“Adolf Hitler, the Christ”: James Larratt Battersby and the Legion of Christian Reformers, c. 1940–1955

ABSTRACT: This article investigates the formation, belief system, activities, and dissolution of the Legion of Christian Reformers, an unconventional religious group in early postwar England focused on Hitler as the reincarnated Christ. Being a case study of the radicalization and mobilization of British fascist detainees in the early 1940s, this article demonstrates that their detention was experienced as persecution, moving their thought more decisively towards apocalypticism and the divinization of Hitler. The study argues that the group constructed its belief system within the frame of premillennialist thought manifested as “catastrophic millennialism.” Despite the group’s marginality, this article stresses that its experience reflects trajectories in the post-World War II radical right, and that endeavors of small, often ephemeral political and/or religious movements must be taken seriously and not be dismissed as mere delusions.