Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- December 2001- Vol. VII, no. 11 

Dear Friends,

Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very blessed
Christmas season. Let us hope that it may be a message of hope
after the tumults and disasters of this opening of the new
millennium.

Christmas Trees

Bonhoeffer in his skylit cell
bleached by the flares, candescent fall,
pacing out his own citadel,

restores the broken themes of praise,
encourages our borrowed days,
by logic of his sacrifice.

Against wild reasons of the state
his words are quiet but not too quiet.
We hear too late or not too late
Geoffrey Hill
Contents:

1) Book reviews: a) Dudley-Smith, John Stott
b) Kertzer, The Popes against the Jews
c) D.Eman, Things we couldn,t say
2) New contemporary church history project
3) New book publications: Mark Lindsay, Karl Barth
S.Liebster, Facing the Lion
N.Railton, No North Sea
H.Marcuse, Legacies of Dachau

1a) Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott. The Making of a Leader.
Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press 1999 513 pp.
John Stott was – and is – the most prominent member of the
evangelical wing of the Church of England in the second half of the
twentieth century. For more than fifty years he served as curate,
priest-in-charge, rector and rector emeritus of All Souls, Langham
Place on London,s fashionable west side – a strategic base where he
established his enviable reputation as a preacher and
communicator, and led the revival, so his biographer claims, of the
evangelical movement in England.
This laudatory and leisurely biography, written by a close
friend, is based on a wealth of personal papers, beginning with
schoolboy letters and diaries of bird-watching trips. In addition,
Dudley-Smith has marshaled an impressive array of secondary
sources, which are used to describe the setting in which Stott grew
up and had his initial training in Christian ministry. But since his
more than 500 pages cover only the early years and stops in 1958,
we will presumably have to wait for a second volume to show how
Stott,s leadership was most fully deployed.
What we are given here is a full and discursive description
of the religious climate of the early years of the last century, and of
the limited circle of English upper middle class people who upheld
the Church of England,s evangelical traditions and its institutions,
and their methods of recruiting the young. John Stott,s father was a
leading surgeon and lived in Harley Street, the most fashionable
address for doctors in London. As was customary in this class,
John was sent to boarding school at an early age, and as a teenager
went to Rugby, one of England,s most prestigious “public schools.
It was there that at the age of seventeen, the most important event
of his life took place – his conversion to a personal faith in Jesus.
Thanks to a visiting evangelist from the Scripture Union, Rev.
E.Nash, John along with others of his age was confronted with the
challenge: What shall I do with Jesus? and given the choice of
following the narrow way to salvation or the broader path to
destruction. The imagery of Holman Hunt,s picture The Light of
the World was a powerful influence, and very soon John was
confident that he was indeed committed to Christ, and released
from the bond of sin. The approach was personal and devotional
rather than intellectual. Nor was it original, since the model was
derived from Puritan roots and extensively used by John Wesley.
But under the auspices of the Scripture Union and other
evangelistic agencies, it was taken to groups of schoolboys of John
Stott,s class and age, and was remarkably effective.
The spiritual emphasis was that of traditional
evangelicalism: reliance on Holy Scripture, with a belief in biblical
inerrancy, acceptance of salvation by faith in the atoning death of
Christ, and a commitment to personal evangelism. This
programme was fostered by a series of summer camps and house
parties, with a view to recruiting more converts, and encouraging
those who had already accepted Jesus as their Saviour. Many
young participants, like Stott, were eventually to be ordained.
While still at Rugby, Stott was drawn into the organizational tasks
of running these gatherings. His abilities for leadership and
single-minded dedication were obvious even then. But to critics,
this enthusiasm for personal holiness seemed overdone, especially
when accompanied by a narrowness of view, doctrinal rigidity, and
at times a grating self-righteousness.
In 1939, while he was still in school, war broke out. The
British government generously ruled that young men intending to
be ordinands were exempt from military service. Stott decided to
take advantage of this ruling, even though he had not yet begun his
undergraduate career, let alone a course of theology. His father,
who was quickly called to high rank in the Royal Army Medical
Corps, found John,s refusal to enlist or volunteer for national
service profoundly disturbing. The rift was not healed for many
years. John argued that his calling to prepare for God,s service as a
minister of the Gospel took precedence, and so began his studies at
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he stayed throughout the war.
Dudley-Smith has the space to describe in full and
unflattering terms the kind of teaching Stott received in war-time
Cambridge. Liberalism was uppermost in the Faculty of Divinity.
Theology was taught purely as a secular subject, even by some men
who were non-believers. The cause of evangelicalism was upheld
by an eccentric librarian. There were, of course, very few men of
his own age with whom to trade ideas. And – as his biographer
suggests – he was too intense to establish any close relations with
women students. Indeed he never married. His education was
therefore mainly derived from the resources of the University
Library. It was here that he discovered the rich legacy of Charles
Simeon, the great evangelical who had dominated Cambridge in the
nineteenth century, and whose aura was still to be felt in his parish
church, Holy Trinity. But in every college there was also a small
group of fervent and enthusiastic students, members of the
Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU). Stott spent
much of his free time leading their bible studies, extending pastoral
care to searching individuals, and generally building up their faith
along the conservative and rather puritanical lines advocated by the
CICCU leadership. Here again the emphasis was on the
individual,s need for faith in the redeeming love of Christ. Wider
social or political issues were rigorously set aside in the pursuit of
personal holiness and piety.
At the end of 1945 Stott was ordained by the Bishop of
London and invited to serve his curacy at All Souls, Langham Place
and its daughter church, St Peter,s, where he had worshipped as a
boy. It was really a homecoming, but to a London society deeply
changed by the war. For one thing, All Souls Church had been
badly damaged by a bomb and was out of commission until 1951.
His life as an assistant curate was a busy one, since the church was
understaffed. But his duties became heavier when the Rector was
taken ill and had to convalesce for lengthy periods. Stott was then
made Priest-in-Charge. When in early 1950, the Rector died, he
was invited to succeed him at the astonishingly early age of 29.
The latter part of this book covering Stott,s first decade as
Rector is frankly disappointing. Dudley-Smith describes his busy
life, his organizational skills, and the positions of leadership he
soon took up within the evangelical wing of the Church of England.
But little or no clue is given as to what characteristics led to Stott,s
reputation rising so rapidly. To be sure, he was in charge of a
well-situated, obviously prosperous and popular church. He had and
trained a succession of like-minded curates, and he was an
attractive and hard-working minister. His strengths lay in his
expository preaching and his evangelistic zeal, which particularly in
the early years attracted hundreds of young people, especially
students, to Langham Place. But we are not told why he succeeded
more than other similarly placed clergy.
So too with his university missions during the 1950s, to
which Dudley-Smith devotes a whole chapter. He quotes numerous
glowing testimonies to these successes – along with a few critical
comments – but fails to analyze the content of the message, let
alone to make any comparative evaluations. So the effect is
repetitive as one university after another is visited, challenged and
left behind. Possibly Dudley-Smith is too close to his subject, or
perhaps such assessments will be given in the second volume.
Alternatively it may be that he presumed that readers of this
biography would all have heard John Stott for themselves. But for
outsiders, there is a regrettable absence of context and content. We
can only infer that Stott maintained a remarkable consistency in his
approach, which was – and is – a reliance on the traditional
evangelical appeal for personal dedication to Christ, acceptance of
the invitation to let Jesus enter one,s heart, proclamation of the
substitutionary theory of the atonement, and an affirmation of the
release from sin,s bondage. From the evidence here supplied,
Stott,s message seems to be the same one which he accepted at the
time of his own conversion decades before, proclaimed with
intensity and conviction, but also with an unchanging narrowness of
focus. Nowhere does Dudley-Smith seek to expound the strengths
– and weaknesses – of this doctrinal position, or to place it in the
wider context of English or evangelical church life. Perhaps we
shall be given more in Volume II, but the chatty anecdotal
reportage adopted in this first installment suggests otherwise. Too
bad, since Stott is a man of stature whose views deserve a more
thorough and defensible examination and assessment.
JSC

 

b) Kertzer,D., The Popes Against the Jews: the Vatican’s Role in
the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism. Alfred A. Knopf, New York,
2001, pp.358.

Reviewed by Eugene J. Fisher, Associate Director, Secretariat for
Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of
Catholic Bishops, USA.

Unlike the wholly discredited Hitler’s Pope by journalist John
Cornwell, with which this book is likely to be forever paired
(indeed, the publisher places a promotional blurb by Cornwell on
the back jacket cover), David Kertzer’s book is the work of a
professional historian. Kertzer has gone through the archives of the
Holy Office of the Inquisition, opened up by the Holy See for
researchers in 1998, for the 19th & early 20th centuries, and written
up his results in lively and compelling fashion. This work will be
useful to other historians for the details it brings to a story whose
major outlines have long been well known.
Kertzer narrates, for example, cases of “forced” baptisms of
infants in the House of Catechumens in Rome. If a Jewish man
decided to convert to Christianity, he writes, he would be obliged to
sign a document signing over his rights to his wife and children.
The latter then could be taken out of the Roman ghetto and placed
in the House of Catechumens. Those who were of the age of
reason were subjected to 30 days of intensive efforts to convert
them (so the law allowed). If they were still obdurate in their
Jewish faith, they were released to return to the ghetto. Children
under the age of reason were simply baptized and taken to be raised
as Catholics, since their father, who was considered to have this
legal right over his children, had so mandated by his signature.
Kertzer goes on to narrate the appallingly squalid conditions of
the Jews in the ghettos of the Papal States, their efforts to gain their
freedom, and how those efforts became symbolically linked in the
minds of the people who ran the Papal States with all that they felt
was dangerous about the Enlightenment and its ideology of militant
secularism. All of this will be painful, but ultimately healthy
reading for American Catholics, who came to terms with the theory
and praxis of religious pluralism and religious freedom in, shall we
say, 1776.
These “enlightened” theories, of course, were in fact dangerous to
the monarchical ideas behind the Papal States. And one can argue
that the loss of the papacy’s temporal power, so that it could better
understand and exercise its deeper, spiritual authority, was
ultimately one of the better things to happen to the Catholic Church
in its long history. I would be of that persuasion. And I would
offer the example of the present pontificate, with the nonviolent but
effective role Pope John Paul II played in the dissolution of the
Enlightenment’s greatest heresy, the Communist Soviet Union, as a
case in point.
The bishops of the world gathered together at the Second Vatican
Council, I believe, also saw it this way in voting overwhelmingly
for the declarations on religious liberty and on the Jews (Nostra
Aetate no. 4). Whereas before the Council, as the saying went,
“error has no rights,” since the Council the right of human
conscience has been the consistent teaching of the Church.
Kertzer’s problem, however, is that he does not see this, or perhaps
has not done sufficient homework to understand it. The useful
material, which I would hope every Catholic would read, the
material that comes out of his actual research, is contained in the
first of the three parts of his book, a bit over a hundred pages. The
rest, sadly enough, reads more like a polemic in tone and content.
Kertzer sets up his accusation of a Vatican plot to infect an
innocent Europe with anti-Semitism by misconstruing the Holy
See’s document, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. He
wants it to say that there is no relationship at all between modern
racial anti-Semitism and the Christian teaching of contempt for Jew
and Judaism that led to the institution of the ghettos of Europe. But
it does not say that. And here Kertzer’s scholarship deserts him. He
states (p. 205) that We Remember states, “The Catholic Church can
bear no responsibility for the rise of modern anti-Semitism.”
Nowhere does it say that, of course. What Kertzer has done
(unpardonable in a professional historian) is turn a both/and into an
either/or. True, the Holy See’s document does spell out at one point
the logically and historically necessary distinction between
Christian anti-Judaism and modern racial anti-Semitism. But
making a distinction does not, contrary to Kertzer’s odd logic, imply
that there is no relationship between the phenomena being
distinguished. Indeed, the entire structure of We Remember is
based on an acknowledgment of and repentance for the fact that
Christian anti-Jewish polemics against Jews and Judaism over the
centuries, teachings, as Pope John Paul II has said, by the 20th
century had so “lulled the consciences” of Christians that far too
many did not see the dangers of taking the radical step of
dehumanizing the Jews. But attempting to exterminate a whole
group of people is, pace Kertzer, a qualitatively different thing from
forced conversions and ghettos, bad as these were. The U.S.
bishops’ conference, in its document providing guidance for the
implementation of We Remember in Catholic schools, put it this
way: “Christian anti-Judaism did lay the groundwork for racial,
genocidal anti-Judaism by stigmatizing not only Judaism but Jews
themselves for opprobrium and contempt. So the Nazi theories
found tragically fertile soil in which to plant the horror of an
unprecedented attempt at genocide. One way to put the
connectedness between the Christian teaching of anti-Judaism and
Nazi antisemitism is that the former is a ‘necessary cause’ to
consider in explaining the development and success of the latter”
but not a sufficient cause. Christian anti-Judaism alone cannot
account for the Holocaust.” (Catholic Teaching on the Shoah,
USCCB, 2001). Many other historical factors, which Kertzer
studiously ignores, were involved. Kertzer, having set up his straw
person, proceeds to waste an awful lot of the reader’s time
demolishing it with great relish.
Had he done his homework, Kertzer would have realized that the
phrase he uses to title one of his chapters, “Antechamber to the
Holocaust,” was used precisely with reference to the ghettos of
Europe by Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, then president of the
Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, in a
statement made in May of 1998 clarifying We Remember. Kertzer
likewise fails to give credit to a fellow scholar, Professor Ronald
Modras of St. Louis University for the theory of why so may in the
European clergy at the turn of the last century were attracted to a
form of anti-Semitism, even while denouncing its harsher
implications (see The Catholic Church and Anti-Semitism: Poland
1933-39, Harwood, 1994.
Kertzer’s prosecutorial stance leads him to omit key facts and, at
times, to very tortured arguments. He concludes, for example, that
there was a Vatican “campaign” to popularize the infamous
Protocols of the Elders of Zion because a French priest (whom he is
sure had a close personal relationship with the pope because he was
made–are you ready?–a Monsignor!) did do just that in the 1920’s.
This is to ignore the fact that another French priest, Fr. Pierre
Charles, SJ, wrote an article in the 1930’s thoroughly debunking the
forgery which was picked up in Jesuit journals in Europe and
America. And with regard to the discussion between the Vatican
Secretary of State and the German ambassador in 1943, which
some scholars believe led the Germans to end their deportations of
the Jews of Rome, Kertzer omits the telling detail that the
deportations did stop on the day of that conversation, however it is
interpreted, and that the Jews of Rome went into hiding, in large
part in the monasteries and convents of the city, with the
knowledge of the Vatican, which regularly supplied them with food
to feed the hidden Jews.
This book may have been begun as serious scholarship, but it
ended up as anything but, which is a loss for all of us, Jews and
Catholics alike, since the author is capable of much better work
than exhibited here.
Dr. Eugene J. Fisher
Associate Director, SEIA

 

c) Diet Eman with James Schaap, Things we couldn,t say, Grand
Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans 1994/2001 pback 392pp

The new paper-back edition of Diet Eman’s reminiscences,
first published a few years ago, provides another opportunity to
share the experiences of this young Dutch student during the years
of Nazi occupation of her homeland. She and her fiancé became
deeply involved in resistance activities, for religious as well as
nationalist reasons. Both paid the price. Diet Eman,s account of
their efforts to hide Jews, procure safe havens, and obtain ration
cards, while evading the Gestpo-led pursuit, clearly testifies to her
Christian-based commitment to the cause, very similar to that of
Corrie ten Boom. Her description of her imprisonment and
harrowing interrogations are vividly recalled. Unfortunately her
fiancé was deported to Germany and died in Dachau. The resulting
shock led her to emigrate and to suppress these dark years from her
memory. Not until fifty years later, when she met a talented writer
James Schaap, did she consent to face the painful remembrance of
these sufferings and to reopen her long-closed diary of those years.
Through their collaboration, Diet Eman and James Schaap give
today’s English-speaking audience another valuable eye-witness
account of both the heroism and the sufferings endured by the
Dutch people at the hands of the Nazis.
JSC

2) New contemporary church history project
Five European universities have been given a joint grant by the
European Commission – its first in the field of Humanities – to
undertake a collaborative study of the role of the churches in the
integration of Europe. Coordinated by the University of Helsinki
(Prof. Aila Lauha), this project will involve the universities of
Glasgow, Tartu, Lund and Münster. In Glasgow, list-member
Nicholas Hope of the Department of History is supported by his
research assistant Philip Coupland. The scope of the project is to
examine the relationship of the churches to political events of the
last fifty years from the Cold War to the present. Each university
will have its own assignment relating to the whole project. For
example, Glasgow concentrates on British archival material, and
looks at local churches and religious faiths in politics and society.
We look forward to reporting on the progress of this excellently
ecumenical initiative.

3) New book publications:
Mark Lindsay, Covenanted Solidarity: The theological basis of Karl
Barth,s opposition to Nazi Antisemitism and the Holocaust,
(Issues in Systematic Theology, Vol. 9) Frankfurt, Berne, New
York: Peter Lang. 2001.

Simone A.Liebster, Facing the Lion. Memoirs of a young girl in
Nazi Europe. Grammaton Press, New Orleans 2000 408pp
This is one of a new series of memoirs written by members of the
Jehovah,s Witnesses sect, following the pattern set by their Jewish
partners in suffering. Liebster,s account of her youth in Alsace, and
her persecution after the Nazi conquest is on familiar lines, but
brings out again the courageous obstinacy with which members of
the J.Ws accosted their persecutors.
Their witness has not been much written about in secular terms,
partly because this religious fraternity is still discriminated against,
and partly because such literary exercises does not belong in their
culture. But this glimpse of their fate is an excellent example of
how such experiences should be recorded for posterity.

Nicholas M.Railton, No North Sea. The Anglo-German Evangelical
Network in the middle of the nineteeenth century. Leiden: Brill.
2000 286pp
Although this study is limited to the mid-nineteenth century, its
subject matter will be of interest to our list members, since it
portrays a happy period of collaboration between German and
British Evanglicals in a variety of constructive endeavours. Possibly
the most striking was the establishment of the Anglo-Prussian
bishopric in Jerusalem, which is nicely described in detail. The
Pietist tradition in Prussia and the Evangelical wing of the Church
of England together believed in the supremacy of biblical witness,
and were ardent in their championing of missions. Perhaps too
literal, perhaps too dogmatic, but certainly fervent and full of good
works. Railton clearly sympathises with this stance, and it is only
too bad that he stops short just before the nationalist tensions of
later years drove these friends apart apparently irreversibly.

Harald Marcuse, Legacies of Dachau, Cambridge University Press,
2001, 590 pp

Harald Marcuse, who now teaches in Santa Barbara, is the grandson
of the eminent German philosopher. This compendious, splendidly
researched and well illustrated volume is really the story of how the
community of Dachau, near Munich, came to terms with its being
the site of the Nazis, first concentration camp, and with the
subsequent horrors which happened there. Our readers will be
particularly interested in the two chapters on “Catholics celebrate at
Dachau (p. 221-241) and “Protestants make amends at Dachau
(p.276-289).
In 1940 all the Christian clergy held in “protective custody were
consolidated in Dachau, 2579 Catholics – mainly Poles – and a very
much smaller number of Protestants. Those who survived after the
war wanted to erect a memorial. In line with Catholic practice, a
place of martyrdom and suffering could be sanctified if a shrine
was buiilt over the spot, especially if relics of the martyrs could be
found. The cult reflects Christ,s sacrifice and becomes a focus for
religious pilgrimage, not for historical commemoration. The
Catholic chapel in Dachau was finally built in 1960, largely
because of pressure from abroad, and against the opposition of the
local citizens. But again religious elements predominate over
historical references. There is no mention of the Nazi past.
By contrast the Protestants, led by Martin Niemöller, himself a
Dachau inmate, and supported by a youth group, Action for
Atonement, stressed the Church,s failings in the Nazi years. Their
chapel was named the Chapel of Reconciliation and sought to attest
Protestant solidarity with all of the Nazis, victims, even though the
record of the German Protestants, assistance to these victims after
1945 had been sparse. But the need to learn the lessons from the
past was markedly emphasized in Niemöller,s speech at the
chapel,s ceremonial dedication in 1967, when he compared his own
experience of injustice in Dachau with the United States,
aggression in Vietnam. Reconciliation had to be earned by an
active commitment to peace and justice.

With best wishes to you all at this festive season,

John S.Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca
Association of Contemporary Church Historians website:

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- November 2001- Vol. VII, no. 11 

Dear Friends,

Contents:
1) Book reviews:

a) J.Dixon, Divine Feminine
b) W.Ustorf, Sailing on the next tide. Missions, missiology and the Third Reich

2) New journal articles
3) Short notices:

Remembering for the Future
Anderson, Practicing Democracy

Zugger, Catholics in Soviet Union
O.Bartov and P.Mack, In God,s Name
Liebster, Facing the Lion

1a) Joy Dixon, Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in
England. (The Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and
Political Science, 119th Series) Baltimore and London: The
Johns Hopkins University Press 2000. 293pp
ISBN 0-8018-6499-2

Joy Dixon, who teaches at the University of British
Columbia, breaks new ground in describing the links between
the rising feminist movements of early twentieth-century
England and the esoteric religions, particularly theosophy,
which enjoyed a considerable boom in the same period.
Historians – mostly men – have dismissed theosophy and the
antics of its foundress, Madame Blavatsky, as a crackpot cult
unworthy of serious attention. Joy Dixon is more sympathetic.
While she does not seek to examine the truth-claims of this
sect, she is prepared to recognize that it had a considerable
impact, especially among women. Her interest lies in the
historical context in which such movements operated. Both
the political branch of feminism and such “spiritual groups as
the Theosophical Society, she claims, can be regarded as a
kind of counter-culture which challenged the male domination
of British politics, society and the churches. Her sprightly and
well-researched account argues that, in fact, theosophy can be
said to be still at work in such counter-cultural movements as
New Age.

In the early years of the last century the members of the
Theosophical Society believed they were about to lead the
world into a new dispensation, spiritually and politically. The
success of the T.S. was due at least in part to its attempt to
reconcile all religions, philosophies and scientific systems in a
higher synthesis. When combined with the exotic glamour of a
mystic East, the attraction was undoubted, especially since its
founder was a woman. At a time when conventional religion
was being undermined by the claims of secular science, Mme
Blavatsky,s appeal was a combination of mystery and
scientism. She spent much of her time in India where she
claimed to be in touch with her spiritual sources, but
successfully translated these esoteric teachings and practices to
the upper middle-classes of London. Of course she met with
opposition. One of the rival movements, the Society for
Psychical Research, even commissioned an investigation of her
activities, which concluded that she was to be regarded
“neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a vulgar
adventuress; we think she has achieved a title to permanent
remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and
interesting imposters in history.

Nevertheless, by the time of her death in 1891, the
Theosophical Society had established itself in London,s
clubland, and when the leadership fell to another equally
forceful woman, Annie Besant, its influence grew still further.
After she had lost her faith and divorced her husband, an
Anglican vicar, at the age of 25, Besant developed considerable
administrative and oratorical skills, which brought her the
same kind of publicity, or notoriety, as her suffragette
counterparts. With women of such calibre in leadership
positions, it was more difficult to see theosophy as being based
on moonshine or its devotees recruited from the moonstricken.
Rather, by stressing her Irish roots and Indian connections,
Besant made a claim to have greater spiritual insight than the
average “Anglo-Saxon philistine. The impression that
emerges from the writings of English theosophists is that India
and the “Celtic fringe, along with women, were the repository
of a spirituality that English men had forfeited in exchange for
material progress.

Under Besant, the Theosophical Society became
dominated by women, and its spiritual activities would be
characterized, or criticized, as distinctly feminine. But this
evolution was complex. As over against the rationalist and
materialist culture of main-stream Christianity, theosophy,s
emphasis on “astral forces and the importance of emotion,
even when it led to excessive credulity or sentimentality, was
seen by many women to be a more valid and vital experience
in their lives. Devotional services began to displace the earlier
reliance on cerebral lectures as a more appropriate way to
support a feminine agenda and to express the wisdom of the
East in a suitable western idiom. And particularly after the
outbreak of war in 1914, theosophy capitalized on its female
adherents, need for spiritual consolation in the face of death
and bereavement. Theosophy offered unambiguous spiritual
answers and supplied comfort to some of the war,s despairing
survivors.

Under Besant, more stress was laid on political
activities. The T.S. became part of a loosely socialist and
feminist political culture. Its immanentist theology posed a
challenge to middle-class masculinity with its capitalistic and
imperialistic individualism. Theosophism was welcomed both
by feminists and by Indian nationalists, following Besant,s
statement that: “India is in advance in things spiritual, England
in things material. They are two complementary halves which
if put together might make the greatest empire ever known.
Social reform was at first seen as a spiritual duty and a
necessary preparation for the New Age. But after the
disillusionment of the first world war, the rise of Communism –
distinctly unspiritual – cooled such enthusiasms. Indeed in the
1920s and 1930s, some theosophists turned to corporatist
movements, such as the British Union of Fascists. Here the
T.S.,s hierarchical and elitist mentality felt more at home, but
in fact, as Joy Dixon rightly notes, theosophy could sustain
both a corporatist and a collectivist vision, and as such its
occult body politics existed in an unstable relationship with the
existing British political parties.

Equally interesting is the author,s analysis of the
various trends within femininism. Some women sought to
recreate Christianity in a femininist guise, while others
condemned it, and Judaism, as irremediably patriarchal.
Theosophy sought to incorporate the insights of the great
religions of the East, but these were also suspect for failing to
overcome the subjection of women. Opinion was also divided
about the suffragettes, whose behaviour appeared more
masculine than feminine. To be sure, the roots of the world,s
evil lay in male supremacy and the misuse of male power. But
the Divine Feminine Principle required a higher consciousness,
which would lead to a democratic and communistic society.
This of course could be combined with a belief in women,s
superior sexuality, untainted by masculine bestiality.

Joy Dixon is particularly good at describing the crucial
nexus of theosophy in the wider feminist cause. For a
significant number of women, and particularly for women in
the militant wing of the suffrage movement, spirituality was a
constitutive element in their feminist politics. It was, of course,
an eclectic, as yet unformed, spirituality. And, therefore, the
vagueness of theosophy,s beliefs encouraged an inclusive
debate as part of a wider spiritual crusade. The fact that
theosophy celebrated women,s special excellence over men
fitted well with the suffrage movement,s political instincts. It
was all part of the attempt to reclaim the public and political
realms as a sacred space. Dixon,s brief biographies of several
leading women in her final chapters are revealing of the
strengths and weaknesses of such spiritual searchings. But, as
conditions changed, so the Theosophical Society was no longer
so influential in England. Its numbers, never large, have since
declined almost to vanishing point.

Although the debates here described took place less
than a hundred years ago, they now seem passé. Feminism has
won its battles and is now politically correct. But the Divine
Feminine Messiah has not appeared. Utopianism is at a
discount, even if the wisdom of the East is still capable of
finding adherents. The current New Age, with its hedonistic
self-indulgence, is a far cry from the ascetic spirituality of its
predecessors. So these earnest and dedicated women
influenced by theosophy,s high ideals, seem distant. And
because we see them only through their writings, rather
desiccated. Did they ever laugh? Perhaps some interviews
with surviving family members would help to make their
personalities more rounded, and fill out the legacy they left
behind.

In any case, we owe Joy Dixon a debt for two things:
first, for her capable research into a considerable number of
obscure printed sources and for surveying the records of the
Theosophical Society, as far as she was allowed; second, for
steering a fine line through unknown territory, avoiding both
admiration and denigration. Given the exotic and esoteric
links between theosophy and feminism, this was no mean
achievement.
JSC

1b) Werner Ustorf, Sailing on the next tide. Missions,
missiology and the Third Reich (Studies in the Intercultural
History of Christianity 125) Frankfurt, New York: Peter Lang.
2000. 274 pp ISBN 3-631-37060-1

Werner Ustorf is a German scholar, now professor of
Mission at Birmingham University. U.K. In this book he looks
into the theory of missions as developed in his homeland
during the first half of the last century. He begins by widening
the concept of mission to examine how this notion could be
taken up by non-Christian groups such as Hitler,s Nazi Party or
by Professor Hauer,s neo-pagan Germanic religion. Ustorf
agrees with those who see Nazism as a political religion,
affirms that much of its ideology was derived from Christian
sources, and demonstrates that Hitler consciously used (and
perverted) religious language in pursuit of his racial goals. He
therefore rejects a purely instrumental view of Nazi cult
performances or propaganda, and instead stresses its
missionary endeavour to save the German Volk in its
life-and-death struggle against the forces of evil, as incarnated
in the Jews. The mission of the German people was to
safeguard their blood and soil from contamination by outside
forces and thus show the way of salvation to other nations.
The Christian hope for deliverance was transferred to the
political sphere, whereby Hitler became the Saviour, or indeed
the Messiah, of the Third Reich.
This ethno-centric religious ideology found a partner in
the German Faith Movement, propagated by Professor Hauer
of Tubingen University. Both challenged the Christian
churches by insisting on the priority of national faith-identity.
The impact, in the political circumstances of 1933, was
considerable. But Ustorf,s chief concern is to show how such
notions affected the thinking of the German missionary
community, especially among the Protestants. He advances the
view that sympathy for the Nazi political and ideological goals
led many of the German missionaries to accept the idea of a
“special revelation to be found in each nation, and thus to
attempt a kind of syncretism between “blood and soil and
traditional Christianity.
By contrast, the emphasis of the historic mission
societies under British or American auspices was on
universalism. The Gospel was to be preached to all the world,
and this task was often equated with the advance of
“civilization. Missionaries abroad may have had some
reservations about the methods by which imperialism imposed
its rule over so much of Asia and Africa, but they readily
accepted the “white man,s burden, and rejected all attempts to
syncretize with local ethnic beliefs. But in the 1930s, both
European imperialism and Christian exclusivism came to be
increasingly challenged, and the traditional missionary
structures and ideas came under corrosive attack both at home
and in the field.
Creative thinkers on the future of Christian missions in
this decade, such as Joe Oldham, Visser t Hooft, John Mott or
William Hocking, believed that a new impetus was now
necessary. They criticized the institutional inertia of the
existing missionary bodies, and argued that a new injection of
mainly lay talent was now required. Less stress on traditional
dogmatism and more on humanitarian engagement, less
paternalism from colonialist structures, more local initiative
and control. But the resistance of the mission boards and their
conservative constituencies delayed such an agenda for another
thirty years.
In the meanwhile, the shock of the world-wide
depression and the onslaught of totalitarian regimes, such as
Nazism, overshadowed the debate about missions abroad. By
the end of the 1930s there was a widespread recognition that
there was now a “life and death struggle between Christian
faith and the secular and pagan tendencies of our time
(Oxford Life and Work Conference, 1937). In view of such
enormous dangers, the Church must “assert the claim of Jesus
Christ, as the incarnate Word of God, to the Lordship of all
human life. There were authoritarian overtones to this
demand, largely unrecognized at the time. But such a
Christo-centric doctrine rallied the Church even though it made
the task of relating to other religions more difficult.
In his third section Ustorf describes the German
mission scene during the Third Reich, mainly concentrating on
the leading figures in their home base.Virtually all were
conservative nationalists, antisemitic and anti-bolshevik, and
totally opposed to the iniquitous Versailles Treaty. The
missionaries had a special grievance against the 1919
settlement. After the British conquest of the German colonies
in Africa and Asia in 1915, the missionaries had been sent
packing. Very quickly they saw themselves as maltreated
victims of the British rape of their mission posts, and readily
told the tale of their sufferings to the war-time German press.
Versailles confirmed their unanimously-held suspicions of a
British plot to confiscate their missions, and hence reinforced
the trauma of their expulsion. In fact, Article 438, which had
been included at the specific desire of Joe Oldham and his
colleagues in London, rescued these German properties from
being seized as war reparations, and instead stipulated that they
be placed under the trusteeship of non-German representatives
of the same denomination – usually Swedish. But the whining
tone of resentment and victimization echoed throughout the
German missionary press for many years, reinforcing their
anti-ecumenical and nationalist stance, and hence making them
particularly susceptible to Hitler,s appeal. In the field, where
German missionaries were again active, Hitler,s propaganda
was easily and eagerly perused. In such British-controlled
territories as Tanganyika or southern India, it was hardly
surprising that the missions were suspect of creating Nazi cells.
Indeed the enthusiasm with which the Nazi take-over of power
was greeted in these circles is rightly characterized by Ustorf as
“an amalgamation of racist thought, political ideology and
Pietistic elements.
The leaders of the Protestant missions, such as
Siegfried Knak, Martin Schlunk and Walter Freytag, were all
captivated by the spirit of the new regime. To be sure they
were subsequently to become disillusioned when the Nazi
radicals made clear their disdain for all church support. The
consequent friction could later be used as an alibi, and in the
post-1945 world enabled these men to retain their positions
without any damaging enquiries. But Ustorf carefully records
just how compromised their behaviour after 1933 was.
Plans to integrate the overseas missions under the
control of the “German Christian dominated Reich Church
were thwarted. But the leaders eagerly enough supported the
Nazi plans to re-establish a German colonial empire. It was
then hardly surprising that Nazi attitudes towards the Jews
pervaded the missionary societies. But here the answer lay in
conversion, which would put a stop to “the Jewish peril.
Overall, the missions sailed with the Nazi tide and made
willing and easy accommodations to its demands.
With the defeat of Nazism, the German mission seemed
finished. For the mission agencies,survival was paramount.
But very soon they joined the politically conservative
campaign for the re-Christianization of the nation. As
defenders of the true faith, they now claimed they had opposed
Nazism all along. And surely their services would be required
for the even greater struggle against atheistic Communism?
They also sought the return of their missionaries to their
overseas posts, and the restoration of their properties. But the
International Missionary Council demanded that, before that
happened, there had to be some coming to terms with their
Nazi past. This provoked lengthy discussions and at last a
reluctant acceptance of a modified Declaration of Guilt. By
this time, however, the ecumenical context had moved on. The
younger churches now had to be consulted as to whether they
wanted the Germans back. To their great chagrin, for example
in India, these missionaries, who had spent the war interned in
a hill-station, now found themselves rejected by their own
parishioners and obliged to return to a war-devastated
Germany. Their dismissal marked the end of a chapter.
Ustorf pertinently points out that the German
Protestants had sought to propagate their faith by relying both
on the political aid of the state and on the ideology of German
nationalism, with its racialist and imperialist overtones. In so
doing they had failed to come to terms with the 20th century,s
most important issues, particularly religious pluralism and
secular materialism. We can be grateful for Ustorf,s
description of the illusionary nature of the voyage on which
these German missionaries set sail, and for his encouragement
to tackle the renewed missiological debate for the years ahead.
JSC

2) New Journal Articles:
Wolfgang Hardtwig, Political religion in Modern Germany:
Reflections on Nationalism, Socialism, and National
Socialism: in Bulletin of the German Historical Institute,
Washington D.C., Spring 2001, no. 28 p.3ff

This perceptive article takes up the theme discussed in last
month,s review of Hans Mommsen,s chapter on Nazism as a
political religion. Hardtwig rejects the view that Nazism was
an ersatz faith, but adopts Hitler,s own view that this was a
“political belief. The reason it gained so much ground,
especially among Protestants, was largely because of the
disarray in the theology of the 1920s. Nazism offered a wholly
immanentist view of the possibility of political salvation once
Germany,s enemies had been eliminated. This is a secular
belief not a religion, which, in Hardtwig,s view, must include a
transcendent dimension. He thus reinforces the arguments
advanced in the massively-researched volume by
Calus-Ekkehard Bärsch, Die politische Religion des
Nationalsozialismus, (Munich 1998) which examines the
thought and writings of the leading Nazis, finding a large
diversity of views, but powerfully expressed.

