Yearly Archives: 2014

In Remembrance: Ernst Klee (1942-2013)

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

In Remembrance: Ernst Klee (1942-2013)

By Manfred Gailus, Technische Universität Berlin

Ernst Klee, who died in May of last year, was a redoubtable investigative journalist and a noted non-academic historian whose publications did much to expose some of the darker side of National Socialism and its crimes. Originally he studied to be a social worker, and during the 1970s did much to support the lost and homeless inhabitants of his home town Frankfurt, particularly the mentally ill, the handicapped and those suffering from discrimination. But in the 1980s he became well known for his numerous books and newspaper articles about the scandals of the Nazi doctors, especially those involved with the so-called euthanasia programmes, as well as about the Nazi lawyers and what became of them later. He also published a number of items which revealed striking findings about the misdeeds and complicity of church officials and parishioners. The publicity he gained naturally made him enemies among these doctors, lawyers and clergymen in post-1945 Germany. But he persevered in exposing the former compromised careers of many prominent members of the Federal Republic. The number of his books is remarkable. Twenty-five of them were published by the well-known S. Fischer Publishing House. And in 1989 his sharp attack on the churches’ attitudes after 1933 appeared under the title: Jesus Christ’s Storm Troopers: The Churches under Hitler’s Thumb (Die SA Jesu Christi: Die Kirchen im Banne Hitlers). In the book’s foreword, the author was quick to note that “this is not an attack on the church, to which I myself still belong. The Church was not alone in its apostasy. But nowhere else was the hypocrisy so evident of on the one hand claiming to uphold the cause of the poor and weakest in society, while on the other hand in fact abandoning them for the sake of clinging to their own positions of power.”

Particularly notable was Klee’s wide-ranging Encyclopedia of People in the Third Reich. Who Was What Before and After 1945? (Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945?). This 750 page volume first appeared in 2003, containing the biographies of 4300 individuals from all sections of German society. In many cases this was the first time the wider public learnt about the activities of some leading figures of the Nazi era and their subsequent careers. Even today these revelations continue to surprise many people, since the individuals concerned have taken great pains to conceal their previous political sympathies or actions. Shortly before his death, Klee was able to finish his last book, published in the autumn of 2013, The Auschwitz Perpetrators and Accomplices, and What Became of Them (Auschwitz: Täter, Gehilfen, Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde: ein Personenlexikon).

It was only to be expected that Klee should have aroused much opposition by his forthright and uncompromising pursuit of truth. On the other hand he was honoured and admired for his dedication, and awarded tributes such as the Family Scholl Prize in 1997 and the Goethe Medallion given by the City of Frankfurt in 2001. Walther H. Pehle, a long-time friend and the reader for the S. Fischer Publishing House, praised him as “an outstanding journalist and significant historian of the Nazi period, whose courageous and innovative investigations were a most valuable contribution towards an adequate knowledge of those dark days.”

Book Note: Elisabeth Sifton and Fritz Stern, No Ordinary Men. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Book Note: Elisabeth Sifton and Fritz Stern, No Ordinary Men. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State (New York: New York Review Books, 2013), Pp. 157, ISBN 978-1-59017-681-3.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The latest addition to the Bonhoeffer corpus of writings is a double-headed tribute to both Dietrich and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi, written by Fritz Stern, a distinguished historian of Germany at Columbia University, New York, and by Elisabeth Sifton, the daughter of the noted American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. Their aim, in this short book, is to refresh and uphold the heroic picture of these men’s lives and tragic deaths as already formulated seventy years ago by British and American liberal churchmen, such as Bishop George Bell and Reinhold Niebuhr. According to this interpretation, their participation in the resistance movement in Germany was motivated by their high ethical ideals and by their moral revulsion against the Nazis’ aggressive and violent persecution of their opponents, particularly the Jews. Their account of the careers of both Bonhoeffer and von Dohnanyi clearly follows that given by Eberhard Bethge, since they too later got to know the surviving members of both families. In essence, however, they bring no new insights to the political or theological controversies about the resistance movement, its motives or tactics. Instead they repeat the now familiar themes of earlier biographies. They honour the inherent decency and courage of these intrepid witnesses to a “better” Germany. They deplore the readiness of other Germans, even years afterwards, to regard these men as traitors to the nation for seeking to overthrow the established government. They still regret the British government’s refusal to offer the resisters any gestures of support. They are dismayed at the leniency extended to former Nazis in post-war West Germany. In short, although well aware of the dangers of hagiography, especially in Bonhoeffer’s case–for all the wrong reasons–these authors nevertheless seek to affirm that “the Third Reich had no greater, more courageous and more admirable enemies” than these men who so steadfastly expressed their moral and political revolt against horrendous injustice and immeasurable cruelty. But they leave unexplored the many questions which historians and theologians still have about the complexities of the German resistance movement, and the historical conditions which led these men to follow the path of heroic self-sacrifice and eventual death as witnesses to their beliefs.

