Author Archives: Dirk Schuster

Film Review of Zwischen uns Gott, Directed by Rebecca Hirneise

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 31, Number 1 (Spring 2025)

Film Review of Zwischen uns Gott, Directed by Rebecca Hirneise (Ruth Beckermann Filmproduktion, 2024)

By Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna

Zwischen uns Gott (Between Us God), the title of the documentary by director Rebecca Hirneise, already gives a clear indication of what the audience can expect. Hirneise visits her family in southwestern Germany to talk to them about religion. Her grandparents, both now suffering from dementia, have raised their children to be religious in a strict Methodist tradition. Her uncles and aunts tell Hirneise—among other things—how they experienced their childhood, how they relate to God and, above all, how they deal with the fact that Hirneise and her mother have turned away from Christianity and no longer want to be Christians. Hirneise manages to bring her sister, her brother and their husbands together after years of distance and talk to them about God and themselves as a family. What the viewer gets to see and hear—Hirneise has one-on-one conversations with everyone involved—is sometimes exciting, sometimes shocking and sometimes just bizarre. One aunt mourns her lost youth, as her parents (Hirneise’s now-deranged grandparents) had completely forbidden all non-religious leisure activities such as dancing, going out, and so on. The siblings’ youth was dominated exclusively by activities within the religious community—no wonder that all of them found their spouses inside the religious community. Her husband has, in turn, founded his own charismatic community in which healing is practiced with the help of God. The viewer cannot help but note that harmony in this marriage seems to be foreign, and divorce perhaps overdue, though outward appearances seem to be more important than personal happiness. This same uncle claims with complete conviction that severed limbs have grown back in his presence simply by asking God. Unfortunately, however, he is not prepared to let the camera in on such events.

Another aunt, on the other hand, talks incessantly about the damnation that awaits Hirneise because of her turning away from God. For this aunt, there is no reality outside of faith, which is why she constantly asks God for forgiveness for Hirneise and her mother. This aunt’s husband is also strictly religious, but unlike his wife, he accepts scientific views to explain the world. For example, he sees the creation of the universe through the Big Bang as entirely possible. And he also accepts that people turn away from God, a stance that his own wife acknowledges with incomprehension. Hirneise’s mother, for her part, reports how her own mother (Hirneise’s grandmother with dementia) had demanded that her daughter remain completely abstinent until her husband—who, it should be noted, had left her—came back to her. The subject of the divorce is not discussed further, so it remains unclear why Hirneise’s father left the family. And of course, he never came back.

Unsurprisingly, the experiment of talking together does not end well; it does not lead to an understanding discourse. The viewer witnesses how accusations are made by family members against each other, such as how the secular mother blames the religious fundamentalists because she was virtually expelled from the family after her divorce and renunciation of faith. Conversely, the fundamentalists condemn Hirneise and her mother because both no longer believe in God. In between are the moderates, who somehow want to mediate, but that doesn’t work. This dispute ultimately ended the family talks.

The film is raw documentary: no scene is acted, no dialogue is prearranged. This unscripted approach makes the movie both exciting and shocking. In an increasingly secularized (Central European) world, the viewer is given an unfiltered view of how faith in God is present within Hirneise’s family and how that faith prevents a peaceful coexistence based on mutual acceptance. Hirneise does not judge, but lets the viewer form his own opinion. This cinematically realized field study documents the tenacious power of religion to determine family dynamics—God has, almost literally, come in between its members. This viewer hopes that this sober anti-blockbuster will be seen by many people, because it impressively reflects the religious conflicts of the present day: one’s own point of view is so entrenched that other opinions can no longer be accepted at all. A different view to one’s own—in this case a Christian fundamentalist view—is not tolerated at all. As a result, the family can no longer even sit at the same table and talk to each other. This fact alone is thought-provoking.

Review of Andreas Pangritz, Die Schattenseite des Christentums. Theologie und Antisemitismus

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 31, Number 1 (Spring 2025)

Review of Andreas Pangritz, Die Schattenseite des Christentums. Theologie und Antisemitismus. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2023.

Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna

Theology and antisemitism: to be honest, the subtitle of the book initially led me to believe that this was yet another classic theological-apologetic attempt to negate the Christian inﬂuence in the development of antisemitism. Fortunately, Andreas Pangritz, Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Bonn, proved me wrong. With his book, based on a lecture at the University of Bonn in 2020, Pangritz wants to achieve exactly the opposite. He follows the basic assumption that there is a connection between Christian theology and antisemitism (11). Accordingly, the main thesis is that antisemitism is essentially Christian antisemitism and that the importance of Christian theology in the formation of antisemitism should not be underestimated (17).