The June issue of Church History, Vol. 70 no 2, is devoted to
this Newsletter,s themes, and indeed several list members have
contributed articles:
Roland Blaich, German Methodism and the Nazi State,
Donald Dietrich, Totalitarianism
Doris Bergen, German military chaplains in world war II
Kevin Spicer, Msgr B.Lichtenberg,s conflict with Karl Adam
John Delaney, Clerical opposition to Nazi anti-Polish racial
policy,
Kyle Jantzen, Strategies for clerical survival amid the German
Church Struggle,
Michael Phayer, Questions about Catholic Resistance.

3) Short notices:
Remembering for the Future: The papers given at the July
2000 Conference in Oxford, entitled as above, have now
appeared in print in three massive volumes, each of 1000
pages, all published by Palgrave. Vol. 2: Ethics and Religion
contains a number of interesting papers, some by our
list-members. The chapters are headed: Ethical Choices,
Rescue, The Catholic Church, The Protestant Churches,
Post-Holocaust Theology and The Search for Justice. A
wonderful cornucopia, if your library manages to afford a copy.

Margaret Anderson, Practicing Democracy. Elections and
political culture in Imperial Germany. Princeton U.P 2000
483pp.
This authoritative study of the initial stages of the growth of
participatory democracy under the watchful eye of the
Emperors William I and II is particularly good at showing how
precarious the whole experiment was, and how many forces
clashed in the process. Chapters 4 and 5 outline the conflict
over the role of the Catholic Church, and the viciousness of
anticlerical attacks. Such topics as Jesuit phobia and the
spectre of clerical influence are here analyzed, and placed in
their political context. Anderson skillfully describes the
political aspects of the Kulturkampf and the reasons for the
Catholics, eventual success.

Christopher L.Zugger, The Forgotten. Catholics of the Soviet
Empire from Lenin to Stalin. Syracuse U.P.2001 556 pp.
This is a splendidly compendious account of the sufferings of
the Roman Catholic minority in the Soviet Union at the hands
of the Communist revolutionaries and their leaders, Lenin and
Stalin. It makes for sad reading, all the more since the author,s
sympathies for the victims are outspoken. Excellently
researched and illustrated, this is a valuable and convincing
story of how this church survived – barely – the intolerant
bigotry of Communist political ideology and practice.

ed. O.Bartov and P.Mack, In God,s Name. Genocide and
Religion in the Twentieth Century. NewYork/Oxford:
Berghahn Books 2001 402 pp.
This collection of papers from a 1997 conference includes
contributions from a number of our list-members, Doris
Bergen, Beth Griech-Polelle, Susannah Heschel and Bob
Ericksen. Three themes are stressed -The Perpetrators,
Survival and Aftermath – but the plurality of views expressed –
some of them not very new, even in 1997 – makes for a good
mixture of stances, but not much harmonious reconciliation.
By extending the horizons to include genocide in Rwanda, we
get some balance from too much emphasis on the Jewish
Holocaust, but these essays are not fully integrated or related to
the rest – as inevitably happens as such conferences. But Ian
Kershaw,s final summary is excellent. He pinpoints the crucial
responsibility of religions over the centuries for the
perpertration of genocide, both in theory and practice, and
concludes that “the record of Christianity is probably most dire
of all religions. As a result, Kershaw laments, “there will
almost certainly be little prospect of looking to the Christian
Churches to put a brake on “future genocides, even if they are
not actively involved as they were in Rwanda.

John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

 

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- October 2001- Vol. VII, no. 10 

Dear Friends,

I am sorry that this comes to you a few days late, but want to
thank all those who welcomed last month,s editorial essay on
the Joint Catholic-Jewish Commission and its regretted
demise.

Contents:
1) Quotation of the month:
2) Book reviews: a) Besier, German Church History 1934-39
b) Rauscher, Proposed Papal Encyclical 1939
3) Kirchliche Tourismus: V.Clark, Why angels fall.

1) Quotation of the month:
“Of all the roads that a historian may tread none passes
through more difficult country than that of religious history. To
a believer religious truths are eternal. The doctrine that he
preaches and accepts gives expression to their everlasting
validity. To him the historian who seeks to discover and
explain why the doctrine should have appeared at a particular
moment of time seems guilty of unwarranted determinism. But
Revealed Religion cannot escape from the bonds of time; for
the Revelation must have occurred at a particular moment . . .
It may be that man is continually refreshed by messages from
on high. It may be that there is a divine ordering of history.
But the historian himself is mortal, restricted by the limitations
of temporality, and he must have the modesty to know his
limitations. His business is to tell the story and make it, as best
he can, intelligible to humanity . . . At the same time, the
historian must attempt to add to his objective study the
qualities of interactive sympathy and imaginative perception
without which he cannot hope to comprehend the fears and
aspirations and convictions that have moved past generations.
These qualities are, maybe, gifts of the spirit, gifts which can
be experienced and felt but not explained in human terms.
Steven Runciman, The Great Church in Captivity, chap.1,
p.3-4.

2a) ed G.Besier, Zwischen “nationaler Revolution und
militärischer Aggression. Transformationen in Kirche und
Gesellschaft 1934-1939. (Schriften des Historischen Kollegs
Kolloquien 48). Munich: R.Oldenbourg Verlag, 2001 xxviii +
276pp ISBN 3-486-56543-5

Despite its cumbersome title, this book contains a
useful summary of the present research on the period of most
intense confrontation between Nazism and the German
churches, 1934-1939. These papers were given at a
Colloquium in Munich in 1998, organized by the Historisches
Kolleg and now published in one of their series. The first half
consists of essays by German scholars on various aspects of the
German Church Struggle, particularly on the Evangelical
Churches, experiences, while the second half consists of six
essays by foreign scholars dealing with the reactions to this
struggle from the vantage points of Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Sweden, France, Great Britain and North America.
Sixty years after the events is a good time for a
retrospective evaluation. Following the immediate post-war
apologias and self-justification, there came years of more
critical examinations of the various participants, motives and
actions. Now the emphasis is less on moralizing judgments
and more on context, seeing National Socialism in a wider
parameter of nationalist aggression. At the same time, the
churches, responses are examined in the context of being
caught between the contradictory pressures of political
accommodation or traditional conservatism. Overall, the
findings of these papers show how readily other factors than
the Gospel,s demands governed the response of German
churchmen.
Still relevant as a topic of discussion is whether
National Socialism should be regarded as a secular religion.
Hans Mommsen,s essay suggests that the reasons why so many
church people, both Protestant and Catholic, were attracted by
Adolf Hitler arose mainly out of their politicized illusions, and
the lack of credibility of their own doctrinal beliefs. Hence the
enormous wave of support in 1933. It was only after the
extreme radicals in the Nazi Party showed their hand that
opinion began to change. In fact, these Nazi attempts to
expunge the churches in favour of a new racial religion, along
with their proponents, dogmatical anti-clericalism, were the
prime cause of a reluctant resistance from their victims. Had
these extremists been kept in check, there can be little doubt
that the Churches, nationalist loyalties would have cemented
their support of Hitler and his Party. As it was, Hitler,s tactical
opportunism only encouraged the churchmen,s mistaken view
that “if only the Führer knew, he would restrain his fanatical
followers. But, on the other hand, despite the readiness to
manipulate religious vocabularies, and to organize vast
pseudo-religious ceremonies for propagandistic purposes, the
absence of any coherent logic or substance in Nazi ideology
does not amount to a “political religion.
By contrast, Julius Schoeps argues that no better
explanation can be found for the Nazis, campaign to
exterminate the Jews than to see this combination of political
apocalyptic and destructive will as a religion. This
“heilstheologie dimension was the product of a systematic
unity going far beyond mere propagandistic tactics, but
mobilizing the kind of antisemitic sentiments which
Goldhagen, for one, believed all Germans shared. Hitler was
both saviour and deliverer from the evil threat of international
Jewry – a sentiment to which many Christians subscribed. But
essentially, Schoeps argues, without this suprapolitical and
indeed metahistorical belief, the whole radical Nazi fanaticism
cannot be adequately explained.
For his part, Klaus-Michael Mallmann, in his
examination of the policies of the Gestapo and the Security
Service (SD) towards the churches, stresses the contradictory
attitudes of these agencies. Chaos and confusion marked what
he calls a multivoiced, frequently dissonant and inconsistent
concert, whereby the Nazi leaders failed to reach a consensus
on how to deal with the churches, and indeed “doves and
“hawks often changed sides. Hitler personally ordered
Niemöller,s imprisonment in a concentration camp, but
prevented similar action against Bishop von Galen. Such
inconsistencies, however, did not remove the overall threat. In
fact, there is evidence enough of the process of radicalization
which demonized the churches, just as it had international
Jewry and world Freemasonry. The SD became the guardian of
Nazi ideological purity, and from 1939 the RSHA took action
accordingly. This excellently researched article only confirms
the view that, if Hitler had won the war, the place of the
churches would have been drastically reduced or eliminated.
The remaining essays, while not so provocative, are
also carefully researched with helpful footnotes and
bibliographies, and together form a valuable addition to our
knowledge.
JSC

1b) ed. Anton Rauscher, Wider den Rassismus. Entwurf einer
nicht erschienenen Enzyklika (1938). Texte aus dem Nachlass
von Gustav Gundlach SJ. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh
2001. 208pp DM 39.90 paperback.

Historians have known for almost three decades about a
projected encyclical on racism prepared for Pope Pius XI but
never issued. Fragments of a draft were published on
December 15, 1972 by the Kansas City weekly, The National
Catholic Reporter. They came from the papers of the
American Jesuit John LaFarge, a pioneer for racial justice in
the United States who died in 1968. In a private audience on
June 22, 1938 Pius commissioned LaFarge to draft an
encyclical on racism. LaFarge had come to the Pope,s attention
through his book Interracial Justice (1937). No intellectual,
LaFarge felt unequal to the task. At his request the Jesuit
General Wladimir Ledochowski assigned two European Jesuits
to assist LaFarge: the German Gustav Gundlach and the
Frenchman Gustave Desbuquois. Both had worked on the
encyclical Quadragesimo anno (1930) which dealt with
questions of social justice. The three laboured in Paris
throughout the summer of 1938, completing their work in
September. Pius XI died on February 10, 1939 without
publishing the encyclical. His successor Pius XII did not revive
the project.
An article in L,Osservatore Romano for April 5, 1975
by the German Jesuit Burkhart Schneider, one of the four
Jesuits then working on the Actes et documents du Saint-Siége
relatifs a la Seconde Guerre mondiale disclosed the existence
of a draft in German, written by Gundlach. This differed from
the English and French drafts, most significantly in the
concluding section on antisemitism. In 1995 two Belgians, the
Benedictine Georges Passelecq and the Jewish sociologist
Bernard Suchecky, published L,encyclique cachée de Pie XI.
Une occasion manqée de l,église face a l,antisemitisme.
Translated into English in 1997 under the title The Hidden
Encyclical of Pius XI, this contained the full French and
English drafts from LaFarge,s papers, but not the German
version. In the work under review, the Augsburg professor
Anton Rauscher presents Gundlach,s German draft, letters
from him to LaFarge which clarify the chronology, an analysis
of this material, and a discussion of the reasons for the
non-appearance of the encyclical.
Gundlach,s text, over a hundred single-spaced typed
pages, is dense: in Rauscher,s words, “as difficult to read as
all of Gundlach,s writings. The draft emphasizes the unity of
the human race, commends patriotism, and condemns
nationalism and racism. The final paragraphs (170-183)
declare antisemitism incompatible with Christian faith. “The
Church today views with indignation and pain measures
affecting Jews which, because they violate natural law, do not
deserve the honorable name of laws. The most fundamental
claims of justice and charity are violated without hesitation or
limit. The draft concludes by reaffirming the condemnation
of antisemitism by the Holy Office on March 25, 1928.
Why was the Encyclical never published? Rauscher
argues convincingly for the simplest explanation: time ran out.
Encyclicals require lengthy scrutiny. Reconciling the
differences between the English and French drafts on the one
hand, and the German text on the other, required further time.
The editor of Civilta Cattolica, charged with evaluating the
drafts died on November 26,1938,without completing his task.
Pius XII, elected on March 2, 1939, shared his predecessor,s
abhorrence of Nazism. As Secretary of State he had drafted the
encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (1937). With the political
situation in Europe rapidly deteriorating, however, the new
Pope thought he must devote all his efforts in the spring and
summer of 1939 to averting the outbreak of war. A flaming
denunciation of Nazi racial policy would have eliminated
whatever chance still existed that his pleas for peace would be
heeded in Berlin. Had Pius XII issued the planned encyclical,
it is not difficult to imagine his present-day critics charging
that he had recklessly extinguished the last slender chance for
peace. His first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, issued on
October 20, 1939 (after the quest for peace had been lost) drew
on the draft prepared for Pius XI and contained an explicit
condemnation of Nazi racial policy.
Rauscher writes that an earlier papal denunciation of
Hitler is unlikely to have found the ready response inside or
outside Germany which the Pope,s critics assume today. In
1939 there was little willingness anywhere to assist Jews who
wished to flee Germany. At an international conference in
Evian, France in 1938, no less than thirty-two nations declined
to receive Jewish refugees.
This book shows that Gundlach was a man of unusual
clear-sightedness. Consider, for instance, his letter to LaFarge
of May 30, 1940: “The western powers did not take the dictator
[Hitler] seriously enough. Following the [first] World War their
intransigent and non-conciliatory foreign policy prepared the
way for the Nazi dictatorship in Germany. After 1933 they
strengthened Hitler through concessions and appeasement,
making it possible for him to achieve a series of foreign policy
successes. This lack of principle and clearly displayed
indifference in the face of the dictator,s thousandfold violation
of natural and divine law has now brought the western powers
a terrible revenge. Rauscher,s work, dispassionate and
meticulous in presentation, is an example of German
scholarship at its best and an important contribution to the
history of the Catholic Church,s role in events preceding the
Holocaust.
John Jay Hughes, St Louis, Missouri

2) Kirchliche Tourismus – a journey through Orthodox Europe

Victoria Clark, Why Angels Fall. A journey through Orthodox
Europe from Byzantium to Kosovo. London: Picador 2000
£7.99 460pp ISBN 0-330-48788-4

Victoria Clark is an experienced journalist, having
worked for the London Observer in eastern Europe for a
number of years. In 1998 and 1999 she decided to embark on a
voyage to examine the fortunes of Orthodoxy by seeking out
the places and times which have proved vital in making
Orthodox Europe what it is today. So she traveled from
northern Russia to Cyprus, and from Bosnia to Siberia,
skillfully seeking audiences with leading figures in the
Orthodox church world, and recording their answers to her
often pointed questions. Her only regret was her failure to
reach Mount Athos because of the monks, age-long ban on
women. But her percipient account of the “angelic ethos
emanating from the Holy Mountain more than makes up for
this lacuna.
In setting out on her pilgrimage, Clark takes up the
long-held view, lately recharged by Professor Samuel
Huntingdon, that the basic division in Europe is not between
the rival nationalisms, such as France and Germany, or the
competing ideological systems, such as Communism and
capitalism, but the centuries-old religious separation of the
western churches, both Catholic and Protestant, from Eastern
Orthodoxy. The frontier between these two runs from
Archangel in the north to Albania in the south and has
remained the focus point of turmoil and strife for a thousand
years, ever since the notorious rift between the Latin and the
Byzantine churches of 1054. As a result, western church
members know all too little about the culture of Eastern
Orthodox Europe, stretching back east from Bosnia all the way
to the Urals. The recent removal of the political and
geographical barriers imposed by the Soviet regime for so long
now reveals how differently Orthodoxy has prospered with its
own scale of values and priorities.
In many ways Orthodoxy has for centuries seen its
mission to conduct a defensive war against both the alien
culture of materialism of the west and the constant threat of the
Islamic world to the south. This embattled position can be
traced back to Orthodoxy,s reaction to the plundering rampage
of western Crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204, and
the equally appalling and conclusive overthrow of Byzantium
by the Ottoman Turks in 1454. But the same determination to
protect their territorial and spiritual heritage still plays a part in
the current violence between Orthodox Serbs and Bosnian
Muslims, promotes the quarrels between Uniate Catholic and
Orthodox communities in the Ukraine, turns the Chechnya war
into a religious crusade, leaves Cyprus and its capital, Nicosia,
irreparably divided for decades, and leads to a regrettable lack
of ecumenical goodwill, which not even the eirenical gestures
of Pope John Paul II have been able to overcome.
For centuries eastern Orthodoxy has been characterized
by two forces, sometimes contrasting, sometimes reinforcing
each other, the one hellish in its practical consequences, the
other heavenly in its ideal. On the one hand, there is the
religious nationalism, called Phyletism, which invests political
structures with divine authority, while providing a historical
mythology or justification of its claims. Serbia is a trenchant
example of this tendency. The Serbian Orthodox Church
backed even the outrageous ethnic-cleansing of Milosovic, and
helped to unify the people in their defiant opposition to what
they saw as the “imperialist ambitions of the westerners,
especially Americans, whose sinister plots are now believed to
be part of the continuous conspiracy against Serbia and
Orthodoxy which began so long ago. As one recent Serbian
patriarch explained: “the entire ascent of the Serbian people in
history was won only and exclusively by the sword, in a sea of
spilled blood and countless victims, which means that without
all this there is no victory, as there is no resurrection without
death.
This sense of defensive nationalism is only reinforced
by the Orthodox sense of history, which is circular rather than
linear. Nations can be defeated, but will rise again. Their
sufferings can be readily equated to those of Christ, and
bravely borne for the sake of the final recompense. The past is
never forgotten because it may recur – especially where
iniquitous foreigners are concerned. So the Catholic crusaders,
sack of Constantinople in 1204 – for which the Pope recently
apologized – can be immediately linked to the Catholic
Croatians, persecution and extermination of Orthodox Serbs in
the Second World War, or the NATO bombing of Belgrade.
All too readily, the Orthodox churches see themselves as
victims of outside forces, and turn inwards to fortify
themselves through all their sufferings, confident that
resurrection will eventually come. This pattern can be seen all
along the Orthodox frontier, where the mixed populations have
co-existed for centuries but are armed with mutually exclusive
versions of history, and always on the alert for fresh injuries to
tear the scabs off old wounds. These rivalries easily lead to
competition. In Transylvania, for example, hostility to the
neighbouring Hungarians has led to a continuing need to build
bigger and better institutions. “What you have to understand is
that there is a kind of war going on here and the weapons are
churches. But at times such sentiments can turn to an uglier
confrontation,as in the bitter struggles over the former Uniate
churches in the Ukraine.
Clark is wonderfully perceptive in her descriptions of
conditions in such haunts of Orthodoxy as the former Yugoslav
republic of Macedonia, which was once famously dismissed by
the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a political problem rather
than a geographical entity,. The home to an explosive mixture
of every race and religion in the Balkans, its fate has been to be
coveted by each of its neighbours, regularly swept by war and
too often drenched in blood. Yet here the small but fiercely
independent Orthodox church maintains that out of Macedonia
came the apostles of the Slavs, saints Cyril and Methodius, and
that its monastery on Lake Ohrid was the first Slav university,
whose holy learned lights had shone brightly enough to be seen
as far away as Kiev. Here too the revival of monastic life has
seen results in such isolated places as Veljusa, even though
there are overtones noted by Clark of xenophobic bias against
the snobbish Greeks over the border. And there are also critics
who regard sacrificing the flower of Macedonian youth to the
monasteries as a criminal waste of resources when the country
needed to concentrate all its energies on becoming
economically viable. But Orthodoxy has other values and a
different time scale.
The other characteristic of Orthodoxy is very different,
and consists of a spiritual, even mystical response to political
troubles. First propagated by the monks of Mount Athos, this
Hesychasm, after the Greek word hesychia meaning inner
silence, enjoins true believers to experience the energies of
God by seeing the Light, the splendour and glory of
everlasting happiness, the Light that transforms into light those
whom it illumines, the Light that is uncreated and unseen,
without beginning and without matter, but is the quality of
grace by which God makes himself known., It was this
Hesychast spirit which has promoted a strong revival of the
long-held mystical traditions. Monasteries have always been
the power houses of Orthodoxy, even more than of
Catholicism, and today this tradition is winning growing
numbers of converts from the west. It is part of a remarkable
revival throughout the Orthodox lands of monastic life, both
male and female. The search for sanctification, or even
identification with God, is being wonderfully successful. In
Roumania new monasteries and convents are being built – at
vast expense – to the considerable bewilderment of western
observers. In a land ruined by its former communist rulers,
where the social infrastructure needs to be completely rebuilt,
and where living standards are pitiably low, nevertheless the
monastic ideal thrives. In the heart of Transylvania, a brand
new, even dazzling showpiece of neo-mediaevalism, the
Monastery of the Birth of the Mother of God, with its red-tiled
roofs, multi-steepled church and pretty balconied buildings,
surrounded by a neat brick wall, proclaims itself as a patch of
heaven on earth. And it is not alone. The spiritual practice of
mystical inner stillness flourishes in Orthodox monasteries, as
a means of embarking on the necessary journey of inner
cleansing and contemplation – a work that men and angels have
in common.
The heartland of this tradition is to be found on Mount
Athos, the rocky peninsular protruding into the Aegean Sea in
northern Greece. Here, for centuries, monasteries have been
maintained – and women barred from entry – and missionaries
have gone forth to proclaim the sublime ideals of the mystical
life. These communities see themselves as the heirs of the
ancient desert hermits of primitive Christianity, but also as the
vanguard providing the spiritual energy for the next stage of
Orthodox history. The influence of Mount Athos reverberates
throughout the whole Orthodox world, from the tiny white
chapels dotted all over the Greek islands, to Roumania,s
painted monasteries among the orange-tinged beech forests of
Moldavia, to the fortress-like battlements on the edge of White
Sea in northern Russia, or the intimate, yet profoundly moving
icons which decorate and uplift every church. Orthodoxy is
both timeless and yet timely. Its spiritual pilgrimage is very
different from that of western Christianity. But it deserves to
be studied, and, at times, emulated.
JSC
P.S. In August, President Vladimir Putin visited the bleak
and isolated Solovetsky Monastery on the Solovki Islands in
Russia,s northern White Sea – which is described most vividly
in the above book by Victoria Clark, p.255-287. On this
occasion, Russia,s leader declared unequivocally his belief that
his country needs to seek its inspiration from its Christian
roots. “Without Christianity, without the Orthodox faith and
culture which sprang from it, Russia would hardly have existed
as a state. Today, now that we are rediscovering ourselves, it is
very important, useful and timely to return to these sources
in our search for the moral foundations of our life. (quoted
from Ecumenical News International, 22 Aug.2001)

All the best for those of you now beginning a new academic
year.

Warmest regards
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

 

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- September 2001- Vol. VII, no. 9 

Dear Friends,

Thanks to all of you who responded so warmly to my last issue
at the end of July, despite the holiday season! I trust that you
will now take advantage of my offer to send me some
contribution, either a review of a book you have recently read,
or a note on some event of interest to our fraternity, such as
announcements of future conferences.
This month’s Newsletter which comes to you a day or two early
because of the forthcoming Labour Day, consists of one item:
an Editorial. I hope this proves interesting and would welcome
your comments.

Contents:
1) Editorial:
How not to deal with history

At the end of July the Joint Catholic-Jewish
Commission established in 1999 up to assess the Vatican’s
wartime role announced that it had suspended its deliberations
because the Vatican authorities had supposedly posed
unacceptable conditions for the continuation of its work. This
is a setback for the desirable goal of improved relations
between Catholics and Jews through collaborative
investigations of contentious historical issues. It is to be hoped
that the flurry of recriminations and unwarranted accusations
which have resulted in the past few days will soon be forgotten
and the whole incident regarded as no more than a regrettable
stumble. But because there are significant issues involved for
all historians, this commentary may be of some help to those
who have not been able to pay close attention to this
controversy.

As is well known, debate has recently been stirred up
again over the policies of the Vatican during the Second World
War, and more specifically, over the alleged failure of Pope
Pius XII to adopt an attitude of protest against the Nazi
persecution of the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust. In the
past few months, no fewer than 10 books on this topic have
been published, and more are now in the works. Some, like
John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope, take a highly critical view of
the Pope, Eugenio Pacelli, personally, while others stress the
deficiencies of the Vatican structures. Not surprisingly these
publications have given rise to defensive replies by outraged
Catholics, or alternatively have been applauded by some
Jewish commentators, who see these authors, views as
vindicating their own critical appraisal of institutional
Catholicism’s stance in the 1940s.

This controversy arose at the time when the present
leaders of the Catholic Church, led by Pope John Paul II
himself, are engaged in striking measures to improve relations
with the Jewish people. In the eyes of one Jewish scholar,
these efforts constitute “the most remarkable progress in
Catholic-Jewish relations that seasoned observers can ever
remember, . . .and are a genuine and sincere effort of the
leadership of the Church to promote awareness of the
Holocaust among Catholics and a climate of healing between
the two communities.

It was in part a result of this new approach that in 1998
Cardinal Cassidy, then President of the Pontifical Commission
on Religious Relations with the Jews, proposed that a team of
Catholic and Jewish historians should together review what
was already published on the sensitive issue of the Vatican,s
wartime activities, and if so desired, “pose questions about
unresolved matters. This unprecedented team of six scholars,
three Catholic and three Jewish, began its work in October
1999. Five men and one woman were selected by their
respective agencies: on the one side by Cardinal Cassidy,s
Pontifical Commission, and on the other by the International
Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation. The
Catholic members were all American citizens, and apparently
were asked to serve because of a known sympathy for the aims
of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation. So far so good.

But the terms of their mandate were less satisfactory.
They were invited to look first and foremost at the eleven
volumes of documents from the Vatican archives dealing with
this subject which were published between 1967 and 1982.
These large collections of documents, entitled Actes et
documents du Saint Siège relatifs a la seconde guerre
mondiale had been compiled and edited by an international
team of four Jesuits, Fathers Blet, Graham, Schneider and
Martini, acting on the explicit instructions of Pope Paul VI.
The purpose of this publication was clearly to provide the
documentation to refute the criticisms and attacks launched in
the early 1960s against Pope Pius XII’s wartime policies,
beginning with Rolf Hochhuth,s sensational drama The
Representative. In order to undertake this task, the Jesuit
editors were given unique and unprecedented permission to
have access to the otherwise closed Vatican archives.
According to Fr. Graham, they were able to see all the
documents they wanted and were not subject to any censorship
or pressure to produce results favourable to the Vatican
authorities. But the very fact that these editors were all Jesuits
and that no one else was allowed to see the documents in
question raised objections from outsiders. Despite assurances
to the contrary, suspicions remained that the whole venture had
been a well-organized effort at damage control.

The documents themselves are drawn from the files of
the Vatican,s Secretariat of State, and consist mainly of the
telegrams and memoranda exchanged between the Holy See
and its representatives, principally the Nuncios or Apostolic
Delegates accredited to the various governments around the
world. These exchanges are almost all in Italian, though
documents in other languages, English, German, French and
even Latin also appear. The editorial introduction to each
volume is however in French. Acting on a traditional principle,
the editors included only those documents which originated in
one of their own diplomatic service,s offices, or related
ecclesiastical structures, and hence did not print, but only
referred in a footnote to other documents, however significant,
supplied by outsiders, such as, for example, statements
presented to the Vatican,s representatives by Jewish contacts.
Had these been included, it is possible that much criticism of
these Vatican volumes might have been averted, even though
in fact these valuable documents have usually appeared in print
elsewhere.

The scope of these eleven volumes is two-fold. The
editors sought to present the documentary evidence on two
main subjects: first, the efforts made by the Vatican, from the
beginning of Pope Pius XII’s reign in March 1939, to preserve
peace, or, after the outbreak of war in September 1939, to
prevent the spread of hostilities. These efforts included the
hope that the Vatican could play an effective part in any
mediated peace settlement – as it had sought to do in the First
World War. Also included were the various endeavours to
mitigate the effects of the war, such as the extensive efforts
designed to secure agreement to making Rome an Open City
and hence spared from bombing attacks. The second theme
was to record the Vatican’s endeavours to assist the victims of
the war. Almost daily exchanges on this subject occurred
throughout the Vatican,s network of diplomatic contacts.

