christianity, nationalism, and the third reich: the german
TRANSCRIPT
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Christianity, Nationalism, and the Third Reich: the German
ExperienceWhat Happened and What It Can Teach Us
SESSION 4:
PROTESTANTISM BEFORE AND AFTER 1933
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Protestantism contrasted with Catholicism
• “At home” in historic Prussia; Catholic portions of Prussia added in later 19th c. prior to 1870.
•An ecclesiastical identity that ended with Germany’s borders, unlike international Catholicism.
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Hostility to the Weimar Republic
• Disoriented by military defeat and abdication of the Kaiser.
• Resentment for signing of Versailles Treaty.
• “the godless constitution”: popular sovereignty.
• Separation of church and state left Protestantism rudderless: end of state’s Summepiskopat (“supreme oversight”).
• Political home in anti-democratic German National People’s Party (DNVP): monarchist, nationalist, in part völkisch;eventual Nazi ally.
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German Protestantism: theology as a battleground
• The Bible treated critically and historically, hence weakened as an authority.• Theological issues much more important than in
Catholicism, where church authority prevailed.•A university theology, academic – but also
nationalistic.•Developmental and “historicist” (critical, naturalistic,
contextual).
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Formation of German Evangelical Church (July 1933)
• 28 provincial churches, but one biggie:
• Church of the Old Prussian Union (Lutheran and Reformed) had half the 40 million Protestants.
• Need for a truly popular church (Volkskirche), manly and heroic, not feminized.
• Desire to meet the enthusiasm of Hitler’s renewal of national life.
• A counterweight to Catholicism and the Concordat.
• Pre-existing provincial churches continued to exist.
• Church elections dominated by “German Christian” Nazi sympathizers.
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“German Christian” campaigning in July 1933 church elections (Berlin)
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Ludwig Müller, first Reich Bishop, and August Jäger, church commissar for Prussia
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Völkisch Christianity: “German Christian” Guidelines (1932)
• “We want a dynamic Volkskirche, which expresses the living faith of our people.” (#3)
• “We stand on the basis of positive Christianity…an affirmative, truly national faith in Christ.” (#4)
• “Up to now, the church has not called men to battle against Marxism, the enemy of God, and against the unspiritual Center group, but has concluded a church treaty with the parties that represent them.” (#5) [i.e., SPD and Center parties]
• “In race, nation, and cultural heritage we see the orders of existence God has given us in trust…racial admixture to be opposed.” (#7)
• “Marriage between Germans and Jews must be prohibited.” (#9)
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The "Aryan Paragraph" challenge to the churches.
• Civil Service Reform (April 7, 1933) denied government salaries to non-Aryans.
• This included clergy who happened to be of Jewish descent.
• Martin Niemöller organizes Pastors Emergency League to protect “non-Aryan” pastors (October 1933).
• The principle at stake: church’s right to determine its ministry. It did not concern anti-Semitism per se.
• “Intact” and “destroyed” churches: an early church-political fault line.
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Martin Niemoeller and that famous quote(Boston Holocaust Memorial)
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A young Niemoeller as Navy officer (1917)
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Niemoeller at his parish church in Dahlem(October 28, 1945)
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The Barmen Declaration (May 29-31, 1934)
• Karl Barth’s Christocentric theology of revelation: no other events, powers, or figures in place of Christ.
• Church’s message and order cannot be changed to fit prevailing ideologies.
• Leadership in the church can’t be domination (the Führerprinzip) but a ministry of service.
• The state cannot be the “single and totalitarian order of human life.”
• Nothing said about the Jews, racism, or anti-Semitism.
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Theological clarification
• Barth’s theology of revelation vs. “orders of creation”
• “Political theology” used Lutheran “orders of creation” to Christianize völkisch racism.
• Emanuel Hirsch and Paul Althaus as exemplars of political theology.
• Barth’s theology drew lines between truth and heresy (“You have a different God!”).
• Bonhoeffer, Barth’s protégé, on “salvation outside the church.”
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Fracturing of the Confessing Church (October 1934-February 1936)
• Split between 3 “intact” Lutheran provincial churches and “destroyed” churches in Prussia.
• After Dahlem synod (Oct 1934), radicals (Niemöller, Bonhoeffer, et al.) refuse communion with “German Christians.”
• Moderate Lutherans refuse to break with “G.C.s” and leave Confessing Church (Feb 1936).
• Confessing Church claims to be the real church, not a separatist church.
• Root issue: do religious beliefs have political consequences re: nationalism?
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Prewar Nazi pressures on Confessing Church
• “Hitler Memo” (May-June 1936) protesting Führer cult, totalitarian system, and Jewish persecution.
• Himmler Decree (August 1937) criminalizes all work in illegal seminaries.
• Bonhoeffer’s illegal seminary at Finkenwalde (1935-1937), a monastic brotherhood.
• The “Prayer Liturgy” controversy (Czech crisis, 1938).
• Legalization controversy (1938): crisis of conscience for illegal ordinands.
• Interventions for the Jews.