In the second chapter, Pangritz addresses the problematic distinction between the terms anti-Judaism and antisemitism. He shows that the distinction between a theologically-argued hostility towards Jews and a racially argued antisemitism, which has been repeatedly postulated since the end of the Second World War, has not stood the test of time. On the contrary, such a distinction harbors the danger that (Christian) hatred of Jews is trivialized by juxtaposing it with antisemitism. Pangritz proposes “not to speak of a break, but rather of a transformation of the traditional Christian ‘doctrine of contempt’ (Lehre der Verachtung) into the modern forms of antisemitism” (35). It remains unclear, however, why Pangritz returns to the concept of anti-Judaism later in the book (e.g. 119). The term has been overused by Christian apologetics, and Pangritz himself has pointed out that the academic distinction between anti-Judaism and antisemitism has not produced any new insights or meaningful differentiations. (30). Conceptual clarity would have been helpful here, especially since Pangritz argues well with Léon Poliakov, Peter Schäfer and even Reinhard Rürup that “antisemitism” should be used in its most general sense: “The word ‘antisemitism’ denotes hostility, hatred and contempt of all kinds against Jews and Judaism; this does not exclude differences in motivation, but includes them” (33). However, this small point is the only criticism I can make in the entire book.

In Chapter Three, Pangritz argues cogently why Christian theology included a self-image that was explicitly directed against the existence of Judaism from its inception. The theological interpretation that Christians had replaced Jews as the chosen people of God inevitably led to antisemitism. From this particular Christian perspective, the Jews’ refusal to recognize Jesus as the Messiah means nothing other than denying the Christian claim to truth.

Pangritz devotes an entire chapter to Martin Luther and his radical hatred of Jews. Here, too, he succeeds in demonstrating how Luther’s inﬂammatory writings served as a reservoir for the development of the scientific antisemitism in later centuries. Accordingly, Pangritz also denounces the attempts of Protestant theologians to separate Luther the reformer from Luther the anti-Semite in order to trivialize the latter as a negligible, even marginal phenomenon in history. True to the motto: what must not be, does not exist.

In German national Protestantism, which unified German national identity and the Protestant faith, the anti-Jewish ideas of Protestant theologians ultimately culminated in an “antisemitism of redemption” (as coined by Saul Friedländer). It is correct that Pangritz emphasizes the admiration of such Protestant leaders as Theophil Wurm and Otto Dibelius for the most popular antisemite of the late nineteenth century, Adolf Stoecker. The antisemitic outbursts of church representatives during the Third Reich therefore can no longer be attributed solely to the German Christians (Deutsche Christen)—a disingenuous shifting of blame that still happens far too often in German-speaking countries, though, fortunately, less frequently in America. This juxtaposition of good (Confessing Church) and evil (German Christians), or “intact” and “broken” regional churches, as is still standard in Protestant church historiography, is ultimately just another attempt to serve one’s own myth of victimization instead of dealing seriously with anti-Jewish theology and its history within one’s own (Christian) faith.

In his conclusion, Pangritz once again addresses different scholarly views on possible straightforward connections between Luther and Hitler. Whether these connections are direct or indirect is ultimately not of decisive importance, and Pangritz does not make a deﬁnitive statement here, either, which is not necessary. Instead, he concludes with an appeal: “Within Christian theology today, there is still consensus on the condemnation of antisemitism. The question remains, however, whether this condemnation also translates into a willingness to repent regarding anti-Jewish thought patterns in theology and, in particular, in theological education” (192).

The book deserves a broad audience. For non-theologians, the book offers a number of suggestions for focusing more on Christian theology and its inherent hostility towards Jews when dealing with the phenomenon of antisemitism. For theologians, on the other hand, to whom the book is primarily addressed, the book represents an excellent critical self-reﬂection of their own faith. Anyone, whether an active scholar or a lay Christian, who still holds the view that the murderous antisemitism of the last two centuries did not originate in Christian hatred of Jews should read this book.

Review of Oliver Arnhold, “Entjudung” von Theologie und Kirche: Das Eisenacher “Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben” 1939–1945

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 3 (Fall 2024)

Review of Oliver Arnhold, “Entjudung” von Theologie und Kirche: Das Eisenacher “Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben” 1939–1945 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2020). ISBN: 9783374066223; 245 Pp.

Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna

If you have a look at church history during the Third Reich, you will quickly come across the “Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life” (Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben). Susannah Heschel began to work on the history of this “De-Judaization Institute” with her first contributions in the 1990s. In 2008, she published The Aryan Jesus, the first monograph to focus on the “Eisenach Institute” and its key protagonists.[1] Just two years later, Oliver Arnhold published his doctoral thesis on the “De-Judaization Institute”, which, in two volumes of over 900 pages, provides a detailed description of its origins, structure, publications and staff.[2]

Ten years later, Arnhold has published a condensed version of his doctoral thesis. In 245 pages, he tells the history of the establishment of the largest research institute in the Third Reich that dealt with the so-called “Jewish question”. Promoted by the Thuringian German Christian Church Movement (Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen), the institute was opened at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach – one of the most important places for Protestants –in May 1939 with the intention of tracing and eliminating all Jewish influences within (Protestant) Christianity. The aim was to prove – on its own initiative, without state influence, supported by various Protestant regional churches and with the collaboration of renowned professors – that Jesus of Nazareth, and with him Christianity as a whole, had always stood in extreme contrast to Judaism. Jews, however, had distorted the true message of Jesus, which the Eisenach Institute was to bring to light again. Accordingly, some of the staff also saw themselves as completing Luther’s Reformation. Luther had liberated Christianity from the papacy in the sixteenth century. Now, under the rule of the “God-sent Führer” Adolf Hitler, the time had come to accomplish in full Luther’s Reformation and remove all alleged Jewish influences from Christianity. The message of Jesus and, indeed, his entire person were to be “de-Judaized” (entjudet) – nothing more and nothing less.

