Betrayal

by Robert P Ericksen

  16. Robert P. Ericksen, "The Barmen Synod and Its Declaration: A Historical Synopsis," in The Church Confronts the Nazis: Barmen Then and Now, ed. Hubert Locke (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984), 70.

  17. Heinrich Vogel, "Christ the Center of the Declaration of Barmen," in The Barmen Confession: Papers from the Seattle Assembly (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986), 11-12.

  18. The Dahlem Synod established a "provisional administration" to take the place of the church administration that the German Christians had corrupted.

  19. Of the three bishops of the intact churches, Marahrens was the most thoroughly discredited after the war by the new church leadership, which included many prominent figures from the Confessing Church. Eberhard Kliigel's biography, Die lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers and ihr Bischof, 1933-1945 (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1964) is a highly apologetic, and therefore revealing, defense of the bishop's career.

  20. For a full, if somewhat undigested, discussion of the church committees, see Meier, Der evangclische Kirchenkampf, vol. 2.

  21. See Baranowski, Confessing Church, 66-75, and Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 156-84.

  22. This is becoming a prominent theme in newer scholarship on the German Christians. See Susannah Heschel, "Nazifying Christian Theology: Walter Grundmann and the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life," Church History 63, no. 4 (1994): 587-605; and Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 1996).

  23. The most thoroughgoing critique of ecclesiastical antisemitism is that of Wolfgang Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schzviegen: Die Bekennende Kirche trod das /udentunt (Berlin: Institut Kirche and Judentum, 1987), soon to appear in English translation. See also Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 122-28.

  24. See Robert P. Ericksen's introductory discussion in Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 1-27.

  25. The already intense discussion regarding the antisemitism in early Christianity has likely accelerated as a result of Elaine Pagels' book, The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995). See also Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (New Haven: and London: Yale University Press, 1988), and John G. Gager Jr. The Origins of Antisemitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).

  26. For other studies of the German Christians in addition to Bergen's, see James A. Zabel, Nazism and the Pastors: A Study of the Ideas of Three Deutsche Christen Groups (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars' Press, 1976), Kurt Meier, Die Deutschen Christen:. Das Bild einer Bezvegung int Kircheukautpf des Dritten Reicltes (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), and Hans-Joachim Sonne, Die politische Theologie der Deutschen Christen: Einheit and Vielfalt Deutsch-Christlichen Denkens, dargestellt anhand des Bundes fur Deutsche Kirche, der Thuringer Kirchenbewegung "Deutsche Christen" and der Chris tlich-Deu tschen Bewegung (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982).

  27. For the complete text, see Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 342-44.

  28. James Bentley, Martin Niemiiller 1892-1984 (New York: Free Press, 1984), 45; Leo Stein, I Was in Hell with Niemiiller (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1942), 120.

  29. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage," in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Eberhard Bethge, vol. 2 (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1959), 44-53, esp. 45.

  30. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 83-88.

  31. Ernst Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979), 149-50.

  32. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 122.

  33. [bid., 54-60. See also Bonhoeffer, "Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage."

  34. Out of approximately eighteen thousand pastors, only thirty were "non-Aryan," according to Meier, Kreuz and Hakenkreuz, 157.

  35. See Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 83-88; and Barnett, For the Soul of the People, 128-30.

  36. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 122. The use of antisemitic discourse to attack ecclesiastical opponents was quite common in both the Evangelical and Catholic churches. See Doris L. Bergen, "Catholics, Protestants, and Christian Antisemitism in Nazi Germany, Central European History 27, no. 3 (1994): 329-48, especially 335.

  37. Gerlach, argues that had Bonhoeffer stayed, his influence on Martin Niemoller would have prevailed. Instead, Niemoller worked closely with Karl Barth in defining the opposition's position toward the German Christians, and in Gerlach's view, Barth was considerably less attentive to the significance of the Aryan Paragraph. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 86.