It is in this latter context that the Vatican,s actions on
behalf of the stricken Jewish communities are to be found.
Although, at first, the prime concern was to seek to provide
relief supplies and assistance to the Catholic victims of Nazi
aggression in Poland, very soon the horizons widened.
Catholics of Jewish origin soon came to the Vatican’s notice,
through appeals to find them some refugee haven in a Catholic
country overseas. But from 1941 onwards, it is clear that the
Vatican’s leaders were aware of the scale of persecution
inflicted on all the Jews, and were prepared to instruct their
officials to offer help, including protests against these
atrocities to those governments where such Papal pressure
might be effective. The documents relating to Slovakia,
Roumania, Hungary and France are a clear indication that these
interventions went beyond a defence merely of Catholic
interests or persons. These interventions were all the more
notable since the Vatican officials were well aware that the
Catholic leaders in these countries were unsympathetic to the
plight of the Jews. In Slovakia, for instance, the situation was
made more difficult by the fact that the President of Slovakia
was Monsignor Josef Tiso, a well-known antisemite.
Energetic representations were made by the Papal Apostolic
Delegate in Bratislava, Msgr Burzio, in 1942 and 1943. But the
results were disappointingly negative. Indeed, in July 1942,
Msgr Tardini, one of the Vatican,s senior staff members,
bitterly commented:

“It is a great misfortune that the President of Slovakia is
a priest. Everyone knows that the Holy See cannot
bring Hitler to heel. But who will understand that we
can’t even control a priest? 1)

From 1942 onwards, the Pope’s prudent and fearful
stance brought him to the conclusion that a more outspoken
policy of protest would lead to increased repercussions or
vengeance from the Nazis and hence inflict still more suffering
on the victims. The overall picture to be drawn from these
volumes is therefore of the significant reduction of Papal
influence during these years of war and terror. The evidence
makes clear that, despite the Pope’s sincere efforts to mitigate
the effects of the war and to bring relief to its victims, his
initiatives were spurned, and his advice ignored, as the forces
of violence and destruction escalated.
Particularly in the later volumes, and especially for the
period of nine months when the German army occupied Rome,
the sense of foreboding and frustration is very evident. The
Pope and his officials were imprisoned within the Vatican’s
boundaries, surrounded by German troops. Their offices were
infiltrated with Nazi spies, and their communications censored.
At any moment, they feared, the Pope might be carried off into
captivity and exile. This claustrophobic nightmare was only in
part moderated after Rome was liberated by Allied troops in
June 1944, and its precious architectural heritage preserved
from any further bombing raids. But the premonition of
apocalyptic doom which the end of the war might bring,
through the use of new and even more terrible weapons of
destruction, was still present. The powerlessness of the Papacy
to prevent any such final catastrophe was an unwelcome but
undeniable reality.

The critics of Pius XII and his wartime policies,
beginning with Hochhuth in the 1960s and repeated by the
more recent authors, have ignored these considerations.
Instead they claim that a more vigorous and prophetic stance of
protest against the Nazi atrocities would not only have been
effective but would have resulted in the saving of many more
lives, particularly Jewish lives. Several of the recent books
contain numerous passages advancing such hypotheses as: “If
only the Pope had protested at this juncture . . ” or “The
Papacy should have taken steps . . ” Historical evidence to
back up such claims is however lacking, and certainly is not to
be drawn from the Actes et documents. Rather such notions
are the product of wishful thinking. In effect these claims
vastly exaggerate the moral and political power of the Papacy,
and fail to recognize its greatly diminished influence during the
Second World War. And while no one can say what might have
happened if the Vatican and its local representatives had
adopted other policies, it is necessary to recognize that such
optimistic speculations have been put forward mainly for
non-historical reasons.

It would seem that many of the Vatican’s critics,
whether Jewish or Catholic, are unfamiliar with the already
published documentary sources. This is hardly surprising since
these volumes appeared at irregular intervals over a fifteen
year period, and the language barrier, particularly for
English-speaking commentators, is clearly evident. This was
also the case for some of the members of the Joint Commission
who apparently found themselves “linguistically-challenged.
But, more seriously, this series of documents, and the historical
value of the contents, has suffered the same fate as befell other
significant collections of documents relating to the policies and
actions of various governments in both the First and Second
World Wars. Starting in 1919, all the major European states
authorized the publication of extensive documentary series,
designed to provide the evidence of their nation,s purity of
motives and tactics in the crisis of 1914 which led to the
outbreak of war. The self-justifying and apologetic purpose
was obvious. And even though these collections were edited
by distinguished historians, they inevitably came to be regarded
as self-serving and biased presentations. Their appearance did
not in fact prevent or dissuade criticism, and the charges
continued to be made that such editions, prepared by
“in-house professionals, were carefully screened to suppress
publication of any embarrassing material which would damage
their nation,s reputation, if necessary by the removal of
incriminating documents altogether. Officially-sponsored
document collections of this kind were suspect.

It was exactly this consideration which led the Joint
Commission to refrain deliberately from inviting any member
of the Vatican,s staff from joining their team, including the
sole survivor of the four Jesuits, Fr Pierre Blet, or the current
“expert in the Vatican, Fr. Peter Gumpel S.J., the
officially-appointed relator in charge of promoting the cause
for the beatification of Pope Pius XII, who for several years has
been assembling documents for this purpose. It would seem
that the presupposition was made that an independent panel of
experts would be able to reach an accurate version of events
which would carry greater credibility, especially in hostile
circles.

The issue of credibility has been a sensitive and indeed
vital issue throughout the history of this controversy over the
past forty years. But it has to be placed in a wider context than
merely the question of the authenticity of the Jesuits, selection
of documents. We have to recognize – and indeed to
sympathize with – the continuing and sincerely-motivated
search, particularly by survivors of the Holocaust, but also by
the Jewish community at large, and a growing number of
Christians, for some overall explanation for the unprecedented
persecution and destruction of so many million Jews at the
hands of the Nazis and their accomplices. There is a
widely-shared view that the horrors of the Holocaust may be
made more tolerable if the failures of other governments and
agencies to halt the Nazi atrocities can be pin-pointed and
brought to light. What might appear to be a search for
scape-goats should, in reality, be appreciated as a kind of
therapeutic necessity to bring relief for the unmitigated
suffering involved – regardless of the historical facts of the
case. It is in this context that the view has grown up that, if
only Pope Pius and his officials had been more energetic in
protesting the Nazi crimes, or in mobilizing Catholics to take
inhibitory action, the Holocaust might never have happened, or
at least that its devastating effects would have been modified
or lessened. The concomitant expectation is that evidence to
support such an hypothesis exists in the Vatican’s files. If the
previous publication did not lead to this conclusion, it was
because of the officially-sponsored nature of the project, or
because the editors were determined not to reveal “the
smoking gun, which advocates of this theory believe still
exists hidden in the Vatican vaults. Hence the demand put
forward that the Vatican should give access to its unpublished
files and open its archives for this period to all comers, so that,
once and for all, the issue can be resolved.

The view that an independent, but part-time, group such
as the Joint Commission could reach a more conclusive verdict
than the editorial team which laboured for so long in the 1960s
and 1970s is, by any objective standard, a questionable one.
But it had its own political dynamic. Necessarily the Joint
Commission felt impelled to adapt a critical stance towards
their predecessors, labours. But in the end, their Preliminary
report on the Actes et documents, which was presented to the
Vatican in October of last year, sought clarification of 47
specific issues which they felt had not been adequately
answered in the printed collection. Yet, even while expressing
appreciation for the work of the four Jesuit editors, the Joint
Commission members adopted the professionally
understandable point of view that another look based on wider
access was desirable. And this in turn led on to their explicit
request, echoing demands frequently made by the Vatican,s
critics, that full disclosure and unfettered research should be
made possible through the release of all relevant
documentation, and that the Vatican archives for the period
should be opened up, thereby allowing the truth to emerge.
Any continued refusal to accede to this request would
seemingly confirm the impression that there are still secrets or
scandals which the Vatican wants to conceal.

This suggestion, or request, however, also rests on the
questionable assumption that such a wider enquiry would in
fact discover materials substantially different from those
already published. If such a freer enquiry found only that the
earlier editors had been correct in their selection, then the
Vatican,s original case would be vindicated, and any new
investigation would be superfluous. On the other hand, as one
of the Joint Commission members noted:
“Every documentary collection is based on a selection
of material; inevitably, scholars want to make their own
selection, and decide for themselves what is relevant. Further,
historians also need to know what material was not in the
published volumes – again highlighting the need to see the
unpublished material. And finally, the original selection was
made by scholars of another era – in some instances working
more than thirty years ago. Once again, an argument for
access.

This is the counsel of perfection. No historian is happy
about archival closures. All would like to see free and open
access on an unlimited scale. But the reality is otherwise. All
governments and agencies have rules about the extent to which
their records are open to public scrutiny. In many democratic
countries, such as the United States, Canada, or Britain, their
government collections are not made available for research
purposes until thirty years after their inception. But even here
there are exceptions when materials are withheld and no
reasons provided. The situation in countries such as Russia is
even more erratic. In the case of the Vatican, the world,s oldest
diplomatic entity made up its own rules. Until the end of the
nineteenth century, the Vatican guarded its archives with total
secrecy. Only during the reign of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903)
was it recognized that the mission of the Church could be
enhanced by opening up the rich treasures of the past, even if
this involved revelations about past scandals, such as the
Galileo affair. As a result, the Vatican authorities came to the
decision that public access could be granted, as a privilege, not
a right, after a suitable interval had elapsed. Because the
Vatican’s history is usually divided into the periods of the
reigns of successive popes, it was decided that the records of
each reign would be collected and then made available en bloc
to interested scholars. But no automatic date of transfer was
edicted. Rather, when this transfer is to take place is left up to
the current holder of the pontificate. So far, in the twentieth
century, the records are now released for the reigns of Pope
Leo XIII, Pope Pius X (1903-1914), and Pope Benedict XV
(1914-1922). Rumour has it that the papers of Pope Pius XI
are now being worked on, which would bring the story up to
1939. But no one has ventured to suggest a time-frame when
the records of Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) will become
available.

The Vatican archives are hence open only up to 1922.
The records of the more than 75 subsequent years remain
closed “for technical reasons. It would seem clear that the
Vatican has (too) few archivists and that the resources devoted
to this project are inadequate. Doubtless, for such lengthy
reigns as those of both Pius XI and Pius XII, the work of
preparing the papers for transfer a public reading room is a
massive task. But 75 years seems excessive. One further
factor has to be noted: the Vatican archives fall under the
supervision of the Cardinal Secretary of State, Cardinal
Sodano, who is the most senior official of the Curia under the
Pope. He thus outranks the newly-appointed Cardinal Walter
Kasper, the current President of the Pontifical Commission for
Religious Relations with the Jews. There could therefore be
no question that the latter could do no more than pass on to the
former the request made by the Joint Commission for the
opening up of the archives for the period of the Second World
War. Nine months after the submission of the Preliminary
Report, Cardinal Kasper wrote to the Joint Commission to say
that the archives would remain closed. A month later, the five
remaining members of the Joint Commission decided to
suspend their work – at least for the present period.

When the Joint Commission was established two years
ago, it would appear that the then President of the Pontifical
Commission, Cardinal Cassidy, expressed the hope that Jewish
and Catholic historians meeting together could move the
controversy away from inaccuracy and media sensationalism.
The Vatican,s understanding was that each scholar would read
the eleven published volumes, and add their authority to the
findings of the earlier editors. Cardinal Cassidy and his staff
were therefore disappointed when the Joint Commission failed
to do what it was charged to do, either because of other
commitments, or because its members did not know Italian.
But the Cardinal would have to be exceedingly naive if he did
not realize that the Joint Commission would inevitably take up
the long-standing and deeply-felt view voiced among the
Jewish community that only the release of the relevant
documents and unfettered access to these materials would
suffice. The Vatican authorities could surely have foreseen
(or even shared) the view that coming to terms with such a
traumatic past requires special steps to secure full disclosure of
the sources. The refusal of the Joint Commission,s very polite
request was bound to have repercussions. The justification
given – that the archivists are not yet ready to deal with the
documents of that period – must appear specious and
self-serving. The subsequent outburst of Fr. Peter Gumpel,
accusing the Joint Commission members of “irresponsible
behaviour, of misrepresentation of the Vatican,s intentions, or
of being engaged in a “campaign with a clear propagandistic
goal to damage the Holy See, is surely inexcusable.

On the other side, it remains to be clarified as to when
the Commission members were made aware that the records of
the reign of Pius XII could not and would not be opened within
a matter of months. It is inconceivable, in fact, that they were
not fully aware of this situation during their deliberations.
Their expectation that the Vatican authorities would yield to
this form of pressure from an outside group, at the instigation
of the “Jewish lobby, was surely unrealistic, and could even
be considered provocative. And it is far from clear that they
had thought through the consequences for the appropriate
officials, from the Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano or the
Librarian and Archivist, Cardinal Jorge Mejia. Acceptance of
this recommendation would not only have meant the
abandonment of the Vatican,s established procedures, but
probably have led to other demands for a similar favourable
treatment by the advocates of other causes. In any case, giving
priority to this one issue, for what is clearly a political not an
historical reason, might set an unwelcome precedent. It would
also involve a massive reallocation of personnel and resources.
In view of these considerations, it was surely impolitic for one
of the Joint Commission members to accuse the Vatican of
“sending a message that would confirm many people,s worst
suspicion that there is something to hide. Similarly it was
unfortunate that a commentator from the World Jewish
Congress should make reference to a “cover up, or label the
Vatican’s stance as “a profound moral failure. Such mutual
accusations of bad faith or recriminations about lost
opportunities to open up the Vatican archives cannot help to
advance the cause of improved mutual understanding.

Where do we go from here? The lesson surely to be
learnt from this unfortunate tale is that this is not the way to
deal with history. The pursuit of historical accuracy should not
be merged with other agendas drawn from political or
theological considerations. Nobody doubts that investigations
into the Holocaust, and the role of the Catholic Church in it,
should continue. In due course, the Vatican archives for the
period will be opened. The issue is not whether, but only
when. In the meanwhile, like historians of other epochs,
scholars should make more use of the abundant evidence
already available, which, as noted above, has been under-used
since the Actes et documents first appeared. It can only be
hoped that the example of scholarly co-operation set by the
Joint Commission members will be infectious enough to
encourage the continuing study of this significant if painful
subject, sine ira et studio. As the American Cardinal of
Baltimore, William Keeler, commented: “Joint efforts by
Catholic and Jewish scholars working together can bear fruit in
the long run, provided the dialogue is conducted in the spirit of
mutual respect and trust. 2)

1) Notes of Monsignor Tardini, Actes et documents, Vol. 8, no
426,598.
2) Statement by Cardinal William H.Keeler, Episcopal
Moderator for Catholic-Jewish Relations, United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, 27th July 2001

With every best wish to you all,
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

 

 

Newsletter- September 2001- Supplement 

 

 

Mr Karol Gajewski, who teaches history in Sandbach,
Cheshire, U.K. has sent the following response to my Editorial
of last week, which, with his permission, I now pass on to you
all:

Dear Professor Conway,

Many thanks for sending the editorial; the first, I hope of many.
Your analysis of the troubled history of the Catholic-Jewish
Study Group is truly excellent and I have much admiration for
your lucid synthesis. But may I suggest that your description of
the supporters and detractors of Popes needs some
differentiation. The former are not always outraged Catholics,
nor the latter critical Jews. For example, John Cornwell is a
Catholic. His attempt to write a ‘definitive’ biography of Pius
XII, has been heavily criticised not just by orthodox Catholic
historians but by Jewish commentators too and is of highly
questionable historical value. William Rubinstein, author of
ìThe Myth of Rescueî (1997) described ìHitler’s Popeî as ‘a
malign exercise in defamation and character assassination’ in a
review for the well-known journal ‘First Things’. Recently
Rabbi David G. Dalin wrote a most interesting piece in ‘The
Weekly Standard’ in defence of Piusí actions as I’m sure you
know.

There is a plainly observable tradition in which Jewish scholars
have proved to be among the most trenchant defenders of Pope
Pius XII and his wartime record (Lapide, Levai et al) whilst
some of the bitterest attacks have emanated from what is often
referred to as the ‘liberal’ Catholic wing of the Church
(Cornwell, Carroll). Furthermore, at least one Jewish admirer
of Pius (Alfred Lilienthal) describes himself as an ‘anti-Zionist’
Jew, whereas strong condemnation of Pius has come from
political organisations (ADL as an example) that see their
primary role as strengthening the state of Israel under sustained
attack from a hostile Arab world. Thus, the lines of – for want
of better terms, ‘attack and defence’ – cut through historical
levels to a theological/political argument involving sections of
both Jewish and Catholic populations. In a perfect world, it
might be possible to dissect out the purely historical from the
school of special pleading, but the historianís scalpel will have
to be specially honed to do this. I believe strongly, in spite of
this caveat, that the attempt must be made.

You write that ‘from 1942 onwards…a more outspoken policy
of protest would lead to increased repercussions or vengeance
from the Nazis . . ë My own feeling is that Pius was conscious
of the dangers of retaliation arising out of hasty official
condemnations from much earlier than this date. In fact the
genesis of Pius’ assessment of the value of ‘protest’ in wartime
resides not in World War II, but specifically out of his
experiences in World War I, even before he was appointed
Nuncio to Bavaria in 1917 by Benedict XV. An early
example was the demand from Belgium and its allies Britain
and France that Benedict must denounce the atrocities
allegedly committed by the Germans in August 1914. When an
immediate response was not forthcoming from the Holy
See, Benedict was accused of a morally culpable ësilenceí.
More food for thought must have been provided on the
publication of Mit brennender Sorge in 1937. There was a
dramatic increase in clergy/religious trials after the
reading of the encyclical in Germany: editors were arrested,
printing presses confiscated and journalists thrown out of their
offices. Admittedly a pinprick compared with what was to
come, these events did weigh heavily on the conscience of both
Pius XI and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli.
More importantly perhaps, it gave an insight into the
pathological response that could be expected from Hitler and
Goebbels when core beliefs of Nazi ideology were questioned
(from 1933 of course, both men had warned of the
ominous repercussions that would ensue for Jews in Germany
if the foreign press continued to file hostile reports on the
government-sponsored boycott of Jewish businesses).

The post-war criticism of Pius, although often assumed to
begin with Hochhuth’s ‘Representative’ in 1963 can, like Pius’
views on ‘protest’ above, be traced back through the years, in
this former case to political turmoil in the Europe of 1944 –
1948 and the efforts of Communists in Italy and Eastern
Europe to delegitimise the Papacy. Indeed, when ìDer
Stellvertreterî first appeared on the German stage,
commentators noted that Hochhuth had not worked
from a dramatic vacuum: there was a discernible Communist
agit-prop derivation. (One of the most eminent German critics
of Hochhuth at this time was Mgr. Klausener, son of the
murdered leader of Catholic Action, Erich Klausener). Of
particular note here was a publication that appeared in 1954,
translated into English in 1955: ìDer Vatikan im Zweiten
Weltkriegî by M. Scheinmann and published by the Historical
Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and also in a
German edition by Dietz-Verlag, Berlin (1954).

The need for an ultimate explanation for the Holocaust which
you describe as a ‘therapeutic necessity’ is, of course, beyond
the realms of a purely historical investigation. It is not even
confined within a ëpsycho-analyticalí framework. It involves
much metaphysical examination into the deepest recesses of
the human psyche; into the nature of evil itself; into the
responses of ordinary men and women to the devastating
effects of a totalitarian stateís ëstructures of enslavementí.
Novelists are capable of providing essential insights too –
Orwell’s 1984, Koestler’s ìDarkness at Noonî and Golding’s
ìLord of the Fliesî spring into mind here.

Further, the ‘therapeutic necessity’ resides not only in a
determined investigation of horrendous events and in the
motivating factors behind them, but in actively suppressing
memories of the very same. Norman Finkelstein in
ìThe Holocaust Industryî makes this point about his own
family. My father, although not Jewish, witnessed many
devastating scenes and hardly spoke about his wartime
experiences. One of the striking points about the study of the
Holocaust per se is that the number of University departments,
books, courses etc concentrating on this phenomenon have
increased exponentially as the generation that were actual
witnesses psses away. Should we perhaps be talking about a
‘transferred’ psychological imperative: one that is transferred
from those who experienced the massive disruptions, trauma
and genocide of the war to those who, born too late, do not
possess the emotional scarring of the period? Even this latter
postulate does not, in my opinion, answer fully questions of
how the Holocaust has come to dominate historical
discussion of the war, particularly in North America.

I hope these comments prove useful and I emphasise they are
meant as a springboard for more discussion (if you feel like
taking them up) and may I reiterate my admiration for your
essay.

Kindest regards,

Karol Jozef Gajewski

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- July/August 2001- Vol. VII, no. 7-8 

Dear Friends,

I hope that all in the northern hemisphere are now enjoying their summer holidays with appropriate sunny conditions. But I send you this dual issue in case you have time or desire to consider these rather interesting new books on different aspects of our subject.

1) Book reviews:

a) K.Clements, Faith on the frontier. A life of J.H.Oldham
b) J.Pollard, The Unknown Pope. Benedict XV
c) ed. K.Chadwick, Catholicism, Politics and Society in 20C France, R.Bedarida, Les Catholiques dans la guerre 1939-1945

1) K.Clements, Faith on the Frontier. A life of J.H.Oldham. Edinburgh and Geneva: T.T. Clark and WCC Publications. 1999 515pp

Joe Oldham was one of the leading figures in the world-wide ecumenical movement of the Christian churches during the first half of the twentieth century. But he was a humble unassuming man who principally operated through behind-the-scenes diplomacy and advocacy. He is hence not so well known as such pioneers as William Temple, John R.Mott or Archbishop Söderblom with their more charismatic personalities. But now at last this masterly biography has appeared which does justice both to Oldham as a person and to his far-reaching and searching ideas on the future paths of Christianity at a time of particular travail.
The author, Keith Clements, is himself an experienced international ecumenical leader, based in Geneva as General Secretary of the European Conference of Churches, one of the many agencies now carrying out much of Oldham,s legacy. From this vantage point he brings an insider,s knowledge of the difficulties faced by the promoters of ecumenical and international Christianity. This is a first-rate scholarly biography which deserves full praise.
Oldham was born in India in 1874, but grew up in Scotland in a devout and pious family, very conscious of its Christian calling. Not surprisingly he was “converted while at Oxford after a visit by the renowned American evangelist, Dwight N.Moody, and resolved to devote his life to the burgeoning missionary movement, which drew so much inspiration from its annual meetings in Keswick. As a supporter of the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, he soon received a call to go to India, and served in Lahore for nearly four years until ill health forced him to return. He was, like so many young men in Europe and North America, fully inspired by the SVMU,s goal, as enunciated by its leader, John R.Mott, which sought the “evangelization of the world in this generation. But his experience in India taught Oldham that it was not enough to send out platoons of idealistic well-educated white males to undertake this task. The voices and interests of the recipients must also be heard and above all the disastrous divisions within the churches must be overcome. These were the themes adopted by Oldham as he returned to take up work for his church,s mission board in Edinburgh.
This city was to be the site of the first great international missionary conference in 1910, and not surprisingly Oldham was drawn into its organization. Clements shows how his resourcefulness, his high-minded energies and his skillful personal diplomacy made him the ideal person to become secretary of the whole enterprise, and subsequently of its continuation committee, in collaboration with its Chairman, Mott. Mott,s gift was to be able to inspire hundreds of young men at large rallies, and then give them their marching orders. “Young man, the Lord has need of you in Shanghai. Here is your boat ticket. Oldham was more restrained but no less effective.
For years the two men worked together in close harmony, especially after 1919 when the International Missionary Council became a permanent reality. Oldham recognized the need to have effective machinery for keeping missionaries in touch with each other and with new developments around the world. The International Review of Missions was started by Oldham in 1912 and is still going strong after 90 years. This was a successful vehicle for spreading new ideas across old frontiers, and of stimulating ecumenical contacts at a high intellectual and theological level.
But this optimistic era, looking forward to the rapid spread of the Gospel around the globe through ever wider campaigns of personal evangelism, came to a crashing halt with the outbreak of war in 1914. Clements rightly notes that Oldham, by 1916, had recognized the effect the war was having, particularly in two directions: first, that this mutually destructive European struggle had dealt an almost irreparable blow to Christian credibility in other parts of the world, and especially in the mission fields.
Secondly, it revealed the deficiencies of a limited appeal for personal salvation. From then on, Oldham began to call for the need to Christianize the social order as well as individuals in it. Christendom and its churches would have to adopt a much less triumphalist tone. He began to point prophetically to the need to mobilize a new moral passion sufficient to restore a broken world. To be sure, the traditional Protestant insights of the missionary movement, drawn from its Puritan and Wesleyan roots, were to be reaffirmed, but the emphasis had to be on forgiveness and reconciliation in order to find a new life in Christ.
One sign of this was Oldham,s concern for the overseas missions in war-time, particularly the German establishments in areas captured by the British in Africa, as well as in India. Contrary to the propaganda spread by the German missionaries and their home boards, these “orphaned missions were not confiscated by Oldham and his gang of robbers, nor were the missionaries unduly maltreated. Clements makes quite clear that Oldham fought hard against any such tendencies in British government policy, and indeed succeeded in having included in the Versailles Treaty a specific clause exempting German mission properties from being seized for reparations. But the resentment of the Germans lingered on – even to this day – as part of their unwillingness to face the loss of a war they had largely caused. These feelings were to cause great difficulties in the whole ecumenical movement throughout the inter-war period.
In the 1920s Oldham became directly involved in strategic planning for a new approach to mission problems in Africa. But his interest went beyond mere ecclesiastical organization. He saw that the new era called for a specific change towards the native inhabitants, and one which would recognize their paramount interests. This was strongly opposed by the white settlers of South Africa, Rhodesia and Kenya, and a heated debate continued throughout the decade over imperial and colonial policy. Oldham,s concern for education, which was largely in the hands of the missions, prompted him to lobby intensely the British officials in London and in the colonies, and even to take part in an official investigating committee. Not surprisingly, this new interest was not well understood by his more conservative colleagues on the mission boards.
But in the 1930s, when the focus turned back to Europe, Odham diverged further from the traditional evangelical approach. He now saw the need for new Christian social thinking in face of the challenges of totalitarianism and racism, and the threat to Christianity in its own heartland. By this time he had been much influenced by Karl Barth,s theology, and no longer accepted the progressive liberalism of earlier years. At the same time, he placed less faith in clerical gatherings and conferences, which seemed to be too often expressions of idealism without clear goals for remedying the world,s defects. Oldham,s forte was to match expectations with effective action. He was, in Clements, view, a sanctified pragmatist who considered carefully the practical steps towards his desired end. This made him a most dynamic stimulator of action. Memoranda, proposals, preliminary studies, letters to significant leaders, conference addresses poured forth from his desk, and the impact was undoubtedly significant, even after increasing deafness made it difficult for him to communicate directly. But he never abandoned his view that the Christian cause needed to mobilize its best brains and look carefully at future strategies. Organizing such meetings and ensuring that the results were put to work was his strength.
Notably Oldham,s preparations for the Life and Work meeting in Oxford 1937 was the high point of his career. Less well-known was his inside-track participation in the moves to unite all the international ecumenical bodies in a single World Council of Churches, and particularly to recruit a young Dutchman, Visser t Hooft, to be its General Secretary. This was achieved in 1938, but the outbreak of war delayed the actual founding until a decade later.
To meet the disasters of the second world war, Oldham pioneered one of his most memorable achievements – the Christian News-letter. This was a weekly initiative to maintain the Christian fellowship in war-time, based on Oldham,s extensive network of contacts, and specifically designed to deal with the war,s mortal challenges. Any repetition of the disastrous splits in Christendom of 1914 was to be sedulously avoided. Rather, constructive practical consideration was to be given as to what kind of society Christians should seek after the war ended. Readership quickly grew among informed laymen and women throughout Britain, and even abroad. Oldham,s personal touch ensured both a continuity and a welcoming call for a new engagement of Christian thought in the contemporary and changing world.
As Clements makes clear, Oldham was not really a team player. But he had the gift of finding very talented men and women and persuading them to join in his enterprises. His influence was therefore extensive and elitist rather than popular. On the one hand, his extraordinary creative services to the whole ecumenical world led to many outstanding developments. On the other hand, his habit of asking searching and critical questions was intolerant of complacency, timidity, or introversion. He also had an ingrained suspicion of ecclesiastical structures, which he feared would inevitably be conservative and stifling of creative thought. Church conferences, he knew from experience, had a regrettable tendency to indulge in moralizing pronouncements. Others, however, saw rightly that inspired freelancing by talented individuals would not be enough to sustain ecumenical institutions for the long haul. They would need to be clearly representative of the churches and accountable to them. Oldham, like his German counterpart Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze, feared that the result would be a dull mediocrity and ecclesiastical sclerosis. For this reason, as Clements admits, Oldham proved obstructive over the setting up of a British Council of Churches, which only followed in 1942. And he kept on insisting that his finest creation, the World Council of Churches, should have clear and pioneering thinking as its first priority. His faith in Visser t Hooft, as General Secretary, was to be vindicated, although at times Vim could be far more of a general than a secretary. But Oldham lived long enough, until 1969, to see the World Council firmly established as the major international focus point for all the Christian churches, with the exception of the Roman Catholics.
Oldham,s life,s work was undertaken at a time of world-wide catastrophe, political disorder and moral collapse. The institutions he sought to build, and the Christian heritage he sought to protect, have not – as yet – fulfilled his hopes. But this account of his struggles, urging his fellow Christians to grapple with the issues involved, and the possible roads ahead, is a convincing statement of a Christian visionary contribution in an age of violence and dissension.
We can be grateful to Keith Clements for this insightful and trenchant narration of Oldham,s theological pilgrimage, his administrative strategies, his prophetic discernment and his warm personal relationships. This is also a major account of the Christian churches,developments and interactions during the twentieth century from a sympathetic but not uncritical perspective. Above all, Clements correctly places Oldham on the frontier of Christian responsibility, prophetically seeking new forms of corporate Christian witness in the face of the new challenges of each succeeding decade. This is where, Oldham believed, faith must stand if it is to live and grow. Retrieving this interpretation of Christian mission was the objective of this biography. Clements is to be congratulated on so splendidly fulfilling his goal.
JSC

2) John F.Pollard, The Unknown Pope. Benedict XV (1914-1922) and the Pursuit of Peace. London: Geoffrey Chapman 1999 240 pp ISBN 0-225-66344-0

