Betrayal

by Robert P Ericksen

  27. See chapter 4 below for a further discussion of the "Aryan Jesus."

  28. Emanuel Hirsch, Das Alte Testament, 36.

  29. Ibid., 49.

  30. Ibid., 169. This statement comes from an article that originally appeared as "Jesus and das Alte Testament," Deutsche Theologie 8 (November 1937), 836-45.

  31. Ibid., 46.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Hans Martin Muller, "Das Wort vom Kreuz and das Alte Testament: Zur Einfuhrung," in Hirsch, Das Alte Testament, 7.

  34. Ibid., 12.

  35. Ibid., 11.

  36. Ibid., 12 n. 10.

  37. Charlotte Klein, Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 6.

  38. Ibid., 7.

  39. Ibid., 39.

  40. Emanuel Hirsch, quoted in Willy Schottroff, Das Reich Gottes and der Menschen: Stuthen uber das Verhaltnis der christlichen Theologie zum Judentum (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1991), 188.

  41. Ibid., 189.

  42. Hirsch, "Nachwort zu meinem Buche uber das Alte Testament," inDas Alte Testament, 132-33. This "Afterword" was written in 1937 but not accepted for publication by Deutsche Theologie and the time. See Das Alte Testament, 127, n 1.

  43. Ibid., 133.

  44. Ibid., 135.

  45. Compare Carsten Nicolaisen, "Die Stellung der 'Deutschen Christen' zum Alten Testament," in Zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes: Gesammelte Aufsatze, ed. H. Brunotte (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 2:206.

  46. Schottroff, Das Reich Gottes and der Menschen, 189 ff.

  47. Ibid., 184-85.

  48. Hirsch, Das Alte Testament, 33.

  49. Schottroff, Das Reich Gottes and der Menschen, 192.

  50. Gerhard Kittel, Die Probleme des paldstinischen Spatjudentums and das Urchristentum (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1926), 125 n. 3.

  51. Gerhard Kittel, Die Judenfrage (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), 61-62.

  52. Ibid., 39.

  53. These letters from Herbert Loewe to Gerhard Kittel, 11 August 1933, and Kittel's response to Loewe are found in the Kittel personality file, Wiener Library, London.

  54. Gerhard Kittel and Eugen Fischer, "Das antike Weltjudentum. Tatsachen, Texte, Bilder," Forschungen zur Judenfrage 7 (Hamburg, 1943): 10-11. See a description and citations for Kittel's other work in this journal in Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler, 61-66.

  55. Gerhard Kittel, "Die altesten Judenkarikaturen. Die 'Trierer Terrakotten,"' Forschungen zur Judenfrage 4 (Hamburg, 1940): 259. This article represents Kittel's first attempt to deal with the caricatures (which were apparently forgeries, it turns out). Then in volume 7 of the journal Eugen Fischer joined him in a more extensive effort.

  56. Gerhard Kittel, "Die Behandlung des Nichtjuden nach dem Talmud," Archie fiir Judenfragen, vol. 1, Group Al (Berlin, 1943), 7.

  57. Ibid., 15-16.

  58. Gerhard Kittel, Meine Verteidigung, 27. I am indebted to the late Dr. Herman Preus of Luther Theological Seminary, St. Paul, MN, for access to this document, a defense statement written by Kittel in June 1945 after his arrest by French occupation forces and circulated among his friends. A second, longer version dated November /December 1946 can be found in the Tubingen University Archive. The French incarcerated Kittel for seventeen months and he never returned to his university position. He died at the age of 59 in 1948. See Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler, 28 ff.

  59. Gerhard Kittel, "Das Rassenproblem der Spatantike and das Fruhchristentum," lecture, 15 June 1944, University of Vienna. I found this typescript in the Theological Library, Tubingen University, along with another Vienna lecture delivered 22 March 1943, "Die Entstehung des Judentums."

  60. Kittel, Meine Verteidigung, 33.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Kittel, Meine Verteidigung, Tubingen University Archive, second version (Nov./Dec. 1946), 58.