  38. Baranowski, Confessing Church, 59-62.

  39. The entire text of the Barmen Declaration can be found in Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church's Confession under Hitler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 238-47.

  40. Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 245-55.

  41. For the relationship between theology and politics in Barth, see George Hunsinger ed., Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976). The forthcoming translation of Gerlach's, Als die Zeugen schwiegen will include a new epilogue on Barth's attitude toward Judaism.

  42. Baranowski, Confessing Church, 83-85; Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 152-59.

  43. Otto Dibelius, In the Service of the Lord: The Autobiography of Bishop Otto Dibelius (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 95.

  44. Barnett, For the Soul of the People, 144-54; Michael Phayer, Protestant and Catholic Women in Nazi Germany (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), 197-203.

  45. See Nowak, Geschichte des Christentums in Deutschland, 259-68.

  46. Heschel, "Nazifying Christian Theology, 603-4.

  47. Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: "Euthanasia" in Germany 1900-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 166.

  48. For works that deal with Protestantism and eugenics, see Jochen-Christoph Kaiser, Sozialer Protestantismus im 20. Jahrhundert:. Beitrage zur Geschichte der Inneren Mission 1914-1945 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1989); Burleigh, Death and Deliverance, esp. 167, 178-80, Kurt Nowak, Euthanasic and Sterilisierung im Dritten Reich:. Die Konfrontation der evangelischen and katholischen Kirche mit dent "Gesetz zur Verhiitung Erbkranken Nachwuchses" and der "Euthanasie-Aktion," 2nd ed. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984); and Claudia Koonz, "Eugenics, Gender, and Ethics in Nazi Germany: The Debate about Involuntary Sterilization 1933-1936," in Reevaluating the Third Reich, eds. Thomas Childers and Jane Caplan (Nezv York: Holmes and Meier, 1993), 66-85.

  49. Kaiser, Sozialer Protestantismus, 449.

  50. See especially Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Raul Hilberg's classic work, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967).

  51. Meier, Kreuz and Hakenkreuz, 171-72.

  52. Ibid., 173. Meier notes that although the churches succeeded in derailing the euthanasia project for a time, they could do little to stop the Holocaust. Even works that have been critical of the churches, like John Conway's The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, tend to argue that Nazi repression mitigates ecclesiastical sins.

  53. See especially, Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

  54. My comparative observations are drawn from Tim Mason, "Whatever Happened to 'Fascism?"' in Reevaluating the Third Reich, 253-62, esp. 259; Jonathan Steinberg, All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust 1941-1943 (London: Routledge, 1990); and Susan Zuccotti, The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival (New York: Basic Books, 1987).

  55. Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political D
issent, 331-40.

  56. [bid., 340-57.

  57. For Hitler's personal popularity, see Ian Kershaw, The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

  58. Kaiser, Sozialer Protestantismus, 387. The apologetic potential of "secularization" as an explanation for the rise of National Socialism and the lack of resistance became a staple in postwar West Germany. For a sharp assessment of the Federal Republic's attempt to come to terms with Nazism, see Richard J. Evans, In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York: Pantheon, 1989).

  59. Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent, 336-37.

  60. Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society, 179-84.

  61. See the synthesis of Hugh McLeod, Religion and the People in Western Europe, 1789-1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). Secularization did take hold from the 1960s on, even in West Germany, where the major churches remained state supported. See Nowak, Geschichte des Christentums in Deutschland, 291-322.

  Chapter 6: Kenneth C. BarneF

  1. Goldberg's comment may be found in "Bonhoeffer and the Limits of Jewish-Christian Dialogue," Books and Religion 14 (March 1986): 3. Eberhard Bethge's biography of Bonhoeffer was first published in Germany in 1967 and in English translation in 1970. This chapter will refer to the English paperback edition, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage, translated by Eric Mosbacher, et al. (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). The collected works, Gesammelte Schriften, under Bethge's editorship were published in six volumes from 1958-1974 by Chr. Kaiser Verlag of Munich. In addition to Bonhoeffer's major theological works, portions of the collected works have been translated into English in three volumes. I will cite English translations when they are available. One of the most recent long works praising Bonhoeffer for an unwavering strong stand against Nazi persecution of the Jews is Christine-Ruth Muller's Dietrich Bonhoeffers Kampf gegen die nationalsozialistische Verfolgung and Vernichtung der Juden (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1990).