John Pollard calls Benedict XV the “unknown Pope mainly because his short reign was overshadowed by the First World War and its contentious aftermath, and also because later Popes, such as Pius XII and John XXII, have attracted more notice and controversy. But Pollard,s skillfully researched biography provides the English-speaking reader with a clear account of this pontiff,s career, which he sees as one of the most significant, though often overlooked, reigns of the past century. In particular, he contends that Benedict,s pursuit of peace in the midst of an unprecedented and horrific war raised the papacy to a new level of moral authority.
Giacomo Della Chiesa came from a noble but impoverished Genoa family. Thanks to various patrons he was able to be trained for the Vatican,s diplomatic service. He became a protege of Cardinal Rampolla, later Secretary of State to Pope Leo XIII. But in 1903, on Leo,s death, Rampolla failed to be elected Pope, and so he and his protege suffered an eclipse at the hands of the more “integrist Pius X and his much younger Secretary of State, Merry del Val. Eventually Della Chiesa was sent off to the provinces to be Archbishop of Bologna, but was denied promotion to the rank of Cardinal for seven years until the spring of 1914.
On August 1st 1914 war erupted across Europe. Less than a month later Pius X died. In the subsequent conclave, the Cardinals were clearly looking for someone in a different mould. Della Chiesa had the right combination of diplomatic, curial and pastoral experience. At 60, he was the right age, and had enough discretion to recognize how crucial his future policy would be for the welfare, or even existence, of the Church.
Pollard makes the claim that in 1914 the Vatican had reached the nadir of its international prestige. France had recently disestablished the Church, Britain and Germany were controlled by anti-Catholic leaders, and Russia brooded in distant hostility. The new nation of Italy was militantly anti-Papal. Only Austria with its aged Emperor supported the Holy See, but its involvement in the Balkans was to prove a self-inflicted and lethal wound.
With the 1914 outbreak of war, the situation changed. Pollard places much emphasis, as his sub-title suggests, on Benedict,s efforts to promote peace. He also skillfully outlines the parameters within which the Vatican was operating and the numerous frustrations which these constraints caused. In reality, the Holy See possessed little real power or influence, but it was presumed to have immense potential moral force. Hence both warring sides exerted themselves to attempt to win the Vatican over to their cause, or equally strenuously to prevent the other side from doing so. Benedict,s initial horror at the bloodshed and the losses inflicted on the Catholic populations impelled him to seeks ways and means to stop the hostilities, or at least to mitigate the results. Such a stand necessitated impartiality, and also led to large expenditures to assist the victims of the war without favour to either side.
Benedict,s strenuous efforts to hinder Italy from joining in were thwarted in 1915. Worse still, he found the Italian government continuously opposed to his humanitarian gestures, putting practical difficulties in the way of many of his initiatives. Such a situation revealed how much the Pope was a prisoner within the Vatican,s walls and at the mercy of Italy,s anti-clerical and Masonic politicians. As an example, the Italian High Command and censorship office broke all the, admittedly primitive, Vatican codes and intercepted its telegraph traffic. The security of the Vatican,s diplomatic mail was constantly violated. The Italian police were effectively spying on the Pope and Curia without hindrance. The unkindest cut of all came when the Italian government negotiated with the western powers to join the war in 1915, and deliberately included in their secret treaty the demand that the Holy See should be barred from taking part in any peace settlement once the war was won. Benedict only found out about this later to his great chagrin.
Benedict, and his closest advisor Cardinal Gasparri, were under tremendous pressure to move away from their impartial stance. Every move, every speech was scrutinized to see if it gave advantage to either side. Journalists constantly launched rumours of this or that piece of favouritism. This led to a spate of denials, and at times brought out in Benedict his obstinacy, his notorious irascibility and not a little paranoia. Nevertheless he was determined not to give up. Too much was at stake for the Catholic Church. By 1916 he realized that general moral exhortations for peace would achieve nothing. But he still believed that, as a neutral power, the Vatican,s influence could be effective at a time when both sides wanted to bring hostilities to a close. Such was the case in 1917. In Germany, a strong group of Reichstag members, led by the Catholic politician, Matthias Erzberger, passed a peace resolution in July. This seemed to offer possibilities, and the Vatican envoy to Germany, Eugenio Pacelli, was sent to explore with the Kaiser and his Chancellor, Bethman-Hollweg, what terms might be feasible, such as a general limitation of armaments, the German withdrawal from Belgium and other occupied areas, and the creation of international arbitration courts. Accordingly in August Benedict sent out a Peace Note to all the belligerent powers, setting out systematic proposals for bringing the war to an end and securing a just and enduring peace.
Unfortunately, at that very moment, Bethman-Hollweg was overthrown by the German army leaders, who were still fixated on a German military victory. Even the western powers showed reluctance. The British Government acknowledged receipt of the Note, but did nothing. The French never replied at all. And the Italians intrigued hard to prevent the Vatican from getting any increase in international prestige and profile. President Wilson usurped many of the Papal ideas in order to incorporate them in his own 14 Points a few months later. The Papal initiative failed.
Nevertheless, these attempts, and the large-scale humanitarian efforts launched by the Vatican, induced a much more open and friendly climate towards the Holy See, even in the ranks of the Italian government. To be sure, the Vatican was barred from taking part in the Versailles peace-making, but Pollard judges this to have been a disguised blessing, as the Holy See was therefore not burdened by having to defend this much-vilified Treaty. So too, Benedict was not able to find any solution to the vexed question of the Vatican,s own status in Italy, which was left to his successor, Pius XI, to solve.
More successful were Benedict,s efforts to alter the tone of theological debate within his own ranks. The intolerant dogmatism of his predecessor, Pius X, with its strident invectives and condemnations of anyone suspected of the so-called Modernist “heresy, had done much damage in the supposed interests of “integrisme. While not prepared to disavow the hierarchy,s stance, Benedict moved to eject zealots from sensitive positions.
But from the end of the war, it was political rather than theological radicalism which seemed to be the greater danger. All of Benedict,s conservative instincts were predictably brought into play against the spread of militant violence or disorder. The kind of bitter class warfare seen in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Germany, boded ill for the Church, as did also the unbridled agitation of more domestic foes such as Benito Mussolini. The rise of Fascism in Italy was constantly deplored by the Vatican, even when the alternative of a Socialist victory looked worse. In fact, when Mussolini eventually seized power, he wisely recognized the need for a more harmonious relationship with the Church. But Benedict did not live to see this development. As for the Vatican, it was to swallow the stifling of Italian democracy for the sake of a new and more stable settlement of its future international position.
Benedict,s conservatism, as Pollard points out, was equally displayed in his antagonism towards both Protestantism and Orthodoxy. Although the war had demonstrated the urgency of all Christians standing together, Rome remained implacable. Error had no rights. The post-war ecumenical movement was therefore built without Catholics. Yet it can be argued that what the Catholic Church needed was consolidation not experimentation. This is what Benedict in his short reign provided. And Pollard,s final verdict is surely correct: “He steered the barque of St. Peter through some very stormy waters. . . and in the process left his enduring mark on the Roman Catholic Church (p.215). We can certainly be grateful to John Pollard for this comprehensive and sympathetic account.
JSC

3) ed K.Chadwick,Catholicism, Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century France. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 2000 295pp
Renee Bedarida, Les Catholiques dans la guerre 1939-1945. Entre Vichy et la Resistance.
Paris: Hachette litteratures, 1998

In recent years the writing of French church history has been very much an “in-house affair. Foreigners were not encouraged. The only significant work in English was W.D.Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France, (1995). So the appearance of this volume from Liverpool is much to be welcomed. Under the editorship of Kay Chadwick, this collection of essays is both bi-lingual and bi-national, where senior French scholars such as Emile Poulat and Y-M.Hilaire are joined by younger British scholars, mostly from the provincial universities. The title is clearly derivative from Halls, study, but covers the whole of the twentieth century. There is a variety of interesting perspectives on the position of the Catholic Church over this period, though the Church,s theology is virtually ignored, as is any treatment of Protestantism.
The century began with the controversial disestablishment of the Catholic Church in 1905. With the advantage of hindsight, Professor Poulat now argues that this can be seen as a beneficial move, by liberating the church from the state,s bondage. But at the time and for many years after, the imposition of this move at the hands of radical anti-clericals seemed to be a bitter blow. Hence the eagerness with which numerous Catholics greeted the overthrow of republicanism in 1940, and espoused the hopes for a better deal under Petain. But in fact, over the past fifty years, republicanism has shown a more moderate face, and the secular nature of the state is now assured. Catholic schooling plays a very considerable role, as an example of pluralism. There are even moves to urge Islam to follow the Catholic path as a means of integration within the French state.
The 1905 loss of status was undoubtedly induced, in part, by the reactionary stance of most Catholics in the Dreyfus affair. The rootedness of Catholic antisemitism cannot be denied. But as two of these essays show, attitudes have changed. To be sure, the stance of the Catholic hierarchy in face of the German war-time persecution of the Jews looks vacillating, but at least some bishops and several courageous priests and lay persons raised voices of protest to defy both Vichy and the Nazis. This paved the way for a new epoch of Christian-Jewish dialogue, led by such figures as Jules Isaac and Jacques Maritain. Though antisemitism and racialism still exist in France, such forces have no religious support from Catholics.
Another significant change over the years has been in the political stance of French Catholics. At first the polemical attacks of the republican left prevented any political sympathy from Catholics, and entrenched the right-wing attitudes of such groups as Action francaise or the Croix de Fer. After 1945, however, the scene changed. A new openness to at least some dialogue with Marxists showed that some Catholics were interested to have a potential stimulus to Catholic social thought or alternatives to capitalism. And this paved the way for a much more committed stance towards issues of social justice. Even though the experiment of worker priests was abandoned, the impact remained.
On the other hand, the rigidity of Catholic doctrine, especially on sexual matters, has undoubtedly contributed to Catholicism,s institutional decline in France. The majority of priests are elderly, more parishes are “orphaned and monastic life has suffered badly. In part, this is a reflection of the European-wide growth of a secular culture, but does not necessarily mean a loss of faith. France now has a multi-cultural appearance, in which French Catholicism appears in many guises.
Renee Bedarida and her husband Francois are among the most distinguished practitioners of French contemporary history, especially of that period of national tragedy, the Second World War and the ill-fated Vichy regime. Madame Bedarida has already written extensively on the spiritual resistance to the Nazi onslaught of those years, arising out of her own participation as a student in the resistance movement. Not surprisingly, therefore, in her sprightly survey of the fate of French Catholics during the war, those men and women who upheld their true Christian faith, alongside their French nationalism, occupy a place of honour. Following a chronological basis, Bedarida depicts the attitudes of the Catholic literate elite, from its troubled and ambiguous relationship to the anti-clerical secularist Third Republic before the war to the heartfelt patriotic response of 1939. But the 1940 defeat proved that patriotism was not enough. In its place, the Catholic hierarchy preferred to place their faith in Marshal Petain as the saviour of the nation. The majority of Catholics loyally followed this lead, though, as Bedarida shows, only a handful of Catholic intellectuals were seduced into giving their support. By contrast, those who for Christian reasons opposed Nazism were increasingly sceptical of Petain and his compromises with the conqueror. But de Gaulle, in London, never got any support from the church hierarchy. Several Catholic writers and other resisters expressed their opposition in clandestine publications, and when caught, paid the ultimate price. Others retreated to less obvious, but no less determined passive resistance, concentrating on assisting the Nazis, victims, such as the Jews. If, at first, French Catholics had been silent about the Nazi persecution of the Jews, this changed in 1942. In August and September, no fewer than five bishops protested publicly against the inhuman mistreatment of the Jews in France, and this signal produced a wave of support, much to the consternation of the Vichy authorities. Despite continued assertions of the clergy,s respect for Petain, these protests were the first breach of Catholic loyalty. Even more striking in 1943 was the response to Vichy,s ordering young Frenchmen to be conscripted for work in German factories. The bishops prevaricated, though they were much more vocal in protesting the idea of recruiting young French women. But only the underground press urged these recruits, as a Christian duty, to join the secret resistance movement instead. Those who took this step of joining the underground, or Maquis, were not given the support of the Catholics bishops, though a few clergy risked their lives by acting as chaplains. The moral dilemmas caused by the threat of civil war, and the fears of communism, restrained the church leaders from openly endorsing the resistance, but in fact the number of young Catholics who did so grew rapidly, and their witness was to be a significant factor in the post-war renewal of the church.
In the aftermath, recriminations and accusations abounded. The thorniest question for Catholics was what to do with those bishops who had so enthusiastically endorsed the Petain regime. Some demanded that at least twenty-five bishops be dismissed; others would have been content with an acknowledgment of their faulty judgment and an expression of repentance. In fact the hierarchy gave neither. It insisted that it had only done its religious duty in seeking to uphold the Christian faith and to safeguard the church,s autonomy. They now preached reconciliation and rebirth. And, in fact, the Vatican refused to hear of any forcible removals, but quickly appointed a new Nuncio, the future Pope John XXIII, to act as mediator.
In all, Bedarida stresses the positive impact of the war on the Catholic church in France. For the first time, barriers between Catholics and others were broken down. In captivity or deportation or concentration camps, the clergy and laity were thrown together to their mutual enrichment. As a result Catholics were willing to play a more constructive role in the new political order, and their spiritual renewal brought new life to the parishes. To be sure the old habits of mind were still found in some of the hierarchy, who still clung to their traditional conservative and moralistic mentalities. But, Bedarida claims, this clash between temporal political conformism and audacious creativity in the spiritual and pastoral spheres opened the way for the kind of reforms, which twenty years later, were to be adopted by the whole Church,s aggiornamento at the Second Vatican Council.

With every best wish to you all,
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

 

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- June 2001- Vol. VII, no. 6 

Contents:

1) German Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century
2) Book review: a) Feldkamp, Pius XII und Deutschland
b) Allen, Cardinal Ratzinger
3) Declaration on Christian-Jewish Relations, Cardinal Ratzinger
4) Nuncio Roncalli’s efforts on behalf of the Jews

Dear Friends,
I am deeply indebted to my longtime friend Prof. John S. Conway, for
the opportunity to edit this issue of the Newsletter – the fruit of his
dedication and hard work over many years. It is devoted to Catholic
themes, previous issues having dealt extensively with Protestant ones.
In the forefront of current debate about twentieth-century Catholic
history is the controversy over the role of Pope Pius XII during the
Holocaust. The Pope’s severest critics today are Catholics: Gary Wills,
John Cornwell, James Carroll – an essayist, a journalist, and a novelist
respectively; and the historians, Susan Zuccotti and Michael Phayer.
Evident in their writings is a common agenda: discrediting papal
authority in the hope of influencing the selection of a more “liberal”
pontiff in the next papal election.
Prominent among the Pope’s defenders is the American rabbi, David L.
Dalin. At the end of a 4000-word article in the Feb. 26, 2001 issue of
“The Weekly Standard,” Dalin cites the Talmudic dictum: “Whosoever
preserves one life, it is accounted to him by Scripture as if he had
preserved a whole world.” Dalin comments: “More than any other
twentieth-century leader, Pius fulfilled this Talmudic dictum, when the
fate of European Jewry was at stake. No other pope had been so widely
praised by Jews – and they were not mistaken. Their gratitude, as well
as that of the entire generation of Holocaust survivors, testifies that
Pius XII was, genuinely and profoundly, a righteous gentile.”
“For Jewish leaders of a previous generation,” Rabbi Dalin writes, “the
[current] campaign against Pius XII would have been a source of shock.”
What caused this radical shift of opinion? Rolf Hochhuth’s play, “The
Deputy,” first performed in 1963, was the occasion, though not the
cause. The play appeared just as the rebellion against authority was
getting underway in Western democracies. The demonization of an
authority figure revered by millions was welcome to an age proclaiming
the death of God and rejecting the pretensions of those claiming to
speak in his name. It is equally welcome today to those who hold there
is no such thing as truth, only different opinions.
Among historians a consensus about the most extreme charges against Pius XII
appears to be forming. Whatever missed opportunities in
papal policy we can identify over a half-century later, Pius XII was
neither “Hitler’s Pope” nor an anti-Semite. At the recent debate
between Ronald Rychlak and Susan Zuccotti at Trinity College, Hartford,
all the Pope’s critics explicitly rejected both charges. That they
continue to be trumpeted by the media reflects a phenomenon observable
throughout history: the public’s appetite for sensation and scandal.

I can e-mail Rabbi Dalin’s article to anyone who requests it. Dalin is
at work on a book which will expand his findings.

John Jay Hughes,
Archdiocese of St Louis, Missouri, USA
jaystl@swbell.net

1) “Witnesses for Christ”
In his 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente Pope John Paul
II, after recalling the martyrs of the first millennium, wrote: “In our
century the martyrs have returned, many of them nameless ‘unknown
soldiers’ as it were of God’s great cause. As far as possible, their
witness should not be lost to the church. … The local churches should
do everything possible to ensure that the memory of those who have
suffered martyrdom should be safeguarded, gathering the necessary
documentation.” (37)
No local church has fulfilled the Pope’s wish as fully as that in
Germany. Two massive volumes in German, with a combined weight of 8
pounds, were published last year recording, in meticulous detail, the
stories of some 700 German Catholics of both sexes who, in the century
just closed, suffered violent deaths out of hatred for the faith: under
Nazism and Communism, in mission countries, and while resisting rape
(“martyrs of purity”) or defending its victims. The number of these
“witnesses for Christ” (the book’s title) is “far more than we initially
supposed,” writes the Bishop of Mainz and President of the German
Bishops’ Conference Karl Lehmann in a Foreword..
Criteria for inclusion are taken from those established by the learned
canonist Prospero Lambertini and later Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) for
the canonization of martyrs: a violent death, motivated by hatred of the
church and the faith, and willing acceptance of God’s will despite
mortal danger. No one is included whose death did not with certainty
satisfy all three conditions.
Writing of the martyrs in the Nazi period, the editor says: “The
church points with pride to its martyrs not in order to cover up its
failures, but out of gratitude.” More than 160 diocesan priests and
almost 60 male religious were martyred by the Nazis. There were also
110 lay martyrs of both sexes: among them a 17-year-old apprentice, and
two 19-year-olds, one a female convert from Judaism. The oldest lay
martyrs were 73 and 74 respectively. Women comprised 14 percent of the
total, many of them highly educated people in prominent positions or
persons of Jewish origin. “It is certain that there were many times
more than we were able to find,” the editor writes. He also pays
tribute to the many non-Catholic martyrs, part of the 12,000
commemorated by Pope John Paul II at an “Ecumenical Commemoration of
Twentieth Century Witnesses to the Faith” in Rome’s Colosseum on 7 May
2000.
The list of communism’s victims, starting in 1917 – a laywoman and 108
priests including 5 bishops and an abbot – consists mostly of
“Volksdeutsche”: ethnic Germans settled for generations in the Balkans
or Russia. This category also includes more than 60 “martyrs of
purity,” most of them religious Sisters (the oldest 93 and 88
respectively) but many laywomen as well. Of the 18 killed while trying
to defend victims of rape, 13 were priests, 2 religious Sisters. The
list of over 170 missionary martyrs begins in Papua New Guinea in 1904
and ends in Zimbabwe in 1988. Herewith a look at a few of the martyrs
under Nazism.
Army Lieutenant Michael Kitzelmann, age 26, was shot on the Russian
front in 1942 for writing in a letter: “At home they banish the
crucifixes from the schools, while here they tell us we’re fighting
against godless communism.” Before his execution he forgave the
sergeant who had denounced him. His farewell letter to his loved ones
said the Catholic chaplain had just visited him: “God has granted me
the grace of a holy death. I go ahead of you to our heavenly homeland.
Divine Redeemer, grant me a merciful judgment when I come to you.
Praised be Jesus Christ!”
The university student Robert Limpert, deeply religious and an open
critic of the Nazis, distributed fliers demanding that his home town of
Ansbach be declared an open city. On 18 April 1945, with American
troops already on the town’s outskirts, the local Nazi commander
personally hanged Limpert on the wall of the city hall. American troops
cut down the body four hours later. His memorial tablet bears the
inscription: “Executed for resistance to the Third Reich on 18 April
1945, aged 19.”
In Regensburg the 38-year-old diocesan priest and Cathedral Preacher,
Dr. Johann Baptist Maier, spoke in the late afternoon of 23 April 1945
at a demonstration by hundreds of citizens demanding that the city be
surrendered to the American troops, then only 20 km away. When the
protest threatened to get out of hand, Maier admonished the crowd to
respect constituted authority. As he started to give the reasons for
declaring Regensburg an open city, he was arrested. A hastily assembled
court martial condemned him to death as a “saboteur” hours later. He
was hanged on the site of the demonstration before dawn the next day.
Hanged with him was the 74-year-old pensioner, Josef Zirkl, a staunch
opponent of the Nazis. His crime: protesting the priest’s arrest. The
46-year-old policeman Michael Lottner, retired due to a service-related
injury, also protested and was shot while defending himself from
beating. His body was laid beneath the gallows on which Maier and Zirkl
were hanged. The American troops entered Regensburg three days later
without a fight. Maier’s tomb in the Regensburg Cathedral bears the
inscription: “He gave his life for the preservation of Regensburg. …
His tongue is silenced, but his deed and his death continue to preach.”
The 22-year-old university student Eva-Maria Buch was beheaded in
Berlin on August 5, 1943 for distributing fliers to imprisoned French
workers in munition factories warning that their compatriots could be
killed by the fruits of their labor. The priest who gave Buch communion
before her execution marveled at her cheerfulness throughout her long
imprisonment and right up to her death.
Executed with Buch were 12 more women and 3 men from her resistance
group, one of them a Catholic: the 33-year-old Maria Terwiel, who
smuggled food and ration cards to Jews and in 1941 distributed copies of
the celebrated anti-Nazi sermons of Bishop von Galen of Münster.
The 28-year-old Army Lieutenant Alfons Zurawski was beheaded on October
6, 1942 for fraternizing with Polish forced laborers, and giving food to
starving Polish prisoners of war. His farewell letter said that the
sacraments he had just received “made my final hours some of the most
beautiful of my whole life.”
Mingled with these and hundreds of others who died in obscurity, and
would remain there but for this work, are the better known victims. The
lay Catholic Action leader Dr. Erich Klausener, was shot at his desk in
Berlin on June 30, 1934 as a “dangerous Catholic leader.” Blessed Karl
Leisner, secretly ordained priest on the Third Sunday in Advent 1944 in
the Dachau concentration camp by the imprisoned French bishop of
Clermont-Ferrand (outfitted by his fellow prisoners with the full
pontifical regalia!), died nine months later of illness contracted
during his imprisonment. His First Mass was also his last. Blessed
Bernard Lichtenberg, Provost of the Berlin Cathedral, was imprisoned for
praying publicly for “the sorely tried non-Aryan Christians, the Jews,
those in concentration camps, the victims of bombing and war on both
sides …” He died of maltreatment on the way to the Dachau on 5
November 1943, aged 68. Fr. Alfred Delp, one of seven Jesuits martyred
by the Nazis, was hanged in Berlin on February 2, 1945, for his
participation in the Kreisau Circle, a group of aristocrats and
intellectuals who met to plan a better Germany after Hitler’s defeat.
The infamous Nazi judge Roland Freisler (later killed in a bomb attack)
said at Delp’s trial: “National Socialism and Christianity have one
thing in common: we both demand the whole man.”
These victims of Hitler were not more heroic that their fellow
martyrs. But their stories are worth recounting today. One cannot read
their biographies, and especially the farewell letters, without being
moved. One wonders whether they will ever be seen by the tenured
academics and well paid journalists who today make careers, and money,
claiming that in Germany’s darkest hour, nothing was done (or at best
pathetically little) to resist the forces of evil.
JJH

2a) Michael F. Feldkamp, “Pius XII. und Deutschland.” (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 236 p. DM 29,80)
Amid the flood of books defaming Pope Pius XII, and the occasional
defense of the pontiff, it is a pleasure to come upon the work of a
serious historian more interested in honestly examining the historical
record than in advancing a point of view. Michael Feldkamp is a young
historian (born 1962) in Berlin, author of several scholarly works about
relations between Germany and the Holy See from World War I onwards, and
editor of post-World War II documents of the German Foreign Office and
Bundestag. In this brief work, published in paperback, he shows
intimate familiarity with the primary sources and secondary literature
in German, Italian, French, and English.
The contrast between objective scholarship and advocacy is evident when
one compares Feldkamp’s treatment of Pacelli’s dealings with a German
rabbi in 1917 with the portrayal of this incident by John Cornwell in
“Hitler’s Pope”. In September of that year Pacelli, then nuncio to
Bavaria, received a letter from the Munich rabbi Dr. Mose Cossmann
Werner, asking help in getting the Italian customs authorities to
release some palm fronds to be used at the coming Jewish feast of
Tabernacles. Due to wartime export restrictions the palms had been held
up in the railway station at Como. Pacelli passed on the request to
Cardinal Gasparri, his superior in Rome, informing him that he had told
the rabbi that since the Holy See had no diplomatic relations with
Italy, a favorable response by the Italian authorities was unlikely in
the few weeks before the Jewish feast. Pacelli’s letter to Gasparri
also pointed out that the rabbi was asking assistance not merely in a
matter which involved civil rights but cooperation in the celebration of
non-Catholic religious rites – then forbidden by canon law
(“communicatio in sacris”). Gasparri replied that the Holy See could
not act, because of the lack of diplomatic relations with Italy. When
Pacelli explained this to the rabbi, the latter “thanked me warmly for
all that I had done on his behalf.”
Calling this “a diplomatic sleight of hand,” Cornwell says that
Pacelli’s letter to Gasparri “has lain buried in the files of the
Secretary of State until now” – while disclosing in a footnote that he
quotes it from a book published in 1956. Cornwell comments: “Pacelli
rejected a poignant plea of his Jewish brethren that might have brought
spiritual spiritual consolation to many thousands.” He uses the
incident as evidence of Pacelli’s alleged antisemitism. Feldkamp says
that the incident shows that Pacelli “remained a child of his times
unable, even as nuncio, to set himself above canon law.” The fact that
this canonical prohibition has been abrogated long since “affords no
basis for using Pacelli’s actions, which according to the law at that
time were formally correct, as evidence of latent antisemitism.”
Feldkamp devotes a chapter to each of the four periods of Eugenio Pacelli’s
relations with Germany: his work as nuncio, first in Munich then in Berlin
(1917-1929); his activity as papal Secretary of State (1930-39); his role as wartime
pope; and his post-war efforts to restore Germany to a place in the family of
nations. Non-German readers will be especially interested in the chapter
about Pius XII’s wartime role. The pope’s alleged “silence” (Feldkamp
places the word in quotation marks) “was due neither to concern for his
personal safety, nor the desire to maintain strict neutrality in order
to preserve his chance of being a future peacemaker. The pope’s policy
arose from his judgment that a public protest would not only fail to
deter the Nazis, but would provoke even greater atrocities. … The
pope’s decision to remain ‘silent’ cost him dearly.” By limiting
himself to private protests, while initiating rescue efforts behind the
scenes, Pius XII was able “to save thousands of lives.” Moreover,
Feldkamp writes, one must ask how free the wartime pope was to exercise
his office, living as he did in his tiny territory dependent on Hitler’s
ally Mussolini for such basic necessities as food, water, and
electricity – and with the constant threat of kidnapping. Hitler
actually ordered this on Sept. 12, 1943, but was talked out of it by
subordinates.
Feldkamp’s sober narration of the roundup of Roman Jews on October
16,1943, refutes the account given by Susan Zuccotti in “Under his Very
Windows”. Vigorous behind-the-scenes papal protests, unpublicized
because the German ambassador to the Holy See von Weiszäcker warned that
this was the only way to help the victims, resulted in “the deportation
to Auschwitz of somewhat more than 1,000 Jews rather than the 8,000
ordered [by Hitler]. Some 200,000 Italians, many Jews among them, were
hidden in more than 200 extra-territorial religious houses during the
months-long German occupation of Rome. Vatican sponsored organizations
enabled more Jews to emigrate. In addition, during the closing years of
the war the Vatican distributed thousands of passports from the
Argentine and Brazilian governments, and from the Swiss Red Cross.”
Feldkamp’s final chapter is entitled; “Controversy about the Pope’s
‘Silence’.” After narrating the course of the controversy to date,
Feldkamp writes: “The question separating Pius XII’s accusers and
defenders in the future will continue to be whether he should have done
more to publicize his moral condemnation [of Nazi atrocities]; or
whether his exercise of ethical responsibility enabled him to save more
lives. Pius XII chose what he considered the realistic course and left
the door open to negotiation. Nonetheless, he was not silent, as we
have shown. On the contrary, he steadfastly proclaimed Catholic
teaching.”
The same people who today condemn Pius XII for his wartime
“silence”, Feldkamp writes in his concluding paragraph, demand that his
present successor remain silent about other moral questions:
contraception, artificial insemination, and abortion. Feldkamp cites
John Conway’s judgment that making Pius XII responsible for the
Holocaust “ill serves both the victims and the full truth about the
human capacity to act against humanity’s fundamental laws.”
Scapegoating Pius XII, Feldkamp concludes, diverts attention from those
primarily responsible for the Holocaust: the Nazis and those who
cooperated with them.
JJH

2b) John L. Allen, Jr. “Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of
Faith” (New York: Continuum, 2000. xii + 340 pp. $24.95)
[The review which follows is by John A. Komonchak, holder of the John
C. and Gertrude P. Hubbard Chair of Religious Studies at the Catholic
University of America. A “centrist” theologian in today’s Catholic
theological spectrum, he is the co-editor of the multi-volume
English-language edition of “The History of Vatican II.” The review,
originally published in the Nov. 3, 2000 issue of the lay-edited and
left- leaning American Catholic bi-weekly “Commonweal,” is included
here with permission.]

A French priest got into trouble during the anti-modernist repression
of the early 1900s when he suggested a radical reform of the Roman Curia
that would reduce it to two offices, one congregation for the defense of
the faith and another to defend Catholics against the actions of the
first congregation. One can sympathize, particularly when the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith (CDF) is making unprecedented
claims to near-sovereign authority to deal with a host of problems in
the church today.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger once said that the CDF has the sadly
necessary duty of dealing with “the pathology of faith.” Under his
leadership it appears to have found a good deal of illness, and in
recent years it has been more noted for its warnings and punishments
than for the positive promotion of doctrine that Pope Paul VI proposed
as its chief purpose when at the close of Vatican II he set out new
norms for what until then had been called the Holy Office. These
actions have made the Cardinal the target not only of criticism but of
downright vilification.
John L. Allen tells us in his preface that he was startled by such
actions because they ran counter to the Vatican II Catholicism in which
he, born in 1965, had been raised. He set out to find out what might
have led Joseph Ratzinger, one of the progressive theologians at the
Council, to the series of positions he has expressed both in private
speeches and articles and in the official actions of his office. Allen
wanted his book to avoid the polarization in the contemporary church
that he nicely describes: “Neither side is willing to spend the
intellectual effort to deeply understand the concerns that drive their
opponents, the arguments that have led them to the conclusions they
hold, the alternatives they have considered and rejected.” Rome bureau
chief for the “National Catholic Reporter,” he presumably counts himself
among those journalists who he says, with greater confidence than many
can muster, “instinctively seek ‘all sides’ of a discussion.”
Unfortunately, Allen seems to think that there are only two sides on
most of the issues he raises, and he finds Cardinal Ratzinger regularly
on the wrong one. In his preface he has a few lines about Ratzinger’s
personal kindness and sincerity and near the end of the book almost
three pages on four points on which he thinks the Cardinal worth
listening to. But Allen sees himself as a product and representative of
what he calls, with a reference to Michael Harrington’s famous book,
“the other Catholicism,” inspired and shaped by Vatican II, the
“evolving, socially engaged, compassionate Catholicism that was the
incubator of my faith” and that he thinks Ratzinger is trying to curb.
He contrasts Catholic “reformers” to “restorationists: and to a
“traditionalist camp” in which he includes Ratzinger and Hans Urs von
Balthasar. Theologians are divided into “a minority reflexively loyal
to Rome” and a majority “who are instinctively suspicious of church
authority.” There hardly ever appears to be, in any of these contrasts,
a middle ground.
The same over-simplifying framework controls Allen’s detailed treatment
of Roman actions with regard to liberation theology, women and
homosexuals, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, and moral theology.
Because the issues at stake are most often presented in either-or terms
and the points at debate are reviewed with little depth or nuance, the
drama of the confrontations is reduced to a series of power plays by an
“enforcer” and the consequences are described hyperbolically. The end
of one chapter will give a sense of the whole treatment: “Like
Ratinzger’s crusades against liberation theology, feminism, and gay
rights, the pall that he has cast over ecumenism and interreligious
dialogue has had consequences beyond the borders of academic theology.
It has contributed to making the world a more fractured, and therefore a
more dangerous place.”
These descriptions are preceded by chapters in which Allen reviews
Ratzinger’s youth under Hitler’s regime, from which he believes the
Cardinal has not yet learned all the lessons (“Having seen fascism in
action, Ratzinger today believes that the best antidote to political
totalitarianism is ecclesial totalitarianism.”), superficially discusses
the chief theological influences on his thought, explores his role at
Vatican II, his disappointment at the Council’s aftermath, and what
Allen considers the decisive experience of student unrest at the
University of Tübingen in 1968, selectively reviews three of his major
works, and rapidly describes his brief term as Archbishop of Munich
before he was appointed head of the CDF. Much useful information can be
found here, but the treatment is very uneven, inadequately documented,
and marred by historical and bibliographical mistakes.
The most convincing section offers evidence that, contrary to the
Cardinal’s repeated claim, his views on a number of important issues
(collegiality, episcopal conferences, tradition, liturgy, ecumenism,
divorce and remarriage) have changed over the decades. Allen finds
continuity, however, in an enduring Augustinian counterpoising of church
and culture. There is something to this, and its roots lie in an
anthropology and epistemology that profoundly shape the fashion and the
terms in which Ratzinger spontaneously frames an issue. Had this
theological key been explored at greater length and with greater
subtlety, Allen might have been more successful in situating Ratzinger
within the history and variety of twentieth-century Catholic theology
and in analyzing the tensions that divide Catholics. Instead he is
content with the kind of Manichean journalism from which Catholics
suffer so much today.
This is too bad because we could use a good analysis and critique of
the thought and actions of a man who has played so powerful a role in
the church over the last twenty years. Ratzinger’s theology, early and
late, fits within a trajectory of Catholic thought which was one of the
paths of renewal which made Vatican II possible. It was not the only
one, of course, and a much-neglected dynamic of Vatican II was tension
among various groups within the majority. Latent when they had the
common goal of getting rid of the official texts prepared for the
Council, these differences began to be expressed in the last two
sessions of the Council and are visible in the final texts. When the
Council was followed by some developments in the church that few if any
had anticipated, the tensions became divisions and their representatives
now vie over how to interpret Vatican II both as a set of documents and
as an event in the life of the church. For the moment the line
represented by Cardinal Ratzinger is in the ascendancy in Rome and
claims a monopoly on the interpretation of the Council; and he has not
hesitated to use the power of his office to reinforce this line,
sometimes in language and by means that are difficult to reconcile with
either the texts of Vatican II or the communion-inspired methods of
Vatican II. But to show all this would require a more attentive and
critical book than this one.