In the first part of the book, Arnhold devotes himself to the institute’s prehistory, i.e. how the Eisenach Institute came to be founded in the first place. The German Christians are discussed, and Arnhold devotes a separate chapter to Walter Grundmann, the scientific director and spiritus rector of the institute, as well as the infamous Godesberg Declaration. At this meeting in March 1939, attended by leading church representatives from most German Protestant regional churches, Christianity was defined as the greatest possible opposition to Judaism and the founding of the “De-Judaization Institute” was decided.

In the second part of the book, Arnhold focuses on the opening of the institute at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, the place where Martin Luther had translated the Bible into German. Individual chapters are devoted to the structure, thematic research topics inside the working groups like the origin of Jesus and German piety, the “de-Judaization” of the New Testament and the Protestant hymnal, the relationship with the state and the Nazi Party, and the dissolution of the institute in 1945. The respective careers of institute employees after 1945, which Arnhold describes on eleven pages, are always shocking. There were very few postwar professional restrictions for former employees, despite their antisemitic writings up until 1945.

Anyone familiar with the subject of the Eisenach Institute will not find anything new in this book. However, this is not the author’s intention so much as he wishes to present a compact overview of the German Christian Church Movement and the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life. He has succeeded well in summarizing his doctoral thesis on which this book is based. For those readers who are not yet familiar with the history of the Eisenach Institute, the book offers a quick and easy-to-understand insight into the subject.

Notes:

[1] Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008).

[2] Oliver Arnhold, Kirche im Abgrund. Vol. 1: Die Thüringer Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen 1928–1939; Vol. 2: Das »Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben« 1939–1945 (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2010).

Review of Tilman Tarach, Teuflische Allmacht. Über die verleugneten christlichen Wurzeln des modernen Antisemitismus und Antizionismus

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 29, Number 1/2 (Summer 2023)

Review of Tilman Tarach, Teuflische Allmacht. Über die verleugneten christlichen Wurzeln des modernen Antisemitismus und Antizionismus (Freiburg–Berlin: Edition Telok 2022). 224 pages. ISBN 9783981348644.

By Dirk Schuster, University for Continuing Education Krems / University of Vienna

Christian anti-Judaism – a term that still causes extreme controversy today. To put it simply, this is intended to draw a distinction from modern racial anti-Semitism and reduce Christian anti-Semitism to theological arguments alone. The reviewer has had problems with such a distinction from the very beginning, since it suggests that there is a good (Christian) and a bad (racial) hatred of Jews. Tilman Tarach uses this topic and presents a book that convincingly explains that such a distinction is no more than a relief strategy for a Christian socialized society (134). The central thesis is that the most important arguments of modern antisemitism are based on Christian antisemitism (10).

First, Tarach uses National Socialist propaganda for his analysis and demonstrates that many Nazi stereotypes came directly from the Christian context: the Jews as children of the devil, the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, etc. In the middle of the twentieth century, those images were well known by Christian people. The murder of Jesus of Nazareth remains the central element of Christian anti-Semitism up to modern anti-Semitism and forms the background of all persecutions of the Jews. Even today, in parts of Eastern Europe, the Jew is symbolically burned at Easter because he murdered Christ. We fully agree with the author’s statement that the New Testament already spread the first anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: the Jew as murderer of God (48). The desire for the annihilation of all Jews, which was already virulent before National Socialism, is based precisely on this motive: a danger emanates from the Jews. That is why the extermination of the Jews is also seen as self-defense. At this point, the author could, or even should, have referred to the minutes of the Wannsee Conference to support his arguments. In it, the motivation for the extermination of the Jews in Europe by the National Socialists as an act of self-defense is particularly clearly expressed.

The additional references, such as in Chapter 8, are particularly interesting. Tarach compares the classic anti-Semitic accusation of poisoning by the Jews, such as poisoning of wells, etc., with the arguments of modern vaccine refusers and conspiracy theorists, who argue using those same anti-Semitic narratives.

