Abstract
The study of the German Churches during the Nazi era is undergoing a radical shift. During the first decades following the Second World War, historians were primarily concerned with the extent to which the Churches were sources of resistance to the Nazi state, with little attention paid to any contribution church officials or teachings might have made to Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust. Most of those writing about the Churches were themselves German pastors and theologians who sought to portray the Church as a centre of resistance to National Socialism. More recently, historians, particularly those in the United States, have focused attention on the Churches’ cooperation with Hitler, particularly on ways in which church teachings of anti Judaism may have contributed to the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
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Notes
See, for example, R.P. Ericksen and S. Heschel, ‘The German Churches Face Hitler: An Assessment of the Historiography’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch f’ur Deutsche Geschichte, 23 (1994), 433–59.
See C. Vollnhals, Evangelische Kirche und Entnazifizierung 1945–1949. Die Last der nationalsozialistischen Vergangenheit (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1989).
P. Mathesen, The Third Reich and the Christian Churches (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1981), p. 100.
S. Heschel, ‘Church Protests during the Third Reich: A Report on Two Cases’, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, 10 (1997), 377–88. See, for example, an undated letter written by Walther Schultz, protesting at the Nazi Party order that the swastika be used only in official party contexts and be removed from church institutions, in Berlin Document Center: Schumacher Collection on Church Affairs, T580, R. 42; also in Bundesarchiv Koblenz, BA R43I1/150 Fiche #3.
L. Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft vor der Judenfrage: Gerhard Kittels theologische Arbeit im Wandel deutscher Geschichte (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1980).
See, for example, M. Rese, ‘Antisemitismus und neutestamentliche Forschung: Anmerkung zum Thema “Gerhard Kittel und die Judenfrage”’, Evangelische Theologie, 39 (1979); and R.P. Ericksen, ‘Zur Auseinandersetzung mit und urn Gerhard Kittels Antisemitisrnus’, Evangelische Theologie, 43 (1983).
R.P. Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).
M. Gailus, Protestantismus und Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Durchdringung des protestantischen Sozialmilieus in Berlin (Cologne: Bohlau, 2001); idem, ‘Overwhelmed by their own Fascination with the “Ideas of 1933”: Berlin’s Protestant Social Milieu in the Third Reich’, German History, 20 (2002), 462–93.
J.S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1968).
K. Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich. Vol. I: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918–1934 (London: SCM Press, 1987); originally published as Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich, Band I: Vorgeschichte und Zeit der Illusionen 1918–1934 (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1977); idem, The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. II: The Year of Disillusionment, 1934. Barmen and Rome, ed. G. Besier, D. Kleinmann and J. Thierfelder (London: SCM Press, 1988); originally published as Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich, Band H: Das Jahr der Ernuchterung 1934. Barmen und Rom (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1986). G. Besier, Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich: Spaltungen und Abwehrkampfe 1934–1937 (Berlin: Propylaen, 2001).
V. Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 3–4.
E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Theologe — Christ — Zeitgenosse (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1967); English translation: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage, trans. E. Mosbacher (New York: Harper & Row, 1970); idern., ‘Nichts scheint mehr in Ordnung’, in Ethik im Ernstfall: Dietrich Bonhoeffers Stellung zu den Juden und ihre Aktualitat, ed. W. Huber and I. Todt (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1982).
W. Gerlach, Als die Zeugen schwiegen: Bekennende Kirche und die Juden (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1987); English translation: And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Persecution of the Jews, trans. and ed. V.J. Barnett (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). Note that Gerlach completed his work as a dissertation in 1970, but then struggled for 17 years to find a German publisher. His willingness to criticize important theologians and church leaders certainly contributed to the delay.
K. Meier, Die Deutsche Christen: Das Bild einer Bewegung im Kirchenkampf des Dritten Reiches (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964).
K. Meier, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz: Die evangelische Kirche im Dritten Reich (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992), pp. 225–36.
R.E. Heinonen, Anpassung und Identitat.• Theologie und Kirchenpolitik der Bremer Deutschen Christen 1933–1945 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978).
