Yearly Archives: 2018

Article Note: Heath A. Spencer, “From Liberal Theology to Völkisch Christianity?: Heinrich Weinel, the Volkskirchenbund, and the Church Struggle in Thuringia”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Article Note: Heath A. Spencer, “From Liberal Theology to Völkisch Christianity?: Heinrich Weinel, the Volkskirchenbund, and the Church Struggle in Thuringia,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 30, no. 2 (Fall 2016): 328-350.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University

In this interesting article, Heath A. Spencer explains how Heinrich Weinel, professor of New Testament and systematic theology at Jena University from 1904 until his death in 1936, could combine “theological liberalism, progressive politics, and humanitarian ideals” (328) with support for the pro-Nazi German Christian Movement in Thuringia. As Spencer notes, in many respects, Weinel was something of a conundrum. He defended “Protestant freedom” against conservative theology, but supported the idea of a Protestant Volkskirche (people’s church). He strove for peace and disapproved of the “national religion” of the First World War era, yet volunteered for military service and promoted “total mobilization” towards the end of the war. During the Weimar period, he was one of the minority of Protestant clergy who supported the new republic, but as the völkisch movement grew stronger through the later 1920s, he called on his fellow religious liberals to work with those on the right (328-329).

Spencer argues that Weinel’s story helps us understand how not only ideology but also “situational factors” drew German Protestants towards völkisch Christianity. Further, it reveals the motives, decision-making processes, and hopes of Protestants (especially in 1933), while illustrating the importance of local and regional factors in the history of the German churches under Hitler (330).

Weinel believed in German exceptionalism and Germany’s cultural mission in the world, and in the importance of Christianity to both. Indeed, it was his fear of losing the völkisch movement to organized religion—just as the educated elites and the industrial working classes had been lost—that drove him to want “to combine Christianity and the völkisch movement together in the right way” (335).

As Spencer explains Weinel’s journey through the war, the Weimar era, and the early years of the Third Reich, what emerges so clearly is Weinel’s tolerance for and desire to understand and even work with those of differing religious and political inclinations. Though he criticized aspects of Nazism, he approved of Hitler’s “national renewal.” Similarly, though he disapproved of the German Christians’ antisemitism and elevation of German-ness over the Gospel, he chose to set aside his long participation in the Thuringian Volkskirchenbund and to support the German Christians in the 1933 Protestant church election. His rationale was that the German Christians were a dynamic force that was winning the hearts of the masses and that they were the party that could establish a centralized Protestant Reich Church, a cause Weinel championed but knew that religious liberals could not accomplish (339).

In the final section of the article, Spencer explains how Weinel’s support for the German Christians entangled him in the antisemitic politics of Nazi Germany. Though Weinel had positive things to say about historic Judaism and though he criticized the antisemitism of the völkisch movement, he also favoured ethnic segregation, celebrated the nation as a creation of God, and failed to speak in defense of Jews and Jewish Christians who were suffering under Nazi political rule and German Christian ecclesiastical rule. Ultimately, though Spencer argues that Weinel’s support for the German Christian Movement was largely a tactical decision born of “frustration and desperation,” he also concludes that “Weinel’s story is a depressing reminder that intelligent, devout, compassionate people can make disastrous political and moral choices” (344).

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Article Note: Giuliana Chamedes, “The Vatican, Nazi-Fascism, and the Making of Transnational Anti-Communism in the 1930s”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Article Note: Giuliana Chamedes, “The Vatican, Nazi-Fascism, and the Making of Transnational Anti-Communism in the 1930s,” Journal of Contemporary History 51, no. 2 (April 2016): 261-290.

By Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University

Giuliana Chamedes’ article addresses the intersection of Soviet, Vatican, and German policies through an examination of the Vatican’s Secretariat on Atheism and its transnational campaign to fight the spread of international Communism. In the early 1930s, the Vatican launched the Secretariat on Atheism as a branch of its foreign policy apparatus. The Secretariat led the anti-communist campaign by publishing monthly journals, creating traveling exhibitions, and sponsoring radio programs, writing contests, and even film propaganda. Although the Secretariat was deeply engaged in the fight against the spread of communism, Chamedes argues that the Secretariat’s success was due in part to its willingness to work with pre-existing networks of anti-communists, including the Nazis, Fascists, and others in Europe and in the Americas.

