Abstract
In Nazi Germany no issue revealed more about the moral climate and sensitivity of traditionally humane institutions in German society than Christian churches’ attitudes toward Jews and toward systematic governmental persecution of the Jews, first within Germany and then throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. In exploring the responses of Protestant leaders to the various stages of Nazi tormenting, transporting, and terminating of Jewish life in the Third Reich, we gain perspective on the degree of commitment of Protestants, both as individuals and as leaders of church institutions, to opposing injustices, inequities, and abuses of power in their society. In times of crisis church leaders face the dilemma of choosing between a focus on conserving traditional customs, doctrines, and organizational structures or the priority of working actively to alter glaring evils, particularly symptoms of group pathology and massive societal trauma. In this continual challenge of choosing between continuity and change, continuity has usually triumphed among contemporary Christian leaders and thinkers, unless cataclysmic events have called for rethinking and major changes.
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Notes
Ernst Christian Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979), pp. 156, 495. After January 1934 the withdrawal of large numbers of Protestant pastors from Bavaria, Hanover, and Württemberg “left a membership of 5,256, which remained relatively unchanged in the following years.” Ibid., p. 156.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage” (Vortrag April 1933), Gesammelte Schriftten [hereafter cited as GS] (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1965), II, pp. 44–53. For the English translation, see Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1928— 1936 [hereafter cited as NRS], ed. Edwin H. Robertson (London: Collins, 1965, 1970, 1971), p. 221.
GS (1974), VI, p. 260. Letter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Professor Reinhold Niebuhr, 6 February 1933.
GS (1965), 1. p. 37. Letter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Erwin Sutz, 14 Anril 1933.
Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage, translated from the German by Eric Mosbacher, Peter and Betty Ross, Frank Clarke, William Glen-Doepel, under the editorship of Edwin Robertson (New York and Evanston: Harper Row, 1970), p. 512.
Gottfried Maltusch, “When the Synagogues Burnt,” in I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann and Ronald Gregor Smith, translated from the German by Käthe Gregor Smith (London: Collins, 1966, 1973), p. 150.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: Macmillan, 1955, 1965), pp. 113–14,116.
Martin Luther, “On the Jews and their Lies,” in Luther’s Works, ed. Franklin Sherman, trans. Martin H. Bertram (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), vol. 47, pp. 190, 213–14, 216–17, 227, 268–72.
Christianity Today, 24 April 1981, p. 12.
Eberhard Bethge, “The Holocaust and Christian Anti-Semitism: Perspectives of a Survivor,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 32, nos. 3 4 (Spring Summer, 1977): 152.
Quoted in Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler, p. 332.
John S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–45 (New York: Basic Books, 1968), p. 46.
Quoted in F. Burton Nelson, “The Holocaust and the American Future,” Radix, January/ February 1981, p. 5.
Quoted in J. R.C. Wright, “ AboveParties: The Political Attitudes of the German Protestant Church Leadership, 1918–1933 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 54.
Heinrich Albertz, “Erinnerung eines Augenzeugen: Der Gottesdienst nach dem Judenpogrom in Barmen-Gemarke am 13.11.1938,” in Umkehr und Erneuerung, ed. Bertold Klappert and Helmut Starck (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980), p. 282.
Richard Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth for the Dumb!: The German Evangelical Church and the Jews, 1879–1950 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), p. 208.
Quoted in Bethge, “The Holocaust and Christian Anti-Semitism: Perspectives of a Christian Survivor,” pp. 149–50.
Ruth Zerner, “Germany’s Confessing Church Leaders and the Jews in the 1930s: A Comment,” Centerpoint: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, special issue on The Holocaust 4, no. 1 (Fall 1980): 101–12.
Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Documents on Nazism, 1919–1945 (New York: Viking Press, 1975), pp. 229–30.
Walter Künneth, “Das Judenproblem und die Kirche,” in Die Nation vor Gott: ZurBotschaft der Kirche im Dritten Reich, ed. Walter Künneth and Helmuth Schreiner (Berlin: Im Wichern Verlag, 1934), p. 118.
Ibid., p. 124.
Ibid., p. 126.
Ibid., p. 135.
Ibid., pp. 117, 119, 120, 130.
Ibid., p. 129.
Walter Künneth, Antwort auf den Mythus: Die Entscheidung zwischen dem nordischen Mythus und dem biblischen Christus (Berlin: Im Wichern Verlag, 1935), p. 69.
Martin Niemöller, First Commandment (London: William Hodge and Company, 1937), pp. 246–47. Quoted in Gutteridge, Open Thy Mouth, p. 104.
Martin Niemöller, “Sätze zur Arierfrage in der Kirche,” 2 November 1933, in Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Ausserungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres1933, ed. Kurt Dietrich Schmidt (Gottingen: Vandenhoech Ruprecht, 1938), p. 97.