Curiously, in the appended footnotes, the references to the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Collected Works are all drawn from the German, rather than the now completed English edition.

Article Note: Samuel Koehne, “Reassessing The Holy Reich: Leading Nazis’ Views on Confession, Community and ‘Jewish’ Materialism”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Article Note: Samuel Koehne, “Reassessing The Holy Reich: Leading Nazis’ Views on Confession, Community and ‘Jewish’ Materialism,” Journal of Contemporary History 48 No. 3 (July 2013): 423-445.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University College

Samuel Koehne is a young Australian scholar who has been researching on the twin topics of how liberal and conservative Christians interpreted and responded to the rise of the National Socialist movement and how the Nazi movement developed its official policy on religion (see our summary of his research in Contemporary Church History Quarterly 18, no. 4 (December 2012)). In his recent article in the Journal of Contemporary History, Koehne revisits the controversy surrounding the Richard Steigmann-Gall book, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945—a controversy which featured prominently in the pages of the same journal back in early 2007. Koehne examines one of Steigmann-Gall’s key arguments in The Holy Reich, that the “positive Christianity” of Point 24 in the 1920 NSDAP Programme represented a coherent Nazi version of Christianity, which was supra-confessional (uncoupled from any Protestant or Catholic dogmatism), antisemitic (rooted in the German racial community), and socially ethical (placing common interest before private interest). In contrast, Koehne argues that “the notion of ‘positive Christianity’ as a Nazi ‘religious system’ has been largely invented” (423). Koehne makes his case by analyzing the public statements of Nazi leaders Adolf Hitler, Gottfried Feder, and Alfred Rosenberg on confession, community, and “Jewish” materialism, finding that all three ideas were “openly depicted as part of Nazi a racial-nationalist ideology,” and not portrayed as part of some kind of Nazi Christianity (424). In terms of source material, Koehne focuses on Hitler’s statements prior to the Munich Putsch and his writing in Mein Kampf, along with published explanations of the party programme by Rosenberg and Feder, from 1933 and 1934 respectively.

Koehne makes his case well. By the end of the article, there is little question that German racial purity, antisemitism, and Volksgemeinschaft were essential components of Nazi ideology, as opposed to core beliefs in a kind of Nazi Christianity. As a result, the “positive Christianity” of Point 24 remains ambiguous—social cohesion in Hitler’s Germany would not be achieved through an “’interconfessional’ religion but by a kind of salvational nationalism” (444). But if Koehne’s conclusion casts doubt on one of Richard Steigmann-Gall’s key arguments in The Holy Reich, it doesn’t clarify the questions the latter raises about individual Nazis’ attitudes towards Jesus or Christianity (444) or about the nature of National Socialist ecclesiastical policy. Amid Koehne’s examples of Hitler’s criticisms of the churches for the insufficiency of their Germanness and antisemitism are other references that suggest Christianity and the churches could play a positive role in German political life, as they had during the First World War (432-434). Nonetheless, Koehne’s article is an important reminder that religion was of minor importance to Hitler and other leading Nazis as they formulated and later implemented their antisemitic völkisch ideology, even if the their movement posed difficult challenges to Christianity and the German churches.

Article Note: Nicholas Railton, “Escaping from Sodom: A Christian Jew Encounters German Antisemitism”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Article Note: Nicholas Railton, “Escaping from Sodom: A Christian Jew Encounters German Antisemitism,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64 (2013): 787-826.

By Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C., Stonehill College

In his fascinating article, Nicholas Railton of the University of Ulster’s faculty of arts details the life of Maly Kagan (1897-1963), a Christian of Jewish heritage, to highlight the struggles faced by such individuals under National Socialism. The daughter of Russian immigrants who fled to Germany in the Kaiserzeit, Kagan left Orthodox Judaism in 1919, following a period of spiritual trial and personal tragedy. In 1925, her faith-journey led her to accept a position as an auxiliary nurse at the Innere Mission sponsored Tannenhof psychiatric hospital in Remscheid-Lüttringhausen in the Rhineland. Like many similar institutions in Germany, the Tannenhof hospital underwent nazification within a few months of Hitler’s assumption of power. Steps in this process included the introduction of the Hitler salute for all employees and the implementation of the July 1933 sterilization law. Tannenhof’s clerical director, Pastor Paul Ernst Werner, a devout Nazi and member of the German Christians, zealously promoted National Socialist doctrine through his leadership and bible study sessions. In particular, he was aided by Martha Rielandt, a teacher at Tannenhof and a member of the National Socialist Women’s League, who similarly promoted National Socialist ideology, especially in her classes for trainee deaconesses. Such changes in the institution did not go smoothly, especially after the German Christian Berlin Sportspalast November 1933 fiasco in which Reinhold Krause called for the removal of the Old Testament from the biblical canon. Though evidence is conflicting, it appears that Hildegard von Bülow, Mother Superior of Tannenhof’s deaconesses, challenged Werner and Rielandt on the content of their teaching. Both Werner and Rielandt were eventually removed from their positions. Kagan was also dismissed at the same time. It is unclear if the departures were linked, though Railton surmises that Kagan “became the sacrificial lamb that was meant to limit the influence and impact of Nazi ideology on the establishment” (p. 801).

After finding refugee at the Malche Bible House in Freienwalde an der Oder, upon recommendation of a director there, Kagan made her way to Berlin to begin work with the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel (HCTI), a missionary society designed to “bear witness for Christ to the Jewish people in all its lands of their dispersion” (p. 804). There she worked with Heinrich Poms, also a Christian of Jewish heritage, who shared a background similar to Kagan. Following Kristallnacht, Poms and his family fled Germany with Kagan’s assistance. Kagan herself remained behind and assumed the running of the HCTI. Amazingly, she avoided deportation three times and continued in her administrative position. During this time, Kagan was even able to have surgery to correct a degenerate eye condition. She also became involved with relief efforts in connection with Pastor Heinrich Grüber’s Office, the Kirchliche Hilfsstelle für evangelische Nichatarier. This perilous work eventually brought her to hide both Jews and Christians of Jewish heritage in the HCTI building. At some point, the situation became too dangerous for Kagan to remain in public view and she went into hiding until the war ended.

In post-war Germany, the situation for Christians of Jewish heritage within the German Lutheran Church did not change. Railton attributes this to the Church’s unwillingness to address its National Socialist past directly and honestly. He writes: “It was a strange time when silence veiled a multitude of sins committed during the dark night of National Socialism: sins of commission and even more sins of omission” (p. 813). Despite this situation, Kagan resumed her missionary efforts and promoted the healing of wounds between Christians and Jews. To this end, she encouraged her former colleague, Heinrich Poms, to return to Germany to assist her in her efforts. Poms accepted her invitation and inaugurated a series of lectures that addressed the “‘demonic origin of antisemitism’ and the need to repent of all forms of such prejudice” (p. 816). After seven years of toiling with reconciliation work and finding little support from the Lutheran Church, Kagan had had enough. Family members in Israel had already been encouraging her to move there. Giving up on Germany, she accepted their invitation and moved to Israel just outside of Haifa. After her move, she continued to minister to the small Messianic Jewish community there until her sudden death in May 1963, the result of being hit by a motorbike.

Railton’s article informatively relates the horrendous impact of antisemitism on Christians of Jewish heritage. As Railton notes, this is a topic that deserves more scholarly attention. The article is well researched as Railton has thoroughly scoured the existing archives to tell Kagan’s story. Yet, there are some areas where the reader desires more information or greater clarification. For example, this reader would like to know more about the trials Poms and Kagan faced together. Similarly, one learns little about Kagan’s experience in hiding in the last years of the war. More specific examples might also have been offered to illustrate the prolongation of antisemitism in post-war German Lutheranism. These points aside, Railton’s article provides us with a unique insight into the life of one woman who courageously resisted the Nazis by living out her faith conviction. Hopefully, Railton’s work will inspire fellow historians to investigate this under-studied area further.

Memorial Speech: Dr. Margot Kaessmann on the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Dr. Elisabeth Schmitz

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Memorial Speech: Dr. Margot Kaessmann on the 120th Anniversary of the Birth of Dr. Elisabeth Schmitz

By Margot Kaessmann

On 17 December 2013, the City of Berlin and the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia honoured the historian Dr. Elisabeth Schmitz with a prestigious memorial service on the occasion of the 120^th anniversary of her birth. The memorial speech was given by the former Bishop of Hannover, Dr. Margot Kaessmann, who is currently representative of the Council of the EKD for the Reformation Jubilee of 2017. We are pleased to publish excerpts from her speech and thank Dr. John S. Conway for his translation of the text.