The creation of the Secretariat was part of the Vatican’s determination to re-assert Rome as the center of global Catholic life while simultaneously underscoring the Catholic Church’s ongoing prominence in international affairs. It was also part of an effort to protect the Church against threats that seemed to challenge the very existence of the Church. By revealing more information about the under-studied Secretariat on Atheism, Chamedes’ article expands on the history of transnational anti-communism. In addition, Chamedes’ research helps us to understand how Catholic Church leaders got involved with Fascists and Nazis in the Vatican’s quest to gain control over the multitude of anti-communist organizations.

Chamedes notes that Vatican-Soviet relations were carried on diplomatically throughout the 1920s and that a change in the relationship came about in the early 1930s. For Chamedes, the Vatican’s “crusade of prayer” played only a small role in the changing dynamics of Vatican-Soviet relations. Rather, she cites the years 1932-1933 as the moment when mild protests against Soviet policy were replaced with a transnational campaign, aiming to vilify communism “as the greatest existing threat to the survival of Catholicism and the Catholic Church” (266). She connects this sea change to several factors, including the outbreaks of anticlerical violence in Spain and Mexico and the emergence of a new cadre of Vatican insiders such as Eugenio Pacelli, who functioned as the Secretary of State at the Vatican. By 1931, Pacelli was obsessed with the rise of the Spanish Republic and its attempts to separate Church and State. He was convinced that the Spanish Republic was part of a communist plot to destroy Catholic Spain. He took a similar approach when examining events in Mexico. By early 1932, Pacelli revealed in a circular letter sent to Vatican officials in 39 countries that a new campaign was going to be launched from Rome to fight against the existential threat of communism against Catholicism and the Church.

1932 was also the year in which the Vatican developed the anti-communist encyclical, Divinum Mandatum. Pacelli was once again involved in this project as well and the encyclical argued that the international Catholic Church could weaken international communism. The encyclical, however, was never published and the reasons remain somewhat unclear. This did not stop Pacelli. In January 1933, a group of officials at the Vatican agreed to form the Secretariat on Atheism. The organization would be run by the Jesuits, who would keep in continual contact with the Secretary of State, and Rome would serve as the organization’s home base. Its purpose would be to launch an international counter-revolution in an attempt to defeat the aims of the Soviet Union. The new organization began by coordinating itself with anti-communist activists in Europe, the Americas, and in countries in Asia and Africa.

The Secretariat argued that it was uniquely qualified to lead the charge against communists, asserting that “the Vatican was the only ‘dynamic and truly global organization’ that stood ‘above all nations and nationalities’, and was capable of competing with international communism…” (271). Unlike Fascist and Nazi propaganda, the Secretariat did focus on communism as being essentially atheistic and godless, therefore avoiding the anti-Semitic tropes employed by men such as Hitler. Despite the struggle between the Secretariat and Nazi-Fascist forces for leadership in the charge against communism, Chamedes argues that cooperation between the competitors actually increased when one examines the case studies of traveling exhibitions and a writing competition.

With the urging and support of Pope Pius XI, the Secretariat on Atheism was charged with overseeing an international writing competition (although the role of the Secretariat was to be kept secret). The judges for the competition were known for their fascist and proto-fascist sympathies. Over 500 novels were submitted, and a Russian émigré to Vienna, Alja Rachmanova, won first place. Her novel represented the triumph of Christianity over an immoral and extremely violent Bolshevism. While Rachmanova’s novel did not employ Nazi-Fascist motifs, the second-place novel, written by Erik Maria Ritter von Kühnelt-Leddihn, told the story of a Jesuit and two other men who traveled around Europe beating up communists. Further book prizes were awarded in ways which underscored the growing interconnectedness between the Secretariat and radical right-wing political movements. For instance, when writing to the judges of the competition, Pius XI noted that book awards should go to authors who stressed themes that were anti-democratic, authoritarian, and rooted in religious political thinking (275). The Pope also warned that the novels should not stress extreme nationalism as that would threaten the role of the Catholic Church as an international organization capable of leading the fight against communism.