The main part of the book is made up of the sections from Chapter 9 onwards. Here Tarach clearly and comprehensibly points out, partly with recourse to existing research literature, that so-called racial anti-Semitism was invented by the churches. As early as the sixteenth century, the Jesuit order had introduced a kind of “Aryan proof” that was even stricter in its interpretation than the Nuremberg racial laws of the National Socialists. It was not until 1946 that the Jesuit order removed this section from its constitution. The same can be found in Spain since the fifteenth century. Here, like in modern anti-Semitism, blood was of crucial importance: This means that converts and their descendants were still regarded as “Jewish” since those persons would carry Jewish blood. In some Spanish areas, converts still had to wear the so-called Jew’s hat because of their “Jewish blood”. As the author rightly points out, this alone shows that a distinction between Christian anti-Judaism and modern racial anti-Semitism is untenable, because the reference to biological characteristics has long been part of Christian anti-Semitism. Conversely, it should be noted that so-called modern racial anti-Semitism is based solely on the religion factor. The Nuremberg Race Laws defined Jews and “half-Jews” solely based on a person’s religious background or the religion of his ancestors. And the anti-Semitic laws from Spain in the early modern period, introduced by the church, served as a model for the law in the Third Reich.

In chapter 12, Tarach describes very impressively how the nature of Christian anti-Semitism developed and how those narratives are still present today: The Jew rejects Christ, which is why he becomes a threat to Christian identity. The refusal of Jews to convert to Christianity has thus increased hatred of Jews over the centuries. Jews are thus understood as bearers of individuality because they do not want to belong to the Christian community, which automatically makes them a danger of wanting to destroy the Christian community and identity. The image of the destruction of German identity by the Jews can be found again in the nineteenth century in the völkisch movement. The argument remained the same and was adapted to the realities of modernity. In addition, deeply rooted stereotypes that people have been presented by the church for centuries could be served.

The last chapters go into specialized topics such as Israel and Islamic anti-Semitism. Here too the author explains that the arguments behind the various stereotypes always come from the Christian context.

The overall verdict on Tarach’s book can only be: Anyone who deals with the subject of anti-Semitism or church history should read this book.

Review of Ulrich Peter, Lutherrose und Hakenkreuz. Die Deutschen Christen und der Bund der nationalsozialistischen Pastoren in der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche Mecklenburgs

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 27, Number 4 (December 2021)

Review of Ulrich Peter, Lutherrose und Hakenkreuz. Die Deutschen Christen und der Bund der nationalsozialistischen Pastoren in der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche Mecklenburgs (Kiel: Lutherische Verlagsanstalt, 2020). 607 pages. ISBN 978-3-87503-266-6.

By Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna / Danube University Krems

Church struggle (Kirchenkampf) is a term that has shaped church historiography since the end of the Second World War. It is still partly subject to instrumentalization today: The Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) is characterized positively, often even as an opponent of Nazi ideology against the German Christians. For a long time, there was no further in-depth research into the German Christians beyond this assumption, because the theologically influenced church historiography preferred to turn to the supposed “heroes” of the Confessing Church for historical information. Fortunately, many research projects have emerged in the last few decades, such as the work of Robert P. Ericksen, Susannah Heschel, Doris L. Bergen, Manfred Gailus, Kyle Jantzen, and many more. These researchers have not only studied German Christians and their racist and anti-Semitic notions but have also established a completely new image of the “church struggle,” some going so far as to “deconstruct” the image of a heroic Confessing Church.

Above all, the work on the Thuringian German Christians, the dominant German-Christian movement in the “Third Reich” up to 1945 (Clemens Vollnhals), clearly shows how a large number of evangelical pastors–also far beyond Thuringia–dealt with National Socialism, perceiving it as connected to or at least instrumental in helping to build a “new Germany.” It is particularly striking, however, how many pastors–here again, beyond the Thuringian German Christians–welcomed the anti-Semitism of the National Socialists and even justified it theologically.

In the research on the German Christians, however, there has always been a blank spot that has been pointed repeatedly: whenever the Thuringian German Christians were mentioned as the most powerful group of the German Christians, one reads again and again that, in addition to the complete control of the Thuringian regional church, they could also rely on their sister organization in Mecklenburg because the German Christians also controlled that entire regional church. However, and this must be clearly stated, next to nothing was known about the conditions in Mecklenburg, the prehistory, the period between 1933 and 1945, or even the post-war history apart from individual biographical studies.

Ulrich Peter, who has been dealing with the history of the Protestant Church in Mecklenburg during the Nazi period (alongside his work on the “Religious Socialists”) for a long time, has now presented an overall study that tries to close this large gap–and does it completely. With his historiographical study, Peter provides a fundamental work that is an indispensable addition to further research on church history. Peter consults all the sources available to him: reports from various regional and national archives, papers, publications, etc.

In addition to the strictly chronological presentation of the events between 1933 and 1945 and an overview of the time after 1945 (p. 446–464), it is above all the first part of the book that, from the reviewer’s point of view, makes the developments in Mecklenburg clearly understandable. Since Peter does not begin his study with the founding of the German-Christian movement, the Bund für Deutsche Kirche or the German Christians, but with the structure and theological self-image of the regional church before the First World War, the developments of the 1920s can clearly be understood. This is, for example, the big difference between his work and Oliver Arnhold’s book on the Thuringian German Christians. Peter describes and contextualizes the prehistory on which the developments from 1933 onwards were based. For instance, in a separate subchapter, he makes it clear that long before 1933, even before 1914, anti-Semitism was virulent in the regional church. Another example is the attitude of Regional Bishop Rendtorff (also one of those alleged heroes of apologetic church historiography) and his statements in favor of National Socialism at the beginning of the 1930s.

