Betrayal

by Robert P Ericksen

  Of the several research institutes in Nazi Germany, this one had the largest membership of academics and the largest list of publications. That it was run by theologians is highly significant; the site of academic expertise on Judaism lay within Protestant theological faculties, particularly among New Testament scholars, who had some training in post-biblical Hebrew and Greek Jewish sources. It is worth noting that precisely those German scholars who trained in early Judaism during the 1920s became active members in the Institute: Paul Fiebig, Karl Georg Kuhn, Georg Bertram, and Georg Beer, among others.

  The efforts of these theologians to synthesize Christianity with National Socialism should be seen as motivated by political opportunism, to be sure, but another factor was the internal crisis within liberal Protestant theology that welcomed Nazi racial theory as its solution. The crisis arose in the late nineteenth century, as liberal Protestant New Testament scholars sought to define the historical figure of Jesus and identify Christianity with the faith of Jesus, not the faith about Jesus. The discovery that the historical Jesus was a Jew whose teachings were identical to those of other rabbis of his day led to the problem of determining the uniqueness of Jesus and the boundary between liberal Protestantism and liberal Judaism, as Uriel Tal has delineated.' That problem motivated Protestant theologians to embrace racial theory: While the content of Jesus' message may have been identical to Judaism, his difference could be assured on racial grounds. Thus, serious theological debates about whether Jesus was a Jew or an Aryan began long before Hitler came to power. What was innovative about the Institute was its goal of radically revising Christian doctrine and liturgy as practiced in churches throughout the Reich and bringing them into accord with racial antisemitism.

  The theologians' embrace of National Socialism was an unrequited affection. Hitler showed little interest in church affairs after 1934, and the hopes of theologians for positions of power and influence within the regime met with disappointment. When Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller delivered the eulogy in Eisenach at the funeral of Thuringian Bishop Martin Sasse on 31 August 1942, he described the situation: "When Bishop Sasse was consecrated as bishop eight years ago in this church, it was absolutely obvious that the higher representatives of the Party and the State would take part. Today there is hardly a brown-shirt to be seen in the church."' Yet the postwar historiography presents the Protestant church as the persecuted victim of the Nazi regime-as argued by Kurt Meier and John Conway, among others-or as theologically intact, thanks to the rigors of the German theological method-as argued by Trutz Rendtorff."

  Such claims have to be radically revised in light of the control attained by members of the German Christian Movement within most of the regional churches in Germany and within the university theological faculties. Any persecution the church may have experienced reflects primarily the regime's lack of interest in church affairs. For example, archival documents show that in 1935 the official representative of the theological faculties submitted several formal petitions requesting membership in the SS for theology students and pastors; the petition was rejected by Heinrich Himmler.7 Other evidence reveals that in 1936, when Nazi Party officials ordered the swastika removed from church altars and the mastheads of church newspapers, numerous church officials protested, claiming that the swastika on the altar was a source of profound inspiration to churchgoers.' During the regime, church leaders might have complained of neglect, but they could hardly complain of persecution.

  Origins of the Institute

  In order to enhance the role of the church within National Socialism, the League for German Christianity (Bund fur deutsches Christentum) met on 26 January 1938. Organized by Berlin Church superintendent Herbert Propp, it hoped to illustrate a massive show of church support for the regime.' The government's renewed interest in anti-Jewish measures that began in late 1937 provided a focus for the group.The group decided that a thorough dejudaization of the church would be part of Hitler's "world struggle against world Jewry" ("Weltkampf gegen das Hugo Pich, a church superintendent in Thuringia, prepared the league's report during the summer of 1938: "The Fiihrer of our Volk has now been called to lead an international fight against world Jewry.... In order to lead the National Socialist German struggle against world Jewry, the quick and thorough implementation of the dejudaization of the Christian church is of high and essential significance. Only when the dejudaization of the Christian church is completed can the German people join in carrying out the fight of the Fiihrer within its Christian membership and within its religious beliefs, and can the divine commission of the German Volk assist in its fulfillment."" Pich proposed that the work be carried out by a special office within the church that would supervise the dejudaization process.