3) The following article, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the
Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was published on the
front page of the Italian edition of “Osservatore Romano” on 29 Dec.
2000. The English translation was procured by the Sisters of Sion in
Rome, a congregation with a special concern for Jews.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: “The Heritage of Abraham: the Gift of Christmas”

At Christmas we exchange gifts, in order to bring joy to others, and to
share in the joy which the choir of angels announced to the shepherds,
calling to mind once more the gift par excellence which God made to
humanity when he gave us his Son Jesus Christ. But God prepared this
gift over the course of a long history, during which – as St. Irenaeus
says – God became accustomed to being with human beings, and human
beings became accustomed to being in communion with God. This story
begins with the faith of Abraham, the father of those who believe, and
also the father of our faith as Christians – one who, through faith, is
also our father. The story continues with the blessings granted to the
patriarchs, the revelation to Moses, and Israel’s exodus toward the
Promised Land. A new stage opens up with the promise of an unending
kingship – the promise made to David and his descendants. The prophets
in turn interpret this history, calling people to repentance and
conversion, thus preparing human hearts to receive the ultimate gift.
Abraham, father of the people of Israel, father of faith, thus becomes
the source of blessing, for in him “all the families of the earth shall
call themselves blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The task of the Chosen People
is, therefore, to make a gift of their God – the one true God – to every
other people; in reality, as Christians we are the inheritors of their
faith in the one God. Our gratitude, therefore, must be extended to our
Jewish brothers and sisters who, despite the hardships of their own
history, have held on to the faith in this God right up to the present,
and who witness to it in the sight of those peoples who, lacking
knowledge of the one God, “dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death”
(Luke 1:79).

The God of the Jewish Bible (which, together with the New Testament, is
also the Christian Bible) – a God at times infinitely tender, and at
times so severe as to inspire fear – is also the God of Jesus Christ and
of the Apostles. The Church of the second century had to resist the
denial of this God by the Gnostics and, above all, by Marcion, who
created a dichotomy between the New Testament God and the “inferior”
Creator God who was the source of the Old Testament. The Church,
however, has always maintained its faith in a single God, the Creator of
the world, and the author of both Testaments. The awareness of God
contained in the New Testament, which finds its summit in the Johannine
definition that “God is love” (1 John 4:16), does not contradict the
past, but rather serves as a summary of all of salvation history, which
initially had Israel as its central figure. For this reason, the voices
of Moses and the prophets have rung out in the Church’s liturgy from its
very beginnings until today; Israel’s psalter is also the great book of
the Church’s prayer. As a result, the primitive Church did not pit
itself against Israel, but in all simplicity believed itself to be the
legitimate continuation of Israel. The splendid image of chapter 12 of
the book of Revelation – of a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with
twelve stars, pregnant and suffering in the pangs of giving birth – is
Israel, which was “to rule over all nations with an iron scepter” (Psalm
2:9). Nonetheless, this woman is transformed into the new Israel, the
mother of new peoples, and she is personified in Mary, the Mother of
Jesus. The bringing together of these three meanings – Israel, Mary,
the Church – shows how Israel and the Church were, and are, inseparable
for the Christian faith.

We know that every act of giving birth is difficult. Certainly, from
the very beginning, relations between the infant Church and Israel were
often marked by conflict. The Church was considered by her own mother
to be a degenerate daughter, while Christians considered their mother to
be blind and obstinate. Down through the history of Christianity
relations, already strained, deteriorated farther, even giving birth in
many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led
to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome
experience of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian
ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic
roots – in the people of Israel – it cannot be denied that a certain
insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can
be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a
few Christians. Perhaps it is precisely because of this latest tragedy
that a new vision of the relationship between the Church and Israel has
been born: a sincere willingness to overcome every kind of anti-Judaism,
and to initiate a constructive dialogue based on knowledge of each
other, and on reconciliation. If such a dialogue is to be fruitful, it
must begin with a prayer to our God, first of all that he might grant to
us Christians a greater esteem and love for that people – the people of
Israel – to whom belong “the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants,
the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs are the
patriarchs, and from them comes Christ according to the flesh, he who is
over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:4-5) – and this not only
in the past, but still today, “for the gifts and call of God are
irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). In the same way, let us pray that he may
grant also to the children of Israel a deeper knowledge of Jesus of
Nazareth, who is their son, and the gift they have made to us. Since we
are both awaiting the final redemption, let us pray that the paths we
follow may converge.

It is evident that, as Christians, our dialogue with the Jews is
situated on a different level than that in which we engage with other
religious. The faith witnessed to by the Jewish Bible (for Christians
the Old Testament) is not merely another religion to us, but is the
foundation of our own faith. Therefore Christians – and today
increasingly in collaboration with their Jewish sisters and brothers –
read and attentively study these books of Sacred Scripture, as a part of
their common heritage. It is true that Islam considers itself as one of
Abraham’s offspring, and has inherited from Jews and Christians this
same God. Muslims, however, follow a different path, and so dialogue
with them calls for different parameters.

To return to the exchange of Christmas gifts with which I began this
meditation: we must first of all recognize that everything we have and
do is a gift of God, which is gained only through humble, sincere
prayer. It is a gift that must be shared between various ethnic groups,
between religions who are seeking a better grasp of the divine mystery,
between nations who seek peace, and between people who wish to build a
society where justice and peace reign. This is the programme sketched
out by the Second Vatican Council for the Church of the future, and we
Catholics ask the Lord to help us to persevere on that path.

NOTE: The 3-day meeting in New York in early May of the International
Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee issued a statement quoting Cardinal
Walter Kasper of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with
Jews and a participant in the meeting, as saying that the Vatican
document “Dominus Iesus,” issued by Cardinal Ratzinger’s CDF, is “an
intra- Catholic document about interreligious dialogue addressed to
Catholic theologians … It does not enter into the Jewish-Catholic
dialogue. … [There] is no missionary activity on the part of the
church directed toward converting Jews.”

4) Nuncio Angelo Roncalli’s efforts to assist Jewish victims of the
Holocaust.
At the instigation of the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, research is
being undertaken on the humanitarian interventions by Nuncio Roncalli
(later Pope John XXIII) on behalf of Jewish victims in the Balkan
countries. The results, catalogued from the later volumes of Actes et
documents du Saint Siège pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale are to be
found on the website:
http://www.raoul-wallenberg.org.ar/engkish/roncallinfo2,htm

 

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- May 2001- Vol. VII, no. 5 

Dear Friends,

Contents:
1) Editorial
2) Conference report – Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches
3) Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte Conference, September 2001
4) Book reviews:

Sampson and Lederach, Mennonites and peacemaking
Gerlach, The Confessing Church and the persecution of the Jews
Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

5) New Journal articles, Hong Kong, Italy and Germany

I am glad to tell you that next month we shall have a Guest Editor, Reverend
John Jay Hughes, of St Louis, Missouri. He is well known for his stimulating
books, mainly about the Papacy, and his reviews which appear in many
scholarly journals. I appreciate his help enormously.

1) Editorial:
From my necessarily limited and subjective vantage point here on the edge of
the Pacific Ocean, I keep on being surprised and delighted by both the
quantity and quality of the new work being written in our field of
contemporary church history.
When I began to send out this Newsletter in 1995, I thought it would only be
a matter of a few months before the backlog of new titles was exhausted. But
here we are, six and a half years later, and the flood is still coming! And
this is all the more remarkable in view of the low place Church history
receives in most academic curricula.
Germany, of course, as one could expect, is still the chief source of such
riches. The existence of state-supported theological faculties in almost all
their universities, and the plenitude of graduate students producing huge
theses, which then appear in their subsidized presses, are a welcome source
of new scholarship. But even in less favoured countries, very reputable work
appears with a refreshing range of interests. Looking back on the books
reviewed in our Newsletter in its 75 issues, as can be seen in the indices
or web-site, shows a fine variety and exceptional quality of performance.
And new areas seem to be coming back into favour. For example, we Canadians
can take pride in the splendid achievement of W.J.Callahan with his two
volumes on “The Catholic Church is Spain”, or the revived interest in French
church history with the appearance of Michel Cointet’s “L’Eglise sous Vichy,
1940-1945”. And it is to be hoped that soon we shall have English-language
studies of the complex histories and situations in eastern Europe.
Clearly, the so-called third world is missing, or rather word of new
publications in this area has not reached me. I should welcome any advice on
new books, or better still reviews of new research in these areas, to be
forwarded. Your help is much appreciated.

2) 31st Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, St.
Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 3-6th, 2001.
This conference now draws several hundred scholars, representing a variety
of fields and interests, from throughout the world. In response to the
growing number of participants, conference organizers this year experimented
with a new format (which will be used in alternate years). Instead of
issuing a general call for papers, a smaller number of panels on specific
topics were scheduled. The invited panelists were asked not to present
papers but to offer some remarks as starting points for a general
discussion. There were very few concurrent sessions, thus ensuring that most
participants joined the same discussions throughout the meeting. Optional
roundtable discussions at the luncheons were another successful innovation
that allowed participants with common interests to meet.
This format worked. Most panelists kept their remarks brief, allowing
substantial time for discussion among the panelists and audience members.
The panels this year focused on Holocaust denial, the study of “ordinary
people”, the study of other genocide, complicity, post-Shoah education, new
research and the study of women. The “cutting edge” panel presented new work
being done on the legal and nursing professions and the responses of the
Canadian churches. An evening program honoured Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his
biographer Eberhard Bethge, and included a trailer from the forthcoming film
documentary on Bonhoeffer being made by independent filmmaker Martin
Doblmeier. In plenary speeches, Rabbi Irving Greenberg and Professor Yaffa
Eliach shared the insights gained from their years of research and
reflection.
In general, the new format gave the meeting greater focus and depth. It also
underscored the particular strength of this conference, which has always
been its interdisciplinary nature. The panel on the study of “ordinary
people”, for example, included a historian, a religious scholar, an expert
on the nursing profession, two scholars of Holocaust literature and gender
issues, and a social psychologist. The conversation generated by their
remarks showed that the questions that confront scholars in this field are
never “purely” historical or ethical; and, whatever the focus of our own
work, the research of those in other fields can offer new and important
pieces of the puzzle. The diverse nature of the panels and the increased
emphasis on discussion this year sparked ongoing conversations among
participants that continued outside the sessions. Next year’s conference, to
be held at Kean College in Union, New Jersey, will follow the traditional
format, but this new format for alternate years is to be welcomed. Among
other things, it illustrated that, when enough time is given to discourse,
scholarly meetings can be enjoyed as well as endured.
Victoria J.Barnett, Arlington, Virginia

3) Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte Conference
This year’s conference, under the leadership of Gerhard Ringshausen,
Lüneburg, and Dr Czembor, Poland, is to take place from September 15-19 in
Ustron, in southern Poland, not far from Kattowicz. The theme is : From
nationalist confrontation to European collaboration. The role of the
Churches in the paths of Germany and Poland, and will focus largely on the
Polish/German experience over the past hundred years. Details from Dr
Ringshausen, = ringshau@mailhost.uni-lueneburg.de

4a) Cynthia Sampson and John Paul Lederach (eds.). From the Ground
Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacemaking. Oxford
University Press, 2000, 316pp.

There has been a great increase in scholarly interest and writing on
the subject of peacemaking over the last two decades. Among the many
individuals and groups involved in peacemaking are the Mennonites, who
have consistently received much attention for their involvement in peace
activism from within their own community. In “From the Ground
Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacemaking”, the editors
Cynthia Sampson, a non-Mennonite scholar, and John Paul Lederach, a Mennonite
peacebuilding practitioner, have built on other well-known texts on
Mennonite peace work since the 1940s – for example, Leo Driedger’s
“Mennonites in Conflict” (1984), and Driedger’s work with Ron Kraybill,
“Mennonite Peacemaking: From Quietism to Activism” (1994) – and have
welcomed critical analysis from outside the Mennonite community. The
strength of “From the Ground Up” is found in its eclectic representation of
authorship, as the accounts of fourteen Mennonite peace workers are
analyzed and evaluated by four non-Mennonite scholars. With both the
authors and the editors coming from such diverse backgrounds, the common
pitfalls of both endo- and exo-denominational a priori presuppositions are
satisfactorily checked and challenged throughout the study. With that
sound methodological foundation, Sampson and Lederach’s chief query
asks: How is Mennonite faith connected to their contributions to
peacemaking?
The Mennonite people have commonly been associated with peace and
nonresistance. While this association finds ample justification
throughout history (albeit with many exceptions) and in many Mennonite
communities today, the peace that has been attained has mostly been
accomplished through separation from ‘the world.’ Joseph Miller, Ron
Kraybill and John Lederach address this tendency in the history of the
Mennonite peace stance in the first part of the book, and reveal how the
‘in but not of the world’ theology of the Mennonites has undergone massive
alterations since the Second World War.
The negative experiences many Mennonites endured during wartime (many
North American Mennonites who refused the draft were ridiculed, harassed,
imprisoned and physically harmed) served as the catalyst for a
re-evaluation of their time-honored traditions of nonresistance and
nonconformity. Many came to realize that nonresistance, in its
traditional form, was more irresponsible than anything else, leading many
Mennonites to convert from their passive, secluded peace stance to
nonviolent social action and radical peacemaking. Now willing to pay the
‘ultimate sacrifice’ after joining the ‘corps’ in working toward bringing
peace to troubled areas, Mennonites were able to pour their energies into
positive social and structural change, and simultaneously quell the
wartime accusations of being free-loading cowards.
With the traditional Mennonite two-kingdom theology effectively
done away with (or at least radically revamped), new groups, mostly
emanating from the Mennonite Central Committee, began to organize and move
into all parts of the world. Miller informs us that, rather than arriving
in order to alleviate suffering after a great disaster or war (which was
the common approach of the MCC and Mennonite Disaster Service for some
time), these new groups of Mennonite peacebuilders, such as: the Christian
Peacemaking Teams; the Mennonite Conciliation Service; and the
International Conciliation Service; began to focus on the prevention of
violence and on empowering people to regain ownership of their respective
situations in troubled areas of the world.
The main section of the book is a collection of essays written by
Mennonite peacebuilders that have been actively engaged in this latter
approach to peacebuilding throughout the world. Areas of focus
include: South Africa (Ron Kraybill and Robert and Judy Herr); central
America (John Lederach and Mark Chupp); Ethiopia and Somalia (Lederach and
Bonnie Bergey); Northern Ireland (Joseph Liechty and Joseph
Campbell); Liberia (Barry Hart); Columbia (Ricardo Esquivia and Paul
Stucky); and Kathleen Kern’s essay on the Christian Peacemaking Teams “From
Haiti to Hebron.” In each of these cases, according to Lederach,
Mennonite peacebuilders have aimed to “offer true alternatives to the
life-destroying visions that currently govern our world” (p.44).
The four scholars that contribute to the critical analysis of the above
cases agree on many points, primarily in their praise of the uniqueness
and effectiveness of the Mennonite approach to peacemaking. Sally Merry
comments on the Mennonite focus on establishing grassroots connections
(which is believed to promote longevity in change) and on maintaining the
primary focus of serving God, which provides the criteria for success in
all peace work. Similarly, Christopher Mitchell observes the Mennonite
commitment to fostering local ownership of peacebuilding efforts, as they
strive to become “as near to insiders as they can while maintaining a
relevant deterrent role as outsiders” (p.225). In a very engaging and
deeply analytical essay, Marc Gopin places the Mennonite approach to
peacemaking in a broader context, comparing it to non-Christian conflict
resolution theories (p.243). He also praises their efforts, asserting
that the Mennonite history of martyrdom affords them a particularly deep
existential understanding of Otherness that underpins their approach to
and effectiveness in peacemaking.
Cynthia Sampson concludes the book with a case by case assessment
of the Mennonite peace projects outlined above. Here, Sampson focuses on
what she sees as the three central tenets of Mennonite peace
work: capacity building; framework setting; and ways of being. Sampson
agrees with Merry and Mitchell’s observations of Mennonites fostering
local ownership of peace initiatives, and credits the unique Mennonite
theology of humility and pervasive ethos of service for that
success. According to Sampson, this solid foundation accounts for why the
Mennonites, more often than not, proceed quietly, gently, respectfully and
non-competitively in their work.
And what binds this all together? Gopin concludes that Mennonite faith is
inextricably linked to both their vision for and execution of peacemaking
initiatives. Their strong traditional theology of service, strong
communal ties and powerful prayer networks and communal identity affords
the Mennonites the ideal combination for effective peacebuilding
(p.241). Indeed, all four critics unanimously praise the Mennonites for
continuity between theory (a theology of peace) and praxis, which can be
seen as successfully redeeming the numerous examples of wartime dissonance
between the two (many North American and nearly all German Mennonite men
of draft age chose to bear arms in the Second World War). The new form
of peacebuilding, which has replaced the passive nonresistance of old, has
furnished contemporary Mennonites with an “enormous transformative
potential for the future interactions of the global
community” (p.255). In this view, consistent cross-cultural sensitivity,
deep humility, communal support and a commitment to servanthood – seen in
the examples in this book – have contributed to the long-term
effectiveness of many Mennonite peace efforts around the world and to a
radical alternative to the immediacy and high profile focus that dominates
many peace initiatives today.
Steve Schroeder University of British Columbia

4b) Wolfgang Gerlach, And the Witnesses were silent. The Confessing Church
and the Persecution of the Jews. (translated and edited by Victoria
J.Barnett). Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. 2000. 304pp
One of the most striking developments of the past five decades has been the
increase of concern for the victims of violence and persecution in the
public consciousness of most countries of the western world. The shock of
the Holocaust, perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jewish people, and
subsequent reflection on the enormity of these crimes, was undoubtedly a
major contributory factor. This shift in attitude has since developed in
three significant ways. First, geographically: today persecution of
individuals or groups, and violations of their human rights, anywhere in the
world arouses concern globally – a process greatly assisted by the advent of
modern technologies, especially television. Second, intentionally: this
awareness of a moral duty is no longer limited to one’s own kith and kin, or
nationality, or race, but is recognized as a universal obligation to all
women, men and children of every society. Third, this consensus is no longer
propagated solely by churches and synagogues as part of their system of
religious belief, but rather is acknowledged as an ethical imperative for
all on humanitarian grounds, based on such secular expressions as the United
Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, first published in 1948.
This process has also affected historians. Scholars writing about the events
of the Holocaust have increasingly adopted such a stance in line with this
presentist perception of the need and duty to uphold human rights in the
face of totalitarianism. They are therefore highly critical of the groups
commonly described as “bystanders”, i.e. those agencies and individuals who
at the time failed to take sufficient and effective measures to prevent, or
at least to deter, the persecutions and mass murders of so many innocent
Jewish victims. In recent years this approach has been notable in a number
of studies of the responses of the Christian churches to the impact of
National Socialism. In recent months, for example, no less than nine books
have appeared analyzing the policies of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust,
the majority of which have found his conduct of affairs to be lacking in
courage to deal with this moral outrage.
On the Protestant side, this same approach is found in this well-researched
study by Wolfgang Gerlach, a pastor of the German Evangelical Rhineland
Church. After depicting the generally pejorative attitudes in the German
Evangelical Church towards the Jews, Gerlach takes particular issue with
those of his colleagues who, in the post-war period, had prided themselves
on their opposition to Nazism. This group, the Confessing Church, to be
sure, right from 1933 resolutely fought off the attempts of their rivals,
the so-called “German Christians”, to align the Evangelical Church with Nazi
ideology and practice. They were successful, at least in part, in defending
both the autonomy and doctrine of their church from pro-Nazi infiltration.
But on the subject of the Jews they were silent.
The Confessing Church’s most significant statement of theological
principles, the famous Barmen Declaration of 1934, made no mention of the
Jewish issue. And even the initial statement of the immediate post-war
period, the notable Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt of October 1945, did not
specify the Church’s failure to protest against the mass extermination of
the Jewish people at the hands of German perpetrators.
The Confessing Church, as a whole, and especially its leaders, were
conservative nationalists, who saw themselves as the true upholders of
Luther and his traditions. This included a virulent anti-Judaism on
theological grounds, following some of Luther’s most pernicious remarks late
in his career. Added to this, these men shared much of the social
antisemitism current in Germany in the 1920s, especially the dislike of the
Jews from eastern Europe, whose influence was widely believed to be morally
and nationally dangerous. Leaders like Otto Dibelius, one of the strongest
opponents of the “German Christians”, and later to serve as Bishop in Berlin
for twenty years after the war, or Martin Niemoeller, who was to suffer
nearly eight years of concentration camp incarceration, were nonetheless
unsympathetic to the Jews, even though they rather reluctantly accepted the
need to defend the interests of the Christians of Jewish origins.
But the fate of the few “non-aryan” Evangelical pastors showed how limited
was the support given by the Confessing Church, as can be seen in the events
in Hanover, where Bishop Marahrens notably failed to support his clergy when
they were driven out of office by Nazi pressure.
The result was that the Confessing Church had no theology to hand which
could have led them to mobilize assistance for the Nazis’ prime victims.
Even after the shocking events of the Crystal Night in 1938, there was no
significant paradigm shift. It was only long after the war that a more
positive pro-Jewish theological stance was adopted. At the time, these
churchmen were reluctant to become involved, or saw no obligation to those
not belonging to their faith. They also wanted to remain staunchly loyal to
their government in all secular matters. Many believed the Nazi propaganda
that the Jews deserved their fate.
Nevertheless there were individual and heroic incidences of defiance, such
as the extraordinary help given in Wuerttemberg to Jews who had had to go
underground. Max Kracauer and his wife, for example, were steered for
eighteen months through sixty-one “safe” houses, mainly Confessing Church
rectories, until the Americans arrived in 1945. Such expressions of
humanitarian solidarity, however, remained isolated.
In the aftermath, and especially after fifty years, it is impossible to
judge how far the atmosphere of apprehension and downright fear dictated the
caution and cowardice of the Confessing Church. But Gerlach supplies a
plethora of documentation which shows how far even these churchmen were
deluded in their thinking, and still at the end of the war were striving to
reconcile their theological and national loyalties. Unfortunately neither
left room for the Jews. Gerlach’s final verdict is bitingly critical:
The documents available establish that the Confessing Church regarded the
Jewish question as annoying and burdensome and treated it dilatorily. The
church’s protracted handling of the Jewish question encouraged the state’s
persecution of the Jews. The Confessing Church’s dogmatic solution to the
Jewish question in 1939 and 1940 fostered the Evangelical Chancery’s
rigorous solution in 1941 [to exclude the Jews from church fellowship] – and
ultimately, the Nazi state’s Final Solution. (p. 236)
The original German version of this study was first written in 1970, but was
refused publication in Germany on the grounds that it defamed so many of the
post-war church leaders and their “heroic” version of the German Church
Struggle against Nazism. Not until 1987 did it appear in Germany. This
English version has been excellently edited and translated by Victoria
Barnett, who is well known for her similarly fine services to Bethge’s
biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But in the meantime, much of the material
has become familiar to English-speaking readers through Richard Gutteridge’s
scholarly treatment “Open thy mouth for the dumb! The German Evangelical
Church and the Jews, 1879-1950”, which appeared in Oxford in 1976. Ms
Barnett has appended a useful note on other sources, both in German and
English, which will be of help to those not familiar with the details of
this lamentable story.
JSC

4c) Andreas Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.B.Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000.
The nature of the relationship between Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
has long been a subject of heated debate amongst theologians and Church
historians. No matter whether the interest is in the field of dogmatic
theology or political praxis, the precise scope of both mutuality and
disagreement between the two men has remained uncertain. Some have argued
that Bonhoeffer regarded Barth in much the same way that Barth regarded
Kierkegaard-as a necessary starting-point from whom it was necessary
nevertheless to diverge. Others have suggested that Barth continued to stand
as mentor for Bonhoeffer even after their celebrated dispute in October 1933
over Bonhoeffer’s exodus to England and their argument over the right
response to the so-called Aryan Paragraph. Clearly, there were differences
between the two, both theologically and politically. But do these
differences outweigh the numerous points of convergence? Is the most
significant aspect of their relationship defined by where they parted, or by
where they came together? And in what did Barth act as Bonhoeffer’s teacher,
and where was it the opposite? These are the questions raised by Andreas
Pangritz in this new monograph.
The principal question posed by Pangritz is what precisely Bonhoeffer meant
when he accused Barth-and, perhaps more pointedly, the Confessing Church
(especially as embodied by Hans Asmussen)-of a “positivism of revelation”.
This becomes especially pertinent when, in later stages of the book,
Pangritz notes that for the young Bonhoeffer in Berlin, revelatory
positivism was a virtue and not a vice of theological construction and one,
moreover, of which Barth did not possess enough! Much has been said about
this nebulous charge, and it remains the subject of intense controversy. Of
equal significance is whether Bonhoeffer thought that the Barthian
positivism of revelation heralded the end of the line of any fruitful
discussion between the two theologians, or whether in fact it was no more
than an argument within the same school. The substance of Pangritz’s book
strongly suggests the latter.
Pangritz begins his argument by locating Bonhoeffer’s accusation within the
context of his commitment to an ‘arcane discipline’, that is, a belief that
the mysteries of the Christian faith be kept pure. According to Bonhoeffer,
Barth’s dogmatic approach-which effectively entailed a ‘take it or leave it,
all or nothing’ attitude to doctrinal issues-was a violation of these
mysteries. Thus Bonhoeffer’s accusation was a warning ‘against the danger of
saying too much'(p.114) and in consequence profaning the mysteries. This was
especially true for the doctrines of the virgin birth and the Trinity which
Bonhoeffer wanted to rescue from credal formalization. And yet even in
prison when these accusations began to surface, the young Lutheran remained
deeply indebted to Barth’s theological endeavours. Moreover, Pangritz shows
that behind the polemical charges, stood a long-standing relationship
between the two men that was characterized by a constant ebb and flow of
agreement and disagreement. Thus, it is Pangritz’s conviction that, in order
to fully understand why the accusation of a ‘positivism of revelation’
occurred when it did, and on what theological grounds, it is necessary to
re-trace the pathway of the relationship that existed between Barth and
Bonhoeffer over the twenty years from 1924-5 until Bonhoeffer’s death.
Bonhoeffer’s first encounter with Barth’s theology was in 1924-25 when he
was a student of Harnack in Berlin. Pangritz explores Bonhoeffer’s earliest
writings to argue that in his seminar papers of this time, Bonhoeffer
substantially agrees with Barth, even to the extent of advocating a
Calvinistic incapax. It is only in his doctoral and habilitation
dissertations (Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being respectively) that
Bonhoeffer begins to express the typical Lutheran reservation against the
Extra Calvinisticum. There is a particular concern over the Barthian
approach to ethics. In Bonhoeffer’s view, Barth’s emphasis on the majesty of
God was a formalization of God’s freedom which threatened to veil the extent
to which ‘the Word became flesh and, in Christ, exists as community’ (p.28).
However, even here the critiques of Barth’s programme are contained within
the context of an excited enthusiasm for the Barthian intent. That the two
dissertations of 1927 and 1929 contain strong criticisms of Barth’s attempt
to valourise the sovereignty of God should thus not be taken as illustrative
of a fundamental dispute. Rather, Pangritz suggests that it was precisely
because Bonhoeffer felt so close to Barth that he explored the differences
between them so resolutely. Indeed, by a process of mediation and advocacy,
Bonhoeffer was attempting to explain Barth’s programme and render it
acceptable to a Berlin faculty that regarded it as both nonsensical and
profane. In Pangritz’s words, ‘Barth remains the standard’ for Bonhoeffer
(p.25).
This enthusiasm for Barth was strengthened, according to Pangritz, after the
first face-to-face meeting of the two in July 1931. Barth’s theological
revolution which prioritized the logos theou as the one true object of
theology was, for Bonhoeffer, a new way of reading Scripture-not a
post-World War One psychosis, but rather a genuine listening to the Word of
God that no one in Berlin was even attempting (pp.35-36). However, in spite
of these far-reaching agreements, Pangritz is at pains the stress that
fundamental differences opened up between Barth and his pupil, most notably
in the field of ethics. For Bonhoeffer, echoing his dissertations, Barth was
ethically too soft. Barth provided ethical parameters, but not ethical
principles or concrete foundations. Indeed, Pangritz notes that in his
search for a revelational base for ethical action, Bonhoeffer felt abandoned
by Barth.
Curiously, Pangritz shows that through the thirties, the Kirchenkampf served
to highlight both the agreements and the differences. While divergent on
matters of Church politics (and hence Bonhoeffer’s exodus to London), they
remained firmly together on the side of an unconditional opposition that was
embraced only reluctantly by the rest of the Confessing Church. Where they
differed theologically was again in the realm of ethics. As Bonhoeffer put
together his ideas for Nachfolge (Cost of Discipleship), he turned to the
Sermon on the Mount for ethical concreteness. Perhaps not surprisingly,
Pangritz notes that in this respect, ‘Barth did not take [Bonhoeffer] far
enough’ (p.53). On the other hand, what cannot be said of this divergence is
that it represented a confessional conflict between Lutheranism and
Calvinism along the lines of Bonhoeffer’s Act and Being. What was becoming
crucial for Bonhoeffer at this time was the recognition, in light of the
Barmen Declaration, that Lutherans and Reformed speak with one voice against
the Nazi tyranny.
As the war years progressed, Barth and Bonhoeffer found themselves even more
closely in tune with one another when it came to the need for resistance.
True, they differed in how they thought resistance should best be offered,
but of the need for it there was neither doubt nor quarrel. What is most
interesting about this is that both men were writing sections on ethics at
the same time during these years (Barth for his CD II/2, and Bonhoeffer for
his fragmentary Ethics) and that, unlike Bonhoeffer’s earlier reservations,
both were in substantial agreement. Pangritz considers that Bonhoeffer gave
practical demonstration of Barth’s call for tyrannicide (the Gifford
lectures of 1938, published as The Knowledge of God and the Service of God).
Further, Bonhoeffer seems clearly to have relied on both Barth’s 1919
Tambach lecture and Rechfertigung und Recht from 1938 to give clarity to his
own work on ethics (pp.63, 65). Thus, Pangritz can say with some confidence
that Bonhoeffer’s later accusation against Barth was in no sense a direct
continuation of previously-held disagreements. Their similarity of ethical
and political praxis in the war years suggests, rather, that the charge of
‘positivism of revelation’ was something quite novel in the relationship
between the two.
Having established with scholarly acumen the discontinuity between
Bonhoeffer’s early questions to Barth and the later accusation of positivism
of revelation, Pangritz closes his study with a consideration of the extent
to which the charge was indeed valid. He surmises that Bonhoeffer’s
accusation was provoked by his reading of Barth’s Church Dogmatics II/2, in
particular the doctrine of election. While in substantial agreement with
Barth’s so-called ‘triumph of grace’ (G.C. Berkouwer), Bonhoeffer was also
concerned that there was a ‘missionary consciousness’ (p.124) in Barth’s
thought that threatened to override God’s sovereign concern for the
‘religionless world’ and thus do an injustice to the biblical witness. In
particular, Pangritz finds evidence of this in Barth’s attitude towards
Israel. Had Barth been more prepared to acknowledge the integrity of
Israel’s independent existence, he would also have given more hermeneutical
weight to the world without God. Conversely, Barth’s unwillingness to see
the religionless world ‘come of age’ as having autonomous integrity is
mirrored in his negative characterization of Israel. Pangritz has perhaps
been unduly harsh on Barth at this point, but the significance of the
differences between Barth and Bonhoeffer on this issue is nonetheless made
clear.
The upshot, however, is that the Bonhoefferian critique was not the German
theologian’s definitive summation of Barth’s doctrinal agenda, even if it
was, by virtue of his martyrdom, his own last word. Pangritz makes clear in
the last section of the book that even if the charge of ‘revelatory
positivism’ can be upheld, it was not, at least for Bonhoeffer, an accurate
picture of Barth’s overall theology. Indeed, when one looks at his Humanity
of God lecture and his ‘doctrine of lights’ (CD IV/3), there are substantial
points of contact between Barth and Bonhoeffer’s notion of the religionless
world that emerge in Barth’s later works. In these loci, the togetherness of
God and humanity is stressed, and allowance is made for true words about God
to be found even outside the Church (p.135). Perhaps here, we see an
indication of Barth now being taught by his old pupil.
Thus, Pangritz’s conclusion is that the differences between the two men over
a late and undefined accusation by one of them must not be taken as evidence
of a complete break, nor as proof that their relationship had always been
stormy. Rather, when taken as a whole, the remarkable partnership that
developed between Barth and Bonhoeffer must be regarded as one of the most
fruitful dialogues in modern theological history-and, moreover, one from
which there is still much for the Church of the 21st Century to learn. Mark
Lindsay, University of Western Australia

5) Journal articles:
a) Richard Steigmann-Gall, Apostasy or religiosity? The cultural meanings of
the Protestant vote for Hitler. in Social History, Vol 25, no 3, October
2000.
This sprightly essay looks at the reasons why Protestants in Germany should
have voted for Hitler, especially in 1933. Steigmann-Gall argues that
previous attempts to classify Nazi voters by occupation, class origin or
gender are inadequate, but that the ethos of Protestantism in the previous
decades made this group particularly likely to be supporters of Hitler. He
does not however give any explanation as to why a significant opposition
movement within the Church arose so quickly and refused to be intimidated.
Nor does he attempt to give any weight to theology.
b) Shun-Hing Chan, Nationalism and religious Protest in Hong Kong Protestant
churches, in Religion, State and Society, Vol 28, no. 4, December 2000, p
359-84.