  63. Ibid., 7.

  64. It is interesting to compare in this regard Wolfgang Gerlach's study, Als die Zeugen schwiegen: Bekennende Kirche and die Juden (Berlin: Institute Kirche and Judentum, 1987), in which he finds antisemitism rife even within the Confessing Church.

  Charter ?: Dorm L. Beerier!

  Some of the material in this essay appears in a different, expanded form in my book, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

  1. Quoted in "Propaganda an der Chaussee," in Schnellbrief fur Glieder der Bekennenden Kirche, no. 31 (2 Oct. 1935): 120, LKA Bielefeld, Wilhelm Kirchenkampf (hereafter 5,1) folder number 555, 1.

  2. See data from Ministry of Church Affairs, "Zusammenstellung Ober Kirchenaustritte and Kirchenrucktritte bezw: Ubertritte, ermittelt nach den von den Kirchen veroffentlichten Zusammenstellungen," [19401, BA Koblenz, R 79/19.

  3. Because of fragmentation within the Movement and missing or inaccessible membership files, it is difficult to gauge the number of German Christians at any given time. However, German Christians and their opponents generally accepted the figure of six hundred thousand as a reasonable estimate of the Movement's numerical strength in the mid-1930s, arguably its weakest phase. See, for example, a circular from the German Christian regional office in Dresden, signed Martin Beier, 9 July 1934, "An alle Mitarbeiter der DC!," including reference by German Christian Reich Leader Christian Kinder to the six hundred thousand members of his organization. LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/290,2.

  4. The German term evangelisch is used as a general label to include Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches. Because the English "evangelical" has very different connotations than the German evangelisch, I have translated evangelisch in its broad usage as Protestant. All translations are mine unless otherwise specified.

  5. Donald Niewyk, "Solving the 'Jewish Problem'-Continuity and Change in German Antisemitism, 1871-1945," Leo Baeck Yearbook (1990): 369.

  6. Guida Diehl, "Grundsatze fur die Glaubensemeuerung," in Was ist der Eisenacher Arbeitsring?, flier of the New Land Movement (Eisenach, 1934), p. 2, KAG Minden, file Neulandbewegung. I am grateful to the Kommunalarchiv in Minden for permitting me to use this collection.

  7. "Gesprache mit Katholiken: Nationalkirche auch in anderen Landern?" in Die Nationalkirche-Briefe an Deutsche Christen, no. 28/29 (9 July 1939), 311.

  8. Raul Hilberg discusses the development of a definition of "Jews" in Nazi Germany in The Destruction of the European Jeers, rev. ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 1, 65-80.

  9. On the church elections see John S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-45 (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 41; Kurt Meier, Der Evangelische Kirchenkampf, vol. 1, Der Karnpf um die "Reichskirche" (Gottingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), 103-9; and Shelley Baranowski, "The German Protestant Church Elections: Machtpolitik or Accommodation?" Church History 49 (1980): 298-315.

  10. The text of Hitler's radio address before the church election of July 1933 appears in Dokuniente zur Kirche npolitik des Dritten Reiches, ed. Carsten Nicolaisen, vol. 1, Das Jahr 1933 (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1971), 119-22.

  11. On Muller and his career, see Thomas Martin Schneider, Reichsbischof Ludwig Muller: Fine Untersuchung zit Leben, Werk and Personlichkeit (Gottingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993).

  12. For extensive coverage of the German Christian movement in 1933, see Gunther van Norden, Der deutsche Protestantismus ini Jour der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung (Giitersloh: Giitersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1979).

  13. On Hess's statement and its background, see Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen and das Dritte Reich, vol. 1, Vorgeschichte and Zeit der Illusionen, 1918-1934 (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1977); English edition published as The Churches and the Third Reich, vol. 1, Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918-1934, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 572.

  14. Reinhold Krause, "Rede des Gauobmannes der Glaubensbewegung 'Deutsche Christen' im Grog-Berlin," held in the Sports Palace, 13 November 1933, reproduced for publication from a stenographical record, pamphlet in LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/289,2.