The subsequent chapter examines in detail the disputes within the church and the increasing influence of the German Christian Church Movement (Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen), which ultimately found itself directly dependent on Bishop Schulz. It becomes clear that although the German Christian Church Movement increasingly dominated the regional church, they did not have an organizational or even financial basis. Fake membership numbers and disastrous financial behavior at the expense of the regional church characterized the German Christian Church Movement in Mecklenburg.

With his study, Ulrich Peter provides for the first time a detailed insight into the structure, thinking and connections of that regional church. He has completely succeeded in closing the research gap. Lutherrose und Hakenkreuz deserves to be included among the canonical works on church history during the “Third Reich” on which further research will be based.

Review of Jonas Hagedorn, Oswald von Nell-Breuning: Aufbrüche der katholischen Soziallehre in der Weimarer Republik

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 27, Number 4 (December 2021)

Review of Jonas Hagedorn, Oswald von Nell-Breuning: Aufbrüche der katholischen Soziallehre in der Weimarer Republik (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2019). 532 pages. ISBN 978-3-657-78795-1.

By Martin Menke, Rivier University

In this meticulously detailed and well-differentiated dissertation, Jonas Hagedorn discusses the early published work of Oswald Nell-Breuning, a German Jesuit social theorist. Before engaging the substance of Hagedorn’s analysis, it is helpful to begin with the words of noted theologian Josef Mausbach, Professor at the University of Münster, who provided the first assessment of Nell-Breuning’s dissertation. Mausbach wrote, “the abstract nature and the high [intellectual] level of the work is such, that only a narrow circle of theologically interested economists and economically prepared theologians can truly access this work.” (267) One could say the same about Hagedorn’s work.

The introduction lasts the first seventy pages, and not until almost halfway through the volume does the discussion focus on Nell-Breuning. The previous pages explained the state of Christian solidarity in the 1920’s, describing Nell-Breuning’s definition of the term as post-liberal corporatist solidarity, but not fascist or reactionary. Hagedorn explains in detail the distinctions between the more romanticist-idealist Catholic thinkers in Vienna and the northern German approach to Catholic solidarity, which better reflected the economic realities of the 1920’s. Nell-Breuning was more comfortable with the “Kölner Richtlinien” of 1926, which explicitly accepted Catholic trade unions and much else in Catholic social teaching that would integrate Catholics in the broader economic and labor concerns of the times. For example, the Austrians denied any compatibility between capitalism and Christianity. At the same time, the commission established by Cardinal Schulte, Archbishop of Cologne, sought to find a way for Catholics, employers, employees, and others to function in the Weimar Republic’s economic conditions. Nell-Breuning also advocated ecclesiastical recognition of Christian trade unions and not just Catholic workers’ associations (katholische Arbeitervereine) led by priests.

Nell-Breuning, guided by fellow Jesuit Gustav Gundlach, delivered to Pope Pius XI a draft of the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. Hagedorn, in turn, provides the reader with a detailed analysis of the divergences between Nel-Breuning’s draft and the final text. In large part, Nell-Breuning’s draft focused too much on German concerns and the conflict with the Viennese. The final draft of the encyclical guided Catholic thought on a global level, and thus different in some ways from Nell-Breuning’s draft. Nell-Breuning’s fellow Jesuit Gustav Gundlach and others also contributed to the text. Still, Nell-Breuning provided the direction and goals for Quadragesimo Anno.

Nell-Breuning’s dissertation discussed the ethics of stock market speculation. The Jesuit distinguished between speculation designed to protect against unexpected losses, which Hagedorn describes as “hedging,” and speculation out of greed. The principal distinction underlying Nell-Breuning’s thinking is between revenue sought for a moral purpose and income aimed primarily to increase wealth and possession.

Sometimes, the reader perceives that Hagedorn felt compelled to discuss Nell-Breuning’s view on almost every economic facet of Catholic social teaching. The breadth of teaching included employee-labor relations, the morality of goods pricing, the nature and limits of the welfare state, and more. Hagedorn shows how Nell-Breuning strove to balance the individual’s responsibility and the community’s solidarity. For example, Hagedorn defended the welfare state as an institution by which the community meets the needs of those who cannot afford the minimum necessary for existence through no fault of their own. However, he vehemently rejected a community that provided for all without expectation of self-reliance, which he called the Versorgungsstaat. Hagedorn insisted on prices that covered material costs and adequate wages for all employees, and a moderate reward for the employer. He rejected prices dictated purely by the market. Nell-Breuning’s understanding of appropriate and fair employer-employee relations demanded workers complete an honest day’s work, but strongly supported Christian trade unions, even over clerically led Catholic workers’ associations. Finally, Nell-Breuning’s understanding of the purpose of property, to serve the bonum commune, has become accepted in Catholic teaching. Nell-Breuning drew on the full range of papal teaching from Leo XIII onward.

