which means that our whole system of morality is coming under pressure. What happens when the Age of Hitler comes to an end?

Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University and author of ‘The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It’.

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