  2. The criticisms began with William Jay Peck, "From Cain to the Death Camps: Bonhoeffer and Judaism," Union Seminary Quarterly Review 28 (Winter 1973): 158-76. While Peck repudiated the young Bonhoeffer, he remained enamored with the man of the Resistance movement and Tegel prison. The criticism continued with Ruth Zerner, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews: Thoughts and Actions, 1933-1945," Jewish Social Studies 37 (1975): 235-50; and Stanley N. Rosenbaum, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Jewish View," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 18 (Spring 1981): 301-7.

  3. The most complete biography of Bonhoeffer is Eberhard Bethge's Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For more readable accounts of Bonhoeffer's life, see Edwin Robertson, The Shame and the Sacrifice: The Life and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Macmillan, 1988); and Mary Bosanquet, The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Harper & Row, 1968).

  4. The residents of the Grunewald neighborhood were 13.54 percent Jewish, while Berlin was 4.3 percent and Germany was 0.9 percent Jewish. Figures are from Muller, Dietrich Bonhoeffers Karnpf gegen die nationalsozialistische Verfolgung and Vernichturtg der Juden, 321.

  5. See Eberhard Bethge, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews," in John D. Godsey and Geoffrey B. Kelly, eds., Ethical Responsibility: Bonhoeffer's Legacy to the Churches (New York and Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press, 1981), 50-52.

  6. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 110, 124.

  7. Ibid., 211.

  8. Wolfgang Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen: Bekennende Kirche and die Juden (Berlin: Institut Kirche and Judentum, 1987), 416.

  9. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 198-99.

  10. Ibid., 209.

  11. For a discussion of the political machinations within the German church struggle in 1933, see Klaus Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 280-357; and Ernst Helmreich, The German Churches Under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979), 133-46.

  12. For the context and a textual history of Bonhoeffer's essay, see chapter 7 of Marikje Smid, Deutscher Protestantisnnrs and Judentunt 1932/1933 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1990), 415-47. The essay is published in English as "The Church and the Jewish Question," in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures and Notes 1928-1936 (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 221-29. For the original German text of the essay see Bonhoeffer, Gesanunclte Schriften, 2: 44-53.

  13. Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords, 227-29.

  14. [bid., 223. For a discussion of conservative Lutheran political theology of the 1920s and early 1930s, see Wolfgang Tilgner, Volksrtomostheologie and Schopfungsglaube (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966); and Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Patti Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).

  15. Bonhoeffer, "The Church and the Jewish Question," 226-27. For a discussion of the survival in American Christianity of the punishing curse theory of Jewish suffering, see Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Christian Belief and Anti-Semitism (New York: Harper & Row 1961).

  16. Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords, 221-22, 225.

  17. Ibid., 225-26.

  18. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schweigen, 56-57.

  19. Robertson, The Shame and the Sacrifice, 96.

  20. For the text of the pamphlet, see Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 62-69. For Bethge's discussion, see Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 235-36.

  21. Bonhoeffer, quoted in Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 231.

  22. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen, 57-58; Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 231-33.

  23. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 237-46.

  24. Ibid., 247-50.

  25. Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords, 235.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 403-7; Muller, Dietrich Bonhoeffers Kanmffgegen die nationalsozialistische Verfolgung and Vernichtung der Juden, 210-11.

  28. Bethge had originally dated this statement in 1938, around the time of By the early 1980s he decided that Bonhoeffer said this in 1935 while at Finkenwalde, for at the time, the communal life of the seminary centered around a rediscovery and application of Roman Catholic monastic traditions. See Bethge, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews," 71-72.

