Last updated at 14:47 07 August 2006

An institute in Germany has unearthed a Nazi bible ordered by Adolf Hitler to replace the old and new testaments expunged of all references to Jews.

Hitler's race theorists even rewrote the 10 commandments and added two more for good measure in the book called ’German with God’ which was – alongside Hitler’ s autobiography – meant to be required reading in every home in his Third Reich.

Thou shalt not kill, coveting one's neighbour's wife, thou shalt not steal and all other others were scrapped by a regime that stole, murdered and plundered its way across the world.

Hitler admired the ceremony and majesty of the church – he admitted as much in Mein Kampf – but hated its teachings which had no place in his vision of Germanic supermen ruling lesser races devoid of 'outdated' concepts such as mercy and love.

But he knew the power of the church in Germany and even he could not banish it overnight.

He was even forced to abandon the systematic murder of the handicapped and insane before the war when outspoken bishops began to speak against it.

Instead his plan was to gradually 'Nazify' the church beginning with a theological centre he set up in 1939 to rewrite the Holy Bible. He appointed lackey professors to work on a thoroughly Nazi version that would remove all references to Jews and all compassion.

Their brief: 'The cleanse church texts of all non-Ayran influences.'

The first to go were the 10 Commandments. The Nazi 12 run:

"Honour God and believe in him wholeheartedly.

Seek out the peace of God.

Avoid all hypocrisy.

Holy is your health and life!

Holy is your wellbeing and honour!

Holy is your truth and fidelity!

Honour your father and mother – your children are your aid and your example.

Keep the blood pure and your honour holy!

Maintain and multiply the heritage of your forefathers.

Always be ready to help and to forgive.

Honour your Fuehrer and master!

Joyously serve the people with work and sacrifice.

That is what God wants from us!"

More important for Hitler, however, was the eradication of Jewish words, including Hallelulja, Jehova and even Jerusalem – it was instead termed the ’ the eternal city of God.’

"The book will have to serve the fight against the immortal Jewish enemy!" said Hitler in a memorandum to the institute in Eisenach.

Hansjoerg Buss of the Nordelbischen Church Office discovered the Bible in an archive search.

It was printed in 1941 by a company in Weimar and was shipped out to thousands of churches across Nazi-occupied Europe. It is understood most have been destroyed.

The name of the office Hitler created to shape the Bible in his image was the 'Institute for the research and removal of the Jewish influence on German church life.'

One of the major tasks was to ignore Jesus’ Jewish roots and turn him into an Ayran. Other words specifically banned by Hitler’s race-haters were Zion, Hosanna, Galilee and Moses.

One order found in the archives for a special exhibition in Eisenach of the institute’s bizarre work came from Walter Grundmann, the anti-Semitic director appointed by Hitler.

He wrote in 1941: "The Bible must become Jew-free and the German people must see that the Jews are the mortal enemy who threaten their very existence."

Hymn books were also trawled and 'Ayranised' with no references to make the party elite balk during the few times they were ever likely to find themselves in a Christian church.

At its height, a team of 50 worked on re-writing hymn books and the Bible. But it was all a charade as far as Hitler and his S.S.

chief Heinrich Himmler were concerned.

Both dreamed of being overlords of an essentially pagan society where the only virtues to be praised were iron hardness and a capability to obey any order, no matter what.

"Human kindess and the moral compass as set by the Bible were laughable to them," said Ulrich Messner, a Nazi expert.

The King James Bible is a little under 800 pages in paperback form. The Nazi 'Bible' was 750 pages, after the references to Jews had been banished and Nazi "improvements" added.