By the spring of 1936, as the Spanish Civil War was close to erupting, the Secretariat released a traveling exhibit meant to re-affirm that the Vatican was the leader in the fight against Communism. The thrust of the exhibit stressed that the Soviet Union and its nefarious influence could only be defeated with the collaboration of state powers with the Vatican. Using many types of modern staging techniques, visitors would encounter the growing threat of international communism. The final room in the exhibit, however, showed the Secretariat’s brochures, posters, and related material, leaving visitors with a feeling of hope that the Catholic Church was capable of defeating communism. The exhibition traveled to many different European cities and was followed up by two other exhibitions in 1938 and in 1939. In the case of these exhibitions, the Vatican did not shy away from working with Nazi and Fascist governments, as their anti-communist agenda was a shared one. This common cause also led to agreements with the Gestapo that allowed previously banned publications to be brought into Nazi Germany, showing the work of the Secretariat in its battle with the Soviet Union.

In March 1937 the Vatican released three encyclicals, one of which addressed the growing Soviet threat. Divini Redemptoris revealed the influence of the Secretariat on Atheism in its emphasis that the power and resources of the Catholic Church would be the only effective means of maintaining world peace. This encyclical was followed by Firmissimam Constantiam, which argued that violent action was needed in response to threats against Catholicism in Mexico. Using the theory of just war, the encyclical allowed and even encouraged the use of force in the fight against communism. The final encyclical of 1937, Mit brennender Sorge, addressed the rise of racist ideology. Though it avoided naming Nazi Germany specifically, it nonetheless clarified some of the Church’s position regarding Nazism.

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, many European nations and the United States of America courted the Vatican to support the fight against the spread of communism. However, once the war began in 1939, the Secretariat on Atheism was shut down. Chamedes suggests that because of Vatican cooperation with Nazi-Fascist forces during the interwar years, the Secretariat was never reopened. Chamedes concludes: “In order to weaken the Soviet Union and the global appeal of communism, the Vatican agreed to a tactical cooperation with Nazi-Fascist forces in a number of on-the-ground campaigns. The Vatican often took the initiative in doing so, even as it increasingly distanced itself in doctrinal terms from the Fascist and Nazi project” (289-290).

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Article Note: Todd H. Weir, “A European Culture War in the Twentieth Century? Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Bolshevism between Moscow, Berlin, and the Vatican 1922-1933”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Article Note: Todd H. Weir, “A European Culture War in the Twentieth Century? Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Bolshevism between Moscow, Berlin, and the Vatican 1922-1933,” Journal of Religious History 39, no. 2 (June 2015): 280-306.

By Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University

Todd H. Weir’s article is a transnational account of the anti-Catholicism gripping Europe in the interwar years. Between 1927-1939, thousands of Catholic clerics and lay people suffered persecution, torture, and murder in places such as Mexico, Spain, and Russia.  Weir addresses an interesting aspect of the ‘culture wars’ by examining the role that religion plays in relation to political ideologies in an age of extremes. The focus is on Germany as the site of a contested ideological and religious struggle between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. The work is divided into two phases of the relationship, covering the 1920s through 1930 as a time when Germany played the role of diplomatic mediator between the Soviet Union and the Vatican via the German Communist Party and the Catholic Center Party. Beginning in 1930, however, Germany became the chief battle arena for an ever-increasing transnational propaganda war between Catholics and communists.