  Shortly after the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, church headquarters in Berlin circulated Pich's proposal to the regional churches and received favorable responses. To give the plan a broad backing of support, the Godesberg Declaration was formulated in the spring of 1939, signed by leaders of most regional churches, and adopted as official church policy. It stated that National Socialism carried forward the work of Martin Luther and would lead the German people to a true understanding of Christian faith. The centerpiece of the declaration was the statement: "What is the relation between Judaism and Christianity? Is Christianity derived from Judaism and is it its continuation and completion, or does Christianity stand in opposition to Judaism? We answer this question: Christianity is the unbridgeable religious opposition to Judaism."'' The declaration, signed by representatives of eleven regional churches, was printed in the official Gesetzblatt of the German Protestant Church with an addendum stating the church's intention to implement the declaration by establishing an Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on the Church Life of the German Volk."

  Bishop Sasse of Thuringia, an early member of the Nazi Party," supported the proposal energetically. In response to Kristallnacht, he published a small pamphlet titled, "Martin Luther uber die Juden: Weg mit Ihnen" ("Martin Luther on the Jews: Get Rid of Them"), in which he argued that the pogrom was fully in accord with Luther's own intentions. Luther, Sasse noted, had also called for synagogues and Jewish books to be burned, and the eradication of Judaism was, he argued, one of Luther's own goals for the Protestant Reformation. Sasse called for the establishment of a dejudaization research institute at the University of Jena in Thuringia, where the theological faculty was dominated by members of the German Christian Movement. However, the rector of the university, Karl Astel, professor of medicine and an ardent Nazi, opposed any expansion of the theological faculty, so no formal linkage with the university was made. Eventually, the Institute was housed in the church's training seminary in Eisenach, independent of the university, but it was run by members of the university faculty as well as local ministers who were leaders within the German Christian Movement.

  Grand opening ceremonies took place on the afternoon of Saturday, 6 May 1939, in the old, historic Wartburg castle in which Luther had once taken refuge. Quartets by Mozart and Schubert, the reading of congratulatory telegrams, and learned speeches filled the program. Julius Streicher's attendance was prevented only by recent surgery; his telegram declared: "I am convinced your work will yield much good for our field. The audience was welcomed by the Institute's nominal director, Siegfried Leffler, one of the original founders of the German Christian Movement, now serving in the Thuringian Ministry of Education. The president of the Prussian Protestant Church, Friedrich Werner, also attended and welcomed the Institute, expressing the hope that it would distance itself from theological specialinterest groups and bring honor to German theological scholarship."' Grundmann, the academic director of the Institute, had served since 1936 as professor of New Testament and z'olklsch theology at the University of Jena. His address at the Institute's opening, "The Dejudaization of the Religious Life as the Task of German Theology and Church," set forth his aspirations: "The elimination of Jewish influence on German life is the urgent and fundamen
tal question of the present German religious situation." Theological scholarship had made apparent the "deformation of New Testament ideas into Old Testament preconceptions, so that now angry recognition of the Jewishness in the Old Testament and in parts of the New Testament has arisen, obstructing access to the Bible for innumerable German Grundmann's lecture was printed in six thousand copies and distributed through the German Christian Movement's publishing house, run by Heinz Dungs, an Institute member.'