  15. Exact figures for the
number of German Christians who left the Movement after the Sports Palace Affair are unavailable. A Security Service report claimed 250 pastors quit the movement in Wurttemberg alone. See "Lagebericht Mai/Juni 1934," T-175,415/2940753. See also "Sonderbericht: Die Lage in der protestantischen Kirche and in den verschiedenen Sekten and deren staatsfeindliche Auswirkung," Feb./March 1935, T-175, 409/2932647; and "Gegnerbekampfung," 25 June 1942, T-175, 285/2780127.

  16. A former German Christian called the mid-1930s the most vicious period of the church struggle. See Friedrich Kessel to Heinrich Stuven, 6 November 1953, Osterode/Harz, KAG Minden, file Freie Volkskirche 2.

  17. On Kerr] and his appointment, see Meier, Der Evangelische Kirchenkampf, 2:66-78; and Leonore Siegel e-Wenschkewi tz, Nationalsozialismus and Kirche: Religionspolitik von Partei and Staat bis 1935 (Dusseldorf: Droste, 1974).

  18. In 1936, the process of reuniting German Christian splinter groups began in earnest with creation of the League of German Christians (Bund der Deutschen Christen). See unpublished manuscript by the German Christian chronicler, Friedrich Wieneke, "Zehn Jahre Deutsche Christen," (Berlin, 1942), 15, KAG Minden; and Kurt Meier, Die Deutschen Christen: Das Bild einer Bezvegung im Kirchenkampf des Dritten Reiches (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), 147-51.

  19. Already by April 1939 representatives of German Christian groups and individuals of non-German, Christian orientation had pledged cooperation in the so-called Godesberg Declaration (Godesberger Erklarung). See Meier, Die Deutsche Christen, 267-78. The Godesberg Declaration, a response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's condemnation of National Socialist aggression against Czechoslovakia, repudiated ecumenism and "World Protestantism" and presented Christianity as the irreconcilable religious foe of Judaism. See Armin Boyens, Kirchenkampf and Okumene, 1933-1939: Darstellung and Dokumentation (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1969), 256-57.

  20. Literature on the German church in wartime is scantier than for the other periods of the Third Reich. Useful exceptions are Helmut Baier, Kirche in Not: Die bayerische Landeskirchen in Zeueiten Weltkrieg (Neustadt a. d. Aisch: Verein fur bayerische Kirchengeschichte, 1979); Meier, Der Evangelische Kirchcnkampf, vol. 3; and Gunter Brakelmann, ed., Kirche in Krieg: Der deutsche Protestantismus am Begins des II Weltkriegs (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1979).

  21. On developments in the Protestant Church and, to a lesser degree, on the fate of the German Christian movement after the collapse of the National Socialist regime, see Armin Boyens, Martin Greschat, Rudolf von Thadden, and Paolo Pombeni, Kircher in der Nachkriegszeit: Vier zeitgeschichtliche Beitrage (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979); Gerhard Besier, " Selbstreinigung" enter britischer Besatznngsherrschaft: Die Evangelischlutherische Landeskirclu' Hannovers and ihr Landesbischof Marahrens, 1945-1947 (Gottingen Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986); Clemens Vollnhalls, Evangelische Kirche and Entnazifizierung, 1945-1949: Die Last der nationalsozialistischen Vergangenheit (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1989).

  22. The naming of the German Christian Movement is described by an adherent, Arnold Dannenmann, in Kirchc ini Dritten Reich: Die Geschichte der Glaubensbezvegung "Deutsche Christen" (Dresden: Oskar Gunther, 1933), 10, 48. See also Wieneke, "Zehn Jahre Deutsche Christen," 5.

  23. An overview of the early work of Leffler and Leutheuser and their involvement with the Berlin circle of German Christians is provided in Meier, Die Deutschen Christen, 1-16.