  29. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, translated by R. H. Fuller, with some revision by lrmgard Booth (New York: Macmillan, 1963).

  30. See Richard Gutteridge's comments in The German Evangelical Church and the Jews 1879-1950 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), 278, 287; and Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 505.

  31. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 536-37.

  32. Bethge, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews," 74-75.

  33. See Bethge's discussion of these events in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 555-65. For the text of the letter see Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, 1:320.

  34. Visser't Hooft recounted that during the war he carried a briefcase containing sensitive material with him at all times so that he could burn it on the spot should the Germans invade Switzerland. Willem Visser't Hooft, interview with author, July 1981. Visser't Hooft also recorded that Bonhoeffer had reported to him about the continued practice of euthanasia by the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, 4:534.

  35. For Bell's report to Sir Anthony Eden about this meeting with Bonhoeffer, see Bonhoeffer, Gesanunelte Schriften, 1: 372-77.

  36. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 649-51. For the text of the report about Jewish deportations, see Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 640-43.

  37. The most detailed accounting of Operation 7 is in Muller, Dietrich Bonhoeffers Kampf gegen die nationalsozialistische Verfolgung and der Vernichtung der Juden, 303-14.

  38. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, edited by Eberhard Bethge, translated by Neville Horton Smith (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 26-27.

  39. Bethge, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews," 78. Pinchas Lapide sees in this passage a movement by Bonhoeffer toward reclaiming Judaism for the Christian church. See his "Bonhoeffer and das Judentum," in Verspieltes Erbe: Dietrich
Bonhoeffer and der deutsche Nachkriegprotestmrtismus, ed. E. Feil (Munich: Kaiser, 1979), quoted in Bethge, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews," 50-51.

  40. Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 208-9, 307.

  41. Ibid., 48, 50.

  42. Ibid., 116-22.

  43. Bonhoeffer sat in prison as the Final Solution progressed. It is uncertain how much he knew about the death camps in the last two years of the war. For a highly speculative discussion of Bonhoeffer's theology of nonreligious Christianity and its relationship to Jews, see Peck, "From Cain to the Death Camps," 168-73. Peck sees Bonhoeffer's rejection of religion as a renunciation of Lutheran political philosophy and "teutonic religion"-a religious culture he had embraced as a young pastor and theologian that was both antisemitic and obedience-oriented.

  ChBDter 7: G1 ltor Lev

  1. Erhard Schlund, O.F.M., Katholizismus and Vaterland, Munich, 1925, 32-33.

  2. Gustav Gundlach, S.J., "Antisemitismus," Lexikon fur Theologie and Kirche, 2nd rev. ed., Freiburg, Br., 1930, 1, 504. The new edition of this work, published after the downfall of Nazism, has replaced this article with one that condemns all types of antisemitism.

  3. Michael Buchberger, Gibt es noch eine Rettung?, Regensburg, n.p. [1931], 97-98.

  4. Franz Steffen, Antisemitische and deutschvdlkische Bewegung im Lichte des Katholizismus, Berlin, 1925; Felix Langer, Der "Judenspiegel" des Dr. Justus kritisch beleuchtet, Leipzig, 1921.

  5. Memorandum of unknown authorship, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series C, Vol. I, Doc. 188, 347.

  6. Article "Rase" in Konrad Grober, ed., Handbuch der religiosen Gegenwartsfragen, Freiburg, Br., 1937, 536.

  7. Sermon of December 31, 1933, in Michael Faulhaber, Judaism, Christianity and Germany, trans. George D. Smith, London, 1934, 107.

  8. Sermon of December 17, 1933, ibid., 68-69.

  9. Amtsblatt ffir die Erzdiozese Miinchen and Freising, November 15, 1934, supplement.

  10. J. Scherm, "Der alttestamentliche Bibelunterricht: Planungen and Wegweisungen," Klerusblatt, XX, 1939, 225.