One of the strengths of Hagedorn’s work is the explanation of other contemporary social justice thought, both within and outside of Catholicism. Nell-Breuning drew on Marx and other socialist thinkers without any sympathies for communism. The primary targets of his criticism, and he avoided no controversy, were Viennese and Austrian Catholic social justice theorists. Primarily, Nell-Breuning dueled with Othmar Spann and Joseph Eberle of Schönere Zukunft, but also with Anton Orel and Eugen Kogon. Nell-Breuning rejected the idealistic-romantic notions of the Viennese thinkers. His background in economics compelled him to remain rooted in practical measures to secure the ideals of Catholic social teaching. Also, he would not share the Viennese group’s rejection of capitalism and democracy.

Within a year of defending his dissertation, Nell-Breuning was asked to produce a foundational draft to form the basis of a new social encyclical. Section by section, Hagedorn meticulously analyzes the evidence of Nell-Breuning’s draft in the published version of Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI’s social encyclical of 1931. Nell-Breuning’s nuanced critique of capitalism, his ability to appreciate the strengths of the capitalist economy while seeking to correct its inequities, his appreciation for socialism’s analysis while rejecting its socio-economic prescriptions. In those interwar years, Nell-Breuning analyzed and recast the framework of Catholic social teaching. He discussed them all, and Hagedorn summarizes and analyzes the vast scope of Nell-Breuning’s comments. In the bibliography, Nell-Breuning’s works take up fifteen pages, and Hagedorn has read them all.

Hagedorn ends his analysis of Nell-Breuning’s thinking by pointing to his fundamental resistance to National Socialism. In 1933, he criticized the National Socialist falsification of corporatism. In the summer, however, Nell-Breuning proved his loyalty to the hierarchy in Germany and Rome by publishing an article welcoming the Concordat. In the article, however, Nell-Breuning carefully hid his quite incisive critique, according to Hagedorn. He cited the admonition of Saint Ambrose to Emperor Theodosius and some of the Catholic heroes of the Kulturkampf. (436) To any theologically conscious Catholic, these names sufficed to highlight Nell-Breuning’s opposition to the regime. From 1934 until 1945, Nell-Breuning published little.

There is only little to criticize in this work. One might argue that Hagedorn’s text is better used as a reference than a narrative with analysis. The details prevent any reviewer from addressing all the topics in their highly developed nuances. Furthermore, Hagedorn’s work is not for those uninitiated into Catholic social teaching or the socio-economic theory of the Weimar Republic. Finally, this work is not for those seeking a biographical analysis of Nell-Breuning, nor for those seeking a discussion of the shifts in Nell-Breuning’s thinking in the post-war period.

Review of Hagen Markwardt, Fruszina Müller and Bettina Westfeld, eds., Konfession und Wohlfahrt im Nationalsozialismus. Beispiele aus Mittel- und Ostdeutschland

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 27, Number 3 (September 2021)

Review of Hagen Markwardt, Fruszina Müller and Bettina Westfeld, eds., Konfession und Wohlfahrt im Nationalsozialismus: Beispiele aus Mittel- und Ostdeutschland (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2021). 372 pages. ISBN 978-3-428-15753-2.

By Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna / Danube University Krems

Denomination and welfare under National Socialism – a topic that at first glance is not directly related to the National Socialist mass crimes. However, right at the beginning of their introduction, the editors help the reader understand the importance of welfare in the Third Reich. During the nineteenth century, there was a massive expansion of charitable institutions in Germany. With the seizure of power by the National Socialists in January 1933, a new understanding of the tasks of a health policy would develop based on the party ideology, which was fundamentally opposed to the previous ideas. Accordingly, the institutions owned by religious associations were faced with the crucial question of how to deal with the reorientation of health policy from 1933 onwards.

The focus on the regions of Central and Eastern Germany is a response to the current dearth of research on that region. Because denominational institutions were relatively autonomous at that time, such a regional delimitation makes perfect sense. Due to the denominational character of the region, then, most of the contributions deal with institutions and actors from the Protestant (evangelisch) spectrum, which is understandable. This will allow comparisons to be drawn between the various actors and institutions in different regions of Germany at a later point in time. It is regrettable that the editors did not succeed in soliciting contributions on the Thuringian region. They have focused on Silesia, however, which has also been rarely examined by research so far. A positive point to be emphasized here is the approach of the editors, acknowledging that the “relationship between the Christian-denominational institutions and the Nazi rule [are] not to [be understood] from the outset as dichotomous” (p. 11). Even if this approach should be a matter of course from this reviewer’s point of view, recent works show again and again that an ideological opposition between Christians and National Socialists is frequently assumed from the outset. Therefore, as self-evident as it may be, the editors’ basic attitude as it is formulated and implemented in the book is to be appreciated.