  24. For an outside view of the relationship between the German Christian movement and z'hlkisch predecessor groups, see Chef des Sicherheitsamtes, "Lagebericht, Mai/Juni 1934," T-175, 415/2940752. A German Christian view of precursors is found in Constantin Grossmann, Deutsche Christen: Ein Volksbuch: Weguweiser lurch die Glaubensbczuegung unserer Zeit (Dresden: Earn Ende, 1934), 17-25.

  25. "Austritte bei den Deutschen Christen," Der Montag, no. 46 (27 Nov. 1933), clipping in BA Potsdam, DC-I, 1933-35, p. 125.

  26. Manuscript by Eleanor Liebe-Harkort, "Aus meinen Lebenserinnerungen (1884-1936)," pp. 1-4, KAG Minden, Liebe-Harkort folder.

  27. For a thoughtful assessment of the concept of the church struggle, see Georg Kretschmar, "Die Auseinandersetzung der Bekennenden Kirche mit den Deutschen Christen," in Paul Rieger and Johannes Strauss, eds., Kirche and Nat ionalsozialisrnus: Zur Geschichte des Kirchenkantpfes (Munich: Claudius, 1969), 117-21. Criticism of the misuse of the notion of the church struggle is offered by Friedrich Baumgartel, Wider die Kirchenkampf-Legenden (Neudettelsau: Frieimund, 1959).

  28. It is easy to forget that most Protestants allied themselves neither with the German Christians nor with the Confessing Church, although this point is made in numerous places. See, for example, Kurt Meier, Volkskirche 1918-1945. Ekklesiologie and Zeitgeschichte, no. 213, Theologische Existenz Heute (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1982), 61.

  29. See "Kanzelabkundigung Wilhelm Niemoller in Bielefeld-Jakobuskirche, 2.7.1933," LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/358,2. Wilhelm Niemoller's colleague in Bielefeld, the pastor Friedrich Buschtons, moved in exactly the opposite direction, from the Pastors' Emergency League to ardent support of the German Christian cause. See Friedrich Buschtons to Karl Wentz, 10 November 1958, 26 January 1959, and 31 January 1959, KAG Minden, file no. 15, Schriftwechsel Prof. Wentz-F. Buschtons.

  30. Bonhoeffer to Erwin Sutz, 18 April 1934, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gesannmelte Schriften, 6 vols., ed. Eberhard Bethge (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1958), 1:339-40.

  31. An overview of neopagan groups is available in Hubert Cancik, "'Neuheiden' and totaler Staat: Volkische Religion am Ende der Weimarer Republik," in Religions- and Geistesgeschichte der Weinmrer Republik, ed. Hubert Cancik (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1982), 176-212.

  32. On Hauer see Margarete Dierks, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, 1881-1962: Leben, Werk, Wirkung (Heidelberg: L. Schneider, 1986). Dierks devotes only passing attention to Hauer's activities in the German Faith Movement.

  33. But even the German Faith Movement never came close to rivaling German Christian membership numbers. In 1937, a representative reported to the Ministry of Church Affairs that the group included "40,000 full members who have left the church, and about another 30,000 sympathizers who have not yet done so." "Vermerk," signed Haugg, 18 January 1937, BA Potsdam, DG-II, 1936-37, 415.

  34. "Luther's 'deutsches Christentum,"' in Glaube and Tat: Religionsbuch fiir deutsche Jungen and Madel, ed. Friedrich Fliedner (Bielefeld: Velhagen & Klasing, 1940), 122.

  35. [Unknown first name] Schenke, "Luther: Wider die Jtiden and ihre Liigen," in DCNationalkirchliche Einung, Informationsdienst, no. 2/43 (25 Jan. 1943), 4-5, EZA Berlin, 1/A4/565.

  36. See [unknown first name] Franzen, "Protesterklarung des Bundes fiir Deutsche Kirche gegen den ErlaB des Landeskirchenausschusses in Schleswig-Holstein an die Geistlichen der Landeskirche vom 11. Mdrz 1936," Kiel, 7 May 1936, EZA Berlin, I/C3/307.