Margot Kaessmann: Memorial speech on Elisabeth Schmitz (1893-1977)

Elisabeth Schmitz was born on 23 August 1893. I am grateful that 120years later André Schmitz and Manfred Gailus have taken the initiative to honour her this evening in Berlin, and also that the present Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg Markus Droege is here with us. She lived here in Berlin from 1915 to 1943, and from 1933 onwards she saw at close range how damaging the Nazi ideology truly was, which led her to recognize the dangers and to protest, quietly but unmistakably. It is now 75 years since the notorious Crystal Night pogrom in 1938, but Elisabeth Schmitz had already foreseen such disasters. As a result she felt obliged to resign her duties as a teacher, fearing that her integrity would be compromised.

Today’s commemoration must be seen as an exceptional event. This “protesting Protestant”, as Manfred Gailus calls her in his biography, has hardly been known, and much too little recognized. But as he says: “Protestantism in Germany in the 21st century will want to accord this woman a high place, and even sooner or later to put her in the category of Protestant saints.” Of course Protestants have a problem with saints, since they believe that only God deserves to be worshipped, not men or women. For people in the Reformation tradition, the communion of saints is reserved for those whose life and death was totally committed to God, as is recognized in Article 21 of the Augsburg Confession of 1530.

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But Manfred Gailus is quite right to assert that we can learn from the example set by Elisabeth Schmitz’ faithful witness and her self-sacrificing commitment to others. It is high time that we acknowledge what she achieved. When people talk about the Resistance Movement in the Third Reich, we all know about such names as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, or Hans von Dohnanyi. But women’s names are mentioned only as supportive wives. But of course there were women active in this resistance, and not only in the “White Rose” circle, such as Sophie Scholl, or in the Red Chapel network. One of them was Elisabeth Schmitz. She was originally from Hanau, but worked here in Berlin, but finally went back to Hanau where she died at the age of 84 in 1977. Only seven people attended her funeral.

Why are we commemorating her now? One of her pupils was Dietgard Meyer, who later became a pastor in Hessen. I myself was ordained in 1985 in Hessen and so learnt to know Dietgard Meyer. She told me about Dr. Katharina Staritz, who was provisionally ordained in Breslau as a “city vicar” in 1938, and who was arrested because of her engagement in the resistance, but whose status was not recognized after the war. Only in the last few years did I learn about Elisabeth Schmitz, but I was quickly appreciative of her early and clear recognition of the unbearable violations of human dignity and rights by the Nazis. From Manfred Gailus’ biography I learnt how well established Elisabeth Schmitz was in her circle of well-educated women, such as Dr. Carola Barth, who taught religion, and also Dr. Elisabet von Harnack, or particularly later with Dr. Martha Kassel, a medical doctor, who was a Protestant of Jewish origin. She had good contacts with Professor Elisabeth Schiemann, and also with such colleagues as Dr. Elisabeth Abegg and Margarete Behrens. These were among the first generation of women to be particularly well educated, and took advantage of this fact to express their views with vigor. This gave them a capacity for a critical approach to affairs, and their freedom and independence therefore made them skeptical towards the allurements of the National Socialist ideology.

Already in 1933 Elisabeth Schmitz had expressed her outrage about the injustice and cruelties inflicted upon those of Jewish origin. This was a time when many in the church thought that matters would improve after the Nazis took power. But Elisabeth Schmitz was more sanguine. As Gailus noted: “She was deeply involved and offended by the daily humiliations inflicted on her ‘non-aryan’ friends Martha Kassel, and her brother the lawyer Heinrich Kassel, as well as on other friends and acquaintances. She was also influenced by belonging to a circle of Jewish intellectuals around Julius Bab, by her reading of the writings of Karl Barth and by her extended correspondence with this Swiss theologian from April 1933 onwards.” These were the factors which affected her after that date, and brought her to join the circle led by Pastor Gerhard Jacobi in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial parish. In 1934 she took the step of signing the “Red Card” indicating her willingness to join the Confessing Church group in this parish.

In 1935 already she wrote a memorandum urging her church to stand up against the discrimination being inflicted on the Jews. She wrote: “For the past two and a half years a severe persecution has been inflicted on a portion of our people because of their racial origin, including a portion of our own parish membership. The victims of this persecution have suffered dreadful distress both outwardly and inwardly but this is not widely known, which makes the guilt of the German people all the more reprehensible.”