In the first, very well-structured article, Norbert Friedrich examines the developments within the Kaiserwerther Verband (KWV) in the ‘Third Reich.’ The KWV was the umbrella organization of the German deaconess mother houses. The head of the KVW is at the center of Friedrich’s examination. The KWV, to which around 30,000 deaconesses were subordinate in 1936, quickly introduced self-enforced conformity with National Socialist policies in 1933 without government coercion. In the same year, the national-conservative and anti-democratic executive committee accordingly abolished the democratic structures remaining from the times of the Weimar Republic, which were not popular anyway. By the end of March 1933, antisemitic propaganda from the National Socialists was also being echoed by the KWV. During the same year, the leadership of the association also clearly positioned itself in favor of German Christian Movement, which illustrates anti-democratic and antisemitic thinking. Due to the increasingly strong position of the Thuringian German Christians, the association distanced itself from the German-Christian spectrum from 1934 onwards, but this should not obscure its support for the Hitler state. Even if the state increasingly tried to restrict the deaconry in its actions, the KVW remained an important point of contact over the years.

In his contribution, Uwe Kaminsky analyzes the Expert Committee for Eugenics of the Inner Mission (“Fachausschuss für Eugenik der Inneren Mission”), which was founded in 1931. He concentrates on the Saxon representatives of the committee – those tasked by the regional church to discuss eugenics and euthanasia. That discourse was not without consequences, as Kaminsky rightly states, in reference to the approximately 25,000 Saxon victims of eugenics policies during the period from 1933 onwards. In the essay, Kaminsky presents biographical analyses of the individual Saxon representatives and concludes that many who had previously advocated voluntary sterilization went on to support the compulsory sterilization enforced by the National Socialists in 1933. Nevertheless, even though they agreed to the plans of the new authorities for mass sterilization, the representatives rejected euthanasia.

The Regional Association of Saxony of the Inner Mission is the focus of Bettina Westfeld’s contribution. Particularly shocking is the fact that in 1931 three of five clergymen in this regional association were members of the NSDAP. It is therefore not surprising that, immediately after Hitler came to power, the Inner Mission made declarations of loyalty to the new regime throughout Germany. Even before 1933, there was an endorsement of sterilization measures in the Regional Association of Saxony, citing as the reason for such measures the cost of care for mentally and physically handicapped people. In the years that followed, the Regional Association found itself in a field of tension within the divided Saxon regional church, which certainly did not make it easier for them to act. Westfeld’s contribution is shocking in some places, as she repeatedly refers to the number of victims and the individual fates of victims of the Nazi terror. She also addresses the attempt by individual deaconesses to hide patients to prevent them from being transported to killing centers like Pirna-Sonnenstein. However, these were individual actions and not measures by the regional church and the Inner Mission, which were hardly able to act anyway. The positive attitude towards sterilization measures also weakened the arguments of the Inner Mission to act against further measures aimed at “racial hygiene.” In the end, there was the terrifying number of 432 deaths from the homes of the Inner Mission, as well as a still unknown number of deaths of people over whom the Inner Mission held guardianship.

Christoph Hanzig examines another important aspect of this history, namely, that most of the facilities for the care of handicapped people in Saxony were not church-owned, but state-sponsored. Accordingly, Hanzig offers biographical information about the Protestant pastors in those state care facilities, in which pastors functioned as state officials. None of the pastors portrayed in detail belonged to a democratic party before 1933, but some were members of the NSDAP. So, it is hardly surprising that from 1933 almost all those pastors were actively involved in the Nazi state, supporting Nazi health policy.

The six contributions by Jan Brademann, Annett Büttner, Fruzsina Müller, Helmut Bräutigam, Manja Krausche and Elena Marie Elisabeth Kiesel all deal with empirical studies on one or more deaconess houses in Saxony or Saxony-Anhalt. For example, Kiesel examines the internal correspondence between headmasters and the sisterhood, using the case of the houses in Halberstadt, Magdeburg, and Halle/S and focusing on the “Schwesternbriefe” as a primary source. These were private in nature, which is why they offer an exclusive insight into the actual correspondence between the various staffing levels. As can be seen in the other contributions, the superiors of the houses examined by Kiesel also endorsed the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor and called on the sisterhood to participate in “building up the Volksgemeinschaft.” Despite the increasing pressure from the National Socialist People’s Welfare (NSV), loyalty to the state was never in question. In 1940, an antisemitic appeal was issued to fight the Jews on the home front as well. The persecution of the Jews and the practice of euthanasia were almost never mentioned. Only in 1943 does a change in the content of the letters become visible, in which the previously loyal position to the regime was given up in favor of a stronger orientation toward peace.