In the first phase, Weir offers explanations as to why both the Vatican and the Soviet Union were open to negotiations. For Vatican officials, the communist takeover meant that there was a need to ensure access to the sacraments for the more than two million Catholics in Russia. It also offered an opportunity for the Church to seek converts from Orthodox Christianity to Catholicism. For Soviet officials, the need to secure diplomatic recognition from powerful entities and to avoid offending countries with substantial Catholic populations were reasons enough to enter into diplomatic talks. Throughout these discussions, Germany emerged as the chief negotiator, particularly since Germany and the Soviet Union had reached a diplomatic agreement in the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.

During the 1920s, influenced by the Rapallo Treaty, the German Foreign Office refused to do more than mention religious persecution within the Soviet Union. To increase the pressure on the Soviets, Vatican Officials, including Eugenio Pacelli, began using their connections to German Catholic newspapers such as Germania to insert demands for an end to religious persecution. In response, the Bolsheviks issued an April 1929 decree making it possible for the state to persecute religious associations even more. The April decree also placed greater burdens on congregations to maintain the upkeep and taxes on their churches. The persecution and targeting of church leaders also proved to be an effective way of destroying village solidarity and ridding the areas of local elites. The Soviet clamp-down on Catholic priests induced German Catholics, including Friedrich Muckermann, to place still more articles attacking the Soviet authorities for attempting to rid their country of religion.

By 1929, Pope Pius XI had given up hope that diplomacy would win the day. Now, the Vatican would launch a “crusade of prayer” (which opened publicly on March 19, 1930) attacking the persecution of Catholic priests inside the Soviet Union, but the crusade also sought to counter the growing promotion of anticlericalism—especially in Germany. The German Freethinkers, under the influence of Soviet examples, urged Germans to leave the churches through public demonstrations, agitprop theater, and graphic propaganda. Both sides now squared off: the Soviets proclaimed that the Pope was the ringleader of Western powers seeking the destruction of the Soviet Union while the Vatican argued that communists were seeking to spread atheism and anti-clericalism throughout Europe. In Germany, Catholic priests followed the pope’s lead in the “crusade of prayer” and organized marches and demonstrations in which thousands protested the spread of anticlericalism. Priests in Germany were trained to combat atheism largely through the People’s Association for Catholic Germany. Through lectures, demonstrations, conference meetings and brochures, priests were instructed to take positive steps in the fight against the spread of atheism and godlessness. These efforts were transnational when some German priests went as a delegation to Mexico to address uprisings against the Cristero movement.

Weir tracks the divisions among German Social Democrats, German Communists, and Catholic Center Party members, revealing the strains of anticlericalism, fears about secularization, and the rising tide of groups such as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party with its promise to end secularism in Germany. The author concludes his article by suggesting that the study of political ideas “should investigate Christian apology as a crucible in which a number of religious-social discourses and theological-political strategies were forged. Although most succumbed to the more powerful political ideologies and are now largely forgotten, these Christian strategies and discourses represent signature elements of the political culture of the period” (305).

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Conference Report: “International Protestants and Nazi Germany as Viewed Through Three Lenses”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Conference Report: “International Protestants and Nazi Germany as Viewed Through Three Lenses,” German Studies Association, Atalnta, GA, October 2017.

By Matthew D. Hockenos, Skidmore College

Five scholars of German church history convened a panel on October 8, 2017, at the German Studies Association in Atlanta, Georgia, to reflect on international Protestants and Nazi Germany. The panel consisted of presenters Robert Ericksen, Victoria Barnett, and Matthew Hockenos, while Rebecca Carter-Chand offered insightful comments and Christopher Probst did the introductions. All five panelists engaged the audience in a lively exchange after the presentations.