  Membership in the Institute was open and soon became large, even larger than published records indicate. More than fifty professors of theology at universities throughout the Reich joined, including many distinguished figures, as well as dozens of instructors and graduate students.'" The Institute also listed about one hundred pastors and bishops as members. Having studied theology in the late 1920s and 1930s, Most members were too young to have fought during World War I, and most had shown their Nazi sympathies through early membership in the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), the German Christian Movement, or the SA. Many were trained in the field of New Testament studies and assumed they were experts in what they called "late Judaism"-a term used by scholars to designate Judaism during the centuries just before the advent of Christianity. Numerous pastors, religion teachers, and laypeople also joined. The Institute established at least one branch-in Rumania in 1942-and built an alliance with faculty and students in Scandinavia, led by Hugo Odeberg, a distinguished scholar of Judaica at the University of Lund. In 1941 Grundmann and Wolf MeyerErlach formed a working group, Germanentum and Christentum, which brought Scandinavian theologians and writers to participate in two annual conferences in Germany."' Odeberg took the initiative among the Scandina vians, inviting thirty academics, students, and writers from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark to lecture at the conferences, which were held in Weissenfels and in Eisenach. Impressed by the high quality of scholarship practiced by Institute members, Odeberg sent seven Scandinavian students to Jena to write doctoral dissertations under Grundmann.

  Work of the Institute

  Of all the so-called research institutes that flourished during the Nazi era, the Eisenach Dejudaization Institute (Entjudungsinstitut), as the Institute was informally called during its heyday, proved the most prolific and had the largest membership. Its members were divided into working groups, rapidly producing publications. The Institute's dejudaized version of the New Testament, Die Botschaft Gottes, first appeared in 1940, and together with a small, abridged version, eventually sold around two hundred thousand copies."

  A dejudaized hymnal, Grosser Gott Wir Loben Dich, also appeared in 1940, to great commercial success; and a catechism, Deutsche mit Gott: Ein deutsches Glaubensbuch, was published in 1941 to summarize the Institute's theological principles. All were sold to churches throughout the Reich, in small towns and villages as well as cities. Each eliminated Hebrew words, references to the Old Testament, and any links between Jesus and Judaism. For example, the hymnal expunged words such as amen, hallelujah, Hosanna, and Zebaoth, while the New Testament eliminated Jesus' descent from David, and the catechism proclaimed: "Jesus of Nazareth in the Galilee demonstrates in his message and behavior a spirit which is opposed in every way to that of Judaism. The fight between him and the Jews became so bitter that it led to his crucifixion. So Jesus cannot have been a Jew. Until today the Jews persecute Jesus and all who follow him with unreconcilable hatred. By contrast, Aryans in particular can find answers in him to their ultimate questions. So he became the savior of the Germans. 1121

  The Institute's publications were not the first efforts to produce dejudaized Christian liturgical materials. For example, Bishop Heinz Weidemann of Bremen issued a dejudaized New Testament, composed with the assistance of the noted theologian Emanuel Hirsch.22 Reich Bishop Muller issued a "germanized" version of the Sermon on the Mount in 1936 to eliminate what he considered inappropriate Jewish moral teachings.'-' Yet those publications were generally limited to local church usage, whereas the Institute's publications were in far more widespread use; one hundred thousand copies of both the Die Botschaft Gottes and Grosser Gott Wir Loben Dich were printed in the first edition to fill prepublication orders from parish churches throughout the Reich.';

  Thanks to the success of its publications and to generous donations from regional churches, funneled through Berlin church headquarters, the Institute never suffered financially. Indeed, in 1943, the only year for which its accounts are extant, the Institute had a surplus income.'' The Institute's costs were, in fact, minimal. It did not pay expenses for participants in its conferences; pastors who attended were reimbursed for travel expenses by their regional churches, since the conferences were considered to be work related.'" Members drew their salaries as church officials, pastors, or university professors, not as contributors to the Institute. The publications of the Institute were generally self-supporting, printed by Dungs, an active Institute member who was also director of the German Christian Publishing House (Verlag Deutsche Christen), with headquarters in Weimar. The Institute itself was located rentfree in the large and elegant villa that housed the training seminary (Predigerseminar) in Eisenach. A few surviving records, including financial receipts and letters, indicate extra financial contributions from church headquarters in Berlin and from regional bishops." Relations with government ministries remained positive. Meyer-Erlach, professor of practical theology at the University of Jena and one of the leading forces within the Institute, was sent to lecture German troops during the war years; he explained that they were fighting a war against world Jewry.28 Even England, he argued, had been judaized as a consequence of its Protestant Reformation, which placed too much emphasis on the Old Testament, and as a result it was waging war against Germany.