A survey of the relationship between politics and religion in post-colonial
Hong Kong in the period 1998-2000
c) Mario Giovanelli, The 1984 Covenant between the Republic of Italy and the
Vatican: a retrospective analysis after 15 years, in Journal of Church and
State, Vol 42, no. 3, Summer 2000, p. 529ff. Reviews the present state of –
cordial – relations between these former opponents.
d) Gerhard and Renate-Maria Besier, Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Request in
recognition as a Corporation under Public Laws in Germany: Background,
Current Status and Empirical Aspects, in Journal of Church and State, Vol
43, no. 1, Winter 2001, pp35-48
A brief but helpful account of the long history of prejudice and persecution
by the dominant elements in Germany of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which
continue to defame them and deny them public law status. The authors present
a favourable report on the J.Ws in Germany.

With every best wish
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

Newsletter- April 2001- Vol. VII, no. 4 

Dear Friends,

Contents:
1) On writing Church History
2) Book reviews: a) ed.Schjorring, et al., History of the Lutheran World
Federation
b) Zucotti, The Vatican and the Holocaust
c) ed. Denzler and Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Theologische Wissenschaft im
Dritten Reich
3) An Easter Hymn

1) “That historians should their own country a break, I grant you, but not
so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes
made by writers out of ignorance, and which anyone finds difficult to avoid.
But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country
or our friends or to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and
hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to and critical of
historians, and they in turn should be constantly on their guard.” Polybius,
2nd Century B.C.
“Church history provides an important means of understanding the Christian
people and their Church, since, if it is willing to use the historical
critical method, it thereby reveals where Christians have been and gives
them some important clues about where they are going. The picture it
reveals, if it is striving to be critical as well as objective, does not
always please. Shadows are part of all people and the institutions they
create. Institutional shadows can be ignored or deliberately concealed, but
the price is a heavy one, for ultimately such studied ignorance weakens and
even kills the human spirit, which in turn fosters apathy and finally
institutional irrelevance. In following such an argument, there are church
historians who would insist that we must always avoid making “moral
judgments” about what happened in the past. However, if being a church
historian means avoiding “moral judgments” about the past, then, as a
profession, it must surely relinquish its claim of having anything of much
importance to teach to the present or future generations. However, having
the courage to critically examine and accept the shadow can provide the
human spirit with a new sense of unity, hope and compassion and the
possibility of individual and institutional reconciliation, reform and
renewal. Vincent J. McNally
“Let nothing untrue be said, and nothing true be unsaid”: Pope Leo XIII
“Truth may be painful for the Church, but untruth is even more so”: Klaus
Scholder

2a) ed. J.H.Schjorring, P.Kumari, N.Hjelm, From Federation to Communion. The
History of the Lutheran World Federation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1997,
552pp
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment in 1947, the Lutheran
World Federation commissioned the distinguished Danish church historian,
Professor Jens Holger Schjorring, along with two colleagues, one from Madras
and one from Philadelphia, to produce a record of the developments in these
decades within the Lutheran world family. The result is an informative,
thoughtful work designed for the intelligent layman, which will hopefully be
read also by non-Lutherans.
The editors wisely refrained from a strictly chronological approach but
rather combined their narrative with an analytical and theologically-based
examination of the various trends within the Lutheran community. The central
thesis is that, over the course of these fifty years, Lutheranism has
changed its ecclesiological self-understanding, and Lutherans have grown
closer together. The result is the emergence of a sense of being no longer
just a federation of nationally-based units, but one communion, deliberately
conscious of the common responsibilities each section feels towards the
others.
At the same time, the L.W.F. understands itself as a movement within the one
ecumenical movement for the sake of the one Church catholic. How these
forces have been reconciled and witnessed to is the principal subject of
this excellently balanced study.
In actual fact, the 1947 creation of the Federation was the second attempt
to bind Lutherans from around the world closer together. In 1923 the
preceding organization, the Lutheran World Convention, had been established,
but the German Lutheran leaders had at that time clearly seen this agency as
a vehicle for their nationalist views, especially their political campaign
against the alleged “injustices” of the Versailles Treaty. This same
nationalism was to lead these men to give their effusive support to the
political goals of Adolf Hitler, even if they also strove to protect their
church’s own autonomy. The failure to overcome this clash of loyalties meant
that in 1945 this old guard, led by Bishop Marahrens of Hanover, was
discredited. A new beginning, a new name, and new faces were required. It
was largely the Scandinavians’ initiative, backed by American money, which
led the new structure to be set up at the university town of Lund in Sweden
in 1947.
The immediate tasks were clear enough: how to tackle four vital areas of
responsibility: rescue for the needy, common initiatives in mission, joint
efforts in theology, and a common response to the ecumenical challenge. The
remarkable fact was that, despite the bitter wounds of the past, and
continuing tactical differences of view, there was united support for a new
organ of international Lutheran fellowship and co-operation. It survived
largely because the new German leadership turned over a new leaf, while the
American and Nordic Lutherans acted with generosity and pastoral care in
their dealings with their former enemies. The result was a common
determination to settle urgent matters on a new and ecumenical basis, and to
rediscover Luther’s heritage in a non-nationalistic framework. At the same
time there was a new awareness of the Lutheran communities on other
continents, placing them within the whole global community of Christian
churches. In contrast to the self-justifying and defensive mentality of the
1920s, this new Federation had a much different and more open dynamic.
Schjorring uses the attractive metaphor of an orchestra to describe the
Federation’s progress. There was always the danger that individual sections,
German,.Nordic, American or the so-called minority churches, would create
disharmony by insisting on playing their own tunes. In view of the absence
of any single strong conductor, Schjorring attributes the success to the
moderating and modulating influence of the Nordic churches. The decision to
establish headquarters in Geneva, alongside the still unborn World Council
of Churches, was clear evidence of the willingness to rise above
nationalistic proclivities and to co-operate ecumenically, even if this
proximity later led to some abrasive quarrels over “turf”. But the
advantages of Geneva’s world-wide view made for a constructive relationship
between the secretariat and the member churches, allowing for both
uniformity and pluriformity within the Lutheran family. There were, to be
sure, moments of shrill discord, but also times of unforgettable melody and
rich harmony.
Schjorring’s third chapter describes how the resources of the Federation
were mobilized, first to undertake relief and reconstruction programmes in
Europe, and then, in the 1960s, almost seamlessly were extended to meet some
of the even greater and continuing needs on other continents. This was the
period of European de-colonization. The churches were among the leaders in
seeking to hand over responsibilities to their local adherents, and
accepted, sometimes readily, sometimes reluctantly, the change in
relationships such a step involved. The Lutherans were perhaps fortunate
that the war-time expulsion of so many German missionaries had made their
daughter churches more self-reliant. Schjorring could possibly have made a
few comparisons with other churches in Africa and Asia undergoing the same
process in order to show how well the Lutherans fared.
The growth of these newer self-reliant indigenous churches in the Lutheran
family necessitated a change in the understanding of mission. Western
missionary paternalism was replaced by a recognition of the autonomy and
independence of the local churches on all six continents. It was the
foundation for a world-wide koinonia. And after 1970 the structures of the
LWF sought to reflect the desire of these younger churches to participate as
decision makers and full partners rather than as mere recipients of western
benevolence. At the same time, these younger churches readily accepted the
responsibility of mission, and indeed have frequently succeeded in
contributing new emphases and enthusiasms. But, as is here made clear, the
LWF’s structural changes were often the sources of internal controversy. The
historic European and North American missionary societies were obliged to
adapt to a new and as yet untried stance. Again, some comparisons with other
churches’ experience would have been welcome.
These striking political and ecclesial changes necessitated new theological
reflection. Schjorring’s thoughtful chapter on the course of Lutheran
theological deliberation shows how the traditional task of handing on past
insights had to be matched to new and often radical challenges. Finding a
balance has not been easy. The shadow of Luther himself, of the Reformation,
and of northern Europe loomed large; but gradually a wider vision prevailed
with a new attention to the concerns of the younger churches and their
special ethical problems. At the same time, the older churches have been
called to a new understanding of their political responsibilities in
society, thus remedying the deficiency of the 1940s. Particularly
interesting is the discussion of how the LWF applied this wider vision when
dealing with the issue of apartheid. Undoubtedly this paved the way for a
greater sense of communion between all sections of the Lutheran family.
The final section of the book contains a narrative of the eight Assemblies
of the LWF between 1947 and 1990, as well as short biographies of the
Presidents and General Secretaries during this period. This information will
be useful for reference purposes. Together with the analysis outlined above,
the whole work can be commended to a wide readership, as a stimulating
record of the life and witness of this section of the Christian Church.
JSC (With apologies for the belatedness of this review).

2b) Susan Zuccotti, Under his very windows. The Vatican and the Holocaust in
Italy.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, $29.95.
(This review is reprinted from the New York Times Book Review, 4 Feb 2001)

In the last three years the papacy’s role in World War II, and above all its
response to the Holocaust, has come in for fresh scrutiny. In part this is
because the process for canonizing Pope Pius XII, begun nearly 40 years ago,
is now, it seems, heading toward some sort of conclusion. In part it is
because of pronouncements made by the Vatican. In 1998 the Holy See’s
Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews issued a statement entitled
”We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” in which it expressed ”deep . .
. regret” for ”the errors and failures of those sons and daughters of the
church” who had done less than they should to oppose or mitigate Nazi
atrocities. Last spring, in Israel, squaring up to the issue of Roman
Catholicism’s historic anti-Judaism, Pope John Paul II declared that ”the
Catholic Church . . . is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution
and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any
time and in any place.”

”Under His Very Windows,” Susan Zuccotti’s third book about the Holocaust,
comes hot on the heels of John Cornwell’s ”Hitler’s Pope” (which makes a
case for the prosecution) and Ronald J. Rychlak’s ”Hitler, the War, and the
Pope” (for the defense). Zuccotti is firmly in the prosecution camp. Her
aim is to show that whatever help was given to the Jews by the Catholic Church
during the war resulted almost entirely from spontaneous acts by courageous
individuals — priests, monks and nuns, and occasionally prelates — and not
from any interventions by the Vatican. The argument that Pius XII worked
tirelessly behind the scenes for the Jews (an idea already circulating by
the end of the war, and endorsed in the 1960’s by Pinchas E. Lapide, an Israeli
diplomat who calculated that the pope was responsible, directly or
indirectly, for saving 860,000 Jewish lives) is dismissed as myth.

Zuccotti makes her case strongly. She charts the near-total silence of both
Pius XI and Pius XII in the face of the Italian anti-Jewish laws of 1938,
underlining how the Vatican intervened only on specific issues such as
interracial marriages and converts to Catholicism. She looks at the
assistance given by the church to internees in Italy after June 1940 and
concludes that ”the Holy See had done nothing more for Jewish internees
than for non-Jews, and that was little enough.” She examines in detail how much
the Vatican knew about the Final Solution, and when, and suggests, like
others before her, that while the full magnitude of the tragedy may have
been unclear, the pope and his senior officials had plenty of reliable
information and that from 1942 they ”knew and believed a great deal about the
exterminations.” In the light of this, she says, the fact that Pius made
just two vague public references in the war to those who were suffering on
account of ”their nationality or descent” (using the neutral word stirpe
rather than razza) was wholly reprehensible.

Zuccotti then looks at the plight of Jews in Italy from the time of the
Italian armistice in September 1943, when the Germans took direct control of
north and central Italy, to the end of the war. She examines the harrowing
events surrounding the Rome roundup of Jews by the Nazis in October 1943 and
the deafening silence of the pope. She then explores the efforts made by the
church in Rome and northern Italy to assist those Jews who had managed to
elude the Nazis. There is a good deal of fresh and often fascinating
material here, drawn from local archives and from interviews by the author with
survivors. Zuccotti’s main point is to show that the many instances of Jews
being sheltered or assisted by clerics were not due in any way to Pius.

This is a serious and well-researched book that certainly raises yet more
questions about the conduct of the papacy in World War II. But is it good
history? For all its scholarship, it feels driven by a remorseless desire to
find wanting. Only in the conclusion does Zuccotti face what for the
historian must be the most important question: not so much the fact of
silence or relative silence, but how that silence is to be understood and
interpreted. Credit is given in places; but for the most part the text is a
litany of phrases like ”it was not enough,” ”that was all,” ”it was
very little,” ”lamentable,” ”he was wrong,” ”should have” — phrases that
repeatedly raise questions about the author’s intellectual, as well as
moral, vantage point. All historians make judgments, but their first duty is surely
to try to understand. Zuccotti condemns, but offers little new insight into
why the Vatican and Pius acted as they did.

Part of the problem lies with shortage of material. The only Vatican papers
available for the war years are the 11 volumes published by the Vatican
between 1965 and 1981. Accordingly, it is hard to gauge the complex
interplay of political and moral considerations that necessarily informed papal
actions. Also, and perhaps crucially, Pius himself remains elusive: he was
solitary, secretive and autocratic, more given to praying than confiding in
others or committing private thoughts to paper. But even if more material
becomes available, reconstructing the moral and emotional atmosphere out of
which the genocidal atrocities of the war grew, as well as the silences of
the pope, would be extremely hard. It is easy with hindsight to dismiss
certain fears or hopes as misplaced. At the time they were real.

Like Cornwell, Zuccotti is keen to highlight the traditional anti-Judaism of
the Catholic Church; and while she does not go as far as Cornwell in
declaring that Pius was at heart an anti-Semite who believed that the Jews
had brought their own fate upon themselves, we find ourselves being nudged
quite firmly in this direction. The available evidence, however, does not
warrant this. That strong prejudices against the Jews existed in Catholic
circles is beyond doubt, and that these were shared in some measure by Pius
is certain. But prejudices of this kind were sadly common in Europe in the
early 20th century, and not just among Catholics. Moreover, there is a vast
chasm between cultural and religious anti-Judaism and racist anti-Semitism.
Pius’s reticence in the face of the Holocaust, as of many other atrocities
in the war, probably arose from a complex amalgam of political, moral and
religious considerations, interlaced with uncertainty and fear. In what
measure exactly these various elements worked to inform his decisions we may
never know.
Christopher Duggan is a historian at the University of Reading in England.
His books include ”A Concise History of Italy.”

N.B. A new journal article which takes issue with the above book, as well as
other books critical of Pius XII, such as Michael Phayer’s The Catholic
Church and the Holocaust 1930-1965 (reviewed here December 2000), has been
written by a leading American scholar, Rabbi David G.Dalin. This appears in
The Weekly Standard Magazine, February 26th 2001, Vol 6, number 23. It is
also available on the website:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_23_01/dalin_bkart_6_23_o1.asp
At the end of this 13 page article, David Dalin comes to the following
conclusion:
“There is a disturbing element in nearly all the current work on Pius.
Except for Rychlak’s Hitler, the War and the Pope, none of the recent
books – from Cornwall’s vicious attack to McInerny’s uncritical defence – is
finally about the Holocaust. All are about using the sufferings of the Jews
fifty years ago to force changes upon the Catholic Church today. It is this
abuse of the Holocaust that must be rejected.”

2c) ed. Georg Denzler and Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Theologische
Wissenschaft im “Dritten Reich”. Ein oekumenisches Projekt. (Arnoldshainer
Texte 110) Frankfurt-am-Main: Haag and Herchen 2000, 187 pp.

Shortly before her untimely death in December 1999, Leonore
Siegele-Wenschkewitz completed a brief introduction to this collection of
six essays, which her colleague Georg Denzler, emeritus professor from
Bamberg, has brought to publication as one of the series of Arnoldshain
texts, named after the Evangelical Academy near Frankfurt, where Frau
Siegele-Wenschkewitz was the Director.
Both scholars were concerned to fill what they perceived as a lamentable gap
in the historiography of the Protestant and Catholic churches’ stance during
the Third Reich, namely the absence of any comprehensive and comparative
study of the theological faculties during this period.
One reason for this omission was the lacklustre performance of the
theologians of that era. Moreover, since 1945, particularly for the
Catholics, the writing of church history during the past few decades has
been defensive and apologetic. Possibly for this reason, as Professor
Denzler points out, even though nearly a hundred substantial studies have
appeared under the auspices of the Catholic Commission for Church History,
none covers the role of the Catholic theological faculties under Nazism. Nor
has there been any ecumenical willingness to undertake such a project by
theologians of both churches working together.
No one can deny that the theological faculties played an unheroic role in
the Nazi era. Too many of the Protestant faculties came under the leadership
of pro-Nazi activists, such as Emanuel Hirsch in Goettingen. As for the
Catholics, as Denzler points out in his opening chapter, there was no
willingness to challenge the view that the 1933 Reich Concordat had secured
Catholic rights, and in return the professors should uphold the regime. Only
a few took a confrontational stand against the ideology of National
Socialism. Most were silent. Even so, the Gestapo had no doubt about the
pernicious influence of the Catholic theologians and sought every means to
suppress them. Denzler might well have weighed up how much the “smell of
fear” and the certainty of repression prevented any more outspoken
opposition.
On the other hand, Denzler’s second chapter outlines the stance of four
prominent Catholics theologians who openly supported the regime. Karl Adam
was Tuebingen’s most prominent Catholic professor. He threw his weight
behind Hitler as the man who would restore the nation’s health and greatness
by emphasizing its Christian heritage. Hence he could justify the regime’s
antisemitic policies. Michael Schmaus was another leading Catholic seeking
to build bridges between Catholicism and Nazism, mostly because of his
fascination with “volkish” ideas. So too Joseph Lortz of Muenster embraced
the Nazis’ autocratic leadership because of his dislike of all left-wing
tendencies. Not until 1937, after the Papal Encyclical, did he begin to
realize the incompatibility of these loyalties. So, despite his earlier
eagerness for the Nazi cause, he went on to have a lengthy post-war career
in Mainz. And a fourth theologian, the Jesuit Anton Stumm, though much less
well known, was equally ardent in his enthusiasm for Hitler and his dreams
of national glory. Denzler is not only offended by these outspoken and
reactionary attitudes but equally by the veil of silence so carefully drawn
in post-war Germany over these men’s earlier excesses.
A parallel case on the Protestant side was Otto Weber, director of the
Elberfeld School of Reformed Theology, and later Professor in Goettingen. He
was too young to have fought in the war, but, like many of his generation,
eagerly sought a restoration of Germany’s national honour and world status.
Hence in 1933 he saw Hitler as Germany’s saviour, who would give a lead in
overthrowing liberal and humanistic ideas, and so set an example for the
renewal of the Church. Not surprisingly he joined the Nazi Party in May
1933, and a few months later became one of the new Reich Bishop’s Cabinet in
Berlin. But shortly afterwards he began to see the folly of his ways, and
gave up this office in favour of teaching reformed theology in Goettingen.
In 1945 he made a full apology for his mistakes, was reconciled to Europe’s
leading reformed theologian,. Karl Barth, and continued to teach until his
death in 1964. The author of this chapter, Vicco von Buelow has since
completed a massive biography, published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in
Goettingen.
More problematic was the career of Johannes Leipholdt, Professor of New
Testament in Leipzig for forty-three uninterrupted years, 1916-1959. Dr
Siegele-Wenschkewitz analyses his extensive popular publication record
throughout these years and shows how the political changes affected his
stance. In the Weimar republic he portrayed Jesus as a loyal Jew, true to
his own tradition. In the Nazi era, however, Leipholdt stressed Jesus the
opponent of Judaism, and hence could repeat the Christian stereotypical
denigration of the Jews. After 1945, he emphasized Jesus’ universal mission,
derived from Greek ideas, and so again downplayed Judaism. Since such a
stance was approved by the communist regime in East Germany, he was able to
maintain his position in Leipzig, and even to become a member of the People’
s Parliament. A careerist, or a cautious scholar careful not to expose
himself? The question is left open.
Oliver Arnhold describes the scandalous views of the extreme pro-Nazi
Protestant theologians from Thuringia, who believed that no one should be
entrusted with spiritual leadership in the new Germany who did not have
“national socialist flesh, national socialist blood, national socialist
spirit, and national socialist longings”. Attempts by more moderate
theologians to condemn such heretical and un-Biblical distortions, and to
exclude their proponents from the church administrations, only widened the
rift. The Thurigians retaliated by accusing these dry-as-dust and
reactionary scholars of missing the boat, of failing to recognize the
greatness of Adolf Hitler, and of isolating the church in an outdated
ghetto. Trusting in the backing of the Nazi Party leadership, these zealots
steered straight for confrontation. The result was that the Evangelical
Church was even more divided, the Nazi government lost interest in trying to
force the church into subjection, the Reich Church Minister was totally
discredited, and no effective resistance to the Nazis’ secular goals was
mounted.
Patricia von Papen contributes a well-researched chapter on the career of a
Nazi intellectual, Wilhelm Grau. Born in 1910, in Catholic Bavaria, Grau was
finishing his studies when the Nazis came to power. His thesis on the
expulsion of the Jews from Regensburg in 1519, in which he praised the city
fathers for their stand against the perfidious Jews, had obvious
contemporary relevance. Not surprisingly Grau quickly jumped on this popular
bandwagon and was soon enlisted as a writer for the new Reich Institute for
the History of the New Germany. He was employed in providing justifications
from history for the Nazis’ fanatical antisemitism. But subsequent quarrels
with the egotistical Director, Walter Frank, led to his dismissal and
transfer to the staff of the chief Nazi ideologue, Rosenberg. By the middle
of the war, he had come to adopt Rosenberg’s thesis that not only the Jews,
but also the Christian churches, endangered the future health of the German
Volk – a not uncommon view in such circles. Patricia von Papen has
meticulously examined all of Grau’s highly ephemeral publications, and
indeed even interviewed him in his old age. She does not however disclose
whether he changed his views after 1945, or what lessons he learned from his
over-enthusiastic endorsement of this pernicious ideology. Nor is it
explained why Grau was included in this volume, since he was never a
theologian, or a significant leader of church opinion.
The tone of all the contributions in this book is accusatory. While such
indignation is objectively justified, it is unclear what it hopes to
achieve. No theologian in Germany today is an “eliminationist antisemite”.
Hammering more nails into this coffin would seem questionable.
JSC

3) An Easter Hymn

Alles Leben stroemt aus Dir
Und durchwallt in tausend Baechen
Alle Welten – Alle Sprechen
Deiner Haende Werk sind wir

Dass ich fuehle, dass ich bin,
Dass ich Dich Du Grosser! kenne
Dass ich froh Dich Vater nenne:
O, ich sinke vor Dich hin.

Welch ein Trost, und unbegrenzt
Und unnennbar ist die Wonne,
Dass gleich Deiner milden Sonne
Mich dein Vateraug umglaenzt!

Deiner Gegenwart Gefuehl
Sei mein Engel der mich leite,
Dass mein schwacher Fuss nicht gleite
Nicht sich irre vor dem Ziel.

Old Appenzeller Hymn

With best wishes
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- March 2001- Vol. VII, no. 3 

Dear Friends,
Congratulations are due to Kyle Jantzen, Assistant Professor of Church
History, Canadian Theological Seminary, Regina, Saskatchewan on the
successful completion of his PhD from McGill University. The abstract of his
thesis appears below.
Since last month marked the 95th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, we bring you some items on his career as possibly the best known
German theologian of the 20th century.

Contents:
1a) Notice of session “Remembering Bonhoeffer and the Church Struggle”,
Scholars’ Conference, Philadelphia, March 2001
Notice of Bonhoeffer Symposium, Boston, April 23rd, 2001
b) Bonhoeffer Session, American Academy of Religion, November 2000
c) review of Bonhoeffer – Agent of Grace”.
2) PhD Abstract: Kyle Jantzen, Protestant clergymen and church-political
conflict in National Socialist Germany
3) Journal articles:

1a) “Remembering Bonhoeffer and the Church Struggle” 31st Annual Scholars’
Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, March 3rd-6th, St.Joseph’s
University, Philadelphia. A tribute to Bonhoeffer’s biographer, Eberhard
Bethge, will include a video of interviews made by Martin Doblmeier of
Journey Films Inc – the last shortly before Bethge’s death last March. Short
tributes will be paid by Burton Nelson (North Park Theological Seminary),
Pat Kelley (North American Bonhoeffer Society), Victoria Barnett
(independent scholar and translator), Wayne Floyd Jr., (Editor, English
language edition of Bonhoeffer’s Works). Franklin Littell is Convenor.
A Bonhoeffer Symposium will be held at the Boston University School of
Theology, Monday, April 23rd 2001, sponsored by the Boston German Consulate,
Boston University and Fortress Press. Two panels will examine the political,
historical and theological legacy of Bonhoeffer’s life and thought. The film
“Agent of Grace” and a Bonhoeffer documentary will be shown. Confirmed
speakers are Chancellor John Silber of Boston University, Dean Robert
Beville, Clifford Green, Wayne Floyd and Victoria Barnett.
More details available from Dorothee von Arnim at the German Consulate =
boston@germanconsulate.org
b) American Academy of Religion session: “Bonhoeffer, the Jews and Judaism”,
November 19th, 2000 A report by Victoria Barnett
Richard Rubenstein, presenter; Victoria Barnett and Robert Ericksen,
respondents

In some respects, the discussion about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in recent years
has paralleled the ongoing debate about Pius XII. Both are complex figures,
historically and theologically; each has his detractors and defenders. Two
years ago, a petition to declare Bonhoeffer a “righteous gentile” was
submitted to Yad Vashem. That petition was rejected, as was a recent appeal.
The argument about this petition and Yad Vashem’s response became the focus
of the AAR panel. As a participant on this panel, I will declare my own
bias. I believe that part of the problem with most recent discussions about
Bonhoeffer and the Jews is that they focus too much on rendering a
definitive verdict. Was Bonhoeffer a “good guy” or a “bad guy”? While it is
certainly appropriate to make ethical judgments about the behavior of
historical figures, the debates about such judgments often leaves complexity
by the wayside. Indeed I would argue that Bonhoeffer’s most profound work
emerged from the thoughtfulness and courage with which he faced the ethical
demands and consequences of his complex situation.
Richard Rubenstein presented the case for viewing Bonhoeffer as a “righteous
gentile,” not by Yad Vashem’s standards, but in “lowercase,” as it were.
Christian readers of Bonhoeffer’s early theological writings about Judaism
(notably “The Church and the Jewish Question”) often gloss over the genuine
offense and pain these give to Jewish readers. Rubenstein offered a direct
and nuanced response to this essay, noting that the Lutheran heritage that
shaped Bonhoeffer’s theology also led him to fight the introduction of
“Aryan laws” in the church. Taking into account both the striking
anti-Nazism of the entire Bonhoeffer family and Bonhoeffer’s resistance
work, Rubenstein concluded that Bonhoeffer was “unable to extricate himself
from the traditional Christian view of Jews and Judaism,” yet became one of
the few in his church to transcend that tradition to fight Nazism and resist
the state.
While agreeing with many of Rubenstein’s observations, I argued for a
reading of “The Church and the Jewish Question” in its church-historical and
ecumenical context. The purpose of such a contextual reading is not
apologia. Rather, it enables us to trace where Bonhoeffer’s thinking went in
later writings. While Bonhoeffer did not later write explicitly on the
church and the Jews, there are some indications of a real shift in his
thinking about Judaism in his Ethics and Letters and Papers from Prison.
This shift occurs in the context of his reflections on the necessarily
changed role of Christianity in modern secular society. Bonhoeffer’s focus
was always Christianity, not Judaism, and so we may learn more here from his
later writings on church and state.
Robert Ericksen responded by analyzing the search for heroes of the
Holocaust. “Our desire for heroes,” he noted, should be balanced with a
“sense of the magnitude of the disaster.” The Holocaust was made possible by
widespread and terrible complicity among all professions in Germany,
including the ranks of theologians and pastors. Quoting Stanley Rosenbaum’s
description of Bonhoeffer as “the best of a bad lot,” Ericksen reminded the
audience of how bad that theological lot actually was in its prejudice
against Jews. In his opposition to Nazism, Bonhoeffer distinguished
himself — yet this may have been despite his theology, not because of it.
Ericksen’s analysis is particularly interesting in light of the chapter,
“Twentieth Century Antiheroism: Camus and Bonhoeffer,” in the recently
published Heroism and the Christian Life, by Brian Hook and Russell Reno.
The consensus of the panel seemed to be that it is less important to declare
Bonhoeffer a “Righteous Gentile” than to continue an honest and open
discussion about his work and its legacy.
Victoria Barnett kindly made available to us the text of her commentary,
which we share with you – somewhat abridged.
The growing attention to Christian complicity in the Holocaust, the long
history of Christian anti-Judaism, and the abysmal failure of many Christian
leaders to withstand Nazism or act on behalf of its victims has led us
Christians to examine both our history and theology more critically. We
re-examine figures such as Bonhoeffer because we want to see where they
stood on this spectrum of behavior. Bonhoeffer is a hero to many Christians
because of his theological writings and early opposition to the Nazi regime,
his role in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, and his execution. They
would like to assume that this means he was also a hero within the context
of the Holocaust.
The resulting problem, however, is that this discussion tends to focus on
Bonhoeffer’s thought and action within a narrow framework. By examining his
life and work purely in terms of its significance for the history of the
persecution and genocide of the Jews, it separates his statements about
Judaism and the Jews from their larger context within the German
Kirchenkampf, thereby leaving out other aspects of Bonhoeffer’s ministry and
thought that might prove relevant here. This leaves us to draw our
conclusions from the rather short list of the relevant writings, anecdotes
and events from Bonhoeffer’s career that make direct mention of the Jews. .
. .
Those who view Bonhoeffer as a hero of the Holocaust argue that these
documents and actions are the foundation for his subsequent resistance,
imprisonment and execution. They conclude that Bonhoeffer’s resistance,
throughout the Nazi era, was grounded in his opposition to the Nazi
persecution of the Jews.
Those who disagree with this interpretation view Bonhoeffer more as part of
the problem than the solution. They concur with the Yad Vashem committee’s
statement that Bonhoeffer’s public record upholds “the traditional Christian
delegitimization of Judaism” and that the only record of his opposition to
the Nazi persecution of the Jews consists of undocumented statements made
privately.
With respect to his 1933 essay, “The Church and the Jewish Question”, I
would argue for an examination of the theological section together with the
political analysis. As I have written elsewhere, the so-called “Jewish
question” actually encompassed a number of political and cultural issues for
Germans at the time. At its core was the question of assimilation and, thus,
in reality it was the “German question” – the search for a German national
and cultural identity, accompanied (as so often in such quests) by prejudice
and the scapegoating of a particular group. Bonhoeffer’s critique of the
resulting ideology, the legitimacy of the new Nazi government, and the
dangers of church accommodation to Nazi ideology quickly placed him on the
radical fringe of the Kirchenkampf, in the view of most German Protestant
leaders. His 1933 essay merged what were originally two separate essays,
which Bonhoeffer combined in the wake of the April 1 boycott of Jewish
businesses in Berlin. The section of the essay that deals with church and
state questions expresses some clear political attitudes, including
Bonhoeffer’s clear sense that the Nazi measures against the Jews were a
violation of their civil rights. He recognized that the Jews in early 1933
were indeed victims; and the church’s responsibility, he wrote, was to “aid
the victims of state action.even if they do not belong to the Christian
community.”
Bonhoeffer’s recognition of Nazi measures as a civil liberties issue was
certainly based, in part, on his firsthand observation of racism and Jim
Crow legislation during his studies in the United States during 1930-31. In
February 1933 he wrote Reinhold Niebuhr of the threat of “gruesome cultural
barbarization, so that here, too, we will have to open a Civil Liberties
Union before long.” In September 1933, Bonhoeffer helped formulate the
anti-racism declaration made by the World Alliance for Promoting
International Friendship through the Churches at its meeting in Sofia,
Bulgaria. Although the Yad Vashem committee, in rejecting this piece of
evidence on behalf of Bonhoeffer, contended that the World Alliance confined
its concern to church members affected by Nazi racial laws, in point of fact
the declaration (in addition to condemning the “Aryan clause” in the church)
explicitly condemns “the treatment that people of Jewish descent and ties
have suffered in Germany. We especially deplore the fact that the state
measures against the Jews in Germany have had such an effect on public
opinion that in some circles the Jewish race is considered a race of
inferior status.” . . .
Bonhoeffer’s thinking along these lines is even more remarkable when
compared with the statements of some other ecumenical leaders at the time
(such as William Paton) who viewed a “rechristianized” Europe as the means
for repairing the damage wrought by Nazism. Bonhoeffer explicitly argues
against this understanding. What is needed, he writes, is not
“rechristianization,” but a rethinking of how Christians understand their
own place in the world. . . . .