Robert Ericksen led with his paper “On Luther, Jews, and Lutherans in Nazi Germany.” He lamented that while the 500th anniversary of Luther’s “break” with the Catholic Church was receiving widespread attention across Europe and the United States, Luther’s antisemitism—most famously on display in On the Jews and Their Lies—rarely became a major focal point of these commemorations. Despite this lapse (or intentional manipulation) of historical memory, there are indisputable signs that most Lutherans no longer try to explain away Luther’s derogatory and hateful Judenschriften, but rather condemn his anti-Jewish diatribes and antisemitism unequivocally. Ericksen believes that the contemporary renunciation of Luther’s antisemitism is a direct result of Holocaust scholarship over the past three or four decades. The advent of “Holocaust Studies,” Holocaust museums, and scholarly and media attention on the Holocaust have all contributed to the waning of the antisemitism’s social acceptability in the United States and parts of Europe. This attention on the Shoah—its sheer inhumanity and ugliness—had the effect of “inoculating” the public against contempt for Jews. While not excusing their antisemitism, Ericksen pointed out that German Protestant theologians and pastors who backed Hitler, like Gerhard Kittel and Martin Niemöller, did not have the benefit of this inoculation. Ericksen concluded with the observation that the current support for right-wing populism in Europe and the U.S. raises the concern that the post-Holocaust inoculation against antisemitism might be losing its influence.

Vicki Barnett’s paper, “A Two-Way Street: The Complex Relationships between German and U.S. Protestant leaders, 1933-1939,” examined some of the many transatlantic interactions that took place between U.S. and German Protestants during the Nazi era. These contacts included active partnerships, participation in conferences, lecture tours, and visitations by church leaders. In addition to the more well-known exchanges between the leaders of the U.S. Federal Council of Churches (FCC) and the leaders of the German Protestant Church (DEK), Barnett also explored contacts between German and American Baptists, Methodists, and Adventists. Barnett’s research demonstrates that there was no monolithic relationship between American and German Protestants, though there were tendencies. While most German Protestants were bent on convincing their American counterparts of the validity of the Nazi regime and downplayed Nazi anti-Semitism, American Protestants diverged in their opinions on the Nazi regime and the response by the German churches. For example, the German Adventist, Hulda Jost, and the German Methodist, Bishop Otto Melle, both went on extensive speaking tours in the U.S. to defend Nazism. And the German Christian (Deutsche Christen) Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller used meetings in Germany with FCC leaders to try to convince them that Nazi critics in the U.S. were misrepresenting the situation in Germany. Sharp divisions, however, developed among American Baptists between those who deplored German nationalism and antisemitism and those who wanted to give the Nazis the benefit of the doubt. The leadership of the FCC was more united in its criticism of Nazism. In an extraordinarily critical letter, Henry Smith Leiper of the FCC dressed down Ludwig Müller for thinking that his pro-Nazi propaganda campaign would gain any adherents in the FCC. The time, money, and effort expended by Americans and Germans in their interaction with each other attests to the importance they attributed to these relations. Transatlantic contacts between Protestants diminished markedly after Kristallnacht and the outbreak of the war, only to be revived after the war.

Matthew Hockenos’ paper, “Guilt, Repentance, and International Public Relations in the German Protestant Church, 1945-1948,” examined how German Protestants from the Nazi-era Confessing Church and the American Protestants in the FCC sought to reestablish close ties after the war. German church leaders were understandably horrified and dismayed by Germany’s total devastation and isolation in 1945 and wanted to ameliorate the suffering of their people. But the church’s reputation as ultra-conservative and nationalist led the Allies to take a cautious approach toward allotting the churches a leading role in German reconstruction. Church leaders believed that the only way to get the occupying powers to soften their policies and embrace the church as a partner would be to convince them that there was a German opposition to the Nazis—led by the churches—and that Germans were willing to take responsibility for the war and all the devastation that it wrought. Beginning with the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt in October 1945 and throughout the late 1940s, church leaders went on a public relations blitz—issuing statements of guilt, meeting the occupation powers, and travelling abroad—in an effort to rehabilitate their reputation and influence occupation policies. Hockenos’ paper focused on Martin Niemöller’s five-month lecture tour in the United States from December 1946 to May 1947, during which he hoped to convince Americans that he was representative of the many good Christians in Germany who fought and prayed for an end to the Hitler menace and who were now barely eking out an existence in bombed cities. Hockenos maintained that Niemöller often stretched the truth during his addresses, embellishing his and the Confessing Church’s resistance credentials. But Niemöller’s efforts to win over American Protestants were only partially successful—Americans remained divided over the legacy of German Protestantism during the Nazi era.