  In addition to its liturgical materials, the Institute sponsored conferences and published books and articles delineating its view of Christian theology and history. The conferences were held in town halls and universities throughout the Reich, opening and closing with hymns, prayers, and the Nazi salute and attracting anywhere from thirty to six hundred participants. Most of its publications emphasized the degeneration, after the eighth century B.C.E., of Judaism, which supposedly reached its nadir during the second temple period; Judaism's final and utter destruction was the mission of Jesus. The degeneracy of Judaism served to explain why God sent Jesus and why the Jews failed to recognize him as divine; it also served to highlight the extraordinary nature of Jesus' own religious personality, compared with the Jews.

  Jesus as Anti-Jewish

  At one of the Institute's first conferences, held in July 1939, Heinz Eisenhuth, professor of systematic theology at the University of Jena, explained "The Meaning of the Bible for Faith." He argued that Luther's translation of the Bible had transmitted the meaning of the gospel for the German people, but new historical-critical scholarship would refine Luther's understanding. The tie between German Christians and the Bible was not legalistic, but ethical: "Volkish ethics also need an inner religious foundation." The Old Testament, however, was the expression of a racially foreign soul and a non-Christian religion." Jewish influence had infiltrated Germany not only through the Old Testament, but also through secularization processes. Spinoza was one example of such a nefarious Jewish influence, explained Martin Redeker, professor of systematic theology at the University of Kiel. "Just as the Jew does not know and see the living God and his will, but only the Torah, the law, and its development in the Talmud, so for Spinoza nature is not a living reality, but rather he sees only rigid natural laws and seeks to explain them. Natural law takes the place of divine law for him. Jews lack the awe before nature that Germans have, and the sense of being bound up with nature; [the Jew] stands cold in relation to nature. The German experiences God as being in the background of all events and affecting all events; for the Jew there isn't this view of faith behind the superficiality of life and history, for him there is only the visible, material world.""

  Exposing the dangers of the Jews for German s
ociety continued to be a major theme at Institute-sponsored conferences. At a meeting held in July 1941, the writer Wilhelm Kotzde-Kottenrodt argued that Jews had eliminated God from the world ("Juda hat die Welt entgottet"); they are unable to understand the higher thoughts of Nordics-that the world is filled with God. The Old Testament itself is an unreliable document, since Jews have used and distorted it to their own purposes through the centuries."

  The Institute's publications tried to prove that the Jews had always been aggressive and threatening. The Maccabees were cited as an example, as were the Hasmoneans generally, and the Zealots. Judaism continued to be violent and dangerous; Jesus' goal was clear: to save the world and fight against Judaism." Subtle perversions of society characterize Judaism; Bertram argued that from Philo to the present day, Jewish assimilation had the goal of decomposing a society and then taking control over it."

  In their discussions of how to dejudaize Christianity, Institute members debated how to define Judaism. Eisenhuth argued that the entire Old Testament, including the prophetic literature, should be eliminated, while the New Testament should be purged of all texts except the four Gospels-Paul being considered a Jewish theologian. Heinz Hunger, a pastor who served as business director of the Institute, argued that dejudaization consisted of removing the gestalt of the Jew ("Entjudung heisse nur Ausmerzung der Gestalt des Juden"). Friedrich Wienecke, one of the German Christian leaders in Berlin, identified Jewishness with Pharisaism, in which depravity is religiously embellished and profane institutions like the stock market are transformed into religion-the "Jewish Trick." Wienecke was supported by Redeker and Grundmann. Redeker emphasized the materialist influence of the Jews on German society, even on some major theological figures, such as Karl Barth.`