Bonhoeffer’s Christology at this point includes a new acknowledgment of the
legitimacy of non-Christians and of the secular state and its institutions.
To the Christian, the worldly order still falls “under the dominion of
Christ,” but this is joined with an affirmation of secular society that
includes members of other religions. . . .
This broader vision underscores the incredible tension that Dohnanyi,
Bonhoeffer, and other resisters felt between their role in helping the
German resistance by seeking allies abroad and their detailed knowledge
about what was happening to the Jews of Europe. And, I would suggest, it
compels us to read Bonhoeffer’s statements, especially his essay “After Ten
Years,” with new eyes. . . .
In the final analysis, Bonhoeffer’s focus was Christianity and its church,
not Judaism. If he changed his mind about Judaism, this occurred within the
context of his rethinking of his own Christian tradition. Yet the radical
conclusions he drew about the future role of Christianity (e.g.,
“religionless Christianity”) are precisely the concepts that open the way
for a deeper respect for, and acceptance of, other religions. By rethinking
the essence of Christianity and its place in the world, and its relationship
to the state, Bonhoeffer laid an essential part of the foundation for how we
Christians view other faiths, and a rethinking of how we live in the world.
Even here, however, the most we can do is tease out where we think he was
moving. We do not know where he would have ended up.

c) The film, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace was repeated in North America on PBS
television on January 18th. In view of this wide audience, and despite the
fact that we printed an insightful review by John Matthews in last July’s
Newsletter, we now reprint a critical review by G.B.Kelly, President,
International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section.
“After I had been informed that Bonhoeffer:Agent of Grace had been chosen
the “Best Film” at the 40th Annual Monte Carlo Television Festival in
February 2000, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to view an
advance copy. My expectations were high. Finally, I was going to view a film
that would do justice to Bonhoeffer, one of my great heroes, a dialogue
partner for the past thirty-six years, and a theologian to whom I have
devoted most of my professional research and publishing.
The actual life story of Bonhoeffer is filled with action, intrigue,
inspiration, romance and behind-the-scenes attempts to bring World War II to
an end and stop the killing on the battlefields and death camps of occupied
Europe. Bonhoeffer was a man of action, a preacher of note, a successful
university teacher, an outspoken ecumenist, an agitator for peace, a critic
of the injustices of a criminal government, a defender of the Jews against
Nazi racism, a pastor involved in a violent conspiracy to assassinate the
head of state, and a martyr who gave his life in the struggle to free his
nation and the world from Adolf Hitler and his evil ideology. How could a
film about such a fascinating person fail? I believed I was in for an
evening of seeing a great story on the screen and, at last, the contentment
of seeing a film that could capture all that Bonhoeffer was and meant to
generations of his countless admirers. Or so I thought!
From the opening scenes in Harlem until the closing scene of a naked
Bonhoeffer walking alone without an SS escort toward a single scaffold, my
emotions ranged from disappointment to irritation that a film so exalted in
the advance publicity should end with so little impact. As a film
consultant, and having read so many bad scripts for a commercial film on the
life of Bonhoeffer, I didn’t think anything could get worse than the scripts
I had already rejected. Unfortunately this film strikes me as being just as
bad, and, in my opinion is inherently flawed by dullness, distortion,
significant omissions, and clumsy editing. One of the most glaring omissions
is the nearly complete absence of Eberhard Bethge from the film, which is
like telling the story of Jean Paul Satre without any mention of Simone de
Beauvoir. The scriptwriter and the director misuse the talents of the
prominent German actor who plays Bonhoeffer by turning him into a figure who
mopes about filled with scruples over whether he should join the conspiracy.
Where is the decisive, outspoken Bonhoeffer whom his students and
seminarians admired for his ability to speak out with force and conviction
about the treatment of the Jews?
At this juncture of the film enter Hans von Dohnanyi who uses mere still
photos and sterile documents of Nazi atrocities (the audience is supposed to
guess the contents) to convince Bonhoeffer to overcome his pastor’s
reticence and join the conspirators. Given that Bonhoeffer was privy to this
information and that this may have weighed on his mind as he decided to use
his energies to oppose Nazi policies, did the process shown on screen have
to be so boring? There were unbelievable horrors perpetrated against the
Jews during this period. To convey the intensity of Bonhoeffer’s opposition
to the victimization of the Jews, the film desperately needed action scenes,
even film clips from the historical record that could graphically depict the
sufferings of an innocent people. Bonhoeffer was neither wavering nor
silent. Yet the film lacks the dramatic scenes of the brutalization and
genocidal persecution of the Jews or scenes depicting the utter ruthlessness
of the Nazi death squads. Bonhoeffer spoke publicly and with vehemence
against Nazi policies and actions. His passion is missing from this film.
Instead, the filmgoer is treated only to monotonous ruminations of
conscience by an indecisive clergyman bearing little resemblance to the real
life Bonhoeffer. Where are the scenes of and reactions to Crystal Night?
Where are Bonhoeffer’s demands for church action to speak out, to aid the
victims and, if necessary, to jam a spoke in the wheel of state? Where are
the exciting challenges of his sermon before the World Alliance of Churches
declaring that “Peace must be dared. It is the great venture.” Instead, this
made-for-television Bonhoeffer is made to say mundane things that are out of
character with the documented and widely known biography. His angry
questions to the Church Synod that weaseled out of the challenge to refuse
to take the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler as a birthday gift to the
Fuehrer are muted. The dramatic words of so many of his sermons and the
incisive power of so many passages of his book on Christian discipleship are
absent. This is a more peaceful, pious Bonhoeffer out of character with the
fiery pastor of the historical record.
Bonhoeffer’s secret mission to Sigtuna, Sweden in 1942 is, likewise,
divested of any of the excitement that attended this moment in which his
role in the resistance movement took on added risk and importance. Where is
the angry demand, amply recorded by Bishop Bell, that Germany make
reparations to the occupied victimized countries of Nazi expansionism?
Bonhoeffer is reduced to a pious churchman lamenting the suffering inflicted
on his people and nation but hardly aroused to the fever pitch of prophetic
outrage and action that marked the real life Bonhoeffer.
What could have been an exciting scene of smuggling Jews out of Germany was
reduced to a more placid advice to the Jewish escapees in question to simply
trust the Abwehr. There seemed to be no attempt by the filmmaker to create
any suspense in those actions so fraught with danger. There are many
liberties taken with this presentation of Bonhoeffer. It is puzzling why no
artistic liberty was taken in the scenes of rescue in order to add some life
to this sluggish film and to recreate the actual risks that people like
Bonhoeffer and his fellow conspirators were taking in saving Jews from the
death camps and attempting to undermine the Nazi regime.
In one of the most poorly directed scenes of the film, Bonhoeffer appears to
be reduced to a pathetic fumbling for words before the relentless
questioning of the Gestapo official, Manfred Roeder, again a strange
falsifying of the historical record and an undermining of the real
personality strengths of Bonhoeffer. What we end up with is an
uninteresting, anxiety-ridden character doing rather ho-hum things until in
prison he is able to be of spiritual comfort to a fellow prisoner. The
exchanges between Roeder and Bonhoeffer are too long and wearying to the
film viewer. There is little of the personality of the Bonhoeffer so evident
in documentary attestations by those who knew him closely and that we find
so well developed in Bethge’s biography. The high point seems to come when
Bonhoeffer becomes man enough to say “no” to an offer from the prosecutor,
Manfred Roeder (given ironically and unbelievably a touch of humanity here
for the sake of the story line!), to negotiate with the allies on behalf of
leading Nazis desirous of saving their own skin – something both inaccurate
and preposterous. [Even worse is the implication that Bonhoeffer was hung
for refusing to go along with this suggestion: Ed] There are, to be sure, a
couple of very touching scenes, such as the prayer shared with a condemned
fellow prisoner and the exchanges with his cell guard. But these hardly
rescue the film from its doldrums.
In sum, this film is bereft of riveting action scenes. It lacks suspense
adequate to capture the imagination of the film audience. The story seems to
operate on the unfounded presumption that the film viewers are familiar
enough with the main character to supply for themselves the missing pieces.
Maria is pretty enough and fetching, but the similarity with the real life
Maria von Wedemeyer stops there, although this dull Bonhoeffer is a good
match for this Maria. This film gives us only a smattering of how and why
his actions are important. With so many expectations, this film is a major
disappointment. The truth of Bonhoeffer’s life was much more absorbing. He
was a man of courage, a man of vision, one of the most significant figures
in the religious history of the twentieth century. This film utterly fails
to convey the personal strengths and character of the man. Nor does it
adequately indicate to the viewer why he has been so admired as a hero of
the German resistance to Hitler and widely honored as a Christian martyr.
Geoffrey Kelly, La Salle University

2) Kyle Jantzen, Protestant clergymen and church-political conflict in
National Socialist Germany: studies from rural Brandenburg, Saxony and
Wurttemberg
This dissertation is a comparison of local church conditions in three German
Protestant church districts during the National Socialist era: the Nauen
district in the Brandenburg Church Province of the Old Prussian Union
Church, the Pirna district in the Saxon Evangelical Land Church and the
Ravensburg district in the Wurttemberg Evangelical Land Church. It focuses
on the attitudes and roles of the pastors, curates and vicars who served in
the primarily rural parishes of these districts, analyses the effect of the
‘national renewal’ movement that accompanied the National Socialist seizure
of power in 1933 upon these parishes, and probes their own attitudes towards
the prevalent religious nationalism of the day. Following a comparison of
the controversies surrounding pastoral appointments in Nauen, Pirna and
Ravensburg, the study examines the nature and intensity of church-political
conflict in each of the districts during the National Socialist era.
Finally, the study closes with a consideration of clerical attitudes towards
the National Socialist euthanasia programme and the antisemitism that led to
the Holocaust. Drawing on official church correspondence at three levels
(parish, district and land church), parish newsletters, accounts of meetings
throughout the period, the study concludes that while these Protestant
clergymen generally shared a common conservative nationalist outlook, the
manifestation of the church struggle in their parishes took diverse forms.
Parishioners in Nauen and especially Pirna (but not Ravensburg) displayed a
high level of interest in their churches in 1933, in part a result of the
strength of the national renewal in their regions. In Nauen, the church
struggle was channeled into the quest for control of pastoral appointments.
In Pirna, the church struggle mirrored the course of events in Saxony as a
whole, and included extreme “German Christians”, radical members of the
Confessing Church and a moderate movement for church peace. In Ravensburg,
“German Christian” pastor Karl Steger dominated local church politics and
fostered pro-National Socialist groups throughout the district. Finally the
study found almost no evidence among clergymen of official or public
engagement with the moral and theological challenges posed by National
Socialist racial policy.

3) Journal articles: Kauders, Catholics, Jews and democratization
Lees, Deviant sexuality and Protestant Conservatives before 1914
Williamson, Christian Conservatives and totalitarianism
Greschat, Tubingen Memorandum von 1961.
3 a)Anthony Kauders, Catholics, the Jews and Democratization in Post-war
Germany, Munich 1945-65, in German History, Vol 18, no 4, 2000 p.461-484.
Kauders convincingly outlines the responses of the largely Catholic
political elite in Munich after the fall of Nazism, and the various
arguments put forward to block or delay the recognition of their complicity
in the Nazi regime, and the acceptance of democratic practices in the
building of a pluralistic society. Not until the end of the 1950s, Kauders
argues, were Catholics ready to accept the new situation. But they still
showed
reluctance to accept the need for Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung, which they
complained “was lumped into the coffee every morning, cooked into the soup
every mid-day, and spread on to the sandwich every evening”.
b) Andrew Lees, Deviant Sexuality and other “Sins”: the views of Protestant
Conservatives in Imperial Germany. in German Studies Review, Vol XXIII, no
3, Oct 2000, 453-76.
After 1870, Germany saw an explosion of rapid urbanization, and consequent
social upheaval to the established patters of morality drawn from a rural
agricultural society.
Protestant clergy who saw themselves as the guardians of social ethics early
on recognized the danger signals and tried to forge new measures to ensure
social control. In the event, the attempt to prolong conservative practices,
especially in the field of sexual morality, were unsuccessful. Denunciation
of such “sins” did little to remedy the conditions of urban overcrowding,
exploitation and poor housing which were really to blame. But the clergy
still clung to the idea that a return to the Gospel, and the propagation of
middle class morality, would cure such failings, and were supported by such
institutions as the Inner Mission. The conservative character of these
appeals from the religious “right” did much to turn the mass of the people
to other creeds, such as Social Democracy.
c) Philip Williamson, Christian Conservatives and the challenge of
totalitarianism, in
English Historical Review, Vol CXV, no 462, June 2000, p 607-42
The inter-war period from 1919-1939 was a particularly difficult time to
discern how Christian values could be applied in the political arena.
Especially in Britain, the shock of the Great War led many Christians to
support a pacifist stance. But to such practising Christian politicians as
the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, or the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax,
the need to balance the rival claims of justice as well as peace, the call
of national preservation as well as international harmony, meant that they
were obliged to seek a more nuanced position. Williamson cogently examines
these dilemmas, and argues in favour of the stance taken, reluctantly but
with Christian sanction, in favour of taking up arms against Germany for the
second time in a generation.
d) Martin Greschat, “Mehr Wahrheit in der Politik”. Das Tuebinger Memorandum
von 1961 in Vierteljahrshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte, Vol 48, no 3, 2000.
p.491ff
Martin Greschat continues his excellent record of publishing articles
dealing with the political stances of the German Evangelical Church by
examining the impact of an important memorandum published in 1961 by some
leading Germans, which called for a more honest approach to West Germany’s
strategic situation. In particular, they appealed for the abandonment of the
nationalistic claims to the lands taken by Poland after 1945, suggesting
that such a renunciation would be a true sign of German acceptance of their
defeat. This move was taken up in the councils of the German Evangelical
Church and became the basis of the outspoken Declaration on the Situation of
the Refugees and the German people’s relationship to its eastern neighbours,
published in 1965. Together these documents prepared the way for the Social
Democratic Party’s change of policy, signaled by Willy Brandt’s later and
spectacular visit to Warsaw.

Best wishes
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- February 2001- Vol. VII, no. 2 

Dear Friends,

Contents:
1) Book reviews: a) Hubert Locke, Learning from History
b) Schaefer, Catholic Church in the GDR; Schmid,Dresden Churches
2) Book notes: Eikel, French Catholics in the Third Reich
3) Journal issues: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, 2000/1
4) New journal: Religion – Staat – Gesellschaft
5) Journal articles

1a) Book reviews:
Hubert Locke, Learning from History. A Black Christian’s Perspective on the
Holocaust. Westport, Conn./London: Greenwood Press 2000 129pp
Hubert Locke is a distinguished Black Christian scholar, and a Dean Emeritus
of the University of Washington, Seattle. His long-felt interest in the
Holocaust was aroused by his recognition of the profoundly disturbing
lessons and implications to be learnt. The experience of growing up Black in
a racially segregated America led him to be aware that the history of Jewish
suffering in Europe “could have been, or, God forbid, could yet be my own
history”. The legacy of the Holocaust is not therefore solely a Jewish
matter.
The ten essays in this sensitive and insightful book are written from a
special perspective, and explore particular aspects of both Jewish and Black
experience, showing both the commonalties as well as the differences. This
is not a work of archival research, but rather an example of valuable,
on-going and percipient reflection. Locke’s Christian point of view makes
him especially aware of the need for humility in the face of the Holocaust
tragedy. “This is a difficult position for scholars and academics; it is a
necessity for Christians”. His objective is eirenical, desirous of finding
common ground between Blacks and Whites, between Jews and Gentiles, between
Christians and Jews above all. All of us, he believes, should learn from
history, and must do so if we are to live in peace in one world.
Locke begins by comparing the history of the Black and Jewish people as mino
rities living within the Western world. Most did not choose to do so, were
subjected to discriminatory laws and practices imposed on them, and remained
essentially aliens in a civilization which prided itself on its pursuit of
liberty, equality and fraternity. But even today integration for these
minorities remains illusory. Their very presence is a constant reminder that
Western civilization is not a grand saga of human triumph. Nor can their
members take their future status for granted. The spectre of the Holocaust
reminds Jews of the fragility of their place in western societies. But
Blacks also know that they exist apart from the mainstream, and are likely
to be treated as marginal by the majority. Locke calls for co-operation
between Jews and Blacks in a constant need to challenge this majority to
live up to its claims of justice and equality.
Despite their separate existence, both Jews and Blacks have similar
histories of exploitation, discrimination and persecution. Both need to
stand guard against the facile optimism so often voiced that such things
belong in the past. “Never again” has become the watchword of many Holocaust
observers. Behind this remark is the fear that it could recur. But all of us
need to reflect on what can happen when racial hatred overwhelms a nation,
and the rest of the world is indifferent to the outcome.
In combating such dangerous forces, Black Americans have for two centuries
borrowed heavily from the Jewish Biblical tradition and have been nurtured
on the notion that their history parallels that of the ancient Israelites.
They frequently share with Jews a social vision designed to advance the
cause of civil rights and social justice. But the issue of identity still
remains. While Jews can in fact choose to renounce their minority status,
one who is Black can never choose not to be so.
At the present time, the success of the Jewish community in North America is
making it difficult to maintain the link with the Holocaust victims of sixty
years ago, or to persuade non-Jews that Jews deserve special consideration
as a result. Some Blacks are particularly suspicious that this is a
misplaced emotion, especially when the fact of their own victimization is
much more pervasive and still felt daily. The Holocaust, so long ago and so
far away, is thus likely to become a non-problem, even for some Jews. But
overcoming this loss of historical consciousness, is a problem for Jews and
others alike.
For sixty years debate has continued as to whether the Holocaust was a
unique event, or to be regarded as the latest outrage in the long history of
man’s inhumanity to man. Locke warns against this latter stance. The Nazi
regime was the most genocidal in world history. By enfolding the Holocaust
indiscriminately in the sordid story of other modern human tragedies, we
could easily fail to learn from its especial history. In particular, one
lesson stands out: the Nazi state was the first to mobilize its entire
resources in a successful attempt to control, and, if desired, to destroy
the life of the individual citizen. It systematically and deliberately
overthrew the moral barriers built up over centuries to preserve the value
of individual life. Instead both bureaucracy and technology were harnessed
for the Nazis’ infamous racial purposes. Once the Nazis had shown that this
could be done, the temptation remains for other tyrannies to do the same. As
Locke says, these are chilling lessons.
Another lesson is to have a chastened view of patriotism. The Nazis’ ability
to cover their crimes behind the cloak of nationalism was matched by the
failure of so many Germans, especially in the churches, to see that
patriotism was not enough. Only a small handful of German Protestants, as
early as 1934, recognized that their first loyalty should be to God, not the
State. “We reject the false doctrine that the State, over and beyond its
special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian
order of human life”. A brave statement, but alas! often compromised under
the pressures of inflated nationalism. Accusations of national disloyalty
kept almost all dissenters in line. And intimidated by incessant propaganda,
these church leaders limited their protests to their own immediate horizons.
They failed to stand up for the Jews because they did not belong in the
Christians’ circle of obligation. But an equal failure was the readiness to
accept the Nazi definition of nationalism as paramount in their political
behaviour.
How shall the lessons of the Holocaust be learnt? Especially now that the
number of survivors is rapidly diminishing. One misguided route is to
promote an artificial category of second or third generation “survivors”.
But this only encourages a sense of Jewish exclusiveness. What is needed,
Locke believes, is a readiness to overcome such parochialism and a
recognition that others too, especially Blacks, as well as Sinti and Native
Americans, have their own experience of communal suffering. This should
create a bond of sympathy, but too often we find only misunderstanding and
hostility. In recent years relations between Blacks and Jews in America have
deteriorated. The memory of the Holocaust has become a divisive rather than
a uniting factor. Locke seeks reconciliation lest both communities again
lose out to racial bigotry in the guise of political conservatism.
In his final chapter Locke takes up the problematical role of the churches
during the Holocaust. He rightly observes the difficulty of tackling this
subject without seeming to rationalize or to be defensive. Yet, having
studied this topic closely for forty years, he can with authority claim that
“it is an uncomfortable fact that the more one focuses the harsh and
unremitting light of scholarly enquiry on the churches and the Holocaust . .
the less definitive and declamatory one can be.” (p.102) To be sure, the
churches failed to do what, in the light of hindsight, we now feel they
should have done to help their Jewish neighbours. But Locke rightly stresses
that their principal failure was their unwillingness to abandon their
long-held theological prejudices against Jews, or to combat Nazi racism in
general. The German Christians’ support of such pernicious views is
impossible to overlook. Black Christians cannot forget that the Nazi
pseudo-anthropology, which placed ‘Aryans’ at the top of the human ladder,
set not Jews but Blacks at the very bottom. Only their absence from Europe
saved them from sharing the same fate. They are hence sensitively hurt when
they hear claims that the Holocaust was solely a Jewish event, or that no
one else suffered so much. For in fact Black Americans have always looked to
the Jewish people for a sympathetic understanding based on their common
experience of slavery, discrimination and oppression.
Jews and Blacks both face the danger of reductionism, when their stories of
suffering are simply dismissed, treated as irrelevant or relativized. But
the opposite tendency is also regrettable, when each victimized group seeks
to emphasize its misfortune and downplays that of others. The particularity
and authenticity of the Holocaust or of Black slavery is not an issue. But
building bridges of understanding requires a willingness to recognize
comparable occurrences. Locke hopes that the Christian churches, which have
resolutely begun the task of atoning for their past silence, and have
rethought their theologies towards both Jews and Blacks, can be allowed to
play a constructive role in the combating of racism and antisemitism. These
forces cannot be regarded as superseded. Rather, the Holocaust stands as a
grim reminder of the recent past and an eternal warning for the future.
JSC

1b) Bernd Schaefer, Staat und katholische Kirche in der DDR, (Schriften des
Hannah-Arendt-Instituts für Totalitarismusforschung, Bd 8),
Koeln/Weimar/Wien: Bohlau Verlag. 1998 501 pp ISBN 3-412-04598-5.
Josef Schmid, Kirchen, Staat und Politik in Dresden zwischen 1975 und 1989.
(Geschichte und Politik in Sachsen Bd 7), Koeln/Weimar/Wien Bohlau Verlag
1998
521 pp. ISBN 3-412-11497-9.
(This review is appearing on H-Soz-u-Kult)
Bernd Schaefer’s 500 page study of the complex relationship between for the
Communist regime and the Catholic Church in the German Democratic Republic
is a comprehensive and well researched account. He was, of course,
particularly fortunate that the overthrow of this unlamented government in
1989 led to the opening of its archives, such as those of the Party hierarchy, its secret police agency –
the Stasi – and of its Secretariat of Church Affairs, all virtually
complete. So too the Church authorities gave him permission to see their
papers. The contrast with the much more restricted access to the equivalent
sources for the western part of Germany is notable. Schaefer seized his
opportunity, and now builds on a series of preliminary findings published
earlier in articles.
He divides his material into five chapters each tackling roughly a decade,
but adopting the same format: first, a general analysis of the Communist
regime’s wider policies, then an account of the specific policies and
tactics towards the churches, and finally a description of the Catholic
Church’s response. As is already well known, the Catholic minority – never
more than ten percent of the population – was always on the defensive.
Despite an obvious sympathy for his fellow Catholics, Schaefer’s principal
stress is on the policies of those who organized the persecution, or more
latterly the restrictive obstruction, of the churches. He traces the various
stages from the initial outright determination to stamp out the churches
entirely to the later awareness of the impossibility of success. In contrast
to the similar practices adopted towards the Protestants, Schaefer makes the
good point that the Catholics were always more suspect because of their
links to the Vatican, and hence a disproportionate amount of the Stasi’s
resources were deployed against these alleged “puppets of revanchist
imperialism directed by the superstitious clique in Rome”.
This account is primarily written from the top downwards, so that the
leading Party officials and the members of the Church hierarchy take a
prominent place. But their interplay is well described. He also shows that
how well the Stasi was informed about church affairs, due to the diligence
of their agents, including several Catholic priests, or to secretly-planted
listening devices. “Der Forscher beginnt die Lektuere zunaechst als
distanzierten Voyeur, bis er selbst in zahlose Biographien aus allen Teilen
der DDR und die Perspektiven der MfS-“Fuehrungsoffiziere” unvermeidlich
hineingezogen wird”. (p.25)
The outlines of this cat and mouse story are now well known. Schaefer adds
the details of the campaign against the Catholics. The Communist ideological
onslaught could however at times be combined with a variety of tactics,
which only added to the churches’ difficulty in assessing the best response
to defend their interests. On the whole, the Catholics took refuge in
withdrawal into the sacristy, refusing to take part in the so-called
socialist remodeling of German society. This was a tactic for survival, and
held at bay some of the ham-handed attempts either to seduce the church
leaders into approving “real existing socialism”, or to recruit agents for
the Stasi.
Following the Second Vatican Council, some progressive Catholics wanted to
risk a more positive encounter. But neither the Catholic hierarchy nor the
regime’s authorities encouraged such behaviour, and suppressed it as long as
they could. Not until the late 1980s did the Catholics begin to join the
Protestants in giving support to those antagonistic policies which in the
end brought the regime crashing down.
Josef Schmid’s account of the Churches’ political stances in Dresden chooses
a regional study for the final years of the GDR regime, but covers in more
depth many of the themes in Schaefer’s book. He takes issue with one-sided,
monocausal and moralistic treatments, such as those of Gerhard Besier. At
the same time, he devotes more space to the affairs of the local
congregations, both Catholic and Protestant, and thus usefully complements
Schaefer’s study. And. not surprisingly, Schmid emphasizes the leading role
of the Saxon Protestant Church, whose leader Johannes Hempel was a towering
figure not only in his own church but on the wider world ecumenical stage.
Dresden became an important centre already in the early 1980s for church
activities seeking to mobilize a following for “peace action”. The leaders
rediscovered the resources for Christian pacifism, despite its long absence
>from Lutheran theology. They sought thereby to provide a focus against the
Communists’ propagation of militarism, and to be a part of the wider protest
against the regime’s totalitarian control.
Schmid gives an excellent and full account of these struggles, skillfully
blending his sources, similarly drawn from the Party, Church, State and
secret police archives.
At the same time he clearly outlines the dilemmas of the church authorities,
discouraging open political provocation while insisting on the biblical
basis for any protest. But in 1988 and 1989 this balancing act gave way to a
more open espousal of the Church’s political witness and opposition to the
regime, especially, in Dresden, on ecological questions. At last, the
Catholic Church emerged from its reticent stance. But Schmid also makes
clear that the Churches’ involvement, though significant, cannot be seen as
the main instigator of the regime’s downfall. There still remained, and
indeed still today remain, too many theological reservations within the
churches’ ranks, so that their political witness can only be described as an
adjunct to the revolutionary events of 1989. But Schmid’s account is an
impressively solid piece of research.
JSC

2) Book Notes: Markus Eikel, Französische Katholiken im Dritten Reich. Die
religiöse Betreuung der französischen Kriegsgefangenen und Zwangsarbeiter
1940-1945. Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Rombach Verlag 1999. 330 pp. Mgr.Charles
Molette, Resistances chretiennes a la nazification des esprits, Paris: F.-X.
de Guilbert 1998, 258 pp
Prisoners-of-war, unless they build escape tunnels or fantastic railway
bridges, are unglamorous. Hence their life of boredom, deprivation and exile
is largely forgotten. Markus Eikel deserves much credit for shedding light
on one attempt to relieve the plight of those thousands of French soldiers
who were carried off to Germany after the defeat of their nation in 1940.
The French Catholic hierarchy, though politically divided about the German
occupation and about collaboration, sought to provide chaplaincy services
for their countrymen, and had some limited successes with the German
military authorities. Much riskier was the attempt to provide the same
chaplaincy to the equally large numbers of French civilians, conscripted for
labour in Germany. Special priests secretly worked in German cities for
months, even years, until caught and sent to concentration camps, The
ruthlessness of the Gestapo, the dilemmas of the French bishops, and the
courage of these chaplains/worker-priests are fully and excellently
described. It is a heroic tale, hitherto unknown. All the more creditable
for being told by a young German scholar.

Fr Molette’s extended essay seeks to pay tribute to those French Christians,
priests, religious and laity, who fought Nazism primarily for spiritual
reasons. He believes that too often their struggles have been overlooked or
ignored, in favour of those motivated for purely political reasons. He too
focusses on the witness of Catholics in German camps, whose determination to
maintain their religious practices and beliefs frequently led to their
murder. Their memorial is unalterable and inalienable. In appendices,
Molette prints some moving contemporary documents, showing how faith was
maintained in those dark days.
JSC

3) Journal issues: a) Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, Vol 13, no 1, 2000
The latest issue of our “house journal” is devoted the themes of Catholicism
and Protestantism during the Third Reich and in the post-war years,
principally in Germany. It is notable that three of the eight articles are
in English. Manfred Gailus gives a succint summary of his recent book on the
political stances of the Berlin clergy and laity during the Third Reich,
examining the various factors which led to daggers drawn between the “German
Christians” and the Confessing Church. He looks at the clergy’s biographies
and careers, theological orientations and war experiences as causes of the
unbridgeable positions adopted in 1933.
The late Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, in a significant lecture given
shortly before her death, describes the career of Edith Stein and outlines
the dilemma of doing justice to her as both a Catholic Christian and a
member of the Jewish people. She draws attention to the danger of making
Edith Stein’s canonization by the Catholic Church an alibi for its failure
to stand up for her and her fellow Christians of Jewish origin.
Alternatively making her a saint is not to be misconstrued as setting an
example for other Jews to convert. Instead Edith Stein’s attempts to build
bridges between the two faiths, and her resolute warnings of the dangers to
Catholics of the dangers of racial hatred remain a significant legacy.
Ronald Webster of York University, Toronto, gives a highly critical, indeed
scorching, account of the career of a Pastor of the Palatinate Evangelical
Church, whom he describes as an ardent nationalist and sometime antisemite,
who succumbed to the wiles of radical nationalism and eventually of aspects
of Nazism. Yet, in the post-war years, he sought to re-establish himself as
a heroic resistor to Nazi tyranny, denying his previous stances, and
engaging in the kind of self-pitying outbursts so common at that time.
Nicholas Railton contributes the remarkable story of the ministry exercised
by a Missouri Lutheran pastor, Henry Gerecke, from central USA, to the major
war criminals during their imprisonment in Nuremberg from 1945-6. His
research is largely based on Gerecke’s monthly reports, now deposited in the
US National Archives. The American army chaplains were given the
responsibility of providing chaplaincy services to these men, 15 of whom
were Protestants and 6 Catholics. Despite Gerecke’s limited knowledge of
German, he established a notable relationship with these major figures from
the Nazi hierarchy, such as Goering, Ribbentrop, Fritzsche and Keitel. His
sincerity and simple humbleness, completely avoiding any political
involvement, but concentrating solely on the need for repentance before the
Lord, earned him a high regard from the prisoners. Their willingness to
accept him as a Christian pastor, and to attend the simple services he
organized in a makeshift chapel, says a lot about his faithful witness. As a
result he could claim to have seen God working in the hearts of these
convicted criminals before their executions, which did not of course imply
any sympathy for their past misdeeds.
Dianne Kirby has given us a further installment from what is presumably her
forthcoming book on the political involvement of the Church of England at
the beginning of the Cold War. She describes how the British Foreign Office
officials were eager to recruit the leaders of the Church of England in the
construction of an anti-Communist ideological campaign. This seemed to
promise to go over better with the wider public than merely concentrating on
political or economic measures. And to this end, highly placed and
conservative leaders in the bureaucracy appealed to like-minded Anglicans
and provided them with information not otherwise available, to be circulated
for this propagandistic purpose. Kirby is critical of Bishop George Bell for
accepting such steps, as showing a lack of sufficient caution towards the
infiltration of the secular state. On the other hand, Bell was surely moved
by the experience of the 1930s when the danger of Nazi totalitarianism had
been so grossly underestimated. In the end, she concludes, the Church of
England provided a fertile soil in which hard-line anti-Communism could be
sown. The churches’ support “contributed significantly to the
intensification of the Cold War, as well as to the transformation of
Christian leaders into Cold War warriors and the transmogrification of
Christianity into a political doctrine”.
Students of Bonhoeffer will want to turn to the essay, written in memory of
Eberhard Bethge, by H-W Krumwiede on Bonhoeffer’s struggle against the
persecution of the Jews. This recapitulates Bethge’s previous summary of
Bonhoeffer’s position, which was percipiently outspoken in 1933 in
protesting the antisemitic mistreatment of Jews by the Nazis, but still used
language suggesting he maintained the anti-judaic stance of earlier
theologians. Subsequently Bonhoeffer was clearly in advance of the majority
of his colleagues in rethinking this attitude, but no clearly thought-out
statement of any pro-jewish stance survives. Krumwiede suggests that
Bonhoeffer’s part in the conspiracy to replace Hitler after 1938 made it
impossible to expect any such utterance. Nevertheless Bonhoeffer combined
both the insight early on to warn the church against the perils of Jew
hatred, and the courage to take up arms. Both in word and deed, he deserves
the memorial as a twentieth century martyr now placed over the door of
Westminster Abbey.
JSC

4) New Journal. The first issue of a new journal
Religion-Staat-Gesellschaft, published by Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, and
edited in Heidelberg by our good friend and colleague, Gerhard Besier, is
now to hand. Besier’s ten year’s editorship of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte
will undoubtedly be of great help in launching this new venture, which is
designed to take a less historical, and more presentist, political stance,
and a broader mandate in covering all faith communities. It too is designed
to be at least bilingual, and the majority of the articles in this first
issue are in English. They include James Beckford: Religion, State and
Prison; M Introvigne, Freedom of religion in Europe; James Richardson,
Minority Faiths and Religious Freedom in Israel, Bassam Tibi, Secularization
and De-Secularization in Islam, while Besier himself contributes a
stimulating article on Neopaganism in the Nazi Reich. This new venture would
appear not to have any connection with a similarly named journal published
by the Keston community on Oxford, Religion, State and Society, now in its
28th year. So we shall have to hope that there is room for both ventures to
succeed. More information can be obtained from Frl.Piombo, Kisselgasse 1,
69117 Heidelberg, Germany.