Elisabeth Schmitz had studied history, German, and theology in order to teach in a secondary high school. She graduated in 1920 as a pupil of Friedrich Meinecke in Berlin, which was an unusual achievement for a woman at that time. She was then granted her teaching certificate, and from April 1929 she was promoted to be a senior teacher in the Berlin school system. One of her pupils described her as being “quietly reserved, concentrating on the lesson materials, but both positive and demanding in her requirements from us. Her dress was very modest, her hair parted in the middle and held up with a comb. All of which gave her a slightly old-fashioned look, which didn’t inspire us. Nevertheless she succeeded in gaining our respect. Her quiet authority made us speechless.”

These pupils didn’t know anything about what she did outside the school. But in fact she was a member of Helmut Gollwitzer’s “Dogmatic Study Circle.” Between 1933 and 1936 she conducted an extensive correspondence with Karl Barth in the hopes of getting him to adopt a public stance on the subject of the situation of the Jews in Germany. In these early years she received two answers. From her standpoint, this persecution of the Jews and the silence of the Church in response was a vital matter, but Barth at that time regarded this only as a side-issue. This seems to me to denote a vital difference among the active members of the Confessing Church who were trying to live out their Christian convictions. Was this really an issue about the true nature of the Church? Or was it merely a matter of standing up for the rights of the persecuted Jews? Or was the Church failing in its most essential obligation when it did not oppose vehemently enough the oppression, the betrayal of values, and the disrespect for human beings?

I was particularly struck by finding a very similar protest being made by Edith Stein, who was a Catholic convert from Judaism, writing to Pope Pius XI in April 1933. But she, like Elisabeth Schmitz, got no answer. But Schmitz carried on her commitment by writing an extensive memorandum about the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany, and presenting this to the Synod of the Confessing Church which was held in Berlin in September 1935. But she got no reply. It is still not clear just who actually received this document. It would seem that its contents were talked about, but that it was never officially presented to the synod.

An interesting fact is that for a long while the authorship of this document was ascribed not to Elisabeth Schmitz, but to another member of the Confessing Church, Marga Meusel. Not until 1999 was Elisabeth Schmitz’ authorship recognized, and then only by chance when a large number of documents were discovered left behind in Hanau after her death. But the question still remains: why did she herself not take more trouble to have its contents better known even after the Nazi regime was overthrown?

This memorandum is an impressive document. Its author was an alert observer of the damages inflicted by the Nazi regime. For example, in describing the fate of children, she wrote: “Children ought to have the first claim on our sympathy. But now? In many large cities, Jewish children are sent to Jewish schools. Or their parents send them to Catholic schools, since in their view they will be better protected than in Protestant schools. And what about the converted Protestant children? And what happens to Jewish children in smaller communities where there is no Jewish school, or in the countryside? In at least one small town I have heard that the exercise books of Jewish children are torn up, and that their breakfast snacks are thrown in the gutter. Christian children are doing this, while Christian parents, teachers and pastors allow this to happen.” And to think that all this was written three years before Crystal Night!

Why did this protest fail to gain any support? Was it because the Confessing Church was more concerned about safeguarding its own existence than in saving the Jews? Or was it because the author was a woman and not a properly ordained pastor?

Elisabeth Schmitz was denounced because she had given hospitality to Martha Kassel, a Christian of Jewish origin. From 1935 on, she had increasing problems at her Lankwitz school because she couldn’t agree to “educate the children in the spirit of National Socialism”. So after the Crystal Night she asked to be allowed to retire. She was evacuated from Berlin in 1943 and returned to her parents’ home in Hanau. But from 1946 to 1958, she was once again teaching as before. She evidently had close contacts with her friends and former students, but never raised the subject of her memorandum.

I am concerned about this story. For one thing, it shows how early the injustices of Nazi policy were recognized. Everyone could have known what was happening. Look at the questions she posed so frankly in 1935: “Why do the ‘non-aryan’ Christians feel so deserted by the Church both locally and at the international level? Why does the Church do nothing? Why do they allow these palpable injustices to be perpetrated?”

Of course this raises the question about the nature of the Church. For her, it wasn’t just a question of the Church’s freedom to witness, as Karl Barth assumed, or about the fate of the baptized Jews, which so concerned Marga Meusel. She was much more concerned about the fate of the Church as Church if it was not prepared to stand up for the rights of those being maltreated. This was happening in front of these churchmen’s own eyes, or even with their participation. On the other hand, it is unforgivable that this memorandum was not honored after 1945. The church leaders were surely guilty of a collective amnesia, when only a few heroes were selected to be remembered, but their own failures were pushed out of sight and forgotten.