J. Zabel, Nazism and the Pastors: A Study of the Ideas of Three Deutsche Christen Groups (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press for the American Academy of Religion, 1976); H.-J. Sonne, Die politische Theologie der Deutschen Christen: Einheit und Vielfalt deutsch-christlichen Denkens, dargestellt anhand des Bundes fiir Deutsche Kirche, der Thiiringer Kirchenbewegung ‘Deutsche Christen’ und der Christlich-Deutschen Bewegung (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982).
H. Faulenbach, Ein Weg durch die Kirche: Heinrich Josef Oberheid (Cologne: Rheinland Verlag, 1992).
A. Rinnen, Kirchenmann und Nationalsozialist: Siegfried Lefflers ideelle Verschmelzung von Kirche und Drittem Reich (Weinheim: Deutsche Studien Verlag, 1995).
E.C. Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979).
Ibid., p. 132.
C.E. King, The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1982). For studies of the German Mormons under National Socialism, see O. Eggenberger, Die Kirchen: Sondergruppen und religiösen Vereinigungen (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1978); and G. Scharffs, Mormonism in Germany: A History of the Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-Day Saints in Germany between 1840 and 1970 (Salt Lake City, 1970). On Baptists, see A. StrObind, Die unfreie Freikirche: Der Bund der Baptistengemeinden im Dritten Reich (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991).
J. Neuhäusler, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz: Der Kampf des Nationalsozialismus gegen die katholische Kirche und der kirchliche Widerstand (Munich: Verlag Katholische Kirche Bayerns, 1946).
E.-W. BOckenförde, ‘Der deutsche Katholizismus im Jahre 1933: Eine kritische Betrachtung’, Hochland, 53 (1961), 283–304. See also his’German Catholicism in 1933’, Cross Currents, 11 (1961), 283–304.
H. Muller, Katholische Kirche und Nationalsozialismus. Dokurnente 1930–1935 (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1963). For a commentary on BOckenfOrde and Neuhausler, see K. Sontheimer’s ‘Einleitung’, especially pp. viii-ix for his quotations from the former’s angry critics.
R. Hochhuth, The Deputy (New York: Grove Press, 1964). This play had an extraordinary response. See, for example, D. Fisher, Pope Pius XII and the Jews: An Answer to Hochhuth’s Play, Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy) (Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1963).
See E. Bentley, The Storm over the Deputy (New York: Grove Press, 1964).
A recent example of this critique can be found in J. Cornwell’s aggressively titled book, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking, 1999).
O. Chadwick, Britain and the Vatican during the Second World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
For example, see R.J. Rychlak, Hitler, the War, and the Pope (Huntingdon, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2000).
See, for example, P. Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999).
S. Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
P. Blet, A. Martini, R. Graham and B. Schneider, eds., Records and Documents of the Holy See Related to the Second World War, trans. Gerard Noel (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968).
D.I. Kertzer, The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern AntiSemitism (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2001). See, for example, Part I on Jewish oppression in the Papal States and chapters 4 and 11 on ritual murder.
M. Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).
S. Friedlander, Pius XII and the Third Reich: A Documentation (New York: Knopf, 1966).
G. Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 341.
D. Dietrich, Catholic Citizens in the Third Reich: Psycho-Social Principles and Moral Reasoning (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988).
K. Scholder, A Requiem for Hitler and Other New Perspectives on the German Church Struggle (London: SCM Press, 1989).
17 January 1949, Letter to Bruderrat, Landeskirchlichesarchiv Darmstadt, Bestand 36/73, cited in C. Raisig, Wege der Erneuerung: Christen und Juden. Der Rheinische Synodalbeschluss (Potsdam: Verlag fur Berlin-Brandenburg, 2002), p. 57.
F.W. Marquardt, Von Elend und Heimsuchung der Theologie: Prolegomena zur Dogmatik (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1988), p. 138.
J. Zink, Neue Zehn Gebote (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1995).
C. Mulack, Jesus: der Gesalbte der Frauen (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1987), pp. 155–6.
J. Moltmann, Experiences of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), p. 22.
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Ericksen, R.P., Heschel, S. (2004). The German Churches and the Holocaust. In: Stone, D. (eds) The Historiography of the Holocaust. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524507_14
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