Maik Schmerbauch provides a study on nursing and welfare for the poor in Breslau, while Jürgen Nitsche and Hagen Markwardt examine Jewish care facilities. Nitsche’s contribution illustrates the pressure that Jewish communities faced beginning in 1933. Increasingly deprived of infrastructure and government grants, they had to try on their own to organize care for older and handicapped community members. Accordingly, the Jewish community in Chemnitz, which serves as an empirical example, was forced to build a rest home.

Even though the regional focus is on Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, the knowledge gained through the anthology is expansive. The respective contributions impress with their empirical depth, so that the reader gets an insight into the connection between welfare and church denomination during the time of National Socialism, from the level of regional associations down to the very local level. However, the anthology deserves a summarizing conclusion. The individual contributions are highly informative and contain many new findings. A summary by the editors would have made it possible to systematically analyze the empirical contributions again, articulate special features and point out new research perspectives. Unfortunately, the editors missed this opportunity to broaden the perspective. Nevertheless, the anthology generates a multitude of new findings regarding the role of welfare institutions under religious sponsorship during the period of the ‘Third Reich.’

Review of Carsten Linden and Craig Nessan, Paul Leo. Lutherischer Pastor mit jüdischen Wurzeln (1893–1958)

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 27, Number 3 (September 2021)

Review of Carsten Linden and Craig Nessan, Paul Leo. Lutherischer Pastor mit jüdischen Wurzeln (1893–1958) (Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2019). 86 pages. ISBN 978-3-95948-453-4.

By Dirk Schuster, University of Vienna / Danube University Krems

Historian Carsten Linden and Craig Nessan, Professor of Contextual Theology at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, present the life and work of the Lutheran Evangelical pastor and theologian Paul Leo (1893–1958) in 86 pages. Linden wrote the first part, Nessan the second. Unfortunately, the two parts are not well coordinated, so that there are repetitions in places. The relevance of examining the life of Paul Leo and paying tribute to him with this booklet lies in his family of origin. One of his ancestors was Moses Mendelsohn. Still, like his father, Paul Leo was a baptized Christian. At this point, a great nuisance begins: Carsten Linden writes about Paul Leo, who was baptized in infancy: “The extent to which he was Jewish, however, seems to be a little in the eye of the beholder” (p. 7). Linden is right in referring to interpretations of Jewish theology stating that the descendants of a Jewish mother are Jews. The annoyance, however, is that the author assumes Leo could possibly have a Jewish identity, just as the National Socialists did. For them, the Protestant pastor was a Jew because of his ancestors. Why Linden does not simply accept Leo’s religious self-image as a Protestant Christian at this point, instead of relying on external attributions, remains unclear.

Based on extensive archival source material, Linden describes Paul Leo’s early professional career. When the National Socialists came to power, Leo faced increasing difficulties due to his Jewish ancestors. Why Linden then adopts the racial biological interpretations of the National Socialists in this regard and describes Paul Leo as the “Jewish pastor of the regional church” (p. 19) is disturbing, however. Unfortunately, Linden also makes significant mistakes in terms of content: The Confessing Church did not form due to alleged state and National Socialist (where should a dividing line be drawn here?) interventions in church affairs (p. 18). This apologetic church historiography of the 1950s has been refuted many times in recent years, which should be taken into account when dealing with such a topic.

Since Paul Leo was mainly responsible for pastoral care in state institutions, he successively lost all of his responsibilities, as a result of which the church council assigned him the Osnabrück district of Haste for pastoral care. But even there, Paul Leo was increasingly hindered in his work because he was considered a Jew in the National Socialist understanding. The church council therefore decided to suggest ‘temporary retirement’ to Leo in mid-1938. On November 9, 1938, Paul Leo shared the same fate as thousands of Jews throughout the ‘Third Reich’: the SS arrested him and deported him to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Since Paul Leo received a visa for the Netherlands, he was released from the concentration camp at the end of 1938. However, he never spoke about his experiences there. In the Netherlands, he also had to live separated from his daughter (the mother had died during childbirth), which, in addition to the loss of his homeland, was certainly another inhuman burden. From the Netherlands, Leo then came to the USA in 1939, where he held various positions as pastor and theologian until his sudden death in 1958. Craig Nessan describes this second phase of life in Leo’s new home in America. It becomes clear how difficult life could be for exiles in the first few years.

The brief account of the life and work of Paul Leo is a classic descriptive biographical treatise. It conveys very well the depressing circumstances under which people had to live who did not belong to the ideal of the National Socialist ‘Volksgemeinschaft.’ And as a pastor, Leo received no significant protection from the regional church. From the point of view of the reviewer, the description of Leo’s first years in the USA is particularly impressive. Despite his successful escape from Nazi Germany, which ensured Leo’s and his daughter’s survival, the first few years were a struggle for survival in a completely different society. The Lutheran theologian Paul Leo had to work in his early years as a teacher in a Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh, which ensured his and his family’s financial survival.

Embedding the descriptions within the overall context of the ‘Third Reich’ with the help of current research literature would certainly have done the book some good, even more so a final editing. The many grammatical errors are unworthy of an appreciation of Paul Leo’s life.