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But today we should really celebrate Elisabeth Schmitz and be thankful for her stalwart witness. And we should be encouraged to follow her example in the life of our churches today. Her story is one which needs to be resurrected from the archives and kept alive in the day-to-day practice of our community. In this way Elisabeth Schmitz can truly be described as a Protestant saint, whose life and witness will remain of vital importance for us today and for the future.

New Research on Nazism and Christianity: William Skiles

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

New Research on Nazism: William Skiles

By William Skiles, University of California, San Diego

William Skiles is a Ph.D Candidate in the History Department at the University of California, San Diego. Here is a brief description of his dissertation research. Mr. Skiles can be reached at wskiles@ucsd.edu.

Historians of the Church Struggle in Nazi Germany have closely examined the establishment of the oppositional Confessing Church (die Bekennende Kirche) in 1934, as well as the institutional conflicts between factions and figures within the movement and also with the regime and its supporters. Yet the approach of most historians has focused on the institution, its leaders, and its persecution by the Nazi regime, leaving essentially unexamined the most elemental task of the pastor – that is, preaching. My research explores the Confessing Church through the sermons its pastors preached Sunday after Sunday, for holidays and weddings and funerals, and even in the dark corners of concentration camps.

I am concerned with finding answers to a few key questions. First, do the sermons of the Confessing Church reveal expressions of condemnation or support for National Socialism or Adolf Hitler? In other words, did the pastors enter into a public debate about the Nazi regime from their position of influence behind the pulpit? Second, how do these sermons express views either in support or antagonistic towards Jews and Judaism? How often do we see cases of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism preached, or conversely, how often do we see the Jews encouraged or esteemed as religious cousins in Nazi Germany? And lastly, just how often do we see Confessing Church sermons offer dissent, opposition, or even resistance to the Nazi regime. Given their unique role in Nazi Germany as professionals who had the opportunity to speak to the German population about Jews and their tradition, what did they say and how did they say it? And in answering these questions, I aim to understand how these sermons may have contributed to the social and religious milieu of the Protestant Church and, in a wider scope, Nazi Germany.

Of course, one of the most difficult problems is determining what constitutes opposition or resistance. I have examined over 900 sermons to find any expressions about Nazism or Hitler, and also about Jews and Judaism. Categorizing comments about Adolf Hitler and National Socialism is much more straight-forward, as political comments in a sermons stand out as unusual and purposeful in a sermon. For example, a pastor might condemn National Socialism as a false ideology or an ideology in direct opposition to Christianity; or a pastor would criticize Hitler as a false messiah or leader, or condemn other Nazi leaders for their persecution of the German churches.

On the other hand, analyzing comments about Jews and Judaism is more complicated. Naturally, we expect Christian pastors to preach on the Old Testament, to tell the stories contained in this book. Often the pastors’ presentations of these stories is without implication for the support or prejudice of Jews in Nazi Germany, they are simply re-iterations of old stories for a new audience. Therefore, I pay particular attention to comments that reflect views of Jews and Judaism relevant to the current situation in Nazi Germany. I did not catalogue more mundane examples of pastors discussing the traditions of the Jewish people, such as reiterations of the story of Jonah and the whale, for example. Nevertheless, the fact that these Confessing Church pastors preached on the Old Testament and held up Hebrew and Jewish figures as heroes or moral and spiritual examples demonstrates not only their appreciation of the Old Testament as a sacred text, but differentiates them from the pro-Nazi Protestant German Christian movement (Glaubensbewegung “Deutsche Christen”).

This research is an original contribution to the historiography because for the first time we will have an in-depth analysis of a variety of messages delivered by Confessing Church pastors in their sermons to their communities of faith. This will give us greater insight into the nature and the degree of dissent, opposition, and resistance in the everyday ministry of the church, and also provide some insight about public opinion expressed from the pulpit from week to week, whether explicitly or cryptically. In addition, I am interested in how the Nazi regime perceived these sermons and dealt with pastors who were deemed too vocal – the Gestapo repots are superb documents in this regard. Lastly, my research will advance our understanding of the social world of Germans in the Nazi dictatorship, particularly the values and priorities of their communities of faith, and how sermons may have informed political, social, and theological perspectives. In the end, we may better be able to answer to what extent Confessing Church pastors spoke out for the Jews or against the Nazi regime, or as was too often the case, simply kept silent.