Rebecca Carter-Chand observed in her comments that these three papers made the case that we only get the full picture when we examine German Protestants during this era from an international perspective. With the exception of those scholars who have focused on the ecumenical movement, a transnational approach to studying twentieth-century German church history has not been common. Perhaps its time has come.

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Conference Report: “Synagogue and Church: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holocaust”

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2018)

Conference Report: “Synagogue and Church: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holocaust.” The 10th Annual Powell-Heller Conference for Holocaust Education, Pacific Lutheran University, November 1-3, 2017.

By Beth A. Griech-Polelle, Pacific Lutheran University

The 10th Annual Powell-Heller Conference for Holocaust Education conference began with Steve Pressman, documentary filmmaker, showing clips of his soon-to-be released film, “Holy Secrets.” Pressman discussed his process in making the documentary which explores the actions and inactions taken by the Vatican during the Holocaust.

The first panel session continued this theme by exploring the “Pius Wars,” with papers by Robert Ventresca and Jacques Kornberg. Both presented critical re-assessments of Pius XII, suggesting the need for a framework for the proper historical and ethical evaluation of the choices made by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Further panels included the exploration of Catholic antisemitism, with Kevin P. Spicer and Martina Cucchiara co-presenting their recent work on Erna Becker-Kohen, a Catholic of Jewish heritage. Martin Menke presented research on Weimar Catholic leaders who differentiated between being anti-racist and being anti-Semitic.

Jonathan Huener shared his latest research on the Reichsgau Wartheland and the diverse ways in which the Nazi occupation regime persecuted the Catholic Church in occupied Poland. This was followed by Brenda Gaydosh analyzing why Bernhard Lichtenberg resisted and protested Nazi anti-Semitic measures and why he prayed for the Jews.

The final presentation of the first day of panels was a keynote address by John Connelly: “How the Catholic Church Overcame Its Own Theology and Proclaimed God Loves Jews.” Connelly argued that Vatican II’s new teaching about God loving the Jews came about because of Nazi racism. Many of the theologians who advised the bishops at Vatican II were opponents of Hitler in the 1930s. Some of them were converts from Judaism and many had been targets of antisemitism themselves. Yet for them, the Church’s new teaching about Jews was not a revolution; it was a return to the ideas of the Jewish thinker, Saul of Tarsus. Far from a revolution, the new teaching of Vatican II was a return to the Church’s origins.

The final day of the conference featured a panel on post-Holocaust theology and the Jews with a presentation by Zuzanna Radzik, a Catholic theologian specializing in Christian-Jewish relations and feminist theology. Karma Ben Johanan from the Polonsky Academy at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute then presented on the way in which the Catholic discourse on the Holocaust functioned in the construction of the Church’s identity and in the reforging of Jewish-Christian relations from the Second Vatican Council to the present.

Raymond Sun brought the conference into the present by analyzing the rhetoric, symbolism, and historical precedents employed by church leaders in urging Catholics to oppose the persecution or exclusion of targeted groups. He explored possible reasons for the absence of direct references to the Holocaust and pondered the implications of this for Catholic memory of the Holocaust. This was followed by Gershon Greenberg’s presentation on the restoration of Jewish faith in the displaced persons camps, beginning with the survivor’s question: “Why was I still alive?” The survivors’ answer was: in order to study Torah—which in turn nourished life. The fact that Jewish faith was revived necessitates the conclusion that somehow, some way, sacramental existence never totally disappeared, even in the midst of catastrophe.

The conference closed with a presentation from Marie-Anne Harkness, whose family members rescued Jews in France during the war. Mrs. Harkness’s grandmother, Madame Celine Morali, used the family’s hardware store to smuggle Jews out of danger. She and her daughter worked with Monsignor Joseph Moussaron, Bishop of Albi, and other Catholics to rescue Jews.

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