  37. F. Petri, Zu Jesu Fiif3en: Wegweiser fur deutsche Christen (Berlin: Verlag der Deutschkirche, im Auftrage des Bundes fiir deutsche Kirche, 1927), 19. Thanks to Professor Rudolf Fischer, Bielefeld, for making this and other pamphlets available to me.

  38. [Unknown first name] Ankermann, "Der deutsche Christ and die Heiden mission," Mitteilungen der Glaubensgenzeinschaft Deutsche Christen, no. 21 (21 May 1933), 2, LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/289,2.

  39. Die angebliche Irrlehre der "Deutschen Christen," circular issued by the leadership of the Reich Movement of German Christians (31 May 1935), LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/290,1.

  40. "Fragekasten," Evangelium im Dritten Reich, no. 1 (16 Oct. 1932), 7.

  41. Siegfried Knak, Kirchenstreit and Kirchenfriede beleuchtet von den Erfahrungen der Mission aus, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Heimatdienst, 1934), 22.

  42. Ludwig Muller, Der deutsche Volkssoldnt (Berlin: Tempelhof, 1939), 56.

  43. Wilhelm Stapel, "Kampf um die evangelische Kirche," in Deutsches Volkstum, reprinted as "Worum kampft der Pfarrer'not'bund," in Evangelium im Dritten Reich, no. 2 (14 Jan.1934), 20, LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/289,1. The biblical reference to women speaking in the church is found in I Corinthians 14:34.

  44. Die angebliche Irrlehre der
"Deutschen Christen", 1.

  45. Manfred Kliippel, in his study of euthanasia policies in two Hessian institutions, points out that the Jewish patients were the first to be removed and murdered. See "Euthanasie" and Lebensvernichtung am Beispiel der Landesheilanstalten Haina and Merxhausen (Kassel: Gesamthochschule Kassel, 1985), 15. See also Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

  46. See Ernst Klee, "Euthanasie" im NS-Staat: Die "Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens" (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1983), 36-38.

  47. For reactions of the Protestant and Catholic churches with regard to Nazi initiatives in this area, see Kurt Nowak, "Euthanasie" and Sterilisierung im "Dritten Reich": Die Konfrontation der evangelischen and katholischen Kirchen ,nit dem "Gesetz zur Verhiitung erbkranken Nachwuchses" and der "Euthanasie-Aktion" (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978). German Christians receive little attention in Nowak's book.

  48. 0. Kleinschmidt, "Der Deutsche Christ and die Rassenfrage," in Die Deutschen Christen Reichs-Kalendar 1935, ed. Christian Kinder (Meissen: Schlimpert & Puschel, 1935), 44-45. 49. Wolfgang Stroothenke, Erbpflege and Christentum: Fragen der Sterilisation, Aufordnung, Euthanasie, Ehe (Leipzig: Leopold Klotz, 1940), 26.

  50. See Klee, "Euthanasie" im NS-Staat, 280.

  51. Martin Niemoller, "Satze zur Arierfrage in der Kirche," Deutsches Pfarrerblatt, no. 4 (23 Jan. 1934), 46, clipping in LKA Bielefeld, 5,1/289,1.

  52. See 1936 correspondence regarding Pastor Goosmann in Berlin-Adlershof, in EZA Berlin, 50/210/11 and EZA Berlin, 50/4, especially Alfried Bobsin to Chair of Provincial Church Committee, Berlin, 6 July 1936, EZA Berlin, 50/4, item 52; and Goosmann to unknown, 21 September 1936, EZA Berlin, 50/4, item 33.

  53. Order signed Dr. Werner, Protestant Upper Consistory, to Protestant Consistories in the internal area of jurisdiction, 4 July 1939, EZA Berlin, 7/1960.

  54. The Upper Consistory explicitly patterned its relaxation of proof of Aryanism requirements on measures adopted by the Ministry of the Interior on 20 September 1943, (RM BI IV. 1943, sp. 1505).