29 April 1941 that though Hitler was "a fierce opponent" of the Vatican and Christianity, "he forbids me to leave the church. For tactical reasons." According to Speer, Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, relished recording any harsh pronouncements by Hitler against the church. Speer considered Bormann to be the driving force behind the regime's campaign against the churches. Speer thought that Hitler approved of Bormann's aims, but was more pragmatic and wanted to "postpone this problem to a more favourable time": Hitler, wrote Speer, viewed Christianity as the wrong religion for the "Germanic temperament": Speer wrote that Hitler would say: "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the fatherland as the highest good? The Mohameddan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?" Speer also wrote of observing in Hitler "quite a few examples", and that he held a negative view toward Himmler and Rosenberg's mystical notions. Martin Bormann on Hitler's religious beliefs Martin Bormann, who was serving as Hitler's private secretary, persuaded Hitler to allow a team of specially picked officers to record in shorthand his private conversations for posterity. Between 1941 and 1944, Hitler's words were recorded in transcripts now known as Hitler's Table Talk. The transcripts concern not only Hitler's views on war and foreign affairs, but also his characteristic attitudes on religion, culture, philosophy, personal aspirations, and his feelings towards his enemies and friends. Speer noted in his memoirs that Bormann relished recording any harsh pronouncements made by Hitler against the church: "there was hardly anything he wrote down more eagerly than deprecating comments on the church". Within the transcripts, Hitler speaks of Christianity as "absurdity" and "humbug" founded on "lies" with which he could "never come personally to terms." The widespread consensus among historians is that the views expressed in Hugh Trevor-Roper's translation of Table Talk, are credible and reliable, although as with all historical sources, a high level of critical awareness about its origins and purpose are advisable. The remarks from Table Talk accepted as genuine include such quotes as "Christianity is the prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilization by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society." Alan Bullock's seminal biography Hitler: A Study in Tyranny