Arthur Frey, Cross and Swastika: The Ordeal of the German Church (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1938), p. 144.
Die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland und die Judenfrage: Ausgewählte Dokumente aus den Jahren 1933 bis 1943 (Geneva: Verlag Oikumene, 1945), p. 152. Also to be found in Karl Kupisch, Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus (1871–1945) (Göttingen, Berlin, Frankfuurt: MuctercchmiAt Verlag, 1960), p 295
Martin Niemöller, Of Guilt and Hope (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), pp. 13–14.
Kupisch, Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus, p. 398.
Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer: Exile and Martyr (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 65–66.
GS (1965), II, p. 128.
NRS, p. 219.
Ibid., pp. 219–20.
Ibid. , p. 222.
Ibid., p. 237. The first draft of the Bethel Confession, 26 August 1933.
Resolution of the Sofia Conference of September 1931, in Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage, p. 201.
See Ruth Zerner, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews: Thoughts and Actions, 1933–1945,” Jewish Social Studies (Summer/Fall 1975) 37, nos. 3–4, pp. 235–50.
Eberhard Bethge, “The Holocaust and Christian Anti-Semitism: Perspectives of a Christian Survivor,” pp. 141–55. This 1977 article, which has been cited above, was written while Professor Bethge was teaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in the fall of 1976. For a reflection on the effects of Bethge’s American experiences on his understanding of the Holocaust and of Jewish-Christian relations, see Ruth Zerner, “Begegnungen mit Juden: Eine neue Ara in Bethges geistlichem Amt” [Encounters with Jews: A New Era in Bethge’s Ministry], in Wie eine Flaschenpost:Oekumenische Briefe und Beiträge füü ü r Eberhard Bethge, ed. Heinz Eduard Tödt, translated from the English by Ilse Tödt (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1979), pp. 322–327. Included among Bethge’s writings on Jewish-Christian relations are: “Geschichtliche Schuld der Kirche” in Christliche Freiheit im Dienst am Menschen, ed. Karl Herbert (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Otto Lembeck, 1972); “Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die Juden” in Konsequenzen: Dietrich Bonhoeffers Kirchenverständnis heute, ed. Ernst Feil and Ilse Tödt (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1980), pp. 171–214; “Der Holocaust als Wendepunkt” in Umkehr und Erneuerung, ed. Bertold Klappert and Helmut Starck, pp. 89–100.
Wolfgang Gerlach, Zwischen Kreuz und Davidstern: Bekennende Kirche in ihrer Stellung zun Judentum im Dritten Reich (Hamburg: Dissertion zur Erlangung der poktorwürde der EvangelTheologischen Fakultät der Universität Hamburg, 1972). Unfortunately, this important dissertation has never been published.
Bertold Klappert, Israel und die Kirche (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1980). See also Klappert’s contributions in Umkehr und Erneuerung, ed. Bertold Klappert and Helmut Starck; “Die Wurzel trägt dich,” pp. 23–54; “Jesus Christus zwischen Juden und Christen,” pp. 138–66.
Christen und Juden: Eine Studie des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (Gütersloh: Verlag Gerd Mohn, 1975). An expanded “workbook” appeared a few years later: Arbeitsbuch Christen und Juden: Zur Studie des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1979).
“Synod Resolution on the Renewal of the Relationship of Christians and Jews” in Umkehr und Erneuerung, ed. Bertold Klappert and Helmut Starck, pp. 264–66. See also “Theses on the Renewal of the Relationship between Christians and Jews,” pp. 267–81. For the professorial debate concerning these statements, see Dokumentation Nr. 42/80, Kritische Stellungnahmen zu einem Bonner Theologen-Papier üüber das Verhältnis von Christen und Juden. A publication of the Evangelische Pressedienst (Frankfurt am Main: 29 September 1980). An analysis of this debate may be found in David Cairns, “Towards a New Relationship between Christians and Jews,” Scottish Journal of Theology 34 (1981): 357–67.
Heinz Kremers, Judenmission heute? Von der Judenmission zur brüüderlichen Solidarität und zum ökumenischen Dialog (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979).
“Synod Resolution on the Renewal of the Relationship of Christians and Jews,” in Umkehr und Erneuerung, p. 264.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison: The Enlarged Edition, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: Macmillan, 1953, 1967, 1971), pp. 381–83.
Charlotte Klein, Theologie und Anti-Judaismus (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1975). For the English translation see Charlotte Klein, Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology, trans. Edward Quinn (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978). Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots ofAnti-Semitism (New York: Seabury Press, 1974).
Quoted in Time, 2 March 1981, p. 91.
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Zerner, R. (1983). German Protestant Responses to Nazi Persecution of the Jews. In: Braham, R.L. (eds) Perspectives on the Holocaust. Holocaust Studies Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-6864-7_5
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