5) Journal articles:
Mark Chapman, Anglo-German Theological relations during the First World War,
Journal for the History of Modern Theology, Vol 7, 2000, 109-126.
This article describes the course of personal relations between influential
theologians in Germany and England immediately before and during the First
World War. Despite the tense relations between the two countries some of
these contacts were maintained, although they became much more tenuous
during the course of the war. This article outlines the rhetorical attacks
launched by some Anglo-Catholic theologians against liberal theology of
German origin. The war in fact caused an increased and unprecedented
outburst against liberal theologians. After the war, this was the factor
which most of all caused the breach in relations between the two nations’
theologians. Two results followed: one the one hand, it led to a dominant
position for Anglo-Catholicism, and on the other to the development of a
specifically English variety of liberal theology, unaffected by what was
happening on the continent. Apart from certain notable exceptions, it would
seem that any fruitful and lively dialogue came to an end after the death of
Willliam Sanday.
[see also Stephen Sykes, England and Germany. Studies in theological
diplomacy]
Peter Lodberg, The Nordic Churches and the Ecumenical Movement, Ecumenical
Review, Vol 52, no 2, April 2000, p137ff
Thomas Wieser, Reviewing ecumenical history, Ecumenical Review, Vol 52, no
2, April 2000, p 246ff This piece is in fact a review of two German books,
difficult to obtain and hence little known: ed A.Boyens, G.Besier,
G.Lindemann, Nationaler Protestantismus und Oekumene, Berlin: Duncker und
Humblot 1999, and Der Oekumenische Rat der Kirchen in der Konflikten des
kalten Kriegs, Frankfurt : Lembach 2000
Mark Chapman, Mandell Creighton’s Theological History, Journal of
Theological Studies,Vol 51, no 2, October 2000
Mandell Creighton was Bishop of Peterborough and then London at the end of
the nineteenth century. He believed that a recognition of human finitude was
part of the inner logic of the Christian faith. Hence he advocated a humble
and tolerant pluralism and attacked the dogmatism of so mnay of his fellow
clergy and countrymen His ideas about the Church of England led him to
oppose both Ultramontanism and individualistic Protestant sectarianism.
Detachment rather than involvement was the proper stance for a historian.
Creighton therefore opposed much of the myth-making about Anglican history,
which was being actively pursued during his life-time.
Manfred Weitlauff, Adolf von Harnack, Theodor Mommsen,Martin Rade,
Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengeschichte, Vol 111, no 2 (2000)
This extended 46-page review of three recent publications provides a
comprehensive look at the present scholarly views about Adolf von Harnack
and his association with Mommsen and Rade. The reputation of these three
giants of the late nineteenth century German theology declined precipitously
after 1918, and has hardly yet recovered. But Professor Weitlauff, of Munich
University, gives us a good insight of the significant issues they sought to
address, and recommends three new books to assist us in gaining a new
evaluation of their contribution: Adolf von Harnack als Zeitgenosse. Reden
und Schriften aus den Jahren des Kaiserreichs und der Weimarer Republik,
edited and introduced by Kurt Nowak, 2 Vols, Berlin/New York: Walter de
Gruyter 1996;
Stefan Rebenich, Theodor Mommsen und Adolf Harnack, Berlin/New York: Walter
de Gruyter 1997; Der Briefwechsel zwischen Adolf von Harnack und Martin
Rade. Theologie auf dem oeffentlichen Markt, edited and commented by Johanna
Jantsch, Berlin,/New York: Walter de Gruyter 1996.

With best wishes
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

 

Newsletter- January 2001- Vol. VII, no. 1 

Dear Friends,
A very warm welcome to you all for the New Year. I trust your endeavours
will be successful and productive as we begin the new century, and I look
forward to being in touch, both personally and technologically, with as many
of you as possible in the coming months.

Contents:
1) Book Reviews:

a) J.Stayer, Martin Luther, German Saviour
b) G.Lindemann, “Typisch jüdisch” Die Stellung der Hannoversche Kirche zu
Antijudaismus
c) M.Brenner et al. eds, Two nations. British and Geman Jews in Comparative
Perspectives.

2) The Fascist repression of Jehovah’s Witnesses

1a) James Stayer, Martin Luther, German Saviour. German Evangelical
Theological Faculties and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917-1933. Montreal
and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2000 177pp.
James Stayer’s admirable study is written expressly for an English-speaking
Protestant audience. His self-stated purpose is to provide this readership
with a historical understanding of German Lutheranism in the 1920s, when the
passions engendered by the First World War led Luther studies to become a
battleground for such eminent Protestant scholars and theologians as Karl
Holl, Karl Barth, Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsch. According to Stayer, a
professor of Reformation History at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada,
English-speaking scholars have failed to give sufficient attention to the
influence of nationalist and anti-liberal sentiments so prominent in
Lutheran circles during the First World War and in the aftermath of November
1918 revolution. He now successfully overcomes this deficit.
The early years of the Weimar republic have long been recognized as a
particularly contentious period for German Lutheran theology. Stayer
identifies three Evangelical theological orientations that flourished after
the war: the Luther Renaissance (Karl Holl, Emanuel Hirsch, and Erich
Vogelsang), Dialectical Theology (Karl Barth and Friedrich Gogarten), and
Lutheran confessionalism (Werner Elert and Paul Althaus). Although these
“schools” were often harshly critical of each other and disagreements raged
within each school, they did hold some common assumptions, most importantly
that nineteenth-century theological liberalism and Kulturprotestantismus,
which had sought an accommodation between Christianity and
nineteenth-century German culture, in particular bourgeois individualism,
were now theologically bankrupt. Despite the frequent criticism of their
liberal predecessors, Stayer insists that lines of continuity did exist
between prewar theologians and their postwar critics. Nevertheless, his
primary focus is on the radical shift that took place in the Protestant
scholarly community, a shift from the emphasis on church history and a
historicist theology to systematic and dogmatic theology.
The task of revitalizing and systematizing Luther’s theology in the wake of
a century of Kulturprotestantismus acquired greater urgency with the
outbreak of the First World War. “Against the background of war and defeat”,
Stayer declares, “the academic enterprise of rehabilitating Luther became
the search for a German saviour” (117). Men of the Luther Renaissance, the
dialectical theologians and the Lutheran confessionalists all held the
leading figures of nineteenth-century Protestant thought – Albrecht Ritschl,
Adolf von Harnack, and Ernst Troeltsch – responsible for leaving Luther
vulnerable to attack by Catholics, liberals, socialists and Jews. These
theologians had failed not only to understand the radical nature of Luther’s
theology of justification by faith but also to recognize, as Holl
maintained, that Luther’s “Rechtfertigungslehre was God’s special revelation
to the Germans”. (123)
Karl Holl emphasized the special sense of community in the German Lutheran
tradition, He was therefore particularly critical of Ernst Troeltsch’s
celebration of modernity, pluralism, and the Anglo-American model of
democracy. His former student, Emanuel Hirsch, further radicalized the
notion of community by infusing it with extreme nationalist and völkisch
ideas. Hirsch’s community was the German nation-state, “built on family and
tribe [and as such] a natural order of God’s creation” (106). Holl, and
later Hirsch, connected what they believed to be God’s special revelation to
the Germans to the moral superiority of German culture. Although Barth
sought to overcome the problems of Kulturprotestantismus from the left and
Holl and Hirsch from the right, they shared a common desire to replace an
individual soteriology with a theology of community. They believed that
Luther’s theology of justification could be understood and accessed only by
way of a theology of community since justification was God’s bestowing his
love on man in the community.
For his part, Karl Barth stressed the “dialectical, paradoxical,
Kierkegaardian Luther” (63). God, for Barth, was an inaccessible mystery. To
claim that human morality had anything to do with God, as Holl did, was
sheer hubris. Barth believed that Dialectical Theology was a much-needed
restoration of the theology of the Reformers in light of the liberal
theologians’ acceptance of the self-satisfied bourgeois culture and its
comfortable synthesis with Christianity. Although Barth’s theocentric
repudiation of Kulturprotestantismus had much in common with Holl, he
rejected outright in his 1922 edition of the Epistle to the Romans the
possibility of regenerative soteriology, which “gave too much glory to the
human creature (58-9). The nineteenth-century search for God in history and
culture was necessarily a failure because God sought humanity, not the other
way round. “Let God be God”, Barth thundered. By contrast, the Lutheran
confessionalists insisted that the vehicle of divine revelation was human,
historical and contingent. Werner Elert, for instance, maintained that
revelation for Luther was “the entry of God into history, not the negation
of history” (85). Moreover Elert’s and Althaus’s völkisch-nationalist
political sympathies, which were at least as reactionary as Hirsch’s, spelt
out how they understood God’s revelations in history. Althaus maintained
that the state, the church, the family and the nation (das Volk), were all
revelations of God’s law and examples of the order of creation designed by
God. Lutheran confessionalists expressly used this “orders of creation”
theology to fortify conservative, nationalist, and patriarchal views against
the moral licentiousness of Weimar modernism and the theological critiques
of Catholics and Calvinists. The reactionary politics of Elert and Althaus,
Stayer believes, led to a greater distortion of Luther’s theology,
especially after Hitler came to power in 1933, than those of Holl, Barth or
Hirsch – all of whom were guilty of embellishment.
For the non-German audience Stayer’s study provides essential insights into
the complex motivation of early twentieth-century theologians in their
effort to rejuvenate and strengthen Martin Luther’s singular contributions
to Christian thought. Although elements of Stayer’s thesis will be familiar
to scholars of early twentieth-century German theology, whether native
English-speakers or not, this slim volume debunks any lingering myths that
the period collectively known as the Luther Remaissance was a mere scholarly
exercise. For most German Protestants it was an expression of national
patriotism – and for that they should be embarrassed.
Matthew Hockenos, Skidmore College

b) Gerhard Lindemann, “Typisch jüdisch”: Die Stellung der Ev.-luth.
Landeskirche Hannovers zu Antijudaismus, Judenfeindschaft und Antisemitismus
1919-1949. (Schriftenreihe der Gesellschaft für Deutschlandforschung, Bd
63). Berlin: Duncker und Humblot. 1998 1037 pp. DM 138
This review first appeared in the Catholic Historical Review, Vol LXXXVI, no
3, July 2000, p. 525-7.
This is an intimidating book. Its size alone is daunting: over a thousand
pages long, it includes 155 pages of sources and indices. According to the
foreword, the book is a lightly revised dissertation (Heidelberg, 1997);
5000-plus footnotes attest to these origins. The title deepens the potential
reader’s sense of dread. Gerhard Lindemann’s ironic use of the stereotype
“typisch jüdisch” – “typically Jewish” – shows his hand. His study of
>anti-Jewishness and anti-Semitism in the Protestant church of Hanover, he
signals, will emphasize Christian prejudice, ecclesiastical failure, and
continuity. In other words, Lindemann’s book promises to be relentless,
convincing, and profoundly depressing. Those who read it will discover that
it delivers in all three regards. At the same time, it offers a nuanced,
human account of Protestant church life in Germany across three decades.
Although regional in focus, Lindemann’s study resonates beyond the borders
of the Hanoverian Protestant church. Anyone interested in Christian
anti-Semitism, German Jewry, Nazi genocide, or religious conversion and
exclusion in the twentieth century can learn much here.
Some of the most shocking parts of the book involve developments before and
after Nazi rule. Lindemann devotes eighty pages to the case of the Lutheran
pastor Ludwig Münchmeyer, who during the 1920s used his pulpit and his local
following to keep Jews off the North Sea island of Borkum. Only after
violent clashes between supporters and detractors of the anti-Semitic
clergyman, intervention by state authorities, and a series of court cases
did the Hanoverian Protestant church take disciplinary action. Münchmeyer’s
anti-Catholicism, sexually offensive behaviour, and an exodus of members of
his congregation from the Protestant church added ammunition against him –
and worried church authorities more than did attacks on Jews. Still,
Münchmeyer kept his position and his “Pastor” title until 1926.
Lindemann’s reluctance to generalize can make reading even such intriguing
material frustrating. Nevertheless, his discussion of the situation on
Borkum reveals some significant tendencies within the Protestant leadership:
fear of public disruption or scandal; acceptance of anti-Semitic
stereotypes; and general weakness of will to defend the downtrodden. Those
failings, troublesome enough in the Weimar Republic, would prove fatal in
the Nazi era.
Most of Lindemann’s book addresses the experiences of Christians of Jewish
background in Hanover from 1933 to 1945. He treats this topic with
sensitivity and empathy. Careful to avoid anachronistic and offensive labels
such as “Jewish Christians” or “baptized Jews”, he offers precision and a
wealth of biographical detail. Lindemann zeroes in on key individuals,
notably the pastors Paul Leo in Osnabrück, Bruno Benfey in Göttingen, and
Rudolf Gurland in Meine/Gifhorn, to show how Nazi measures against people
defined as Jews affected the lives and livelihoods of Christian clergymen
with Jewish ancestry.
These men’s stories differ greatly in the details but share overwhelmingly
similar themes of persecution, humiliation, desperation, and betrayal. Both
Leo and Benfey were forced out of their positions after the 1935 Nuremberg
Laws. Local anti-Semites made trouble because of the men’s Jewish ancestry;
instead of providing protection, church authorities retired the pastors.
Gurland, an ethnic German from Vilna, lasted longer, but in the wake of
Kristallnacht in 1938, he too was forced to retire, as was a fourth pastor
of Jewish background, namely Gustav Oehlert in Rinteln. Like many clergy,
for a brief time in 1933, Oehlert belonged to the pro-National Socialist,
Protestant “German Christian Movement” (p.584). Nevertheless, Nazi activists
demanded dismissal, and church leaders agreed.
Lindemann’s close-up, personal approach highlights both the everyday routine
of persecution and the banal, self-serving motivations of those who
perpetrated and tolerated Nazi attacks. Hanover’s Protestant bishop, August
Marahrens, revealed in the works of Gerhard Besier and others as far from
the staunch anti-Nazi many once considered him to be, is ubiquitous in
Lindemann’s study. We see Marahrens sympathize in private with his
beleaguered clergy of Jewish background and then abandon them in public,
presumably in the interest of maintaining peace in the church and preserving
good relations with the state. Even after the war, he did nothing to restore
Leo, Benfey, and Gurland to their positions, or to acknowledge publicly the
wrongs done them. Only Oehlert received a post; the others, it seems, were
considered too likely to be lightning rods. Human weakness, Lindemann’s
analysis suggests, will go to extraordinary lengths to prevent its own
exposure.
For all its sobering predictability, Lindemann’s account is never
simplistic. He takes pains throughout the book to show that countervoices to
anti-Semitic brutality existed at every step. “Ordinary Germans”, he shows,
assaulted their neighbours of Jewish background, but sometimes they also
defended them. Many Protestant pastors were indifferent to the fate of their
colleagues of Jewish ancestry, but some supported them courageously.
Including such examples of fortitude serves at least two functions. On the
one hand, it counters the monolithic, Goldhagian image of the “uniquely” –
and uniformly – German anti-Semite. But on the other hand, it pulls the rug
out from under one of the most widely used excuses for German – and
Christian – inaction in the face of Nazi persecution of Jews and other
targets: “we did not know”. Doris Bergen, University of Notre Dame
c)) Michael Brenner, Rainer Liedtke and David Rechter, eds., Two Nations:
British and German Jews in Comparative Perspective (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1999).
This book was published under the auspices of the Leo Baeck Institute and
comprises a compilation of papers from the conference Two Nations: The
Historical Experience of British and German Jews in Comparison in Cambridge
(1997). Contributors were asked to draw on a comparative methodology and
contrast the Jewish Diaspora experience in Britain and Germany during the
modern period. This informative scholarly contribution ranges from
Jewish-Gentile relations in different political cultures, post-emancipation
Jewish identity to post-Holocaust debates on Jewish heritage preservation.
With two exceptions, all essays are commented on by fellow scholars who
critically examine and reevaluate the authors’ arguments. The dialogical
framework makes for an evenly balanced account that is both an excellent
overview and an invitation to further probe the issues at stake. The editors
point out that they are interested in contesting prevailing notions of the
common experience of the Jewish Diaspora: acculturation, emancipation (legal
equality), and assimilation. Yet this Anglo-German comparison has a far more
ambitious scope: it raises the question why anti-Jewish sentiments remained
latent in Britain, and escalated into virulent exterminationist
anti-Semitism in Germany.
With such a far-reaching theme in mind, these essays seldom offer
fundamentally new insights. However, they also skillfully avoid what could
have easily become the downfall of a transnational comparison: to portray
Britain as the honorable norm and Germany as the evil aberration. Referring
to Daniel Goldhagen, David Cesarani thus rejects a mindset that places
teleological stereotypes of exemplars of tolerance versus willing
executioners. Instead, he and his fellow scholars carefully shed light on a
difficult and complex issue without reducing it, as Tony Kushner laments, to
exercises in “polarized mythmaking.” The majority of essays reflect on the
relationship between Jewish social groups and institutions and state power.
One of the central questions is to what extent Jewish emancipation was
imposed by external circumstances or internally developed such as in the
case of the Haskalah (the German Jewish Enlightenment). David Feldman
challenges current Anglo-Jewish historiographers who portray the
relationship between the Jews and the state as one-sided, the Jews being
passively receptive. In his view, particularly between 1850 and 1900, Jews
in Britain successfully negotiated with the political establishment. An
essential point is raised by one of the editors, Rainer Liedtke, who writes
on the 19th century Jewish welfare systems in Hamburg and Manchester. His
analysis convincingly suggests that the degree of Jewish social integration
cannot be measured solely in terms of political or legal success. He
maintains that in establishing “a class-based solidarity” on the community
level, Jewish welfare was instrumental in solidifying a collective Jewish
identity, or “subculture.”
In one of the more provocative essays, “Comparing Antisemitism: A Useful
Exercise?,” Tony Kushner compares collectively held stereotypes and myths in
everyday life. In his view, anti-Semitism is a “cultural code” that provides
us with meaningful data from “lived experience.” He stresses “the importance
of subjectivity in ordinary people’s attitudes towards Jews”. At the same
time, he questions the legitimacy of a comparative approach: It is in the
voices of “ordinary” people that the reader can find “a comparative model .
. . with valuable and lasting insights.” A truly fascinating article is
“Jewish Self-Hatred in Britain and Germany” by Todd M. Endelman. The author
criticizes the academic over-exposure and misappropriation of the term
‘Jewish self-hatred’. Instead, he provides a differentiated cultural history
that contextualizes the causes and results of ethnic self-loathing. Most
enlightening are his examples of two prominent statesmen: Walther Rathenau
and Edwin Montagu. The articles by Liedtke, Kushner, and Endelman belong to
a minority employing interdisciplinary strategies and focusing on
Alltagsgeschichte. “Two Nations” largely deals with elites, social policies
and organized Jewish movements. The emphasis is predominantly historical as
only nine out of 26 authors are affiliated with other departments than
history.
I am not quite sure whether this compilation should have limited itself to
Germany and Britain. What can be gained from such a polarized and narrow
comparison? Gunnar Svante Paulsson emphasizes that little research has been
done on the cultural exchange between the Western and the Eastern Jewry. If
we consider that beginning in around 1880, immigration from East Europe
increased the number of Jews living in Britain from 60,000 to 300,000, it
would be worthwhile to explore how those communities interacted with one
another. Since an extensive migration took place from the former Soviet
Union into Germany after 1989, a comparison could be potentially revealing.
Moreover, I would take serious issue with the fact that the majority of
contributions are by male scholars who have ignored the field of gender
studies. Within this body of works, Susan L. Tananbaum is the sole
contributor who brings attention to a socially unique phenomenon in Imperial
Germany: the Jewish Feminist Organization, the Judischer Frauenbund (JFB),
which was founded in 1904 by Bertha Pappenheim. Considering that as many as
twenty five percent of eligible German Jewish women were members, this
organization is a valuable resource about female self-understanding
vis-a-vis Jewish and non-Jewish environments. Ironically, it is the only
essay (apart from the concluding piece by Bernd Weisbrod) that remains
uncommented. Further, it is puzzling to me that this volume would exclude
perspectives on Jewish domestic life and community structures, as well as on
Jewish Orthodoxy. An approach that stresses “the Jewish experience” seems
elitist and top-down, if not to say flawed, if it fails to include the
experience of the other half of what constitutes a Jewish community. On the
same note, it needs to be pointed out that, apart from Kushner, the question
of how Jewish people understood their Jewishness is only marginally
addressed. The reluctance to tackle this issue might be related to Werner E.
Mosse’s uneasiness with the concept of identity. In his introductory remarks
he contends that “identity” is “a pretentious and fashionable post-Freudian
term, [that] is of comparatively little use in historical discourse.” Yet I
was even more surprised that the editors treated the post-Holocaust period
almost merely within the realm of Jewish heritage preservation. Little
mention is made of the Second Generation, and not one essay deals with the
current debates on the political instrumentalization of Holocaust memorials.
Although “Two Nations” does only partial justice to the notion of a “Jewish
experience,” given its caliber of scholarship and wealth of information, it
is a welcome addition to the fields of Jewish Studies and minority studies.
Charlotte Schallie, Vancouver
2) The Fascist Repression of Jehovah’s Witnesses
Jehovah’s Witnesses began their preaching work in Italy at the turn of the
century. Their first community was founded at Pinerolo (Torino) in 1908. In
1925, their first convention was held there at Pinerolo where, just a few
years earlier, they had opened an office. There was small expansion in the
1920’s and 1930’s, when the Witnesses spread to various provinces including
Sondrio, Aosta, Ravenna, Vincenza, Trento, Benevento, Avellino, Foggia, L’
Aquila, Pescara and Teramo.
The first mention of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ existence in Italy’s official
archives is the decree of the Military Court of Alessandria concerning
Remigio Cuminetti, a Witness who refused military service during World War
I, becoming the first conscientious objector of modern Italy.1
Examining papers regarding Jehovah’s Witnesses in the State Record Office,
we find some interesting items. There are documents dating from 1927:
statements from the Prefect of the Department of the Interior; information
>from the Department itself, from various Prefects, and from the
Superintendent of Police; reports from the O.V.R.A. (the notorious Fascist
police department); information about house searches and interrogations,
etc. All of these are of concern not only to Jehovah’s Witnesses, but also
to the many who show interest in and respect for their upright way of life.
What, then, was the reason for such intensive scrutiny and careful record
keeping? It was to prevent Jehovah’s Witnesses from introducing their
publications into Italy. In Italy, as in Germany, this religious group was
looked upon with grave concern because of its pacifism (members chose to
refuse military service), its political neutrality, and its dislike of any
form of totalitarianism. Investigations were made into any citizens who had
even taken a subsc

ription to the ‘Watchtower’, the Witnesses’ main
magazine.2
Eventually, the O.V.R.A. managed to identify all the members of the Italian
group, about 150-200 Jehovah’s Witnesses, many of whom were condemned to
prison or sent into forced residence for allegedly plotting against the
Fascist regime. In fact, the Witnesses were often forced to live in secluded
villages in the south of Italy, villages that were freed by the allies
before September, 1943, allowing them to avoid deportation. This spared many
>from the Nazi concentration camps, where most of the Italian prisoners went.
In spite of this, not all managed to avoid the Holocaust. Salvatore Doria
>from Cerignola was not released from Civitavecchia’s prison after the 8th of
September. Guilty of ‘insulting the king,’ he was transferred to Sulmona’s
Abbey, then deported to Dachau’s hell.3 Narciso Riet of Cernobbio was
responsible for contact between the Italian and German Witnesses. He was
arrested after the armistice and taken first to Dachau, then to Plotzensee
Prison in Berlin. There, in November 1944, he was informed that the Court of
Justice had condemned him to death. He was moved to Brandenburg Prison, and
shot in early 1945. 4
No other religious group during the Resistance period was so affected by the
Fascist regime; Jehovah’s Witnesses had been the most persecuted, and was
practically the only group brought before the Special Fascist Court. The
Court had condemned 26 Witnesses to prison terms from 2 to 11 years, for a
combined total of 186 years and 10 months. (Sentence n.50 of April 19,
1940). An examination of the volume “Aula IV – Tutti i Processi del
Tribunale Speciale Fascista” [“Fourth Courtroom – All Trials of the Special
Fascist Court”]). A collection of all trials held by the above-mentioned
Court, shows that apart from two Pentecostals, only the 26 Jehovah’s
Witnesses were condemned.5
Those 26 were not the only ones affected, however. After the O.V.R.A.’s
investigations and its related proposal, 22 other people considered
‘dangerous’ were sent into forced exile from their homes, 29 ‘not
particularly active’ were given warnings, and 60 ‘simple followers’ were
treated with distrust. The entire group of 137 Witnesses was criminalized.6
Examining a circular promulgated by the Department of Interior during the
Fascist period brings us to the same conclusion: Jehovah’s Witnesses were
the main object of religious persecution during the Fascist regime. That
circular, n.441\027713 of August 22, 1939, was entitled “Religious Sects,
‘Pentecostals’ and Others”. In it, booklets that had been sequestered were
claimed to belong to the “sect of the Pentecostals,” though the circular
also precisely stated those booklets contained no reference to the
Pentecostals!7 Well then, whose literature was it? It was published by the
Watchtower Society; written by its president, J.F. Rutherford (Rutherford
had not as yet been recognized as director/ publisher of the Society’s
publications). Clearly, Jehovah’s Witnesses were already victims of Fascist
persecution.
Another circular, entitled n.441\02977 of March 13,1940, recognized the
victims by name: “Religious Sect of ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ or Bible Students
and Other Religious Sects Which Have Principles in Contrast with Our
Institution.” It discussed the “exact identification of those religious
sects…that differ from the already known sect of the ‘Pentecostals'”,
underlining “the verification of the existence of the sect of the ‘Jehovah’s
Witnesses’ and the fact that the literature we have already examined in the
above mentioned circular of the 22nd August 1939
n. 441\027713, is attributed to them, must not cause one to think that the
sect of the ‘Pentecostals’ is politically harmless…such a sect must be
considered harmful, even th
There is proof that the clergy played a definite role in contributing to the
persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses by the Fascist regime. For example, in
1939, the magazine “Fides” carried an article written by an anonymous
“priest caring for souls.” He affirmed “the association of Jehovah’s
Witnesses is atheistic communism and openly attempted to attack the safety
of the state.” This anonymous priest defined himself as being “actively
dedicated against this religious association for three years,” raising
himself as a protector of the Fascist State. Surely, he knew that hurling
these accusations would provoke the regime’s intervention.9
The leader of the fourth zone of the O.V.R.A., in a report on the “Religious
Sect: Jehovah’s Witnesses,” wrote that its office in Milan was closed by
Police Headquarters “because of the reaction of the Catholic clergy and of
the antifascist accent of the books that had been distributed.”10 Even the
magazine “Rivista Abruzzese di Studi Storici dal Fascismo alla Resistenza”
(Abruzzese Magazine of Historical Studies from Fascism to the Resistance)
confirms the fact: “The instruction of the hierarchy of the national
Establishment, military and civil, lay or ecclesiastical, was for the
annihilation by means of condemnation of the supposed leaders and of those
considered the most active followers of the newest ‘Protestants’,” that had
come to disturb the “healthy country environment of Abruzzo, Puglie,
Campania and Trentino.”11
This is reminiscent of the Catholic Church’s involvement with the group in
Nazi Germany; reporting activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses to the
authorities.12 To their credit, both under Nazi and Fascist rule, Jehovah’s
Witnesses were one of the few groups that did not blemish themselves by
collaborating with the dictatorial regime. Catholic American writer Gordon
Zahn has admitted that, “except for the position that some minor Protestant
sects took – the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the traditional ‘Churches of Peace’
, for example – there is no reason to believe that the attitude of the
German Protestantism was different to that of the Catholic Religion that
gave support to the Nazi war.”13
With the end of World War II, the group of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Italy
started to reorganize the activity of proselytism that has brought the
number of their preachers from 120 in 1946 to the present 215,000. With
their 2,800 communities scattered throughout the national territory, they form the most consistent religious association
in the country, second only to the Catholic Church.14
Matteo Pierro
Notes:
1 – Sentence n. 309, of August 18, 1916. Files of the Military Court of
Torino.
2 – Circular of the Department of Interior, n. 442\41732, of September 21,
1929.
3 – Letter of December 30, 1995. By historian and ex-deportee Giovanni
Melodia.
4 – “Riet Narciso” documents, Archive of Matteo Pierro.
5 – From the book “Aula IV – Tutti i Processi del Tribunale Speciale
Fascista” (Fourth Courtroom – All the Trials of the Special Fascist Court),
AA. VV. Milano, 1976, pp. 324, 325, 405, 406.
See also the book “Regime Fascista e Chiese Evangeliche” (Evangelist
Churches and the Fascist Regime), by G. Rochat, Torino, 1990, p. 318.
6 – Central File of the State, PS. GI. 314, report n. 0799 of January 3,
1940 of General Police Inspector Dr. Pasquale Andriani, Fourth Zone
O.V.R.A., p. 18,
with attachment n. 89 (p. 290-292), n. 90 (p. 292-296), n. 91 (p. 297-303).
See also the Department of Interior’s communication “General
Direction of the Police, General and Reserved Affairs Department”
First Division, record n. 441\0218, of February 1, 1940.
7 – General File of the State.
8 – General File of the State.
9 – “Fides” magazine of February 1939, article: “The Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Italy,” p. 77-94.
10 – Report n. 0799 of January 3, 1940 of General Police Inspector Dr.
Pasquale Andriani, quotation p. 34.
11 – “Abruzzese Magazine of Historical Studies from Fascism to the
Resistance,” 3rd year, n. 3, 1982, p. 561.
12 – G.Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, New York 1964, p.70.
13 – G.Zahn, German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars, New York, p.60.
14 – “The Watchtower” magazine, January 1, 1996, vol. 117, n. 1, p.13,

 

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